In the past twenty years, the absence of a foreign policy consensus in the United States is a symptom of our larger political illness. Unlike domestic policy, where a lack of consensus can draw the country in a drawn-out decline on such issues as health care, the environment, government spending, taxation, and future liabilities, divisions and differences of opinion on American foreign policy create more immediate, and instantly more lethal, problems for the country.

    At present, political partisanship between the two major parties, done in the name of winning elections, does little to benefit the needed public discussion, debate and formulation of the foreign policy for the United States. In the last three elections of 2002, 2004, and now in 2006, the posturing, blaming, and recriminations by elected officials and candidates have harmed the safety and prosperity of America. With certain policies and positions identified with political factions (even factions within parties) on issues of free trade, global warming, energy, the war on the terrorists, or the aftermath in Iraq, the divide has piqued an emotional struggle in American society. Whenever one tries to infuse emotion into a debate on something as vital as foreign policy, the enmity, the wrath, and the resentment all cause a blood-shaded blindness and closed-mindedness on every side of the issues. Invoking partisanship in such a common national need as a wise, prudent and frugal foreign policy makes the possibility for examination, discussion, and resolution impossible. History bears out that those societies divided inevitably fall to the more determined, more unified, more motivated enemies.

    The need to find a consensus in using limited resources to protect the country is lost to the never-ending struggle to attain political power over the process of dividing rewarding. Politics is ultimately determining who is going to get what. Foreign policy is the use of diplomatic (i.e. political), ecomonic, and military power to ensure the independence and integrity of the state. Politics, even in diplomatic terms, is in some ways about defining who gets to make what choices. Foreign policy as a whole is ensuring that a country gets to make its own choices under the best conditions and circumstances possible.

    Domestic politics in America, and anywhere else, is a brutish, dirty business. Throughout most of the United States’ history, on the other hand, there has been more consensus on foreign policy than division. It was the unity of the policy-makers, the opinion leaders, and mass of the populace on great foreign policy issues that allowed our country to become a superpower and remain independent and dominant.

Once the French wars of the revolution and Napoleon ended in 1815, Americans found their greatest foreign policy of consensus of all time. Even 191 years after the fact, the Monroe Doctrine is still America’s most central national security policy. In large measure, both World War I and World War II were fought by the United States to preserve the inviolability of the Western Hemisphere from foreign domination.

    Two decades after President Monroe signed John Quincy Adams’ announcement, Americans found a second organizing consensus in foreign policy involving the “manifest destiny” of the United States to expand across North America at the expense of Mexico, Great Britain, Russia and France. This theme in American foreign policy survived the great Civil War and carried America through to the end of the 19^th Century.

    In the 1880s there arose in American foreign policy a consensus that started the nation on the rise to global power. This consensus believed that America had a role to play a role as a great power, particularly in Asia. Equal access and a fair and competitive share for American commerce was demanded and gained. The building of a world class naval fleet began. A foreign war was fought for seemingly high ideals but ended in the acquisition of an overseas empire in the Pacific. Most of all, other countries sought the United States as a partner in the Great Power struggles across the globe. Other countries courted America as the heaviest counterweight ever in the balance of power in the old world of Europe and the even older world of Asia.

     The transition from Great Power to a belligerent Associate Power on the side of the Allies in World War I came quickly. At first appearing aloof from the conflict, the United States was persuaded to rescue what closely became the issue in the 20^th Century: “Democracy.” While strong dissent certainly existed within the United States during the war, there was no vacillating on the part of the leaders of government in America’s decisive role in the death of four empires in Europe. But America’s involvement in 1917-18 led to the subsequent upheaval of the inter-war period and World War II. After the First World War, President Wilson’s “liberal internationalism” proved, if not ahead of its time, then poorly sold to the American public. The rank and file of America followed the advice of President Washington and forgot Europe’s struggles, though not necessarily Asia’s. The leaders of American opinion–politicians, publishers, lawyers, and bankers–knew that in a matter time and with an expert politician, the American people would be brought around to finding their place as THE global power. The opinion on a return to isolationism or participation in Europe during the debate on the League of Nations was not so much split. More so, the leaders of America decided that future history and circumstances would eventually bring the consensus of the late 1800s around to its ultimate, pre-ordained conclusion: the U.S. as a Superpower.

