Number 132 • July/Aug 2014 • $8.95

Gideon Rachman Scotland’s Rebellion James Kitfield Hawks in Retreat David Shambaugh China’s Weakness Robert W. Merry Reagan’s Guru www.nationalinterest.org Jacob Heilbrunn Stefan Zweig’s World RUSSIA’S BACK

A Dangerous Putin’s Ukraine Realignment Obsession

by Dimitri K. by Nikolas K. Simes Gvosdev

Number 132 . July/August 2014

The Realist

5 Reawakening an Empire by Dimitri K. Simes By indulging in bluff and bombast toward Moscow, Washington has created the worst of all worlds. It has stoked Russian militant nationalism, convinced Vladimir Putin that the United States is weak and indecisive, and driven Russia closer toward China.

Articles

16 Ukraine’s Ancient Hatreds by Nikolas K. Gvosdev Three hundred years of history explain why Vladimir Putin can never see Ukraine as a fully legitimate sovereign nation. Even if Ukraine stays nominally independent, it will remain Russia’s plaything.

25 London Falling by Gideon Rachman First the empire disappeared. Now Britain itself could crumble. Scotland exiting the United Kingdom would have global implications. Other would-be nations are watching.

31 Scotland’s Nationalist Folly by Tom Gallagher The Scottish National Party’s Alex Salmond, a disingenuous rogue, is leading Scotland into disaster. Thesnp ’s rhetoric of empowering the poor and needy and standing up to an “imperialistic” English elite plays to a sense of victimhood that currently thrives in Scotland.

39 The Illusion of Chinese Power by David Shambaugh The belief that China is a global power is widespread, understandable and bogus. Beijing’s high- level diplomacy is really a kind of theatrical show, more symbolism than substance. China is a lonely power, lacking close friends as well as allies.

49 Defense Hawks Take Flight by James Kitfield Republican hawks are embattled. The 2016 election will likely reveal whether they can once more go on the attack, or whether a series of protracted conflicts abroad has finally rendered them impotent and obsolete. 56 Reagan’s Éminence Grise by Robert W. Merry James Burnham feared that the West would lose the Cold War by adopting a defensive posture. Few had more influence over Ronald Reagan’s pugnacious approach to the Soviet Union than this brooding intellectual who moved from Trotskyism to conservatism.

67 Hail to the Deep by James Holmes The submarine transformed war at sea. Yet the grandmasters of naval strategy died before subs came into their own. Can their insights be salvaged?

Reviews & Essays

76 The CIA’s Favorite Novel by Christian Caryl Peter Finn and Petra Couvée’s The Zhivago Affair deftly tells the story of how the cia smuggled copies of Boris Pasternak’s banned novel behind the Iron Curtain. But the Soviet censors left a deep mark. Russia has since become a singular cultural wasteland.

83 The Exile by Jacob Heilbrunn George Prochnik’s study brilliantly illuminates the turbulent life of the popular Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig, who fled Nazism. It reveals that in losing the narrative thread of his life, Zweig himself ended up becoming the story.

88 France’s Citizen King by Aram Bakshian Jr. Philip Short’s biography traces the fascinating rise of François Mitterrand, the socialist leader, Cold War hawk and libertine who schemed his way to the top. His personal physician correctly described him as a combination of “Machiavelli, Don Corleone, Casanova and the Little Prince.”

Images Kremlin.ru: page 12; Ronald Reagan Library: page 63; Shutterstock: pages 9, 17, 21, 26, 29, 36, 45, 51, 81, 87; Wikimedia Commons: pages 33, 41, 48, 54, 58, 61, 70, 73, 78, 84, 93, 95 Published by The Center for the National Interest

Charles G. Boyd Chairman Maurice R. Greenberg Chairman Emeritus Henry A. Kissinger Honorary Chairman

Jacob Heilbrunn Editor Dimitri K. Simes Publisher & CEO Harry J. Kazianis Managing Editor Paul J. Saunders Associate Publisher Robert Golan-Vilella Associate Managing Editor John Allen Gay Assistant Managing Editor Advisory Council Rebecca M. Miller Assistant Editor Richard Burt Chairman Morton Abramowitz Political Editor Graham Allison Robert W. Merry Conrad Black Ahmed Charai Contributing Editors Leslie H. Gelb Aram Bakshian Jr. Evan G. Greenberg Ian Bremmer Gary Hart Ted Galen Carpenter Zalmay Khalilzad Christian Caryl Kishore Mahbubani Amitai Etzioni John J. Mearsheimer Nikolas K. Gvosdev Richard Plepler Bruce Hoffman Alexey Pushkov Michael Lind Brent Scowcroft Paul R. Pillar Ruth Wedgwood Kenneth M. Pollack J. Robinson West David Rieff Dov S. Zakheim

Owen Harries Editor Emeritus Cover Design: Emma Hansen Robert W. Tucker Editor Emeritus Cover Image: ©Gleb Garanich/Reuters/Corbis

Editorial Office The National Interest, 1025 Connecticut Ave, nw, Suite 1200, Washington, dc 20036. Telephone: (202) 467-4884, Fax: (202) 467-0006, Email: [email protected], Website: http://nationalinterest.org Subscription Office Postmaster and subscribers please send address changes and subscription orders to: The National Interest, P.O. Box 1081, Selmer, tn 38375. Telephone: (856) 380-4130; (800) 344-7952 Rate: $39.95/yr. Please add $5/year for Canada and $20/year for other international deliveries. The National Interest (ISSN 0884-9382) is published bimonthly by the Center for the National Interest. Articles are abstracted and indexed in P.A.I.S., Historical Abstracts, International Political Science Abstracts, U.S. Political Science Documents, Political Science Abstracts and America: History and Life; articles are available on microfilm from University Microfilms International, and archived on Lexis-Nexis. Periodicals postage is paid at Washington, dc, and at additional mailing offices. ©2014 by The National Interest, Inc. The National Interest is printed by Fry Communications, Inc. It is distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Ingram Periodicals (18 Ingram Blvd., La Vergne, tn 37086; 615-793-5522). The Realist

war between Russia and Japan on multiple Reawakening occasions on the eve of their 1904–1905 conflict. How could there be a war if he an Empire did not want it, the czar said to his advisers, especially because he considered Japan far By Dimitri K. Simes too small and weak to challenge the Russian Empire. While Nicholas II genuinely did not resident Barack Obama likes to say want war, he assumed that Russia could get that America and the world have away with almost whatever it wanted to do Pprogressed beyond the unpleasant- in the Far East. At first, Japan reluctantly ness of the nineteenth century and, for that acquiesced to Russian advances—but matter, much of the rest of human history. Tokyo soon began to warn of serious He could not be more wrong. And as a re- consequences. Overruling his wise advisers, sult, he is well on the way to repeating some Finance Minister Sergei Witte and Foreign of history’s most dangerous mistakes. Minister Vladimir Lamsdorf, the czar Few would think to compare Obama to decided to stay the course. He saw Japan’s Russia’s last czar, Nicholas II. Nevertheless, concessions as evidence that the “Macacas,” Emperor Nicholas II, like President Obama, as he derisively called the Japanese, would thought of himself as a man of peace. A not dare to challenge a great European dedicated arms controller, he often called power. When they did, the result was for a rules-based international order and humiliation and a devastating blow to insisted that Russia wanted peace to focus Russia’s global standing. on its domestic priorities. Of course, From the outside, the Obama Obama’s philosophy of governance and administration appears to be following a world outlook differ profoundly from those similar trajectory in its approach to of this long-dead autocrat. Yet there is one Russia. Top officials seem to believe that disturbing assumption they appear to share short of using force, the United States can in foreign affairs: the idea that as long as you respond as it pleases to Moscow’s conduct do not want a war, you can pursue daring in Ukraine without any real risks. At the policies without risking conflict or even war. same time, the administration has gone Consider Ukraine. In March, Obama to great lengths to personalize the dispute said, “We are not going to be getting into by targeting Russian president Vladimir a military excursion in Ukraine.” Nicholas Putin’s associates and graphically describing II also declared that there would be no Putin’s flaws and transgressions, including in State Department fact sheets. And even Dimitri K. Simes is president of the Center for the as it takes these measures, liberal hawks and National Interest and publisher of The National neoconservatives are denouncing Obama as Interest. weak for not going further.

The Realist July/August 2014 5 The swing from euphoria over the fall of the Berlin Wall to noisy calls for a new cold war provides a sobering reminder of the superficiality of American analysis of Russia’s motives and goals.

The weakness is there, but the bellicose cost them dearly if Russia disregards nato’s stances that Obama’s critics espouse are red lines. The appropriate response to unlikely to deter Moscow and might Russia is to consider how we can convince even do the opposite. So far, the United it to choose restraint and, when possible, States has fundamentally miscalculated in cooperation. Such an approach must be dealing with Russia. By indulging in bluff based on an analytical assessment of how and bombast, it has created the worst of Russia defines its interests and objectives all worlds. It has stoked Russian militant rather than the way American policy makers nationalism, convinced Putin that the would define them in Moscow’s shoes. It United States is weak and indecisive, and will also require a combination of credible exposed the divisions within the West. These displays of force that appear distasteful to difficulties will only be compounded if the Obama and credible diplomacy that looks Obama administration yields fully to the distasteful to his critics. incessant scoldings of those in Washington In the Ukraine crisis, Obama should have who are eager to start Cold War II, regardless kept all options open rather than publicly of whether they are really prepared to fight it. renouncing a military response or even Especially misleading is the sense that meaningful military aid. And that possibility the Kremlin’s apparent steps back from the would have had to be communicated to brink in late May are due to the success of Putin quietly but clearly, including through U.S. policy. The easiest invasion to prevent significant troop movements, as Richard is one that was never really intended; Nixon and Henry Kissinger did during much evidence indicates that Putin well the 1973 Yom Kippur War. America’s understood the great costs of a large-scale obligation to protect its allies includes a intervention in Ukraine and likely sought responsibility to avoid exposing them to leverage rather than control, much less unnecessary danger with actions that may possession. But if U.S. policy makers and tempt Russian leaders to demonstrate their politicians decide that Washington and toughness without deterring them in any Brussels can return to business as usual real sense—a posture that could force the by encouraging newly elected Ukrainian United States and nato to choose between president Petro Poroshenko to bring his war and humiliation. An arrangement that country into nato, dismiss Moscow’s can bring lasting results would require tact concerns, and crush opposition in eastern and diplomacy, vision and strength—all and southern Ukraine, Putin’s resolve could qualities that have been conspicuously grow, as it did in the case of Crimea. lacking in the Obama administration. Moreover, efforts to isolate and punish Obama’s impulse to personalize the Moscow will push it into seeking closer dispute suggests that he has been personally ties with China. Supplying Ukraine or offended by Putin. No doubt Russia’s the Baltics with a blank check would only president has a unique background and encourage the kind of behavior that may macho style that make it easy to portray

6 The National Interest The Realist him as the devil incarnate, particularly in new Kiev government did exactly that. Western media outlets that prize simple But whatever one makes of Putin’s kgb narratives over complex storytelling or background and his leadership style, it takes analysis. What’s more, his political practices two to tango. And thus it is impossible to set inside Russia are increasingly authoritarian aside Obama’s own origins as a civil-rights and contemptuous of dissent. Though activist and community organizer whose Putin publicly emphasizes the rule of law passion animates an ends-justify-the-means and campaigns against corruption, those attitude toward bending and exploiting the close to him operate with virtual impunity, rules both domestically and internationally, which encourages lower-level bureaucrats as seen in the recent agreement for the to ignore the Kremlin’s demands to stop release of Taliban captive Bowe Bergdahl. corrupt behavior. Perhaps ironically, Putin’s Unlike Ronald Reagan—another moralist general success in taming the oligarchs’ president—Obama does not appear truly political ambitions has in practice further occupied with international affairs, which empowered the bureaucracy at the expense seem like an unwelcome distraction from of civil society; the oligarchic media empires his transformative domestic agenda. He of the 1990s were far from objective, but is thus disengaged and uninterested in did serve as a check on officials at all levels. understanding the other side. When The State Duma is dominated by the ruling combined with three other contrasts with United Russia party and all factions defer to the Reagan administration—a weak foreign- the president on key issues. policy team, defense cuts and reluctance Internationally, the Russian government to use force—this produces a pushy but frequently pressures its neighbors to play casual and weak moralism. Obama appears by Moscow’s rules and does not hesitate to to dismiss Chinese and Russian interests use energy exports as a political weapon. In because their undemocratic governments Ukraine, Putin retracted his own misleading by definition make their interests less initial denials of a major Russian military legitimate, while he simultaneously role in Crimea. The Kremlin’s demands that looks reluctant to do what is necessary to Kiev’s interim government avoid using force implement his numerous red lines. As a against armed rebels because no country result, rivals like Russia and China are more should employ the military against its own offended than deterred. At the same time, people rang hollow after Russia’s support for allies and friends question Obama’s resolve Bashar al-Assad’s brutal rule in Syria—not to after decisions like the administration’s mention Moscow’s own wars in Chechnya. announced withdrawal from Afghanistan no Of course, the Obama administration, too, matter what happens there. does not suffer from excessive consistency, first demanding that Ukraine’s Viktor nderstanding the Ukrainian crisis Yanukovych refrain from using force against U requires going beyond what is hap- protesters and then voicing support as the pening in that bitterly divided country to

The Realist July/August 2014 7 assess the complex politics of the post-So- this new conventional wisdom. Washington viet region and the conflicting impulses and Brussels forged themselves into a new on both sides. What worries the United “international community” that felt entitled States, the European Union, and their al- and able to act on behalf of all humanity lies and friends is the question of, as the without special effort to assess humanity’s Economist put it, in its typically eloquent preferences in advance or reactions but superficial way, “Where is Globocop?” afterward. The expansion of nato and the How will America’s inability to impose its European Union to include especially pro- will on a defiant Russia affect the West’s American and anti-Russian new members credibility in upholding the world order? from the former Soviet bloc contributed During the Cold War, the United States was to a spirit of transatlantic solidarity and expected and able to protect nato members missionary zeal unprecedented since the and other key allies such as Japan, Israel and immediate post–World War II period. But Saudi Arabia. Still, the realities of the rival unlike the transatlanticism of the 1940s Soviet bloc created objective constraints on and 1950s, this version came with a sense how far Washington policy makers were of entitlement and impunity founded on prepared to go and enforced intellectual the unexpectedly easy victory by forfeit in discipline in their decision making. During the Cold War and the apparent absence of a the post–Cold War years, the United States serious geopolitical rival. and its allies gradually concluded that they In reality, of course, precisely as this could act as masters of the world without mind-set took firm hold among American meaningful opposition from another great and European elites, the world was power. They reached this view by trial and changing. For much of this period, Beijing error, starting with the fully justified and was generally willing to acquiesce to U.S. remarkably easy Gulf War and continu- and European international conduct. Over ing with (for America and nato) bloodless time, however, China began to establish victories in the Balkans and later setbacks itself as an emerging great power and to act in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since no other accordingly. Chinese leaders share many great power sought crises in the latter two of their Russian counterparts’ reservations countries, neither of these disappointments about assertive Western global hegemony became an outright defeat like what trans- and democracy promotion, and they have pired in Vietnam—though they have fu- become increasingly comfortable acting on eled a new reluctance to use military power them—including in concert with Moscow, among President Obama and many Ameri- as was most clear in the un Security cans across the political spectrum. Council deliberations over Syria. America’s professional military force— At the same time, Russia recovered from and nato allies’ willingness to stand tall its post-Soviet collapse and the disastrous, behind a U.S. shield without spending radical economic reforms of the 1990s to much on their own capabilities—facilitated become a resurgent power. While Russia

8 The National Interest The Realist is still primarily a regional power, its size and geography make that region a very substantial one. Moreover, the asymmetries between Russia and most of its neighbors make it a power they ignore at international law through the lens of the their peril. Finally, Russia’s modernized enduring Russian proverb that rules are for strategic nuclear forces gave Putin and his servants, not masters. At the same time, colleagues the sense that no one would dare they were angered that after assurances that to treat Russia like Yugoslavia or Iraq. nato enlargement would make Russia more Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its secure, the alliance’s new members seemed to threat to the rest of Ukraine thus challenged make nato only more hostile toward Russia. two decades of experience. Moscow’s new After several years of rapid economic growth assertiveness triggered memories of the Cold and increases in military spending, Moscow War and prompted righteous indignation in saw itself as a master capable of enforcing its the United States and Europe, where many will—at least along its own frontiers. reacted angrily to the idea that a former kgb Meanwhile, focused on domestic officer and his lieutenants could threaten politics and entranced by post–Cold War their self-evidently virtuous liberal world triumphalism, America’s political elites order. Moscow had a different perspective, of worked assertively to short-circuit debate course, born of escalating resentment of the and to marginalize anyone who questioned way in which the West defined and enforced their international assumptions. The end the rules, perhaps most notably in nato’s result was a foreign policy in which, as interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo and the George F. Kennan described it, “a given West’s support for Kosovo’s independence. statement or action will be rated as a Notwithstanding Polish foreign minister triumph in Washington if it is applauded Radoslaw Sikorski’s statement that Russia’s at home in those particular domestic annexation of Crimea was the first time since circles at which it is aimed, even if it is World War II that someone “has taken a quite ineffective or even self-defeating in province by force from another European its external effects.” Publics in America— country,” the first occasion was actually and Europe—were also proud of their nato’s removal of Kosovo from then- international successes and were thus democratic Serbia, despite a un Security prepared to accept their governments’ Council resolution and eight years as a nato activism so long as it worked and so long protectorate that removed any humanitarian as continued prosperity made it cheap. threat to the Kosovars. Because of events Now, however, they are much less willing like this, Kremlin officials increasingly saw to support interventionist policies, meaning U.S. and European proclamations about that out-of-touch elites will likely lack the

The Realist July/August 2014 9 political support to finish what they might been able to endure, whether in politics, succeed in starting. family life, or ministerial councils.” Despite this, Bismarck understood that hat the triumphalists failed, and con- Russia was a major factor in European W tinue to fail, to recognize is how lit- politics and one that Prussia’s kings had tle is truly new in world politics. This is not to live with—and could even find useful the first time that a dominant alliance has to advance their core interests, including claimed exceptional virtue and exceptional in unifying Germany. Today’s Western prerogatives. Quite the contrary. During the leaders, however, are more preoccupied early nineteenth century, for example, the with short-term political fortunes than Holy Alliance made some of the same argu- strategic national interests. ments in outlining its obligations to protect Nowhere is this clearer than in America’s the kings and princes of Europe. Claiming relations with Russia. The swing from divine virtue and superior political systems, euphoria over the fall of the Berlin Wall to its proponents acted with no less moral con- noisy calls for a new cold war provides a viction or entitlement than today’s Western sobering reminder of the superficiality of democracy promoters. American analysis of Russia’s motives and Of course, the combination of human goals. Instead of responding emotionally to nature and democratic politics virtually Russian actions, the United States should assures that while promoting universal adopt a more calculating approach toward values, powerful nations and alliances also Moscow. One fundamental mistake that take care of their interests—and see their those thirsting for a cold war are making opponents’ interests and perspectives as is to assume that Putin has a grand master inherently inferior. In fact, in proclaiming plan for re-creating the Soviet empire. a unipolar world and making himself a Putin’s long-term desire to enhance Russia’s global democracy enforcer, former president power and influence is clear—and he has George W. Bush briefly went even further not hesitated to act on it in the current than Russia’s Czar Nicholas I, who won crisis over Ukraine. Yet, he has also sought fame as the “gendarme of Europe” for partnership with the West at times and making the Continent safe for autocracy. clearly hopes—correctly or incorrectly— Statesmen like Otto von Bismarck and that Russia’s annexation of Crimea does not Benjamin Disraeli ruthlessly advanced foreclose future engagement. what they saw as their nations’ true Indeed, looked at from a historical interests while coldly appraising their perspective, Moscow’s conduct does not rivals’ aims and views. As the German suggest a crusade to rebuild the Soviet author Emil Ludwig wrote, what most Union. Yes, Putin has said that he considers repelled the Iron Chancellor in dealing the collapse of the ussr to be a terrible with Russia was “that country’s bold claim tragedy, and he clearly seeks a greater to equality of right—a claim he has never political, security and economic role for

10 The National Interest The Realist his country in the post-Soviet region. But about the policies that can produce results consider this: until the crisis in Ukraine, at an acceptable cost. Targeted sanctions Moscow used force against a neighboring against Putin’s inner circle and other Rus- state only one time, in 2008, after Georgian sian officials and politicians—some of president Mikheil Saakashvili first ordered whom appear to have been sanctioned for attacks on Russian peacekeepers in South reasons unrelated to Ukraine—will not Ossetia. Before that, Abkhazia and South change Russian policy. Their impact is too Ossetia had been largely under de facto limited, and, unlike their counterparts in Russian control for years. Despite the Ukraine, Russian tycoons do not have po- fact that both are contiguous to Russia’s litical influence or control members of the territory and reliant on Russian subsidies to legislature. Moreover, Putin can compensate survive economically, the Kremlin did not them for any losses even as his security ap- choose to integrate them into Russia. paratus watches them for signs of weakness Then there is Ukraine. Russia’s annexation under foreign pressure. of Crimea was not predetermined Further U.S. and eu sanctions could and resulted from a complex and have a severe impact on Russia’s economy. multidimensional process. There is no However, Americans should understand that evidence that Putin would have tried to take both Kremlin officials and Russia’s citizens over Crimea without the combination of would see crippling “sectoral” sanctions humiliating defeat and political opportunity against Russia’s financial institutions that Obama and his eu associates presented or energy companies as acts of economic to him after their Ukrainian political warfare. Such sanctions would not only protégés drove former president Viktor impose costs on our own side—particularly Yanukovych from office without quite the Europeans, and Germany most of all— following the parliamentary procedures but also encourage the Russian government required to impeach him under the country’s to treat the United States and its allies as constitution. The result was regime change, enemies rather than superiors. History which is not a rules-based policy, especially provides scant evidence to suggest that when it assertively extends the West’s—let’s Moscow would change course; far-reaching be honest about it—sphere of influence to sanctions have not changed policy in Cuba, the single most strategically, economically, North Korea or Iran. Likewise, the U.S. historically and emotionally significant area oil embargo targeted against Japan before on Russia’s borders. After contributing to World War II did not contain the crisis— the Crimean fiasco, it is little wonder the it accelerated it. Putin is supported by a president sounds so defensive. political consensus that submission is no longer a sustainable foreign-policy option. f the United States and the European Moreover, when one hears U.S. officials I Union want to prevent Putin from tak- and members of Congress declare that ing further action, they must be clear-eyed sanctions have brought Iran to its knees, it is

The Realist July/August 2014 11 Kremlin.ru/The Presidential Press and Information Office.

