No twenty-first-century event has shaped the United States and its role in the world as much as 9/11.
This is a foolish view. China entered the WTO in December of 2001- which meant that the Jackson-Vanik Act or subsequent conditionalities related to Human Rights, Tibet etc ceased to apply- without China having to make any significant concessions whatsoever. This was the most importance instance of 'America letting its enemies hijack its policies'.
I suppose, you could argue that 9/11 hastened China's entry but the major hurdle had been cleared by Clinton the previous year. The truth is America was simply engaging in wishful thinking. It believed China would become democratic long before it could become a threat. Twenty years later, Biden is calling a 'Summit for Democracy' this December. It will be a fiasco. The fact is, America itself is now classified as a 'flawed democracy' by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Meanwhile the Taliban seems to have taken over Afghanistan and China is offering itself as an honest broker to the Palestine problem. Henceforth the road to peace may be through not Camp David, but Beijing.
December is Biden's deadline to get combat troops out of Iraq. I may mention, China is Iraq's biggest trading partner and if Kadhimi survives, he hopes to do so with Chinese investment which began to take off about a dozen years ago. If Kadhimi does not survive, the end of this year might see another ignominious evacuation of American troops. But the Chinese will remain. Why? Places become safer when American military advisors and trainers properly impart state of the art instruction in running the fuck away from mean guys who are shooting at you by themselves running the fuck away before imparting shit.
Few would argue that terrorism is still much of a threat to the US 'homeland'. What is the biggest cloud on the horizon? Perhaps it is stagflation. Suppose Biden continues to bumble and fumble and dither thus giving the appearance of a lame duck. Suppose further that Kamala Harris has no real constituency in California- which maybe why she hasn't been pressed into service to fight the pending recall election in her home State. Then the Executive is wholly lame. The Democrats lose the mid-terms. The Legislature can't compensate for Executive sclerosis. Suddenly the inflation risk which Jerome Powell is dismissing takes on a very sinister appearance. Executive paralysis doesn't mean the end of pork barrel politics. Indeed, this could have protectionist aspects for national security reasons. You then have classic cost-push inflation based on conflict between vested interest groups who hope to take advantage of the 'money illusion' of the public. But this means the Fed has no excuse not to tighten liquidity. Given the increased uncertainty caused by COVID and as yet unexplained changes in market conditions and supply chains, you have a recipe for economic disaster. Biden's honeymoon will have turned into a nightmare. Why? Because, at a crucial time he didn't have flak catchers to protect his image and thus give him time to bring off his big initiative.
Rhodes writes-
The attacks pierced the complacency of the post–Cold War decade and shattered the illusion that history was ending with the triumph of American-led globalization.
Surely, the reverse is the case. The very day after 9/11, America stood stronger and had more allies and well-wishers than ever before. Even the Iranians had spontaneously shown sympathy for America. Only Saddam was celebrating- but his days were numbered.
What 9/11 did was it showed that, in the absence of any great power rival, America could impose a 'rules based international order' whereby it decided what the rules were and who should obey them. This was a step forward from the intervention in the Balkans which, after all, was more of an European initiative. However, China hadn't made too much of a fuss about the bombing of its Embassy and this was a clear indicator that the US was the global hegemon par excellence.
Initial CIA and US air force success in Afghanistan- enabling the Northern Alliance to walk into Kabul created a mood of triumphalism. Russia was keeping quiet. China was meek. Pakistan had bent the knee or rather, it appeared to have done so.
Bush threw caution to the winds and went in to Iraq promising to break an Axis of Evil including Iran and North Korea and perhaps extending to Syria and Libya and other bad actors as yet nameless . Sadly, Iran's 'Axis of Resistance' seems to have prevailed. Still there was a heady moment when 'neo-cons' appeared set to bring about 'regime change' in one country after another. The son of Ayatollah Khomeini, in a brief moment of madness, even appealed for American intervention in his country. All around the world, Liberals sat back in their armchairs fully expecting to see China give up Tibet while turning into a South Korea or Taiwan type Democracy. Europe, in particular, was feeling its oats. The expanded NATO was supposed to show its ability to integrate and prevail in Iraq and Afghanistan in a manner which would send a message to the Russians. They would lose Ukraine- including Crimea and ultimately have to turn into some sort of Social Democracy themselves. Putin was considered a sober realist who would deliver this outcome.
The scale of the U.S. response remade American government, foreign policy, politics, and society in ways that continue to generate aftershocks. Only by interrogating the excesses of that response can Americans understand what their country has become and where it needs to go.
I suppose Rhodes means that the blow back from America's 'forever war' was a change in the mindset of Police Union Chiefs. They wanted the boys in blue to turn into Navy SEALS expert in 'killology'. Furthermore corruption in military and infrastructure contracts was creating a 'shadow state' which Jack Bauer would have to fight every 24 hours.
However, from the foreign policy point of view, the real mistake was that America had opened the door to China's ascent while creating a vacuum in Iraq and later Syria which Iran was quick to take advantage of. Why did this happen? The truth is, the foreign policy community was asleep at the wheel. This did not mean it didn't dream dreams- it just means those dreams were as boring as shit. The rest of Rhodes's article shows that this MFA in Creative Writing still inhabits a wholly solipsistic Universe. Only America exists. Anything outside is but an evanescent emanation of some sin original to that Eden.
It is difficult to overstate—and in fact easy to understate—the impact of 9/11.
But it is easy to sum it up. 'America's foreign policy is doing stupid shit'. Obama said that in 2014 but went on to do some more stupid shit eagerly abetted by Sarkozy and Cameron and other such forgotten men.
By any measure, the “war on terror” was the biggest project of the period of American hegemony that began when the Cold War ended—a period that has now reached its dusk.
Was it though? Surely what America was doing in the late Forties and Fifties was bigger is scope and scale? But Americans of that period were willing to be taxed to pay for what, in many cases, turned out to be mutually profitable interventions. Furthermore, American hegemony was greater in the Fifties and Sixties when it was able to topple Governments around the world. Only after Admiral Turner took over the CIA could America be said to have begun to accept the principle of self-determination. Recall, that in 1975 Gough Whitlam alleged that the CIA had toppled his Government in Australia. Even so, in countries as far apart as Greece and India, you had popular leaders who muttered darkly about CIA machinations.
