It's a Wonderful Country: Robert Kagan's "The World America Made"

Robert Kagan's The World America Made (Alfred A. Knopf, 2012) is an extended essay on the role of the United States in the current global order. Kagan identifies political and economic freedom combined with military strength as the foundation of the enduring American power that has encouraged the current historical "wave" towards democracy, and argues the unique nature of this power has played a pivotal role in recent history.

While this analysis may not seem earth-shattering, what makes The World America Made compelling is Kagan's engagement with the current hypothesis that U.S. power is in decline, perhaps inevitably and perhaps desirably. Rather than delivering a rah-rah, red-meat defense of America the Good, Kagan discusses the many inconsistencies, hesitancies and set-backs that have beset the "American century," and recognizes the imperfections inherent in any human endeavor. But in the end, Kagan concludes that the international move towards a more liberal order is ultimately dependent on America's actions.

The World America Made is roughly divided into an introduction, three main sections, and a conclusion. The introduction suggests that America has played a role rather like George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life--a reluctant hero who does not understand his own strength, and can only comprehend it through an exercise in counter-factual history. The first section deals with the historical tension between American interventionism and isolationism, the middle of the book turns to the importance of a "liberal economic order," which, Kagan argues, is like political freedom hardly a pre-ordained inevitability, and the last third addresses "next steps." Within this framework, the book deals with the salutary increase in political freedom around the globe; as Kagan points out, there has been a ten-fold rise in free governments from 12 to 100+ over the last 70 years. While his praise for Jimmy Carter's human rights agenda might be debated, Kagan's insistence on the spread of democracy as a necessity for improving the greater good, even when it is difficult, is welcome. Conventional wisdom holds that "progress" towards a more liberal political and economic order is an inevitable evolution, but one of Kagan's contributions in this book is to point out the fallacy of the evolutionary model, and the importance of human initiative and action to bring this end to pass.

Throughout The World America Made, Kagan grapples with the exercise of U.S. military power, which is a thorny issue to say the least. We generally understand the United States to be something of a military bully, but as Kagan argues, no nation in history has been so unconstrained in its exercise of power; indeed, the U.S. has been broadly supported in its military activities around the globe. Kagan argues this power has been a force for peace, noting that the "unusual combination of vast power and remarkable global acceptance of that power is the main factor that has deterred great-power war" since WWII. (pg. 65) It seems a reasonable conclusion that this deterrence has been worth the investment.

In the end, Kagan returns to his movie analogy, noting that while our world, like George Bailey's town, would have been far worse off without the United States, a happy ending is not pre-ordained. Americans can still choose, or be persuaded into, decline--and the results as Kagan discusses throughout the book may not be pretty. Assertions that international organizations are better equipped to deal with global problems, and that other nations will automatically preserve and expand the political, economic and security priorities established by the United States, are hardly borne out by history. "In short," as Kagan concludes, "it may be more than good fortune that has allowed the United States in the past to come through crises and emerge stronger and healthier than other nations while its various competitors have faltered. And it may be more than just wishful thinking to believe it may do so again." (pg. 133)

While Kagan's arguments can on occasion become a little too insistent on even-handedness (for example, the suggestion that other democracies such as Germany and Japan might have fueled a similar golden age in the 1970s and 80s, as Kagan does on page 29, are somewhat specious given that those democracies would not have existed with out the U.S. and it seems a stretch to celebrate communist China for fueling global prosperity given that country's abhorrence for the free market, as Kagan does on page 43), he deserves praise for the broad historical and international scope of this book. There are echoes throughout of the introduction to Donald Kagan's (the author's father) 1991 Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy, which was written in the context of the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Robert Kagan can now view these events with the benefit of historical perspective, which he brings effectively to his discussion of our collective "historical fallacy" in assuming American power was much greater in the past and therefore lessened today. He points out the many setbacks and indeed disasters that have beset us since WWII, notably Watergate and Vietnam in conjunction with the economic downturn of the 1970s, which in many ways dwarf our current troubles. It may be for another generation to bring a clear eye to the challenges we face, from the rise of China to the Arab Spring to our fiscal crisis, but as Kagan points out, accepting pre-emptive defeat would be a great disservice to ourselves, and to the global community.