missiles. Russia suspended delivery of these weapons at the urging of the Israeli government, which it considers friendly. If it chose, however, Moscow could bypass the more moderate government of Hassan Rouhani hard to know whether to laugh or cry. Iran and offer expedited delivery of the s-300 has not abandoned enrichment, stopped systems, or the more advanced s-400, developing long-range missiles or ceased directly to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. assistance to Syrian president Bashar al- Israel might want to attack Iran’s nuclear Assad. Russia is economically much stronger installations before the missiles arrived— than previous sanctions targets such as Iran, something that could trigger a war in the and as of this writing, some 86 percent of Gulf, attacks on American targets, oil and the population supports Putin, at least for gas supply disruptions, and huge increases in now, and many on the Internet claim that if energy prices. Russian officials may expect anything, Putin is the accomodationist. that this would improve the Kremlin’s Launching economic war against bargaining position vis-à-vis the West, Russia would mean entering uncharted especially Europe. Avoiding concessions territory. Moscow would have no shortage to Moscow might mean making them to of options, and many are already under Tehran, possibly at Israel’s expense. Which is discussion publicly and privately. First, less palatable? Russia might start cooperating with anti- The Obama administration should also Western movements from Afghanistan to be much more careful about its message the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. to Ukraine’s government. Visible U.S. The list of such governments and groups support is important, but Washington must interested in Russian assistance would be avoid providing officials in Kiev with the long and imposing. According to Mikhail same false sense of support that facilitated Gorbachev’s adviser Alexander Yakovlev, Saakashvili’s ruinous confrontation with when the U.S.-Soviet relationship reached Moscow. a crisis level in 1983–1984, former Soviet An escalating dispute in Ukraine could leader Yuri Andropov ordered considerable not but affect already-struggling European expansion of the ussr’s support for economies. Investor confidence could terrorism, something that contributed to become especially shaky in the Baltic the dramatic hostage takings in Lebanon. states, where Moscow could exploit any Among plausible recipients of Russia’s economic slowdown to mobilize significant sophisticated weapons might be Iran, which and poorly integrated ethnic Russian is currently suing Russia for failing to fulfill communities in Estonia and Latvia to its obligation to supply s-300 antiaircraft destabilize governments. Latvia’s capital,

12 The National Interest The Realist Riga, already has an ethnic Russian twice before weaponizing international elected mayor who openly favors a closer finance. New reports suggest that Russian relationship with Moscow. companies are already exploring nondollar Some will argue that Moscow would settlements with Chinese firms; even if not risk this with nato members. But modest, this could open a Pandora’s box. notwithstanding President Obama’s references to Russia’s weakness, Russia has hese ominous possibilities are far from an impressive superiority in conventional T inevitable. Putin and his associates forces vis-à-vis Ukraine and in Central would have to consider huge potential costs Europe and a roughly ten-to-one to Russia—and to their personal fates—be- superiority in tactical nuclear weapons, of fore upping the ante with nato. Neverthe- which it has an estimated two thousand, less, these dire scenarios are not fantasy. compared to about two hundred deployed What is remarkable is that few in the U.S. in Europe for the United States. Russian executive branch or Congress are paying the military planners consider tactical nuclear slightest attention. weapons an important component in the It is not merely intellectually inconsistent overall balance of forces and are preparing but also peculiar that the same officials and integrated war plans that include nuclear commentators who view Putin as an evil options. Even more dangerous, Russian genius also expect him to accept Western generals might assume that nato would punishment with a combination of easily recognize this imbalance and would dismissed bluster and toothless symmetrical therefore not dare to escalate. action. Likewise, it may be politically Finally, while Russia may have limited convenient to ignore the very real possibility options to impose direct economic harm of Russia drawing closer to China, but it is on the United States, Americans should strategically reckless. By any logical criteria, recognize that attempting to use U.S. American leaders should see China rather dominance in the international financial than Russia as their greatest challenge. system as an instrument against another China is both more central to the world major power will encourage not only economy and more integrated into the world Moscow but also other nations to see the economy than Russia. Despite its assertive American-centered global financial system conduct, Beijing is not seeking conflict with as a threat. This could put new momentum the United States. Like Russia’s leaders, behind existing efforts to weaken America’s however, Chinese officials see Washington international financial role and might as bent on containment and a potentially even prompt some to seek to undermine dangerous democracy-promotion policy. the global financial system as we know it This is an important confluence of interests today. Since that system is a key source between China and Russia that U.S. leaders of U.S. strength and prosperity, Obama must consider. The post–Cold War world is administration officials should think over and a new world is emerging.

The Realist July/August 2014 13 If both Russia and China believe they face dangerous pressure, each may see the other as a natural partner in balancing against the West.

Of course, there are big differences in May 2014 meeting; though neither may live interests between Russia and China—and up to Moscow’s hopes, U.S. and European each has enduring grievances against the officials will take grave risks if they ignore other. No less important, China’s nominal or minimize the Sino-Russian relationship. gdp is roughly four times the size of From time immemorial, efforts to isolate Russia’s, and it is much more connected a major power without defeating it have to the U.S. economy. Thus, under normal generally led to international realignments circumstances, Beijing and Moscow feel and new alliances—and whatever Obama that they need Washington, particularly may think, the present century is unlikely when it acts in concert with Brussels, to differ from the previous five millennia more than they need each other. But are of recorded history. A contest between today’s circumstances still normal? If both two revisionist coalitions—the hegemonic governments believe they face dangerous West and a rising China–resurgent Russia pressure, each may see the other as a natural alignment—could be explosive. partner in balancing against the West. New In this context, it is useful to remember public U.S. cyberespionage charges against how Bismarck won an informal alliance Beijing may further sway China toward with Russia by supporting Czar Alexander Moscow. II against England and particularly While China abstained from voting France during an 1863 rebellion in on the resolutions concerning Crimea Poland. Alexander II warned Napoleon in the un Security Council and the un III that continued French support for the General Assembly, it was still pretty clear insurrection would force him to abandon where Beijing’s sympathies rested. China his alliance with France. Facing public is reluctant to support Russian positions pressure, Napoleon III ignored this warning. openly, especially in view of its own Seven years later, Prussia crushed France, separatism concerns. Despite this, China Napoleon III lost power and a unified does not approve at all of the way the Germany was born—in no small part United States and the European Union because Bismarck persuaded Alexander II have handled the Ukraine situation. The to remain on the sidelines. China may not Ukraine crisis will push Russia and China have a Bismarck, but Beijing could become closer, but exactly how much closer depends increasingly bold in pursuing its geopolitical on U.S. and eu policies. At a minimum, ambitions with tacit Russian support. they have much that unites them, including difficulties with their immediate neighbors, y all appearances, Putin does not want each of which are supported by the United B (with or without Western sanctions) to States. Putin and Chinese president invade Ukraine and accept the enormous Xi Jinping signed a major natural-gas costs of absorbing all or part of it even if agreement as well as an unreported foreign- some rhetoric clearly could be viewed as a policy coordination agreement during their threat to Kiev and encouragement to pro-

14 The National Interest The Realist Russian elements. Since the United States and chose to retreat. New crises flared up and European Union are likewise unpre- in the Balkans over the next few years, pared to fight to reverse the annexation of but ended without general conflagration. Crimea, the current standoff may remain Unfortunately, the brief periods between under control for the time being. What crises were misleading pauses in an ongoing we need to understand, however, is that struggle rather than times of peace. Like Ukraine is today’s equivalent of both the today, the forces at work extended far Balkans and the Middle East of the Sykes- beyond the narrow disputes that erupted Picot era—an artificially divided land, as- in the Balkans and elsewhere and few sembled by Soviet Communist leaders on connected the dots—including to the the basis of arbitrary borders. It includes second Morocco crisis in 1911, when people who speak different languages, have Russia opted to support France after Paris different religions, belong to different cul- promised loans that Berlin refused. As tures and even civilizations, and have rather before World War I, there is much more different aspirations. than one point of friction that could The combination of contrasting historical produce a devastating conflict. narratives and an explosive political and This drawn-out prelude to war gave Russia demographic mix in Ukraine requires a an opportunity to strengthen its military lasting solution. This should include a and build an alliance with its traditional unified federal Ukraine with meaningful nemesis, England. By the time of Austrian autonomy for its regions and the right to archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination in select its own direction, though Kiev would June 1914, the Russian Empire was prepared not be able to enter nato in the foreseeable to stand its ground. The assassination was future. With a modicum of goodwill and the catalyst for war, not the cause. common sense, plus a genuine desire on To the last moment, Nicholas II and all sides for a mutually acceptable solution, Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm each thought this is almost certainly within reach. The that he could avoid war. When that alternative is for Ukraine to lurch from moment came, however, Helmuth von one crisis to the next, never quite knowing Moltke, chief of Germany’s General Staff, exactly which specific event might trigger a persuaded the kaiser that Berlin had no full-scale confrontation between nato and choice but to order full and immediate Russia in which military leaders on both mobilization—something Graham Allison sides would demand immediate and drastic recently described in The National Interest. measures to avoid being hit first. Meanwhile, Russia’s military leaders One more look at the past is thus persuaded a reluctant Nicholas II to in order: Europeans were relieved when take a similar decision, as otherwise the Austria’s 1908 annexation of Bosnia did Germans—with their superior railroad not lead to war because Russia was still network—could mobilize and attack first. weak after its disastrous conflict with Japan As they say, the rest is history. n

The Realist July/August 2014 15 Ukraine’s Ancient Hatreds

By Nikolas K. Gvosdev

n 1708, Charles XII of Sweden in- out from under Russian domination vaded Ukraine. His aim was to use it through an alliance with Western powers. I as a base for a final advance on Peter His portrait graces the Ukrainian ten- the Great’s Moscow. The Cossack hetman, hryvnia note. (Keep in mind that neither Ivan Mazeppa, decided to throw his lot in Benedict Arnold nor Robert E. Lee can be with the Swedes in a bid to secure Ukraine’s found on U.S. money.) However, a street complete independence. His decision split named in his honor in Kiev was changed the Cossacks; while some followed Mazep- after the government of Viktor Yanukovych pa, others elected a new leader, Ivan Sko- came to power in 2010. ropadsky, who reaffirmed his loyalty to the One of Mazeppa’s predecessors as Cossack alliance with Russia. The following hetman, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, is lauded year, Charles was defeated by Peter at the by some for his 1654 decision to sign the climactic Battle of Poltava, Russia emerged Treaty of Pereyaslav, by which the Cossacks as a player in European affairs, Ukraine was of Ukraine pledged loyalty to the Russian brought under closer control by the imperi- czars in return for protection against their al government and Mazeppa fled into exile. foes (Catholic Poland and the Muslim Was he a traitor who received his just Ottoman Empire). One read is to praise rewards for his perfidy? Or was he a Khmelnytsky for reuniting the fraternal freedom fighter? The former is a more Ukrainian and Russian peoples; another prevalent attitude in eastern Ukraine as is to criticize him for running into the well as the dominant narrative in Russia suffocating embrace of the Muscovite itself. The Russian Orthodox Church thus state and setting in motion the process of anathematized Mazeppa for breaking his Ukrainian subjugation by Russia. (It was to oath of loyalty to Peter, and the Ukrainian celebrate the three hundredth anniversary Orthodox Church, which remains affiliated of this treaty that Soviet leader Nikita with the Moscow Patriarchate, continues to Khrushchev arranged for the transfer of refuse to lift this sentence. Mazeppa is held Crimea from Russia to Ukraine—an act up as an example of traitors who would that the 2014 annexation was meant to sunder the unity of the East Slavic peoples. repudiate.) And, in the aftermath of For Ukrainians who seek to join the Euro- World War I, another hetman—a distant Atlantic community, conversely, Mazeppa descendant of the Skoropadsky who had is a tragic hero who failed to bring Ukraine replaced Mazeppa—attempted to create, under German tutelage, another Ukrainian Nikolas K. Gvosdev is a professor of national- state. However, Pavlo Skoropadsky, a security studies at the U.S. Naval War College and former imperial general, was overthrown a contributing editor at The National Interest. in December 1918 by Ukrainian

16 The National Interest Ukraine’s Ancient Hatreds revolutionaries who found his government overseeing relations with Russia’s “near insufficiently nationalist—because abroad,” remarked in 2013, “Russians, Skoropadsky’s government continued to use Ukrainians and Belorussians are all one Russian in its administration and because and the same people who due to historical the hetman held out the possibility of a circumstances happened to be called future federation between Ukraine and a differently.” Even among those Russians who non-Bolshevik Russia. would recognize the existence of a separate Ukrainians disagree vehemently about the Ukrainian nation, most would agree with the legacy of these three figures, but Russian formulation often used by Putin’s spokesman president Vladimir Putin is quite clear Dmitri Peskov: that Ukraine is a “brotherly about what version of history he adheres nation” to Russia. A small minority of ethnic to—and this vision is guiding his policies Ukrainians accept the triune view; more on Ukraine. might agree that Russians are a related, In his public remarks, Putin has though separate nationality; and a view that indicated that he is a proponent of the is more prevalent the further west one goes “triune people” thesis, which holds that in Ukraine sees contemporary Russians as the Eastern Slavs form one overarching barbarian interlopers who stole the legacy community, all descendants of the original of Rus’ and thus have no legitimate claim to people of Rus’ and inheritors of the culture, share in a common culture with Ukrainians. religion and traditions that were centered A common nation may nonetheless be at Kiev a millennium ago. In this view, divided among separate sovereign states, the modern division of the Eastern Slavs each with their own distinct identity—the into Belorussians, Ukrainians and Russians reflects only regional and linguistic variants of a common people, not the existence of separate nationalities. Putin’s address to both chambers of the Russian legislature on March 18, 2014, made this clear when, speaking about the relationship between Ukraine and Russia, he noted, “We are not merely close neighbors, but we are in fact, as I have said many times, one people. . . . All the same, we cannot be one without the other.” (He has made the “one people” nations of the Anglosphere come to mind, comment on numerous other occasions; for or the division of the larger German nation example, in a September 2013 interview into Germany, Austria and Switzerland. with press representatives.) But for Putin, as well as much of the Putin’s assertion has been echoed by Russian elite, Ukraine’s independence is other senior Russian government figures. conditional. For Putin, it is axiomatic that Konstantin Zatulin, the first deputy there should exist a “special relationship” chairman of the State Duma committee between the two countries that would

Ukraine’s Ancient Hatreds July/August 2014 17 The Orange Revolution, seen in the West as a triumph of “people power,” was viewed in Moscow as a direct and possibly mortal challenge to Russia’s position in the post-Soviet space.

be characterized by even closer political, to Ukraine in 2001, many Ukrainians saw economic and security ties than the ones in this move the beginnings of a new cam- that define the vaunted British-American paign for the Kremlin to increase its eco- connection—a feeling that is reciprocated nomic influence in the country. One critic in some segments of Ukrainian society but labeled Chernomyrdin’s nomination as “the vehemently rejected in others. Six years appointment of a new prime minister for ago, at the Bucharest nato summit, Putin Ukraine by President Putin.” However, be- reportedly said to then president George cause of his willingness to abandon far-flung W. Bush, “You don’t understand, George, Soviet Cold War outposts and to facilitate that Ukraine is not even a state. What is the introduction of U.S. military forces into Ukraine? Part of its territories is Eastern Central Asia after 9/11, some in Washington Europe, but the greater part is a gift from assumed that Putin was no longer interested us.” In other words, he acknowledged that in treating former Soviet republics as geopo- the western portion of Ukraine was territory litical chess pieces and might even be con- that had been part of Poland, and before vinced that fostering closer ties between the that, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but non-Russian Eurasian states and the West asserted that the core of the country had would be beneficial for Russia. historically been connected to Russia. But This illusion was quickly dispelled when what Putin said afterward is even more the warming U.S.-Russian relationship important to consider. He apparently during the first presidential terms of warned the U.S. leader that if any effort both Bush and Putin ran aground on the was made to pull Ukraine completely into shoals of the so-called Orange Revolution the Western orbit and into opposition vis- in Ukraine in 2004—a tectonic shift in à-vis Russia (specifically referring at the Ukrainian politics brought about both time to extending Ukraine a Membership by popular discontent with electoral Action Plan for nato), then Ukraine would corruption and a split in the Ukrainian elite cease to exist as a state and Russia might be over the direction of the country. What was forced to take steps to detach Crimea and seen in the West as a triumph of “people eastern Ukraine from Kiev’s control. power” was viewed in Moscow as a direct and possibly mortal challenge to Russia’s uring his fifteen-year tenure as either position in the post-Soviet space. For D prime minister or president of Russia, a variety of reasons—historical, cultural, Putin has made forestalling Ukraine’s clos- political and economic—Putin could not er alignment with the West while pulling be indifferent to the question of who would that country into a closer relationship with sit in the halls of power along Mykhailo Moscow one of the organizing principles of Hrushevsky Street in Kiev. No Russian Russian foreign policy. When he appointed leader could have been. Viktor Chernomyrdin, Russia’s prime min- From that point onward, the relationship ister from 1992 to 1998, as his ambassador between Russia and the United States (as

18 The National Interest Ukraine’s Ancient Hatreds well as with the European Union) has one—is a sine qua non for the projection of been directly connected to the balance of Russian power and influence into Europe. political forces in Ukraine. The attempt Conversely, a much less friendly Ukraine to “reset” relations between Moscow and could, if given sufficient support by its Washington in President Barack Obama’s neighbors and other major powers, serve first term in office bore fruit only because as a powerful barrier to curtail Russian ties the Ukrainian question had been taken with Europe and to contain its power and off the table, first by the efforts of Prime influence to the steppes of Central Eurasia. Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to warm up Moreover, there still remains a high degree to the Kremlin in 2009 and then by the of economic integration between the two election of Viktor Yanukovych in 2010. countries. Most commentators have focused Yanukovych’s subsequent decisions to on Ukraine’s continued dependence on eschew nato membership for Ukraine, to Russian energy, without realizing that Russia renew a long-term lease for the Russian is also vulnerable to supply disruptions Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol and to give of a different sort from Ukraine. Russia’s official status to the Russian language military, for instance, relies on a number reassured Moscow that its equities in of Ukrainian firms for the procurement Ukraine were secure. His deposition from of everything from rocket motors to office in the wake of the Maidan protests turbofans. These include such companies in February, in turn, triggered the present as Motor Sich in Zaporizhia, which is the crisis, which has effectively nullified any of main “inheritor” of the Soviet capacity for the progress made in U.S.-Russian relations airplane-engine production, and Kharkov’s over the last two decades. Khatron plant, which manufactures the Ukraine figures prominently in the guidance systems for Russian icbms. Russia’s Russian foreign-policy hierarchy of interests own effort to wean itself from Ukrainian for a number of reasons. To begin with, suppliers by focusing on indigenous the two countries share a nearly 1,500- capabilities is still far from complete, despite mile border where Ukraine nestles up the best efforts of Deputy Prime Minister against the soft underbelly of the Russian Dmitri Rogozin in this area. Federation. The worst nightmare of the In addition, eastern Ukrainian industrial Russian General Staff would be nato forces firms still supply Russia with a number of deployed all along this frontier, which critical goods, including machinery, pipe would put the core of Russia’s population and railway cars. Russia remains Ukraine’s and industrial capacity at risk of being single largest trading partner and foreign quickly and suddenly overrun in the event investor. Economic trouble in Ukraine of any conflict. does have a negative impact on Russia and Ukraine remains a vital link that other post-Soviet states, as Putin himself connects Russia to the outside world. observed this March, when he noted that Even though, in the aftermath of the 2004 problems in Ukraine could have “negative Orange Revolution, Russia accelerated consequences” for its trading partners. plans to develop new energy pipelines to Thus, the push for full Ukrainian reach lucrative European energy markets membership in Putin’s proposed Eurasian that would bypass Ukraine, a little more Union, or, at the bare minimum, having than half of Russia’s exports of natural gas Ukraine become an associate of this westward must still traverse Ukrainian soil. grouping, is grounded in expectations that A friendly Ukraine—or at least a neutral Ukraine’s forty-five-million-strong market,

Ukraine’s Ancient Hatreds July/August 2014 19 its industrial base and its natural-resource with Ukrainian (notably in pronunciation); endowments would become important moreover, there were significant Ukrainian- components of a single Eurasian economic speaking populations in the area, notably space led by Moscow. One of the goals in the Kuban District. In turn, the current of such a project would be to make it Ukrainian-Russian border does not mark much less likely that Russia’s neighbors the definitive delineation for language; would be able to join blocs or groups that use of Russian as the principal language exclude Russia. The association agreement spoken in daily life only phases out the that was negotiated between Ukraine and further west one moves in Ukraine. The the European Union that Yanukovych continued existence of variants of spoken ultimately declined to sign in November Ukrainian that are strongly influenced 2013 (but which has been endorsed by the by Russian usages in various parts of interim administration) would foreclose any Ukraine also contributes to the sense that possibility of Ukrainian participation in the a Ukrainian identity need not exist in Eurasian Union. total opposition to a Russian one. And the Finally, there is no easy separation penetration of Russian in Ukraine means between the two peoples in ethnic, that Ukraine is part of the larger Russian- historical and cultural terms. Both Russia language information space, sharing with and Ukraine (as well as Belarus) claim their Russia common television programs, origins from Rus’, the federation of East music, movies and other forms of media— Slavic tribes centered at Kiev a millennium including social media. ago. Ukrainian scholars and intellectuals in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ll of these factors combine in the eyes played a key role in helping to forge the A of much of the Russian elite to pro- modern Russian identity. Centuries of duce the assessment that Ukraine and Rus- shared experience, beginning with the sia share a special relationship that goes Treaty of Pereyaslav, which connected a beyond just economics or geographic prox- good portion of Ukraine with the Russian imity. Current disputes are but a “family state, forged lasting bonds, not to mention quarrel”—and outsiders should stay out. the familial ties produced by generations Even if they are willing to accept the status of intermarriage and migration across of Ukraine as a separate and independent what was the Russian Empire and then state, they still expect some sort of bind- the Soviet Union. Twenty years after ing union between the two countries that independence, despite the existence of two keeps the old connections intact. If the separate Ukrainian Orthodox jurisdictions, West encourages Ukraine to sever those the choice of millions of Ukrainians ties, then, as Putin told Bush in Bucha- to continue to affiliate with a Ukrainian rest, Moscow would consider taking back branch of the Russian Orthodox Church that part of Ukraine it perceives as being reinforces the perception of belonging to a connected to Russia. And if the charge of common nation and is an important part of “losing” China could prove to be so devas- the Moscow Patriarchate’s claim that there tating in American politics sixty years ago, is a distinct civilizational space that, in turn, imagine the impact on the Kremlin’s posi- ought to be defined by common political tion—and Putin’s narrative that he is the and economic institutions. Linguistically, restorer of Russian greatness—of having the forms of Russian traditionally spoken to explain how Ukraine became dissevered in southern Russia shared some features from Russia.

