A couple of distinguished American academicians have set the world alight with an essay about something called the liberal international order. Talleyrand understands little about such disputations; nor does he understand why people evidently so poorly trained in logic and rhetoric insist on entering into them, for these people don’t seem to be enjoying themselves very much. But who can say?
Perhaps his old friends X, Y, and Z can do. They have come to know the Yanks well. Here they venture to detect and dissect whatever shred of meaning may exist in this debate, and to determine whether it actually matters much outside the faculty lounge.
X: I shall play the role of the imperialist.
Y: I shall be the anti-imperialist.
Z: I shall be the realist.
X: You cannot be the realist. I am the realist, if by that you mean someone who combines the sagacity of Machiavelli with the stiletto of Henry Kissinger. Both men were masters of the art of publicity, and therefore rather gifted empire builders.
Z: No. Imperialists adhere to an ‘ism, and are therefore idealists. Some idealists may be pragmatists (the best Americans, of course, are); others may be incompetents. But this has little to do with realism.
Y: Our friend is correct. Realism is not an ‘ism or a strategy. It is a disposition, an instinct, a tendency – like studied moderation, which these people call ‘restraint’ and which I espouse whether it’s pragmatic or not.
X: Fair enough. I’d rather be known as a pragmatist than as a realist anyway. But we are not debating tendencies. We are debating power. The Americans still have a lot of it, although they still don’t seem to know what to do with it.
Y: They most certainly do. They have gone from a barbaric, colonial backwater to the most powerful industrial nation in modern history in the blink of a eye. They then established the biggest empire the world has ever seen. Some of them may deny it but that is what they have done. And now, bless, they can’t decide whether they want to keep that empire or toss it away.
Z: You are misled by perceptions. As a wise man once said, Americans possess the remarkable capacity to appear perplexed and incurious at the same time. It’s an act, a pose. Don’t fall for it, my friend.
X: There’s nothing to fall for. It’s all one in the same. The American empire is one that dares not speak its name for a reason. No American wants to give it up, not really. They’re just in for a bit of moral exhibitionism, or what they like to call virtue signalling…
Y: At least my kind of virtue signalling, as you call it, doesn’t result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents.
X: That’s a cheap shot, Mr Y. I think you’ll find that there’s more than one type of imperialist. The ‘ism you want to attack is not imperialism; rather, it’s exceptionalism. Exceptionalism is what offends so many people, not the unexceptional deeds, which you hardly ever denounce when they’re not on the front pages or conspicuously harming Americans. And that, in turn, is why the ‘liberal internationalists’ were so vexed by the last president. He had no use for exceptionalism, at least of the moral sort. Neither did the one who came before, who said with his usual smirk that everyone is exceptional.
Z: Yes, I like this. America is exceptional because it has been so powerful… not vice versa.
Y: So, is what you’re endorsing an amoral empire known by its proper name?
Z: (Yes, we should call things by their proper names…)
X: No, you misunderstand me. I emphasise exceptionalism to suggest, with all respect, that soi-disant anti-imperialists are secretly enamoured with mock self-hatred. That is why they equate the authority and stability of an alliance like NATO with the millions murdered in what used to so conveniently be called the Third World. Two sides of the same imperial coin. Why? Because many of them prefer bouncing around the echo chamber of the righteous middle-class left to grappling with the difficulties of survival in a world of the powerful, of the haves and the have-nots. They don’t like to speak about power much, actually, however much they benefit from it. Do they want to put at risk their nice salaries and pensions, their job titles and revolving sinecures, their abundant food, their contracts and benefits, their cheap mortgages, their endless supply of gadgets, their visa-free travel, their currency and all the privileges that go with it?…
Z: (Do you really think these polemicists travel? I have the impression that few of them wander far or talk much to foreigners.)
Y: It is you, Mr X, who misunderstands me. It’s not a question of whether one wants to live well but how to do it. The American way of life is better preserved by limiting overseas burdens and liabilities, not by extending them. And a powerful country is so not merely from its arsenal or its bank balance or even its scientific and technological prowess. It is powerful in softer ways (X and Z cringe). It is powerful from the influence of its laws, its culture, its beliefs, and yes, its moral purpose. These constitute something more than a pose. They are devalued, negated even, by association with the gun.
Z: With all due respect, I think both of you are missing the point in the latest orgy of Yankee narcissism. The point is that it assumes the future of the world hangs on how the American people, whose opinions are dictated by this elite crop of polemicists, choose to characterise themselves. That assumption rests on a virtual reality. Most of the real world cares as little about what these people say as they seem to care or know about what the rest of the world knows, thinks, or says. Meanwhile the world moves on. American power, like it or not, is diminished. You can’t deny it. We must ask ourselves what the consequences will be.
Y: Why that’s easy. Little America will be much better off as a normal, unexceptional nation amongst nations, cultivating its own garden, and, if it likes, trading happily with all, whilst having a decent respect to the opinions of mankind, etc.
X: Good God. That little fantasy didn’t work for our friend Mr Jefferson. It lasted about two minutes into his first term. Why on earth would you think it feasible today?
Y: Because the American people are fed up with fighting forever wars. Once the troops come home, foreigners will stop hating the USA. And they will develop their own beloved communities without the need for foreign intervention. And Americans at long last can begin to put their own house in order.
Z: I daresay, Mr Y, your idealism would turn the cheeks of even the old Calvinist of the faculty lounge, Mr Wilson, the colour of beetroot.
X: Bully! Why is it that every reformer wants his or her country to be a better version of Switzerland? Remember the poor sod who rewrote the Cuban constitution? He based it on a Swiss model and was laughed out of office by those who said, how sweet that is, but jefe, here there are no Swiss!
Y: It’s both of you who are now missing the point. If it is true, as you say, that American power is waning, then wouldn’t it be better to refashion it for the best? And to do so whilst America still has the capacity to withdraw easily from so many unnecessary, overstretched commitments? Or would you really rather be hated for wanting to rule the world forever?
X: Well, indeed, Mr Y, you do speak from a privileged position. What you seem to think, though, is that military power exists on an independent basis. That all your pretty soft powers don’t depend in some way upon it, or, at the very least, are shaped or compromised by it. That other powers, big and small, hard and soft, smart and stupid, are going to allow you the luxury of performing this little political science experiment on your own terms, on your own time. And that, ultimately, your nation’s interests won’t be affected adversely along the way, even though, as I keep saying, America remains a powerful country with a finger in an awful many pies; and with power comes vulnerability as well as responsibility. Abnegation is not responsible.
Z: As I keep saying, if one spends a bit of time outside one’s own country and with people outside one’s little circle (no offence), one tends to be sceptical of abstract certainties.
Y: So you keep saying. But your street-smarts certainly didn’t work with the Americans we once tried to bribe, did it? They tossed their sanctimony right back in our faces. And look what it got them? Lots of political points in the short term and more seeds of exceptionalism for later. I don’t call one bit of that idealistic.
X: Very well then, Mr Y reveals his true colours: those of Mr Wilson’s ‘higher realism’, the very shadow he purports to strike! Take that, Mr Z. Your pious ‘ism has been levelled by a higher piety. You’ve been beat at your own game by the soft power of the vanilla eclair. These anti‘s, like the anti-anti‘s during the Cold War, are the real Machiavellians in the room. They know precisely what they’re doing. They do battle with eyes open. They know how much we all have to lose, how dangerous their introverted sanctimony, stuck in at just the right spot, can be… how dangerous it already is.
Z: Are you saying what I think you’re saying, Mr X? Because you know how my realist friends react to being tarred with the brush of appeasement.
X & Y: No comment.