The demise of the Soviet Union did create a vacuum but America's response was initially quite cautious. Saddam wasn't toppled. Gaddafi was rapped over the knuckles but allowed to continue his shenanigans. North Koreas was allowed to starve quietly. Cuba too was left alone. The thinking was that America could secure a 'peace dividend' by being released from the obligation to block Soviet machinations. Under Clinton, the impression was created that the President preferred to listen to his own unofficial envoys rather than trust the foreign policy establishment. April Glaspie- the US ambassador to Iraq whom Saddam believed had given a green light for his occupation of Kuwait- was also involved in Somalia where Clinton got his fingers burnt. Clearly American diplomats were useless. A little later the Sudanese offered to hand over Bin Laden but they were ignored. The attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania drew forth a feeble response from an administration more worried about Monica Lewinsky. India and Pakistan went nuclear without much reaction from the supposed 'hegemon'. The stage was set for 9/11 because, the thinking was, America would not want to put boots on the ground in a place where 'loose nukes' might be floating around. After all, the Pakistani ISI was the Taliban's main sponsor. Few expected the Pakistanis to hand over the Afghan ambassador to the Americans. However, it is now clear, Pakistan was playing the long game. Hamid Gul's prediction has come true- the Taliban has rearmed itself with shiny American weapons. If this is hegemony what is stupidity?
The war on terror also reshaped American national identity. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States was a country bereft of the unifying sense of purpose that the Cold War had fostered.
Is this really true? Surely, the collapse of Communism enabled Americans to move from FDR type polices- designed to contain the appeal of radical politics- to things like 'work-fare' and union busting and increased financialization. Politics had a new glamor because it was a revolving door to great wealth. The oligarchs of the world were queuing up to hand out dosh to Beltway lobbyists. The theory was that everybody's condo would just keep soaring in value so there would be 'trickle down' wealth for all.
Gone was the clarity of the ideological struggle between capitalist democracy and communist autocracy, the free world and closed societies. After 9/11, President George W. Bush marshaled the aspiration for a unifying American identity and directed it toward a new generational struggle. The war on terror, he declared, would be on par with the epochal struggles against fascism and communism.
I think Bush expected Iraq to foot the bill in the same way that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia paid for the first Gulf War. This was the 'feel good' factor of a war against troglodytes with a medieval mindset who, however, lived on top of an ocean of petroleum. Why shouldn't 'Imperial America' become as wealthy as the Roman Empire or the British Raj in its heyday? True, the reservist sent off to fight got the short end of the stick. But the contractors were making out like bandits. If only NATO had come together as a coherent and effective fighting force, there was also the possibility that the hard work would be done by Croatians or Poles who would happily fight for very much less money. But why stop there? Why not recruit your own Afghans or Iraqis or whatever? Those guys seem to have been born with a gun in their hands. Surely, if properly paid and trained, they would be excellent, very cost effective, mercenaries? After all, colonial Empires were garrisoned by 'sepoys'- i.e. poor people from one part of the Empire serving in another part.
Bush’s framing of counterterrorism as a defining, multigenerational, and global war represented an effective form of leadership after an unprecedented national tragedy, but it led inexorably to overreach and unintended consequences. The U.S. government soon abused its powers of surveillance, detention, and interrogation. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq became about far more than taking out al Qaeda. American democracy was linked to militarized regime change in ways that undermined its health at home and legitimacy abroad. The victories Bush and his administration promised—and that conservative media relentlessly predicted—never materialized, sapping Americans’ confidence in government and provoking a search for internal scapegoats.
Rhodes accurately captures the perceived malaise which led to Obama's extraordinary victory. The war on terror had become a swindle which enriched vested interests in America. It was not a source of national profit or national pride. But what was the alternative? Obama came to power at a time of unprecedented financial crisis coupled with an unravelling of the 'coalition of the willing'. The Brits gave up in Basra in 2007 while the Iraqi parliament started demanding a time table for withdrawal. Soon Karzai too would grow restive. It had become apparent that troop surges were not sustainable. Ethnic cleansing had reared its ugly head in Iraq. America had failed. The question was- did it ever intend to succeed? Had it ever had a plan?
Rhodes, quite understandably, does not mention Obama's own errors- bailing out Wall Street not Main Street (or so it was alleged)- and presiding over equally unproductive troop surges. However, he could negotiate withdrawals without looking weak. His charisma was unmatchable- but, the sad truth is, the Arab Spring failed. The audacity of Hope which he represented, turned out to be fool-hardiness and wishful thinking. Obama left open a door for Hilary to appear more hawkish and this seemed a clever move. Let the first female American President come in on a strong note. Nobody in their right mind expected Trump to win but win he did. He used his 'big man' persona in a manner well understood in less sophisticated parts of the world. Strangely enough, he appeared to be achieving foreign policy successes. Then COVID came and the CDC turned out to be completely useless. Trump bet on the crazies but there weren't enough crazies to reelect him.
The jingoistic nationalism of the immediate post-9/11 era morphed into a cocktail of fear and xenophobia that eventually produced a president, Donald Trump, who paid lip service to ending wars abroad and repurposed the rhetoric of the war on terror to attack a shifting cast of enemies at home.
Trumps deal with the Taliban doesn't look too bad. Biden should have doubled down on evacuation by the deadline he had fixed. The public face of this could have been Lloyd Austin- a four star general. Biden needed a flak catcher so as to concentrate on his domestic program. He really ought not to have been talking about Afghanistan at all- let alone suggesting that the Afghan Army could hold on by itself.
The United States now has a president more genuinely committed to ending the country’s “forever wars.”
But this means getting your people out as fast as possible. It may be that even as I write this, the Americans are assuring the moderates in the Taliban that they will get some money to consolidate their hold on the country thus averting a descent into Civil War.
After all, the American President might have been misinformed by his intelligence people. But he could now understand that if Afghan army soldiers couldn't surrender to the Taliban, they would surrender to ISIS Khorasan or some local drug lord.
If the Taliban gets access to the country's foreign currency accounts then they can keep their command structure intact. But if money does not flow downhill, then Taliban forces have to live off the land. But the land is very poor. Desperate people will have to join their enemies.
President Joe Biden’s determination to do so is demonstrated by his decision to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and even more clearly by his administration’s global agenda. In Biden’s first address to the U.S. Congress, in April, and in a speech he made at the G-7 summit in June, terrorism was supplanted by the challenges of stamping out a pandemic, fighting climate change, revitalizing democracy, and preparing the United States and its allies for an enduring competition with an assertive China. After 20 years, Biden is taking steps to move the country into a new period of history: the post-post-9/11 era.