20 The National Interest Ukraine’s Ancient Hatreds If Putin’s primary fear is the “loss” of Ukraine by highlighting the decline in the Ukraine, his second concern might be that population’s standard of living, the failure a Ukrainian “sneeze” in favor of political to move forward on closer integration with change would end up giving the Kremlin the West and the lack of progress in dealing a cold, posing a fundamental threat to with corruption by the administration of the political and economic status quo. Viktor Yushchenko. For many Russians, Because Ukraine and Russia still, to a who had emerged shell-shocked from large extent, share a common information the economic collapse of the 1990s, the and civilizational space, the thesis has message was heard loud and clear: imitating been advanced that significant political Ukraine would jeopardize the prosperity change in Ukraine would spill over into and stability of the newly emerging Russian Russia itself. In particular, if a Western- middle class. The same arguments are style liberal free-market democracy could being voiced again in the aftermath of the take root in Ukraine, the argument runs, Maidan uprising—that Ukraine’s fortunes it would work to counter the narrative will worsen rather than improve as a result increasingly heard in Russian intellectual of the change in government and the circles that Western institutions are alien rupturing of ties with Russia. to the core values of a Slavic-Orthodox Moreover, the extent to which the civilization. It would further serve as an Maidan protest movement champions the example to ordinary Russians that they too narrative of Ukrainian distinctiveness and could embrace political reform without separateness from Russia diminishes its having to sacrifice their cultural identity. potential impact on the Russian political This point is critical because the growing scene, since the core of the argument is sense that accepting Western-style forms that Ukraine can be democratic and liberal of governance is akin to abandoning and precisely because it is not similar to Russia. rejecting one’s own national identity has The Kremlin’s focus on the role of “fascists” become more noticeable in recent years. Indeed, Russian pride in the country’s cultural achievements was on full display during the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, while sustained criticism from the West of Russia’s preparation for the Games struck a nationalist nerve, even among some of the most solidly anti-Putin liberals. After the 2004 Orange Revolution, some in the Russian opposition (as well as in the U.S. democracy-promotion community) were optimistic that a “color revolution” might be possible in Russia, pointing to the cultural and psychological similarities between the Ukrainian and Russian populations. They were wrong. The Kremlin met this challenge by tightening controls over civil society and improving its techniques for youth mobilization. It also concentrated media coverage of events in

Ukraine’s Ancient Hatreds July/August 2014 21 in the Maidan movement—the far-right could repeat itself. Certainly, the vision laid parties and militias with a pronounced out by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his 1997 anti-Russian agenda—reinforces this and is Foreign Affairs essay, “A Geostrategy for intended to delegitimize the entire protest Eurasia”—of a Russia that is decentralized by associating it with the Nazis. All of into a looser confederation of geographic this makes it less likely that the protesters’ regions, with western and southern Russia arguments for change will resonate with drawn into the sphere of influence of an ex- ordinary Russians, at least in the short run. panded European Union and with Ukraine The Maidan is not going to be followed by as a full member of the Euro-Atlantic com- a similar manifestation on the Manezh in munity—is based on an assessment that a Moscow. (In the longer run, a Ukrainian- Ukraine which successfully completed re- style protest movement might emerge forms would serve as a pole of attraction to in Russia for the same reasons it did in those provinces of Russia along the border. Ukraine: if the economy enters a new A decentralized Russia with different period of stagnation, if corruption becomes parts of the country ending up under the intolerable, and if the question of who will sway of the other major power blocs in the succeed Putin as president of Russia begins world is, of course, precisely what Putin to divide the Kremlin elite into competing has spent his entire political career working factions that then seek to mobilize the to prevent. He has done this first by larger population to assist in their struggle reversing the devolution of power in Russia for power.) itself, and then by promoting Eurasian integration to create, as Putin himself put he immediate impact of Maidan on it in an October 2011 essay in Izvestia, “a T the Russian political environment may powerful supranational association capable be negligible, but the longer-term ques- of becoming one of the poles in the modern tion is whether or not successful reform world and serving as an efficient bridge in Ukraine—particularly in generating between Europe and the dynamic Asia- political and economic transformation in Pacific region.” Ukraine’s membership in the largely Russian-speaking southern and this Eurasian Union, while desirable, is not eastern parts of the country—might lead absolutely necessary, but this scheme will to change. It’s worth recalling that in the not work unless Ukraine is at least a close upheaval of the Russian Revolution a cen- associate. tury ago, some of the southern regions of Therefore, Putin is pursuing a reversed Russia—particularly the Don and Kuban version of the Brzezinski strategy: instead Cossack communities—even sought to es- of a Western-oriented Ukraine influencing cape being drawn into the maelstrom after European Russia, Russia will dazzle Ukraine the fall of the Provisional Government and with the benefits of being the westernmost considered throwing in their lot with the bastion of a rising Eurasia. In the short Ukrainian Hetmanate headed by Skoro- run, Russia may have the advantage. padsky. Skoropadsky’s overthrow in De- Recognizing the challenge, the Russian cember 1918 and the eventual triumph of government has already committed itself the Bolsheviks terminated those plans. Yet to a massive spending program in Crimea, it is not inconceivable that in the future, committing 243 billion rubles ($6.8 billion) especially if the prosperity engendered by for 2014 alone in an effort to raise living Russia’s status as an energy superpower is standards and provide a positive point eroded by the shale revolution, this pattern of comparison with Ukraine’s struggling

22 The National Interest Ukraine’s Ancient Hatreds A friendly Ukraine—or at least a neutral one—is a sine qua non for the projection of Russian power and influence into Europe.

regions in the south and east. Ukrainian Russia. (Not surprisingly, some Ukrainians interim prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk see these proposals as a prelude to an hoped Ukrainians would embrace outright partition of the country and the painful economic reforms as the “price of absorption of the eastern part directly into independence.” But he recognized that the Russian Federation.) But federalization Moscow’s strategy is to convince many is the only compromise Putin seems Ukrainians that reversing the westward prepared to accept, and he seems to risk direction of the government in favor of much to protect what he sees as Moscow’s closer relations with Russia would result in vital interests and equities in Ukraine— higher living standards and would avoid including disrupting Russia’s own economic the short-term economic suffering that the progress and the survival of the partnerships austerity demanded by the International he has forged with key European states. Monetary Fund, the eu and the United States would bring. f the preservation of any semblance of Putin’s comments to George W. Bush I a U.S.-Russian partnership is a priority, in Romania in 2008 provide us with especially in order to support U.S. goals a glimpse into his thinking on Ukraine. in the Middle East and East Asia, then If the Yanukovych gamble has failed, Washington must be willing to compromise then returning the western portions of and promote the so-called neutralization Ukraine to the Central European world of Ukraine as well as its decentralization, it longs to rejoin while drawing the returning the country to its status as a non- southern and eastern parts of the country aligned intermediary between Russia and back into a closer embrace with Moscow the West. In addition, any offers for closer might be an acceptable alternative. The economic integration between Ukraine and federalization plans being touted by Russian the Euro-Atlantic community would have representatives would devolve a good deal to be nonexclusive in nature and not threat- of authority to the regions, including more en Russia’s economic interests. The United control over their finances and, in some States and its European allies would also versions, the rights of regions to pursue have to convince a recalcitrant Ukrainian closer links with neighboring states. And if government, as well as significant segments western Ukraine wants to go its own way, of the population that are hoping for sub- Putin may be quite happy to give a tacit stantial Western assistance to break Ukraine blessing to the emergence of a separate out of the Russian orbit once and for all, state in Halychyna (Galicia), breaking apart that such help would not be forthcoming the Ukrainian national project of the last and that Ukraine would have no choice century, which attempted to encourage its but to reach some sort of modus vivendi western and eastern portions to identify with Moscow. Essentially, this approach more with each other and less with their would concede to Putin many of his prefer- former historic overlords of Poland and ences for how Ukrainian-Russian relations

Ukraine’s Ancient Hatreds July/August 2014 23 ought to be defined, with the proviso that example for successful governance to the some degree of Western influence would be Putin model. permitted. Finland and Austria both lived There would be costs for such a strategy, under such regimes during the Cold War, as starting with the short-term disruptions a price for retaining their democratic forms to Western European economies, the of governance and capitalist economic sys- need to make massive new infrastructure tems, so there are precedents. investments to diversify from Russian But Russia is not the Soviet Union. sources of energy, and the likely loss of It is not clear that Washington ought to Russian help in everything from evacuating make such accommodations—necessary Afghanistan to securing a lasting diplomatic as they might have been during the settlement with Iran over its nuclear Cold War, when Moscow posed a global program. Furthermore, Washington would challenge to U.S. interests—to a regional have to take all the steps to bail out and power that has significant geopolitical assist the transition in Ukraine that it and Achilles’ heels, starting with demography. Europe were unwilling to take ten years ago But casual remarks about how this is the in the aftermath of the Orange Revolution, twenty-first century and how great-power when it was easy for lawmakers to wear machinations for spheres of influence ought orange ties but much more difficult to to be relegated to the past are insufficient implement preferential access for Ukrainian and ill advised. If the choice is made to goods or make it easier for Ukrainians to confront and contain Putin’s Russia— visit and work in the West. with the eventual goal of initiating change The worst choice, however, would be in Russia itself—then Ukraine is on the to make rhetorical commitments to front line of that campaign. During the Ukraine that the West has no real intention Cold War, the United States was willing to of fulfilling. This would only anger both marshal huge amounts of resources, first the Russians (who see it as unacceptable to reconstruct Western Europe and Japan, interference in their affairs) and the then to aid the development of states from Ukrainians (who have trusted the promises Korea to Pakistan—and to extend defense made to them by Western politicians). commitments to boot. If this is going to Putin takes the fate of Ukraine seriously, be the strategy, however, the United and has shown he will take major risks to States would need to use its leverage to secure the Kremlin’s position. He may be push for a significant improvement in the willing to reach an accommodation with standard of living of ordinary Ukrainians the United States—but it is not clear and to encourage a greater responsiveness that the United States should or would of the government to the concerns of accept it. But Putin won’t meekly accept ordinary people. In addition, it would that Ukraine, like the Warsaw Pact states have to encourage a new government to before it, will drift into the Western orbit. preserve Ukraine as a bilingual (Ukrainian- In his view, Russia, since the end of the and Russian-speaking) state that did not Cold War, has signed off on too many restrict the ability of its citizens to espouse compromises and found itself pushed out of a (culturally) Russophile Ukrainian identity. Europe. In Ukraine, in 2014, he has drawn It would need to reduce the possible the line and effectively said, “This far, and attractiveness of Russia to key portions of no further.” The decision by the United Ukraine while, in the longer run, setting States—and its allies—to accept that line or up Ukraine’s ability to serve as an alternate to cross it should not be made lightly. n

24 The National Interest Ukraine’s Ancient Hatreds London Falling

By Gideon Rachman

ater this year, the United Kingdom independence. Yet, earlier this year, the could disunite. In September, Scot- polls began to narrow. Several recent L land is due to vote on whether to snapshots of public opinion have shown become an independent nation. There is the gap between the “Yes” and “No” camps a strong chance that the Scots will vote to be down to three to six percentage to go it alone, breaking a political union points. with England that was established over There is also a discernible gap in three hundred years ago, through the Act the energy and optimism of the two of Union of 1707. The Scots number only campaigns. On a brief trip to Edinburgh 5.3 million of the United Kingdom’s popu- earlier this year, I decided to try to visit lation of 63.7 million. But Scotland ac- a proindependence event and a prounion counts for a large amount of Britain’s terri- meeting. The Yes campaign held three tory and coastline—and contains several of meetings in the area over the course of the nation’s finest universities, castles and two days. The No camp, however, seemed golf courses. Moreover, Scotland is also to have only two events scheduled—for where Britain’s nuclear weapons are based, the entire month. The proindependence and the country’s (dwindling) oil supplies camp also has a network of eager are almost all located in Scotland’s coastal enthusiasts, which is expected to mount waters. an effective “get out the vote” campaign. Americans who have not noticed that A Scottish journalist told me that if the the United Kingdom might be about to proindependence camp managed to narrow break up can be forgiven. Even in England, the gap in the polls to three points by many citizens are only just waking up to the time of the ballot, he expected they the idea that the nation they are living in would emerge victorious in the actual might go poof later this year. When the vote—simply on the basis of their superior uk government led by David Cameron organization. So there is now visible agreed in 2012 that a referendum on nervousness and squabbling among the Scottish independence would be held, it pro-uk forces. For one thing, Cameron is was widely assumed that the result would starting to realize that he may be seen as be a foregone conclusion. And it remains the feckless prime minister who presided true that in the scores of opinion polls over the loss of Scotland—giving him a that have been taken since then, not place in the history books alongside Lord one has yet shown a majority in favor of North, who lost the American colonies. In that event, he would surely feel compelled Gideon Rachman is the chief foreign-affairs to resign as prime minister the day after a columnist at the Financial Times. referendum defeat.

London Falling July/August 2014 25 ow did it get to this point? What and management of the British Empire. H are the implications for Britain and The Scots played a prominent role as the wider Western world? Any search for explorers, missionaries and imperial the origins of the current drive for Scot- administrators. The threat of invasion from tish independence must start by acknowl- the Continent—first by France, then by edging the obvious fact that Scotland was Germany—and the experience of fighting independent of England for much of its together in the world wars also served to political history. The monarchies of the unite the English and Scots. In retrospect, two nations were unified in 1603, and a the end of the empire after decolonization formal political union was agreed upon in in the 1950s and 1960s probably weakened 1707 only after a significant financial cri- one of the central pillars of the common sis threatened to bankrupt Scotland. Even British identity. Moreover, the rise of the after the political union was consummated, European Union provided an indirect boost Scotland provided the base for two Jacobite to nationalism. The eu now comprises invasions of England in 1715 and 1745. As twenty-eight members. The Scots see a result, Scottish nationalism has a rich his- smaller nations such as Ireland and Slovenia tory of battles against England from which with an honored place at Europe’s top to create a national story that might justify table, and conclude that the eu has made it independence. Helpfully, the referendum viable to be a small and prosperous nation, has been scheduled for the year of the seven sheltered under the European umbrella. The hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Ban- eu, along with nato, is widely assumed to nockburn, Scotland’s most famous victory provide an answer to the security concerns over England. (An American friend of mine of small European nations, although the who went to a Scotland-England football predicament of the Baltic states may soon match was first baffled, then awed, to see put that proposition to the test. Scotland supporters carrying a banner that The advent of Thatcherism in Britain said “Remember 1314.”) in 1979 provided the potent rocket fuel During the nineteenth and twentieth of resentment that is so crucial to the centuries, these historic antagonisms were success of any nationalist movement. widely assumed to have been buried, as the Margaret Thatcher presided over the English and Scots united around common closure or shrinkage of many of Britain’s enterprises—most notably the construction struggling industries. Enterprises like Scotland’s steel mills, mines and shipyards were a central part of the country’s identity. Economic change probably meant that they faced a bleak future under almost any government. But mass unemployment in Scotland at the hands of a Conservative government with its political base in southern England allowed Scottish nationalists to portray their nation’s economic problems as the

26 The National Interest London Falling product of a deliberate act of class warfare which went by the unlovely name of “devo by an unsympathetic, upper-class English max,” was the most popular. But Cameron government. balked. He refused to put it on the ballot. The rise of the Labour Party government He apparently believed that a binary choice in 1997—led successively by two prime would allow the uk government to score a ministers who grew up in Scotland, decisive victory over Scottish nationalism. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown—seemed This calculation, however, increasingly to hold out the promise for a renewal of looks like a reckless gamble. Cameron’s the union. New Labour set up a devolved second error was to fail to insist that the Scottish government, with considerable eight hundred thousand or so Scots residing powers over policy areas like education in England should get a vote in the Scottish and health, in a move that was intended referendum. This deprived the strongest to neutralize Scottish grievances. It didn’t. unionist constituency of a vote in the Instead, the Scottish Labour Party was itself Scottish referendum. increasingly moribund and uninspiring, with its key figures looking for careers in ameron may rue these moves, come London and its local party notorious for C September. The English are still some machine politics. In 2011, the Scottish way from imagining how their country National Party (snp), whose raison d’être would feel the morning after Scotland had had always been independence, defeated voted for independence. But the likely reac- Labour to take control of the Scottish tion would be anger and incredulity. The government in Edinburgh. At that point, country would immediately face some im- the uk government felt obliged to meet the portant symbolic and substantive questions. demand of the snp for an independence Could it still be called the United Kingdom referendum. of Great Britain and Northern Ireland if Fatefully, by this time, the government it loses part of the island of Great Brit- in London was once more led by a Tory ain? Would the United Kingdom have to prime minister who himself was something redesign its flag, the Union Jack—which of a toff. The leaders of Thatcher’s party, currently contains the Scottish cross of St. with just one member of Parliament of Andrew (the blue bit)? their own in Scotland, were peculiarly ill Other, more substantive issues would placed to argue the case for the union in quickly come into focus. The Irish question Scotland. Cameron has deliberately avoided would be reopened, as Northern Ireland’s campaigning in Scotland, tacitly acceding status within the United Kingdom began to to the nationalists’ case that the government look increasingly anomalous. (This is one in Westminster lacks legitimacy in Scotland. reason, incidentally, why the government He has also compounded long-standing of Ireland quietly dreads the prospect of problems in the relationship between Scottish independence.) What would England and Scotland with some serious happen to the pound? Paradoxically, the blunders. Initially, the snp campaigned for snp—in a bid to reassure voters—has said a third choice to be placed on the ballot— that it would like to retain the pound. neither independence nor the status quo, Downing Street, however, has ruled out a but a further transfer of powers to the currency union. Scottish government in Edinburgh, while This is not all. What would happen retaining Scotland within the union. to the totems of British power and Opinion polls suggested that this option, international status, the permanent

London Falling July/August 2014 27 Scotland breaking away from the United Kingdom would have global implications. Other would-be nations—from Catalonia to Quebec and from Tibet to Chechnya—are watching with fascination.

membership on the un Security Council in return for maintenance of the nuclear and the nuclear weapons? The un role status quo. Yet such speculation may would probably pass straight to the underestimate the extent to which the snp continuing government in London, is wedded to an antinuclear theology. The much as the Russian Federation inherited party’s campaign documents refer to Trident the Soviet Union’s Security Council missiles as “an affront to basic decency.” membership. The snp’s position on nuclear weapons is Britain’s nuclear arsenal represents a more part of a broadly left-wing approach to difficult issue, since the country’s Trident foreign policy that might cause surprise nuclear weapons are kept on submarines, and irritation in the United States. For the whose home port is the Faslane base in Scottish Left, it is axiomatic that one of the Scotland. It would take many years and malign effects of union is that Scotland has up to £20 billion to build similar basing been dragged along as the United Kingdom facilities in England. So unless the slavishly joined in “illegal” American wars, English government can persuade the particularly in Iraq. Scots to abandon their current plan to Would all this matter for the broader go nonnuclear, Britain’s deterrent would Western alliance? One well-placed observer immediately come into question. This who argues that Scottish independence might not be a major source of regret would be a calamitous blow is Lord in Washington, since some American Robertson of Port Ellen, himself a Scot strategists are increasingly dismayed by the and a former secretary general of nato. proportion of Britain’s dwindling defense In a recent speech in Washington, Lord budget that is eaten up by maintaining Robertson argued, “For the second military a nuclear deterrent, while more useful power in the West to shatter this year would capacities are sliced away. Nonetheless, be cataclysmic in geopolitical terms.” It Britain’s defense strategy would be would, he said, “rob the West of a serious immediately thrown into crisis by Scottish partner just when solidity and cool nerves independence. In addition to the nuclear are going to be vital. . . . The forces of weapons, some 50 percent of the Royal darkness would simply love it.” Air Force’s combat aircraft would have to Lord Robertson’s argument extends redeploy south of the border. well beyond the practical issues of nuclear Some analysts assume that an weapons and air-force bases. The pessimists independent Scotland would swiftly fear that the breakup of the United reverse its position on nuclear weapons— Kingdom would be a major blow to the particularly since a decision to go confidence of a hitherto outward-looking nonnuclear might complicate Scotland’s and engaged international power. It would effort to join nato. One possible deal that inevitably consume an immense amount has been mooted posits that England might of political energy for the government agree to share the pound with Scotland in London. If Scotland were to vote for

28 The National Interest London Falling independence this September, that would not be the end of the matter. On the contrary, it would mark the beginning of a tortuous process of divorce negotiations. The administrations in Westminster and Edinburgh have pledged to conduct any such negotiations in good faith. But divorce proceedings have a habit of getting nasty. It is certainly possible to envisage a stalemate emerging on any number of issues, from the currency to the division of the national debt to nuclear weapons. If Parliament in Westminster were unhappy with the result of independence negotiations, it would be within its rights simply to refuse to repeal the Act of Union until a more satisfactory deal were struck. The result would be an unholy constitutional mess, generating bitter feelings on both sides of the Scottish- English border.

he vision of Scotland breaking away the English, who are held to be narrow- T from the United Kingdom would also minded, anti-European xenophobes) and have pan-European and even global impli- have always assumed that an independent cations. Other would-be nations—from Scotland would either remain as a Catalonia to Quebec and from Tibet to member of the eu or would swiftly gain Chechnya—are watching the process with readmittance. But there is a very real fascination. prospect that Spain would attempt to The government of Spain, in particular, thwart a Scottish application to join the is deeply uncomfortable with the very eu, in an effort to show the Catalans that process of a Scottish referendum on independence would mean isolation within independence, let alone the prospect that Europe. Scotland might indeed become a sovereign A row over Scotland would provoke bitter nation. That is because the movement for arguments within an eu that is already Catalan independence is stronger than in the grip of a profound economic and it has been for many years, and is also political crisis. The picture would be further demanding a referendum on independence. complicated by the hapless Cameron’s But Catalonia accounts for a much more promise that Britain will hold a separate significant share of Spain’s population, referendum on its own membership in gdp and cultural riches than Scotland the eu by the end of 2017. The effects of represents in the United Kingdom. As a Scottish independence on Britain’s attitude result, Scottish independence could provoke toward Europe are unpredictable. It could a crisis both within Spain and within the make the British less confident about broader European Union. The Scottish going it alone. On the other hand, the Nationalists proclaim themselves to be polls suggest that the English are slightly proud pro-Europeans (unlike, they argue, more hostile toward the eu than the Scots,

