It was Bismarck some 115 years ago who acidly observed that "God protects idiots, children and the United States of America". And today Conrad Black argues that despite a decade of inept and feckless leadership, the world's correlation of forces is aligning in the United State's favor and I agree. You should read his column - it's a rare optimistic take - though dripping with the same caustic cynicism that characterized the Iron Chancellor's remarks. But I think it also is an example of one of the most pernicious delusions of our ruling classes - whether right or left, interventionist or isolationist, kumbaya or bombaya. To wit the fantasy that somehow through the judicious application of 'policy and politics' the United States and its allies can organize and tame the world. A world that has never been more crowded, complex or richer. This attitude has so many flaws that I'm surprised it hasn't undergone total existential collapse by now. They include:
1. The US Constitutional form of government which guarantees division, conflict and lashing out followed by pouty isolation. The only times the US has been able to pursue a consistent foreign policy is when there is a single existential threat or there are no serious threats. A complicated, multi-threat world is very difficult for our political system to cope with. We don't have the concentration of power and authority in one person that a parliamentary system has. Nor can a continental scale empire that is ever more diverse have the social consensus of a Japan or a Denmark. Never have, never will yet everyone expects us to behave that way.
2. The natural resilience of people defending their families and homes-China edition. Our foreign policy geniuses panicked in the face of both the rise of China and ISIS yet both of these threats provoked healthy immune reactions from those threatened by them. China's heavy handed, clod dish bullying has conjured into being a huge coalition almost without active US leadership. Vietnam, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, Burma, India, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, and the Philippines have a huge interest in containing Chinese hegemony and are taking matters into their own hands.
3. The natural resilience of people defending their families and homes - Middle East Edition. Likewise the Kurds, Alawites, Shia and others have an existential interest in seeing off the twenty to thirty thousand bloodthirsty but largely untrained, undisciplined, poorly armed neo Mahdist rabble thrashing around the Syria and Iraqi Sunni heartland. And since they are fighting for their homes and lives they constitute (as the panicked west learned in Khobani) a particularly tough nut to crack for such a modest and shoddy military enterprise.
4. The impact of the incredible creativity of the US economy and society. At the end of the day the US wins not because of our political leadership but in spite of it. The biggest changed reality in the world today is the looming self sufficiency of the US in oil and export leadership in natural gas. The oil and gas industries use of massive computing and robotics to literally double the world's recoverable reserves of oil and gas has fundamentally changed the world's correlation of forces even more in the West's favor. And along with a little Saudi supply liberality this creativity has cut Iranian and Russian adventurism down considerably. Neither country's regime can long abide low oil prices and Russia in particular is vulnerable to seeing its financially and geopolitically lucrative European gas contracts rendered void by massive North American exports to Europe.and Japan.
The fantasy of all statists is that they are in control of events both foreign and domestic. More often they are like huge toddlers stomping around a China shop. Sometimes they break things for which they blame others and sometimes they don't for which they take credit. But up until recently the political 'leaders' of Europe and the United States have been careful not to seriously undermine the economic and social power that is the true source of our long term success. Tragically leaders on both sides of the Atlantic have become so enamored with their own significance that they are busily ripping at the sinews and wiring of the greatest civilization that has ever existed. When the historians look back on this era they will be astounded at how much domestic destruction our so called 'leaders' countenanced in exchange for what will be considered nothing but a mess of political pottage.
But for as long as it holds against the statist wreckers our society will somehow reign supreme in spite of the selfish and arrogant prats that purport to 'rule' us. We're just too damn good to do otherwise. So calm down. Have a 'schmoke and a pancake' and let the outlanders flail and rage at man's most brilliant creation: Western Civilization.
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