   The events that finally achieved the long-expected status was the rise of Nazism in Europe and militarism in Japan. President F.D. Roosevelt after Pearl Harbor no longer had to coax and cajole an unwilling American public finally into accepting the role of defender of freedom and liberty in the world. All of the Second World War was about maintaining the security of America in its hemisphere by defending freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom from fear, and freedom from want on the front-lines of conflict far from America’s shores and borders. Once the Japanese attacked, the consensus for war was overwhelming.

     In the aftermath of World War II, the second “greatest” consensus of America foreign policy was achieved. A hard-scrabble former local ward politician from Missouri, President Truman, achieved perhaps the most amazing change in America thinking about foreign policy.. Truman, with vision, honesty, and trust set the United States off on an unparalleled move to fight an ideological struggle with the new enemy of liberty and freedom in a time of peace. The Cold War with Russia was not a given. Americans prepared itself for sacrifice money and men to save freedom and liberty in the world. While the consensus to fight the Cold War ultimately suffered and was later lost, that consensus was also paralleled by another broad agreement that lasted to the end of the conflict of ideas in 1991. That agreement was that America’s strategy would not be “roll back,” as was sometimes given lip service by politicians, but by the strategy of “containment.”

      The bipartisan consensus in the United States to engage in global struggle with the forces of oppression, tyranny, and “evil,” was temporarily lost by President Johnson over Vietnam. The consensus remained lost under President Nixon, over Southeast Asia for the policy of using “detente” to prevent the complete dissolution of the vulnerable Western alliancein the wake of the weakness and division that arose from Vietnam. The division on the consensus remained lost under the Ford Administration and the early presidency of Carter. During President Carter’s last year in office, the consensus was “rediscovered” following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. President Reagan the consensus to challenge the Soviet Union. While it was a winning success in the end, Reagan finally lost the bipartisanship of the Cold War consensus halfway through his second term over the wars in Central America, arms for Iran, and arms control policies toward the Soviet Union.

      Essentially, once the Cold War officially ended on December 25, 1991, there has been no consensus on foreign policy to give the United States its vision and purpose, its overall plan to use limited resources in the new international order. Events have plagued America’s reputation AND security by not having consensus on how to act in the post-Cold War world order in places like the Balkans, the Middle East, East Africa, China, the Former Soviet Union, Central Asia, and on the issues of free trade, energy, global warming, and nuclear proliferation. Each of the three presidents since 1991–G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, and G.W. Bush–have all stumbled their way from crisis to crisis–Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afganistan, Iraq, North Korea–without maintaining the national unity of political leaders and public opinion behind their foreign policies. Even in the history of America foreign policy, people had to warm up to Wilson’s vision, F.D. Roosevelt’s subtle course to war, Truman’s drawing the line between the free world and the communist one (like in Korea). Now, the U.S. faces dark realities and American citizens face shock and bewilderment at what exactly is the grand strategy. Americans do not understand the importance of the actions their country pursues; they have no basis to judge or evaluate the effectiveness or even the wisdom of foreign policy. No consensus can be built on ignorance. No success for long-term security can evolve without the people in charge of their own destiny.

   As history has shown, great and lasting consensus can be found on prudent foreign policy. Consensus can prove a wise, history-making vision that changes the course of the world, and the lives of the people in it. The civil, open-minded method of finding a consensus, rooted in the liberal use of free speech, is what is needed to find not only solutions to problems, but good, lasting solutions. Only by thorough debate and the expressed viewpoints of as many individuals as possible is the truth found and the best one achievable policy possible. For in the end, a foreign policy unsupported by the people, undiscussed and misunderstood, would lead to division and enmity. Division in the face of an enemy, even an inferior one, is the seed of destruction that grows into the fissures and cracks in the foundation of liberty and freedom, peace and security. America needs to get politics off the partisan headlines and back into the voice-level, free and uncensored discussion. By thorough examination and vetting, without recrimination, without malice, without threatened or real punishments for dissent, the best decisions are made. In history, foreign policy strategies made by a minority of people in closed session is like riding blind on the eyeless horse of history.

