Robert Kagan has an excellent (if long) analysis of what he terms the "crisis of legitimacy" regarding the use of military power in the world today.
Kagan is the author of various works on geopolitics, including the excellent (short!) book Of Paradise And Power, which is the most insightful analysis of the current disconnect between the U.S. and Europe regarding the use of military force. He wrote it in the run-up to the Iraq War, and it sheds a lot of light on what was behind French, German, and similar European thinking.
It is also useful to help understand what European ecclesiastics were (and are) thinking on the subject. At the risk of oversimplifying, his basis thesis there is that the Euros have had it good for the last sixty years. American power helped stabilize Western Europe and keep it stable after World War II and allowed Europeans to neglect their defense interests. As a result, the Western Europeans have been living in an artificial paradise (historically speaking) created and sustained by American power. Now they have developed the idea that everything can be achieved through dialogue and process rather than through the use of force. After all, they’re living in a paradise (judged in historical terms by the absence of wars between their nations). They haven’t needed to use force for anything. Why should anyone else? Dialogue will do everything that needs to be done.
They’re also scared of the use of military force because they have so little themselves. The only power they have to influence world affairs today is through dialogue, not through military power. Therefore, they’re going to accentuate the former at the expense of the latter.
In his new online piece "The Crisis of Legitimacy," Kagan carries this last thought further. He explores the sudden change of standards Europeans have proposed (or imposed) on the legitimate exercise of military force in the last couple of years. It has only been just now that Europeans have proposed all of a sudden that one needs the approval of a corrupt and dysfunctional body like the U.N. before a nation can take actions it perceives as necessary to its self defense.
The Europeans who opposed the Iraq War on these grounds themselves have not applied this test to their own uses of force, but they want to apply it to us. And, Kagan argues, the reason isn’t hard to see. They don’t really believe that legitimacy is conferred upon the use of force by getting a consensus of nations to sign off on it. The real motive is baser: France and Germany want their blessing to be required for wars to be legitimate. The U.N.-confers-legitimacy argument is just a temporarily expedient smokescreen being used to try to preserve what influence on world affairs France and Germany still have or think they ought to still have.
Once the mask is taken from this duplicity, the natural American instinct is to dismiss the whole claim. But Kagan argues that we can’t totally ignore the issue of legitimacy in world opinion. The reason isn’t that we don’t have the power needed to ignore it. The reason, instead, is that we don’t have the internal political will to ignore it forever. And so he argues that a balance of sorts needs to be sought.
While I agree with the assumptions and conclusions in Kagan’s book that you have summarized, I wonder if there is an additional factor in Europe’s reluctance to use force. Could it be that after two wars that destroyed so many lives and is still felt today European leaders are terrified of mass culture and the rise of another Hitler? This would also explain the degree to which Nicolas Sarkozy would go to appease and integrate Muslims into French society: to build mosques in “les grandes villes” of France with State funds, and repeal the separation of church and state law of 1905.
Mr. Wald: As a matter of fact, in the same lecture series, Francis Fukuyama gave a speech that might answer (part of) your question. His hypothesis is that the experience of totalitarianism in their midst pushed Western Europe to embrace the values it holds now. You can find the piece here: http://www.cis.org.au/Events/JBL/JBL02.htm
Wait, doesn’t the Pope hold to the “U.N.-confers-legitimacy argument”?
It’s hard to say. People around him certainly talk this way, and he appears to think that endorsement by the U.N. has a positive correlation with the legitimacy of an action, but whether it is always and in every circumstance *required* for legitimacy is another matter. So he probably has instincts that favor U.N. approval in such matters, but one should not assume he would adopt an unqualified position on the matter just based on the “vibe” the Vatican folks send out.
A case in point was the Iraq War. He pope studiously avoided saying it was unjust while sending off strong vibes that he didn’t want it to happen. But people in the media took it the step further and convinced people that the pope had said the war was unjust, when in fact he had not.
If the pope did hold a strong version of the U.N. thesis it would amount to his personal opinion, not a teaching of the faith. The most it could involve would be a matter of pastoral prudence contingently based on teacings of faith, but it hasn’t been kicked up to that level yet.