London Falling July/August 2014 29 meaning that a United Kingdom without determination. Of course, the difference Scotland would be a little more likely to between an agreed-upon, meticulous leave the European Union as well. process that takes place over years and one The British like to believe that the way in that was rammed through in days using which they are allowing the Scots to vote on force should be patently obvious. Even so, independence will set a global example of the idea that boundaries can be redrawn the civilized and democratic way in which within Europe to accommodate national to handle separatist and independence aspirations is a potentially disruptive one. movements. It is certainly hard to think (Newly assertive Hungarian nationalists of many other instances of nations that might also take note.) The Scots insist that would allow themselves to be broken up theirs is a “civic” nationalism, not an ethnic by democratic means. The independence nationalism—but the distinction is likely referenda that Canada has allowed for to be lost on the likes of Putin and Viktor Quebec represent one obvious example. Orban. The peaceful division of Czechoslovakia Still, if it happens, for all the difficulties is another. Elsewhere, from Tibet to and irritations involved in negotiating the Chechnya to (so far) Catalonia, separatist divorce settlement, there are few countries movements tend to get short shrift from that are better prepared to handle the established national governments. In the process than the United Kingdom. Decades modern era—from South Sudan to Eritrea of decolonization have given the British to East Timor to the former Yugoslavia— plenty of practice in drawing down the flag new states that have broken away and and marching away with dignity. It can established themselves as independent be done again. For all the understandable nations have tended to do so against a anxieties of Lord Robertson and others, background of violence. England’s self-confidence and ability to In the abstract, it is possible that the play a role in the world would survive the Scottish independence referendum could blow of Scotland’s separation. The British provide an inspiring example of how to managed to absorb the loss of the American handle these issues in a civilized manner. colonies, the independence of Ireland As a practical matter, it is delusional. When and the independence of India—and still Russia organized the breakaway referendum retained a strong sense of their own identity in Crimea, for example, Vladimir Putin and greatness as a nation. If it came to it, and his supporters cited the Scottish they would absorb the independence of precedent as a justification for Crimean self- Scotland without too much fuss. n

30 The National Interest London Falling Scotland’s Nationalist Folly

By Tom Gallagher

cross the European Union, many es- behind. The snp is making inroads into tablished parties are floundering. voting groups where support has previously A Reelection to office is a rare out- been weak, from the numerous liberal come, but the Scottish National Party (snp) professionals in Edinburgh to downscale is one of the few ruling parties to be thriv- voters living in moribund postindustrial ing. Since taking charge of Scotland’s auton- communities. omous government in 2007, it has enjoyed Until a few years ago, the snp was high poll ratings and has strong expectations a protest party stuck in the political of being reelected for a third term in 2016. wilderness. The majority of Scots were Except for a four-year break, it has been led skeptical about its claim that the oil wealth by the same individual for nearly a quarter discovered in Scottish waters during the century: a self-confident, popular and utter- 1970s could easily bankroll a separate ly disingenuous rogue named Alex Salmond. state. A British outlook endured, though A referendum on Scottish independence impaired by policies during the 1979– will take place on September 18, 2014, 1997 period of Conservative rule that were and the snp is entering the third year of widely thought to have contributed to the campaigning. Back in January 2012, the destruction of Scotland’s manufacturing British prime minister, David Cameron, base. It was the difficulties of the normally worried by the growing dominance of the dominant Labour Party that were crucial, snp, announced that he wanted Scotland providing an opening for the snp to to be given the choice between continued working-class voters. Labour in Scotland membership in the United Kingdom suffered from the mounting unpopularity and full independence. The snp has ever of Tony Blair’s ten-year government in since been in its element. The business of London. New Labour’s close ties with government has been left to a loyal civil corporate interests together with ill-starred service while the party pours its energies interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq went into campaigning with an evangelical fervor. down badly in a Scotland that was tired of In polls taken in March, “Yes for Britain’s high-profile foreign commitments Scotland,” the party’s proindependence and where even much of the middle class is front, is catching up with “Better Together,” comfortable with a state-directed economy. the alliance of prounion forces, and in one The snp ran a minority government of them was only five percentage points from 2007 to 2011, before winning an outright majority. But the party’s social Tom Gallagher is the author, most recently, of and economic vision is little different from Divided Scotland: Ethnic Friction & Christian Crisis Labour’s and it has left the civil service to (Argyll Publishing, 2013). run the country on social-democratic terms.

Scotland’s Nationalist Folly July/August 2014 31 Even during the marathon referendum campaign, the Scottish National Party has not revealed any kind of political and economic model for the future that would set it apart from the British one.

Even during the marathon referendum Scots in fierce medieval confrontations, is campaign, it has declined to reveal any a lifeline for modern Scottish nationalism. kind of political and economic model for Without an England that can still be the future that would set it apart from the depicted as “neocolonial,” it is hard to see British one. Its 670-page white paper on what would give such an anemic variety independence released in November 2013 of nationalism any real momentum. turned out to be a largely aspirational Without its own cultural, religious or document that was vague about the shape economic distinctiveness, or widely spoken of things to come. local language, Scotland lacks some of This reticence makes sense: the snp’s the building blocks that usually allow a vision is a reprise of the proglobalization nationalist project to flourish. outlook of Blair, the party’s distrusted The austerity measures pursued by foe. There is a strong commitment to London after 2010 (which were extremely membership in the European Union even mild in comparison with those applied in as the readiness of this entity to interfere in eu countries reeling from the euro crisis) the domestic affairs of its members shows were fiercely denounced in Edinburgh. no sign of waning. Salmond outstrips Blair The Scottish government has promised to in his commitment to green energy, with renationalize the Royal Mail service, raise the snp claiming that most of Scotland’s the minimum wage, maintain universal energy needs can be derived from welfare benefits and increase pensions. renewables by 2020. He is also an ardent Scotland’s leaders portray the British supporter of immigration in order to fill central state as tight-fisted, but in fact it skills shortages in the public sector and has shown marked liberality in its approach boost population levels in parts of Scotland to financing Scotland’s public expenditure. that locals are reluctant to live in. The Scottish government does not need to raise its own taxes. Instead, Scotland erhaps the secret of the party’s popular- receives a block grant from London; P ity derives from its ability to be seen as it is not tied to particular spending an effective resistance force keeping at bay requirements, leading to levels of public a still-dominant neighbor—England. Re- spending in Scotland higher than in much sentment toward a territorial partner often of England. In theory, Edinburgh is free to depicted as insensitive and overbearing was raise up to 3 percent of its budget through a powerful subtheme in Scottish popular internal taxation. But the snp has advanced culture even when the union thrived. Now no projects requiring this power to be it has become a mainstream one even as exercised. It suits its purpose to continue England’s practical influence over Scottish complaining about London’s meanness, affairs has ebbed away. insisting that this is what prevents the The existence of such a powerful party from implementing a modernization neighbor, with a history of subduing the strategy. Of course, a requirement for

32 The National Interest Scotland’s Nationalist Folly Scotland to run its own budget from the society to manage. Yet the quality of taxes of its own citizens would beam the political leadership failed to keep pace. In spotlight on the snp’s spending habits, and power for thirteen years until 2010, the the party’s extended honeymoon with the Labour Party played down, and sometimes voters might even splutter out. even mocked, the values and traditions The snp’s rhetoric of empowering the that had reinforced Britishness. Instead, poor and needy and standing up to an it extolled group identities often based on “imperialistic” English elite plays to a sense ethnicity. of victimhood that currently thrives in The snp had gotten nowhere when Scotland. Polls regularly show that there is political culture was shaped, as it had not a huge variation between Scottish and been for many generations, around a English attitudes toward the redistribution stoic identity inspired by Protestantism, of wealth. But there is still no sign of a attachment to the British Empire (in which countermobilization from deductive and Scots were prominent at all levels), sport, practically minded Scots impatient with the local institutions, industrial crafts and snp’s populist rodomontade. Unless a new personal restraint. But in the postindustrial center-right party emerges that is able to era beginning in the 1980s, a more volatile offer a vision of genuine self-reliance within identity has arisen. Community life and a decentralized union, the snp appears civic activism have retreated. Instead, unassailable. behavior has grown more privatized, Scottish nationalism’s shrill protests about reactive and self-centered. A media English arrogance and greed doomed a culture based around a cult of celebrity, party founded in 1934 to impotence for the ridiculing of religion and rampant most of its history. British identity enjoyed consumerism has greatly influenced public strong endorsement down to at least the awareness and tastes. In this environment, 1960s. A sense of solidarity operated across an ebullient (not to say egocentric) society based on vivid memories of common wartime endeavor and post-1945 policies of social reform endorsed by political forces that enjoyed support throughout Britain. But British identity frayed due to the decline of institutions that had helped to maintain cohesiveness. Numerous policy failures—protracted industrial unrest until the mid-1980s, conflict in Northern Ireland and infrastructural failures stand out—encouraged the belief that the political system directed from London was broken. Britain experienced accelerating levels of social change that made it an increasingly complex Wikimedia Commons/Scottish Government. CC BY 2.0.

Scotland’s Nationalist Folly July/August 2014 33 politician like the snp’s Salmond has and broadcasters who fall short of the re- positively thrived. quired sycophancy towards the snp.” This edgy, self-obsessed and emotion- Very late in Scotland’s democratic story, laden Scotland has displaced the sober, the classic populist gambit of extolling flinty society of yore. A strong dependency the powerless while keeping power culture has sprung up. Levels of economic concentrated in few hands has been rolled inactivity in Scotland are high (in Glasgow, out. London finds itself playing the role its largest city, the figure in 2012 was of Uncle Sam, accused of behaving badly 32.7 percent of the adult population). It north of Hadrian’s Wall just as the United is downscale Scots whom Alex Salmond States was perceived to do for all those years and his deputy Nicola Sturgeon target south of the Rio Grande. Just like Latin with increasing success. Polls indicate American populists of old and more recent that they are most likely to vote in favor vintage, the snp points to national failures of independence. They increasingly accept that may in fact have local roots rather than the snp claim that being part of the originating in imperialist machinations. United Kingdom has deprived Scotland The huge challenges that would confront of the income from oil lying off the the snp in preserving a social-justice Scottish coast that could have been used agenda in an independent Scotland and its to create a thriving socialist economy. The own unpreparedness for the task of state prounion response is that the transfer of building together suggest that the condition oil income out of Scotland has been nearly of the country cannot be improved as a balanced out by annual block grants for result of obtaining full sovereignty. It is over four decades and that declining oil heretical to even suggest that Scotland revenues simply rule out a new socialist may not have what it takes to persevere dawn. Some economists warn that to be with self-rule. Talking down the nation is viable, an independent Scotland will have a cardinal sin in the lexicon of the snp and no choice but to sharply cut back on social its cybernat followers. Even its prounion expenditures. In early 2014, it was revealed foes see independence as attainable. But that Salmond’s government was anticipating they add that the Scottish national interest cuts to jobs, welfare benefits and pensions would be best served by preserving a union after independence. where Scotland enjoys political influence and a range of economic advantages. almond energizes those Scots for whom Perhaps, deep down, the snp has no S the emotional cry of freedom reso- real desire for full independence either. Its nates far more strongly than any economic leadership would rather berate London warnings about the future. The snp has for withholding the devolution of real long drawn sustenance from the imagery economic powers and total control over of Mel Gibson’s 1995 Hollywood block- welfare when it has shown little enthusiasm buster Braveheart, in which plucky Scottish for exercising many of its existing resistance fighters are depicted taking on range of powers. Elected officials of the a brutal fourteenth-century English foe. proindependence force have come to enjoy An army of bloggers known as “cybernats” the trappings of office. Many know that relentlessly pursues this theme online, and, the snp’s popularity is likely to remain according to Iain Gray, leader of the op- high as long as it can exploit the politics of position Scottish Labour Party from 2008 grievance while still inside the union. to 2011, these people “threaten newspapers Meanwhile, the European Union has

34 The National Interest Scotland’s Nationalist Folly The snp’s rhetoric of empowering the poor and needy and standing up to an “imperialistic” English elite plays to a sense of victimhood that currently thrives in Scotland.

steadily extended its control over Scotland spending and taxation levels would by devising laws and norms that all member continue to be shaped by London. states have to comply with, even as London In February, Chancellor of the Exchequer has relaxed its grip. But it is hard to find a George Osborne felt obliged to visit party more willing than the snp to endorse Edinburgh to say definitively that this was a European project that is now in crisis not going to happen. He declared: “The thanks to a flawed currency union dreamt pound isn’t an asset to be divided up up largely on political grounds. between two countries after a break-up like Rather unwisely, Salmond has insisted a cd collection. . . . If Scotland walks away that automatic membership in the eu from the uk, it walks away from the uk awaits Scotland if it quits the union. He pound.” He was immediately endorsed by stuck to this script even as top eu decision the chief financial spokesmen for the other makers and the leaders of states with main British parties. restive minorities, fearing the precedent One of the main reasons for this of a British breakup, stated the opposite emphatic statement was that the Cameron in plain language. The presidents of the government feared that Britain would have European Commission and the European to rescue Scottish financial institutions that Council and the heads of government of got into difficulty. This was not a totally Spain, Croatia and Belgium have all stated hypothetical scenario, as it was the British that a fresh relationship between Scotland taxpayer who intervened to effectively and the eu would have to be negotiated nationalize Scotland’s two main banks when over a lengthy time period. they nearly collapsed in 2008. Having recently distanced itself from the The snp’s currency-union idea was euro, the snp has courted fresh controversy originally meant to reassure nervous Scots by insisting that it could combine that a “social union” with the rest of Britain independence with the retention of the would persist in the independence era. As pound in a “sterling union.” It is easy to well as retaining the pound, the bbc and understand the snp’s reasoning. A Scottish the monarchy would be preserved and currency would have potentially serious there would be no border controls between drawbacks, as Scotland trades mainly England and Scotland. But Salmond grew with the rest of the United Kingdom. The bellicose in the face of London’s hostility to likelihood is that in the challenging times his currency plan. He has frequently warned of early statehood, the value of the new that without a sterling zone Scotland currency would drop below the British would not assume a share of the trillion- pound, with consequences for interest rates, pound British national debt. The snp debt financing and deficits. But a British leader’s fixation on debt is understandable. currency union in a post-British state If Scotland inherited a per capita share would mean that many of the terms and of uk debt, that could leave it paying conditions concerning Scottish borrowing, approximately £6 billion in debt interest in

Scotland’s Nationalist Folly July/August 2014 35 the first years of independence. That would communities. It is removing power from be close to 10 percent of total government local government and amalgamating public spending. services that were once decentralized. Those at the top of the civil service are he snp claims to be a broad politi- delighted and are prepared to look T cal movement, but in practice it often sympathetically when Salmond asks them acts as if it has no enemies to the left. By to carry out political work in favor of his Western European standards, the Far Left party. By 2008, the public-wage bill had in Scotland is quite influential. Its activists reached one-third of Scotland’s £33 billion provide much of the campaigning strength budget. for “Yes for Scotland.” Front groups have Until recently, many business leaders been set up that convey the impression were fearful about offering their views that there is an irresistible tide of popular on what the breakup of the union could feeling for separation. Common Weal is a mean for Scotland. The business sector is social-justice manifesto drawn up by the one of the few branches of Scottish life Jimmy Reid Foundation, named after a where the snp’s post-2014 independence popular Communist labor-union figure. vision has few backers. Business figures It has attracted religious radicals, academ- worry that companies with plants in ics and municipal figures with its program Scotland but whose customers are found for growth and redistribution in an inde- mainly in the rest of the United Kingdom pendent Scotland. Artists and writers who would relocate there owing to the climate of uncertainty. But until this spring, such views were usually only expressed in private. This is a telling demonstration of the snp’s authority and ability to silence inconvenient voices. Business figures fear general vilification, harassment in the media and consumer boycotts orchestrated by nationalists. Four of the United Kingdom’s biggest supermarket firms experienced the snp’s wrath in December 2013 when their senior have formed the proindependence group executives indicated that the higher costs National Collective have lashed out at what of distribution in Scotland would no longer they see as English cultural overlordship. In be absorbed in their uk businesses in the Ireland eighty years ago, comparable senti- event of independence: the new state would ments led to public symbols of British iden- be treated as an international market and tity being systematically uprooted. price rises would follow. A leader of the But Salmond’s party shows little Yes campaign urged these companies to appetite for active citizens running local quit Scotland despite employing tens of

36 The National Interest Scotland’s Nationalist Folly thousands of Scots, and an snp city role on the world stage appear unsettling. councilor in Glasgow called for them to be In 2009, he ordered his civil service to boycotted. badger world statesmen to issue statements Opposition figures have regularly supporting his release of the convicted protested the government’s defiance of the Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al- freedom-of-information machinery, which Megrahi. Only a handful of leaders did was introduced so that Scotland could be so. Fifteen years ago, on March 29, 1999, seen as a model of open government in he condemned nato’s bombing of Serbia contrast to London. Hundreds of requests after Slobodan Milosevic had attempted have been rejected by the civil service, to deport much of Kosovo’s Albanian acting on behalf of the ruling snp. In the population as “an unpardonable folly,” most publicized example, Salmond refused comparing the action with Luftwaffe raids to publish the opinion of his government’s in wartime Britain. And in an interview law officers, who he claimed had confirmed this March, he offered qualified praise of Scotland would inherit eu membership Vladimir Putin (which he later refused to automatically. After a costly thirty-month retract), describing the Russian leader as wrangle, it finally emerged last autumn that an “effective” politician who had “restored no such legal advice about an independent a substantial part of Russian pride and Scotland’s eu status had ever existed. that must be a good thing.” Upon being Salmond had simply made it up. published on April 28, the interview caused Scotland’s political elite is largely drawn an uproar. from professionals in the public sector Despite what appears at times to be as well as the media and law. The talent Salmond’s proprietorial approach to pool is small even in a proindependence national office, parallels with Andreas party with such bold ambitions. A Papandreou’s Greece or Hugo Chávez’s declining number of parliamentarians Venezuela may still appear fanciful in the have work backgrounds that give them a context of Britain. But evolving social and wide experience of life outside the political political trends have lowered inhibitions bubble. Salmond himself has been a full- about a politician behaving in a quasi- time politician since his early thirties, regal manner. Populist appeals based on after a stint as an economic researcher in a identifying an external foe and a local leading bank. liberator with a simplified message of The priorities of the ruling snp have change now connect with a sizable number been increasingly defined by Salmond. of Scots. Foreign affairs and defense remain policy Polls show that a disproportionate areas reserved to London, but he has boldly number of men warm to the rowdy pursued his own foreign policy, going Salmond. The young were once seen by on regular trips to some of the emerging the snp as ideal material for an emotion- financial and economic powers in East laden message, and the voting age was duly Asia and the Middle East in order to lure lowered to sixteen. But it turns out Scots investment to Scotland. Tapping into the below twenty-five are among the most sovereign wealth funds of newly prosperous antipathetic to nationalism. Members of states has been a core objective that he the Facebook generation are international in hopes might convince Scots that it is safe to their outlook or else completely turned off embrace a post-British future. by politics. Women—by a large margin— Occasionally, his efforts to carve out a are also resistant to the snp’s plans.

Scotland’s Nationalist Folly July/August 2014 37 Most Scots are still reticent about the have lost touch with the country beyond snp’s stated objectives. Salmond, aged fifty- London. It favors decentralization and nine, will not be around forever and his wishes Scotland to remain part of the successor is likely to be a more prosaic United Kingdom. This form of nationalism, figure. An improving uk economy and driven primarily by politicians with a strong recent events demonstrating the appeal English identity, has risen far more swiftly of Britishness (such as the 2012 London than Scottish nationalism. Olympics) both work against the snp. If a surging English national identity So does the dawning realization that the obtains a successful political outlet, it is division of the British landmass could have bound to be awkward for the snp. In many huge economic consequences for a great ways, the party is a postnationalist force many Scots. Thus, it will still be an uphill whose desire for self-determination seems to task for the snp to secure a referendum extend only to curtailing London’s influence victory. But such a victory may in fact and establishing its own local absolutism. hardly suit its purpose. In most other respects, it adheres to a one- world philosophy and is comfortable with ather than be thrust into the demand- the globalization agenda that has powered R ing role of building a new state, many the eu, the environmental movement, and in the snp would probably prefer an exten- the cause of free movements of people and sion of autonomy. Two years of campaign- trade. ing have enabled Salmond to bathe Scot- If England were shaking off external land in a sense of victimhood and insist that overlordship and reclaiming its sovereignty, only his party can assuage her grievances. the task of creating a viable state would The populist rhetoric against London’s rule be immense. Many of its institutions and and a range of stunts at home and abroad elites now lack vigor and legitimacy. Too are likely to continue. But what if England many of its once-dynamic cities only hang cries enough and even marches Scotland to together thanks to regular injections of the union exit? state funding. Absent a booming financial- Dissatisfaction has been mounting over services industry that is largely dependent the perceived financial advantages Scotland on foreigners, Westminster might be facing enjoys in the union and the ability of its bankruptcy. Nevertheless, there are forces fifty-nine members of Parliament to of improvement capable of harnessing influence purely English matters. In some national energies that might even polls, more English than Scottish voters have the resolve to turn England into a say they would prefer Scotland to secede. tolerably contented and efficient maritime The electoral rise of the United Kingdom Switzerland. Independence Party (ukip) has been a In Scotland, by contrast, an ambitious lightning conductor for British nationalism. “change” party relies on a sprawling At least one-quarter of the electorate bureaucracy and a clutch of progressive is strongly opposed to the pro-European interest groups to build a self-reliant nation. integration and globalization agenda that These are not exactly forces equipped to each of the established parties embraced give a new state the very best start in life. As until very recently. The ukip promises a result, at least for now, a majority of Scots to take Britain out of the eu, scale back (albeit a shrinking one) appear to glimpse immigration and take back power from an the void behind the rousing rhetoric of Alex ingrown metropolitan elite that seems to Salmond and his votaries. n

38 The National Interest Scotland’s Nationalist Folly The Illusion of Chinese Power

By David Shambaugh

onventional wisdom has it that the In the wake of the Cold War, some pundits China juggernaut is unstoppable posited that the expanded and strengthened C and that the world must adjust to European Union would emerge as a new the reality of the Asian giant as a—perhaps global power and pole in the international the—major global power. A mini-industry system—only for the eu to prove itself of “China rise” prognosticators has emerged impotent and incompetent on a range of over the past decade, all painting a picture global challenges. Europe too was exposed of a twenty-first-century world in which as a single-dimensional power (economic). China is a dominant actor. This belief is un- So, when it comes to China today, a little derstandable and widespread—but wrong. sobriety and skepticism are justified. Recall that not so long ago, in the 1980s, Certainly China is the world’s most similar forecasts were made about Japan important rising power—far exceeding being “number one” and joining the elite the capacities of India, Brazil and South club of great powers—before it sank into a Africa—and in some categories it has three-decade stagnation and was shown to already surpassed the capabilities of other be a single-dimensional power (economic) “middle powers” like Russia, Japan, Britain, that did not have a broader foundation of Germany and France. By many measures, national attributes to fall back on. Before China is now the world’s undisputed second that it was the Soviet Union that was said leading power after the United States, and to be a global superpower (an assumption in some categories it has already overtaken over which the Cold War was waged for a America. China possesses many of the half century), only for it to collapse almost trappings of a global power: the world’s overnight in 1991. The postmortem on the largest population, a large continental land ussr similarly revealed that it had been a mass, the world’s second-largest economy, largely single-dimensional power (military) the world’s largest foreign-exchange that had atrophied from within for decades. reserves, the world’s second-largest military budget and largest standing armed forces, a David Shambaugh is a professor of political science manned space program, an aircraft carrier, and international affairs and director of the China the world’s largest museum, the world’s Policy Program in the Elliott School of International largest hydroelectric dam, the world’s Affairs at the George Washington University. He largest national expressway network and is also a nonresident senior fellow in the Foreign the world’s best high-speed rail system. Policy Studies Program and Center for East Asian China is the world’s leading trading nation, Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. His most the world’s largest consumer of energy, recent book is China Goes Global: The Partial Power the world’s largest greenhouse-gas emitter, (Oxford University Press, 2013). the world’s second-largest recipient and

