Irwin Stelzer has written a sobering article in the February 7, 2005 issue of the Weekly Standard on what he calls the “geopoliticization of the world’s oil and gas industry.”
His key point is:
…it can’t be said that the free play of supply and demand ever set prices in the oil market. But we are now seeing an even more profound uncoupling of the oil industry from anything resembling the model characteristics of market economies. Governments rather than traditional commercial enterprises are increasingly taking control. And those governments often have interests quite hostile to ours.
In support of his thesis, Stelzer makes the following points:
…America remains highly dependent on Saudi oil, the production of which is controlled by state-owned Aramco, an instrument of the Saudi government’s foreign policy…
[Through] the Iran-China Chamber of Commerce, established in 2000,…state-owned companies in China [are] buying oil from state-owned companies in Iran…
The China Petroleum & Chemical Company (Sinopec) also signed a 30-year natural gas purchase deal to help the mullahs get their gas industry moving and agreed to invest in the development of the Yadavaran oil fields in return for Iran’s agreement to sell it 150,000 barrels per day of crude oil…
As Gal Luft and Anne Korin pointed out in the March 2004 issue of Commentary (subscription required), China “has sold ballistic-missile components to Iran as well as air-, land-, and sea-based cruise missiles…Even more significantly, China has provided Iran with key ingredients for the development of nuclear weapons,” and China’s Fiber-Home Communications Technology is building a broadband network in Iran.
Sinopec agreed to spend $300 million to develop natural gas resources in Saudi Arabia…The Sino-Saudi oil-for-arms trade has included the sale by China of ballistic missiles with a range of 1,800 miles and capable of carrying a nuclear warhead…
China clearly aims to position itself as an alternative to America as an ally and armorer of countries that oppose U.S. foreign policy…China also tends toward countries that are key suppliers of the oil that keeps the wheels of American commerce turning…
We cannot forget that the real price America is likely to pay for the Clinton-Gore years will not be from inappropriate sexual dalliances, but from that administration’s peculiar dealings with China, which Bill Gertz outlines in his 2001 book entitled “Betrayal: How the Clinton Administration Undermined American Security.” Character does matter in the end.
Gertz has also elaborated previously on the growing threat from China in his 2000 book entitled “The China Threat: How the People’s Republic Targets America.”
Stelzer continues:
Canadian prime minister Paul Martin just visited Beijing and came away with a broad-ranging deal to cooperate in a wide variety of energy projects, including plans for a pipeline and ports that would allow…oil from Alberta’s tar sands to move to Canada’s west coast for export to China…According to their joint communique…”Canda and China share the view that the United Nations and other multilateral institutions have an essential role to play in the development of a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.”
…[Chinese] President Hu Jintao has agreed to invest $100 billion in Latin America in a variety of energy-related an dother partnerships…
Most threatening is the arrangement made with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, a man with close ties to Fidel Castro and who claims his country is under “a new U.S. imperialist attack.” China has agreed to invest over $400 million in Venezuela’s oil and gas industry, and to buy 120,000 barrels of that country’s fuel oil each month. Chavez has made it known that he plans to use the proceeds of his oil industry to fund sales of cheap oil to Castro, and he has not denied rumors that he plans to finance revolutionary groups in other Latin American countries. Moreover, he has announced that he is no longer bound by his exploration and development deals with American companies ConocoPhillips, Harvest Natural Resources, and ChevronTexaco, putting into question the reliability of supplies from Venezuela, which account for 15% of U.S. imports…
We cannot forget that any long-term consequences here were made possible by Jimmy Carter’s ignoring of well-documented voting irregularities which allowed Chavez to “win” what most other observers said was a stolen election that he should have lost. (Or, as Power Line subsequently said when talking about Carter and Iraq: “Jimmy Carter isn’t just misguided or ill-informed. He’s on the other side.”)
Stelzer continues with the litany of problematic developments:
CNOOC, China’s third largest oil company, is preparing a series of acquisitions in Asia that will allow China to acquire the resources it needs to fuel its growth and extend its influence into countries in which its commercial presence has until now been insignificant…
Putin has been developing what astute observer Roger Boyes calls “a new policy instrument” to reassert Russian power. That instrument is “the Russian gas and oil-exporting companies that already all but dominate Europe’s energy supplies…According to the IEA, by 2020, natural gas will account for 62% of Europe’s energy consumption, and Russia will supply two-thirds of that gas…
Germany already gets 35% of its oil and 40% of its gas from Russia…
Russia is using its reserves to…make Germany, France and other countries heavily dependent on Putin’s goodwill…[Putin can then] rely on German and French self-interest to tip those countries to his side in any dispute with the United States…
Ronald Reagan must be turning over in his grave since he led the effort to stop a Soviet pipeline to Western Europe, thereby denying the Soviets both hard currency and political leverage.
