Non-Interference Means Not Interfering
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When Ron Paul cast the lone vote against the House resolution condemning the Iranian government’s post-election actions, I expected to hear a great deal more wailing about the perils of “isolationism,” but thanks to an unusual coincidence the position Rep. Paul has taken also happens to be more or less the one that the President adopted at least for the first week or so. As time goes by, the two are likely to diverge in their views, but for the most part Paul’s lone nay has not been treated with as much scorn as I thought it would receive. Not until, that is, Grant Havers weighed in earlier this week. Havers writes:
Perhaps paleos who have recently gone on record opposing “interference” and “intervention” in Iran need to define exactly what they mean by these terms. Do interference and intervention refer to the unlikely act of sending in the Marines, or do these words also include any moral support for embattled democratic forces in Iran? While I support paleos who condemn military intervention in Iran in light of the sorry history of past interventions in the Middle East, I fail to see why democratic governments should hold their rhetorical fire against the mullahs. Surely we are not condemned to the dualistic and extreme choice between outright military intervention and eerie silence, which offers no hope to human beings like the frightened Iranian woman I mentioned earlier.
Something that I don’t quite understand is why anyone would conclude that silence or minimal comment condemning the Iranian government’s violence by government officials requires that private individuals refrain from expressing their moral support. There has been no small amount of moral support offered to the protesters by citizens of Western democracies. While I might find these enthusiasms a bit romantic, unduly earnest and misplaced (because it seems inevitably to lead to calls for the government to “do something”), other citizens are free to express their solidarity with Iranian protesters as they see fit. Interference refers obviously to actions taken by the government. The actions of the U.S. government have to be taken with American interests in mind, and representatives of the government ought to act accordingly. To borrow from the famous 1821 speech of then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, America has “abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart.” We have grown so accustomed to interference that we seem incapable of grasping that it is deeply at odds with our earliest traditions of foreign policy. Does that mean that many American citizens did not openly sympathize with the Spanish and Italian liberals who were at that time being beaten down by Restoration forces? Of course not. It means that our government did not concern itself with things that were none of its business. So that is one part of the answer why the government should not interfere.
The other part is one that has already been thoroughly rehearsed over the last two weeks, which is that having our government hold its “rhetorical fire” may be more useful in aiding the protesters than a daily stream of outraged pronouncements from Washington. After all, if the call to interfere is merely a call for expressions of moral support, what good is it doing anyone? Will Washington’s moral support make the Basij militiaman more or less likely to see the Iranian protester in front of him as a fellow Iranian rather than a criminal? If it will make the protester’s situation more difficult, whose cause is served by showing solidarity?
Have the government make a statement expressing moral support, and you may feel very content, but it may have serious consequences for the very people you are trying to aid. Encouragement can easily bleed over into reckless promises of assistance, or it can be perceived wrongly as such, in which case the lost lives of protesters who trusted in empty words will be on the heads of those in government who made these statements. This would be the worst of both worlds: effectively uninvolved, but still bearing the moral responsibility for goading the dissidents into futile, bloody resistance. Unable and unwilling to take any greater direct action, perhaps it is best for the government to refrain from making statements in support of the protesters.
Havers cites Solzhenitsyn’s call for greater Western interference inside the USSR to admonish the advocates of non-interference. It may be unthinkable for some to say so, but Solzhenitsyn’s perspective on what American foreign policy ought to have been was not always as wise and sober as his reflections on moral and religious truth. In his Harvard speech, Solzhenitsyn made the following remarks, which even the greatest admirers of Solzhenitsyn have to find more than a little embarrassing:
However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam war. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there should be room for national, or communist, self-determination in Vietnam, or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular clarity. But members of the U.S. anti-war movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear? The American Intelligentsia lost its [nerve] and as a consequence thereof danger has come much closer to the United States. But there is no awareness of this. Your shortsighted politicians who signed the hasty Vietnam capitulation seemingly gave America a carefree breathing pause; however, a hundredfold Vietnam now looms over you. That small Vietnam had been a warning and an occasion to mobilize the nation’s courage. But if a full-fledged America suffered a real defeat from a small communist half-country, how can the West hope to stand firm in the future?
Solzhenitsyn was in many ways a moral genius and a prophetic voice, and I think he was a good writer, but in this instance he was not, alas, a serious foreign policy thinker nor was he a strategist. One can understand why a man who suffered so deeply in the Gulag would adopt an unflinching, uncompromising attitude towards communism everywhere, but the alarmism that compelled him to warn of a looming “hundredfold Vietnam” a mere eleven years before the collapse of the USSR should make us think again about his equally insistent demand to interfere early and often. What devoted anticommunists could not then and to some extent today still cannot admit is that Vietnam was basically unnecessary and irrelevant to the greater success of the West in the Cold War. They furthermore cannot accept that the millions who died in the war and the millions who perished in its aftermath most likely would not have died had there never been a “crusade” to save South Vietnam. This is a bitter truth, and there are not many people who would want to accept this. Being wrong about this does not change all of the things that Solzhenitsyn got right, but thirty-one years later we might note that we have listened more often than not to people who have said that the West was lacking in willpower, needed to show more “resolve,” and had gone horribly wrong in withdrawing from Vietnam, and in almost every instance in the last three decades those people have been as wrong as can be. If we admire Solzhenitsyn and can find a record of Solzhenitsyn saying things that could be put into the mouths of interventionists today, we should take care not to expose Solzhenitsyn to ridicule.