The Illusion of Chinese Power July/August 2014 39 third-largest originator of foreign direct most recent examples of Beijing’s passivity. investment, and the world’s largest producer Moreover, when China’s capabilities of many goods. are carefully examined, they are not so Capabilities, however, are but one strong. Many indicators are quantitatively measure of national and international impressive, but they are not qualitatively power—and not the most important so. It is the lack of qualitative power that one. Generations of social scientists have translates into China’s lack of real influence. determined that a more significant indicator The Chinese have the proverb wai ying, of power is influence—the ability to shape nei ruan: strong on the outside, soft on events and the actions of others. As the late the inside. This is an apt characterization political scientist Robert Dahl famously of China today. Scratch beneath the observed: “A has power over B to the extent surface of the many impressive statistics that he can get B to do something that about China and you discover pervasive B would not otherwise do.” Capabilities weaknesses, important impediments and that are not converted into actions toward a soft foundation on which to become a achieving certain ends are not worth much. global power. China may be a twenty-first- Their existence may have an impressive century paper tiger. or deterrent effect, but it is the ability to influence the action of another or the his can be seen in five broad areas: outcome of an event that matters. There T China’s international diplomacy, mil- are, of course, various means by which itary capabilities, cultural presence, eco- nations use their capabilities to influence nomic power and the domestic elements the actions of others and the course of that underpin China’s global posture. Let’s events: attraction, persuasion, co-optation, examine each in turn. coercion, remuneration, inducement, or the In formal respects, China’s diplomacy threat or use of force. Power and its exercise has truly gone global. Over the past forty are therefore intrinsically relational: the years China has traveled a path from use of these and other instruments toward a nation isolated from the international others in order to influence a situation to community to one integrated into it. Today, one’s own benefit. Beijing enjoys diplomatic relations with When we look at China’s presence 175 countries, is a member of more than and behavior on the world stage today, 150 international organizations and is party we need to look beyond its superficially to more than three hundred multilateral impressive capabilities and ask: Is China treaties. It receives far more visiting foreign actually influencing the actions of others dignitaries every year than any other and the trajectory of international affairs nation, and its own leaders travel the world in various domains? The short answer is: regularly. not very much, if at all. In very few—if Despite this integration into the any—domains can it be concluded that international community and Beijing’s China is truly influencing others, setting active diplomacy, the diplomatic sphere is global standards or shaping global trends. a realm where China’s position as a partial Nor is it trying to solve global problems. power is apparent. On the one hand, it China is a passive power, whose reflex is to enjoys the symbols of being a major world shy away from challenges and hide when power. It’s a permanent member of the international crises erupt. The ongoing un Security Council, a member of the crises in Ukraine and Syria are only the G-20 and other key global bodies, and a

40 The National Interest The Illusion of Chinese Power participant in all major international takes a lowest-common-denominator summits. On the other hand, Chinese approach, adopting the safest and least officials still remain remarkably reactive and controversial position and waiting to see passive in these venues and on many global the positions of other governments before challenges. China does not lead. It does not revealing its own. shape international diplomacy, drive other The notable exception to this general nations’ policies, forge global consensus, passivity concerns China’s own neuralgic put together coalitions or solve problems. and narrowly defined interests: Taiwan, Beijing is not actively involved in trying to Tibet, Xinjiang, human rights and its solve any major global problem; rather, it contested territorial claims. On these issues is a passive and often-reluctant participant in multilateral efforts organized by others (usually the United States). Being a global power requires getting in the middle of disputes, bringing parties together, forging coalitions and consensus, and—yes—using pressure when necessary. Beijing prefers to sit on the sidelines and simply call for nations to solve their problems through “peaceful means” and to find “win-win solutions.” Such hollow invocations are hardly conducive to problem solving. Beijing also has a complete allergy to coercive measures and only goes along with un Security Council sanctions when it is clear that not doing so would leave Beijing isolated and negatively impact China’s international image. This is not the behavior of a global leader. Instead, Beijing’s high-level diplomacy is really a kind of theatrical show, more symbolism than substance. It is intended primarily to enhance the Chinese Communist Party’s (ccp) legitimacy among domestic audiences by showing Chinese leaders hobnobbing with the world’s Beijing is hypervigilant and diplomatically elite, while signaling to the international forceful, but its attempts to defend these community that the country has returned interests are often clumsy and wind up to great-power status after several centuries being counterproductive to its image and of impotence. As such, the Chinese its goals. Other than protecting these government goes to extraordinary lengths narrow national interests, though, Chinese to meticulously stage-manage its leaders’ diplomacy remains extremely passive for a interactions with their foreign counterparts. state of its size and importance. Substantively, though, Chinese diplomacy When it comes to global governance, remains remarkably risk-averse and guided which entails contributing to the common by narrow national interests. Beijing usually good proportionate to a nation’s aggregate

The Illusion of Chinese Power July/August 2014 41 In very few—if any—domains can it be concluded that China is truly influencing others, setting global standards or shaping global trends.

capabilities, Beijing’s behavior generally will get back from a certain investment parallels the passivity and narrow- and when. Thus, the whole premise of mindedness of the rest of its diplomacy. philanthropy and contributing selflessly China does contribute to various aspects to common public goods is alien to the of global governance: un peacekeeping thinking of many Chinese. operations, antipiracy operations in the As a result, in the realm of diplomacy— Gulf of Aden, counterterrorism measures bilateral, multilateral and global in Central Asia, overseas development governance—Beijing still demonstrates assistance, nonproliferation of nuclear a distinct passivity and reluctance materials, public health, disaster relief and to get involved. It is far from being the combating international crime. In these “responsible stakeholder” that Robert areas Beijing deserves credit. However, Zoellick called for in 2005. Chinese China could and should do much more; diplomacy remains narrowly self-interested, it still “punches well below its weight” by and Beijing’s involvement in global not contributing proportionately to its size, governance is minimalist and tactical, not wealth or potential influence. The world normative or strategic. The real business should expect and demand more from of Chinese diplomacy is, in fact, business. China. Examine the composition of the Chinese Why is China’s global-governance president’s or premier’s delegations abroad diplomacy so constrained? There are and one finds large numbers of corporate three main reasons. First, there exists deep ceos—in search of energy supplies, skepticism inside of China about the natural resources, trade and investment liberal premises and basic concept of global opportunities. Such mercantilist diplomacy governance, seeing it as the latest “trap” laid does not earn Beijing international by the West (primarily the United States) respect—and is, in fact, beginning to to “bleed” China by getting it involved in generate increasing criticisms and blowback crises and places where it does not have a around the world (most notably in Africa direct national interest—thus diverting its and Latin America). resources and restraining its rise. Second, Chinese citizens would criticize the hina’s military capabilities are an- government for allocating resources abroad C other area where it is a partial power: when poverty and other pressing challenges increasingly a regional power, but by no still exist at home. And third, China has means a global power. China is not able to a kind of “transactional” approach to project power outside of its Asian neighbor- expending effort, especially when it hood (other than through its interconti- involves money. This grows out of Chinese nental ballistic missiles, space program and commercial culture but extends into many cyberwarfare capacities), and even within other realms of Chinese behavior. The Asia its power-projection capacities remain Chinese want to know exactly what they limited (although growing). It is not at all

42 The National Interest The Illusion of Chinese Power certain that China could project military influence as a major power. Quite to the power on its periphery out to five hun- contrary, other countries in Asia are seeking dred nautical miles (such as in its East or to bolster their defense ties with the United South China Sea disputes) and sustain it States and improve their coordination long enough to prevail in a conflict. Its with each other—precisely because of military forces are not battle-tested, having the uncertainty and possible threat they not fought a war since 1979. perceive from China. To be sure, China’s military modernization has been advancing steadily urning from hard power to soft power, for twenty-five years. It now has the world’s T how does China stack up as a global second-largest military budget ($131.6 cultural power? Not well. No other societies billion in the 2014 official budget), largest are taking their cultural cues from China, standing armed forces, scores of new no other countries are seeking to copy the advanced weapons, a navy that is sailing Chinese political system, and its economic further and further out into the western system is not replicable elsewhere. Despite Pacific Ocean and occasionally into the the enormous efforts and resources the Chi- Indian Ocean, and a modest aircraft carrier. nese government has poured into trying So China’s military is no pushover. It is to build its soft power and improve its in- certainly capable of defending its homeland, ternational image since 2008, China con- and could likely now wage a successful tinues to have a mixed-to-negative global conflict over Taiwan (absent a fast and reputation. Surveys of public opinion reveal full American intervention). China is also that everywhere in the world perceptions of perceived to be a regional military power China are mixed, declining and increasingly in Asia and thus is altering the balance of fraught with problems. power in the region, but Chinese military China is not a magnet for others to forces still possess no conventional global emulate—culturally, socially, economically power-projection capabilities. China has or politically. The problem for China no bases abroad, no long-range logistics or in all four realms is that it is sui generis. communications lines, and rudimentary China lacks universal appeal beyond its global satellite coverage. The navy is still borders or ethnic Chinese communities. primarily a coastal littoral force, the air Largely because of China’s cultural, force has no long-range strike ability or economic, social and political uniqueness, proven stealth capacity, and the ground its global soft-power appeal remains weak to forces are not configured for rapid nonexistent. deployment. China’s cultural products—art, film, Moreover, strategically, China can be literature, music, education—are still described as a “lonely power”—lacking relatively unknown outside of China and do close friends and possessing no allies. not set global cultural trends. As admirable Even in China’s closest relationship (with as China’s economic development is, it Russia), elements of distrust and historical is the product of a unique combination suspicions percolate beneath the surface of features that cannot be replicated in of seemingly harmonious state-to-state other countries (competitive economies relations. Not a single other nation looks of scale, Soviet-style state planning, to Beijing for its security and protection individual entrepreneurship, a large and (except perhaps Pakistan)—thus disciplined workforce, a large research-and- demonstrating a distinct lack of strategic development establishment and massive

The Illusion of Chinese Power July/August 2014 43 foreign investment). Even if a “China hardly any technology or product line (or in model” exists (which is debatable), it the natural sciences, medical sciences, social is not exportable, as this combination of sciences or humanities). Similarly, China growth factors exists nowhere else. China’s only has two universities in the top hundred political system is similarly an eclectic worldwide, according to the Times Higher amalgam of Leninist Communism, Asian Education World University Rankings for authoritarianism, Confucian traditionalism 2013–2014. and a strong internal-security state. Its If China is to spur innovation, it will, distinctiveness cannot be replicated—there of course, have to invest more in research- are no other states trying to do so, nor does and-development funding. According to one find foreigners seeking political asylum the National Science Foundation, in 2009 or citizenship in the prc. China spent only 1.7 percent of its gdp on research and development, compared hat about China’s economic power? with 2.9 percent in the United States, 2.8 W This is the one area where one percent in Germany and over 3.3 percent would expect China to be a global power in Japan. The “research intensity” of China’s and trendsetter—yet China’s impact is research-and-development spending does much more shallow than anticipated. As in not even rank it in the top twenty nations other areas, it is quantitatively impressive globally, as an estimated 80 percent is but qualitatively weak. China is the world’s spent on product development and only largest trading nation, but its exports are 5 percent on basic research. China’s lack generally low-end consumer goods; its of Nobel Prizes is also a telling indication. products have poor international brand rec- Between 1949 and 2010, 584 Nobel ognition; only a handful of its multination- Prizes were awarded. Ethnic Chinese al corporations are operating successfully won ten of these (eight in the sciences), abroad; the total stock of its overseas direct but eight of the ten worked outside of investment (odi) ranks only seventeenth in- China. The two exceptions were the Dalai ternationally; and China’s overseas aid pro- Lama’s 2010 Nobel Peace Prize and Mo grams are a fraction of the size of those of Yan’s 2011 prize for literature. Citations in the United States, European Union, Japan professional journals are another indicator. or the World Bank. In the world’s most cited articles (across When evaluated qualitatively instead of all academic disciplines), Chinese scholars quantitatively, China’s global economic account for only 4 percent—whereas profile is not very impressive. It remains a Americans account for 49 percent. processing-and-assembly economy—not As a result of China’s chronic “innovation a creative and inventive one. Most of the deficit,” the nation is now mired in the goods that are assembled or produced in infamous “middle-income trap.” The only China for export are intellectually created way out of the trap is through innovation— elsewhere. China’s rampant theft of as Japan, South Korea, Singapore and intellectual property and its government Taiwan previously proved. And this requires programs to spur “indigenous innovation” much more than government investment (which pour billions into domestic research in research and development—it requires and development every year) are clear an educational system premised on critical admissions of its failure to create. This may, thinking and freedom of exploration. This, and likely will, change over time—but to in turn, requires a political system that is date China is not setting global standards in relatively open and democratic and does

44 The National Interest The Illusion of Chinese Power not permit censorship or “no-go zones” in research. Students and intellectuals must be rewarded— not persecuted or penalized—for challenging conventional wisdom and making mistakes. Until this occurs, China will be forever caught in the middle-income trap— assembling and producing but not creating and inventing. Seen in this light, China’s trade juggernaut is much weaker than it appears on the surface. Similar weaknesses are evident in China’s odi. Despite the high government priority for Chinese firms to “go out” into the world, so far China’s foreign investment remains quite small. As noted above, its total stock of odi barely places China in the top twenty globally, although its annual outflows are growing rapidly and now rank third in the world ($88.2 billion in 2012). Yet this remains recently reported that since 1990 a total of only one-fourth of American odi in the 9.3 million Chinese had emigrated abroad, same year. taking 2.8 trillion renminbi ($46 billion More significantly, as in other areas of in U.S. dollars) with them. This is not a China’s global profile, one needs to delve new development, but has been a growing beyond the quantitative statistics to ask trend over the past decade. When a nation’s qualitative questions: Where does it go, economic elites leave in such large numbers and is it real investment? The overseas and are so anxious to secure their personal destinations and composition of Chinese financial savings abroad, it speaks volumes odi have been shifting rapidly since 2011, about their (lack of) confidence in their but a large percentage remains portfolio own domestic political and economic funds flowing into locales like the British systems. Virgin Islands and Grand Cayman Recently, though, China’s odi profile and Islands (which ranked as the second and geographic footprint have been changing. third leading recipient destinations in China is ramping up its investments and 2011). Thus, some of this is not foreign purchases across Asia, Latin America, investment per se—it is really money Europe and the United States. Chinese being parked abroad in safe havens. This buyers are snatching up all kinds of assets— is not only true for China’s government residential and commercial properties, and companies, but also for individual factories, industrial parks, research-and- assets. The 2014 annual Blue Book on development facilities, farms, forests, Chinese International Migration, compiled mines, oil and gas fields, and various by the Center for China & Globalization, other resources. Chinese corporations are

The Illusion of Chinese Power July/August 2014 45 aggressively merging with or acquiring hierarchy and clearly defined workplace foreign companies. Individual Chinese have roles, Chinese tend not to adapt well to also been buying large amounts of valuable “flatter” management structures that prize art on the international auction market. decentralization and individual initiative. Thus, the profile of Chinese outbound These proclivities have resulted in repeated investment is rapidly changing, but its culture clashes in Chinese mergers with impact remains uncertain. Western companies. Chinese companies What about Chinese multinational have also demonstrated difficulties adapting corporations? How competitive are they to foreign legal, regulatory, tax and political abroad? As in other categories, there is environments. Transparency and corporate much more weakness than strength. On the governance are not attributes normally surface, judging from the Fortune Global associated with Chinese companies—whose 500 rankings, Chinese companies now rank decision-making processes are usually second only to American multinationals. opaque, business practices are frequently But these rankings are calculated on the corrupt and accounting procedures are basis of total revenue and profit—not often fraudulent. Many Chinese companies where a company makes its money. When have been found to have filed fraudulent examining the Chinese companies on information with securities regulators in the the 2013 list, it is quickly apparent that United States prior to their ipos. relatively few even operate abroad and The lack of Chinese corporate only a handful earn more than half their competitiveness is also evident when revenues overseas. So these are not truly it comes to international brands. Only a multinational corporations, but rather handful of Chinese companies have been domestic corporate actors. able to establish a brand presence abroad: Many firms may aspire to go global, Tsingtao beer, Haier white goods, Huawei but thus far those that have tried have telecoms, Air China, Geely automobiles not fared particularly well. There have and a handful of others. But not a single been more failures than success stories Chinese company ranks among the Business among aspiring Chinese multinationals. Week/Interbrand Top 100 global brands. Chinese mergers and acquisitions often have stumbled because China’s corporate ther measures of China’s domestic leaders did not do their due diligence O capacities also do not indicate very beforehand or because of the clash of high or positive global rankings. In 2014, corporate cultures. By all accounts, the Freedom House ranked China as tied for major weakness of Chinese multinationals 183rd out of 197 countries for freedom of is human resources—particularly the press. Since 2002, the World Bank’s management. There are precious few composite Worldwide Governance Indica- multilingual and multicultural managers, tors have consistently ranked China in the and Chinese companies do not generally thirtieth percentile for political stability and hire foreigners with such skills for upper- control of corruption, fiftieth percentile for level management (Huawei and Haier are government effectiveness, fortieth percentile exceptions to the rule). Chinese companies for regulatory quality and rule of law, and and their management have frequently below the tenth percentile for accountabil- displayed an inability to escape their own ity. The World Economic Forum ranked national corporate culture and business China only twenty-ninth globally on its practices. Because of their preference for composite Global Competitiveness Index

46 The National Interest The Illusion of Chinese Power Beijing’s high-level diplomacy is really a kind of theatrical show, more symbolism than substance.

in 2013, along with sixty-eighth for cor- highest in the world. China’s primary and ruption and fifty-fourth for business ethics. secondary schools are producing world-class Transparency International ranked China test results, but the university system still even lower (eightieth) in its 2013 inter- lags well behind global leaders. national corruption index. In virtually all These observations are not meant to these estimates and categories, China has belittle China’s miraculous developmental deteriorated over the past decade. By these accomplishments over the past three and other measures, it is clear that China’s decades, but they are simply further global presence and reputation is mixed reminders that China is nowhere near the at best. In many categories China finds top of the global tables in many categories itself clustered together with the least well- of development. performing and least respected countries in the world. his is a snapshot of China today. Ten or The 2013 United Nations Human T twenty years from now China’s global Development Report further illustrates position may well improve in all of these that despite the considerable and admirable categories and it may be operating on a socioeconomic progress China has made global basis similar to the United States’, but since the 1980s, the nation remains very for now China is a partial global power at much a developing country. The prc best. Yet one should not simply assume that ranks 101st in the overall index, out of China’s growth trajectory will continue un- 187 countries surveyed. The average per abated. It could, but there are also two other capita income is now nearly $8,000 in possibilities—stagnation and retrogression. purchasing-power-parity terms, yet 13.1 Many China watchers are coming to the percent of the population still lives on conclusion that the country is reaching a under $1.25 per day. In life expectancy, tipping point on multiple fronts. Aggregate infant mortality, health-care provision, growth is leveling off (owing to rising costs educational quality and inequality, China of production and declining comparative still lags well behind industrialized nations. advantages) and the government is Its environmental contamination and struggling to maintain the 7 percent pollution are the worst in the world and annual growth rates deemed necessary are contributing to rapidly rising cancer to maintain reasonably full employment, rates. Despite recent government efforts to absorb new entrants into the workforce and expand primary and catastrophic health- sustain social stability. Try as it may, the care delivery and insurance, most Chinese government has been unable to accomplish still face great uncertainties when illness its announced shift from an export- and strikes. Its Gini coefficient (which measures investment-driven economy to one based income inequality, with 0 representing on increased domestic consumption and perfect equality and 1 representing perfect an innovative “knowledge economy.” inequality) is now nearly 0.5, among the Production is not appreciably moving up

The Illusion of Chinese Power July/August 2014 47 the value chain and technological ladder, struggle leading up to it (including the and the grip of the middle-income trap is Bo Xilai affair), but it also had to do with setting in (and could become an indefinite the growing unrest around the country condition). Local debt is soaring and many (particularly in Tibet and Xinjiang). There subnational governmental authorities have been other contributing factors to the teeter on the brink of insolvency. Social party’s retrenchment and repression over inequalities are getting increasingly acute, the past five years, including fears generated corruption is rampant in both state and by the Arab Spring, but we have not seen society, frustrations abound in every social forward movement in political reform since sector, the rich are fleeing the country in the leadership transition and Xi Jinping’s increasing numbers, the middle class is consolidation of power. To the contrary, the stagnating, and the political system remains political crackdown has intensified since Xi ossified and repressive. Meanwhile, the took office. Even the vaunted Third Plenum country is not undertaking the political of November 2013, which was heralded as a and legal reforms needed to spur the next reformist breakthrough, has so far proved to phase of growth because they would directly be more hype than progress. impinge on the monopoly power of the ccp. This is the dangerous cocktail that many Several Sinologists now argue that the China watchers see gripping the country ccp itself is the principal impediment to today. It is a sobering and daunting set of future growth and development in China. challenges for the people and government The party is an increasingly insecure, of China to tackle. Thus, observers should sclerotic and fragile institution that has not blindly assume that China’s future will become paralyzed since 2008. Part of the exhibit the dynamism of the past thirty reason for the paralysis was the leadership years, or that its path to global-power status transition in 2012 and the factional will necessarily continue. n