Politics

Modern Strategy and Nuclear Weapons: The North Korean Dilemma

    The Oct. 8, 2006 test of a nuclear weapon by North Korea did indeed happen. Policy makers and the American public need to look at some facts concerning nuclear weapons, their politics, and the military policy behind them.

    First, let us look at some history. The U.S. detonated the first nuclear device, an atomic “fission” weapon, in July 1945. On Aug. 6, 1945, there occurred the first combat use of such a weapon, a uranium-fueled bomb, on Hiroshima, Japan. On Aug. 9, 1945, a second weapon, this one based on plutonium material, was used on Nagasaki, Japan. These are the only two instances of nuclear weapons used in combat. Both of the bombs dropped on Japan were delivered by high-altitude strategic bombers, the B-29. On Aug. 15, 1945, Japan sued for peace. It formally surrendered on Sept. 3, 1945, ending the Second World War. All three weapons from 1945 were of enormous size, in excess of 1 metric ton.

    The Soviet Union, a highly industrialized nation, if not quite technologically on par with the United States, benefitted from extensive espionage of Western nuclear weapons research. The U.S.S.R. tested its first nuclear device in Sept. 1949. Up until this time, all of these weapons were of the fission type, either uranium-235 (enriched from natural ore) or plutonium (requiring a man-made process). Fission bombs work by “smashing” two masses of an element into one another with extraordinary force. The World War II bombs used a conventional, shaped and directed, high explosive trigger to “smash” the two separate masses together. The smashing of refined nuclear material honed to “critical” (i.e., unstable) atomic states causes a chain reaction. In the process of splitting the atoms apart excess energy in the form of heat and light is released which is not used in the creation of the restructured atoms. This energy residue is radioactive.

    In 1952, the U.S. detonated the first hydrogen bomb. The Soviets followed suit with their own “super bomb” a couple of years later. Whereas the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were in the 20 kiloton range (a kiloton being the equivalent of one thousand tons of TNT), the hydrogen bomb was several hundred times more powerful than those dropped on Japan. The hydrogen bomb uses a fusion process. This process first requires a large amount of energy released by a fission explosion in order to combine or “fuse” elements together to create new matter. Fusion is how the sun creates light and heat. After the fusing, excess sub-atomic particles not used in creating the new matter release even more intense excess energy than fission weapons. In the early 1960s, the U.S.S.R. tested weapons in the 50 megaton range (50 million tons of TNT). The explosive force of weapons of this size cause incineration up to a few miles, blast effects of wind and heat firestorms in a radius of tens of miles, and radiation concentrations out to several score miles from the epicenter of the explosion.

 Thus far, only highly advanced, “third generation” industrial societies have had the technology and skills to create a combination of multiple hydrogen weapons small enough to fit on the end of a ballistic missile or into an artillery shell. China is perhaps the poor partner in this type of capability enjoyed by five other existing nuclear powers–the U.S., Great Britain, France, Russia, and Israel. India and Pakistan are reported to have fission weapons, most of which are deliverable by high performance jet aircraft.

     The U.S. government has concluded that the North Koreans tested a normal fission weapon using a shaped conventional explosive trigger in the one kiloton range. This small size, around 5% of the World War II bombs, may indicate a test failure. The North Koreans probably do not have the technology or skills to miniaturize their weapons for delivery on missiles, or possibly even high performance aircraft. They could easily use what they’ve got as a atomic land-mine. Furthermore, after the July 4, 2006, missile test failures, North Korea may not even have a missile capable of delivering a weapon, at least to the United States’ western seaboard. North Korea, if it could miniaturize a warhead for a missile, could conceivably place it on a missile of the proven and rugged SCUD variety which could reach the central areas of Japan (including Hiroshima), and South Korea, China or Russia.

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   In the Cold War, the antagonists used the existence of their nuclear arsenals to deter direct conflict. They also used the threat of nuclear weapons to deter the use of the same by their enemies. Before the U.S.S.R. developed a sufficiently large and reliable land-based Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), the U.S. had a policy of “massive retaliation” with nuclear weapons to be used against the Soviet Union if the Soviets directly engaged in a war of aggression anywhere in the world. As the Soviets caught up and then exceeded the numbers and size of the U.S. nuclear deterrent, such a policy gave way to a theory of “flexible response.” Under this strategic doctrine, the U.S. would use conventional and limited nuclear weapons use to respond to Soviet aggression. This policy was seen to be impossible to implement due to catastrophic consequences of attacks against civilians by each side if limited use of nuclear weapons escalated to a full attack by either the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. The Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 proved the weakness of flexible response as a war-fighting strategy.

