Geopolitical tensions

 

Current American foreign policy settings are arguably at the root of our most serious and urgent geopolitical problems. Under the influence of advisors committed to extreme forms of neoconservatism, aspects of policy have become disconnected from reality, even delusional.

In fact, the Cold War period was sane by comparison. Sure, it was a dangerous time but U.S. policies were hard-headed and sometimes intelligent. And, crucially, they were not completely out of kilter with underlying economic realities.

Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the U.S. and its allies have pursued policies based on what I see as very problematic assumptions (regarding American exceptionalism, for example). These policies often involved regime change and the attempt to establish Western-style democracies in places lacking the cultural prerequisites for such systems to establish themselves.

Unfortunately, past failures are not being fully acknowledged and there are few indications that any serious reassessment of current policy settings is in train. Nor is there sufficient recognition of the irrevocable nature of various changes that have occurred on the geo-economic front.

As I have previously noted, the relative size of the U.S. economy with respect to the rest of the world has declined significantly over the last sixty years. Throw in other factors – like sovereign debt levels and financial and monetary issues – and it becomes clear that the prospects for a continuation of U.S. global hegemony are slim to non-existant.

Fading powers are always particularly dangerous. They see their military dominance as being eroded or as being under threat (ultimately for economic reasons). Time is not on their side, so they are motivated to provoke wars, to fight sooner rather than later in an attempt to turn the tide.

Is this not exactly what we are seeing now in Eastern Europe and the East China Sea? There are irresponsible actors on all sides, I don’t deny it. But America and its closest allies now pose the greatest danger in my opinion.

As individuals our primary duty in respect of these matters is, as I see it, simply not to fall for or contribute to unnecessarily divisive ideas. Ideally we will also assess and either embrace or try to change our own governments’ policies.

I am not interested in demonizing or assigning blame but rather in identifying – and, where possible, promoting – Western policies which will manage in a responsible way the fault lines of a world which is armed to the teeth with increasingly sophisticated weapons.

Military conflicts are occurring and will continue to occur. Foreign policy settings may encourage or discourage such conflicts. But, whatever the situation, whatever specific goals are being pursued, the overriding goal for policy-makers should always be to minimize the chances of conflict between major powers.

And outsiders attempting to engineer regime change in Russia or China in pursuit of a geopolitical strategy based on notions of American exceptionalism is clearly not the way to go.

The curious persistence of Cold War thinking

Great powers in decline are often more dangerous than rising powers. The leaders of such countries (today's United States?) may be tempted to take drastic action in an attempt to stem perceived decline and restore the status quo ante or simply to distract from domestic problems.

In the latest episode of my podcast, I argue that, although changes in the geopolitical landscape have taken us well beyond the relatively clear ideological dichotomies of the Cold War era, new and dangerous forms of neoconservatism have arisen which are influencing foreign policy and media reporting and perpetuating the myth of American exceptionalism.

This episode runs for about 13 minutes.

Cold War reflections

Here is the text of my latest post in Social and Political Reflections.

Because of renewed tensions between the US and Russia, people talk about a new Cold War, but the current situation is entirely different from the situation which pertained for forty years or so after World War 2, culturally as well as in terms of the geopolitical strategic balance.

The Cold War was clearly a very dangerous time in terms of the risk of a massive nuclear war. But in some other ways maybe it wasn't so bad – compared, that is, to now. It was certainly a more ordered and culturally sophisticated time, quite different from our own.

John le Carré worked for both MI5 and MI6 (i.e. the British Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service), and his early novels draw heavily on these personal experiences. The tone of the books is dark, but not overwhelmingly so. They depict a shadowy, brutal and morally ambiguous secret world but always against the backdrop of ordinary life, and specifically of the strangely reassuring middle-class world of post-War England and Germany.

A link is provided to an old blog post of mine which was prompted by my reading The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

The meaning of life

Having a cause to stand for or to fight for can give meaning to life. As well as meaning and purpose, a cause can also confer on its upholders a sense of psychological security, a sense that one knows things that others are unaware of, that one is committed to something important which the mass of humanity does not recognize as such (or at least does not actively support). There is a danger of smugness, arrogance and complacency here, but such pitfalls can be avoided.

A cause also gives one allies and adversaries – even, in some cases, a sense of excitement and adventure. Think of communists (and fellow travellers) in Western countries during the Cold War. Just the right amount of secrecy and excitement, and no real danger to life and limb. (Professional agents on both sides did, of course, face great dangers. But then they were paid for it.)

The onetime MI6 (Secret Intelligence Service) agent David John Moore Cornwell (writing as John le Carré) depicted that world as one in which the moral and political issues were dark, complex and ambiguous, but his great creation, George Smiley, managed nonetheless to retain a simple sincerity and goodness.

In The spy who came in from the cold (1963), Smiley makes only a brief appearance as a colleague of the main character, Eric Leamas. Leamas also stands for certain moral values. There is a passage in which Leamas, waiting for an important and fateful meeting on the Dutch coast, thinks about a girl called Liz (a member of the Communist Party in Britain and so technically opposed to Leamas's cause) who had recently looked after him when he became ill in a rented room in London.


... At about eleven o'clock the next morning he decided to go out for a walk along the front, bought some cigarettes and stared dully at the sea.

There was a girl standing on the beach throwing bread to the seagulls. Her back was turned to him. The sea wind played with her long black hair and pulled at her coat, making an arc of her body, like a bow strung towards the sea. He knew then what it was that Liz had given him; the thing that he would have to go back and find if ever he got home to England: it was the caring about little things - the faith in ordinary life; the simplicity that made you break up a bit of bread into a paper bag, walk down to the beach and throw it to the gulls. It was this respect for triviality which he had never been allowed to possess; whether it was bread for the seagulls or love, whatever it was he would go back and find it ...


Le Carré seems to be suggesting that the real meaning of life is not to be found in causes and grand designs but in the mundane, apparently pointless details of ordinary life. It is tempting to go along with this line of thinking, but perhaps it is just a bit too facile.

The dichotomy between activism and quietism, between cause- or ideology-driven behaviour and the still passivity of just being, does not in fact demand an evaluative choice – activism bad, quietism good, or whatever. It is not a question of either/or but of both/and.

As we shuttle between conviction and doubt, activity and stillness, sickness and health, a sense of meaning and well-being just bubbles up from time to time.