The Next Decade

Reading the new StratFor book The Next Decade by George Friedman, it’s pretty great. It focuses on what’s likely to be the geopolitical situation and challenges to America in the next ten years, what the President can and can’t do, the exercise and limits of power. In the early chapters he has a really interesting treatise on who he thinks are the three greatest American presidents, and why. As with most things StratFor, I don’t necessarily agree, but it’s fascinating to think about. The first Great President was Abraham Lincoln, because he preserved the Union. The second was FDR, because he gave America the oceans. The third was Reagan, because he brought about the downfall of the Soviet Union. Whether or not you agree with those (simplified) judgments, the important thing is that each of those presidents had a vision of what they wanted America to do – to stay a Union, to defeat Germany and Japan and dominate the seas, to defeat the USSR and communism – and to achieve their strategic goal, each of those presidents did terrible things. They lied, cheated, disregarded the Constitution, allied themselves and the nation with murderers, torturers, and thugs. They were willing to do all those horrible things because they believed their ultimate goal was worth it. Thinking in each case of what would be the alternative, I sort-of agree. There are strategic goals, and there are moral goals; sometimes you have to disregard parts of your stated moral code in order to achieve your long-term strategic goal. But of course, you still have to tell the American public that we’re all about freedom and liberty for all. I love how Friedman puts it: In order to be effective and do great things, the President must align the country’s moral objectives with its strategic goals, and wrap it all in a palatable myth for public consumption.

Friedman talks a lot about strategic goals and moral goals, how a nation needs both, and if you pursue one that happens to conflict with the other, disaster will result. As is obvious from the greatest American disaster of the 21st Century so far: George W Bush’s Iraq War. If Bush had the moral goal of removing Saddam Hussein, that’s not necessarily a bad idea, in theory. But the effort to invade and occupy Iraq was completely against the strategic goals of the US in the region: it removed Iraq as the balance of power to Iran. Saddam Hussein was a monster but he served our national interest by balancing Iran. To maintain global dominance, you play the regional powers off each other, for the past 50 years we’ve used that trick exceeding well – Iran & Iraq, China & India, India & Pakistan, it works great. And then George Bush fucked it all up.

And there’s the idea of The American Empire. Rebelling as we were from the British, anti-imperialism has always been baked in to the identity of the American republic, yet here we are, the most powerful empire the world has ever seen. Not just about prosecuting wars in far-off countries, the mere existence of our citizens accumulated wealth makes us an _economic_ empire. If the American consumer decides we want iPads or Reeboks or whatever widget for Christmas, the economies of far-off countries will retool themselves to produce the things we want. It is not possible to un-empire our republic, the fact of our wealth and power makes us an empire. The responsible course of action is to manage our empire as best we can, in keeping with our moral imperatives and capability to project power.