The list of other efforts contrary to American self-interest continues:
Russia also plans to use its ample reserves of oil and gas to extend its influence in Asia. It has already agreed to allow Japan to finance an oil pipeline from eastern Siberia to the Pacific, from where it can be transported to Japan…and allow Russia to export to several Asian nations as well as Japan…
Perhaps most important is Russia’s use of oil to cement relations with China…Putin has offered China National Petroleum Corporation a piece of Yukos, the Russian oil giant that produces 1 percent of the world’s crude oil, and that Putin effectively renationalized…Putin’s siloviki, which includes his old KGB chums, is now firmly in control of Russia’s oil industry…
Putin’s offer to the Chinese of a branch connection with the pipeline joint-venture with Japan…
At the same time, there is a new report about the growing number of Russian spies in our country.
The core issues raised by Stelzer were also raised in a 2004 book by Bill Gertz called “Treachery: How America’s Friends and Foes are Secretly Arming Our Enemies.”
Stelzer sets up a potential endgame conflict scenario:
Russia and China are using state-owned companies that are not bound to profit-maximize to achieve their long-term goal of weaving a web of relationships that will stand them in good stead in any diplomatic confrontation with the United States. Whether America can continue to rely on its private sector to provide us with comparable clout is no longer certain. After all, when companies that have to maximize profits compete with companies that seek to maximize national influence and power, the latter will engage in projects that the former simply cannot.
Does anyone doubt that these actions amount to nothing less than economic warfare against the United States?
Will anyone pay attention and act before it is too late?
ADDENDUM:
A recent news article also highlights the strong presence of Chinese spies in America.
In his commentary in the Providence Journal, which Don mentions in the previous post, Rhode Island College student Bill Felkner does the single most important thing for government reform:
Let’s draw a straight line: The school teaches the “perspective”; graduates get jobs at the state Department of Human Services and the Poverty Institute; the DHS testifies (using Poverty Institute “research”) to the State House on how well programs are doing. How can we blame politicians for developing ineffective programs when they are guided by biased testimony?
He doesn’t draw the line far enough, though, to illustrate that it is actually a loop. Note Felkner’s explanation of the approach to welfare that his school advocates and that the Rhode Island government follows:
Welfare programs are employment- or education-focused, further defined by “strict” or “lenient” requirements. Rhode Island has a “lenient, education-focused” model, and the proposed legislation advocates greater leniency.
In summary, not only are educators populating the state bureaucracy with ideologues, not only are educators helping to develop policies and put the shine on those already instituted, but the policies that these educators advocate are focused on increasing the customer base for — yup — educators. Consider the emblematic story of Providence’s April Brophy, told in the Providence Journal last June. Ms. Brophy and her husband divorced, then he became disabled, so her child support payments were miniscule. State assistance helped, but it wasn’t enough, until:
BROPHY’S BOSS wanted her to start working Saturdays. But Brophy had no one to care for her youngest child, Bobby, then in kindergarten. When the situation could not be resolved, Brophy quit, and entered an eight-month case-management program at Rhode Island College.
“It ignited my passion for social justice,” Brophy said.
There Brophy learned that as kind as her social worker had been, she had neglected to tell Brophy that there were dozens of training and education programs open to her, part of her welfare benefits. The social worker had mentioned only two: RIC’s case-management program and a certified nursing-assistant program. … Brophy received her certificate in case management in May 2003 and tried to get a job in the field. …
A few months later, she landed her current job: organizing for Rhode Island Parents for Progress, an advocacy group for low-income working families. …
She says she has regained her sense of self-confidence. She hopes to go back to school to earn an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in social work. She now earns $11 an hour — the highest salary she has ever received.
Described from a business point of view, Ms. Brophy is an ideal customer of the education industry. Not only did she complete the circuit between educators and government funds in her own case, but she is now employed to find other such human conductors. Seen in this light, the “perspective school” that Felkner now attends has a clear conflict of interest in its dealings with state policy, and the corruption is manifest along the entire loop, including the corruption of the ideals of higher education.
As I highlighted in response to the Projo’s piece on Brophy, one can in good faith and with charitable intentions put forward solutions that align with one of two worldviews. Corruption aside, Rhode Island’s more common worldview believes that people’s particular difficulties must be addressed in the most expedient way possible: giving to them what the government has collected from others. The worldview that I favor puts the responsibility for people’s lives in their own hands, believing that human nature creates a marketplace that incorporates every aspect of society, from economics to familial culture to religion, and that people ought to be allowed — empowered, in modern Marxist jargon — to seek their own balance.