     The strategic theory that was adopted in the mid-1960s was called MAD, and it truly was. It means Mutual Assured Destruction. The theory posited that any use of nuclear weapons would result in the complete devastation of large parts of the world, including the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. With the survival of the species and all civilization at stake, nuclear weapons strategies were kept at the deterrent level. They ought never be ever used; direct confrontation ought never be fought. In the 1980s, there was a flirtation with Nuclear Utilization Theory (NUTs), similar to the flexible response doctrine. The NUTs theory, however, could never replace the fear and consequences of MAD.

   In the Cold War, the theory of MAD and deterrence in general was postulated on the rational calculation of self-survival on the part of nuclear-capable nations. Militarily, the United States based its deterrence strategy on what was called the “strategic triad.” The U.S. relied on the survivability of land-based missiles (ICBMs), missiles on nuclear submarines (Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles, or SLBMs) and nuclear weapons delivered by strategic bombers, like the B-52, to deter any pre-emptive “sneak” attack through the guaranteed survival of enough nuclear weapons for a retaliatory response. If all else failed, deterrence and MAD relied on at least a handful of warheads to survive a first strike to obliterate the enemy’s civilian population centers. Although nuclear-tipped anti-ballistic missile missiles (ABMs) were developed in the early 1970s, the 1972 treaty between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. restricted their deployment to meaningless existence in the face of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons.

     The ABM treaty was terminated in 2002 as the United States pursued the deployment of a national Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD), otherwise known as National Missile Defense (NMD). Built with the stated goal of deterring nations like North Korea, Iran, China, etc. but not post-Soviet Russia, the NMD is currently in limited deployment in Alaska, California, on board Aegis-capable naval vessels, and will soon be deployed on aircraft (if not already secretly done). The NMD integrates a system of advanced early-warning and targeting radars and missiles with conventional warheads. Testing of the BMD the past seven years has had mixed results, at least publicly. As part of the U.S.-Russia agreement to nullify the 1972 ABM treaty, both countries informally agreed to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles to around 2200 of less accurately delivered weapons for Russia and around 1700 more accurate weapons for the U.S. Each country will reduce their arsenals to these levels within the next decade on a confidence-verified rate of decommissioning.

    The 2001 United States Nuclear Posture Review redefined and updated the “strategic triad.” The triad is now set as: 1) Offensive capabilities of both conventional and nuclear weapons; 2) Defensive capabilities of both active (BMD) and passive defenses (disaster response, non-proliferation diplomacy, sanctions, early warning, and like measures); and, 3) Industrial infrastructure to create, build, test, and maintain all of these capabilities.

   The key questions is this: Is North Korea a rational actor who can calculate that self-survival depends on not using nuclear weapons? That is a question that has caused and will cause great debate. The Six Party talks on North Korean nuclear weapons composing the nations of North Korea, South Korea, Russia, Japan, China and the United States appeared to give North Korea the opportunity to stall a resolution until they had a fully functioning and tested nuclear device. While one nation, South Africa, actually gave up nuclear weapons 15 years ago, no other nation that achieved nuclear capability ever disarmed itself. With Iran following much the same suspected, though not confirmed, formula in its nuclear research, the balance of interest in the world of politics has shifted to proliferation of this weapons technology to radical, revisionist states in turbulent areas of the world.

     Is war with the aim of disarmament and regime change of North Korea an option? Such a war, with North Korea’s combination of nuclear weapons and conventional armed forces, would be horrific and difficult. Has China not done enough to convince its despised ally to step back from the nuclear threshold? Perhaps. But Russia and China have been obstructionists generally on the issue of nuclear proliferation, particularly concerning Iran.