Remember: This strong version of the U.N. legitimacy position is something that has only been talked up in the last two years, specifically to try to get America not to pursue the Iraq War. Before that, as Kagan points out, Europeans were quite prepared to act in a way that did not presuppose a U.N. mandate. In fact, they were willing to prosecute wars on their own continent (as in the 1990s) that would be illegal under the U.N. charter. They came up with the strong version of the U.N. argument to try to restrain the U.S.
I think Americans need to stop thinking that there is necessarily a rational reason for why Europe thinks the way it does.
The only reason why Europe can sustain its exhorbitant social expenses is because the U.S. allows them spend little in defensel IOW, European social costs are financed by U.S. defense dollars. I say we take most our forces out there and just leave a small, mobile force and a logistical infrastructure. Let the Europeans pay for their own defense. Bring our troops home.
I remember during the campaing that John Kerry commented many European leaders were not happy at Bush’s prospect to do just that. I’ll bet they were unhappy. Such a move will finish up Europe’s decrepit piggy bank.
In a european point of view, this war was simply just a fraud !
First we still wait for the massiv destruction weapons.
Second, we still haven’t a single evidence that Saddam Hussein and Bin laden were linked .
On these grounds, G.W.Bush (who in another way I like very much) sent troops to Irak.
Of course S.Hussein wasn’t an angel. But Many other countries in the words are governed by tyrans and US don’t send troops there.
The fact is that europeans supect Bush to have gone in Irak for … petrol.
And a war made for a material economic gain (we have seen that Bush reasons for it were false)can’t be called a just war !
And now, the result is a higher level ofhatred among muslim against Western countries. And a lot of tools available for their propaganda.
Can USA win this war ?
What did I say?
😉
Yes, these are standard liberal talking points. We hear them from folks over here, too. To respond to them one by one:
1) The presence of WMDs is unclear and depends, in part, on how you define what a WMD is. However, *everybody* in Europe and America (i.e., all our intelligence services) prior to the war agreed that Saddam had them. You have to go to war based on the best intelligence you have at the time, not what is later found or not found. Thus this point does NOTHING AT ALL to argue that the war is a “fraud” (to the extent a war can can be called a fraud).
2) The idea that Saddam and bin Laden were linked is (a) not remotely far-fetched and (b) not the reason we went to war. It is therefore a RED HERRING that does nothing to show the war “a fraud.”
3) Yes, it is true that other countries have dictators who–like Saddam–are not only “not angels” but who are in fact horrendously brutal dictators. It also is true we haven’t knocked them over, at least to this point. But the fact that you can’t end all oppression everywhere is NO ARGUMENT WHATSOEVER that you shouldn’t seek to end oppression where you can, and in the case of Iraq there was a unique set of circumstances that favored its ending. Further, the ending of oppression in Iraq was not the reason we went to war. Ending a perceived threat to the security of the U.S. was the reason.
4) The fact that many Europeans think that Bush sent troops to Iraq for oil (or, as you put it, petrol) shows the great extent to which Europeans are SWEEPINGLY OUT-OF-TOUCH with why America does what it does. I blame it on your media. If the U.S. wanted Iraqi oil to start flowing full force again, we could have simply dropped our opposition to the U.N.-imposed sanctions that kept its flow severely restricted. It was, rather, corrupt nation-states like *France* (exploiting the oil-for-food program) for whom oil was of greater significance in Iraq.
Further, the idea that a war for “materialistic economic gain” can’t be called a just war reveals a lack of appreciation for (a) what many wars of history have been fought over (including self-defense wars, which may be fought to preserve access to assets that others wish to take for themselves) and (b) ignores the fact that economic assets are not inalienable goods to which others have right but which, in desperate circumstances, are things which may legitimately be expropriated without the consent of those who currently possess them, per the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In a sufficiently desperate circumstance (e.g., a starving nation on the one hand vs. a tiny foreign cabal in control of a food supply) the use of lethal force might be warranted.
However, since exconomic reasons are not the ones behind the war, this has NOTHING TO DO with the case at hand.
5) The “this will just inflame Muslim passions” argument is a standard canard that I will be blogging about soon. Stay tuned.
Can we win this war?
You bet.
– “The fact that many Europeans think that Bush sent troops to Iraq for oil (or, as you put it, petrol) shows the great extent to which Europeans are SWEEPINGLY OUT-OF-TOUCH with why America does what it does. ”
The problem is that many things we know are given to our knowledge by the medias.