Clearly Biden's bien pensant agenda should have given him a long honeymoon with allies. But all has come to naught because of the fiasco in Kabul. Boris Johnson looks a fool for asking for an evacuation extension. European allies too feel they have been snubbed. The 'Democracy summit' is dead in the water. Biden appeared to act selfishly on COVID vaccines before changing course. His demands from allies on holding China at arm's length are likely to be resisted. Why should allies make sacrifices for the sake of American hi-tech fat cats? Those guys have been avoiding taxes in Europe and elsewhere. Furthermore, American judicial 'extra-territoriality' now has a more dangerous side to it. What if Biden lurches to the left? He may protect his own donors at home while soaking non-American oligarchs. Thus, a billionaire fraudster is safe enough- if an American citizen. If British or European, there is a danger the fellow will be extradited and forced to make good the damages sustained by Americans.
It may well be that Biden's Green New Deal will succeed where a similar initiative by Obama failed. After all, the public mood has changed significantly. But his plan is very much 'America First'. The fear is that America will use its financial might to get its allies to foot some of the bill. What if they turn the tables on America by demanding it cut emissions now rather than indulge in pork barrel politics? This is the danger America faces. The world may simply lecture America rather than wait to be lectured.
Of course, some new threat- as yet unsuspected- may suddenly emerge which once again puts America center stage. But is Biden ready for any such thing? The truth is we expected him to have had 'flak catchers' to handle 'blow back'. We didn't think we'd see him stumble and fumble on TV. Still, it may be that Biden is preparing the way for a financial rescue package for the Taliban. They will become 'our guys' and we'll cheer them on as the go after ISIS. But what is to prevent the same cycle of corruption recurring? Why should not the 'moderate' leaders- some who have been jailed in Gitmo or Pakistani prisons- simply feather their own nests? What about Pakistan? Will the Afghans support the Pakistani Taliban? Will they quietly create a corridor for ISIS to head to the more affluent regions to the South? What will the Pakistani reaction be? Their Government too needs money. I suppose, Rhodes might say 'ending the war on Terror means no more sanctions against Pakistan or other such countries'. But the problem remains, international money can come in but what if it sticks to the fingers of the guys at the top while the foot soldiers have to live off the land?
Yet the vast infrastructure of the war on terror remains in place, and its prerogatives continue to influence the organization of the U.S. government, the deployment of the U.S. military, the operations of the U.S. intelligence community, and Washington’s support for autocratic regimes in the Middle East.
Rhodes speaks as an insider. We can well believe that bureaucratic inertia could lead to wasteful or counterproductive policy decisions. However, the solution must be found by the Administration. It is not really something on which we can form an opinion.
As was the case in the Obama administration, those realities constrain the United States’ ability to move decisively past the post-9/11 era, lead a global revitalization of democracy, and buttress a rules-based international order.
It seems Rhodes has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. We don't want a 'revitalization of democracy'. We want good governance of a cost effective kind. It is foolish to want a 'rules-based' international order as opposed to nations doing mutually beneficial deals and not worrying too much about how this might look to some ideological purist.
A true pivot will require more dramatic steps: reconfiguring or dismantling aspects of the U.S. post-9/11 enterprise
defund the State Department? Cool.
and changing a securitized mindset that has encouraged authoritarianism at home and abroad.
Rhodes thinks 'mindsets' must change. He may be right. But is it reasonable to expect a 78 year old man to suddenly get a new 'mindset' and then persuade everybody else to do the same?
The U.S. government cannot end forever wars if it is designed to fight them;
No. It can't end such wars if it is not designed to win them. This appears to have been the root of the problem. Money was to be made fighting, not winning.
it cannot revitalize democracy if democracy consistently winds up on the losing end of national security tradeoffs.
I suppose Rhodes means that America over-reacted to 9/11. The threat to American lives was overstated. But the other side of the coin was the prospect of an American led new international order which could pay for itself using the natural resources of 'liberated' countries.
Meanwhile, what the United States represents and what it means to be an American are far more contested today than when the nation reflexively rallied after 9/11.
But, at that time it was unthinkable that a Black man might become President. Still, it is true that things like COVID have divided the country in a way few are old enough to recall. I think ordinary people have become skeptical of 'experts'. At the same time, both 'folksiness' as well as brash populism are no longer seen as reassuring. Perhaps, Biden can turn things around by putting money into people's pockets and rebuilding the middle class.
The debate about American identity has become so acute that the country has been rendered more vulnerable to the kinds of violent extremism that its post-9/11 posture was built to prevent. There was a time when a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol
the aim was to disrupt the counting of the electoral vote by a joint session which would have confirmed Biden's victory.
would have been a sobering wake-up call to action; today, it has been interpreted largely through the prism of tribal politics characterized by right-wing denialism and deflection.
This is understandable. On the other hand, I imagine that security has been beefed up to ensure no recurrence. American democracy was so strong that it could afford a type of complacency misplaced in the age of internet based paranoid mobilization.
The same Republican Party that led the establishment of a multitrillion-dollar security state after September 11 doesn’t even want to investigate what happened on January 6.
Rhodes can be forgiven for beating his enemies with the stick they provided him with. But this calls attention to Biden's own reticence in this matter. At the time, it seemed politic- Biden needed cross-aisle support. Now, it may be seen as weakness.
In this context, one way to redefine the United States’ purpose in the world—and reshape American identity at home—would be to focus on competition with the Chinese Communist Party.
In which case, America has already lost. The Democratic party is just itching to revert to being a 'circular firing squad'. The Republicans seem to have delivered themselves body and soul to a lunatic.
That contest is the one major concern in U.S. politics that evokes broad bipartisan agreement. And there are good reasons to be concerned about the CCP. Unlike al Qaeda, it has both an alternative view of governance and society and the power to remake much of the world to suit its own purposes.
Only because it is transactional. But America could embrace the same path. Give up empty talk of human rights and democracy.
Ironically, China’s ascent in global influence accelerated rapidly after 9/11, as the United States was too often consumed by its focus on terrorism and the Middle East.
Actually, the Chinese felt themselves vulnerable at this time. It was only after they weathered the financial crash that they became more assertive. It is instructive to look at the way treatment of 'minorities' has changed. Even ten years ago, European NGOs would arrange Conferences where Han Chinese would sit meekly and say 'we must do more to listen to our Tibetan/Uighur brothers and sisters. We value the diversity they represent.'
In terms of geopolitical influence, the CCP has been the biggest beneficiary of the war on terror. There are also good reasons, however, to be wary of how a U.S.-Chinese confrontation might play out. Defining the United States’ purpose in the world and American identity through a new “us versus them” construct risks repeating some of the worst mistakes of the war on terror.
I'm not sure what Rhodes is getting at. Surely, this confrontation means high value adding jobs and Research facilities for Americans? There could be a 'Green' Manhattan Project and something similar for Nanotechnology and A.I and other cool stuff. By contrast, killing guys who live in caves aint rocket science.