As a nuclear family, the Brophys were doing just fine on $35,000 per year. According to Rhode Island College’s Poverty Institute, a family of four needs $48,000 in combined income and handouts to get by. Unless we break this cycle whereby interest groups set policies that siphon tax dollars in their own direction while creating incentives for people to make unhealthy decisions, our state will eventually find itself attempting to subsidize everybody with revenue from nobody, and our culture will only generate more messes to mop up with public green.
PROEM:
To mark the historic elections today in Iraq, I republish, here, a column from December 10, 2001, that has been available in full only in my book, Just Thinking: Volume I. A view that was then extreme has proven predictive, and I, for one, do not question that the world is better for it.
Congratulations to the people of Iraq for having come to a point that was all but unimaginable only three years ago. How fortunate the world is that so many Americans are brave enough to do the hard work necessary, that our leaders are willing to move doggedly ahead with necessary action, and that the people of Iraq have stood with us by standing up for themselves.
“No leader of any country, no matter how cruel, inhumane or stupid he might be, would purposely deny his own people the necessities of life,” wrote Al Taylor in an October 23 letter to the editor of The Providence Journal.
Upon digging up the edition of that paper with “Saddam Wouldn’t Be That Bad to His People” for this column, I was surprised to discover that it had the same author as an email that I recently received attacking my essay, “Who Are These People?” I say “surprised,” not “shocked.” But maligning Mr. Taylor is not my intention. He has just provided such a concise — albeit extreme — example of a way of thinking that I quote him directly to avoid accusations that I am creatively rebuffing arguments that nobody is making.
The letter then states that “the people of his country [are] the only reason any leader exists.” This is a noble, demand-side view of leadership. Antithetically, through my wife’s experience as a bar tender for an exclusive beach club, I’ve observed that certain members of the modern aristocracy still feel that the average citizen is alive expressly for the purpose of serving them. Although other views exist, the prevailing political philosophy in most of the Western world today places leaders, as does Mr. Taylor, in the role of the chauffeurs of their people.
However, maintaining the good graces of their passengers is a particularly modern prerequisite for governments. That Al could so dogmatically state his assumptions is a testament to how much good our culture and our country have done in this area over the past few centuries. Assuming that today’s truth has been held as true always and by all is a natural inclination. Nevertheless, it is a distinct privilege of the long-removed descendants of revolutionaries to be able to forget the reality that spurred the movement toward representative government and to believe that the entire world has been won over by what is so obviously the proper relationship of government to people.
Our fortunate problem in America is that we have difficulty comprehending that a leader would decimate his people to pursue unattainable ends. To the extent that U.S. (or U.N.) sanctions are to blame for suffering in Iraq, our nation can be forgiven by the fact that we couldn’t have anticipated that they would be allowed to go this far by that nation’s leadership. It took a long time for the situation to degrade to its current state, and the shifty, watchful eyes of every despot and potential despot in the world oblige the United States to avoid the appearance of rewarding Saddam’s willingness to play chicken with his own people in the back seat.
If the Iraqis were empowered to research a balanced explanation of the causes of their predicament, it is likely that their distress would eventually become sufficiently intense to spark a revolution. To avoid an overthrow, Saddam uses the pervasive strategy of dictators everywhere: deflecting blame toward the United States. Outside the stadium where the dictator’s is the only voice, foreign spectators, right down to lowly letter writers, act as spokespeople for his propaganda if they do not place him at the hub of their analyses.
As our fight against terrorism intersects with our desire to stop the needless languishing of the people of Iraq, we cannot allow our resolve to be curbed by beliefs about how leaders should act in an ideal world, or even how they do act in the Western world. With so many people’s lives at stake in both initiatives, our actions cannot be indecisive or delayed.
So-called “smart” sanctions that would more efficiently target Saddam and not his people should, perhaps, have been instituted several years ago, but now they merely represent an attempt to salvage a wreck of a strategy. They may serve to duct tape the steering column in place, but on the unpredictable path of post–September 11 international affairs, they will not hold. Further sanctions would only prolong the unnatural circumstances of the Iraqi people and extend Saddam Hussein’s reign. His rhetoric and his oppressive might would come to outweigh, even more, the drive of his people to be free of him. Yet, for the same reasons, we cannot simply cease the sanctions.
To give the children of Iraq a deservedly promising future, we must ensure that the nation’s tyrannical leader is replaced by a government that agrees with Al Taylor… at least about a driver’s responsibility to his passengers.
At the risk of trying the patience, or interest, of some, I offer one last (I promise) analysis on President Bush’s Inaugural Address. Today, the Providence Journal’s Philip Terzian succinctly encapsulated what Bush’s speech was all about. :
[Open full post]George W. Bush declared that “the great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations.” To some, he seemed to be conjuring up the Kennedy ghosts in a quest to liberate a fractious world. To others, he was parroting the boilerplate rhetoric of American idealism.
