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"If Kerry has revealed himself in an unusual moment of honesty, it's time everyone took an equally honest look at where he would lead the country if elected. Kerry's "doctrine of necessity," if seriously intended, would entail a pacifism and an isolationism more thorough than any attempted by a U.S. government since the 1930s. It would rule out all wars fought for humanitarian ends, all interventions to prevent genocide, to defend democracy or even, as in the case of the Persian Gulf War, to uphold international law against aggression. For those are all wars of choice."
-- Robert Kagan for The Washington Post
It's our old friend, Kagan, and he casts another dark cloud over Kerry's great moment. He tees off on that statement that most of us presumably took as a great and powerful truth:
"I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: The United States of America never goes to war because we want to; we only go to war because we have to. That is the standard of our nation."
Kagan really goes to town in taking away the shine from that line. However, it may be argued that we know what Kerry meant, that he was of course addressing the Iraq War, under what were extraordinary conditions for the post-WWII world - taking over a country and being so naked of international sanction.
Nor does one buy into the idea that Kerry is being hypocritical in making so much on his Vietnam service while criticizing the Iraq War. It is more problemsome to have leaders, such as Bush and Cheney, who evaded service in their youth and who are now so hawkish in sending others to war.
Be that as it may, Kagan's discussion is bracing, and it further highlights the question of Kerry and how he would be as commander in chief. Contrary to some of Monk's optimistic friends, one doesn't believe that the electorate wants a pacifist for a president in these threatening times.
___ ___ ___
Someday, when the passions of this election have subsided, historians and analysts of American foreign policy may fasten on a remarkable passage in John Kerry's nomination speech. "As president," Kerry declared, "I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: The United States of America never goes to war because we want to; we only go to war because we have to. That is the standard of our nation." The statement received thunderous applause at the convention and, no doubt, the nodding approval of many Americans of all political leanings who watched on television.
Only American diplomatic historians may have contemplated suicide as they reflected on their failure to have the smallest influence on Americans' understanding of their own nation's history. And perhaps foreign audiences tuning in may have paused in their exultation over a possible Kerry victory in November to reflect with wonder on the incurable self-righteousness and nationalist innocence the Democratic candidate displayed. Who but an American politician, they might ask, could look back across the past 200 years and insist that the United States had never gone to war except when it "had to"?
The United States has sent forces into combat dozens of times over the past century and a half, and only twice, in World War II and in Afghanistan, has it arguably done so because it "had to." It certainly did not "have to" go to war against Spain in 1898 (or Mexico in 1846.) It did not "have to" send the Marines to Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Nicaragua in the first three decades of the 20th century, nor fight a lengthy war against insurgents in the Philippines. The necessity of Woodrow Wilson's intervention in World War I remains a hot topic for debate among historians.
And what about the war Kerry himself fought in? Kerry cannot believe the Vietnam War was part of his alleged "time-honored tradition," or he would not have thrown his ribbons away. But America's other Cold War interventions in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East are also problematic. Most opponents of the Vietnam War, like Kerry, believed it was symptomatic of a larger failure of U.S. foreign policy stemming from what Jimmy Carter memorably called Americans' "inordinate fear of communism." The other Cold War interventions were premised on the same "misguided" anti-communism and the concomitant democratic idealism, that pulled Kerry's hero, John F. Kennedy, into Vietnam. The United States, by this reckoning, did not "have to" go to war in Korea in 1950. Nor could a post-Vietnam Kerry have considered Lyndon Johnson's 1965 intervention in the Dominican Republic necessary. Or has Kerry now retroactively accepted the Cold War justification for these interventions that he once rejected?
Then there were the wars of the post-Cold War 1990s. The United States did not "have to" go to war to drive Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. No one knows that better than Kerry, who voted against the Persian Gulf War, despite its unanimous approval by the U.N. Security Council. Nor could anyone plausibly deny that the Clinton administration's interventions in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo were wars of choice. President Bill Clinton made the right choice in all three cases, but it was a choice.
