Seven years ago, the economist Brigitte Granville and I published an article in the Journal of Economic History titled "Weimar on the Volga," in which we argued that the experience of 1990s Russia bore many resemblances to the experience of 1920s Germany.
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Having more or less stifled internal dissent, Russia is now ready to play a more aggressive role on the international stage. Remember, it was Putin who restored the old Soviet national anthem. And it was he who described the collapse of the Soviet Union as a "national tragedy on an enormous scale."
It would be a bigger tragedy if he or his successor tried to restore that evil empire. Unfortunately, that is precisely what the Weimar analogy predicts will happen.
One of America's great myths is that the US has always been isolationist, only rarely flexing its muscles beyond its borders.
Not so: in the first half of a two-volume study of American foreign policy, Robert Kagan argues that even in the colonial era Americans restlessly pushed westward.
At every turn, Kagan shows how a policy of aggressive expansion was inextricably linked with liberal democracy. Political leaders of the early republic developed expansionist policies in part because they worried that if they didn't respond to their clamoring constituents—farmers who wanted access to western land, for example—the people might rebel or secede.
Also provocative is Kagan's reading of the Civil War as America's "first experiment in ideological conquest" and nation building in conquered territory. He then follows American expansion through the 19th century, as the U.S. increased its dominance in the western hemisphere and sought, in President Garfield's phrase, to become "the arbiter" of the Pacific.
Kagan may overstate the extent to which contemporary Americans imagine U.S. history to be thoroughly isolationist; it's a straw man that this powerfully persuasive, sophisticated book hardly needs.
Despite its emphasis on "liberal" acquisitiveness and ideological righteousness as the molders of American diplomacy, the deeper theme running through this book has to do with the ways that power does not merely permit but actually defines foreign policy objectives. Kagan acknowledges that, as the United States acquired more power, it simultaneously acquired an "expanding sense of both interests and entitlement." What's more, "as perceived interests expanded, so did perceived threats and the perceived need for even more power to address them." As the nation grew more powerful, its dreams became desires; desires became necessities; necessities became imperatives; and imperatives led to empire -- in the fullest sense of the word. Power, in short, constitutes its own self-feeding perpetual-motion machine that relentlessly drives America's -- or any state's -- international behavior. And when a nation arrives at the point in its history when it believes itself to possess unmatchable power and harbors no doubts about the scope of its interests or the rightness of its cause -- when it represents an "armed doctrine," cocksure and implacable -- what dangers does it court for itself, as well as for others?
People everywhere fear the next terrorist attack. Meanwhile, we slowly grow numb to Iraq’s endless string of kidnappings and suicide bombings. Between bird flu, tsunamis, and loose nukes, our list of fears is getting longer.
So, we asked 21 leading thinkers: What is one solution that would make the world a better place?
These are billed as commandments for counterinsurgency, but they seem more widely applicable than the advice in your typical business book bestseller.
1) Do not confuse short-term tactical imperatives and process with longer-term goals. 2) Focus on dealing with constraints to economic growth -- not humanitarian assistance or the provision of security -- as the essential condition for development. 3) In identifying areas for development spending, reinforce existing success. 4) Understand the difference between asymmetric means and asymmetric ends. 5) Accept the way local systems operate. 6) Policies and the message to the local population have to capitalize on fatigue. 7) Never confuse numbers with effects. 8) Understand the basis of local power beyond numbers. 9) Beware of international consultants bearing high-altitude plans. 10) Integrate but calibrate. Don't try to do everything at once.
There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information!
This was published last year but has recently been making the rounds. I had skipped over it when I pointed readers to the article on FutureMAP in the same issue of 'Studies'. But this, too, seems well worth reading.
Beijing’s capture, imprisonment, and eventual release of CIA officers John T. Downey and Richard G. Fecteau is an amazing story that too few know about today. Shot down over Communist China on their first operational mission in 1952, these young men spent the next two decades imprisoned, often in solitary confinement, while their government officially denied they were CIA officers. Fecteau was released in 1971, Downey in 1973. They came home to an America vastly different from the place they had left, but both adjusted surprisingly well and continue to live full lives.
Even though Downey and Fecteau were welcomed back as heroes by the CIA family more than 30 years ago and their story has been covered in open literature—albeit in short and generally flawed accounts— institutional memory regarding these brave officers has dimmed. Their ordeal is not well known among today’s officers, judging by the surprise and wonder CIA historians encounter when relating it in internal lectures and training courses.
This story is important as a part of US intelligence history because it demonstrates the risks of operations (and the consequences of operational error), the qualities of character necessary to endure hardship, and the potential damage to reputations through the persistence of false stories about past events. Above all, the saga of John Downey and Richard Fecteau is about remarkable faithfulness, shown not only by the men who were deprived of their freedom, but also by an Agency that never gave up hope. While it was through operational misjudgments that these two spent much of their adulthood in Chinese prisons, the Agency, at least in part, redeemed itself through its later care for the men from whom years had been stolen.
Professor Freeman Dyson of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study contributed to the unification of three versions of quantum electro-dynamics. Dyson illustrates a conversation about Project Orion [2] — a plan to build a large manned spaceship for interplanetary exploration with the intention to land on Mars -- with original photographs of the people, experiments, and documents.
Testimony presented before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 8, 2007.
Many Americans believe that in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Bush Administration formed a multinational coalition that drove the Taliban from power. It would be more accurate, however, to say that the United States joined Russia, India, Iran, and the Northern Alliance in an existing coalition that had been fighting the Taliban for half a decade.
If there is any lesson to be drawn from the Afghan experiment with frugal nation building, it is “low input, low output.”
The RAND Corporation has conducted several studies on nation building and counterinsurgency drawing on dozens of American and non-American case studies over the past century. One conclusion reached highlights the near impossibility of putting together broken societies without the support of neighboring states, and of suppressing well established insurgencies that enjoy external support and neighboring sanctuary. The validity of this lesson is evident today both in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Often one hears that the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 diverted American manpower and money Afghanistan. This may be true. But a more serious charge is that the war in Iraq has diverted American attention from the real central front in this war, which neither in Iraq or Afghanistan, but in Pakistan.
Since the end of the Cold War, the United States, NATO, the United Nations, and a range of other states and nongovernmental organizations have become increasingly involved in nation-building operations. Nation-building involves the use of armed force as part of a broader effort to promote political and economic reforms, with the objective of transforming a society emerging from conflict into one at peace with itself and its neighbors.
This guidebook is a practical “how-to” manual on the conduct of effective nation-building. It is organized around the constituent elements that make up any nation-building mission: military, police, rule of law, humanitarian relief, governance, economic stabilization, democratization, and development. The chapters describe how each of these components should be organized and employed, how much of each is likely to be needed, and the likely cost. The lessons are drawn principally from 16 US- and UN-led nation-building operations since World War II and from a forthcoming study on European-led missions.
In short, this guidebook presents a comprehensive history of best practices in nation-building and serves as an indispensable reference for the preplanning of future interventions and for contingency planning on the ground.