The World America Made is an engaging and provocative book that makes an important contribution to our currently anemic intellectual public square. Particularly in this election year when we will make important decisions about the future economic and military policies that will shape coming decades, it deserves a careful read.

Is Hong Kong Becoming A "Real Headache" for Beijing?

Like Beijing, Hong Kong faces a "leadership transition" this year. In the 15 years since control of the island passed from Great Britain to China, successive rulers have been chosen by a committee of officials--and while large for a committee (1,200 people), this body is only a fraction of Hong Kong's 7.1 million inhabitants, who have no voice in their government.

But that may be changing. The anointed candidate, Donald Tang, is embroiled in a political scandal that can only be called epic, a sort of caricature of the party boss involving blatant infidelities and a secret, luxury underground bunker with wine cellar and health spa--as well as high-end junkets courtesy of Hong Kong's business community, eager to curry favor with the ostensible heir-apparent. But Mr. Tang's corruption and flagrant disregard for the rules that control the lives of the vast majority has finally proven too much even for this authoritarian political structure, and the people of Hong Kong are demanding he step down and an alternate candidate be put forward.

All this might be a tempest in a tea pot, if the People's Republic of China were not also facing a "transition" of its own. America got its first look at Xi Jinping, the Chinese Vice President and heir apparent to Hu Jintao, last week. The unassuming Xi does not appear to have the endemic vices of Tang, but the fact is that he is slated to be the leader of 1.3 billion people--and they, too, have had no say in the matter. Most Americans, including the Obama administration, seem to accept this state of affairs as inevitable, even though it contributes to the strained economic and diplomatic relationship between the US and the PRC.

Suddenly, Hong Kong is turning into a "real headache" for Beijing: instead of the orderly passing of power in Hong Kong in March that would neatly presage the larger events scheduled for later this year, there is the threat of instability.

Nothing could be more dangerous to the PRC than a successful demand for a free system of government where leaders are elected, not transitioned, into office. And unlike the provincial protests in China that rarely make it into the western media, Hong Kong is a much more high-profile case. The inclination of the PRC will be to impose Tang on Hong Kong and respond swiftly and harshly to dissent, but the publicity this might attract would hardly be in keeping with Xi’s carefully groomed image as a western-friendly leader with ties to Iowa and a weakness for the NBA. On the other hand, giving into the demands for increased accountability from the government to the people could result in considerable unpleasantness in the north, if the Chinese people decide to take notice. The situation in Hong Kong could turn out to be something far more serious than a headache for the Communist party bosses--which might in turn present an opportunity to an American president eager to promote democratic change in China.

Beware Greeks Demanding Benefits

In the most recent round of violent protests that have rocked Greece, a group of aggrieved Communist party members went up onto the Acropolis and hung banners from the massive rock. "Down with Dictatorship" they proclaimed (in English as well as in Greek for the benefit of the western media and/or relevant parties in London and Washington, D.C.).

The message was not particularly subtle: Here, in the birthplace of democracy, Greeks would once again stand up to their oppressors and claim their ancient freedoms. At the very feet of the Parthenon they made their stand, with the ruins of the classical past providing witness.

The juxtaposition between the "birthplace of democracy" and Greece's current budget woes has been echoed in the media, illustrated with video of Athenians torching Starbucks and Cinnabon. What this analysis fails to recognize is that the contemporary Greeks are rejecting their own heritage as they riot not for freedom, but against it.

The Parthenon has been caught up in this irony, as it has been in so many previous conflicts. Originally constructed as a monument to the successful--and near miraculous--defeat of the Persian empire by the Delian League in the early 5th century BC, the monument became the symbol of the small by doughty Athenian democracy that has been the touchstone for subsequent attempts at free governance. Rome, Venice, Florence, Holland, Great Britain and the United States have in turn claimed classical Athens as an ideological ancestor. Rose-colored glasses notwithstanding, the Parthenon represents the best of the western tradition, the urge towards political freedom that enables prosperity and culture.

