{"id":243,"date":"2007-02-15T01:34:39","date_gmt":"2007-02-15T06:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=243"},"modified":"2007-02-15T01:34:39","modified_gmt":"2007-02-15T06:34:39","slug":"limits-of-liberalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=243","title":{"rendered":"Limits of Liberalism"},"content":{"rendered":"
New York Times columnist Thomas<\/title><em>New York Times<\/em> columnist Thomas Friedman asks so many of the right questions.\u00c2\u00a0 Too bad he provides so few meaningful answers.<\/p>\n<p>Still, his views are so emblematic of the liberal mind that I cannot help find value (although not really enough to want to pay) in watching him construct his world.<\/p>\n<p>One of my favorite questions is the one he asks in his most recent column, “<a href=\"http:\/\/select.nytimes.com\/2007\/02\/14\/opinion\/14friedman.html?n=Top\/Opinion\/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed\/Op-Ed\/Columnists\">Putin Pushes Back<\/a>.”\u00c2\u00a0 He has recently returned from Moscow and now he wants to know, in essence, “Why do they hate us?<\/p>\n<p>Friedman’s Answer: NATO expansion.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We need to stop kidding ourselves. After the end of the cold war and the \tdissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, the <strong>Bush I and Clinton \tadministrations decided to build a new security alliance \u00e2\u20ac\u201d an expanded NATO \t\u00e2\u20ac\u201d and told Russia it could not be a member<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>And let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not forget that the Russia we told to stay out in the cold was the \tRussia of Boris Yeltsin and his liberal reformist colleagues. They warned us \tat the time that this would undercut them. But the Clinton folks told us: \t\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worry, Russia is weak; Yeltsin will swallow hard and accept NATO \texpansion. There will be no cost.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Why would a patriotic dude like Friedman go and join the “blame America first” crowd after all that time defending the American crusade in Iraq (really wanted\/wants to do Saudi Arabia, if you listen to the guy)?<\/p>\n<p>Because it is his way of saying that <em>our<\/em> illiberalism was and is the cause of <em>their<\/em> illiberalism.\u00c2\u00a0 And that goes a long way toward salvaging the idea that there was no <em>internal<\/em> crisis of liberalism in Russia (or the US).<\/p>\n<p>So, a couple of points:<\/p>\n<p>1. A huge chunk of what went “wrong” in Russia (say, with the rise of the ultra-nationalists in the December 1993 parliamentary elections) was a backlash against the <em>neo-liberal economic<\/em> proposals (shock therapy, tight monetary policy with its deflationary bias, massive unemployment, relentless austerity) that Friedman constantly champions in his embrace of neo-liberal “globalization.”\u00c2\u00a0 The Russian liberals weren’t done in because they were abused by American illiberalism.\u00c2\u00a0 The Russian liberals <em>imploded<\/em> because they championed some of the most <em>politically unpopular economic measures<\/em> anyone could imagine in Russia.<\/p>\n<p>Did Russian’s want consumer goods?\u00c2\u00a0 You bet.\u00c2\u00a0 But didn’t they also want <em>cash<\/em> to pay for all those goodies?\u00c2\u00a0 And, honestly, Tom, describe to me again the kind of delayed gratification that was and is required under the neo-liberal plan…<\/p>\n<p>There has always been an antagonism between political liberalization and economic liberalization.\u00c2\u00a0 In Russia, it was nothing other than political liberalization itself that put paid to the idea of neo-liberal austerity.<\/p>\n<p>(The preferable model continues to be China where neo-liberalism need not worry about its popular mandate.\u00c2\u00a0 It thrives–so far–without all the fuss and bother of political liberalization).<\/p>\n<p>2. We live in a world of great power rivalry.\u00c2\u00a0 What that means is that the US is neither the sole source of all things good nor all things evil.\u00c2\u00a0 The US is <em>one<\/em> locus of energy in the Great Game of Empire.\u00c2\u00a0 Friedman often oversteps by suggesting that the US is the sole source of all things good.\u00c2\u00a0 Here, he oversteps in the other direction by understating Russian “agency” in the Great Game.<\/p>\n<p>Friedman:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Mr. Putin… said: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The process of NATO expansion has nothing to do with \tmodernization of the alliance. We have the right to ask, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcAgainst whom is \tthis expansion directed?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u009d We all know the answer: it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s directed against \tRussia. O.K., fine, <strong>we were ready to enrage Russia to expand NATO, but \twhat have we gotten out of it? The Czech Navy?