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 here
is a stubborn school of thought in international relations that
believes you always have to be cautious lest any action you take
galvanize your enemies, tip those who hate you into hating you even
more, make a bad situation worse.
In the current
crisis, the New York Times and columnist Anthony Lewis seem
set to be the prime bullhorns for this way of thinking, for the
latest iteration of the long-running Western mistake of appeasement.
They worry,
among other things, that any unduly harsh action on the part of
the U.S. might undermine our Middle Eastern allies, by, in Lewis's
words, "arous[ing] anti-Western sentiments across the Middle
East." The Times thinks the behavior of terrorist states
can be changed by pressure from the international community, and
blanches at Paul Wolfowitz's threat to "end" states that
sponsor terrorism — so belligerent, so disproportionate, so
impolite!
Now, there
is much to be said for maintaining a large international coalition
on our side in this matter, and for retaining the moral authority
this terrible event has given us in everyone's eyes.
But what appeasers
never realize is that it is the application of American force that
makes the world amenable to our demands, and that the more powerful
we seem — and the more willing to use that power — the
more allies we will have.
Syria, for
instance, at the moment appears to be begging to be part of our
antiterrorist coalition. Is this because Syria's leaders suddenly
realize the value of innocent life? Because since Tuesday they have
read the U.N. charter and brushed up on international law?
No. Syria wants
at least to appear to be forthcoming because its leaders go to bed
every night with visions of its capital city in smoldering ruins.
This vision, held in the heads of leaders throughout the Middle
East, will be America's chief asset in getting its way in coming
weeks and months.
So, if the
U.S. flattens parts of Afghanistan and Baghdad, it may well inflame
the "Arab street," but it is also likely to bring wavering
governments to America's side all the more firmly. Ending a few
recalcitrant terrorist-friendly regimes in the Middle East —
or at least setting them back economically and militarily three
or four decades — is the necessary adjunct to American diplomacy,
if we are not to appear blustery and weak.
Before the
Gulf War, the voices of appeasement raised similar warnings about
the disastrous effects American military action would have on its
standing in the Arab world. But smashing the Iraqi military turned
out to be the best possible way to recruit new and eager allies
in the region.
This is what,
in international-relations argot, is called "the bandwagon
effect."
Michael Lind
has a lucid description of the theory in his Vietnam:
The Necessary War. As Lind explains, the bandwagon effect
nicely jibes with the course of the Cold War:
In the mid-1950s
and late 1980s, when the Soviet Union was relatively weak, the
Soviets had few allies. In the mid-seventies, when Soviet military
power reached its peak relative to that of the United States,
the Soviet alliance system attained its greatest extent. This
pattern . . . accords perfectly with the predictions of bandwagoning
theory. So does the fact that United States had the greatest number
of allies at the beginning of the Cold War (when the Soviet Union
still was devastated by World War II) and at the end of Cold War
(when the Soviet Union's former satellites as well as former allies
and neutrals were deserting Moscow to seek the favor of Washington).
Liberals have
always had trouble understanding this dynamic, or been unwilling
to accept it even if they did grasp it — for reasons that involve
liberalism's deepest well-springs as a worldview (I try to delve
into some of them in my
piece in the new NR attacking "peace-process liberalism").
This is why
the unity that now characterizes our political leaders and opinion-makers
will inevitably founder, as the Left loses its enthusiasm for all
the war talk. The Times is just the first indication of this.
It obviously isn't because liberals are disloyal or stupid, but
because they are in the grips of a profound intellectual mistake
in how they view the world, a persistent mistake that won't go away
in the wake of this catastrophe.
It behooves
Bush, then, to be prepared to ignore much of elite opinion, and
send a clear message to the world: the bandwagon is leaving the
station, time to climb aboard.
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