48 The National Interest The Illusion of Chinese Power Defense Hawks Take Flight

By James Kitfield

enator John McCain can easily recall terms, setting the stage for the most the stumble that he believes prompt- consequential foreign-policy vote since the S ed allies and adversaries alike to ques- 2002 authorization for the Iraq War. “If tion the firmness of American resolve. Presi- President Obama is willing to make the case dent Barack Obama planned to launch an to the American people,” McCain said, then offensive military strike against the Syrian “I’m ready to go to my colleagues in the regime for crossing his publicly declared Congress and say, ‘Now’s the time for us to “red line” against the use of chemical weap- come together before it’s too late.’” ons. Lacking a un Security Council reso- And yet Congress did not come together. lution or even the support of close allies The Congress and the country that the such as Great Britain, however, Obama Obama administration and its unlikely wanted the backing of Congress. So the allies tried to rally behind forceful action president invited his one-time political rival in Syria last year were far different from and frequent critic McCain to the Oval Of- the vengeful superpower that fixed fice, along with Senator Lindsey Graham. Saddam Hussein in its crosshairs a decade Together they stand in for a once-reliable ago following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. constituency of defense and foreign-policy Two of the longest, most costly and most hawks on Capitol Hill, and their active sup- unsatisfying wars in the nation’s history, port would be critical in rallying a balky combined with the Great Recession, had Congress to back military action. seen to that. An Associated Press poll in “President Obama said he wanted September 2013 indicated that a majority to accomplish three goals: degrading the of Democrats (53 percent) wanted Congress capability of the Assad regime, upgrading to reject their own party’s commander in the position of the Free Syrian Army and chief in his call for military strikes on Syria. changing the momentum on the battlefield Remarkably, 73 percent of Republicans also against Assad,” McCain told me in a wanted Congress to oppose the president’s telephone interview. “The president said call to action. he would do what was necessary to get that Why did Congress fail to rally behind done.” Thus assured, Graham and McCain the president? One obvious reason was that met with reporters outside the White after the fiasco in Iraq and the country’s House and backed Obama’s planned use longest war in Afghanistan, the American of military force in the strongest possible public was skittish about another military intervention in the Middle East. Another James Kitfield is a senior fellow at the Center for is that there were few, if any, hawkish the Study of the Presidency and Congress and a Democrats left to buck public opinion. contributing editor at National Journal. And in the Republican Party, the wings

Defense Hawks Take Flight July/August 2014 49 of traditional defense hawks have been Republicans have joined the Democratic clipped by Tea Party legislators. Republican Left in railing against the National Security neoconservatives generally supportive Agency’s surveillance methods and data of calls for military action have been collection, and out of partisan pique marginalized within the caucus, not only Republicans recently delayed passing a bill by controversies surrounding the Iraq War, to aid Ukraine even as Russian troops were but also by the electoral defeats of McCain annexing Crimea by force. And Senator in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012, both Rand Paul rose to prominence in large part of whom espoused platforms of aggressive based on a thirteen-hour filibuster he gave U.S. leadership, peace through military last year against drone operations, during strength and “American exceptionalism.” which he conjured an American dystopia In an era of hyperpartisanship, it’s also of the future where U.S. presidents target true that fewer and fewer lawmakers can civilians sitting in neighborhood cafes resist the temptation to take a shot at the with Hellfire missiles. Since then, McCain commander in chief from the opposing has been reduced to pleading futilely for party. weaponry for Ukraine. It’s a far cry from As a result of those trends and political Iraq, when McCain, together with Graham currents, Congress appeared ready to and former senator Joseph Lieberman, reject Obama’s request for authority to could successfully push a hawkish agenda. use military force last September, with an unlikely coalition of antiwar Democrats he flight of the defense hawks, and the and partisan Republicans appearing T seeds of Washington’s current political especially strong in the House. House dysfunction on issues of foreign and defense Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was forced policy, can be traced all the way back to the to argue that Obama really didn’t need end of the Cold War. The disappearance congressional approval to use military force of the Soviet Union as a monolithic threat after all. Faced with the prospect of acting sounded the death knell for the foreign- unilaterally without even the support of policy consensus behind anti-Communist a majority in Congress, Obama himself containment and U.S. global leadership, a retreated from his own “red line” and consensus that had survived for nearly half accepted a last-minute deal proffered by a century and defined America’s activist role Moscow. in the world. Its dissolution left both parties McCain learned of Obama’s U-turn ideologically adrift, but as the party most on the television news. “President invested in anti-Communism and a strong Obama informed us of his commitment defense, Republicans were arguably more to act militarily in Syria, and then I had lost. to find out secondhand he revoked that Republican cold warrior George H. W. commitment. That had never happened to Bush, the hero of the lopsided victory in me before,” said McCain, sounding more the 1991 Gulf War, was thus defeated by disappointed and saddened than angry. a young upstart Democrat named Bill Meanwhile, McCain’s own party agreed to Clinton, who ran on the mantra “It’s the take the Pentagon hostage during the fierce economy, stupid.” In the eyes of many budget battles of recent years, then was Republicans, Bush 41’s cardinal sin was to complicit in shooting the captive with the break his “no new taxes” pledge, and thus imposition of across-the-board spending a tax-cutting orthodoxy began to eclipse caps known as sequestration. Some the solidly prodefense plank of Ronald

50 The National Interest Defense Hawks Take Flight Reagan’s legacy. Indeed, the “Contract of Gingrich’s genius was to envision ways with America” that Republicans used as a to demarcate the boundaries of “red” and blueprint to capture the House in 1994 “blue” America that favored a Republican hardly mentioned foreign or defense policy, majority in Congress. He masterfully other than supporting Reagan’s dreams of a pushed hot-button issues touching on missile shield. “God, guns and gays” to appeal to the Meanwhile, an American public battered innate social conservatism of the South and by recession and saddled with the massive Mountain West. The Republican caucus debt left by the Reagan-Bush years was, in turn, reshaped by the values and demanded and got a “peace dividend” that worldviews of those regions, especially as reduced defense spending by roughly 30 embodied by Christian evangelicals who were a bedrock of the new Republican base. During that initial post–Cold War period, two strains of thought in foreign and defense policy struggled for supremacy in a Republican Party in opposition. Some leading Republicans like Pat Buchanan embraced an isolationism that traced back to Henry Cabot Lodge and William Harding, which culminated in Republican support for the Neutrality Act of 1935, legislation designed to keep the United States out of World War II. Vying for influence with the isolationists were Republican neoconservatives, who embraced a values-based approach to foreign policy which held that America has a special calling to promote the spread of democracy and liberty in the world, and that U.S. military power must be unsurpassed in order that evil empires and nations could be confronted and defeated, not accommodated. Many of the neoconservatives were former Democrats in the vein of Henry “Scoop” Jackson, percent during the 1990s, making them moderate on social issues but ardently anti- difficult years for prodefense stalwarts in Communist. Disturbed by the sway of either party. the antiwar movement on the Democratic Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution” Party in the 1970s and 1980s, these also changed the political dynamic in defense hawks migrated to Ronald Reagan’s Washington in important ways. A populist Republican Party, contributing to their movement that gained much of its gradual decline in the Democratic Party. momentum from reactions against Clinton’s As House Speaker, Gingrich also attempt to establish a national health- gathered the reins of power closely to his care system, it was led by Gingrich, Trent leadership circle, lessening the influence of Lott, Dick Armey and Tom DeLay. Part committee chairmen, a shift in the balance

Defense Hawks Take Flight July/August 2014 51 The dissolution of the Soviet Union left both parties ideologically adrift, but as the party most invested in anti-Communism and a strong defense, Republicans were arguably more lost.

of power that continued under Democratic That suggests that the flight of the defense leadership. Gingrich abandoned the hawks could be partly cyclical, a natural tradition that seniority would determine phenomenon in periods of postwar committee chairmanships, elevating his military retrenchment. However, the fact chosen candidates to committee chairs that the two parties are fighting the same ahead of old bulls that had been patiently ideological battles over the same bitterly waiting in line—and accumulating contested national-security turf more than expertise—on their chosen committees. two decades after the end of the Cold War Perhaps most importantly, because he could also mean that forging a consensus on owed his own ascent to a successful America’s role in the world, and the military campaign to bring down former House required to support it, is simply beyond Speaker Jim Wright on ethics charges, Washington’s grasp. Gingrich embodied a hyperpartisan, take- Consider that a Republican Party in no-prisoners approach to politics that opposition that is home to most of the has taken root in the loamy soil of post– remaining reliable defense hawks is once Cold War Washington. Many centrists again fighting an internecine war between and moderates from both parties who its libertarian and neoconservative had little stomach for the divisiveness wings, for instance, even as it opposes a such tactics ensured were driven away Democrat in the White House at nearly from national politics, hollowing out the every turn. Downsized committee chairmen center of American politics and in some are even less able to buck leadership and cases depriving Congress of deep expertise protect national-security fiefdoms. The on foreign and defense policies, and of its abandonment of “earmarks” has decreased institutional memory. the allure of serving on defense-related After the terrorist attacks of September committees, where in the past largesse 11, 2001, prominent neoconservatives from the Pentagon budget could be more within the administration of George easily funneled to home districts. The W. Bush won the internal argument on two parties are even more polarized on foreign and defense policy within the Capitol Hill, with prodefense Southern Republican Party, and America went conservatives having largely disappeared looking for dragons to slay. High on the from the Democratic Party, even as liberal neoconservative hit list ever since the Gulf internationalists and probusiness realists War of 1991 was Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. from the Northeast and West Coast have Add in the myriad tragedies and largely left the Republican Party. Once controversies of the Iraq War, a Great again, a war-weary American public is Recession and the accumulated baggage demanding a peace dividend. of another decade of partisan warfare, and And, once again, traditional defense you arrive at a postwar political landscape hawks have taken flight before a shockwave in Washington that looks eerily familiar. election.

52 The National Interest Defense Hawks Take Flight hen Republicans swept back into the it did so with the mistaken expectation W majority in the House in 2010 on that prodefense Republicans would stop the crest of a populist Tea Party wave, ev- the caucus from pulling the trigger on eryone understood that these small-govern- across-the-board reductions of more than ment revolutionaries would pull the party $500 billion in defense spending (on top to the right on domestic issues. The ques- of $500 billion in cuts already imposed by tion on the minds of foreign-policy and de- the Obama administration over ten years). fense experts in Washington was on which According to Bob Woodward’s book The side of the traditional Republican Party Price of Politics, White House staffers sold divide between neoconservatives and realist the idea to Senate Majority Leader Harry internationalists the Tea Partiers would fall. Reid by reasoning that a sequester would be Traditional defense hawks hoped that the so destructive that nobody would allow it to “Don’t Tread on Me” pugnaciousness and happen. nationalism of these new members would The idea embedded in the Budget translate naturally into support for a strong Control Act was that a “supercommittee” defense and muscular foreign policy. To would find $1.2 trillion worth of cuts date, they have been sorely disappointed. over a ten-year period, split between In the budget battles between the “security” and “nonsecurity” spending Obama administration and congressional (entitlements exempted), and thus avoid Republicans that ensued, it soon became automatic, across-the-board cuts of the clear that in their fervor to rein in same magnitude. Perhaps sensing which spending and shrink the size of the federal way the political winds were blowing— government, Tea Party Republicans were with Tea Party challengers successfully perfectly willing to target the Defense defeating reliably conservative Republicans Department for disproportionate cuts. by running to their right in primaries— “It’s perplexing to someone accustomed the Republican leadership failed to to Republicans who tended to bend over assign to the supercommittee prominent backward for business, but perhaps we prodefense lawmakers who might have shouldn’t be surprised that a gop which protected the Pentagon’s interests. In sees big government as a threat might also fact, not one of the six Republican or six view a big military posture and big defense Democratic lawmakers appointed to the companies as a manifestation of that supercommittee served on the Senate or threat,” said Loren Thompson, a defense House Armed Services Committees. consultant and chief operating officer of Republican leaders decided that small- the Lexington Institute. Indeed, much of government, tax-cutting stalwarts and Tea the gop’s populist energy has come from Party favorites such as Jeb Hensarling and new lawmakers who firmly believe that the Pat Toomey took priority. Not surprisingly, United States should stop being the world’s the bipartisan supercommittee failed policeman and social worker, and focus on to reach a consensus, sequestration was fixing what’s broken at home. On those triggered and the Defense Department points, and perhaps only on those points, took the brunt of the blast. the Tea Partiers share a common view with many Democrats on Capitol Hill. he defense cuts associated with se- Indeed, when the White House proposed T questration have been criticized by sequestration in 2011 as a way out of a top U.S. military leaders in terms that in bitter impasse over raising the debt ceiling, previous times would have been consid-

Defense Hawks Take Flight July/August 2014 53 ered alarming in the extreme, and yet no Defense Department’s most recent budget one seems to be listening. Lifelong Repub- submission, which will produce the smallest licans and Secretaries of Defense Robert U.S. Army since before World War II, Gates and Chuck Hagel have both raised and doesn’t even try to stay within the the alarm, with Hagel recently warning that sequester caps that remain the law of the they put at risk “America’s traditional role land, and which kick in again in 2016. as a guarantor of global security, and ulti- While McKeon believes the buck for the mately our own security.” General Martin Pentagon’s predicament ultimately stops Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of on President Obama’s desk, he also knows Staff, has said that U.S. military forces are that Republicans have been complicit in on a path of steep decline that, unless re- the rapid decline in the Pentagon’s fortunes. versed, will reach a point where “it would “If we don’t like the tough choices on the be immoral” to use that force. One defense table, then shame on us as Republicans for hawk who takes such warnings seriously is following the President down this path,” he Representative Buck McKeon, chairman of said in a statement. the once-powerful House Armed Services As if to drive home how out of step Committee. He recently noted that the bi- such prodefense sentiments are in today’s partisan budget deal reached by Senator Republican Party, the editorial page of the Patty Murray and Representative Paul Ryan Wall Street Journal said “defense hawks” like averted for two years the “arbitrary gutting” McKeon “exaggerate how severe the cuts of the armed forces, but it will still require a [in military spending] are,” and it criticized $45 billion cut to the military. him for leading a “rebellion” of said hawks “I share the broad dismay about the in an “act of masochism” that threatens the shrinking might of the military reflected cherished sequester spending caps. in this budget,” he said in response to the For his part, McKeon is retiring at the end of his current term, as are Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; Senator Saxby Chambliss, ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; and Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. All these men were reliably supportive of a strong defense and assertive U.S. global leadership. Until recent years, this faction also included notables like Joseph Lieberman, Jim Webb, Richard Lugar, Bob Bennett, Ike Skelton and Norm Dicks. Whether it’s the diminished power that comes from wielding a chairman’s gavel in the modern Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 3.0.

54 The National Interest Defense Hawks Take Flight Congress, the tilt of both parties away With potential Republican presidential from the center and toward their respective candidates beginning to position themselves extremes, or the increased levels of partisan for the 2016 election, however, some vitriol and the government gridlock that defense hawks are returning to the party goes with it, there is clearly something nest. In recent speeches and comments Ted about politics in Washington today that is Cruz has embraced more muscular foreign- driving away many serious lawmakers. They policy positions, publicly differentiating take decades of expertise and institutional himself from the views of Rand Paul. So has memory out the door with them, in many Senator Marco Rubio, who hired Jamie Fly, cases in the realms of defense and national- a former head of William Kristol’s Foreign security policy. To understand why they Policy Initiative, as his foreign-affairs aide. might find politics as currently practiced At the same time, the House recently passed in Washington distasteful, consider last Paul Ryan’s budget calling for increases in year’s confirmation hearings for former defense spending. And in a recent speech senator Chuck Hagel, nominated to serve at the Virginia Military Institute, House as secretary of defense. During the hearings, Majority Leader Eric Cantor issued a Tea Party favorite Senator Ted Cruz implied full-throated call for renewed American that Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran and leadership in the world, arguing that recipient of two Purple Hearts, might be allies today “see a divided, inward-looking taking speaking fees from extremist groups America that is focused on its weaknesses or foreign governments like North Korea. rather than its strengths, and they know this He offered no evidence. is an America that invites challenges and emboldens adversaries.” fter years in the political wilderness as But it is Rand Paul who is most forcefully A a result of their close association with challenging such stances. As a result, the Iraq War, Republican neoconservatives, Paul has come under attack from not just whose view of America’s role in the world McCain but also a phalanx of neocons and most closely comports with a prodefense conservatives. Rich Lowry, the editor of agenda, were poised to make a comeback National Review, attacked Paul for “dewy- with the election of Mitt Romney as presi- eyed foolishness” about foreign affairs. In dent in 2012. At the suggestions of hawkish a recent op-ed in National Review, Paul advisers, Romney espoused Ronald Rea- responded. He took issue with what he gan’s philosophy of peace through military called “today’s young aspiring Buckleyites,” strength, proposing to maintain wartime who “sharpen their knives to carve up levels of ground forces, accelerate mod- conservatives who propose a more realist ernization of the air force and significant- and nuanced approach to foreign policy.” ly expand the size of the navy. To pay for William F. Buckley Jr., Paul said, was more this military buildup, Romney promised to of a realist than a crusading interventionist, spend at least 4 percent of gdp on defense and conservatism has long had a “strain of each year, which would have added more libertarianism.” So the battle between the than $2 trillion in defense spending over two sides has now been joined. The 2016 Obama’s plans for the next decade. election will likely reveal whether the hawks Unfortunately for Romney and his can once more go on the attack against the backers, a war-weary American public realists, or whether a series of protracted already saddled with $16 trillion in national conflicts abroad has finally rendered them debt just wasn’t buying. impotent and obsolete. n

Defense Hawks Take Flight July/August 2014 55 Reagan’s Éminence Grise

By Robert W. Merry

n 1983, Ronald Reagan awarded Whittaker Chambers, who had made a James Burnham the Presidential Medal searing break with Communism, Burnham I of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian was, as Reagan put it upon his death in award. Reagan declared, “As a scholar, writer, 1987, “one of those principally responsible historian and philosopher, James Burnham for the great intellectual odyssey of our has profoundly affected the way America century: the journey away from totalitarian views itself and the world. . . . Freedom, rea- statism and toward the uplifting doctrines son and decency have had few greater cham- of freedom.” Nor was Reagan alone in pions in this century.” With his characteristic his view. “More than any other single smile and tilt of the head, Reagan added, person,” writes historian George H. Nash, “And I owe him a personal debt, because “Burnham supplied the conservative throughout the years traveling the mash- intellectual movement with the theoretical potato circuit I have quoted you widely.” formulation for victory in the Cold War.” The award’s recipient, then seventy-seven, Still, the Cold War ended nearly a quarter was surely flattered. He was in declining century ago. Even granting Burnham’s health—his eyesight deteriorating, his short- pivotal role in the ideological battles term memory devastated by a stroke. His surrounding that long struggle, it seems professional standing, too, was a far cry from fair to wonder: What lessons, if any, can the days when he had stirred up intellectual we derive from Burnham’s global outlook debate with books that assaulted conven- for the present? There is an understandable tional thinking. but misguided tendency among many It was fitting that Reagan and Burnham intellectuals and policy makers these days should come together to celebrate their to apply Cold War impulses and strategies mutual fight against global Communism. to post–Cold War realities. Burnham was If the Gipper—who gets credit from a fierce Cold War hawk on the intellectual many historians and commentators for scene, as was Reagan on the political being, as the Economist put it in a 2004 scene, and thus many assume that their cover headline, “The Man Who Beat hawkish instincts would carry over into Communism”—was key to winning the subsequent struggles against Islamic the Cold War, then Burnham laid the fundamentalism or upstart regional powers. intellectual blueprint for him. He was Indeed, Burnham biographer Daniel Kelly the father of the Reagan Doctrine. Like and conservative commentator Richard Brookhiser have suggested that Burnham Robert W. Merry is the political editor of The was “the first neoconservative.” National Interest and an author of books on Others, though, have suggested that American history and foreign policy. Burnham was a quintessential foreign-

56 The National Interest Reagan’s Éminence Grise If the Gipper was key to winning the Cold War, then James Burnham laid the intellectual blueprint for him.

policy realist, who stripped away wispy the Great Depression, the apparent looming thoughts about human fulfillment and collapse of capitalism and the intriguing rise punctured myths fashioned by elites to of Communism—he plunged into the tur- justify their societal dominance—a realist bulent world of left-wing radicalism. rooted in an unadorned understanding He adopted the anti-Stalinist Bolshevik of human nature and man’s irrepressible Leon Trotsky as his ideological lodestar. quest for power. But this interpretation He joined various Trotsky-leaning also runs into difficulty, as Burnham’s Cold organizations, coedited a Trotskyist War prescriptions often differed from those theoretical journal called the New of the era’s realists—including Hans J. International, corresponded widely with the Morgenthau and Walter Lippmann, among great man himself, and became embroiled academics and journalists; and Henry in the intrigues and maneuverings of the Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft, among Left. A gifted writer, Burnham emerged in foreign-policy practitioners. New York literary circles as a thinker of rare Perhaps it is best to try to understand dimension, depth and shrewdness. Burnham as he understood himself. Burnham was anything but the typical For his oeuvre reveals some intriguing scruffy Trotskyist. Dedicated to the cause by contradictions that may help to elucidate day, the elegantly attired Burnham retreated contemporary foreign-policy disputes. to his Greenwich Village apartment by Indeed, he personified the post–Cold War night and played bourgeois host at black-tie foreign-policy debate in his earlier writings dinners where the guests seldom included about global power and America’s position his ideological brethren. Irving Howe in the world. The Burnham record cannot considered him “haughty in manner and be fully understood, however, without speech, . . . logical, gifted, terribly dry.” exploring his remarkable odyssey from Others viewed him more as standoffish, Franklin Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan—or, perhaps a bit shy. But he was not easily in his case, from Trotskyism to Reaganism. ignored. James T. Farrell, who saw him as “prissy and ministerial,” used Burnham as orn on November 22, 1905, in Chica- the prototype for a character in his novel B go, Burnham was the son of a wealthy Sam Holman. railroad executive. He studied at Princeton With the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland, and Balliol College, Oxford, where he re- however, Burnham did a somersault. ceived advanced degrees in English liter- He repudiated Trotsky’s preposterous ature and medieval philosophy. Then he admonition that good socialists owed joined the philosophy department at New fealty to the Soviet system even in the York University’s Washington Square Col- face of comrade Stalin’s deviations from lege, where for the next thirty-two years he the true doctrine. Now he concluded the taught aesthetics, ethics and comparative problem wasn’t Stalin but Communism literature. Soon—agitated by the ravages of itself. He broke with Trotsky, who promptly

Reagan’s Éminence Grise July/August 2014 57 Peter Drucker, reviewing it for the Saturday Review of Literature, labeled it “one of the best recent books on political and social trends.” It argued that the great clash of the era was not between capitalism and socialism, but rather between capitalism and an emerging centralized society dominated by a new managerial class—business executives, technicians, soldiers, government bureaucrats and various kinds of experts in various kinds of organizations. This new class would assault the old structures of entrepreneurial capitalism, institute central planning and undercut any true democracy by superimposing themselves upon society as a kind of managerial oligarchy. Governmental intrusion and control would labeled him an “educated witch-doctor” increase, though certain democratic norms and a “strutting petty-bourgeois pedant.” would be preserved to provide legitimacy. Burnham evinced no agony over this The managerial era would engender rupture. His commitment was “rational superstates that would compete for global and pragmatic, not spiritual,” he explained. primacy. The outlines of this new epoch “God had not failed, so far as I was could be seen in the Soviet Union, Nazi concerned. I had been mistaken, and when Germany and, in less developed form, I came to realize the extent of my mistakes, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. it was time to say good-bye.” The book had its critics, most notably Besides, he was developing a new George Orwell, whose penetrating analysis theory of the ideological clash enveloping suggested how Burnham had gone astray. the industrial world, which he pulled And some developments predicted by together in his 1941 book The Managerial Burnham proved spectacularly wrong—for Revolution. It sold more than one hundred example, that Germany would win the war thousand hardcover copies in the United (this was before U.S. entry); that Germany States and Britain during World War II, and and Japan would remain powerful states far more in paperback. Postwar sales surged in their respective spheres; that Germany further when the book was translated into would not attack the ussr before a British fourteen languages. The New York Times defeat; and that the Soviets would be devoted three days of reviews and analyses conquered. But Orwell pronounced the to the book. Time displayed Burnham’s fundamental thesis “difficult to resist” and photo with a review that called the volume indeed incorporated it into his famous “the most sensational book of political novel 1984. In retrospect, it is clear that theory since The Revolution of Nihilism.” Burnham had identified a fundamental shift