     The options for the U.S. are limited in dealing with this radical change of the balance of power in northeast Asia (and soon to be the Middle East). Living with a nuclear-armed totalitarian dictatorship on the Korean peninsula is possible, though not desirable over the long-term. With the war in Iraq, armed conflict in Korea is the last thing the U.S. should choose. What are the options?

     First, the U.S., Israel and Japan must continue their collaboration on ballistic missile defenses, focusing on Theater Missile Defenses (TMD). Second, the U.S. should fully deploy its own BMD infrastructure and system on an accelerated schedule. Third, there must be a complete quarantine of North Korea–nothing but food goes in, nothing comes out. This includes both a land- and sea-blockade. This option is only possible with the full consent of Russia and China, something that won’t be easy to get. Perhaps the U.S. and NATO could barter time and talks on Iran’s nuclear development in exchange for immediate, powerful, and effective action on North Korea. All things being equal, Iran is, hopefully, farther away from obtaining weapons, if it indeed desires them. North Korea is also a less rational and a less sophisticated society than Iran. Iran might be trusted with a rational calculation of self-survival. Korea’s rationality, exemplified by Kim Jong-Il, is doubtful.

    Fourth, there must be a blanket guarantee by the United States, Russia, China, Great Britain and France in a perfect union of agreement that a nuclear device used aggressively by any nation against a second nation is an attack on all humanity. France this year has already declared that it will respond with nuclear retaliation to any attack against its interest using nuclear weapons. The five-power declaration would contain a policy of retaliation by these permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Fifth, North Korea’s communist leadership and its military must be undermined by political means, which includes not-yet-devised methods of covert espionage and public relations manipulation, sanctions, etc.–generally anything that would discredit the communist leadership and alienate it from the world and its own citizens. And, finally, sixth, South Korea must immediately enter into “urgent” talks with North Korea aiming to permanently end the 1950-53 war by treaty, the complete demilitarization of the Korean peninsula, and a feasible, full unification.

     In reality, although it has 30,000 troops as a trip-wire along Korea’s Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the U.S. is the least affected country from the threat of North Korean nuclear weapons among the other five powers in the Six Party Talks. The other powers–South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia, have physical proximity to North Korea. The strategic calculus of North Korea nuclear weapons dictates that Japan may be the most reactionary. The changing tone of Japan’s foreign policy, especially with the new Shinzo Abe ministry in Japan, may lead to a desire among Japan’s leaders to develop their own nuclear deterrent. Japan is a “third generation” industrial society which could easily develop such weapons. Russia and China so far since October 8^th have proven reluctant to increase their pressure on their erstwhile Cold War ally North Korea to change its course. The hope of the Six Party framework is that the U.S. will have the diplomatic, political and military support of rational self-interest in Russia and China to create an effective policy of stopping North Korea in its tracks, in other words, of modifying its behavior and as insurance against North Korea aggression and nuclear proliferation. The biggest threat to these countries, especially China, is to have its ancient enemy, Japan, arm itself with nuclear weapons and fundamentally change the character and intent of Japan’s foreign policy. Nothing will happen on the subject of North Korea, not disarmament or regime change, without the diplomatic and economic pressure of Russia and China. This fact may be the only leverage the U.S. has convince its partners in the Northeast Asia/Western Pacific Rim that long-term instability or worse must be solved by unified, tough, and effective measures to stop North Korea. The world waits for courage.

     In reality, there is only so much that the United States could do, on its own or even in combination with Japan, Russia and China, to permanently disarm North Korea of nuclear weapons. Now possessed with an atomic deterrent, North Korea is one step beyond the type of fast-moving, low-cost military operation of the kind that actually changed the regime in Iraq during March and April 2003. Frankly, the time to use a military solution to solve this outstanding Cold War hangover on the Korean peninsula was in the early 1990s. Before the 1994 Agreed Framework that ended the first crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapons development, diplomatic stars and military correlations aligned for regime change. Even in 2002, regime change could have been feasible, but that was before North Korea, by best estimates, had a functioning nuclear weapon. The strained U.S. commitment in Iraq has taken the option of a military solution away from U.S. policymakers.

