Thirty years ago it was rather clever of the Americans to persuade the Soviets to dismantle their own empire. It is striking to see the Americans now doing the same to themselves.
Some people are relishing the prospect, and the moment. They call themselves ‘realists’, ‘anti-interventionists’, ‘peace progressives’, and similar things. It is not entirely clear what these labels mean for policy and action. What is clear is who the enemy is: their own nation.
We are the monsters, the adherents announce with frequent, exhibitionistic, adolescent self-flagellation. But, why?
One could summon the ghost of Sigmund Freud for the answer. It has long been known that great empires fall from the same sort of motives that spies have for betraying their homeland. The motives are not exclusive but they are telling. Each society promotes a special psycho-cultural flaw: with Britain it was an absurd class system; with Russia, it was an over-romantic brand of ideology; with America it was almost always simple greed.
Who ever imagined that the classic American quest for fame and fortune would resort to asserting and attacking ‘identity’? It has long been said that American self-destruction would come wrapped in the American flag. But today’s faddish self-hatred, at once retrospective, millenarian, collective, and particular, is unexpected. Could anything be more un-American, and more Habsburg?
So, another plea to the fo-po-bros: We’ve heard you, but your obsessions and neuroses are doing damage to your nation, to its friends, and to the pursuit of peace. Time to knock it off.