Do we really believe that “there are no longer any internal affairs”? While I understand why a man who wished to see the Soviet monstrosity removed from his home country would say this in 1974, is this really the sort of claim that anyone would want to endorse today? Are there no internal affairs of the United States? Are there no internal affairs of Iran? Have we all been pressed together by our sheer numbers such that we cannot discern where one state begins and another ends? I think we know the answer. One might have asked the Solzhenitsyn of 2004 whether he still believed that “there are no longer any internal affairs” when it came to Western denunciations of Russia, and I tend to think that he would have changed his mind. I suspect that internal affairs would have come back into existence. I am not saying this to criticize Solzhenitsyn. A dissident against a monstrous system will seek aid where and how he can–that is his obligation, and he is doing what he can for his country as a patriot. However, it is not necessarily the job of the United States government to follow his lead, nor does the government have to accept his claims.
In the address Havers cited, Solzhenitsyn quoted a Russian proverb: “The yes-man is your enemy, but your friend will argue with you.” I agree with this entirely. It applies to so many foreign policy debates past and present: the war in Iraq, Israel policy, America’s military presence abroad, and on and on. Turn it around and apply it to the dissenters in other countries. The advocates of interference want us not only to offer moral support to the dissenters, which probably will not help them, but they are positively urging us to become their cheerleaders and propagandists abroad. Following this proverb, this means that we will become their enemies, because we will be cheering them on in what might well be a disastrous course of action. It could be that the friend of Iranian reform and the protesters at this point will even go so far as to question whether the protesters are doing their own cause more harm than good in the long run. The meaning of the proverb is that unreflective, uncritical backing is dangerous; true concern for someone’s well-being will sometimes require disagreement and argument. I would add that sometimes it may require a government to remain mostly quiet while that person carries on his struggle, lest the government compromise or sabotage that struggle in a foolish attempt to affirm its own importance and status in the world.
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32 Responses to “Non-Interference Means Not Interfering”
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“Do interference and intervention refer to the unlikely act of sending in the Marines”
The problem is that that is exactly what a lot of the loudest mouths on this issue would like, and it is a likely result of our current policy. If you maintain that we have the right to tell another country what type of weapons they can have and they refuse to go along then force becomes likely. Because in the minds of the Iran hawks the only acceptable outcome is Iran giving up its nuke program. This amounts to a foreign policy of “Do what we say or we’ll bomb you.”
If we weren’t already bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan and this Iran situation was happening in isolation, then war would be very likely. It is our other entanglements in the region (and our lack of funds) that are currently keeping us out of another mess.
Your assessment of Solzhenitsyn is troubling to me. The need to embrace prudence should not blind us from accepting the necessity of the Cold War. The Vietnam War and the attempt to stop the advance of Communism in Southeast Asia in general, were honorable efforts. Doomed as they were by both poor handling and geopolitical difficulty, they did buy time for the growth of the Asian Tiger economies.
When Solzhenitsyn spoke at Harvard, Communism was indeed on the march in Africa and Latin America, as well as in Afghanistan. My generation (boomers) funked the test of citizenship in many ways over the years, but never so much as in our fained scruples over the Vietnam War. Solzhenitsyn knew mere decadence when he saw it. But some of us supported the Contras and others because we understood militant socialism as, to use the now overworked phrase, an existential threat.
You and Bascevich are quite correct that the threat of Islam is not of that character. We need not engage in a global struggle to defeat a backward religion. An awesome military machine now rests in the hands of dwarves and knaves, and this is dangerous. But take caution with those of us who fought the good fight. Despite not being “serious foreign policy thinker(s)” we did win the Cold War and the alternate right will not succeed without us.
“The need to embrace prudence should not blind us from accepting the necessity of the Cold War.”
Okay. I didn’t reject the necessity of the Cold War. I emphasized the irrelevance of Vietnam to prevailing in the Cold War, which was won elsewhere by other means. Throwing away tens of thousands of lives and killing millions of people in a war that had no larger strategic significance were not necessary to containment policy. Havers’ fellow Canadian George Grant saw clearly how unnecessary Vietnam was; ditto George Kennan. I hold Solzhenitsyn in the highest esteem, but he could get things wrong, and in this case I think he did. We did not face a “hundredfold Vietnam” in 1978. We didn’t even face another Vietnam. As your remark about the Contras reminds us, we faced at most proxy warfare in Nicaragua and other flashpoints around the world.
I don’t doubt for a minute that the men who fought the war were honorable, and I wouldn’t even doubt that the desire to protect South Vietnam was for the most part well-intentioned, but that didn’t make the war sound or intelligent policy. It also didn’t contribute to the collapse of the USSR.
