THE WAR THAT WILL CHANGE THE WORLD By RALPH PETERS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 20, 2003 -- THIS present war will not last long, but its effects will echo for decades. And they will be positive effects.... [SNIP!] The new American policy toward which the times have driven us is as radically different as our critics fear. It breaks with a failed and blood-soaked past. We have finally accepted that it is no longer enough to wait for enemies to attack first. We have accepted our unique responsibility to intervene abroad in the cause of global security and human rights. And we have dispensed with a corrupt sham sustained by our critics: the notion that a dictator, no matter how cruel and illegitimate, is untouchable behind his "sovereign" borders. It is no accident that the core countries of "Old Europe," France and Germany, oppose us. Between them, they have been responsible for every major European conflict since the Napoleonic era. Those who now accuse us of aggression bear the weight of hundreds of millions of corpses. President Bush has turned away from the murderous logic of European diplomacy, from mechanisms of statecraft that have led only to unchecked aggression and unchallenged genocide. The essential purpose of European diplomacy has been, and remains, the preservation of the powerful, by the powerful, for the powerful. Wherever in the world we see a dictatorship protected by diplomatic custom and webs of trade, we see an outpost of "Old Europe." Saddam is more European than Tony Blair. [SNIP!] Spanish-American War... sparked the century-spanning collapse of European empires that ended with the disintegration of the Soviet incarnation of the empire of the czars, in 1991. The Europeans will never forgive us for spoiling their party. Now we have begun a new endeavor. It, too, may last a century. With the old empires gone, ***we are sending notice to dictators everywhere that the rules formulated by Old Europe no longer apply, that Saddam may be only the first dictator to fall, that the United States will no longer overlook massive violations of human rights, that we shall no longer allow ourselves to be threatened without responding and that we will no longer heed the voices of those foreign capitals that have failed the world with such devastating consequences.*** What shall we say to those who accuse us of violating "time-honored" and "proven" rules of international relations? None of us would want to be operated upon by a surgeon using a medical text from the 19th century. And we cannot address the strategic cancers of the 21st century using antique diplomatic etiquette designed to protect the kings, czars and emperors of bygone Europe. I do not suggest that our government has a detailed road map to the future. We are learning as we go, improvising and gradually shaping a new strategy to address new challenges. The pace of change is so rapid that we have not even developed the new vocabulary we need. But Europe is the continent of words; our world is one of action. We are shaping tomorrow, while those who mock us cling to discredited yesterdays. Our instincts are good, our motives are sound and our standards of behavior are the highest in the history of nations. Who shall lead the way, if we do not? This is an epochal war.... http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/71309.htm [***emphasis added***] --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peters answers and raises sooo many questions I don't know where to begin. --Orson
Online Interview with Ralph Peters... ...from the latest issue of "American Heritage" magazine. Here's a teaser: "[Peters] also published a remarkable series of essays, many of which first appeared in Parameters [available online--just google Parameters and Ralph peters], the theoretical journal of the U.S. Army War College. These essays are some of the most radical writing I have ever read on the recent revolution in military affairs. They began appearing at the start of the last decade, they are beautifully written and intellectually exciting, and they have proved startlingly (and sometimes grimly) prescient." http://www.americanheritage.com/AMHER/2003/01/shah.shtml Indeed, when I first learned of Peters last May, when his book collecting most of these essays first appeared, I thought him unusually engaged with the issue of terrorism. Like myself, he seemed to be a fence-straddler on war with Iraq, but biased towards peace with aggressive policing strategie stowards terrorism (as opposed to the "peaceniks," who don't even recognize the seriousness of war to address this otherwise unaddressed problem!); he advocated a low-risk, low-reward strategy (to use MPT terms) of rallying nascent Muslim democracies (Turkey, Indonesia, Pakistan), while abandoning the Islamic heartland. I agreed with him. What happened in the fall to change his outlook? I can only guess that either he did more hardcore analysis, or else he simply bought into The Vision--as evident above in the New York Post piece--of the Bushies idealism, a high-risk, high-reward strategy, that makes the case that much simply needs to be done to change the mid-East. Part of the Bush strategy is the hope--likely vain--to convert a long-term festering problem of Islamist terror (which could become