     The solution to all outstanding Korean political issues depends on the Koreans themselves. South Korea is the key to preventing nuclear brinkmanship or even nuclear war on the peninsula. North or south, they are all Koreans. Prior to sixty years ago, all Koreans had the same heritage, the same historical experience, a homogenous culture, a common language, similar national dreams, and the same ambitions for independence and prosperity. The division created by differences of political opinion, and the rule of intensely unbalanced, deranged leaders both north and south, created the line of division across the middle of Korea. Yet, the Koreans have a common destiny. They will either live together in peace or destroy each other in war.

     If the problem in Korea is personalities and politics, then the solution is principle and policy. South Korea is the more attractive country under which all Koreans would want to live. North Korea is entrenched in a totalitarian nightmare of Orwellian and Kafka-esque proportions. Yet, South Korea, not the Six Party Talks--not Japan, China, Russia, or the U.S.–is the only true solution to the problems of North Korea and the danger of its nuclear weapons. Would it be far-fetched if South Korea could bribe North Korea’s military leadership to overthrow Kim Jong-Il, and then let them quietly expatriate themselves to some island paradise as multi-millionaire exiles? Would such a policy work? Would a few billion dollars in kick-backs, and a couple trillion dollars in investment in northern Korea be worth saving two or three million lives? In saving lives, it would definitely be worth it. Is such a blatant political buy off feasible? Would it work? Yes, it could work. The solution to this particular problem of

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proliferation will be unique to its own logic and circumstance. There must be creative, political ways to solve the larger issue presented by North Korea. The solution that does work there may not work elsewhere. The U.S. cannot afford to have only the choice of military prevention or preemption. Russia and China would not approve of one. Japan may not be patient enough to wait for anything except that. It is time for the Korean war to end. It is time to end the last, unresolved hot battle of the Cold War. It is time for Korea, north and south, to confront its reality, accept the consequences of past and future actions, and begin the recovery from its bitter, senseless animosity.

Review

Review of: Barnett, Thomas M. P. The Pentagon’s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century. New York: Berkley Books, 2004.

   Grand strategy in national security policy is realm of political leaders. It is the formulation of a guiding theme, a template for action that fits almost any parallelogram into a pentagon hole. Without grand strategy, moral influence, limited resources, and precious lives are wasted, dissipated, eroded, and consumed in ways that fundamentally endanger a nation and its people. From 1991 to the present, the United States has drifted in haphazard diplomatic and military action across the globe from combat and peace enforcement, to natural catastrophe response and humanitarian disaster intervention. Even with coalitions, the United States has found itself burdened as the only superpower capable and willing to make decisions and take action in every corner of the world where some need for the good of humanity or the requirements of national interest demand attention.

   In the Cold War, George Kennan is rightly credited with conceiving a political grand strategy called containment to confront the Soviet Union. Containment was useful and effective for the entire span of the Cold War from 1946 to the dissolution of the Soviet empire in 1991. Since that time, scores if not hundreds of eager scholars and politicians have attempted to write the needed new equivalent of containment for American grand strategy in the post-Cold War era. The era of the war on the terrorist has made the need for new template of action even more necessary.

   In the attempts at formulating a new grand strategy for the United States, Thomas M. P. Barnett makes a great attempt. If his prescription for the illness of strategic drift is somewhat severe, his diagnosis of the disease of world conflict in the 21^st Century is at least the most convincing and comprehensive.

    Barnett at the close of the Cold War was a Ph.D. in Soviet Studies working in the Pentagon and in the private world of think tanks on naval policy and the issues surrounding the new reality of U.S./post-Soviet Russian relations. With the extinction of the Soviet government in 1991, Sovietology (it was a real career field) became an unmarketable skill. In the need for adapting to the new job market of the Globalization Era, Barnett worked with the think tank Office of Naval Analysis, Wall Street firms, and visionary leaders in the Department of Defense on the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) brought about by new technologies. In his spare time, Barnett was looking at the world of the late 1990s early 2000s and seeing a pattern of what was causing stability in some parts of the globe and the factors contributing to conflict, poverty, disease, and even genocide in others. Barnett put the pattern in context and hence the New Map was born.

