Towards A New Wilsonianism? I Hope To Hell Not.

The foremost article in this month’s Foreign Affairs is Michael Hirsh’s Bush and the World. The piece is yet another in a long line of multilateralist ramblings about the need for "consensus" in the "International Community." The brief abstract is as follows:

George W. Bush experienced the terrible new reality of terrorism on September 11 as directly and emotionally as did any other American. The difference was that he could do something about it. Days after the attacks, the president first gave voice to his doctrine: you are either with us, or with the terrorists. But one year later, there is little clarity about the direction of U.S. foreign policy. To fight terrorism and protect U.S. interests and ideals, the only practical solution is to bolster the international community that the United States helped create.

Although it doesn’t state anything new, it is a good summary of the multilateralist position, and probably as good an attack on the unilateralists as you’ll be able to find (that’s not necessarily much of a compliment). I’ll try to summarize and discuss why I think this position is wrong.

Hirsh believes that although the Bush doctrine, with its "you’re either with us or against us" rhetoric, may have succeeded in the short term goal of ousting Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and in strengthening the relationship between the US and Russia, the current lack of policy focus makes these gains pointless. The Administration uses the Bush doctrine to move from one new conflict or effort to the next without actually finishing anything, and is currently piddling away any further positive opportunities. I actually agree with him on this point, but where I see a time where we should be acting decisively, he thinks it’s time to call a pow-wow with our friends to make some good o’l consensus plans.

In relation to Bush’s rhetoric about defending the free world, Hirsh has this to say:

While Bush talks of defending civilization, his administration seems almost uniformly to dismiss most of the civilities and practices that other nations would identify with a common civilization. Civilized people operate by consensus, whether it is a question of deciding on a restaurant or movie or on a common enemy. The yearly round of talks at institutions such as the G-7 group of major industrialized nations, NATO, or the World Trade Organization (WTO) are the social glue of global civilization. The mutual desire for security and an eagerness to benefit from the global economy supplies the motivation. Diplomacy is the common language.

Civilized people say "please" and "thank you" and generally don’t try to analyze the rationale of the guy who’s mugging you. If they’re nice, they might call the police, but they certainly wouldn’t blame you for getting your wallet stolen. And if they were really your friend, they wouldn’t have to find consensus on whether or not to stop the next mugger from hitting you. Stop being a putz Hirsh.

Anyways, after this he rattles off the usual complaints about the US opposing the ICC, withdrawing from the Kyoto treaty, and generally being a selfish, mean-spirited country. Bush is only out for American security, and that’s making a lot of our friends around the world mad. Our nation is dependent on a global economy while unilateralist neo-conservatives (in complete control of the White House) are eager to tear down existing international institutions while offering no real solutions of their own. Blah blah blah. To be fair, Hirsh does recognize a fault lies with the Europeans for not recognizing their own weakness and the necessity of action in preventing WMD from being used against the west, but then he moves on to pointing out the real problem.

You see, we lack a clear global vision for the future of world peace, when it is most needed. What is the answer? A new Wilsonian internationalism, of course. What we need, acording to Hirsh, is a "new international consensus" which, while recognizing American dominance, uses established international institutions, such as the UN and ICC to achieve stability. Any other approach threatens to send America down the same toilet trajectory as any previous empire.

Like most multilateralists, Hirsh is looking backwards at the problems of the pre-9-11 world. It’s true, it would be nice if the Euros went along with us and helped out with intelligence, peacekeeping, and nation building stuff. Consensus is great, and building consensual agreement is vital in trade pacts and commerce. However, consensus and bureaucratic alliances are slow to move, and the time to act is now. Quoting Henry Kissinger on the importance of "deepening the ties that bind nations together" doesn’t help the multilateralist case, since Kissinger himself has recognized that we’re in a new geopolitical era, where the old tactics of isolation and containment of threats no longer works against fanatics out to destroy us. And of course Wilson died a beaten man for a reason. His system stood by (and appeased) as Nazi Germany started the most horrible war yet, and it wasn’t because the US didn’t join the League of Nations, it was because Wilsonian ideals had no real-world power.

I have several very flippant rebuttals to Mr. Hirsh. First, he talks about "sacrifices" that American politicians need to make in order to bring America more inline with the "International Community." People who suggest sacrifice are never to be trusted, as they are almost always working for very bad ideas. Second, he seems to think the current International system is fundamentally sound, and that treaties like Kyoto will actually solve the problems it claims to. Hell, we can’t even accurately define what the long-term dangers of global warming are, "the degree-by-degree warming of the globe" Hirsh cites may be a fact, but a solution to the problem has not been found. And it certainly wasn’t devised ten years ago by a bunch of hacks and diplomats.

Another thing that irritates me about Hirsh’s views (notably that America must give up some of its sovereignty to preserve global order) is that it’s downright undemocratic. Kyoto was only killed by Bush after both parties in Congress had completely rejected it. No one was in favor of it. The cowboy just did the honorable thing and put that sumbitch out of its misery. The ICC is totally incompatible with our Constitution, and American voters have no interest in radically changing the basic laws of our government just to please the Europeans. Most Americans know the ideals of the multilateralists, but realize that they are just that: ideals. The real world is a wild and savage place, and I’m certainly unwilling to neglect my nation’s security to organizations that fund suicide bombers, or are willing to negotiate with despotic governments who are developing WMDs for use against American cities.

The global political system that Hirsh thinks is the only future for world security is rotten to the core. The UN is filled with unrepentant socialists, America haters, and Jew-baiters. Syria is on the UN security council, while the US has been booted off the UN Human Rights Commission. How can we rely on these types of organizations to protect us? The old system of permanent alliances, which worked so well against the steady threats of German militarism and Soviet expansionism, is impotent against the nimble and dispersed enemies now intent on destroying us. Once these enemies acquire WMDs, the issue is no longer one of power or diplomacy, but of survival. We can take quick, preventative, unilateral action to prevent our enemies from hitting us, or we can wait rely on consensus-building alliances and the "international community" to take their sweet time to sanction any action to defend ourselves.

And here’s just a little something to consider for all you multilateralists: if a single nuke goes off on American territory, the world will know what true imperious American unilateralism looks like. For the record, it looks an awful lot like mushroom clouds and radioactive glass.

 

Posted by Captain Mojo at August 28, 2002 01:57 AM | TrackBack