President Barack Obama used to call the U.S. government “an ocean liner”: a massive, lumbering structure that is hard to turn around once pointed in a certain direction. After 9/11, the Bush administration pointed the ship in a new direction and generated an enormous amount of momentum. The national security apparatus was refocused on fighting terrorism: vast new bureaucracies were established, organizational charts redrawn, new authorities granted, budgets rewritten, priorities upended. After U.S. forces routed the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, a delirious triumphalism took hold in Washington. U.S. global influence never seemed stronger, and the politics of being tough on terrorism was resoundingly validated at the ballot box in the 2002 midterm elections, when the GOP swept control of Congress. Ever since, the United States has been cleaning up the wreckage left behind in the ocean liner’s wake.
The question is why America didn't 'win the peace' in Afghanistan and Iraq. One explanation is that it was those cunning Pakistanis or those cunning Iranians or the uselessness of allies or the double-dealing of former enemies. But what was America's plan for those places? I suppose there must have been some such thing. I just can't remember what it was.
Today, the countries that experienced the most intense fighting of the war on terror are mired in various degrees of conflict. Afghanistan is returning to the state of civil war and Taliban ascendancy that preceded 9/11. Iraq has weathered a lengthy insurgency that generated al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which later morphed into the Islamic State (also known as ISIS); the country remains riven by intercommunal rivalry and Iranian influence. Libya, Somalia, and Yemen all lack governing authorities and host brutal proxy wars. There was certainly a basis for U.S. military action after 9/11, and certain threats necessitate a military response. Yet the conditions in these countries demonstrate the limits of military intervention and raise uncomfortable questions about whether, on balance, the people of these countries would have been better off without it.
Why were a lot of 'liberals' so gung-ho for these wars? Speaking from the British perspective, I think the answer is that there was a myth popular in Europe- one which was promoted by Peter Ustinov- that losing a war to America was a good idea. This was the plot of the Peter Sellers film 'the Mouse that roared'. However Japan and West Germany were rather exceptional. They had the potential to repurpose their war industries to get rich during peace times by exporting higher and higher value added goods and services.
The more typical case was American support for Chiang Kai-Shek's KMT. Why should generals and high officials not simply line their own pockets and get out while the going is good? South Vietnam was a re-run of this story. However, Mao and Ho Chi Minh were great leaders. It is not clear that Iraq or Afghanistan have anything similar.
The costs of the post-9/11 wars have been staggering. Over 7,000 U.S. service members have died in Afghanistan and Iraq, more than 50,000 were wounded in action, and more than 30,000 U.S. veterans of post-9/11 conflicts have taken their own lives. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis lost their lives, and 37 million people, as estimated by Brown University’s Costs of War Project, have been displaced by the post-9/11 conflicts that have involved U.S. forces. Meanwhile, the price tag of those wars—and for caring for those who fought them—is approaching $7 trillion.
Like Vietnam this was a 'deficit financed' war. However, till recently, it seemed the inflationary impact had been offset. Still, ordinary Americans feel that the Treasury should be putting that money into their own pockets rather than letting 'contractors' hoover it up. This could work in Biden's favor. But Biden now cuts a lonely figure. Where are his 'flak catchers'? How is it that he has become the public face of this debacle?
Counterterrorism has also consumed an incalculable amount of the limited bandwidth of the U.S. government—everything from the time and attention of the president and senior officials to staffing and prioritization within agencies.
Was this also true under Trump?
Consider what else the United States could have done with those resources
Rhodes won't accept that what Americans wanted was that money to be given to them in the shape of nice check from the Treasury. Trump understood this. Hopefully Biden will outdo him in this regard.
and that bandwidth over the last two decades, as the country struggled to keep pace with climate change, epidemics, widening inequality, technological disruption, and diminished U.S. influence—especially in places enticed by the CCP’s growing economic clout and promises of infrastructure improvements.
Get rid of the Magnitsky act. Welcome kleptocratic generals with open arms. That's how you neutralize the Chinese threat.
Of course, the party that instigated the war on terror was al Qaeda. After 9/11, the United States and other countries faced the risk of further catastrophic terrorist attacks and had to respond. To their credit, the U.S. military and the U.S. intelligence community decimated al Qaeda and took out its leader, Osama bin Laden. ISIS has been similarly rolled back through a campaign that involved a limited U.S. presence on the ground. My personal experience with the Americans who carry out U.S. counterterrorism policies has led me to overwhelmingly admire them. They have served their country bravely through administrations with shifting priorities, helping prevent attacks and save lives. Aspects of the country’s counterterrorism apparatus have certainly been necessary.
This admission supports the view that after 9/11 America was doing 'discovery'. Some organs of State shaped up very quickly. However, there was a political failure as represented by bloated 'Green Zones' populated by incompetent or corrupt people with 'pull' back home.
That reality, however, does not erase the enormous excesses and warped risk calculations that defined Washington’s response to 9/11. The kinds of attacks that the country spent trillions of dollars to prevent would have caused only a fraction of the deaths that could have been prevented by a more competent response to COVID-19, by the minimal gun safety measures that have been blocked by Congress, or by better preparation for deadly weather events intensified by climate change—all of which were neglected or stymied in part because of Washington’s fixation on terrorism. The scale of the costs—and opportunity costs—of the post-9/11 wars suggests that the country needs a structural correction, not simply a change of course.
The problem here is 9/11 itself was caused by institutional failures and bureaucratic inertia. The whole point about 'discovery' is that you discover some of your policy instruments are ineffective. Some safety nets are unsafe. Who would have thought that the fabled CDC would be seen as hindering rather than helping the fight against COVID? I believe some academics did a 'stress test' featuring a 'gain of function' outbreak from a lab in Germany. This was about a year before the pandemic. America came out best because of its CDC. Britain did well due to its NHS. People in both countries were sadly disillusioned. We had to agree that we had let leadership rest with what Tyler Cowan called a 'Complacent Class' which has self-segregated on the basis of supposed siloes of 'knowledge' and which claims a monopoly of interpreting the American dream. But Rhodes's own rhetoric seems to have this quality.
From the president on down, nearly all of the Biden administration’s top officials played a role in the Obama administration’s efforts to extricate the United States from its post-9/11 wars, a complex and politically fraught task that ultimately reduced the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq from nearly 180,000 in 2009 to roughly 15,000 by 2017. And during Obama’s second term, Washington’s global agenda looked something like the one that Biden described in his address to the G-7: organizing the world to combat climate change, strengthening global health systems, and pivoting to Asia while trying to contain a revanchist Russia.
But the American voter rejected this platform. It is far from clear that in voting for Biden, America's were demanding a 'Back to the Future' Presidency. Markets thought Trump would be re-elected. The mishandling of COVID is considered the main reason for his failure.