to The West, as portayed in the film "Brazil," like the very 70s-like European Marxist terrorism that is the background for a love story set amidst the incompetent "friendly" fascism of the future)--into a shorter-term one. The solution? As Faoud Adjami puts it in Foreign Affairs, compel the Arab world to modernize instead of molting in medievalism. In other words, perhaps a two or three campaign war (against terror), can buy decades of potential peace and safety; to put it yet another way, this may avoid the milti-decades long "Cold War" containment style war that ended just a decade ago--an aberration for the US, historically--and result instead in a more traditional "sherrif" like world presence for the US. At least there is noble idealism in Peters piece above. There sure wasn't much of that was either visionary or problem-solving about the "Peace Movement." U of Tenn Law School Prof, Glenn Reynolds commeemorates the peace movement's death with words find me in frank agrrement with: "_ERIC ALTERMAN_ WRITES: 'For me, the antiwar movement such as it was, is over. We lost. It’s time to wish the best for our soldiers and the victims of this war focus on building a better future.' "If you want to see -- graphically -- why the antiwar movement failed, _Evan Coyne Maloney_ has a brand-new _documentary_ video on anti-war protests from last weekend in San Francisco. ****The antiwar movement failed because it was morally and intellectually unserious, and could never articulate an alternative position that might plausibly have led to a safer America and a safer world.*** Had it been able to do so, it might have gotten some traction. But it was too overwhelmed by anti-Bush, anti-capitalist, and anti-American sentiments to generate a positive vision. Even a lot of _lefties_[link to salon.com piece via this: http://www.instapundit.com/archives/008241.php#008241] have noticed that recently." [***emoasis added***, _links_ in original at instapundit.com] Thus, I became a reluctant, even sceptical ("show me!") hawk. It may be the best of a bad set of alternatives. But what befuddles me most is the absence of engaged debate by BOTH anti-war and pro-war sides. Especially by the peace advocates! Surely they, of all people, have the greastest interst in presenting an alternative strategy in a faveorable light!--WHERE were the Dems doing this? For example, both higher risk Bush, and highest risk (occupy a dozen countries), as well as low-risk containment strategies could be spereadsheeted to evaluate their respective risks, results, costs and benefits, and threat assessments. (An example of the last, see Fred Hait, "Ignoring the Unthinkable," Wash Post, March 17, 2003: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35567-2003Mar16.html) But who has done this? NO ONE! Yet surely there are Wasington think tanks and university intellectuals (any IR people out there) who do the nitty gritty stuff--and then we could debate the evaluations and the assumptions. But WHO has done this!!! It would be criminal if the Pentagon, the CIA, etc, have not done this--vut we don't see their work for obvious reasons. But where are the professional kibutzers? To conclude, we are watching a high wire act: I could not pull the lever, or be the one to go forward with it! IT's too risky for me. I'm only glad I'm not responsible for making the epic decisions we see unfolding. I would think the low-risk, low-reward option safer and easier. Even if the high-risk, high-reward one is needed. Reluctantly, a war supporter, --Orson
Re: Online Interview with Ralph Peters... ...small snip... To put it mildly, the above perspectives are interesting. I am really quite perplexed by the fact that the major (meaning "high profile") anti-war arguments are coming from Hollywood celebrities. Here's a few reasons why I think this was a bad strategic move by the "left" (although I don't really believe there IS a "left" anymore. 1. I have no reason to believe that Susan Sarandon or Martin Sheen know any more about this situation than I (or any other average person) know. Therefore, their opinion counts for nothing more than anyone elses. I've had my disagreements with Orson but it seems clear to me that America would learn a lot more about this war from an interview with him that it would from Sarandon et al. 2. They add nothing new. They provide no new perspective. 3. They add no depth. They provide no new analysis. 4. They are not all that articulate. 5. We are accustomed to seeing them playing "roles" where they are not actually speaking their own thoughts. Now we are supposed to believe what they say and take them seriously? 6. Last year at this time they were all participating in that silly, decadent Hollywood ritual known as "The Oscars" where the primary interest is in: a) who won (such an "Americanism" and at least vaguely violent)? b) who arrived with who (or is it whom?)? c) who left with who (wink, wink, nod, nod)? d) who just had a visit from Dr. Botox? e) which female (typically) exposed the most skin/cleavage? AND, after all of this we're supposed to believe that they're these REALLYREALLYseriouslycommitted tounderstandingalltheissues andramificationsandimplications anddoingwhateverittakes tomaketheworldabetterplace sort of person. I say . . . I DON'T THINK SO!!! Jack