Which was it? It was both. It can hardly be news to say that the American republic regards itself as a beacon, a “shining city on a hill,” to inspire daughters and sons of liberty around the world. That has been our civic religion, with minor variations, from the time of John Winthrop to Thomas Jefferson to Theodore Roosevelt and onward. Kennedy, after all, said that the “long twilight struggle” would “not be finished in the first hundred days . . . nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”
The difference between 1961 and 2005, however, is experience. Bush’s objective in Afghanistan was to show that when tyranny takes the form of terrorism, it must be punished. In Iraq his intention, as I take it, is to demonstrate that freedom is naturally intrinsic, that tyranny can be attacked, and will be assaulted if it stands in the way of a larger objective — in this instance, a just settlement of the Arab-Israeli struggle.
In that sense, Bush is an advocate, not an evangelist, of freedom. He recognizes that the “long twilight struggle” against terrorism demands the toleration of imperfect regimes — Pakistan, Russia, China — and that exhorting the world to embrace freedom involves risk (Taiwan), as well as reward (Ukraine). The point is not that the United States can make impossible things happen, or will lead the charge in a dozen different places, but that American power means certain principles, as well as prosperity and military strength.
Apart from catharsis, the griping of the previous post raises a point worth considering. It’s important that individuals and groups are stepping forward across Rhode Island to spur the state in a better direction, and it’s great that we’re beginning (slowly) to find and work with each other. It’s also important for everybody from unknown bloggers to Edward Achorn of the Providence Journal to shine lights into the messy corners of the society in which we live. And it’s great that we’ve got at least one prominent figure, Mayor Laffey, stepping forward to prove that change is possible. Still, amid all these good trends, we have to make one task a priority.
We have to construct a positive vision of what Rhode Island will be like if others join us to effect change. Decreasing corruption is an appealing goal of itself, but we need a clear and easily accessible picture of what it will mean for the experience of the average citizen.
Even writing and thinking about culture and politics as often as I do, I’ve found that the vision of the future that inspires me comes in flashes of limited scenes. We’re early on in the process of change, of course, still assessing the damage and its proximate causes. Nonetheless, it behooves us to form a reasonably thorough concept — with time lines and milestones — of the future toward which we hope the painful steps ahead will lead.
Heading back from the post office, where I’d hoped to find waiting any of a handful of checks that I desperately need, I heard a caller to the Dan Yorke show who’s in a position with which I’ve some personal experience. The guy had just incurred $25,000 of debt so that his wife could acquire her teaching certification, and now she’s “paying her dues” as a substitute, waiting to get fully into the system. His emotional dilemma (although he sounded as if he’d made up his mind) was between his understanding that Rhode Island needs deep reform and his personal proximity to one of the state’s gushing arteries of wealth. Take the reasonable side… or get his wife “in there” first?
Well, odds are he’s going to have a long time to think about it, and I’m not referring to the slow rate of reform. The deal that teachers have in Rhode Island is so good and, frankly, the job can (as opposed to should) be done with such ease, when it’s become habitual, that job seekers far outnumber open positions. Oh, one hears predictions — and has for years — of a mass retirement/teacher shortage, but one also observes those many teachers hanging in there years beyond expectations.
During my wife’s experience subbing in Rhode Island, there were some among her peers who’d been waiting for nearly a decade for their “dues” to be paid. I suppose after that amount of time one becomes used to the telephone calls before dawn dictating the location of the day, and certainly by that time, the family has had to find a way to make up for the pitiful pay and cover the further costs in time and money to maintain the certification over the years. What’s awfully difficult to get used to, however, is the lottery of politics and nepotism, whereby one never knows whether a school system will fill openings from the sub pool, from the teachers’ and/or principal’s buddy lists, or from out of state.
The more time I spend scrambling to stay above water at the submerging end of Rhode Island — and I’ve been getting my shoulders wet for six years now — the more I appreciate how thorough of a governmental and cultural change is necessary. Look around, and you’ll discover deep problems that leave very little reason for optimism just about everywhere.
Take the trades. Noticing how much better my brothers-in-law have done with trades than I have with my degree, finding the opportunities for which my education prepares me to be scarce, and thinking it a healthy day-job balance to my various opinion and artistic endeavors, I’ve been looking to get into the apprentice process as either an electrician or a plumber. Financial circumstances, however, preclude my taking classes beforehand, so the only viable option is to take a job completely green.