58 The National Interest Reagan’s Éminence Grise in power interrelationships in the industrial powers to check leadership abuses; as world. Indeed, the most consequential Burnham put it, “Only power restrains fault line in American politics since the power.” This leads to Burnham’s faith in New Deal has been between the rising what Mosca called “juridical defense”— managerial class and those resisting its essentially, the equilibrium that ensues seemingly inexorable ascendancy. when competing influences and forces Next came Burnham’s 1943 volume The in society, both governmental and Machiavellians, a kind of realist manifesto nongovernmental, are allowed to counteract designed to help readers get past the myths each other. of political discourse (or, as Burnham called As the intellectual historian John them, ideologies) and get to the essence of P. Diggins pointed out, Burnham’s political contention, which is always about conclusions, though stark in their power and its distribution. In projecting his realism and disdain for utopian notions, thesis, he explored the thinking of four neo- were “far from pessimistic. If democracy, Machiavellians—Robert Michels, Gaetano conceived in Lincolnesque terms as popular Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto and Georges Sorel. sovereignty and government by the people, He made five important points. was theoretically impossible, liberty and First, the concept of representative freedom, as expressed in and through government is essentially a fiction because organized opposition, could still prevail.” of what Michels called the “iron law of This became the bedrock of Burnham’s oligarchy”—elites always emerge and philosophy, and, decades later, he told an zealously protect their power, while the interviewer that he had not changed his masses ultimately depend psychologically “general point of view” in any fundamental upon autocratic leadership. Second, the way since The Machiavellians was published. myths or ideologies of any polity, while often nonrational in origin and substance, ndeed, this view undergirded his think- are crucial in maintaining societal cohesion I ing as he turned his attention to the and stability (along with the standing of topic that would obsess him for the rest of elites), and so it is frivolous to attack them his life—the threat to Western civilization on the basis of verifiable facts or logic. from expanding Soviet totalitarianism. By Third, all healthy elites must maintain a this time it was clear that Germany and kind of slow circulation, admitting new Japan would go down in defeat, that the members and expelling obsolete elements, British Empire would dissolve, that the So- and they must maintain an equilibrium viets would gobble up Eastern Europe and between lions (leaders who are traditionalist pose a mortal challenge to Western Europe, in outlook and willing to impose force) and that the fate of the West rested with and foxes (the innovative ones who live America. Burnham foresaw that events un- by their wits, employing fraud, deceit and leashed by World War II were positioning shrewdness). Without this flexibility and Stalin to dominate what the celebrated Brit- balance, an elite will atrophy and ultimately ish geopolitical analyst Halford Mackinder lose power. Fourth, human nature is fixed considered the most crucial swath of terri- and flawed, and so government policies tory upon the globe: the Eurasian Heart- dedicated to the ethical fulfillment of man land, impervious to sea power and from in society, as opposed to the protection which the surrounding Coastland (Western of liberty, will fail. Fifth, societal stability Europe, China and India) would be vulner- and liberty require a balance of competing able in the modern era of mechanized trans-

Reagan’s Éminence Grise July/August 2014 59 Burnham feared that the West, lacking the necessary will in such a protracted crisis, would lock itself into a defensive posture that would prolong the struggle and preclude any eventual victory.

portation. The key to global dominance historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. a was Eastern Europe, argued Mackinder, review that crystallized the new terms of explaining, “Who rules East Europe com- responsible Cold War debate. Schlesinger, mands the Heartland. Who rules the Heart- an anti-Communist liberal, pronounced the land commands the World-Island” of both book “an able presentation of an allowable Heartland and Coastland. “Who rules the viewpoint” and added that it surpassed in World-Island commands the World.” logic “the confused and messy arguments And now the Soviets had positioned of the appeasers.” But he thought Burnham themselves to grab Eastern Europe. focused too much on “the maximum Burnham, a student of Mackinder, Communist position” and slighted anticipated a looming postwar crisis prospects for the emergence of “a minimum when he was asked by the wartime U.S. position” that might be fostered through Office of Strategic Services to produce deft American policies. an analysis of the Soviet Union’s strategic Instead, Schlesinger promoted the ambitions. His study became a substantial containment doctrine formulated by part of his next book, The Struggle for the George F. Kennan. Burnham emerged as World (1947). “The Third World War,” this doctrine’s leading critic. His alternative it declared, “began in April, 1944.” This concept of “liberation” focused on political referred to a Soviet-inspired revolt of Greek warfare, or “polwar”—propaganda soldiers and sailors against their British efforts, support for local anti-Communist commanders in Alexandria. As Daniel insurgencies, and covert operations Kelly explains, “Correctly understood, the aimed at undermining and perhaps mutiny amounted to a preliminary skirmish overthrowing various Communist regimes. between communism and the West . . . in In Containment or Liberation?, he likened a new world war that was beginning before containment to a boxer’s strategy of merely the old one had ended.” parrying his opponent’s blows without Burnham feared that the West, lacking delivering punches of his own. Returning the necessary will in such a protracted to Mackinder, he argued that so long as crisis, would lock itself into a defensive the Soviets held Eastern Europe—enabling posture that would prolong the struggle them to strengthen their hold on the and preclude any eventual victory. That Eurasian Heartland—they posed a mortal became his recurrent theme, interjected threat to the West and the rest of the world. into his writings for the next thirty years, What was needed, therefore, was a strategy including in two books that, along with The aimed at dislodging their grip on this key Struggle for the World, constituted a kind European enclave. of Cold War trilogy—The Coming Defeat of Communism (1950) and Containment or o zealous was Burnham in his anti- Liberation? (1953). S Communism that in 1949 he moved The Struggle for the World received from to Washington to work as an undercover

60 The National Interest Reagan’s Éminence Grise consultant for the Office of Policy Coor- Kennedy contented himself with getting dination, a federal covert-action arm later rid of the missiles while accepting this incorporated into the cia. He served there provocative Communist regime inside the for four years, mostly in government-spon- strategic threshold of the United States. sored propaganda efforts. Then, in 1955, This, wrote Burnham, was “the essence he began a twenty-three-year stint as senior of ‘the policy of peaceful coexistence,’” a editor and foreign-affairs columnist for Wil- product of containment, which served to liam F. Buckley Jr.’s new magazine, National remove serious diplomatic pressure from Review. Ultimately he became Buckley’s the Soviet regime. This state of play was right-hand man, as well as acknowledged brazenly codified in 1968 by Soviet leader father figure, but to outsiders he was known Leonid Brezhnev when he declared that largely for the stark realism and intellectual Communist party monopolies on power in forcefulness of his column, entitled “The all Communist states were inviolable and Third World War” (later “The Protract- that all socialist countries must protect such ed Conflict”), which regularly highlighted monopolies wherever they were threatened. what he considered the essential peril of the This attitude, quickly labeled the Brezhnev West in the face of global Communism and Doctrine, later was described by George the inadequacy of Western resolve. Shultz as “What’s theirs is theirs; what’s ours After the 1956 Hungarian uprising and is up for grabs.” The West’s willingness to Suez crisis, Burnham posited his “two zone” play by these rules rankled Burnham. theory of the Cold War—the zone of peace and the zone of war. The zone of peace was the acreage already under Communist rule and thus “off limits to disturbers.” Soviet officials displayed an iron-fisted resolve to crush any effort to roll back these Communist gains. The zone of war was the acreage still free from Communist rule, always subject to Communist expansion. He added that, although the containment principle called for resistance to any attempted extension of the zone of peace, it never seemed to prevent slow, inexorable encroachment. Thus, when It also rankled Ronald Reagan, and Communist dominance was extended to herein we see the significance of Burnham’s Cuba in 1959, America’s response was the thinking in reversing America’s Cold War half-hearted 1961 Bay of Pigs episode, policy and contributing to the Soviet which turned out to be a catastrophe. demise. The conventional wisdom today Even with the more favorable 1962 Cuban is that the Cold War was won largely missile crisis outcome, President John F. through America’s long, patient application

Reagan’s Éminence Grise July/August 2014 61 of Kennan’s containment policy. There their fundamental strategy of aggression.” is some truth in this. But the man who Burnham also attacked the 1972 contributed most to that victory, and who Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, which read Burnham regularly in National Review, he argued would favor the Soviets. He rejected many elements of containment vehemently opposed Nixon’s agreement to that had become hallmarks of U.S. policy. limit missile-defense systems, given that Reagan was not a “realist” as that term has the United States could make serious been applied to such figures as Kennan and technological progress in this realm and Kissinger. He was, rather, a Burnhamite. thus leave the Soviets gasping economically This comes into focus with a review of to catch up. “In any historical sequence,” Burnham’s perspective on Cold War events he wrote, “it is the direction of change that as they unfolded over the decades. As counts. In this matter of strategic strength early as the Berlin airlift, he lamented the there can be no mistaking the direction: West’s defensive posture at such flashpoint [U.S.] monopoly—superiority—parity— locations. He called the airlift “a decision not sufficiency—inferiority.” Such inferiority, he to decide”—leaving a festering sore in East- added, breeds “caution, yielding, unsureness West relations unhealed—and felt vindicated on the one hand, and sometimes a desperate thirteen years later when Soviet leader Nikita recklessness on the other.” Khrushchev resolved the ongoing crisis in Burnham articulated an insight that later the Soviets’ favor by erecting the Berlin Wall. became a foundation stone of Reagan’s Burnham anticipated what would ensue Cold War strategy. “We overstress the ussr’s in discussions to defuse the situation: “We strength,” he declared, “and understress its grant them half or two-thirds or nine-tenths menace.” This seeming paradox reflected of what they have asked, and we ‘win’ one- both the Soviet Union’s position of tenth. Until the next round.” strength in the Eurasian Heartland and its Similarly, he opposed Kennedy’s Limited intrinsic vulnerabilities. Far more than the Test Ban Treaty, fearing it would let the United States, which dominated the globe Soviets off the hook from having to engage economically, the Soviet Union operated on in a financially debilitating arms race. He the margin—beset by economic stagnation, foresaw the possibility of a sophisticated a discontented populace, declining missile-defense system, and endorsed it for birthrates, and the high cost of its dual aim the same reason—as a means of draining of maintaining its empire and undermining Soviet resources as the ussr scrambled to Western strategic positions around the keep up with the more technologically world. America’s soft policies, argued advanced West. He vehemently opposed Burnham, enabled the Soviets to bolster the Nixon administration’s détente their fundamental strengths and surmount policies aimed at fostering a more friendly their inherent weaknesses. footing for U.S.-Soviet relations. He took That was the situation through Jimmy particular aim at the 1975 Helsinki Final Carter’s presidency, when the Soviet Union, Act, which granted the Soviet Union’s long- emboldened by the fruits of détente and standing desire for legal recognition of its what appeared to be halting presidential 1945 borders and expanded Soviet access leadership, embarked on an adventuresome to Western goods and technology. While strategy. It beefed up its efforts to obtain Westerners tended to see détente as the strategic advantage in key Third World “diplomatic equivalent of a business deal,” locations, heightened its support for the he wrote, the Soviets used it as “a cover for Castro regime in Cuba, funneled substantial

62 The National Interest Reagan’s Éminence Grise resources to Communist movements in initiatives placed a further financial crimp Central America and sent into Afghanistan on the Soviet economy. Soon Kremlin a 150,000-troop occupation force that leaders were spending nearly $30 billion per threatened to alter the balance of power in year defending their gains in Afghanistan, the region. Nicaragua, Angola and other locations under pressure from U.S.-backed “freedom hen, with Reagan’s 1980 presidential fighters.” T victory, in part a harvest from Carter’s The strategy worked. As military analyst weakness, American foreign policy quickly Fred Kaplan, writing in Slate, put it, “The moved away from the tattered détente out- Soviet system was dysfunctional; its empire look and edged toward Burnham’s hard-line was collapsing; the cupboard was bare. philosophy. “So far,” declared Reagan at a And Reagan’s surging military budgets, 1981 news conference, “détente’s been a without question, brought this internal one-way street that the Soviet Union has crisis to a head.” Soon Soviet leader Mikhail used to pursue its own aims. . . . Their goal Gorbachev concluded that his country must must be the promotion of world revolu- pursue serious disarmament agreements. tion and a one-world Socialist or Com- Otherwise, he told his Politburo colleagues munist state.” It was pure Burnham. In a in October 1986, “We will be pulled into 1982 speech before the British House of an arms race that is beyond our capabilities, Commons, Reagan replaced “peaceful co- and we will lose it because we are at the existence” with a “rollback” metaphor by limit of our capabilities.” predicting the Soviet empire would end up Almost alone among serious U.S. in the “ash heap of history.” The foreign- politicians, Reagan believed it was actually policy establishment was aghast, but a year later, in describing the Soviet Union as an “evil empire,” he reject- ed the “realist” notion that the Cold War was, at base, a traditional clash of nation-states with inherent and predictable geopolitical interests. It was, rather, an epic ideological clash fraught with ethical and moral rami- fications and necessitating a global response. Accompanying this was the powerful Reagan Doctrine, a direct challenge to the Brezhnev Doctrine. As Reagan put it in 1985, “We must not break faith with those who are risking their lives—on every continent, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua—to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth. . . . Support for freedom fighters is self-defense.” The ensuing policy

Reagan’s Éminence Grise July/August 2014 63 From his earliest days, Burnham disdained sentimentalists who couldn’t accept the fundamental reality of man’s tragic nature and thus retreated to consoling myths about the human experience.

possible to defeat Soviet Communism. In several respects, it seems clear that It was a conviction supported by James Burnham would not have embraced much Burnham throughout three decades of Cold of the neocon outlook that has emerged War commentary. In 1960, he wrote that, over the past two decades. Post–Cold War while the ussr had a global goal and the neoconservative thought has shunned will to pursue it, it did not yet possess the the kind of power-conscious realism power to win the long struggle. The West, of Burnham and his Machiavellians and he added, had the power but lacked the goal embraced a Wilsonian ideal of transforming and the will. “Which side will be the first to non-Western societies by injecting into complete its triad?” he asked. them what neoconservative writer Max Reagan, supplying the goal and the will, Boot has called “the powerful antibody completed the triad. By then, Burnham’s known as democracy.” William Kristol’s deteriorating health had removed him from stalwart Weekly Standard consistently has the scene, and he died in 1987, two years extolled “morality in foreign policy” and before the Berlin Wall came down and cheered when President George W. Bush, in four years before the final collapse of his his second inaugural address, identified his old Soviet nemesis. But his outlook helped country’s ultimate goal as “ending tyranny guide events under the man who had in our world” by supporting “the growth of quoted him copiously during those mash- democratic movements and institutions in potato dinners. every nation and culture.” Does this define Burnham as a Burnham consistently rejected such neoconservative? After all, his anti-Soviet thinking. His concern was U.S. and stance was not far different from that of Western survival, not the well-being of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, the world and certainly not the export the neocon group that sought to nudge of Western values. He harbored little Carter toward a more confrontational Cold confidence that Third World peoples could War stance and then ended up supporting easily reach serious levels of civilization. Reagan in 1980. This group was made Indeed, he jeered at Third World leaders up of people such as Norman Podhoretz, whose dictatorial abuses mocked their Midge Decter, Ben Wattenberg, Jeane J. “Wilsonian” jargon, such as “the cant about Kirkpatrick and Elliott Abrams. Some of ‘freedom,’ ‘anti-colonialism,’ ‘equality,’ and these figures, along with subsequent allies ‘self-determination.’” Further, he didn’t such as William Kristol and Robert Kagan, see any particular reason why these non- became ardent promoters of American Western peoples would want to embrace bellicosity in the post–Cold War era, cultural values imported from America, pushing for strong U.S. actions against which he viewed as a “gawky adolescent” Islamic fundamentalists, Arab despots, post- of a country, a European offshoot with Soviet Russia, a resurgent China and various little serious cultural sensibility of its own. nettlesome dictators around the world. “Who,” he asked, “listening a few hours to

64 The National Interest Reagan’s Éminence Grise the American radio, could repress a shudder imperialist who lamented that the West had if he thought the price of survival would be been “drugged” by the “myth” that it was the Americanization of the world?” From his earliest Marxist days, always just . . . for Indonesians to throw out Burnham disdained sentimentalists— the Dutch, Indians the British, Indochinese the dreamy reformers, liberals, progressives, French, dark men the white men, no matter for abstractionist optimists—who couldn’t what purpose, nor by whom led, no matter the accept the fundamental reality of state of development, nor the consequences to man’s tragic nature and thus retreated the local people and economy, nor the effect on to consoling myths about the human world strategic relations. experience. No doubt he would dismiss the neoconservatives’ democratization project Burnham, in contrast, was concerned pri- as being based on such consoling myths. If marily with “the right of Western civiliza- their aim is American global dominance, he tion to survive.” might have mused, they should formulate a This was not a particularly provocative philosophy of action based on the dynamics viewpoint in, say, 1900, but it has been of pure power, not some wispy thoughts overtaken by events since the end of World about turning Third World societies into War II and particularly since the close of modern, Western-style democracies. the Cold War. Will-to-power imperialism has little resonance in our time and no et Burnham did indeed see the Cold prospect for success. Burnham was out Y War as a “struggle for the world”— of date, stuck in a bygone era that he meaning the victor would gain a significant couldn’t quite relinquish. This was a lapse degree of global hegemony. Early in the that undermined the rigor of his realism. Cold War he welcomed the idea of Amer- But for neoconservatives the hegemonic ica liberating Eastern Europe, constructing impulse is quite different, based on a desire an alliance with Great Britain, fostering the to bring U.S. imperialism forward into a political unification of Western Europe, new era of global democratic bloom. Such destroying the Soviet empire, and then Wilsonian notions lack any shred of realism seeking hegemony over undeveloped parts at all. of Asia, Africa and South America. The Burnham’s view of American hegemony result would be what he called a “demo- can be seen as the product of an intellectual cratic world order,” a term he employed for tendency that George Orwell attacked fear that readers would recoil at the word scathingly in his essay on The Managerial “empire.” But empire was what he had in Revolution—namely, to predict a mind. continuation of the thing that is happening. Here’s where Burnham’s thinking gets “Now the tendency to do this,” wrote intertwined with the neoconservative Orwell, “is not simply a bad habit, like outlook, which also manifests hegemonic inaccuracy or exaggeration, which one can impulses. In Burnham’s case, his views on correct by taking thought. It is a major the subject reflect a nineteenth-century mental disease, and its roots lie partly in attitude about the superiority of Western cowardice and partly in the worship of culture and the need for the West to power, which is not fully separable from protect itself from hostile global forces by cowardice.” dominating the societies from which they Applying this critique to Burnham’s could emerge. He was an old-fashioned imperial flirtation, we can say that the anti-

Reagan’s Éminence Grise July/August 2014 65 Communist intellectual saw the Cold War could legitimately lay claim to a dominating as an epic global struggle between Western position vis-à-vis Ukraine, which had been civilization and the artificial ideology of part of the Russian sphere of influence for Russian Bolshevism. And, since it was a centuries. It caused a bit of a firestorm, global struggle, the winner would inherit but he never relinquished this position and the globe. This tendency to see the conflict thus gave a nod to the realist principles of in such stark, linear terms—extending spheres of influence and balance of power. current struggles out into the future This contradiction—spheres of influence without regard to possible intervening versus hegemonic ambition—presaged the forces—overwhelmed Burnham’s foreign-policy debate that ensued with the commitment to realism. Thus, he didn’t end of the Cold War. give sufficient weight to the elements But that contradiction does not lessen normally explored by foreign-policy the significance of Burnham’s advocacy or realists—for example, the importance of the sagacity of his analysis during the dark spheres of influence, balance-of-power and dangerous days of the Cold War. Nor considerations, the intrinsic difficulty and does it detract from his achievement in cost of expansive conquest (leaving aside producing a strategic vision that ultimately, global conquest), and the relentless force as embraced by Reagan, became the of religious, cultural and ethnic impulses foundation for victory. Still, the world that rise up in response to threatening has moved beyond the Cold War, as it has hegemonic missions. Such matters rarely moved beyond Burnham and just about came under Burnham’s scrutiny during everyone else who played any historic or his long Cold War struggle on behalf of heroic role in that struggle. The biggest Western resolve. lesson of the Cold War victory is that it But he didn’t abandon these emerged from a strategy that was tailored considerations entirely and seemed more specifically for that challenge. Subsequent taken with them in the latter years of his challenges, including those faced by Cold War commentary—as, for example, America today, require counterstrategies when he suggested that a post-Soviet Russia that are similarly enlightened. n

66 The National Interest Reagan’s Éminence Grise Hail to the Deep

By James Holmes

t’s easy to forget the virtues of subma- bases let U.S. submariners establish a near- rines, which lurk beneath not only the constant presence in Asian seas, sinking even I waters but also the consciousness of more merchant shipping while pummeling most Americans. They aren’t as iconic as the Imperial Japanese Navy from below. fighter jets or as visceral as tanks. But they As the tide turned in the Pacific, undersea can deny a stronger enemy navy control warfare made an indispensable contribution of important waters. Afterward they can to American “command of the sea,” exercise command of the sea, blockading or meaning near-total control of important sea projecting power onto enemy shores with areas. impunity. These elusive warships, in other And late in the war, Fluckey’s boat uss words, pack an outsized punch. Barb took the fight directly to Japan, Just ask Eugene Fluckey. Nicknamed engaging in gun duels against Japanese “Lucky Fluckey,” the World War II shore sites. A landing party even went submarine commander sent the most ashore to blow up a train. Such theatrics enemy tonnage to the ocean’s bottom of aside, Harvard professor Stephen Rosen any skipper in the Pacific. Sinking Japanese maintains that a submarine blockade of tankers, freighters and other merchantmen Japan could have compelled Tokyo to dismembered a Japanese Empire reliant on surrender—even had President Harry sea transport. And raiding shipping was Truman declined to order the atomic an option of first resort for Washington. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. U.S. Pacific Fleet submarines were able That’s high praise for these humble-looking to start attacking Japanese shipping while ships of war. American battleships were still burning in Sea denial, sea command, the Pearl Harbor—long before the U.S. Navy exploitation of command: submarine surface fleet penetrated western Pacific operations span the range of naval missions. waters. That’s what naval specialists call Yet despite a century’s proof of submarines’ “sea denial.” It’s a strategy for hindering or efficacy, from World War I in the Atlantic preventing stronger adversaries from using to the competition with China today, the certain nautical expanses. classics of sea-power theory—the closest Submarine operations spread progressively thing seafarers have to a how-to manual of westward as the navy seized Pacific islands naval combat—are puzzlingly silent on how where forward bases could be built. Nearby to employ them in wartime or peacetime. The classics concentrate overwhelmingly on James Holmes is a professor of strategy at the surface warfare, scanting undersea combat. Naval War College. The views presented here are It is high time to bring submarines into the his alone. canon.