<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Disingenuous: we weren’t in it for the Czech Navy.\u00c2\u00a0 We offered the Czechs and others <em>a security umbrella<\/em>, not the other way around.\u00c2\u00a0 That has always been the story of NATO, so let’s not kid ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>We were in it for control of Europe, for control of Caspian oil and natural gas, and much else to boot.\u00c2\u00a0 <strong>So were the Russians<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Friedman:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>For those of us who opposed NATO expansion, the point was simple: <strong> \tthere is no major geopolitical issue, especially one like Iran, that we can \tresolve without Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s help<\/strong>. <strong>So why<\/strong> not behave in a way that \tmaximizes Russia\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s willingness to work with us and strengthens its \tdemocrats, rather than <strong>expanding NATO to countries that can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help us and \tare not threatened anymore by Russia,<\/strong> and whose democracies are better \tsecured by joining the European Union?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This makes a mockery of the facts on several fronts.<\/p>\n<p>Can he be serious that all throughout Eurasia countries were “not threatened anymore by Russia”?\u00c2\u00a0 The Russian-backed coup in Azerbaijan in wasn’t a threat?\u00c2\u00a0 The troops in Georgia weren’t\/aren’t a threat?\u00c2\u00a0 Russian intervention in Ukraine and Belarus?\u00c2\u00a0 Russian control in Turkmentistan?\u00c2\u00a0 Russian support for Serbian nationalism?<\/p>\n<p>It takes <em>at least<\/em> two Great Powers to tango.\u00c2\u00a0 We live in a world with at least two–quite a few more, really.<\/p>\n<p>The whole point, in the world of Great Power Rivalry, is that Iran is a “problem” for the US <em>because<\/em> of its alliance with Russia.\u00c2\u00a0 Otherwise, a “deal” would have been done with Iran a long time ago.\u00c2\u00a0 This is why Cheney and Putin deserve one another: neither is willing to “share” Iran and so <em>the Russians and the Americans fight over it<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the tough question to send back Friedman’s way: does he advocate a world where Great Powers “share” the bounty of the “periphery”?<\/p>\n<p>Given the very old, very real “Great Power” ambitions of Russia (all of which pre-dated the advent of the Soviet Union and continued on <em>immediately<\/em> after the demise), Friedman can only be suggesting a return to a world in which Great Powers carve up the “periphery” into exclusive spheres of influence.\u00c2\u00a0 Like Roosevelt, Friedman would then grant Russia its sphere of influence (everything but the Baltics, I guess).<\/p>\n<p>I’m no fan of <em>American<\/em> empire.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m no fan of<em> Russian<\/em> empire.\u00c2\u00a0 But neither am I a fan of <em>inter-imperialist collusion<\/em> at the expense of the rest of the world.\u00c2\u00a0 If the “periphery” has any chance at leveraging a better deal in this world, it will have to come <em>through <\/em> effective efforts to <em>play Great Powers against one another<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Bush Sr’s “New World Order” was specifically designed to try to keep that from ever happening again.\u00c2\u00a0 Part of the deal was that Russia could keep Ukraine and much else along with it.\u00c2\u00a0 Remember?\u00c2\u00a0 Tom?<\/p>\n<p>Does Great Power rivalry always guarantee competition for the “hearts and minds” of the underlying population?\u00c2\u00a0 No.<\/p>\n<p>Does it <em>ever<\/em> have that consequence?<\/p>\n<p>Ask India if it could have won independence from Britain without the <em> threat<\/em> to go with the Germans in World War II.\u00c2\u00a0 A nasty business, but Gandhi’s entire campaign cultivating British conscience pales in comparison on the question of raw <em>leverage<\/em> for extracting concessions from the British.<\/p>\n<p>While you are at it, ask the Egyptians if they didn’t play the Americans against the British.<\/p>\n<p>And, Tom Friedman, ask the Israelis if they didn’t win statehood by playing<em> both <\/em>the Americans <em>and<\/em> the Soviets against the British.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York Times columnist ThomasNew York Times columnist Thomas Friedman asks so many of the right questions.\u00c2\u00a0 Too bad he provides so few meaningful answers. Still, his views are so emblematic of the liberal mind that I cannot help find value (although not really enough to want to pay) in watching him construct his world. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}