A thought just popped in my head. The problem is the thought is based on two grave literary sins. Allow me to share the idea and then the self-identified sins.
In watching Bret Stephens from the Wall Street Journal speak about Israel and the history of American foreign policy, I caught a fascinating phrase or two. Stephens points out that the last seven decades of American active, liberty-supporting foreign policy has created one of the greatest stretches of peace in the history of man. Stephens goes on to point out that autocratic regimes are now sensing an opportunity to assert themselves that they have not felt during the Pax Americana (i.e., the term for the American Peace that borrows from the established concept of the Pax Romana from the Roman Empire's period of peace and prosperity).
Last week, many commentators were discussing Hillary Clinton's remarks that Obama's idea of "don't do stupid sh... er ... stuff" is not a foreign policy.
With Stephens' early remarks there is the hint of the concept of the US as the world's policeman. Stephens believes that the US is tired of keeping the world in check.
Frankly, I find the concept of a policeman wrong. The idea is that there is a rule of law and the police are just there to remind the outlaws about what should be done. Police are a modern concept from large urbanized areas with police appointed by elected officials.
I find the concept of International Law laugheable. Eighteenth Century Swiss writer Emmerick Vattel started it by pushing the idea that each country was reflecting the will of its people. The acts of the countries could then be treated as law. Frankly most of the world suffers a despotism imposed on them, so the people's will is not reflected in the government. Vattel's notions fail at first blush. The international scene is not orderly. It is not subject to one legal regime that a policeman can simply enforce.
The better imagery for the international scene is wild west US Marshal. Here is the agent of a far away central and legitimate power that is trying to establish order among the locals who have not organized functioning state governments. The marshal's job is to keep base-line expectations of order. Protect life, liberty, and property.
Truman set the US up as the international marshal. The US has served to keep chaos from breaking out on the international scene while the locals have a chance to build up their organizations. This was the intent in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When Obama entered the White House, he clearly did not see the world with Truman's eyes. He wanted the US to just be another country, not the marshal of the world. Obama thought it stupid to create order half a world away.
Now as Obama draws the US back within its borders, we see the world changing.
We have moved from the US as world marshal and seeking to allow each country to find their people's will (to attempt to bring truth to Vattel's world order?). We have moved toward a world where there is no dominate force to maintain basic order and protect life, liberty, and property.
We are seeing Obama's foreign policy to allow the return of the world of chaos. We have seen the growth of Obama's policy of encouraging a global reenactment of the Lord of the Flies. Obama encourages the most blood thirsty to seek greater chaos and threats to life. Obama shows minimal interest in understanding the life-protective effects of the US military.
Obama seeks to remove any sense of order other than the order of a form a detente between dictatorial regimes and timid democracies. Obama seems to believe that it is better for the US to be loved than feared by tyrants.
Machiavelli in the Prince, chapter 17, famously asks whether the autocratic prince should prefer to be feared than loved. Machiavelli points out that a man can only control his own passions, so an autocratic prince cannot cause the people to love the prince. Machiavelli also points that a prince can institute fear in his people by the prince's own cruelty. Machiavelli believes the prince is most efficient in using what the prince can control as opposed to what the people control. Control comes from imposed fear. Only after should the prince seek to be loved.
Obama turns this notion on its head. He wants the US of Obama's creation to be loved and not feared. This seems to be because Obama believes that Vattel's fantasy of how the world works is true. Vattel was wrong. There is no international order of law. It is the world that Machiavelli envisions for the prince would seek to rule. (Remember this is not Machiavelli making prescriptions for the world to have an ideal government. It is Machiavelli, as an experienced diplomat in the pre-Reformation era, describing how autocracy do work. Machiavelli writes a more prescriptive view of the world in his less famous Discourses on Livy.)
Obama fails to understand the truths of despotic power in the absence of a functioning democratic order that Machiavelli describes so well. Iran, China, Russia, some of the Soviet break-away "republics" understand Machiavelli's description of cruelty as a means to holding power. Obama wishes Vattel's fantasies were true, but ignores that Machiavelli's portrait of tyrant is near flawless.
The result is a situation where cruelty most foul prevails over democratic principles. Here is the invitation to either anarchy and chaos with the swift imposition of despotism in the name of seeking a false law-and-order. Obama is creating an anarchic world. Since the failed attack by the Turks on Vienna, Islam has not felt its power to inflict chaos and fear to non-believers. Obama is encouraging a world where Islamic threats are growing more powerful. Obama is discouraging actions that lead to spontaneous order where citizens feel safe in their life, liberty, and property. Obama is seeking to become his own lord of the flies.
So now we have the Lord of the Flies metaphor, what about the two literary sins? I hate inaccurate use of literary allusions. They often lead to the misapplication of the literature. The most famous is "Uncle Tom" as an indictment of a black who is loyal to his slave owner. In fact the character is the center of dignity under bad circumstances and helping others at risk to himself.
I also hate when writers act like they understand stories when the writer has clearly never read the work.
Because I have never read the Lord of the Flies, I fear that my thoughts on Obama's foreign policy could be cause me to guilty of both such literary sins.
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