With the benefit of hindsight, however, it is clear that the Obama administration—whose critics usually fault it for excessive restraint—actually erred in the opposite direction by sustaining aspects of the post-9/11 project. A 2009 troop surge in Afghanistan prolonged the war despite diminishing returns. The expanded use of lethal drones achieved tactical successes but institutionalized a capability to kill people in many countries. Acquiescence to authoritarian allies, including a Saudi regime that launched a catastrophic war in Yemen, undermined U.S. rhetoric about democracy. After Trump took office, his administration deployed tens of thousands of U.S. troops to the Middle East to confront Iran, relaxed restrictions meant to limit civilian casualties, cast aside concerns about human rights, fully embraced autocratic allies and partners, and deprioritized climate change and global health.
I think Obama wanted to link Trade deals to progress on Human Rights, the Environment etc. In other words, America would leverage its financial might to achieve incremental progress in a quiet but effective manner. The problem with this approach was that it made the decision space 'multi-dimensional' and thus opened the door to Agenda Control and 'McKelvey chaos'. Weaker countries grew wary of this approach. Still, if Obama's deal with Iran had gone through, they might have viewed America as altruistic rather than a bully. We may certainly blame Trump for his brash ways but, I think, America's repeated failure to make good on mutually beneficial deals (often because the Americans raise the price half way down the road) is the main reason why their hegemonic role continually eroded absent some unprecedented new crisis. I suppose COVID was just that crisis which Trump's America singularly mishandled. The problem currently is that Biden too appears ineffective and out of touch. This may change- but then again it might not.
The clear lesson is that it won’t be enough to merely redirect the ocean liner; Biden and Congress should redesign it.
Very true. If you are sitting in a boat, you can easily redesign it without getting off it.
Take climate change. Under Obama, the effort to achieve the Paris agreement to limit global warming drew on scarce climate expertise scattered across agencies and a fraction of the resources allotted by Congress for counterterrorism. The Obama White House went to great lengths to connect that climate expertise with the machinery of U.S. foreign policy: the bilateral and multilateral relationship management required to achieve anything substantial in international politics. Once the Trump administration took office, this nascent prioritization of the climate was halted.
But the thing had been mishandled ab ovo. Canada suddenly found that it had bound itself to anti-Green policies under rules which, it believed, were meant to tie the hands of the Mexicans. The problem with 'rules' is that they cut both ways.
The same thing happened to a White House office dedicated to pandemic preparedness that Obama had established after the Ebola outbreak in 2014. Trump shuttered that office, folding its portfolio into a directorate focused on weapons of destruction: pandemic preparedness was quite literally absorbed into the infrastructure of the war on terror.
This is a telling point. Sadly, it seems that the US was dabbling in 'gain of function' research despite the 2014 ban, but doing so overseas.
Today, the Biden team has the advantage of two decades’ worth of evidence that the focus on terrorism has warped national priorities, with rising public concerns about pandemics, a warming climate, and challenges from China and Russia. To truly prioritize those issues, Biden and his Democratic allies in Congress should work to dismantle parts of the post-9/11 enterprise. The 2001 congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force, which has been used to give legal standing to a wide range of military interventions since 9/11, should be repealed and replaced by something far more narrowly tailored, with a built-in sunset before the end of Biden’s term.
But we trust Biden, don't we? Why would we want to tie his hands? Anyway, don't we expect a Democratic successor to him? Is there something Rhodes knows which we don't?
Drone strikes should cease to be routine and should be used only in circumstances in which the U.S. government is prepared to publicly reveal and justify its actions.
Rhodes appears to be condemning Obama here.
The U.S. military’s global force posture should reflect the diminishing prioritization of the Middle East;
This is tantamount to saying the US posture should reflect its diminished international role.
the Pentagon should reduce the oversized presence of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region, which escalated in the Trump years.
Why not simply invite the Ayatollah to preside over a White House prayer breakfast?
To make permanent the focus on issues such as climate change and global health, the Biden administration should increase federal investments in clean energy, pandemic preparedness, and global health security and should accompany that spending with major reforms.
No. It should put money in people's pockets so they vote the right way during mid-terms.
For instance, agencies such as the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development should ramp up their climate expertise,
in the way they ramped up expertise in 'fixing failed states' by listening to the expert on that subject- one Dr. Ashraf Ghani.
and the intelligence community and the military should devote more resources to understanding and responding to truly existential dangers that threaten the American people.
Like falling down in the shower.
The Biden team will encounter resistance to those steps, just as the Obama administration often found itself swimming against the tide of American politics.
But that 'tide' was going in the right direction. Americans want to rebuild their middle class by increasing household wealth and disposable income. Give people the money to spend on Green tech. Pork barrel Green tech may turn out to be very grey indeed.
The effort to close the costly and morally indefensible U.S. prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was stymied by members of Congress from both parties.
In other words, Obama couldn't get even his own guys to play nice.
The cynical extremity of the Republican response to the 2012 attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, blended a growing penchant for far-right conspiracy theories with Republican attempts to delegitimize any foreign policy initiative supported by the Democratic Party.
Obama himself blamed Sarkozy and Cameron for the Libyan fiasco. The plain fact is that America didn't want to pick up the tab for European triumphalism. Consider Putin's annexing Crimea. The Russian step was understandable- after all Ukraine had been deliberately made bigger so as to keep it tied to Moscow but the promise of European Union funds- and the chance to get out from under a thuggish political class- proved irresistible to Kiev. Surely, some equitable settlement could have been countenanced? The plain fact of the matter is that America isn't going to put boots on the ground in that theater. Furthermore, pushback from Russia imperiled its mission in Afghanistan and caused it to lose face in Syria. Trump was exactly what the Doctor ordered. He regained executive freedom of action. But what did he use it for? It is difficult to tell. Still, he could project confidence in a way which Biden, sadly, seems unable to do. The man may have been a flim flam artist. Perhaps he will go to jail. But, for a while, it looked like he could do the sort of deals which would make America great again. The contrast between Obama's cringing deal with the Iranians and Trump's 'deal of the century' was great indeed though, in the final analysis, both were empty.
The Iran nuclear deal—designed to prevent both an Iranian nuclear weapon and yet another war—proved to be more contentious (and drew less congressional support) than did the authorization of an open-ended war in Iraq.
It was a bad deal. The fact is, if Iran goes nuclear then it faces multiple first strike threats. It is better off doing what it is good at. If more is required, then Russia and China appear natural allies.
Yet Biden is in a post-Trump, post-pandemic moment. The GOP’s embrace of Trumpism clearly endangered the lives of Americans and destroyed the party’s claim to a foreign policy that promotes American values.