     Barnett divides the world into a contemporary version of the old international relations theory of “haves” and “have-nots.” In sum, the areas of the world with relative peace, burgeoning prosperity, and even budding and potential liberty were “connected” both internally and externally, with themselves and with other “connected” nations. Internally, there is communications, even dialogue, between different groups of the majorities and minorities. There are institutions that even if they did not represent pure democracy, are stabilizing, non-violent, and understandable to the people within the nations. There is economic opportunity and access to information (via the web) through the multi-lines provided by globalization, third generation business development. And there are institutions for multi-lateral security and cooperation. These countries, found mostly in the northern hemisphere, but including southern South America, the nation of South Africa, and Australia and New Zealand, Barnett identifies as the “Integrated Core” of the new international system.

     The nations outside of this expanse of stability, prosperity, and dialogue (which excluded the Balkans in southeast Europe) were the countries of the rest of South and Central America, Africa, the Middle East, and Central and Southeast Asia where the promise of peace and prosperity do exist. These countries Barnett calls the “Non-Integrating Gap.” They lack “connectivity” like the Core nations, and they lack technology, enterprise, education, dialogue, and institutions that provide the Integrated Core with a stable, relatively non-violent system of politics within and between those nations. As a result of deficient connections within and without, the Non-Integrating Gap is consumed by turmoil, poverty, violence, hatred and intolerance.

     In The Pentagon’s New Map, Barnett sees the challenge of these Gap nations: They need to be connected in the same way that the Integrated Core is, both within their societies and between their indigenous cultures, and to the Core nations through the international system of dialogue, economic opportunity, education, and institutions that permeated the Core through the globalized economy and technology.

    To end the conflicts in the Gap nations that often draw in other countries, especially the United States, Barnett is taking the leap to “shrink” the Gap. This is where his prescription may be controversial and problematic. Barnett sees military intervention by the U.S. and its friends from the Core as the only way to bring all countries the benefits of connectivity. Barnett prioritizes the regions and countries, beginning with the Middle East and Horn of Africa, that most present current security threats to the world and U.S. interest. Eventually, he would have every country invaded, occupied, and reconstructed, willingly or unwillingly, into the image of the Integrated Core. It is a prescription for crusade by the sword. While it is action, better described in Barnett’s 2005 sequel, it may be an all-consuming, expensive, and deadly job. What is the alternative to the intervention Barnett prescribes? That is not an easy question. If connectivity happened naturally in the Integrated Core, would it not be more lasting and better for all if the Non-Integrating Gap chose to connect themselves where possible, and have as much natural development, with a some push from the Core? As a grand strategy, Barnett suggests something provocative that demands consideration. It all comes down to “How much treasure and how many lives is it worth to try and do something to help bring peace and prosperity to regions that lack it?” That is difficult to answer. Answering will determine U.S. grand strategy for the next 100 years.

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Review

Review of: The Political Philosophy of Robert M. La Follette: As Revealed in His Speeches and Writings. Compiled by Ellen Torelle; assisted by Albert O. Barton, and Fred L. Holmes. Madison, WI: The Robert M. La Follette Co., 1920.

     Why review an old book with speeches from a politician who lived a century ago? The answer: Robert M. La Follette, Wisconsin governor and later U.S. Senator, was a brilliant philosopher on popular government; ideas and events in his time are still relevant today, and they will be relevant long after tomorrow.

     Democracy is perhaps the most difficult process of government to maintain. While a republic can be a democracy, a republic like the United States of America, the Islamic Republic of Iran, or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics can easily be maintained as tyrannies and dictatorships by the political power than extends from the barrel of a gun.

   Democracy, by theory and practice over 250 years in America, needs the will of people to govern effectively by their consent without need for coercion. Even the Soviet bloc failed in part because so much time, money, and manpower was devoted to oppressing and policing the population to ensure the rule of the elite. Democracy, to be a process of peace, justice, and order, requires the protection of the rights, lives, and property of all definitions of minorities from the will of the majority. Finally, to successfully live in times of change, to transition from generation to generation, a democratic process must create a system of government and governing where differences of opinion are allowed, resolved, or ignored in non-violent, non-punishing, and non-coercive means.