The second problem : are yours the “good” or are “ours” the good ? I’m not trying to have the last word but it’s a real problem. For most of us (either American or european)they are our eyes all around the word.
That’s a terrible point, because another thing is true : a distance have been taken in many places between europeans and americans. I hope this will be “healed” as soon as possible.
– “I blame it on your media. ”
Indeed, our media aren’t pro-Bush, that’s clear (they were clearly supporting Kerry and were very disappointed when Bush won…). Here they just see Bush through the “war for oil”. And in France (perhaps in other countries too), they think Bush is evil for other points : he isn’t a pro-choice man, he is openly christian , he isn’t for homosexual union. These are mortal (republican) sins…. !
– By an economic war, I hadn’t in mind an economic war for good reasons of course… The exemples you gave are quite good .
– “The “this will just inflame Muslim passions” argument is a standard canard that I will be blogging about soon. ”
I’ll wait for this with great impatience. I generally love your analyses, and I confess I’m rather pessimistic on that. But I enjoy to see signs of hope !
– “Can we win this war? You bet.” Of course not. That’s too serious. But I hope so.
And pray.
Oups, the last post was from me …
Thanks for the sentiments, Spock. The post on no unlimited enemies will be up around 8-9 p.m. your time.
Incidentally, I think we may have had a miscommunication. I wasn’t suggesting that you literally bet on the outcome of the war. “You bet” is an English idiom that means “Yes, definitely!” Sorry for any confusion.
The second problem : are yours the “good” or are “ours” the good
Um…let’s see…um…well…um…none of the above?
Speaking of the media, I hear that the ban on Fox News here in Canada will be coming down on 2005. Maybe I’ll get a chance to see what all the hubbub is about if my cable company picks it up.
Why did Canada ban Fox News?
SteveL
The American mainstream media is bad, but probably not as bad as the European press. At least here we have the alternative media (including Fox News, talk radio, and the blogosphere) to keep it in check and provide an alternative viewpoint. I suspect that the European press doesn’t have as much diversity of viewpoint, though I don’t know. (The British press seems to be consumed by liberal outlets like the BBC and simply crazy tabloid outlets.) Perhaps Spock can give us some more insight?
I suspect that you’d like Fox News, Billy. It lives up to its slogan of being “fair and balanced” far better than the liberal MSM sources. And, despite what the latter say, it is not monolithically conservative. It has numerous liberal voices. It just seems conservative by comparison to the MSM due to actually *having* conservative commentators.
I a way, french medias have diversity to a certain extend : we still have a communist coverage of the news (with l'”humanité”) and we of course have all the different sensiblities from this extreme left media to right one.
However, even in the right medias, liberal tendencies isn’t very popular; and to my mind most of our medias are “left” sympathisers (that’s why Bush isn’t their “tasse de thé”.)
Concerning the present war, there is a global unanimity in rejecting it. Seldom a voice of a philosopher or a journalist have a different point of view. They’re anecdotic.
In moral matter, there’s a “beautiful” unanimity too : In France for exemple, no debate on abortion because either you are pro abortion, or you’re just Evil. And as Evil is Bad, we don’t discuss with Evil !
And nowdays, there is a strong attack to legalise Euthanasia, big propaganda for homosexuality, …
To summarise, exept on these subjects, you can find diversity… .
However, *everybody* in Europe and America (i.e., all our intelligence services) prior to the war agreed that Saddam had them.
Except the people who were actually looking for them (the weapons inspectors). Furthermore, this is a red herring since Iraq is a sovereign State and has as much right to WMDs as any other State.
The idea that Saddam and bin Laden were linked is (a) not remotely far-fetched and (b) not the reason we went to war.
It is far-fetched (they were known to dislike each other and it is hard to imagine why a hard-core Wahhabist would hook up with a hard-core secularist like Hussein) and it was posited as one of the reasons we went to war. The mantra was that Hussein had WMDs and could sell them to terrorists. Then the Iraq/al-Qaeda “link” was presented as evidence of his willingness to work with terrorists.
If the U.S. wanted Iraqi oil to start flowing full force again, we could have simply dropped our opposition to the U.N.-imposed sanctions that kept its flow severely restricted.
