26 April 2009

Here is a thought provoking thought from Robert D. Kaplan in his book The Coming of Anarchy: Henry Kissinger, Geroge Kennan, Reinhold Niebuhr and Hans Morganthau, all "realist" statesmen, doubted that America would ever be able to do much to many other societies at the same time to change their "internal evolution" - to rebuild them in our image.  They saw the "missionary idealism" of our ruling elite as naive.

Yet nothing has changed.  Each in their own way, our presidents want to try to change cultures, and all in their own way fail.  Cultures are difficult to change - all at once - whether the intent is to make them democratic or to coerce them into making nice.  Nations - or the cultures they represent - are consistent in at least one area: they see things through their own cultures and take actions determined to be in their own interests.

Additionally, as Morganthau, pointed out, a reputation for power in the minds of observer nations can be as important as its reality, if it is believable.   One president has been reviled for using power; another is being idolized for eschewing it; perhaps both approaches are flawed, both because of naivite, one the naivite of thinking he could impose democracy easily, the other because he thinks he can change the reality of human nature.

"Peaceful times are...superficial times, in which we concentrate on social imperfections because the political order appears secure, and judge cabinet members not on how they perform but on how they perform at press conferences," says Kaplan.  "Such times never last."  Reality is never quite like the short sighted desires of our intellectuals and media would have it, so now the pendulum swings yet once again.  We have been here before.