In the past couple of weeks, I’ve called over a hundred companies, and meeting with some of each trade, I’ve found one response to be overwhelmingly common: Demand is so great that a journeyman will have absolutely no trouble finding work, and “experienced” apprentices will have little. But for the same reason, tradesmen are loath to slow themselves down training somebody new, and those willing to make the investment quickly reach their maximum. By Rhode Island law, you see, they can only have one apprentice per licensed tradesman.
Suppose I’m an entrepreneurial type who notices that nobody seems to be able to find a plumber for anything short of an emergency. To respond to that opportunity, I’d have to be an apprentice for at least four years, working an average of 2,000 hours per year and taking relevant classes for 144 hours per year before I could take the test to become a journeyman, paying various fees along the way. Then I’d have to work for a master plumber for another year before I could take the test to become a master myself. Finally able to start my own business, I could then hire one single apprentice to begin the process over again.
That may or may not seem reasonable; a bachelor’s degree generally takes four years, after all, and that may qualify the graduate for nothing more than an entry-level job. But two factors must be taken into account. The first is that the starting point and necessary education for the work that most college grads do are largely determined by the market. If a region has an extremely high demand for a particular service, college mightn’t even be necessary.
The second is more relevant to Rhode Island’s comparative environment. In Massachusetts, the apprentice requirement for plumbers is three years and only 100 hours of schooling during each one, with one more year and another 100 hours of classes before taking the master’s examination. From the individual’s perspective, that’s not a huge difference. But from the marketplace’s perspective, it is.
Starting everybody green, and assuming everybody passes the tests immediately, after 12 years, Rhode Island’s system will have turned one master plumber into four masters and four journeymen, able to take eight apprentices. The Massachusetts system? Double in every category. Not only will twice the customers receive service, but twice the unemployed people can step onto the career path. Moreover, the gap ripples outward into the economy in innumerable forms — from the cost of home renovations to the rates of pay for less-skilled jobs.
If you’re still reading this lengthy venting session, you’re probably wondering… well, you’re probably wondering why. What are the takeaway points? The first is that these little instances of additional security for people who are already established permeate Rhode Island society, and they represent a tremendous drag on the state as it moves toward the future; this is unjust to those starting out in the state, and it doesn’t bode well for quality of life trends for anybody. The second is that the willingness — the drive — to change must be so thorough as to encompass areas that most people not vested in the status quo don’t give any thought.
As I said, there is not much room for optimism.
The Family Institute of Connecticut notes an interesting development on the same-sex marriage front in that state:
Even Rep. Staples and the Courant are beginning to realize that Love Makes a Family is an extremist organization. But they should not be surprised by LMF’s position. It follows naturally from the group’s misreading of Connecticut public opinion on same-sex “marriage.” Pro same-sex “marriage” legislators and the Courant are aghast at LMF’s “all or nothing” push for same-sex “marriage” because they are slightly more tethered to reality. LMF, on the other hand, may really believe its own spin about the fictional “Planet Connecticut,” a land where an “enlightened” majority favors same-sex “marriage.”
If so, Connecticut’s pro same-sex “marriage” media establishment bears some of the blame. Today’s Courant piece, for instance, uncritically touts a UConn poll purporting to show that a majority of state residents favor civil unions and a plurality favors same-sex “marriage.”
LMF’s ardent persistence continues the lesson that the various rebel civil servants around the country imparted when they shrugged at the law and began handing out marriage licenses: the prudent and practical among same-sex marriage’s supporters aren’t really spokesmen for their cause. This applies to their ability to fairly negotiate (for lack of a more appropriate term) at each stage of the society-wide debate, and it applies to the amount that the other side ought to take them as representative.
[Open full post]Peggy Noonan has responded to those critical of her Inaugural critique. In short, she stands by her original thoughts and essentially believes that we Americans have enough on our plate now and don’t need to worry about larger goals at this time. This seems to contradict some of her earlier writings, though.
We cannot leave Iraq and should not leave Iraq. . . We have to stay, and we have to win. I define winning as the yielding up of, at the least, a relatively stable society unafflicted by governmental sadism and dictatorship, and, at the most, a stable society in a fledgling democracy that demonstrates, with time, that the forces of Arab moderation, tolerance and peacefulness can triumph. Such an outcome would give so much good to the world. What a brilliant beacon this Iraq could be, and what a setback to terrorists, who thrive in darkness.
I do not feel America is right to attempt to help spread democracy in the world because it is our way and therefore the right way. Nor do I think America should attempt to encourage it because we are Western and feel everyone should be Western. Not everyone should be Western, and not everything we do as a culture, a people or an international force is right.
