The Lost Decade?
This provocative essay from Angelo Codevilla at the Claremont Review of Books has enough vitriol in it to get some on everyone's sacred cow. He discusses everything from a revolutionary social situation, to the farce of TSA screening, to the paucity of ships for an "island nation." Even if you don't agree with some or all of it, the issues he raises and the way he addresses them are sure to get you thinking.
September 11's planners could hardly have imagined that their attacks might seriously undermine what Americans had built over two centuries, … In fact, our decline happened because the War on Terror—albeit microscopic in size and destructiveness as wars go—forced upon us, as wars do, the most important questions that any society ever faces: Who are we, and who are our enemies? What kind of peace do we want? What does it take to get it? Are we able and willing to do what it takes to secure our preferred way of life, to deserve living the way we prefer? Our bipartisan ruling class's dysfunctional responses to such questions inflicted the deepest wounds.
…After 9/11, at home and abroad, our bipartisan ruling class did the characteristic things it had done before—just more of them, and more intensely. … Ten years later, the results speak for themselves: the terrorists' force mineure proved to be the occasion for our own ruling elites and their ideas to plunge the country into troubles from which they cannot extricate it.
I didn’t see anything controversal in this opinion piece, it pretty much hit the nail on the head minus a couple of minor mistakes regarding homeland defense.
Nice catch Peter, thanks for this Saturday morning’s read.
Thanks to Guttenberg, and his intellectual relatives at DARPA, we are able to widely share our observations that elephant that is our society is not healthy. People like Gian have loudly focused their observations, and our attention, upon a single tusk to the exclusion of the rest of the elephant. Peter Munson and Ben Kohlman meanwhile are able chroniclers of the state of the elephant’s eyes and trunk. Dr. Angelo M. Codevilla, however has read the parable of the blind men and the elephant, as is evident from his work in the USN, State Department, Academia, the halls of power, and of course this piece which we discuss. He description of the state of the elephant is one of the more holistic and descriptive that I have read. So what?
Are SWJ devotees reduced to the status of mere Cassandras or Edmund Burkes or is there something that can be done that is beyond our small spheres of daily influence? We are more fortunate than those in Russia or the Arab World in that we can freely vote…but at present it appears that voting just results in more of the same while our elephant continues to languish.
No answers this morning, just more questions….
For what it is worth, I offer that the “decade lost” was the 1990s; and that the 2000s was more appropriately the “decade misspent.”
Robert C. Jones:
I’ll swing at the easy softball lob. 😉
What is the distinction between a decade “lost” versus “misspent?”
And what should have the United States done during the asserted lost decade, which I shall define as the “Long Last Decade” (TM, ADTS, property rights currently under negotiation with SWJ) between the fall of the Berlin Wall and September 11, 2001.
My personal bias is that it is difficult for states to act absent compelling national interests – hence, for example, why most “humanitarian intervention” is unwise. Perhaps that should be modified to, “clear and compelling national interest” – while I’m sure many would argue that the problems encountered on September 11, 2001 and after should have been and/or were apparent fairly early during the Long Last Decade, I think for numerous reasons appraising new challenges is difficult. To paraphrase Lenin slightly, I will ask once more: what should the US have done differently?
Best
ADTS
America was already in economic decline by September 11, 2001. All of the imbalances and contradictions in place in the modern economy were established in the 1970s and 1980s as wages and opportunities stagnated and wealth concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The Reagan military spending boom did nothing to arrest or reverse the gross inefficiencies in the defense budget. The GWoT did not force decline in America — it accelerated the processes already occurring. What the GWoT did was pile on another burden to the already over-taxed American middle class (increased prices + decreased income = reduction in standards of living), while producing only one measurably positive outcome (the reduction of Al-Qaeda’s capabilities to strike the United States). The so-called “small wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan cost more than the victories over Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. While some might argue that the GWoT reduced civil liberties, it also inspired grassroots political mobilization; first in opposition to war, and then in opposition to perceived government corruption/waste/insert-other-device-as-needed. The last decade wasn’t totally lost… we did get ten years out of it.
AP, ADTS, et. al.,
We presently have a wide spectrum of civil and governmental institutions habitually in reactive crisis mode unable to conceptualize anything beyond short-term gains for various individuals.
Apparently, we as a nation condone the stunning and deliberate lurch towards American default during the summer of 2011, legalized socialization of private losses through vehicles such as TARP, and of course the catalog of ills presented by this article.
We could simply and complacently wait for the upcoming generational change to occur and hope that the incoming generation can somehow accomplish the difficult task of national reconstruction armed with minimal mentorship and preparation from a self-absorbed me-generation many of whom are focused upon anything and everything but the health of our nation.
America could instead choose to strive for an educated & engaged citizenry, a healthy business environment, sound monetary and fiscal policy, and effective political institutions all of which help to anticipate and respond to change. Key stakeholders (Citizenry, Business, Education, and Government) can decide to abandon habitual, and destructive, political posturing for a habitual focus on constructive teamwork.
Choices, choices….;)
For your reading pleasure I recommend HBR’s March 2012 Edition which includes the special report Reinventing America as well as HBR’s January-February 2011 Edition which includes the article How to Fix Capitalism. http://hbr.org/
Viva MBA’s!
Take care,
Steve
I would suggest that our bipartisan ruling class looks at the past two decades — and indeed the previous century — from a different perspective, to wit: as noting certain positive trends and developments.
Their goal (that of the bipartisan ruling class) — throughout this period and continuing on even unto today — has been/is to make the world safe(r) for markets by transforming outlier states and societies along western lines.
This is believed to have been substantially accomplished re: the outlier great powers (Germany, Japan, China and Russia) by 1990.
The task then became to work this same magic re: the lesser and remaining such states and societies.
Thus, with this end in mind (the transformation of outlier states and societies along western lines — so as to make the world safer for and more conducive to markets) was/is our foreign policy agenda and national security strategy designed and implemented; yesterday and today.
“Containment” — aimed at the remaining outlier great powers — worked to achieve this purpose during the Cold War.
“Engagement and enlargement” (for lack of a better all-encompassing term) was chosen to achieve this purpose re: the lesser and remaining such states and societies in the past two decades.
9/11? Seen by our bipartisan ruling class as a magnificent opportunity to press this case (the need to transform the lesser and remaining “deviant” states and societies) even further, faster and harder.
The LCS? I would suggest it was designed with idea of transforming the lesser and remaining outlier states and societies in mind.
The Arab Spring? Thought by our bi-partisan ruling class to be a potentially positive step in the right direction (to wit: state and societal transformation — hopefully along, if not initially, at least eventually — western lines).
Here is a link to the HBR article called “There Is No Invisible Hand.” Finally they figured out this was nothing but a myth according to the article.
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/04/there_is_no_invisible_hand.html