Trump understood that Americans value checks from the Treasury which put dollars in their pocket. A foreign policy which consists of doing stupid shit promotes shitty values.
Biden and his team are uniquely suited to make the case to the public that they are more trustworthy, competent, and capable of securing the country and strengthening its democracy.
If this is so, why was Biden shooting his mouth of on TV about how the Afghan army would prevail against the Taliban? Why is he now saying the opposite? If this is competence what is dementia?
To do so, the United States must abandon the mindset that undermines democratic values.
Yes, yes. Mindsets must change. If only we believe that we can all levitate will we able to fly to work without a jet-pack.
Consider the experience of Mohamed Soltan,
son of a Deputy Minister in Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood Government
an Egyptian American who took part in the 2011 protests in Tahrir Square. He celebrated the downfall of the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak and the democratic opening that followed. But after a 2013 military coup ousted Egypt’s elected president, Mohamed Morsi, Soltan joined protesters in Cairo’s Rabaa Square. Security forces opened fire, killing at least 800 people. Soltan was shot. He was then imprisoned, tortured, and encouraged by interrogators to commit suicide. He went on a hunger strike that lasted almost 500 days and resisted the appeals of ISIS recruiters who were allowed to enter his cell. He was released only after a personal appeal from Obama to Egypt’s dictator, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
But his daddy remains in jail. Incidentally, Soltan had campaigned 'tirelessly' for Obama.
This dystopian scenario reveals the dysfunction of a post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy that provides billions of dollars in military and economic aid to a brutal regime
Where do the billions come from? American taxpayers. They want the Treasury to give them that money. Let brutal American policies or brutal American allies dip into their own savings to keep the wolf from the door. Defund the State Department!
that allows ISIS recruiters to roam its overpopulated prisons, fostering the very radicalization that justifies both the regime’s brutality and U.S. assistance.
Cut off the cash flow- by returning tax money to the middle class- and brutality will have to pay its own way in a cruel and uncaring world.
The war on terror was always at war with itself.
Rhodes is always at war with himself. This is because he is saying tax money gets spent on brutality but can't draw the obvious conclusion. He has to pretend that there is some 'mindset' such that money is pissed against, not the wall of brutality, but some other nicer wall.
Wars are costly. Cut off the cash and they have to live off an impoverished land till a proper leader appears.
The United States subsidizes Egyptian
stability. The thing is a bargain whichever way you look at it.
repression while paying lip service to democratic values,
which consist of pissing money against the wall of brutality- right?
just as Washington continues to sell weapons to a Saudi government that silences dissent and has waged a brutal war in Yemen.
Russia should get those arms contracts. Egypt, as under Nasser, should be exporting Socialist Revolution to Yemen with 'boots on the ground'.
Biden is waging a brutal war against confidence in his ability. He should change his mindset.
It is no coincidence that the governments of key U.S. partners in the war on terror—not just Egypt and Saudi Arabia but also Israel and Turkey, among others—have grown more repressive since 9/11, contributing to the rising tide of authoritarianism around the world that the United States wants to roll back.
Biden may be against authoritarianism but authority is slipping from his hands. What if Governor Newsom loses the recall? Larry Elder is a nightmare for Liberals- a right wing African American who blames Obama for George Floyd. What if he becomes Governor? Could Kamala Harris help Newsom with this? Perhaps it would be safer not to find out. A President who, by reason of age or infirmity, is a lame duck is one thing. An equally lame Veep is quite another. Executive freedom of action goes out of the window.
Revitalizing global democracy
is an empty slogan.
is not compatible with a permanent global war on terror.
Terrorists could be treated like pirates- hostis humani generis- a common enemy of man. Sadly, democracies may have a soft spot for some terrorists while reviling others.
The balance of tradeoffs has to shift. U.S. military assistance should be conditioned on respect for human rights.
We will only give you guns if you promise not to use them. My memory is that this was pretty much boiler plate in all such agreements. The Americans did not invent this hypocrisy.
Washington should cast off the hypocrisy that has weighed down American foreign policy for too long.
How? By becoming transactional? Cool.
The war on terror not only accelerated authoritarian trends elsewhere;
Where? Pakistan? Surely the reverse is the case? Condaleeza Rice says she worked hard on brokering the deal between Musharraf and Benazir. That ended badly. Still, the Army has stayed out of politics- unless of course politics is viewed as war by other means.
it did so at home, too.
Very true. The war on terror culminated in the election of the highly authoritarian Obama.
The jingoism of the post-9/11 era fused national security and identity politics,
which is why Barak Hussein Obama became President.
distorting ideas about what it means to be an American
is Rhodes thinking of the 'birther' controversy? I suppose it could be argued that this put Trump on the path to the White House.
and blurring the distinction between critics and enemies.
I must admit, Rhodes has a point. Obama was emollient. Perhaps, Biden is too- behind the scenes. But on TV he is not looking good at all.
After 9/11, an us-versus-them, right-wing political and media apparatus
which had attacked Clinton and the hapless Gore, thus putting Dubya in the White House
stirred up anger against Americans who were not sufficiently committed to the war on terror and hyped the threat of an encroaching Islamic “other.”
Bush protected wealthy Saudis resident in America. He was scarcely an enemy of Islam. Blair too went out of his way to soothe apprehensions on this score- becoming very wealthy after leaving Number 10 while doing so. The neo-cons were listening to people like Kanan Makiya and Ahmed Chalabi. Some went the extra mile to find similarities between Rabbinic casuistry and Shia orthodoxy. Trump might be said to have 'othered' Islam in a crude manner- but it was only the Islam of poor countries ('shitholes'). Wealthy Islam is always welcome.
But as the 9/11 attacks receded into memory and it became clear that no grand victories would take place in Afghanistan or Iraq, the nature of that “other” shifted.
Indeed. The Democratic Party moved to the Left. Hilary Clinton represented that 'other'- an occult force similar to 'the hard faced men who did well out of the war'- while Obama incarnated the audacity of hope. Unexpectedly, 'no-drama' Obama proved a cautious and wonkish statesman. His undeniable charisma might have got his reelected but it could do nothing for Hilary. The fact is the higher ranks of Government were seen to be a revolving door to the cosmopolitan life of the uber-rich. Trump appealed to voters because he'd made his money doing something they could understand- i.e. put up shiny buildings. He had a grouse against the bankers and ordinary people shared that grouse (though Trump had always gotten the better of anyone foolish enough to lend him money). He looked like a 'Main Street' guy who could take on 'Wall street'. Also he married hot chicks- again very understandable. Finally, 'the Apprentice' had anointed him as a patriarchal figure enabling young Americans to rise up. I recall a stunningly handsome African American Rhodes scholar who won that 'golden ticket'. Of course, the whole thing was a fraud. The young man in question already had a thriving business consultancy. Still, they year was 2005 and so what we were seeing on the screen seemed to be the American dream coming true for a wider class of people than ever before.