Rather, we have a national-security obligation to foster democracy in the world because democracy tends to be the most peaceful form of government. Democracies tend to be slower than dictatorships to take up arms, to cross borders and attempt to subdue neighbors, to fight wars. They are on balance less likely to wreak violence upon the world because democracies are composed of voters many of whom are parents, especially mothers, who do not wish to see their sons go to war. Democracy is not only idealistic, it is practical.[emphasis mine]
In another piece, a eulogy to President Reagan, Ms. Noonan wrote of the ideals that guided the President as he guided America.
In his presidency he did this: He out-argued communism and refused to accept its claim of moral superiority; he rallied the West, rallied America and continued to make big gambles, including a defense-spending increase in a recession. He promised he’d place Pershings in Europe if the Soviets would not agree to arms reductions, and told Soviet leaders that they’d never be able to beat us in defense, that we’d spend them into the ground. They were suddenly reasonable.
Ronald Reagan told the truth to a world made weary by lies. He believed truth was the only platform on which a better future could be built. He shocked the world when he called the Soviet Union “evil,” because it was, and an “empire,” because it was that, too. He never stopped bringing his message to the people of the world, to Europe and China and in the end the Soviet Union. And when it was over, the Berlin Wall had been turned into a million concrete souvenirs, and Soviet communism had fallen. But of course it didn’t fall. It was pushed. By Mr. Know Nothing Cowboy Gunslinger Dimwit. All presidents should be so stupid.
Given her criticism of President Bush, one wonders if Ms. Noonan has forgotten the many “experts” who said that President Reagan was being unrealistic. In her aforementioned rebuttal, she attempted to reconcile her present view with the “overreaching” that was done by President Reagan. Her reasoning falls short as it seems to me to be an excercise in contradiction.
For a half century our country faced a terrible foe. Some feared conflagration. Many of us who did not were convinced it would not happen because the United States was not evil, and the Soviet Union was not crazy. The Soviets didn’t want war to achieve their ends, they wanted to achieve those ends without the expense and gamble of war. We rolled them back, bankrupted them, forced their collapse. And we did it in part through a change of policy in which Ronald Reagan declared: From here on in we tell the truth. He called the Soviet Union an evil empire because it was a) evil and b) an empire, and c) he judged a new and stark candor the way to begin progress. We’d already kissed Brezhnev; it didn’t work. And it wasn’t Reagan’s way in any case.
Today is quite different. The context is different. Now we are up against not an organized state monolith but dozens, hundreds and thousands of state and nonstate actors–nuts with nukes, freelance bioterrorists, Islamofascists, independent but allied terror groups. The temperature of our world is very high. We face trouble that is already here. We don’t have to summon more.
Healthy alliances are a coolant in this world. What this era demands is steely resolve, and actions that remove those who want things at a full boil. In this world we must speak, yes, but softly, and carry many sticks, using them, when we must, terribly and swiftly. We must gather around us as many friends, allies and well-wishers as possible. And we must do nothing that provides our foes with ammunition with which they can accuse us of conceit, immaturity or impetuousness.
In short, while she praised Reagan for telling the truth, she believes that now, given the changed “context,” we can only tell the truth so long as it doesn’t make anyone “accuse us of conceit, immaturity or impetuousness”? Given the persistently negative reaction to the President seen in Europe, I think this wish is one doomed to be unfulfilled. Ms. Noonan must accept that some countries continue to cling to the belief that the world is politically multi-polar. With this mindset, they view the U.S. as the biggest pole that needs to be balanced and will take steps, such as in the UN Security Council, to limit our actions in the hope of balancing our power. Platitudes would only quell the criticism temporarily.
As Ms. Noonan’s own writings, and history, have shown, the ideals expressed so effectively, and frequently, by President Reagan were key to ending communism. She is afraid that President Bush’s speech calling for the extension of freedom could call more trouble down upon us. Could it call any more than Reagan did? This comes close to blaming us for the (predicted) actions of others. Additionally, she clearly exhibits an old-school, “realist” school of foreign policy stance.
Here is an unhappy fact: Certain authoritarians and tyrants whose leadership is illegitimate and unjust have functioned in history as–ugly imagery coming–garbage-can lids on their societies. They keep freedom from entering, it is true. But when they are removed, the garbage–the freelance terrorists, the grievance merchants, the ethnic nationalists–pops out all over. Yes, freedom is good and to be strived for. But cleaning up the garbage is not pretty. And it sometimes leaves the neighborhood in an even bigger mess than it had been.
Yes, just as President Reagan’s actions did in Nicaragua, Grenada and El Salvador and his words inspired in the old Eastern Bloc. Regardless, Noonan forgets that the President spoke of how it would take generations of Americans to spread the freedom of which he spoke.