When you say you disagree with “militant socialism” you mean to say you disagree with other individuals, in other countries, expressing their support for “militant socialism” or voting with their feet or their lives. This is a dangerous idea, because its not that hard to imagine this sort of thinking (in fact this is exactly the kind of thinking) that allows people to talk about Islamofascism, and to endorse any number of increasingly stupid and wasteful ideas to convince other people that they are wrong by killing them en-masse. It also mis-interprets what are often complicated internal political battles, of which we know very little, by framing them within this ridiculous idea of containment.
As internal matters come to a boil in various countries, many of them reflecting or turning around on the role of Islam in the function of the state, it is essential that we don’t start yet another 50 year proxy battle. If we make American foreign policy defined by its opposition to political Islam, there is no doubt that political Islam will continue to view one its main missions as opposition to America. And there is no especially good reason for that to occur.
Mr. Larison,
I find myself reacting against your comment on Solzhenitsyn, but I must first confess what may be a personal bias -like Solzhenitsyn, I am from a family that grew up and suffered behind the Iron Curtain, and perhaps when it comes to Communism and foreign policy in general, this strong anti-totalitarian bias may lead me to adopt too hawkish a stance.
Nevertheless, I think you are not noticing the assumptions behind Solzhenitsyn’s comment. For better or worse, America has extended itself into a global role, both financially and militarily, and it now has global concerns and interests. This cannot simply be undone the way it was done -rashly- for the reason that we have now assumed responsibilities which must be followed through to the end. While you may see American foreign policy as a constant over-reaching (and that may be true), it is also a foreign policy of half-measures and abandoning the situation once it becomes difficult -stirring up trouble through interference, then leaving the mess for others.
Whether it was right for America to intervene in Vietnam or not is another matter, but once it intervened and helped exacerbate the tensions in the region, it was not right for America to leave and let the flames it had fan consume Indochina; the consequences of that can be seen in the Cambodian genocide. And, I believe, Solzhenitsyn was broadly right in saying that Vietnam opened the door for a hundred-fold Vietnam -though we may not have reached that point yet. Nevertheless, the failure of nerve of a Western country in fighting a war against the Third World, revealed in Vietnam, has cropped up again and again -most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan- and both disheartened the American people and emboldened enemies. With nuclear proliferation, I believe it is fully possible that in the not-too-distant future we may see elements of a rogue nation orchestrate an attack whose implications would be a “hundred-fold” Vietnam. I am not trying to use scare tactics, merely pointing out that a) isolationism is no longer an option and b) we have already accepted the “imperial” challenge, for better or worse, (I think, for worse), but backing off may very well now be worse than seeing it through to a cautious, prudent end. There are no “good” options here. Those assumptions I think underlay Solzhenitsyn’s comments.
Yours, &c,
V. Maro Grammaticus
http://rumromeandreason.blogspot.com/
Havers:
This position is so extreme that it is hard to imagine any crisis overseas which would justify the official condemnation of a tyranny by the government of the United States, at least in Dr. Paul’s view.
Havers talks policy in response to a point of law, a practice that now seems to be as popular with conservatives as with liberals.
Ron Paul is always thoughtful, and his thoughts are usually worth pondering.
As I read Paul’s statement, he is making five distinct arguments.
1. It is ‘questionable’ whether the Constitution authorizes Congress to pass resolutions of this kind.
2. The wording of the resolution is not justified by the available information.
3. It is inconsistent to criticize Iran without also criticizing other countries that are as bad or worse.
4. The resolution goes beyond, specifically is less ‘cautious’ than, parallel statements by the administration.
5. The resolution is not consistent with ‘the foreign policy of our Founders’.
I think point #1 is quite interesting. Not being a constitutional scholar I don’t have a strong opinion on it.
The powers enumerated in Article I do not include passing toothless resolutions on any subject, foreign or domestic. The word ‘resolution’ does appear in Section 7. I don’t know what it refers to, but I don’t think it’s the kind of thing under discussion here.
I would think that passing ineffective, unenforceable resolutions would not be a ‘legislative power’, but simply a thing that any voting assembly might choose to do. So, while I’m generally for narrow construction, I don’t think the House of Representatives needs explicit constitutional authorization to pass any ’sense of the body’ resolutions that its members may desire.
What Paul seems to be suggesting, is that the House has this prerogative in domestic matters but not foreign ones. I don’t know what the basis for this distinction would be.
In hindsight Vietnam became unwinnable the minute we lost our gambit in Laos. The really stupid way we went about fighting the Vietnam War was a disservice to all who fought on our side. On the other hand we killed off two generations of North Vietnamese men. In the end North Vietnam was played out and remains no threat to anyone.
My central point was that the Cold War with Socialism was a far more serious matter and demanded a different calculus. In such a struggle it may be necessary to make our enemy pay a heavy cost for his victories.