Alas, the Parthenon today is but a shadow of its former self. While it survived for centuries in the post-classical world as a church and then a mosque, it was blown up in 1687 in an accident rather similar to the one that destroyed the Attikon theater in Athens over the weekend. The precarious ruin that is the contemporary Parthenon is undergoing a restoration in which each block of marble is removed, studied, and replaced in the archaeological equivalent of Humpty Dumpty.

The philosophical legacy of the culture that produced the Parthenon appears to be in similar tatters. According to Pericles, the building's patron, the strength of Athens was its self-sufficiency:

Again, we are contrary to most men in matter of bounty. For we purchase our friends not by receiving but by bestowing benefits. And he that bestoweth a good turn is ever the most constant friend because he will not lose the thanks due unto him from him whom he bestowed it on. Whereas the friendship of him that oweth a benefit is dull and flat, as knowing his benefit not to be taken for a favour but for a debt.

In other words, free men should never aspire to handouts, or embrace the dull and flat dead end that is debt. It is ironic indeed that the Parthenon now stands over the banners demanding benefits be bestowed on the Greeks. The enemy is no longer the invading Persians or rival Spartans, but rather "the monopolies" and the European Union who threaten to deny the favours decried by Pericles.

The Parthenon is fragile--not just the beleagured, damaged structure itself, but also the aspirational ideal it has come to represent. Those who believe independence is still worth pursuing should take note of its inglorious appropriation by the forces of dependence in Athens. New Parthenons in Philadelphia and Nashville attest to the influence this structure has had over our democracy. The original may well be beyond saving at this point, but we can preserve its legacy by heeding the words of Pericles.

Why is Syria different?

While the recent increase of attention to the ongoing carnage in Syria is a welcome change from the Obama administration's collective state of denial over the past ten months, signals remain mixed, and our policy is unclear if not non-existent. This week alone, for example, we got the welcome news that the Pentagon is preparing military options on Syria for the President, but at the same time White House press secretary announced those options will not be exercised.

The waters have been further muddied by the President's insistence that there is no parity between the situation in Libya last year and what we face now in Syria. In Libya, the threat to civilians and opportunity to topple a vicious dictator were sufficient cause for Mr. Obama to engage the U.S. military, even without a pressing national security interest at stake. While it can be argued that once the U.S. engaged in Libya it would have been preferable to actually lead from the front to secure weapons stockpiles and guard against al Qaida encroachment, the fact remains that the world is a better place with Colonel Qaddafi gone, as Mr. Obama routinely reminds us.

Meanwhile, as many as ten times the civilians killed in Libya before NATO's intervention have died in Syria over the last year. Bashir Assad is no less cruel and repressive a dictator than Muammar Qaddafi. The threat of Syria's unknown stockpiles of WMD falling into bad hands demands our urgent attention. And, above all, the United States has a clear strategic interest in toppling this vital ally of Iran.

But Syria is somehow different, and not worthy of the same sort of military assistance we offered to the Libyan rebels. Rather than taking decisive action in the form of military aid through our purported ally Turkey (perhaps in August when the President issued a statement calling for Assad's ouster on his way out of town for vacation), the U.S. has remained on the diplomatic equivalent of a hamster wheel. From the ill-advised resumption of "normal" relations with Syria last January through the pathetic failure of the Security Council resolution this weekend, our efforts to resolve the situation have been futile wastes of time and energy as the slaughter in Syria goes on to the tune of 100 people a day.

In dealing with Libya and Syria, consistency need not be the hobgoblin of little minds but can rather be the hallmark of a consistent and coordinated foreign policy. There are equivalencies to be drawn between the two crises, and once these are recognized we should take equivalent action. It is not a decision to be taken lightly, but we would not be alone and the cause is just. We have the unified support of our European and Arab allies. We have moral and strategic interests at stake. Rather than whining about the shocking moral turpitude of the United Nations, the President of the United States needs to remember his responsibilities as the leader of the free world--and lead.