Why is Kerry invoking an American "tradition" that does not exist?
Perhaps he's distorting American history simply to cast the Bush administration and the war in Iraq in the harshest possible light. But maybe Kerry is not being cynical. Perhaps, finally, he is saying what he really believes and not what American policy has been, but what it should be.
The doctrine Kerry enunciated on Thursday night, after all, was the doctrine initially favored by the antiwar movement and the mainstream of the Democratic Party after the debacle of Vietnam. "Come home, America" was the cry of those who believed America had corrupted both the world and itself in "wars of choice" in Vietnam and elsewhere.
Advocates of this doctrine did not propose a "return" to some mythical American past. Rather, they proposed a radical departure onto a very different course in American foreign policy. Their goal was a retraction of American power and influence from around the globe. Nor did they have any doubt that their view of America was patriotic. They would cleanse America of its sins.
Would it really be surprising if John Kerry, whose life and thought were so powerfully shaped by his Vietnam experience, now returned to the view of American foreign policy which that experience led him to three decades ago? There seems to be a conspiracy on both sides in this campaign not to take Kerry seriously as a man of ideas and conviction. But the fact that he has waffled so visibly on Iraq may be the best proof of his commitment to the beliefs about American foreign policy he came to hold in the 1970s.
Maybe Kerry's real act of cynicism was his vote for the Iraq war in the fall of 2002. With that vote, he ignored everything he believed he had learned from his Vietnam experience. In retrospect, he may feel that he sold his soul to make himself electable. In the months since the war, Kerry has had to pretend he did the right thing, not only because a politician dare not admit error but because his political advisers believe that in a post-Sept. 11 world most of the electorate does not want an "antiwar" president. Throughout the long months of the campaign, Kerry disciplined himself to sound like a hawk. But in his heart, based on all he learned during the formative years of his life, Kerry is not a hawk. At the Democratic National Convention, John Edwards followed the script. Kerry followed his heart.
The ironies abound. Three decades ago, Kerry came out in opposition to the war he had fought in Vietnam. Today, Kerry extols that service so that he may safely, patriotically distance himself from the war in Iraq that he had supported.
If Kerry has revealed himself in an unusual moment of honesty, it's time everyone took an equally honest look at where he would lead the country if elected. Kerry's "doctrine of necessity," if seriously intended, would entail a pacifism and an isolationism more thorough than any attempted by a U.S. government since the 1930s. It would rule out all wars fought for humanitarian ends, all interventions to prevent genocide, to defend democracy or even, as in the case of the Persian Gulf War, to uphold international law against aggression. For those are all wars of choice.
For someone who professes to seek better relations with the rest of the world, Kerry's doctrine of necessity would base American foreign policy on narrow, selfish interests far more than the alleged "unilateralism" of the Bush administration. Some Europeans have been quietly worrying that what they consider Bush's overambitious foreign policy will be followed in the United States by an isolationist backlash. After hearing Kerry's speech, they may worry a bit more.
-- Robert Kagan, "The Kerry Doctrine"
"If Kerry has revealed himself in an unusual moment of honesty, it's time everyone took an equally honest look at where he would lead the country if elected. Kerry's "doctrine of necessity," if seriously intended, would entail a pacifism and an isolationism more thorough than any attempted by a U.S. government since the 1930s. It would rule out all wars fought for humanitarian ends, all interventions to prevent genocide, to defend democracy or even, as in the case of the Persian Gulf War, to uphold international law against aggression. For those are all wars of choice."
-- Robert Kagan for The Washington Post
It's our old friend, Kagan, and he casts another dark cloud over Kerry's great moment. He tees off on that statement that most of us presumably took as a great and powerful truth:
"I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: The United States of America never goes to war because we want to; we only go to war because we have to. That is the standard of our nation."
Kagan really goes to town in taking away the shine from that line. However, it may be argued that we know what Kerry meant, that he was of course addressing the Iraq War, under what were extraordinary conditions for the post-WWII world - taking over a country and being so naked of international sanction.
