I visited the National Library in Dublin last week, and spent an hour at a terrific exhibit on the life and works
of W. B. Yeats. I've never been a big fan of Yeats's poetry (my tastes run more
to Auden, Neruda, e. e. cummings, and Hardy), but some of his best works are
undeniably brilliant. Like "The
Second Coming," which is probably one of the most famous poems of the 20th
century and one that seems uncannily relevant whenever we enter a turbulent
period of global politics:
Turning and turning in the
widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the
falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre
cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the
world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,
and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is
drowned;
The best lack all conviction,
while the worst
Are full of passionate
intensity.
Surely some revelation is at
hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at
hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are
those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus
Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in
the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the
head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the
sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while
all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant
desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but
now I know
That twenty centuries of stony
sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a
rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour
come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be
born?
I thought of that poem as I reflected this morning on recent events, and
wondered if we are now witnessing the slow crumbling of the international order
that has existed for decades. As I noted in an earlier post,
after World War II the United States created and led a political, security, and
economic order in nearly every corner of the globe, except for the communist
world. The communist world eventually succumbed and became part of that order
too, as first China and then Russia abandoned communism and adopted market
economies and joined the various global institutions that had been designed and
coordinated in Washington.
Looking back, a striking feature of the past two decades is that the central
features of U.S. foreign policy and the basic Cold War institutions remained
largely unchanged long after the Cold War ended. NATO is still around; our
bilateral security ties in Asia haven't changed much, and we retained pretty
much the same set of allies and policies in the Middle East. The United States
continues to think of itself as the "indispensable power" and the
Leader of the Free World (which is a bit ironic given our
incarceration rate), and Democratic and Republican policy wonks spend most
of their time debating how and where to use American power, but never
questioning whether it was right or proper or wise to use it in lots of places.
Despite an enormous set of structural changes, in short, the central features
of U.S. foreign policy have remained quite constant.
The end of the Cold War -- and the brief "unipolar moment" that
followed it -- just meant the United States could throw its weight around a bit
more without worrying that a hostile great power might try to stop us. Instead,
it was a combination of hubris, ignorance, and arrogance that led us into a
series of costly quagmires, accompanied by a self-inflicted financial meltdown
that stemmed from an equally toxic combination of arrogance and avarice.
But have those disasters brought us to the brink of a major shift in the
global order? Is the familiar landscape of world politics in the process of being
transformed? Consider the following:
1. The financial crisis has put the Eurozone under unprecedented stress, and
the European Union's future looks increasingly bleak. Check out this piece from
the Guardian here,
and see how confident you are that the European Union will survive in its
present form.
2. NATO looks more and more obsolescent. Its performance in Afghanistan has
been disheartening and the recent war in Libya is a monument to NATO disharmony
(because most NATO members aren't involved), as well as a revealing
demonstration of just how weak the alliance is when it can't rely on the United
States to do all the work. And does anyone seriously believe that the Libyan
adventure will convince Europe to get serious about defense spending in the future? Not in this economic climate, and not when Europe really doesn't face
major external threats.
3. The Arab world is in upheaval, and seems likely to remain unsettled for
years. The United States has yet to formulate a clear policy towards this new
situation, and contrary what the White House seems to think, having the
President give another lofty speech is not a policy. Qaddafi's days may be
numbered and the Assad regime in Syria looks like it's on borrowed time too, but what
comes after either one is anyone's guess. Prospects for a smooth transition and
economic turnaround in Egypt look equally dim.
But the key point is that the outcomes of these processes won't be determined by us; the
United States lacks the resources, respect, and moral authority to shape the
political future in any of these countries. Given our track record in the
region in recent years -- and I include Obama's dismal post-Cairo performance --
why should anyone listen seriously to our views?
4. In fact, the "Arab spring" has done nothing to improve the U.S.
image in the region. Instead, it has sharpened the obvious contradictions
between America's strategic interests, its supposed commitment to democracy and
human rights, and its overall policy toward the entire region. Arab governments are going to be more and more
concerned with public opinion in the years ahead, and if the United States
wants good relations and future influence with these countries, it will have to
fashion policies that are more congenial to local populations and not just to a
bunch of autocrats on top. That would require a thorough rethinking of U.S.
policy toward both the Gulf monarchies and Israel, but in case you hadn't
noticed, the political will for a more realistic policy is obviously lacking.
5. There may be a mounting power struggle in Iran, but its slow march toward
a latent nuclear capability continues. Sanctions won't stop them; military
force will only make things worse, and our diplomatic efforts have
been half-hearted, impatient (and to be fair, somewhat unlucky). Meanwhile, the
Saudis are ticked off with us over Mubarak's ouster, we're getting out of Iraq and
leaving god-knows-what behind, and we have no idea what to do about Yemen. Good
times!
6. The Afghan War will end -- but not soon -- and we will leave behind a
dysfunctional country, a nuclear-armed Pakistan, and a lot of people who will
either be angry for us for what we did or angry at us for what we failed to do.
Getting out is still the right decision, but it's not like the area is going
to be tranquil once we're gone.
7. Japan -- which is still the world's third largest economy -- has suffered
nearly two decades of economic stagnation and a costly nuclear disaster. Its
population is shrinking and aging, and its value as a counter-weight to a
rising China is diminishing. Building a balancing coalition in Asia is still feasible, but overcoming the inevitable collective action problems will
require lots of American attention and some adroit diplomatic and military
hardball. Which in turn requires a major shift in foreign policy resources
toward Asia, as well as a significant increase in the intellectual capital
devoted to these issues. But instead we're still bogged down elsewhere.
8. China continues to rack up impressive rates of economic growth -- despite
some signs of strain -- and it has avoided the foreign policy sinkholes that
Washington has specialized in for the past two decades. That's how clever
rising powers do it: they let stronger countries try to run the world, and bide
their time until those states are suitably weakened by the effort. Americans
ought to understand this better than we do, because that's precisely how the
United States did it in the early 20th century. We passed the buck to the other
major powers and let them fight ruinous wars, while we acted like an offshore
balancer. Because we were the last great power to get into both world wars, we
didn't get badly bloodied in either one and emerged in a stronger position at
the end.
9. As these various problems mount, America's political institutions seem
increasingly paralyzed. Instead of joining forces to put our fiscal house in
order (by ending losing wars, cutting defense and trimming entitlements,
raising taxes, and re-regulating the financial sector), House Republicans
demonstrate "leadership" and patriotism by walking
out in a snit. But one shouldn't be surprised: when your political system
is in hock to the financial sector and assorted special interests, and when an
overabundance of gerrymandered safe seats ensures that ideologues win in
primaries and are over-represented on Capitol Hill, then you shouldn't expect
to see many competent or responsible people serving in elected office. Combine
that with a foreign policy establishment where failure goes unpenalized and
where novel ideas are rarely welcome, you have a recipe for endless
overcommitment and repeated policy failure.
Put all this together, and I worry that we are on the cusp of genuine
sea-change in world affairs. The landscape
we have taken for granted for decades is
now in flux, yet nobody is thinking about how the United States should prepare
for a world whose central features are radically different than the one we have
known (and not in a good way). I hope
I'm wrong, but I think I hear Yeats' "rough beast" slouching our way.
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