But that wasn’t the only issue about oil. The real issue was control of oil, not getting oil flowing full-force again. If the sanctions were dropped then Iraq could sell its oil to whomever it liked.
ignores the fact that economic assets are not inalienable goods to which others have right but which, in desperate circumstances, are things which may legitimately be expropriated without the consent of those who currently possess them, per the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In a sufficiently desperate circumstance (e.g., a starving nation on the one hand vs. a tiny foreign cabal in control of a food supply) the use of lethal force might be warranted.
This is just obfuscation since this is manifestly not the case in the Iraq War. Indeed, if your interpretation of the Catechism is correct (and I’m not sure that it is, since as far as I know the Church’s teaching on when the Seventh Commandment does not apply is limited to individuals in desperate circumstances and not corporate actors), then one might argue that Iraq did indeed have the right to use lethal force against the U.S., since it was at the behest of the U.S. that the crippling sanctions on Iraq continued.
Sadam was a mass murderer. Therefore he must be stopped. No one else was going to do it and it was about time we did. The same should hold for other mass murderers.
“Furthermore, this is a red herring since Iraq is a sovereign State and has as much right to WMDs as any other State.”
Except for the fact of Iraq being a defeated aggressor who agreed to destroy (and document the destruction of) all such weapons as part of the cease-fire in the 1991 Gulf War.
For me, that’s always been one of the strongest but least made arguments for the war–we have a belligerent in flagrant and repeated violation of what were essentially the terms of surrender.
Except for the fact of Iraq being a defeated aggressor who agreed to destroy (and document the destruction of) all such weapons as part of the cease-fire in the 1991 Gulf War.
Iraq had no choice but to agree to those terms. However, since the State has a right to self-defense, as far as I’m concerned the cease-fire agreement was null and void.
But all this is strictly academic, since the weapons were destroyed and their destruction documented.
Why did Canada ban Fox News?
We have a “non-political” (*pause as Billy rolls on the floor laughing at his own words for two minutes, then getting up and regaining his composure, he continues*) governmental body called the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) that controls what can and cannot be broadcast on the airwaves (radio, TV, cable, satellite, other) here in Soviet Canuckistan. They have a mandate to do things like ensure that a certain percentage of broadcasts are French-language and a certain percentage are Canadian-produced in order to protect our fragile Bilingual Multicultural Great Socialist Society of Enlightened Secularists® from the Dirty American Cultural Imperialistsâ„¢.
Of course in reality the rules are bent for some but not for others and the CRTC is essentially an instrument for advancing the Liberal Agendaâ„¢.
So essentially it’s difficult for conservative channels to get approval but easy for liberal ones. Of course, they don’t say so and come up with a myriad of excuses to keep things like Fox News and EWTN censored.
For example, a few years ago they refused EWTN to broadcast “because it didn’t have enough “Canadian content”” but on the very same day they approved the Playboy Channel. Thankfully last year they reversed the decision, but they still got their delay, which is still a win for the liberal agenda.
They recently approved Al-Jazeera because they “are not in the business of censorship of diverse viewpoints” and but refused that “right-wing fascist” Sylvio Berlusconi’s channel RAI simply because he’s “right-wing”. Luckily, there will be a “stern, watchful eye” on Al-Jazeera to make sure that they don’t repeat past calls for genocide against the Jewish people. The CRTC will keep us safe :).
Similarly Fox News was not allowed here for many years because the unwashed Canadian masses were “grateful, appreciative and satisfied that our Liberal Masters at the CRTC graciously permitted us the privilege of watching American cable news networks CNN and Headline News and MSNBC”. Since we already had so many news networks “there was no need to have a redundant Fox News”, you see. 🙂
Of course in reality the Liberal Intelligentsia here, which controls precisely 100% of the Canadian media thinks Fox News is a fascist propaganda beacon and right arm of the Bush Administration which conspired with the “president” to bang the war drums loud enough to stir up those racist, red-necked, bible-thumping, fundamentalist Americans into a bloodthirsty warmongering frenzy in order to advance Dick Cheney’s ambition to control all the world’s oil supplies for the purpose of destroying planet earth in a global warming inferno with the resultant CO2 emissions.
These people think CNN is “ultra-right wing”.
Anyways, so the ban on Fox News is coming down in 2005, which means the satellite and cable companies can pick it up if they want it. They might not. Hopefully they do so I can see what all the fuss is about. I already love that it exists because I know it drives liberals crazy…and I find that amusing :).
Thanks BillyHW! Now I get it!
SteveL
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