Fear-mongering about terrorism and conspiracy theories about “creeping sharia” morphed into fear-mongering about immigrants at the southern border, anger at athletes who took a knee during the national anthem to protest police violence, and conspiracy theories about everything from Benghazi to voter fraud. More often than not, this dynamic targeted minority populations.
This is the crux of the matter. Obama- for very good reasons- was sticking with tried and tested 'pattern and practice' investigation followed by 'consent decree' based reform. But he frittered away political capital on things like the Iran deal. No doubt, he hoped Hilary would take a tougher line on this. But nobody had bargained on Trump barging his way to the Republican nomination. For the first time in history, a guy who had never held any elected or other public of military office had become President. Would he get voters a better deal? Well, he did cut taxes and packed the Bench in the manner he promised. That seems to have been enough for his core supporters. Why shouldn't Biden deliver more in the way of Treasury checks to rebuild the financial health of the middle class? Is there not some way in which 'Green' initiatives can be made remunerative for ordinary Americans? Is it really the case that Biden and his team are utterly useless?
Ironically, this redirection of the xenophobic currents of the country’s post-9/11 politics
9/11 was carried out by xenophobes- not our xenophobes, it is true- but guys from other countries who consider us 'foreign'.
ended up fueling terrorism rather than fighting it, with white nationalists running over a counterdemonstrator in Charlottesville and killing 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
These appear to be individual acts- like that of Sirhan Sirhan- rather than organized terrorism.
It also contributed to once unthinkable authoritarian scenarios. When fellow citizens are relentlessly cast as enemies of the state, even a violent American insurrection can become real.
So don't bad mouth Trumpistas. They are your brothers and sisters and Uncle-nephews and Mommy-Grannies.
When a superpower embraces a belligerent strain of nationalism,
i.e. when it defeats those who attack it
it also ripples out around the world. The excesses of post-9/11 U.S. policies were repurposed by authoritarians elsewhere to target political opponents, shut down civil society, control the media, and expand the power of the state under the guise of counterterrorism.
Authoritarian regimes already had an extensive repressive apparatus. It is foolish to suggest that America provided a template for a thing perfected by Stalin and Beria.
Furthermore, Rhodes is impugning Obama's Presidency for no good reason.
Of course, this is not Washington’s doing.
Did Washington provide a template which was 'repurposed'. No. Rhodes made a foolish allegation and then walked it back by saying 'well it did what I said but it wasn't its doing'. If you have an MFA you might be able to understand the very subtle distinction this involves. On the other hand, if you have an MFA, you might not be able to tie your own shoe-laces.
Yet just as Americans should recoil when Russian President Vladimir Putin indulges in whataboutism to excuse his abuses,
Putin is the cat who has swallowed the canary. He probably indulges in all sorts of things but 'whataboutism' is scarcely high on his list. American sanctions have increased his power. Navalny is in prison. If Putin is threatened he could unleash the beast of 'anti-corruption' activism. Thus there will be no palace coup. Putin is sitting pretty. What more could he ask for?
they should not blithely ignore their own country’s overreach and belligerent nationalism, which undermines Washington’s effort to push back against Putin, defend democratic values, and reinforce a rules-based order.
I don't understand what 'Washington's efforts to push back against Putin' have been. Europeans think they sorted out the sanctions and bore the costs. Meanwhile first Obama, then Trump, signaled a drawdown of US military assets in that theater. Obama, it is true, was misled by Europe's apparent economic strength as compared to Russia's terminal decline. But he could see for himself that Europeans were cutting their own throats by meddling in the MENA. The migrant crisis led to the eclipse of Merkel and the rise of Orbanism. Brexit might have even more far-reaching strategic consequences. If France takes the lead in creating a European Army, then NATO loses salience. The sprit of De Gaulle will have triumphed.
Like Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping has embraced the American war on terror as a template for repression and a justification for abuses.
But the Chinese were repressing the heck out of Tibetans and Muslims before Rhodes was born! Moreover, China sends the message that it is cool with Hamas or any other such group not operating on its soil and not targeting its assets.
In 2014, Uyghur terrorists took dozens of lives in the autonomous territory of Xinjiang, in western China. State media referred to the attacks as “China’s 9/11.”Xi urged CCP officials to follow the American post-9/11 script, setting in motion a crackdown that would eventually lead to a million Uyghurs being thrown into concentration camps. At a meeting in 2019, Trump reportedly told Xi that detaining the Uyghurs in camps was “exactly the right thing to do.”
China's official organs have always said one thing in English and another in Chinese. The fact is the 'Three Evils' ( 三个势力) campaign is rooted in Chinese political thought. It is not something imported from America.
Although nothing in the United States’ response to 9/11 approaches the scale of the CCP’s repression, Trump’s comment was far from the only validation that the CCP would find in the post-9/11 era. In the years following 9/11, several Uyghurs were held in the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay. None were found guilty of terrorism or deemed to pose a serious danger to the United States. When Obama tried to close the prison at the outset of his presidency, there was a plan to release a few Uyghur detainees in the United States to show that the American government was willing to do its part, since it was asking other countries to repatriate some of their citizens who had been detained at Guantánamo but cleared for release, and the Uyghurs could not be safely repatriated to China. Obama’s proposal was met with hyperbolic opposition that resulted in restrictions that prevented the prison’s closure. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, led the charge, releasing a joint declaration that claimed that the Uyghurs “have radical religious views which make it difficult for them to assimilate into our population”—a statement that sounded precisely like CCP propaganda regarding its actions in Xinjiang.
Even the Pakistani Army considers certain Uyghur groups to be implacable in their opposition to any form of Government not entirely Islamic. But even the Rohingyas are treated with suspicion by fellow Muslim nations. The ill wind of terrorism blows nobody any good.
Americans rightfully take pride in their country’s tradition of global leadership and its aspiration to be “a city upon a hill” that sets an example for the world.
By being rich. Americans wouldn't want to set an example of poverty and humility and chastity and obedience to the world.
But why would they think that others will follow their example only when it reflects positive values and qualities?
Tardean mimetics operate wherever people see other people enjoying a superior way of life. The thing is pretty much hard-wired in our species. The Soviets were imitated when they won wars and depicted their country as a worker's paradise. But then, India and China were so poor that they thought the Soviets were rich by comparison. Only after visas to America became easier to get did the scales fall from our eyes.