Regarding Solzhenitsyn, I take his remarks as an appraisal of the American intelligentsia’s general cowardice in the face of communism. Do you disagree with this appraisal? His second point was that our failure in Vietnam caused a great deal of suffering and death to those who depended on us. People around the world drew conclusions from this, and chose sides accordingly. The Soviet Union could make their play in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola, and Central America in this atmosphere. These brush fire wars did help bring down the USSR. But Soviet adventurism was aimed at blocking off raw materials and trade routes. In as much as this may have been encouraged by our defeat in Vietnam, I think Solzhenitsyn had more of point than you grant him.
The Russian author who best foresaw the demise of the USSR in my view was Andre Amalrik. His Will the Soviet Union Survive till 1984? is a classic.
Please Sean, don’t tell me what I mean to say. I make it quite plain that I do not view Islam as anything like the threat that Communism was. There are religions and ideologies that are incompatible with our way of life. The fact that Neocons play “lets you and him fight.” is not sufficient reason for you to find neocon thinking in everything you don’t like.
No where, anywhere have I suggested that we intervene in Iran or in any Muslim country. In fact I heartily agree with Daniel on that score.
So try to reading a comment before lecturing people.
John Quincy Adams:
She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice . . .
It seems JQA, like Havers, thought of ‘interference’ mainly in terms of sending troops, or in his words ‘enlisting under other banners than her own’.
Adams wasn’t one of the founders, being of the next generation, but he shared their foreign policy outlook. Walter Russel Mead named him over Jefferson himself as the archetypal ‘Jeffersonian’.
Larison:
Does that mean that many American citizens did not openly sympathize with the Spanish and Italian liberals who were at that time being beaten down by Restoration forces?
I think Larison has confused 1821 with 1823 – or else I’m taking ‘at that time’ too literally.
The issue of 1821 was the Greek rising against the Ottomans.
It was also in 1823, at the instigation of Adams, that the Monroe Doctrine was proclaimed.
One might say that, if supporting the Greek rebels would have been an interference in the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire, the Monroe Doctrine was no less an interference in the internal affairs of the Spanish Empire. The Spanish of course had not recognized the breakaway Latin American republics.
In hindsight the Monroe Doctrine was a huge success. Like NATO it deterred the immediate threat, preserving the status quo without war. Also like NATO it outlived its original purpose and grew into something monstrous, but that’s another story.
Were Adams and Monroe brilliant or just lucky? If deterrence had failed their might have been a long and costly war, or an embarrassing climbdown.
Daniel,
As a long-time admirer of Solzhenitysn, I’ve always found his defense of the Vietnam War a sour note. I appreciate your measured comments.
Please Sean, don’t tell me what I mean to say. I make it quite plain that I do not view Islam as anything like the threat that Communism was. There are religions and ideologies that are incompatible with our way of life. The fact that Neocons play “lets you and him fight.” is not sufficient reason for you to find neocon thinking in everything you don’t like.
No, actually it does. Because your excuse is not that the Cold-War style tactics of blowing up other countries from here to kingdom come is wrong, but rather that political Islam does not rise to the level of an existential threat that Communism (allegedly) did. Atleast neo-conservatives are ideologically consistent; you on the other hand simply want it for your own pet target i.e. communism. But heaven offend if someone else claims an existential threat!
And thats the problem; everyone always wants there to be an exception for themselves, or for their pet intervention. And there might be a good arguments for certain historical moments certain present issues facing us, but this still doesn’t answer the question of the means to an end. Which are morally bankrupt if not strategically and tactically stupid.
What if…. this means a reconciliation between Najaf and Qom?
Would we interfere then?
Think how a Shi’ia caliphate would threaten Iraqi sunnis.
Rafsanjani is known to have met with Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani’s representative in Iran, Javad Shahrestani.
Your idiocy is beyond belief. I don’t define what is an existential threat, I let others do it. Marxist Leninists declared their intention to do away with our way of life. I took them at their word. Islam also has pretensions to world dominance and I take them at their word as well. But as Islam is a system more congenial to morons I deem it less dangerous. Do you really think I need to justify my judgment to you?
You use the term Cold War style tactics. How revealing. Do you really think that the tactics of the cold war were a matter of style? You mention “my excuse” re: cold war tactics. I need no excuse. The tactics you seem to abhor are pretty much the tactics great powers have always used. You think that communists were my “pet target.” Trotsky said, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” Sean, you are free to write sophomoric counter factual comments because some of us got interested in Communism.
And this; “And thats the problem; everyone always wants there to be an exception for themselves, or for their pet intervention.” Apparently you just can’t read. For the second time, I HAVE NEVER ADVOCATED INTERVENTION IN THE MUSLIM WORLD. You use the term “Everyone always wants….” Gee that takes up a lot of territory. You must be very brave and deeply knowledgeable to write such a line.
You seem to have some ax to grind when it comes to describing the world as it is and to making judgments about that world. I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve never yet morphed into Norman Podhoretz. Perhaps I’m not ideologically consistent enough.
“I don’t doubt for a minute that the men who fought the war were honorable, and I wouldn’t even doubt that the desire to protect South Vietnam was for the most part well-intentioned, but that didn’t make the war sound or intelligent policy. It also didn’t contribute to the collapse of the USSR.”