The comparisons between President Bush and President Reagan have been made before. One can’t help but think that Ms. Noonan recognized the similarities when she wrote of our current “gunslinger”:
George W. Bush has given our soldiers something to be proud of, something they can understand and respect. He is, now, after all he’s been through the past two years, Mr. Backbone. He has demonstrated to a seething and skeptical world that America can and will stand and fight for a cause, see it through, help the tormented and emerge victorious.
It is important who he is. George W. Bush is an American of the big and real America. He believes in it all–in the vision of the founders, in the meaning of freedom, in the founding and enduring ideas of our country. He believes in America’s historic insistence on humanity and not inhumanity in war, and he appears to have internalized the old saying that “one man with courage is a majority.”
I used to wonder if George W. Bush’s biography didn’t suggest a kind of reverse Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was born in low circumstances and rose with superior gifts. Mr. Bush was born in superior circumstances and rose with average gifts. And yet when you look at Mr. Bush now I think you have to admit–I think even clever people who talk loudly in restaurants have to admit–that he has shown himself not to be a man of average gifts. Backbone is not an average gift. Guts are not an average gift. The willingness to take pain and give pain to make progress in human life is not an average gift.
All in all these are amazing qualities in a political figure, and in a president. There’s a headline for you: America appears to have a president worthy of its people.
Cobble these excerpts together and I think we can see that, in the past, Ms. Noonan appreciated it when ideals were voiced. I don’t think that she has stopped believing in them, which is why I don’t understand why she was so critical of the President. Is is a case of “wrong place, wrong time”? Could she believe that the Inaugural Address was the wrong forum for the President to speak of higher ideals? Should Reagan have called to tear down the wall in Berlin when he did? Wasn’t that a case of asking for much more than was possible while risking the anger of both foes and allies as we took on more than the U.S. could “handle” at the time?
One thing about these excerpts does strike me, though: they were all contained within pieces written by Ms. Noonan prior to her taking a leave of absence to be a political consultant on the President’s campaign. Could it be that Ms. Noonan’s time in the belly of the political beast, where so much focus is put on practical and pragmatic political solutions, has inured her against the purpose of voicing the ideals of a nation? I don’t know. I do know that I appreciate Ms. Noonan’s political acumen and writing. I will continue to read her with pleasure, even though I think she has gotten carried away with literary deconstructionism. Remember, Ms. Noonan, most Americans aren’t literary critics. Instead, they want to believe that their country is a force for good in the world. The President reminded us that it is by using soaring rhetoric that spoke to the higher ideals of a nation. To paraphrase something that I previously wrote: The President made this speech to present the case for a cause, extending freedom, that is greater than the protection of our own nation’s self-interest. At the same time, he showed that our nation’s self-interest depended on pursuing that higher cause.
[Open full post]Austin Bay has offered perhaps the most pragmatic reason for heeding the President’s call to spread freedom. Bay writes :
[Open full post]Idealism, however, isn’t the sole spine of “the democracy strategy.” The strategy seeks to address a very concrete issue: technological compression. Technological compression is a fact of 21st century existence — and it is the superglue now bonding American foreign policy idealism (promoting democracy) and foreign policy pragmatism (survival via realpolitik).
An article of mine in The Weekly Standard’s Jan. 3, 2005, issue frames it this way: “Technology has compressed the planet, with positive effects in communication, trade and transportation; with horrifyingly negative effects in weaponry. Decades ago, radio, phone cables on the seabed, long-range aircraft and then nuclear weapons shrunk the oceans. Sept. 11 demonstrated that religious killers could turn domestic jumbo jets into strategic bombers — and the oceans were no obstacles. ‘Technological compression’ is a fact; it cannot be reversed. To deny it or ignore it has deadly consequences.”
Translation: There is no “over there.” Everybody lives next door. All local gossip can become international rumor in an instant. With weapons of mass destruction in the mix — particularly if biological or nuclear weapons are employed — a tribal war in Saudi Arabia or a border firefight in Asia can rapidly escalate to global disaster. . .
Sept. 11 demonstrated that we cannot tolerate the wicked linkage of terrorists, rogue states and weapons of mass destruction. Terrorists plus rogue states plus weapons of mass destruction: That’s the formula for hell in the 21st century. Rogue states are inevitably undemocratic, authoritarian states — typically secular or religious tyrannies.
Given modern technology and the role tyrannical states play in facilitating or exporting terror, a democratic offensive against tyranny is realpolitik. The explicit American goal is to advance free states where the consent of the governed creates legitimacy and where terrorists are prosecuted, not promoted. (via Instapundit)
In an interview yesterday, Senator Jack Reed managed to offer a backhanded compliment to the Bush Administration while setting up and knocking down a straw man.
Reed called a recent Pentagon pledge of a long-term military presence in Iraq “helpful prudence.” And he deemed it a welcome change from Bush administration skimping on Army troop strength in Iraq and its “disingenuousness” about the cost of the war.
