ZenPundit
Thursday, March 02, 2006
 
RECOMMENDED READING

Younghusband at Coming Anarchy on the " Warrior Gods" of Zen Buddhism.

Extra Zenpundit brownie points awarded to YH for choice of topic. Huzzah !

Fabius Maximus at DNI on part III of his grand strategy series "America's Most Dangerous Enemy"

This one is quite a mixed bag. I'll give Fabius kudos on his larger theme of the dangers of paranoia and hubris and I like his reference to the late historian Richard Hofstadter's classic concept of " the paranoid style". On the other hand, Fabius gets the interplay of anti-Communism and Containment policy in the history of the Cold War wrong in my view, often from gross oversimplification. Likewise, I think his interpretation of Dr. Barnett's views are often the opposite of what Tom intended, particularly in Blueprint For Action, which may be a result of the influence of Wiliam Lind's recent review.

Josh at The Adventures of Chester asks " The Key Strategic Question" - is Islam compatible with a free society ? Josh writes:

"To say yes to our question, one assumes that there are aspects of being Muslim and faithful to Islam, that can coexist peacefully with liberty, tolerance, and equality. The strategy that follows is one of identifying the groups and sects within Islam that adhere to these notions of their religion, and then encouraging them, favoring them, propagating them, and splitting them off from the elements of Islamic practice that are all too incompatible with the portions of modernity that invigorate men's souls: free inquiry, free association, free commerce, free worship, or even the freedom to be left alone.

To answer no, one states that Islam itself is fundamentally irreconcilable with freedom. This leads to a wholly different set of tactical moves to isolate free societies from Islam"

This post by Josh gets to the heart of the strategic debate between those like Thomas P.M. Barnett who advocate connectivity to shrink a Gap that contains a majority of the Muslim world and William Lind who argues for isolating ourselves from " centers of disorder" and those migrants who would bear disorder with them into the heart of our civilization.
 
Comments:
Mark,

Agreed on your criticism of Fabius. Some others

1. His popculture definition of paranoia is inappropriate, if for nor other reason than states exist in anarchy, unlike individuals, who have police protection
2. The long term trend was a shift to balancing Soviet power, not anti-communism generally. See Nixon, for example,.
3. JFK was influenced by "An Uncertain Trumpet," which substantially modified MAD into something less cataclysmic.
4. The British pacified with local forces. We should do.
5. He conflates minimal ruleset export with maximal ruleset export
 
Dan,

Great writing -- you put a lot of content into a small # of words! Whenever I submitt an article to DNI, the Editor mentions that the Gettysburg Address was only 287 words long.

Point 5 is a wonderful phrase, which I shall borrow! But it is a bit premature. Chapters #3 and (next) #4 consider only threat identification. See chapter 6 for a discussion of this issue.

I agree with points 2 & 3. How strange that so many comments focus on this brief mention of Containment.

However, note that I referred only to 1946 to mid-1960s, the formative era that shaped the post-WWII era. You mention events from Kennedy thru Nixon. After Vietnam, and esp. after Nixon-China, our strategy evolved away from Containment of Communism.

I disagree with #1. Threat identificiation is MORE imporant in anarchy than in an environment with laws and enforcment. In developed States we consider an area in which one must watch for threats as dangerous and exceptional.

But in international affairs, threat identification and assessment -- the subject of Chapters 3 & 4 -- are critical.

We must focus our limited military and intelligence resources on major threats. Also, rewarding friends and isolating enemies is the essence of Grand Stategy -- esp as defined by John Boyd == as described in Chapter 1.

Paranoia, in which we see enemies where none exist, short-circuits this vital process.

As for #4, like #5, it relates to a future chapter -- how we deal with threats. Several steps further downsteam in the reasoning chain!

Thank you for your comments!
 
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