Daniel, I don’t think you delegitimize the Cold War, and I regret giving that impression if I did. We can agree to disagree about which measures were justified and which were just plain dumb. At this point of History, I like to remind Iranian friends that the US saw the Soviets out of Northern Iran in 1946.
I do sense a certain distaste for the exercise of American power in toto on these alternative right sites. In order to proceed, I think we need to address when American intervention overseas is justified. That would be constructive.
Let’s be clear about one thing: the west did not win the cold war through military action, intervention in other counties, or superior military forces. We won it by attending to our own internal business, and building up strong cultures and strong economies which proved superior to communism, especially to those living under communism. We have to be reminded, it seems, that Communism failed precisely because it did not attend to its own internal business, but ruined itself time and again by failing to take care of its own affairs, and consequently used foreign affairs to distract attention from its internal problems. Communism was not defeated, it collapsed from within, because the West was able to out-develop it, economically, socially, politically, and culturally. In the end it had nothing to do with the military, but entirely to do with these intangible human values and practical life issues that convinced ordinary Russians (and the elites themselves eventually) that communism was a mistake, and that it would be better to start over.
Every attempt we made to intervene in other countries’ internal affairs during the cold war backfired on us. It made much of the world hate us, and this if anything delayed the process of culturally and economically attracting the rest of the world to our side, and abandoning the communist path. Fortunately, this didn’t completely undermine our cause, which was certainly noble, but that doesn’t mean every method we used was noble. In fact, that is precisely the problem. We embraced all kinds of ignoble actions, including especially intervening in other countries’ internal affairs for the purpose of advancing our own, and this ignoble reputation stained our cause, and delayed its success. So let’s not pretend we could have intervened a little more effectively given proper management and a more commited military. That was exactly the problem – we confused power with righteousness, and presumed that every exercise of power was actually an exercise of righteousness, which it seldom was. Real righteous comes from within, and in politics that means from within a country’s own culture, and not from its military and hegemonic impulses.
“On the other hand we killed off two generations of North Vietnamese men. In the end North Vietnam was played out and remains no threat to anyone.”
I can’t possibly imagine anyone taking your arguments very seriously after reading this ridiculously ignorant and cruel post.
Or do you think you are some sort of a god or feudal chieftan, meting out judgment upon who should live and die?
Couldn’t agree more with conradg. We won the cold war, not by military strength, but through internal development (and also because of communism’s native wretchedness!). Our great military strength kept us free until communism collapsed against our model.
Gordianus – “In order to proceed, I think we need to address when American intervention overseas is justified. That would be constructive.”
Indeed. And I think the point is that military intervention overseas is almost never justifiable.
Kvnokay, To be ignorant the post needs to be factually wrong, which it is not. To be cruel it needs to be gratuitous which it was not. Perhaps you can help me in this. How do I discuss war without mentioning casualty rates and numbers? And how do I make reference to the effect those casualty numbers have, without giving offense?
As to my status as Feudal Chieftain, I’ll have to check with my relatives. Whatever their decision, at best I can only be a retired Feudal Chieftain.
Although I join this conversation a few days late (having been informed only recently of Dan Larison’s disagreement with my critique of Ron Paul’s position on Iran), the following corrective comments may still be apropos. In response to Larison, I never claimed that lack of official (Congressional) condemnation of Iran’s mullahs should “prevent” private individuals from voicing their displeasure with the mullahs through mass protests. Indeed, I didn’t even discuss the acts of private citizens who have protested against the regime. My point was that the failure to issue any condemnation at the governmental level is an unwise and imprudent policy, especially since it may lead the surviving Iranian protesters to curse the West for its callous indifference to their plight. Surely it should be obvious that condemnations issued by governments carry more weight with dissidents than the protests of private citizens (although these are laudable too).. Iran would have to take notice of the former more seriously than the latter.
Larison also believes that mere words of encouragement which are not backed up by concrete assistance may lead to false hopes and even loss of life in Iran if the protesters act on these words. My only response here is that it depends on what these words of encouragement amount to. I was not advocating a war guarantee of the sort that Britain and France gave to Poland in 1939. I was only suggesting that the West should offer moral support, as opposed to promises of military assistance. A show of moral solidarity would be far more inspiring than official silence on the breakdown of democracy in Iran. Indeed, this silence is a callous insult to the victims of violence there.
Larison also believes in a very strict and impractical version of “internal affairs,” or situations into which other governments should not intrude. In other words, the US should NEVER give moral support to any people fighting for liberty, lest that be seen as a dreaded act of interference in its “internal affairs.” Based on this logic, American politicians during the 1920s and 1930s, who tended towards isolationism, should not have condemned the Bolshevik atrocities in Russia.
With respect to Iran, the world cannot treat her instability as a mere “internal affair,” since this is an oil-rich nation with a bellicose government suspected of enriching uranium for the eventual production of nukes. Surely what happens in this country, which has threatened Israel and the Persian Gulf region, is the world’s business!
One last historical point: I would be careful in portraying John Quincy Adams as an avatar of non-interventionism. This doctrine has been very selectively applied throughout US history anyway, and Adams was no exception. In 1842, Adams condemned China’s trade exclusion policy as immoral because it violated the golden rule and the right of nations to trade freely. This ideological defense of free trade was a perfect precondition for later acts of intervention in the Pacific Rim.