Reed warned against any steps to withdraw or “phase out” the U.S. military force in Iraq and pledged legislative efforts this year to increase the size of the Army by at least 30,000 troops. He spoke in a telephone conference with reporters.
The first paragraph holds the “compliment,” the last is the straw man. In emulation of Senator Reed, let me be the first to warn against legalizing the killing of civilians in Iraq, OK? The point is, I don’t believe that the Bush Administration has signaled that they plan on “phasing out” of Iraq any time soon. This was essentially confirmed by Reed himself.
Reed specifically applauded this week’s renewed expression of the U.S. commitment by Lt. Gen. James J. Lovelace. Lovelace, the director of Army operations, said leaders assume that troop strength in Iraq will hold at the current level of 120,000 for at least two more years.
Thus, Reed has clearly warned against something that he knows isn’t going to happen.
Given that, I do agree with Reed that more troops are needed. As one who believes in the President’s call for the global spread of freedom, I also believe that more ground combat troops will be needed to help secure that freedom. We need more boots added to the pool of troops that can be rotated in and out of Iraq and other hot spots.
He also said the United States expects to continue to rotate active-duty soldiers through yearlong stints in Iraq and to try to tap reserve forces more.
“You’re going to need more soldiers” to maintain that pace, Reed said, particularly since the strain of the Iraq deployment is beginning to show in weaker recruitment and retention rates in the National Guard and Army reserves.
Reed noted that the Army’s wartime “operational tempo” depends on keeping large numbers of Guard and reserve troops on active duty. Because those soldiers tend to be older and more committed to family and career than active-duty Army, they have become the first to decide in significant numbers against reenlisting, he said.
“The heart and the core” of the Guard and reserves — young captains and senior enlisted personnel — are beginning to say, “I can’t be called back again in six months or a year” because of the wear and tear on jobs and families, Reed said.
Largely to relieve the strain on these reserves, Reed and Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., sponsored legislation last year that expanded the Army by 50,000 troops. Reed said they will try this year to add another 30,000 troops to the currently authorized active-duty force of 502,000.
This last is a good move as I believe we need more active duty soldiers to carry the load. The Guard and Reserves have gone above and beyond anything we could have imagined. There is a history of using the National Guard in foreign wars.
In 1903, important national defense legislation increased the role of the National Guard (as the militia was now called) as a Reserve force for the U.S. Army. In World War I, which the U.S. entered in 1917, the National Guard made up 40% of the U.S. combat divisions in France; in World War II, National Guard units were among the first to deploy overseas and the first to fight.
Following World War II, National Guard aviation units, some of them dating back to World War I, became the Air National Guard, the nation’s newest Reserve component. The Guard stood on the frontiers of freedom during the Cold War, sending soldiers and airmen to fight in Korea and to reinforce NATO during the Berlin crisis of 1961-1962. During the Vietnam war, almost 23,000 Army and Air Guardsmen were called up for a year of active duty; some 8,700 were deployed to Vietnam. Over 75,000 Army and Air Guardsmen were called upon to help bring a swift end to Desert Storm in 1991.
What is different now, to my knowledge, is the nature and duration of deployment that the members of the Guard and Reserves are experiencing.
A recent memorandum from Lt. General James Helmy to the US Army Chief of Staff, written on December 20th 2004, regarding US Army Reserve troop readiness has revealed the depths of the problems experienced by the Reserves and National Guard. (PDF) I urge all to read it. It is a sobering assessment, but hopefully it will provide an impetus for reform. Some of the burden of the Reserves and Guard will be alleviated by the expansion of the regular Army by adding 30,000 more troops.
In war, there are always mistakes. The important thing is to learn from them and make the appropriate adjustments in strategy, tactics and policy. Hopefully, the experiences of how the Guard and Reserves have been handled thus far in the Iraq War and the broader War on Terror will lead to a better understanding of what we can expect from, and what we owe to, our citizen soldiers. Yes, these people “signed up” for this and they are obligated to serve. But their superiors, both in the military and in the Administration and Congress, are obligated see to it that our soldiers, marines, and sailors are treated fairly.
In these times of heated partisanship that bleeds over into nearly all policy debates, it is difficult to remove our ideological blinders and try to look objectively at an issue. This is especially true if we may find ourselves agreeing with those with whom we usually disagree. At times, it has appeared to me as if Senator Reed has used problems in the War in Iraq for partisan gain, especially during the recent Presidential campaign. In contrast, General Helmy has consistently exhibited a genuine concern for those under his command and has been championing reform. However, regardless of past perceptions I may have had, in this specific case, I believe both General Helmy and Senator Reed are doing their part to look out for the men and women in our military. For that I commend them.
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