Inspiration, Not Domination
Excerpt:
Despite the unmistakeable dispersal of all types of power—the empowerment of individuals—much of the American establishment has its feet firmly planted in the 1950s. After Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq it is clear that the US government cannot make the world dance to its tune. Nevertheless, a Wall Street Journal editorial last week blamed Ukrainian upheaval on President Obama’s decision not to get involved in Syria—a move a majority of Americans supported—because it supposedly emboldened Putin.
The Chinese and Russians have recognized a reality that has eluded the Journal’s editors: in today’s world a powerful nation can dominate its own geographic area, but not much more. Neither country has wasted a lot of money or sent their military forces to the Middle Eastern snake pit. China has made aggressive moves in its own territory, while Putin is trying to restore Russian preeminence in the buffer zone between it and central Europe.
He appears to have failed in Ukraine, but the European Union and the US should hold their cheers. Ukrainians drove their democratically elected president from office, once again demonstrating the devolution of power from governments to individuals, but this is their second “revolution” in ten years. Putin will not stop trying to bring Russia’s next-door neighbor into its orbit. Western Ukraine wants to be part of Europe; wealthier, more industrialized, eastern Ukraine favors maintaining historical ties with Russia. Both Ukraine and central Europe depend on imported natural gas from Russia and all the pipelines run through Ukraine. What will the EU and the US do if Putin turns off the spigot, or moves a few tank divisions to the border? And will they prop up the Ukrainian economy? Putin’s ante was $15 billion; Ukraine is now asking for $35 billion.
Expanding government, command and control, and hegemony are on the way out. The Journal’s interventionist foreign policy is as backward looking and conceptually flawed as Obamacare. There is a system ideally suited to decentralization, innovation, creative destruction, organic adaptation, and peaceful trade; that empowers individuals, not governments: free market capitalism. Sooner or later a country will get it right and turn itself into a capitalistic Mecca for the world’s entrepreneurs and capital. Why shouldn’t that be the US, cradle of the Industrial and Information Revolutions? That would be a US that minds its own business and inspires and leads by example, rather than squanders its military power, money, and moral stature in a doomed quest for global domination.
Despite the unmistakeable dispersal of all types of power—the empowerment of individuals—much of the American establishment has its feet firmly planted in the 1950s. After Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq it is clear that the US government cannot make the world dance to its tune. Nevertheless, a Wall Street Journal editorial last week blamed Ukrainian upheaval on President Obama’s decision not to get involved in Syria—a move a majority of Americans supported—because it supposedly emboldened Putin.
The Chinese and Russians have recognized a reality that has eluded the Journal’s editors: in today’s world a powerful nation can dominate its own geographic area, but not much more. Neither country has wasted a lot of money or sent their military forces to the Middle Eastern snake pit. China has made aggressive moves in its own territory, while Putin is trying to restore Russian preeminence in the buffer zone between it and central Europe.
He appears to have failed in Ukraine, but the European Union and the US should hold their cheers. Ukrainians drove their democratically elected president from office, once again demonstrating the devolution of power from governments to individuals, but this is their second “revolution” in ten years. Putin will not stop trying to bring Russia’s next-door neighbor into its orbit. Western Ukraine wants to be part of Europe; wealthier, more industrialized, eastern Ukraine favors maintaining historical ties with Russia. Both Ukraine and central Europe depend on imported natural gas from Russia and all the pipelines run through Ukraine. What will the EU and the US do if Putin turns off the spigot, or moves a few tank divisions to the border? And will they prop up the Ukrainian economy? Putin’s ante was $15 billion; Ukraine is now asking for $35 billion.
Expanding government, command and control, and hegemony are on the way out. The Journal’s interventionist foreign policy is as backward looking and conceptually flawed as Obamacare. There is a system ideally suited to decentralization, innovation, creative destruction, organic adaptation, and peaceful trade; that empowers individuals, not governments: free market capitalism. Sooner or later a country will get it right and turn itself into a capitalistic Mecca for the world’s entrepreneurs and capital. Why shouldn’t that be the US, cradle of the Industrial and Information Revolutions? That would be a US that minds its own business and inspires and leads by example, rather than squanders its military power, money, and moral stature in a doomed quest for global domination.