Conradg, It’s certainly true that the USSR collapsed from within. But to say “Every attempt we made to intervene in other countries’ internal affairs during the cold war backfired on us,” just Isn’t History. I’ll name a few and perhaps you can instruct me as to how they backfired.
* Our clandestine aid to Solidarity in Poland
* Our assistance to the Philippines in suppressing the Huks.
* Our (and British) help in defeating the Communist insurgency in Greece.
The Communists were as you point out, very much outer directed. They seemed to think that their system could only survive by expansion. Where we differ I think is in the role of our military counter strokes in places like Angola, Afghanistan and Nicaragua. This and the buildup of American conventional and strategic might caused them to foolishly try to keep up in a race they couldn’t win. Whatever you thought of Star Wars, they took it very seriously and bankrupted themselves.
I would add two other shoals on which the USSR broke up. The first is the masterful way in which we drove energy prices down while denying them European markets. The other was in Gorbachev’s bungling of reform. Unlike the Chinese who seem to have understood that “The Party” can survive within a semi-capitalist system, Gorbachev really believed he could reform a deeply sclerotic socialist system without it breaking down entirely.
All Ex-Soviet officials visiting Princeton that I have spoken with have emphasized the centrality of the military competition as the reason for the eventual collapse. I tend to believe them. The Soviet example is a good example of military adventurism damaging a national interest of the adventurer. We should withdraw troops from areas where our vital interests are not engaged and where our allies are strong enough to defend themselves. The Cold War is over.
“I think Larison has confused 1821 with 1823 – or else I’m taking ‘at that time’ too literally.”
Part of the problem was vagueness on my part. The Spanish civil war beginning in 1820 was what I had in mind when I mentioned Spain, and the insurrections in Italy that followed were what I was thinking of when I mentioned the Italians. One of these was at least partly liberal revolts against Bourbon monarchs, and my guess is that these uprisings would have won no less sympathy than the Greek cause. You are correct that the beating down of liberal forces was not complete in Spain until 1823, and had not yet begun when Adams gave this speech. I thought the comparison between the fate of the Spanish liberals and the Iranian protesters was an apt one for this discussion. I appreciate that Adams would have also been referring to the Greek War for Independence, which had begun in earnest a few months earlier.
Gordy,
There are of course exceptions to every rule. But even among the ones you cite, there have been serious blowbacks. Our help to Solidarity in Poland led to its being crushed by both the Polish communists and the Soviets themselves. It did not revive in any purposeful way until after the wall came down. Our involvement in the Phillipines precedes the Huks, and was an remains a very black spot in American history, with serious consequences, including the tendency of many in the Philippines who are hostile to American imperialism to side with our enemies and thus with communism during the Cold War. If we hadn’t been such bastards, they probably would not have been terribly inclined towards communism in the first place. And our involvement with the Greek insurgency led to our imposing and supporting authoritarian regimes in Greece which led the people to hate us severely for a very long time. It’s the sort of thing that gave our side a very bad name during the Cold War, and led many people to sympathize with Communism not because of any merits in that system, but simply because it opposed our imperial reach.
And yes, we do differ in the weight we give to military action in places like Angola and Nicaragua, neither of which had much influence at all on the overall ending of the Communist threat. In Nicaragua, of course, we once again see the blowback of supporting authoritarian regimes simply because they were anti-communist, and the inevitable effect our interventions there had. It only goes to show that interventions actually work against our interests, and motivate people to fight against us, seeing us as the enemies of political freedom, for the simple reason that so many of our interventions have been against political freedom if it doesn’t end up being pro-American.
I would agree that Afghanistan had an immediate and almost final impact on the crumbling communist regime. But this and all other military considerations are of purely secondary importance in relation to what caused the communist regimes to crumble in the first place. The crumbling of the regime was not a military matter, and if the regimes had not crumbled internally, the military outcomes probably would have been quite different. That your ex-Soviet officials see the crumbling of their regime as a military problem is the best evidence I could point to as to why the regime crumbled – it was run by idiots who thought that a military solution could have saved the regime. These are the same people who ran their country into the ground, and then tried to blame it all on the West and the West’s superior military, when hardly a shot was fired in any remotely important place. These people destroyed their country all by themselves.
That was the beauty of Kennan’s whole containment policy. We didn’t need to destroy them militarily, we just had to grow a better society and economy while retaining a defensive posture that protected that society. Eventually, we would so overshadow them that they would collapse on their own, which is precisely what happened. That the Kremlin ended up bankrupting the Soviet Union through military expenditures simply underscores how stupidly they misunderstood the real battle. If they had used their resources to build up their society and make it prosperous (which might have been impossible given communism’s limitations, but at least they could have tried), they might have lasted quite a while longer, or even partially succeeded. But as I said, they couldn’t do that very well (witness all the failed five-year plans), so they tried to distract themselves from their internal problems by endless foreign interventions of their own, all of which ended up merely costing them money and political capital that would have served them much better if spent at home, on their own society.