Nor does one buy into the idea that Kerry is being hypocritical in making so much on his Vietnam service while criticizing the Iraq War. It is more problemsome to have leaders, such as Bush and Cheney, who evaded service in their youth and who are now so hawkish in sending others to war.
Be that as it may, Kagan's discussion is bracing, and it further highlights the question of Kerry and how he would be as commander in chief. Contrary to some of Monk's optimistic friends, one doesn't believe that the electorate wants a pacifist for a president in these threatening times.
___ ___ ___
Someday, when the passions of this election have subsided, historians and analysts of American foreign policy may fasten on a remarkable passage in John Kerry's nomination speech. "As president," Kerry declared, "I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: The United States of America never goes to war because we want to; we only go to war because we have to. That is the standard of our nation." The statement received thunderous applause at the convention and, no doubt, the nodding approval of many Americans of all political leanings who watched on television.
Only American diplomatic historians may have contemplated suicide as they reflected on their failure to have the smallest influence on Americans' understanding of their own nation's history. And perhaps foreign audiences tuning in may have paused in their exultation over a possible Kerry victory in November to reflect with wonder on the incurable self-righteousness and nationalist innocence the Democratic candidate displayed. Who but an American politician, they might ask, could look back across the past 200 years and insist that the United States had never gone to war except when it "had to"?
The United States has sent forces into combat dozens of times over the past century and a half, and only twice, in World War II and in Afghanistan, has it arguably done so because it "had to." It certainly did not "have to" go to war against Spain in 1898 (or Mexico in 1846.) It did not "have to" send the Marines to Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Nicaragua in the first three decades of the 20th century, nor fight a lengthy war against insurgents in the Philippines. The necessity of Woodrow Wilson's intervention in World War I remains a hot topic for debate among historians.
And what about the war Kerry himself fought in? Kerry cannot believe the Vietnam War was part of his alleged "time-honored tradition," or he would not have thrown his ribbons away. But America's other Cold War interventions in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East are also problematic. Most opponents of the Vietnam War, like Kerry, believed it was symptomatic of a larger failure of U.S. foreign policy stemming from what Jimmy Carter memorably called Americans' "inordinate fear of communism." The other Cold War interventions were premised on the same "misguided" anti-communism and the concomitant democratic idealism, that pulled Kerry's hero, John F. Kennedy, into Vietnam. The United States, by this reckoning, did not "have to" go to war in Korea in 1950. Nor could a post-Vietnam Kerry have considered Lyndon Johnson's 1965 intervention in the Dominican Republic necessary. Or has Kerry now retroactively accepted the Cold War justification for these interventions that he once rejected?
Then there were the wars of the post-Cold War 1990s. The United States did not "have to" go to war to drive Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. No one knows that better than Kerry, who voted against the Persian Gulf War, despite its unanimous approval by the U.N. Security Council. Nor could anyone plausibly deny that the Clinton administration's interventions in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo were wars of choice. President Bill Clinton made the right choice in all three cases, but it was a choice.
Why is Kerry invoking an American "tradition" that does not exist?
Perhaps he's distorting American history simply to cast the Bush administration and the war in Iraq in the harshest possible light. But maybe Kerry is not being cynical. Perhaps, finally, he is saying what he really believes and not what American policy has been, but what it should be.
The doctrine Kerry enunciated on Thursday night, after all, was the doctrine initially favored by the antiwar movement and the mainstream of the Democratic Party after the debacle of Vietnam. "Come home, America" was the cry of those who believed America had corrupted both the world and itself in "wars of choice" in Vietnam and elsewhere.
Advocates of this doctrine did not propose a "return" to some mythical American past. Rather, they proposed a radical departure onto a very different course in American foreign policy. Their goal was a retraction of American power and influence from around the globe. Nor did they have any doubt that their view of America was patriotic. They would cleanse America of its sins.
