History and the Kagans: Paradise and Power VI

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Sunday November 11, 2007 · 12:30 PM PST

2007/11/11 · 12:30

“It would take the will of men, not nature, to bring down this horrific human invention.” So says Robert Kagan in his most recent column for The Washington Post. The “horrific human invention” to which he is referring is American slavery. Prior to the Civil War, Kagan tells us, there were those in America who, rather than confronting this shameful system with strength and will, preferred to let “nature take its course,” that is, to let the predetermined course of history step by step dismantle the institution of slavery. No direct governmental intervention, political or military, would be necessary to expunge the blight. The progress of civilization itself would do the job.

Crossposted at Progressive Historians

Bastoche

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Sunday October 28, 2007 · 1:47 PM PDT

2007/10/28 · 13:47

In his essay, “End of Dreams, Return of History,” (which I briefly referenced in Part III of this series and to which I will return in more detail in future posts), Robert Kagan claims that we have entered an era in which “history”—that is, the contest between ideologies and between two ideologies in particular, liberalism and autocracy—is once again determining the foreign policy choices of the world’s nations. The most fundamental choice each nation must make is, of course, on which side of the ideological divide to stand: the liberal side with America, the European Union, Japan, Australia, and India or the autocratic side with Russia, China, and Iran.

Crossposted at Progressive Historians

Bastoche

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Monday October 15, 2007 · 12:35 PM PDT

2007/10/15 · 12:35

Robert Kagan, it seems, has evolved. In his recent essay with Ivo Daalder, “The Next Intervention,” he has called for a “Concert of Democracies,” a new international “arrangement” in which “the world's democracies could meet and cooperate in dealing with the many global challenges they confront.” This new concert, composed of America, Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Australia, etc., would meet in order to discuss crisis situations around the globe. Most important, this group of nations would, if it achieved consensus, legitimate, on an international basis, military intervention in those critical situations, an intervention led, one assumes, by the dominant military power in the world, America.

Crossposted at Progressive Historians

Bastoche

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Sunday September 09, 2007 · 3:02 PM PDT

2007/09/09 · 15:02

The events of 9/11, according to Norman Podhoretz in the essay I discussed yesterday, did not change everything. What they changed was our perception of an enemy that had been developing, adapting, and preparing for the Long Struggle ahead. Prior to 9/11, many Americans had been willfully blind to the preparations our new enemy was making, and even after 9/11 some Americans remained unwilling to see what needed to be seen and do what needed to be done.

Crossposted at ProgressiveHistorians

Bastoche

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Saturday September 08, 2007 · 2:14 PM PDT

2007/09/08 · 14:14

While we’re waiting for the Good General, on 9/11, to tell us that if we show sufficient patience and pluck, we’ll pull this thing out, I thought it might be a good idea to take a look at some of the foreign policy ideas of two men who have associated themselves with 9/11. One is the man who on 9/11 became America’s Mayor and who is now campaigning for an upgrade to America’s Commander-in-Chief. The other is the man who on Tuesday, the sixth anniversary of 9/11, is publishing a book on “The Long Struggle” that started on 9/11 and who is, not so coincidentally, one of the chief foreign policy advisors of the man who became America’s Mayor on 9/11.

Crossposted at ProgressiveHistorians

Bastoche

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Friday August 31, 2007 · 12:26 PM PDT

2007/08/31 · 12:26

“The world has become normal again.” So Robert Kagan begins his recent essay “End of Dreams, Return of History.” A mere decade and a half ago some historians and foreign policy experts were announcing the “end of history.” Because of the collapse of Communism, they said, the great conflict between ideologies that had shaped so much of twentieth-century history was at an end, and the end of that conflict was also, in a very important sense, the end of history itself. Communism’s great opponent, Democracy, remained the sole ideological force on the international scene, and history, if one still wanted to use the term, would be nothing more than a progressive expansion of Democracy’s ideals, freedom and peace, throughout the world.

Crossposted at ProgressiveHistorians

Bastoche

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Saturday August 18, 2007 · 12:04 PM PDT

2007/08/18 · 12:04

Robert Kagan’s neocon credo can be summarized without too much simplification thus: America is the pivotal nation not only in current world affairs but in the whole grand sweep of human history. Kagan, like many neocons, is a progressive and an idealist. America’s destiny, according to Kagan, has always been, is now, and forever will be progressively to lead the nations of the earth into an ideal realm of freedom and peace.

Crossposted at ProgressiveHistorians

Bastoche

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Saturday August 04, 2007 · 1:12 PM PDT

2007/08/04 · 13:12

In his December 2006 Washington Post article, “Our ‘Messianic Impulse,’” Robert Kagan acknowledges that many have been critical of America’s approach not just to Iraq but to foreign policy in general.

Some argue that we were too aggressive and self-righteous in promoting our principles, too meddlesome, too arrogant in seeking to transform the world…If the United States would only change its approach to the world, if it understood the virtues of limits, modesty and humility, we could avoid foreign policy debacles and the world would be a safer place.

Crossposted at ProgressiveHistorians

Bastoche

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Sunday July 22, 2007 · 12:19 PM PDT

2007/07/22 · 12:19

Last week, according to David Brooks in hisJuly 17 Op-Ed “Heroes and History,” George Bush entertained a small but select group of supporters at the White House and gave them his assessment of the current situation in Iraq. As he spoke, he exuded a self-confidence both surprising and remarkable, given the less-than-ideal situation prevailing in that country. This self-confidence, Brooks tells us, “flows from two sources,” one pertinent to history, the other to heroes. The first source is the President’s “unconquerable faith in the rightness of his Big Idea.”

Crossposted at ProgressiveHistorians

Bastoche

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Sunday July 08, 2007 · 11:51 AM PDT

2007/07/08 · 11:51

In September 2002, Jay Bookman posted an article on the Information Clearing House site in which he voices his concern that the Bush administration’s stated reason for going to war with Iraq, namely that Saddam Hussein is a rogue dictator who has weapons of mass destruction and who is in league with al Qaeda, is mere windowdressing. For the Bush administration, war with Iraq, Bookman argues, is a step towards the establishment of an American empire.

This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman.

Crossposted at ProgressiveHistorians

Bastoche

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Sunday June 24, 2007 · 12:04 PM PDT

2007/06/24 · 12:04

According to Fred Kagan and Bill Kristol, in the Salah-ad-Din province just north of Baghdad, al Qaeda has been having a tough time of late. Native Sunni tribes have turned against these foreign intruders and their fundamentalist decrees and have begun cooperating with the American Surge to seek the intruders out and eliminate them. Al Qaeda terrorists have responded by mounting a series of dramatic attacks, such as detonating explosives in the minarets of the Askariya shrine in Samarra.

According to Kagan and Kristol, this tactic

is clearly taking a page from the Viet Cong's book. The terrorists have been mounting a slow-motion Tet offensive of spectacular attacks on markets, bridges, and mosques, knowing that the media report each such attack as an American defeat.

Crossposted at ProgressiveHistorians

Bastoche

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Saturday June 16, 2007 · 11:45 AM PDT

2007/06/16 · 11:45

Norman Podhoretz sees what needs to be seen and knows what needs to be done. He sees that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a Hitlerian fanatic who is bent on regional and possibly world domination. He also sees that the only alternative we have, given the Evil reality we are confronting, is to bomb Iran. In order to make his case for military action over diplomacy and negotiation, Podhoretz references the Munich Agreement of 1938 and claims that had the British seen what needed to be seen and had they done what needed to be done Hitler “could have been stopped earlier and defeated at an infinitely lower cost” (2).

Crossposted at ProgressiveHistorians

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History and the Kagans: Paradise and Power VI

History and the Kagans: Paradise and Power V

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plus c'est la meme chose

Plus ca change

History and the Kagans: Paradise and Power III

History and the Kagans: Paradise and Power II

History and the Kagans: Paradise and Power I

History and the Kagans: Heroes and Destiny

History and the Kagans: Empire and Honor

History and the Kagans: Strength and Will VI

History and the Kagans: Strength and Will V