As for the economics of oil prices in the 80’s, and trade restrictions with Europe, yes, these contributed to the final fall, but they only succeeded because the Soviets were never able to build their own internal economy, and were thus reliant upon selling natural resources and commodities. And this was due to our ability to grow a highly diversified manufacturing and service and information economy, while the Soviets were not. Because of that, we were also able to build a highly attractive cultural life that was envied not just in the third world, but in Russia itself. And it was this that led to the fall of the Empire. John Lennon, Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Levi Strauss were much more the cause of the fall than any soldiers we put into Germany.
I agree about withdrawing our troops from places that have no strategic value. That would of course include most of the world. We have to wind down our commitments, but the idea that we can intervene successfully around the world remains one of our most enduring and pernicious national myths.
“John Lennon, Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Levi Strauss were much more the cause of the fall than any soldiers we put into Germany.” This is just breathtaking. All the more so because you sincerely believe it.
Considering what “bastards” we were, it’s amazing how things worked out. You are entitled to make up your own History if you choose. But conradg, what prevented the Red army from continuing on to the English Channel if it was American Troops? Or were they waiting for dungarees?
Havers is right that not condemning Iran’s violent actions would be a mistake, but he seems not to understand how to play card this in the real world. I think Obama has played this brilliantly, never overstepping events with self-serving rhetoric, but letting events unfold while giving clear support to the people of Iran. Rather than condemn Iran’s regime before they resorted to violence, which could have been seen as a provocation, he merely implored all parties not to resort to violence. Thus, when the regime did resort to violence, Obama was able to condemn them for it without seeming to have pre-judged anyone. He hasn’t turned the protesters into some arm of US policy that we have a vested interest in, but has merely condemned the violence itself, and those who have resorted to it. This leave us open to however this turns out. And the protesters seem, for the most part, grateful for Obama’s stance, seeing that we finally have a President who understoods other countries, rather than merely presuming they all admire and are ready to follow our lead. They want, above all else, to make their own country, to take their own lead, and they don’t want the US showing them the way. The resentment towards the US felt by so many Iranians is now being eclipsed by the respect and understanding they feel Obama is showing them, and this more than anything else gives us some home that relations with Iran can improve.
Havers simply does not understand Iran, he only seems to care about inside the beltway rhetorical games which he thinks are best won by bombastic “moral stands” that mean nothing, cost nothing, and help no one but the politicans and pundits who make them. Obama, fortunately, is willing to forgo this beltway moral gamesmanship in order to forge lasting relationships of respect and understanding with parts of the world which are sorely in need of such an approach, and are utterly disgusted with the kind of pompous opacity of people like Havers.
Wasn’t was the word I was looking for.
“But conradg, what prevented the Red army from continuing on to the English Channel if it was American Troops? Or were they waiting for dungarees?”
My point about Madonna and western culture is that these are what won the Cold War. Our troops only prevented us from being overwhelmed, and losing to an invading force. But they could not, on their own, win. That took culture, economics, social progress, etc.
A better question is, what prevented American troops from marching all the way to Moscow at the end of the war (as Patton wanted to do)? We could have done just that, rather easily – the Red Army was a mess by then. The reason we didn’t is because we are a creative culture more interested, in the end – despite all the bastards we sometimes put into power – in creating a fertile cultural life that is worth living in, than in fighting and destroying others. We had a basic faith that our cultural way of life could prevail over the Soviet system without having to fight a war. All we needed to do was create a defense that could prevent any serious inroads into western territory. We overstepped that by engaging in all kinds of pointless interventions that often made things worse, all out of some kind of narcissistic need to be heroic messiahs to the world. Most every place we tried that, we ended up destroying much more than we saved. Fortunately, the basic freedoms of our culture were able to overcome these errors and produce a vibrant society that could overshadow most anything communism was able to produce, and in the end that was the real difference.
Grant Havers wrote:
“My point was that the failure to issue any condemnation at the governmental level is an unwise and imprudent policy, especially since it may lead the surviving Iranian protesters to curse the West for its callous indifference to their plight.”
This is what I don’t understand. Not issuing *any* condemnation might lead to this result (which raises the question why this should change U.S. policy), but that takes for granted that the protesters believe that inserting the U.S. into their struggle is a boon rather than a blow. We have good reason to think that most of the protesters do not believe this. What is wise or prudent about doing something that works to their and our detriment?
Iran’s government would not take our government’s protestations more seriously–they would use them as fodder for state television and use them as a pretext for glorifying themselves. Officially offering expressions of support is likely to be counterproductive. If offering this support can be done privately by citizens or through back-door channels of second track diplomacy, that could accomplish the same end–heartening the protesters–without providing resources for the regime’s propaganda mill.
For that matter, not even I have said that absolutely nothing should be said by the government. Condemnation of violence is permissible and appropriate within reason. Having granted that, it is incumbent on the advocates of action/speech to justify what they are proposing, and they ought to be able to meet a reasonably high standard. I have yet to see much of an argument in support of taking a stronger line that amounts to more than, “It feels like the right thing to do.” Those counseling restraint and silence have a much lower bar to clear.