    Robert M. La Follette in the early twentieth century was a Republican Party member when that party was the liberal “let the common people live”-without-government-enforced-morality segment of American politics. La Follette in Wisconsin was the leader of the progressive movement before becoming an advocate for progressive causes nationally. The progressive movement, which included Republican President Theodore Roosevelt and Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, was a bipartisan effort to protect the people from the pillaging and plundering of the wealthy and powerful during the first era of globalization which took place from 1865 to 1914.

   As La Follette passed worker and consumer protection measures in Wisconsin, progressives nationally broke the Standard Oil trust and other monopolies, passed laws protecting the purity and health of food and medicine, created election reforms to ensure direct voting and representation, and tried to prevent fraud, abuse, and corruption in politics and government.

   In Wisconsin, La Follette established the “Wisconsin Idea,” a multi-disciplinary program to create a civil society to encourage the direct participation of largely rural Wisconsin people into their local communities. As it developed as an artistic, political, social and cultural movement, the Wisconsin Idea created a lasting identity between the people, each other, and the land, customs, and traditions where they lived. It was truly an inspiring, and revolutionary act, to get people to enjoy themselves and to celebrate their common heritage. It was also an act of subtle subversion to get people to pay attention to politics and government and act in their own best interest within the system.

   The Political Philosophy of Robert M. La Follette is a collection of speeches and writings during his lifetime of advocating the cause of common citizens and the regular people. La Follette believed the “Supreme Issue” of all history “is the encroachment of the powerful few upon the rights of the many” (p. 20). La Follette was an implacable enemy of elitism, privilege, and all forms of presumed aristocracy. Yet, while he believed that people needed to have and duly appoint, empower and supervise representatives, he said “ a more direct expression of the will of the

people in all things pertaining to the people’s government is the dominating thought in American politics” in his day (p. 50).

     Indeed, as mentioned above, freedom of speech is one of the fundamental requirements for government befitting a free and independent people, in La Follette’s day and all time. The rights to freedoms of speech, worship, petition, press, and assembly are always under attack by partisans, despots, elitist, demagogues, and warmongers. It is no less so today. Perhaps the people should ask their politicians, “What part of liberty don’t you get?”

     In a time of war, the Great War from 1914 to 1918 in La Follette’s days as a senator, and today in the Middle East, the first thing to die in a free society is an honest, frank, civil, and enlightened discussion of the issues, the true causes, and the possible consequences of action or inaction. In America today, dividing over Iraq and the war on terrorist, and over the Israeli-Arab conflict, the debate from the beginning has fallen to the lies of partisanship, political advantage, and polemic personal attacks. In national security, there should be no Republicans or Democrats, no one side or another. But today in America, politicians on both sides have taken an important issue of life and death and national survival and peddled it for votes, donations and influence. That might prove the suicide of our freedom. We could only thank greed, vanity, and ignorance.

     In a speech to the U.S. Senate on October 6, 1917, La Follette foresaw the national disaster that would attend an end to free discussion and debate on World War One. It is instructive for today:

I am contending for this right because the exercise of [free discussion] is necessary to the welfare, to the existence, of this government, to the successful conduct of this war, and to a peace which shall be enduring and for the best interest of the country.

Suppose success attends the attempt to stifle all discussion of the issues of this war, all discussion of the terms upon which it should be concluded, all discussion of the objects and purposes to be accomplished by it, and concede the demand of the war-mad press and war extremists that they monopolize the right of public utterance upon these questions unchallenged, what think you would be the consequences to this country not only during the war but after the war (p.239

                                                                                                  The consequences, then and now, could only be the destruction of our democratic process of government, the end of our republic of liberty and freedom, and our eventual defeat at the hands of those willing to fight us to the death. To survive as country, even our economic and cultural survival, demands an open debate and more honesty and humility and open-mindedness than our country has heretofore shown on anything. Without the freedom of speech and the right to dissent without punishment, our way of life and civilization cannot endure reality.

What’s Coming Up In S.G.

    Future articles for The Cepia Club Strategy Gazette include: on “The Four Pillars of Civilization”; “Net Neutrality and Its impact on the Future of Freedom”; “The China Challenge”; review of “Blueprint for Action” by Thomas M.P. Barnett; “Libertarian Internationalism and the Maritime Doctrine: A Grand Strategy for America”; plus a new “Club News” department; and 24 pages and bi-monthly production of S.G. beginning in April 2007!