Would it really be surprising if John Kerry, whose life and thought were so powerfully shaped by his Vietnam experience, now returned to the view of American foreign policy which that experience led him to three decades ago? There seems to be a conspiracy on both sides in this campaign not to take Kerry seriously as a man of ideas and conviction. But the fact that he has waffled so visibly on Iraq may be the best proof of his commitment to the beliefs about American foreign policy he came to hold in the 1970s.
Maybe Kerry's real act of cynicism was his vote for the Iraq war in the fall of 2002. With that vote, he ignored everything he believed he had learned from his Vietnam experience. In retrospect, he may feel that he sold his soul to make himself electable. In the months since the war, Kerry has had to pretend he did the right thing, not only because a politician dare not admit error but because his political advisers believe that in a post-Sept. 11 world most of the electorate does not want an "antiwar" president. Throughout the long months of the campaign, Kerry disciplined himself to sound like a hawk. But in his heart, based on all he learned during the formative years of his life, Kerry is not a hawk. At the Democratic National Convention, John Edwards followed the script. Kerry followed his heart.
The ironies abound. Three decades ago, Kerry came out in opposition to the war he had fought in Vietnam. Today, Kerry extols that service so that he may safely, patriotically distance himself from the war in Iraq that he had supported.
If Kerry has revealed himself in an unusual moment of honesty, it's time everyone took an equally honest look at where he would lead the country if elected. Kerry's "doctrine of necessity," if seriously intended, would entail a pacifism and an isolationism more thorough than any attempted by a U.S. government since the 1930s. It would rule out all wars fought for humanitarian ends, all interventions to prevent genocide, to defend democracy or even, as in the case of the Persian Gulf War, to uphold international law against aggression. For those are all wars of choice.
For someone who professes to seek better relations with the rest of the world, Kerry's doctrine of necessity would base American foreign policy on narrow, selfish interests far more than the alleged "unilateralism" of the Bush administration. Some Europeans have been quietly worrying that what they consider Bush's overambitious foreign policy will be followed in the United States by an isolationist backlash. After hearing Kerry's speech, they may worry a bit more.
-- Robert Kagan, "The Kerry Doctrine"
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-01 09:03 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-08-01 09:08 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-08-01 09:16 pm (UTC)From:The Milosevic argument is beside the point... that's an exception to the rule. From 1950 onwards either by war or by proxy there's a lot of blood on your government's hands... all spilled in little bitty countries that couldn't do a thing to hurt Americans.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-01 09:22 pm (UTC)From:A contrasting case would be that of the Soviet Union. That is, if the US were like that, all the Western hemisphere would have been like the Soviet bloc, in which the other countries are mere satellites to the dominant country. The US hasn't sought political dominion but the establishment of the rule of law and market economies.
One can perhaps reasonably disagree with that argument, but it's not an empty one.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-01 09:29 pm (UTC)From:the other countries are mere satellites to the dominant country would you not agree that under-developed countries are in the same situation, dependent on investment? Governments that seek to break from US dominion are quickly taught their place through economic means.
The US would seem to have accomplished what the USSR did, but with far less bloodshed.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-01 09:34 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-08-01 09:36 pm (UTC)From:The US never tried to run a totalitarian-style government like the Soviets did. It's just not the same thing. Although you might not regard it as apropos, I look at the situation of the Koreas as a case in point. There's no question that the N. Korea situation is much worse than S. Korea, which has come under the sway of the global economy. You can look at Eastern Europe before the break up of the Soviet Union as a clear example of the difference between US influence and Soviet totalitarianism. These are significant differences.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-01 09:53 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2004-08-01 10:27 pm (UTC)From:And that domination hasn't been merely a domination of the US over this or that land or people, but a domination of the global economy, with Canada and W. Europe also enjoying the business and resources of those countries.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-01 11:50 pm (UTC)From:But you do raise an important point. Canada and western Europe are intimately involved in all of this... sort of "junior partners". I don't want to seem like I think the US is responsible for everything, it's just that we were focussed on that before.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-02 10:39 am (UTC)From: