The future of neo-conservatism
David Blackburn 11:20am
Writing in this week's Spectator, internationally renowned expert John. C. Hulsman argues that America is too economically imperilled to commit to expensive foreign adventures that yield nothing. Hulsman urges Obama to learn from the foreign policy mistakes made by Britain, the last western imperial power. He gives a whistle-stop tour of humiliations, from Amritsar, Ireland and Suez, and sketches how obvious decline forced Britain to re-imagine its foreign policy objectives.
Despite pressure from neo-conservative opposition, Obama must pursue a new modus operandi, as British imperialists were forced to do. The key is to recognise Afghanistan's political complexity and seek stability through compromise and realism, starting with the Afghan constitution. Hulsman writes:
'It is common knowledge that Afghanistan is one of the most disparate polities in the world (read Kipling). A series of tribes form the local unit of politics, rather than some Jeffersonian ideal. As such, a confederation, with as much power as possible being devolved to the local level, would suit the country’s realities. Sadly, the Afghan constitution vests far too much control at the national rather than the regional level, where the political rubber hits the road. This is a recipe for endemic conflict.'
Obama is correct to take time and consider. However, a fudge is engendering. The Guardian reports that David Kilcullen, a leading counter-insurgency expert and contributor to the Spectator, is criticising the Obama administration’s “messy pontificating” over the Afghan surge. Kilcullen tells the paper:
The middle approach is a fudge determined by economic frailty, the US’ declining international strength and Nato’s inability to pull together. The unconditional surrender of the Taliban is a hopeless fanstasy; yet the strategy remains unchanged. This meandering war exacerbates jihadism, accelerates the spoliation of American power and endangers Nato’s integrity. Coffee House has been urging Nato to talk to local Afghan potentates; the leaked Foreign Office plan to engage with elements of the Taliban represents the way ahead."It feels to me that all these options are dangerously close to the middle ground and we have to consider whether the middle ground is a good place to be. The middle ground is a good place on domestic issues, but not on strategy. You either commit to D-Day and invade the continent or you get Suez. Half-measures end up with Suez. Do it or not do it."
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Chris
November 13th, 2009 11:39am Report this comment>Coffee House has been urging Nato to talk to local Afghan potentates
And the Skibbereen Eagle still has its eye on the Tsar of Russia.
Sir Graphus
November 13th, 2009 11:47am Report this commentRommel, who knew a thing or 2 about soldiery, held a similar view; “Normally there is no ideal solution but each possible course has its advantages and disadvantages. One must select that which seems the best from the widest point of view and then pursue it and accept the consequences. Any compromise is bad.”
Neil McEvoy
November 13th, 2009 11:53am Report this commentPoint taken, but how was Malaya a humiliation? Maybe he confused it with Vietnam. And Ulster? It's still part of the UK and more or less at peace. Bizarre.
Publius
November 13th, 2009 12:01pm Report this commentIs "neo-conservative" the opposite of "progressive"?
How convenient these tonka toy words are for those who couldn't be bothered to think.
The Bellman
November 13th, 2009 12:12pm Report this commentGood luck to the liberal, reformist Afghans who will have to work in government alongside the supposedly 'reconcilable' Taleban. How long do you give them? Weeks? Months?
By all means 'talk to' the local potentates, even if that means low-tier Taleban sympathisers. But talking is not an end in itself. And every time we 'engage with' extremists, we risk marginalising a moderate.
Maybe that's why Hulsman sees Ulster as a 'humiliation' - we turned Sinn Fein and the DUP into the 'mainstream' voices by selling out the UUP and SDLP. That wasn't achieved by bringing the extremists to the centre ground: the extremists brought popular opinion to their end of the spectrum - and we helped them achieve that.
Rhoda Klapp
November 13th, 2009 12:22pm Report this commentSuez? Stabbed in the back by someone you thought was an ally? That's always a possibility, as Gordon is finding out.
Leo
November 13th, 2009 12:42pm Report this commentUlster was a humilation because for thirty years our greatest ally and the leader of the free world provided support (financial and political) to murderous IRA thugs while they murdered innocents bombing their way across Europe.
Then 9/11 happened and the Americans discovered terrorism.
The Puppet Master
November 13th, 2009 12:44pm Report this commentHuslman doesn't seem to do reality very well. Hamed Karzai barely controls Kabul, it's hard to see how power is too centralised. All he does is receive the money, pay most of it out in bribes and hope people leave him alone.
The purpose for this invasion was to build a pipeline, is America going to give up on this strategic objective? If they really want to do it, then the only way would be to wipe out the local population, but armies rarely do that in our modern age.
Forlornehope
November 13th, 2009 1:19pm Report this commentThe looming danger for the UK is a repeat of the battle of the Imjin river in Korea. The US army "bugged out" and left a single British brigade, including the Gloucesters, to face the whole Chinese army. Before the Brits beat themselves up too much about Basra, it's worth remembering that, right up until the surge, it looked as if the Americans were planning to do the same thing again in Iraq. The runes are not looking too good for Afghanistan either.
TrevorsDen
November 13th, 2009 2:47pm Report this commentLeo - the US government never gave any support to the IRA. You are mistaking the US government with the activities of 'Sir' Edward Kennedy.
The FBI actually tracked down and arrested IRA sympathisers trying to export arms.
Before asking is 'neo-conservatism' dead, perhaps people should define what it is and question if it ever existed.
You cannot be half pregnant and either we want to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and help Pakistan to the same with Al Qaeda or we do not.
Snowman
November 13th, 2009 4:18pm Report this commentWasn’t the initial aim of our going into Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaida training new recruits for jihad against the infidels there?
We’ve succeeded in achieving it, and it shouldn’t be for us to tell the Afghans to run their own country the way we run ours. It’s hard to see this deeply tribal and enigmatic corner of the world to easily follow the Americans and ‘move from barbarism to decadence without getting touched by civilization’. That time may come, it hasn’t yet.
Snowman
November 13th, 2009 4:57pm Report this commentTrevorsDen @ 2.47:
How do you defeat the Taleban? These are the local people, they live there. The term refers to those who share a common view how the country should be governed. You can no more defeat them than a force occupying the US could defeat the Republicans. I may be wrong, but it would seem that now even those locals who don’t share the orthodoxy of the Taleban are turning against us, clandestinely. Our destroying their poppy fields was apparently what has turned them.
TrevorsDen
November 13th, 2009 7:01pm Report this commentA defeat of local terrorists was obtained in South Africa in 1901 in Malaya in Kenya and elsewhere.
'The Taliban' are foreign fighters, paid. Locals are paid. They do it for money not ideology.
It is their own country and if and when the institutions of some sort of govt are free from outside interference then indeed they can do what they like to manage their own affairs.
If we do not want to put the effort in to ensure that then we should ot be there - but it is not a no lose option.
For 'them' it may be a bloody civil war (more likely a collapse and a subjection to a medieval religious terror.
For us it is weakness and uncertainty in Pakistan and the quite likely leakage of nuclear technology to Al Qaeda.
You cannot wish this away. There are people out there who do not wish us well. But way - its looking increasingly likely that Obama will make our mind up and we will have to consider ourselves half pregnant.
Amadeus Plonquer
November 14th, 2009 1:49am Report this commentThere is a HUGE difference between the decline of the UK and the (perceived) decline of the USA. In the middle of the last century the 'liberal-left' in the British electorate were telling our Conservative leaders that Britain was finished as a world power. In the USA it's the liberal-left government telling the conservative electorate that the USA is in decline.
In the UK we were swayed by the fact that the general population largely bought into the leftists' guff. That won't happen in the USA.
Obama will likely be turfed out at the first opportunity and go down in history as Carter II. The American people are smart enough to disinfect the filth of Socialism before it overpowers them. That's where Britain went wrong and we have Gordon Brown as PM as a reward.
Patrick
November 14th, 2009 8:35am Report this commentLeo is right & TrevorsDen wrong. How many IRA suspects did the US Government extradite? How much money did NORAID spend on purchasing weapons? Yes, there were some partial efforts by the US Government to help but not a patch on what the US now demands of everyone else. Just listening to the New York Congressman Peter King describing the IRA on a BBC interview as quote legitimate freedom fighters sums up the US East Coast attitude to the IRA's particular brand of terrorism
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