I shudder at the idea that resource wealth and/or burgeoning military power make any state’s internal affairs “the world’s business.” Is Russia’s domestic politics “the world’s business”? Is Britain’s? Is Canada’s? Is ours? A good test for what constitutes an unreasonable intrusion into another nation’s affairs is to ask whether one would demand the same international intrusion in one’s own country under similar circumstances. In other words, if we were in the position of the Iranian protesters in a purely domestic political dispute, would we want Medvedev and Hu Jintao holding forth on what our government must do? Would we want the moral support of Beitullah Mehsud? I don’t think so. Would we not instead tell foreign governments and leaders to mind their own business? Would we not be horrified if the government of the official enemy of our country started speaking out against our government in our name?
If it is Iran’s instability that makes Iran’s internal affairs “the world’s business,” it hardly follows that “the world” should take up for the side of the protesters. More to the point, if purely internal political disputes in another country are now “the world’s business,” what in the world isn’t “the world’s business”?
I agree with your point about the fatal weakness of the USSR and in my opinion all Socialist systems.
The military comes in via our keeping the USSR’s expansion in check. We’ll just have to disagree about some of the side ventures. I don’t know a single Pole who regrets our help to Solidarity. And as far as Europe goes, Poland is the 51st State. Of course with Poland as an ally we may be in for real trouble! (just kidding)
Re: Iran, the only course of action, is no course of action.
I think that the internal affairs of an individual state or region may yield to outside action when that state falls into anarchy. This is the extreme example but places like Haiti and Somalia come to mind. Somalia seems to be happy in its state of nature, but someone such as the Europeans should do something about the pirates.
Gordy,
Yes, the army stopped Soviet expansion, allowing culture and economics to win the war. As for Solidarity, the greater point is that our support there didn’t do any good. For some reason, the Soviets didn’t respond to our moral condemnation of their suppression of Solidarity. The Poles appreciated it, but we can hardly say we backed up our support with anything meaningful. But the situation there was not an internal affair, as Iran is. It was the result of an external nation, Russia, dominating the internal affairs of Poland. It’s not comparable to Iran, where there is no external dominating force for us to oppose. Even so, it was a good thing we didn’t invade Poland as a response to the Soviet domination, don’t you think? Even Reagan knew that wasn’t an option. So “supporting” Solidarity wasn’t exactly a courageous position to take. Nor did it have much to do with the collapse of the wall years later. So “no action” was the best course there also. In general, Soviet suppression of Solidarity was extremely successful, until of course the Soviets collapsed internally years later for entirely different reasons.
“As for Solidarity, the greater point is that our support there didn’t do any good.” You seem to have little understanding of the economics of the Eastern Block. The Soviet Union depended on goods manufactured in Eastern Europe. President Reagan, who you seem to denigrate, acting through the Church and American trade unions among other ways, destabilized, and delegitimized the regime in Poland. The Soviet leadership could never count on the regime in Warsaw. Clubs in the street can accomplish only so much. In the end, even communists can’t run a country where the workers go on strike against the party. Perhaps you can’t remember the events as they happened. But American covert support for the people of Eastern Europe did put great pressure on the USSR and was materially instrumental in bringing the whole edifice down. Ex-Soviet authorities admit this. Of course, you seem to have a greater grasp of these things than they.
BTW, you keep calling me Gordy. If you want to debate adults you might want to consider communicating like one.
The regime in Poland was never legitimized to begin with, so de-legitimizing it had not effect. The marshal law crackdown was highly effective, and they simply didn’t care what anyone thought about it. It certainly lasted until the Soviets themselves fell apart internally, and would have lasted much longer if the Soviet system did. In other words, supporting Solidarity was a feel-good exercise. Not saying we shouldn’t have done it, but let’s not pretend it actually brought down the regime or anything. It was more about making ourselves feel like good guys than doing anything that would actually change Poland.
Again, I think our clandestine support for eastern european dissidents was a nice gesture to make, but it had little to do with the fall of the Soviet system or the liberation of eastern Europe. It didn’t put any serious pressure on the Soviets to reform, nro did they reform. Instead, they just cracked down harder. The only thing that made the Soviets finally try to reform was the realization that economically they were going nowhere and had to find some way to lessen their reliance on military spending. So Gorbachev made overatures towards lessening military tensions. They were bankrupt in every respect, but they could have kept going while being morally bankrupt if they hadn’t been economically and socially and militarily bankrupt. But it was too late by then. It wasn’t the dissidents who brought the Soviets down, it was the elite like Gorbachev who realized there was no “there” left in the Soviet state, that they had to try something different, but they were past the point of changing without collapsing even further, due to structural problems.
As for your former Soviet officials, yes, I would continue to say that they are clueless, incompetent fools who simply don’t want to take responsibility for running their country into the ground. It sounds nice to say the dissidents did it to them, but really, they did it to themselves.
As for calling you Gordy, I meant no disrespect. If anything, it’s a kind of term of endearment and familiarity. But if it offends you, I’ll not use it.