When Americans invade another country for no good reason,
But America only exists because Americans kept invading the territory of other nations
support autocracy out of convenience,
while trying to undermine democracies for the same reason- in other words have the same sort of foreign policy as everybody else
and stigmatize minorities in their own country,
Jim Crow was alive and well when Kennedy was in the White House.
they should not be surprised when other countries emulate those misdeeds or use them to justify their own authoritarian excesses.
But other countries were doing this long before Columbus was born! Why does Rhodes think that everything important only happens in America? The rest of the world, for some unknown reason, is condemned to copy America in the manner that monkeys imitate human beings.
Americans must confront this uncomfortable reality not because Washington should retreat from the world but because it cannot cede the field to leaders like Putin and Xi.
Putin and Xi have power. Biden must set an example by being completely useless. Other countries will be forced to copy America- because they are no better than monkeys. One fine morning, Xi and Putin will appear before the TV cameras mumbling incoherently. Once there is no more leadership, authoritarianism will have been defeated. Everything in the garden will come up roses.
The United States must live up to the better story it tells itself as the leader of the free world.
By having a completely useless leader.
Ultimately, this is the most important lesson that Americans must learn from the post-9/11 period.
Be completely useless. If terrorists come to kill your people- roll out the red carpet for them.
Restoring American leadership requires rebuilding the example of American democracy as the foundation of
the annexation of large chunks of Mexico.
the United States’ foreign and national security policy.
What does this mean in practice? Biden should dis-invite leaders of 'flawed democracies' from his December summit? But America is itself now classed as one such. The wider problem is that Democracy just doesn't seem all that attractive any more. If there was some way for people in poor countries to vote for an authoritarian party which could deliver ten percent growth per annum, that is the option they would take.
All these lessons must be applied to an intensifying competition with China.
How is saying 'boo to authoritarianism' an 'intensification' of competition?
Biden is justifying huge outlays on infrastructure by pointing to the need to prove that democracies can outcompete the CCP’s state-controlled capitalism.
But Xi can shoot corrupt officials- or even those who might plausibly be thought to have been historically corrupt- and can lock up billionaires till they toe the Party line. The CCP has state sanctions not available to any American President.
Congress is investing substantial resources in science and technology to keep pace with Chinese innovation. The Biden White House is proposing industrial policies that would favor certain U.S. industries and refining export-control regimes to disentangle critical supply chains that link the United States and China.
So, Trumpism will prevail- unless the tax-payers revolt and demand cheap imports.
U.S. defense spending is increasingly shaped by future contingencies involving the People’s Liberation Army.
The worry is that the military may simply want to withdraw and leave it to regional powers to provide a countervailing threat point. Force projection into China's backyard is simply too costly. Moreover, one's regional partner may get Magnitskied at the wrong moment creating a 'stranded asset'. What is the point of stockpiling cool shiny tech in out of the way places if the bad guys end up taking it?
The State Department has prioritized the fortification of U.S. alliances in Asia and enhanced contacts with Taiwan. Washington has become increasingly critical of Chinese human rights violations in places such as Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
Stable doors must be closed properly after the horse has bolted.
On trade, technology, and human rights, the United States is working with partners and through multilateral organizations, such as the G-7 and NATO, to forge the firmest possible united front against China.
While the Americans run away as fast and as far as possible. This really is not the time to be talking of 'united fronts'.
These efforts will create their own political incentives and pressures; they will also create momentum for the expansion of resources and bandwidth within the U.S. government. Already, one can sense the ocean liner adjusting course.
But it is headed for a dry-dock. The problem with expanding 'resources and bandwidth' for bureaucracies is that nothing can be done till everything is done.
Yet although each of these initiatives has its own justification, it would be a mistake to simply focus on the new “them”—an impulse that could facilitate another wave of nationalist authoritarianism of the kind that has poisoned American politics for the past 20 years.
We must stick with the old 'them'- i.e. the Republicans. I'm not saying there should be re-education camps for Trumpistas but Biden should definitely shit himself and sob uncontrollably on TV. Indeed, Congress should insist that every President should shit himself or herself whenever they are in the vicinity of a TV camera. We must increase bandwidth so everybody can immediately download such videos in full 8k HDR.
Better to focus more on “us”—a democracy resilient enough to withstand a long-term competition with a rival political model, forge consensus among the world’s democracies, and set a better example to the world.
Us is everybody who wants the Treasury to send them a check rather than piss that money against a wall in Kabul or Basra or wherever.
In addition to delivering on big-ticket items, such as infrastructure,
which is difficult in a rule-of-law Democracy because of NIMBYism and cost overruns and built in obsolescence and so forth.
American democracy must be fortified and revitalized.
Why? Is it weak and ailing? Does the author expect Biden to start shitting himself and weeping copiously the next time he is on TV?
Protecting the right to vote and strengthening democratic institutions at home must be the cornerstone of the United States’ democratic example.
Sadly, democracies can restrict voting rights. A dictator can enforce such rights- indeed, she could make voting compulsory- but that is another story.
Addressing inequality and racial injustice in the United States would demonstrate that democracies can deliver for everyone.
But democracies can also refuse to deliver for some. It is Communism, not democracy which promises to deliver to everyone 'according to his needs'. But first economic scarcity must be overcome.
Rooting out corruption that flows through the U.S. financial system would
put ex-Presidents in the frame for money they have received for their 'charities' and 'Foundations'
help clean up American politics and choke off resources that flow to autocrats in other countries.
In which case, those autocrats will find new patrons.
Stemming the flood of disinformation and hate speech on U.S. social media platforms would
affect both the Left and the Right. But, we suspect, some of the wildest voices on the Right are 'bots'.
curb radicalization and undermine authoritarianism all over the world.
Because America has magical powers. Everything important happens there. Foreigners are little better than monkeys who copy everything Americans do.
For 30 years, the U.S. government has prioritized economic interests over human rights in dealings with the CCP, and so have many American companies, cultural institutions, and individuals. This must change—not because of Washington’s geopolitical opposition to Beijing but because of the United States’ support for democratic values at home and around the globe.
China too prioritized economic interests. That may be changing- in which case we are in for a rough ride till our supply chains are secure.
The world is a difficult and sometimes dangerous place. The United States must assert itself to defend its interests. But the post-post-9/11 era
which is defined by running away
should be defined not by a confrontation with the next enemy in line but rather
with running away
by the revitalization of democracy as a successful means of human organization.
We won't play with you till you have a less successful means of human organization. Otherwise the contest isn't fair. We are bound to lose.
To replace the war on terror with a better generational project,
running away
Americans have to be driven by what they are for, not what they are against.
They are for getting home safely. They are against that nasty cruel world beyond American shores.
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