Hail to the Deep July/August 2014 67 Despite a century’s proof of submarines’ efficacy, the classics of sea-power theory are puzzlingly silent on how to employ them in wartime or peacetime.

s American submariners like to boast, assault. The overriding assumption: ships A some ships are built to submerge while exposed to enemy sensors will take hits. others are made to submerge—once! There’s By contrast, submariners go to truth to that jest. First, these are warships extravagant lengths to hide. Loath to that operate in three, not two, dimensions. give away their presence—and thereby In this sense they resemble combat aircraft, compromise their defenses—submariners which can overfly surface fleets at altitudes typically operate their sonar sets in “passive” of their choice. Adding that z-axis to sub- mode. They listen for telltale sounds marines’ maneuvering space lets them oper- emanating from enemy boats. Once they ate not just near but also within the defen- hear another ship’s engineering plant or sive perimeters around enemy formations. other noise, they can identify, track and Think about the German U-boat lurking target it. This acoustic cat-and-mouse game underneath a U.S. Navy destroyer in the works both ways. Running silent helps a World War II film The Enemy Below. boat evade detection. Slowing to a crawl Surface vessels navigate across what quiets noise from the propulsion machinery. amounts to a featureless plain, whereas Third, submarines are loners for the submarines roam within a vast, three- most part. Surface engagements are about dimensional column of water. This concentrating firepower at decisive places flexibility opens up tactical and operational on the map to overwhelm an opponent. vistas for submarine skippers that are Submarine warfare is about individual units unavailable to their surface brethren, whose hunting for action. Surface ships generally ships lumber around in (mostly) plain steam in concentric formations centered sight. On the other hand, sub crews have around “high-value units” such as aircraft to contend with terrain when operating in carriers or amphibious transports. Outlying shallow water. Undersea warfare resembles picket ships guard the high-value unit land warfare in that sense. Soldiers work against surface, aerial or subsurface assault. around mountains, valleys and defiles. A layered defense constitutes the carrier’s Submariners must take account of the sea best chance of survival in a contested floor’s uneven if not shifting topography— environment. Once in range, the formation in the near-shore environment in particular. projects offensive firepower against a hostile Second, concealment is a submarine’s fleet or onto hostile shores. chief method of defense. Surface-ship By contrast, the submarine’s operating designers assume adversaries can detect, characteristics and need to remain target and attack men-of-war plying the unseen make independent operations its ocean’s surface. Such vessels must be stoutly prime mode of action. Communicating built to absorb hits from enemy missiles with fellow boats increases the dangers of or gunfire. They also boast elaborate active detection, as does operating in packs with defenses—radar, antiaircraft and antiship them. Plus, passive detection represents missiles, electronic warfare—to ward off a submarine’s best way to find adversary

68 The National Interest Hail to the Deep shipping. Passive sonar works best at low his signature treatise before submarines speeds, when the sub makes little noise of reached their potential. His 1911 work its own to obscure sounds emanating from Some Principles of Maritime Strategy an opponent. Sprinting short distances and drew primarily on the age of sail, which pausing to listen is one tactic. Trailing a was the main fount of insights into naval towed-array sonar—a “tail” festooned with war for fin de siècle historians. Corbett hydrophones—behind the boat is another. (1854–1922) was an adviser to Admiral A towed array lets crews hear minute Jacky Fisher, Great Britain’s top naval sounds with even less interference from officer, who masterminded Royal Navy their own machinery. operations during World War I. But he, While navies sometimes attach too, did not incorporate insights from the submarines to surface task groups, turning Great War. In short, history’s foremost naval them loose in the depths remains the best historians perished just as undersea warfare way to prosecute undersea warfare. Freedom started coming into its own. No theorist of of action boosts an entrepreneurial crew’s comparable stature finished their work. chances of staying hidden, of finding enemy This oversight carries practical ships in the briny deep or on the surface, consequences. With few precepts to lift and of striking hard should circumstances their gaze toward larger things, submariners warrant. Independence thus magnifies find themselves consumed with engineering their combat potential. These disparities— and administration. This is doubly true for technology, the radically different setting, the all-nuclear U.S. Navy submarine force. this proclivity for stealth—add up to an A Fluckey can make things up as he goes, approach to sea combat so different from and excel. Nevertheless, a more systematic surface warfare that it merits a fresh look. approach to the subsurface domain is long Sea-power theory schools judgment— overdue. What lessons might be extracted and can improve the practice of undersea from the greats? operations. orbett longed for the age of sail. He erhaps the silence of the great works C longed in particular for the eighteenth P is less puzzling than it seems. Alfred century, when classifying warships was a Thayer Mahan (1840–1914) was the sec- straightforward matter. Clear purposes sim- ond president of the Naval War College plify the problem of designing and em- and the author of The Influence of Sea Power ploying fleets to dispute, obtain or exercise upon History, 1660–1783, probably his- command of the sea. A neat division of tory’s most consequential treatise on mari- labor also makes things easier for analysts of time strategy. But his masterwork appeared maritime affairs. Let’s take Corbett’s basic long before submarines proved their mettle precepts in turn. on oceanic battlefields. Mahan died in late First, there’s sea denial, whereby a lesser 1914, after the guns of August rang out but fleet contests a more powerful opponent’s before German U-boats commenced their preeminence. That’s where the U.S. rampage against Allied shipping. Mahan Pacific Fleet found itself vis-à-vis the acknowledged the potential of submarine Imperial Japanese Navy in 1941–1942, warfare in a vague way, yet never incorpo- with the Pearl Harbor fleet demolished rated undersea combat into his theories. and replacement ships still being built. Mahan’s contemporary, the English Even the strongest force cannot be strong scholar Julian Corbett, likewise published everywhere, at all times. Uneven superiority

Hail to the Deep July/August 2014 69 Battle and blockade are the usual methods of imposing sea control. Dismantling an enemy force through battle represents the surest route to success. It eradicates serious opposition to one’s use of important waters, thereby yielding a permanent solution. Short of outright victory, a stronger fleet can confine a lesser one to port. Stationing superior forces offshore neutralizes an antagonist—but only as long as the cordon remains tight. Ships must linger offshore more or less indefinitely to enforce a maritime quarantine. Either way, one navy nullifies another—but blockades disperse strength, divert assets from enterprises promising operational and strategic gain, and leave open the possibility of an enemy breakout and a reversal of fortune. Blockades exact steep opportunity costs. grants a weaker adversary a number of And third, navies covet command in combatant options. By grouping assets, it order to exercise it. Battles are not—or can make itself superior at select points shouldn’t be—fought for their own sake, on the map despite its overall inferiority. but rather to advance the larger purposes Corbett notes that a savvy contender can of the war. Control of the sea, then, is mount “minor counterattacks,” small-scale an enabler. A navy that wrests command assaults on soft spots in a dominant foe’s from its foes shields its homeland against defenses. an asymmetric counterattack. It can attack Second, there’s command of the sea, seaborne commerce, bringing economic sometimes termed “sea control.” Mahan pressure on an opponent to constrict its defines command as “overbearing power “national life.” It keeps its own maritime on the sea which drives the enemy’s flag lifelines open. And it can attack, defend from it, or allows it to appear only as a and support expeditionary operations, fugitive.” For Corbett, as for Mahan, seizing projecting force onto foreign territory in command is the paramount goal of navies. company with ground—and, today, air— To overpower an antagonist, statesmen and forces. commanders can mass dispersed forces, This fundamental insight—that battle order new ships built, court allies, or has larger purposes—is lost on mariners induce the adversary to disperse or waste who see fighting as an end in itself. During his strength. The ultimate aim: a victorious World War I, for example, the Imperial counteroffensive. Disputing command— German Navy assumed that the Royal Navy the sea-denial phase—is merely a precursor would steam into the North Sea for winner- to winning command and its fruits. take-all combat. Why? Because, German

70 The National Interest Hail to the Deep commanders believed, that’s what a navy giving hard knocks” when battling peer steeped in the lore of Trafalgar did. Corbett, fleets. For Mahan, as for Corbett, firepower however, rejected habitual ways of thinking. and the ruggedness to absorb punishment Quoting maxims like “The enemy’s coast set these heavy combatants apart. is our frontier,” he quipped, is like singing Mahan enthrones capital ships— “Rule, Britannia!” to plan a campaign. dreadnought battleships, in his day—atop Substituting formulas for original thought a hierarchy of ship types. Vessels lacking is no way to win. Nautical endeavors hinge such offensive and defensive power “are but on keeping policy and strategy in charge. subservient” to capital ships “and exist only for them.” How many heavy combatants ow do navies execute these basic func- does a navy need? “The answer—a broad H tions? Fleet design was central to Cor- formula—is that [the battle fleet] must be bett’s account of maritime strategy. To trace great enough to take the sea, and to fight, the evolution of ship types and classes, he with reasonable chances of success, the peered back to the founding of the Tudor largest force likely to be brought against it.” navy by Henry VIII, whom he dubbed Eng- There are political and risk-management land’s “great sea-king.” In general, said Cor- dimensions to fleet design, then. bett, oceangoing navies could be divided Constructing a fleet demands that naval into three categories: the battle fleet, cruis- officials estimate the relative probability ers and the flotilla. He saw a division of of threats. Mahan urged fleet architects labor among the three. How do submarines to size and configure forces for the most fit into this scheme? likely actions they would confront. That Battle fleets are made up of “capital is, they should build their navy to fight ships,” major combatants meant to wrest the battle it’s apt to fight, not to crush an supremacy from an enemy battle fleet. entire enemy navy in some hypothetical Capital ships combine offensive firepower engagement. If a rival appears ready to send with self-protection capable of withstanding its whole navy into a theater, then build the heaviest blows an enemy fleet can land. against the whole navy. If its interests merit Cruisers are swarms of smaller, lighter committing only a fraction of the navy, combatants that police “permissive,” then build to counter that contingent. To relatively safe expanses cleared of enemy do otherwise produces surplus capability at fleets. Such craft are cheap in comparison steep cost. with capital ships and can be built in large Mahan prophesied that a weaker U.S. numbers—letting them disperse to many Navy could outmatch the Royal Navy— locations to regulate the flow of shipping. the world’s premier seagoing force—in The flotilla is a hodgepodge of small craft, the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. armed or unarmed, that performs the This was the theater that counted to administrative tasks all seafaring states must Americans, both due to its proximity and carry out. Typically these are small, short- because the Panama Canal would be dug range, coastal vessels. there. Washington didn’t have to engage So much for what capital ships are. in an open-ended, ship-for-ship arms race What do they do? Mahan fashions the in order to accomplish its goals to the best definition, describing them as “the south. The Royal Navy, in contrast, had backbone and real power of any navy,” ships worldwide commitments to uphold. British that “by due proportion of defensive and men-of-war were scattered throughout offensive powers, are capable of taking and the seven seas, while the U.S. Navy could

Hail to the Deep July/August 2014 71 concentrate the bulk of its strength in about screening heavy combatants against the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. superempowered small craft. Torpedo boats America could amass local supremacy and minelayers were beneath tacticians’ despite overall inferiority. Great Britain notice in the Mahanian hierarchy. But in bowed to geostrategic logic around 1900. this brave new world, laments Corbett, “the Its American squadron withdrew to home old practice is no longer a safe guide.” The waters to compete with the German High best mariners can do is acknowledge that Seas Fleet being built across the North Sea. a technological revolution has taken place To devise a navy that fits the strategic while distilling what guidance they can surroundings, then, naval officials must from history. take account of not just technology— Gee-whiz weapons technology, then, had propulsion, defensive protection, begotten “structureless” fleets. Technological armaments—but also distance from ambiguity made it virtually impossible likely scenes of action, the number and to design ships for specific functions. type of political commitments their own Corbett’s revolution never passed, as any and rival nations have undertaken, and contemporary seaman—including yours the likelihood and scope of conflict with truly—will attest. The advent of nuclear- potential antagonists. Strategic and political powered submarines, military aviation and calculations—not just nuts and bolts— guided antiship missiles only compounded must be part of fleet design. the dilemmas Corbett bemoaned a century Assessing the strategic terrain is hard in ago. Such is the state of sea-power theory in any situation. But to make matters worse the twenty-first century. for naval planners, a “revolution beyond Finding the submarine’s place in the all previous experience,” to quote Corbett, menu of naval missions, then, is less simple had upended naval thought during the than it appears. Are subs cruisers, or part nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Sail of the flotilla? Or should they be seen as propulsion gave way to steam, copper- capital ships, the primary weapon of naval sheathed wooden hulls to steel armor, warfare? If the latter, naval establishments smoothbore cannon to rifled guns firing should draw up strategies centered on explosive projectiles. Technological undersea warfare—and redirect scarce advances—in particular submarines, sea shipbuilding resources from pricey surface mines and self-propelled torpedoes—turned warships like aircraft carriers into submarine Corbett’s tidy fleet design upside down. construction. Virtually any vessel could tote a mine or torpedo. Such weaponry empowered ow do submarines support traditional cruisers and the flotilla—the bottom H missions? First of all, they can help dwellers in Mahan’s order of things—to the weak defy the strong. A sea-denial fleet strike heavy blows against battle fleets. can redress its inferiority by massing ex- It was no longer easy to match ships isting forces at decisive places and times, with missions. Steam-driven men-of-war constructing new assets or attracting allies had fought few engagements for historians willing to contribute to a combined force. to plumb for insight. History no longer Both Corbett and Mahan view disputing provided solid guidance. Still less could command as a transitory phase. Mahan anyone foresee the exploits of a Eugene exhorts naval commanders to seek deci- Fluckey plying the depths. sive battle, while Corbett admits this is the Suddenly, fleet commanders had to worry correct approach “nine times out of ten.”

72 The National Interest Hail to the Deep Circumstances may compel the lesser power vectored in by intelligence, surveillance and to bide its time while searching out op- reconnaissance assets. portunities to initiate a counteroffensive. But concentration is mainly about Yet permanent control of vital waters is the focusing firepower at decisive places rather ultimate aim for both theorists. than assembling large numbers of ships How should sub captains and squadron at point-blank range from one another. commanders use their boats? My purpose Accordingly, the firing ranges and accuracy here is not to prescribe tactics. Nor was Corbett’s a century ago. Tactics and hardware are perishable, whereas strategic theory aspires to transcend changes in methods and technology. Still, a few points are worth raising. Nuclear propulsion, first of all, grants nuclear attack submarines (ssns) the capacity to operate independently across vast distances, accompany surface task forces, operate in packs with other boats and otherwise contend for mastery of the waves. Used imaginatively, in short, nuclear-powered boats are ideal for maritime of shipboard weaponry are crucial wars of positive aim. determinants of combat effectiveness. A Second, certain basic principles that submarine outfitted only with torpedoes Corbett spelled out endure. Questions must get much closer to targets than a of concentration and dispersal, for missile-armed boat. Extreme firing range instance, appear timeless. Corbett urges for a U.S. Navy Mark 48 heavyweight commanders to disperse the fleet across torpedo, for instance, is about twenty- as broad an area as possible, scouring vital seven nautical miles. (Effective firing range, expanses of opponents and protecting at which the shooter stands an excellent friendly shipping. They must do so while chance of a hit, is shorter than this keeping ships close enough to one another figure—in all likelihood much shorter.) By that they can “condense” at the “strategical comparison, the navy’s Harpoon antiship center.” This would be the site of battle missile—a missile of very modest reach should an antagonist agree to fight. Such by today’s standards—lets American “elastic concentration” permits a navy to ssns engage targets over sixty nautical police the sea while massing assets quickly miles away. Doubling the combat radius to outmatch an opponent. Highly mobile quadruples the area covered by a weapon ships like ssns can spread out widely system. Simple geometry determines how because they can rush to scenes of action, far vessels can disperse while still bringing

Hail to the Deep July/August 2014 73 It would be a mistake to draw too sharp a distinction between offense and defense. Depending on the circumstances, any submarine can act either defensively or offensively.

combat power to bear. Long-range precision Nearby logistical support would let them ordnance thus helps fleets meet the stage a forward tactical defense of gains won demands of elastic concentration. through strategic offense. Commanders Third, it would be a mistake to draw should stay on the lookout for such too sharp a distinction between offense inventive options. and defense, or between conventional and nuclear-powered submarines. Depending xploiting sea control is the function on the circumstances, any submarine can E to which submarines are least suited. act either defensively or offensively. Indeed, Nevertheless, they have some part to play. Corbett observes that even offensive Generally speaking, a navy must win com- warfare has a pronounced defensive mand before exercising command. But what component. No force is strong enough to happens if an enemy navy refuses to fight? take the offensive everywhere, so offensive- Or what if circumstances demand that a minded strategists must mount an effective navy land troops or execute other missions defense of weaker areas. Even defensive before it controls the sea? Corbett observes forces, moreover, should maintain an that, in these cases, commanders may have attitude of “alert expectation” in case the to do things out of logical sequence. War, chance arises to strike an offensive tactical he says, is blow. Both conventional and nuclear-powered not conducted by logic, and the order of pro- boats, then, have parts to play in hybrid ceeding which logic prescribes cannot always offensive-defensive warfare. If the maritime be adhered to in practice. We have seen how, terrain permits, mixed fleets of diesel and owing to the special conditions of naval war- nuclear-powered subs could prove ideal for fare, extraneous necessities intrude themselves, seizing and holding critical sea areas. An which make it inevitable that operations for apt division of labor would assign diesel exercising command should accompany as well boats the primarily defensive functions and as follow operations for securing command. nuclear attack boats the offensive ones. Conventional attack submarines (ssks), for Navies, in other words, may have to use instance, can guard rear areas, shielding the the sea before they control it. So long as an homeland against seaborne assault while adversary declines to risk his fleet, he poses freeing ssns to pursue operations in distant little menace. That allows cruisers—ships seas. As undersea capital ships, ssns can incapable of fighting capital ships but op- help bottle up or defeat opponents close timal for controlling permissive waters—to to their coasts—evening the balance before assume their central role in maritime strat- winning partial or complete control of the egy. They can raid enemy shipping from sea. If usable bases are among the fruits of day one of a conflict, inflicting economic victory, in turn, ssks could forward-deploy harm. Submarines are a natural platform for to hold zones cleared by the battle fleet. such guerre de course operations. Depend-

74 The National Interest Hail to the Deep ing on logistics, ssks may be able to hover Submarines, then, offer potent off enemy ports or at focal points such as capabilities both during and after the fight straits, intercepting enemy shipping. ssns for sea control. When fitted with systems can do the same, or they can pursue mer- enabling them to project force onto land, chantmen or warships. Subs of all types can they become truly maritime platforms. distort enemy shipping patterns simply by “Naval,” explains Corbett, is a subset making their presence known. Few mari- of “maritime.” Why? Because “men live ners will approach a narrow sea knowing upon the land and not upon the sea.” enemies skulk below. But detouring around Land is where great matters are decided. undersea dangers costs time, fuel, and wear- Accordingly, maritime strategy is the art and-tear on machinery and hulls. of determining “the mutual relations of Nor must submarines confine their your army and navy in a plan of war.” It’s efforts solely to enemy shipping. Cruise about dominating the land-sea interface, missile–armed subs, particularly ssns, the natural preserve of sea power. can use their armament to project power So maritime strategy isn’t all about navies. directly onto enemy shores. U.S. Navy ssns To be sure, winning, denying and exploiting were fitted with Tomahawk land-attack command are about stifling enemy cruise missiles during the 1980s and fired commerce and naval operations. But these on ground targets in Operation Desert functions also open avenues into coastal Storm and ensuing campaigns. During zones through which joint land/sea forces the 1990s, the navy converted four Ohio- can shape terrestrial events. No longer can class submarines to carry Tomahawks. navies be partitioned cleanly into a battle Redesignated ssgns, or nuclear-powered fleet, a swarm of cruisers and the flotilla. guided-missile submarines, these boats ssks fit most closely into the flotilla, ssns number among the navy’s principal into the battle fleet. But submarines defy platforms for direct power projection. easy classification. Their capabilities span Or ssns and ssgns can act together. In all three domains while adding missions of Operation Odyssey Dawn in 2011, the which previous sea-power theorists could ssns uss Providence and Scranton joined the never have dreamed. ssgn uss Florida in lofting cruise missiles All this only adds to the need for against targets within Libya. And some ssns commanders to use sea-power theory to and ssgns are equipped to land special- unlock the full potential of structureless operations forces along enemy coasts, fleets—including their silent services. supplementing power projection through Imagine what a Lucky Fluckey versed in covert means. sea-power theory could accomplish today. n

Hail to the Deep July/August 2014 75 Reviews & Essays

the perfect opportunity for a cultural drone The CIA’s strike, exposing for all the world to see the Soviet Communist Party’s prodigious Favorite Novel contempt for genuine creativity. There was, however, one thing that By Christian Caryl Pasternak foresaw quite accurately: the storm that was about to break. His decision to have the book published Peter Finn and Petra Couvée, The Zhivago overseas, bypassing the party’s entrenched Affair: The Kremlin, the cia, and the Battle mechanisms of artistic control, was bound Over a Forbidden Book (New York: Panthe- to trigger a vicious reaction from the Soviet on Books, 2014), 368 pp., $26.95. leadership. He had seen enough to know. Born in 1890, he had weathered revolution, e like to think of ourselves as civil war and Stalin’s terrors relatively creatures of causality. We cling unscathed—but in this respect he was an Wto the belief that our choices will extraordinary exception. Already established have predictable effects on the course of our in the 1920s as one of the great Russian lives. But that’s somewhat illusory. And the poets of his generation, he had watched as illusion is even more pronounced in dic- his most illustrious contemporaries were tatorships, where the powers that be have goaded into suicide (Vladimir Mayakovsky their own views about the vagaries of indi- and Marina Tsvetaeva), sent to die in the vidual fate. gulag (Osip Mandelstam), or forced to When Boris Pasternak handed the endure public humiliation and the killing manuscript of his new novel Doctor Zhivago or imprisonment of their loved ones (Anna to the representative of an Italian publisher Akhmatova). in the spring of 1956, he almost certainly Peter Finn and Petra Couvée, the authors didn’t envision the chain of events that of this remarkable biography of Pasternak’s this simple act would set in motion. He novel and the global scandal it spawned, wasn’t planning on the book becoming a deftly illuminate this background. As they global literary sensation. He probably explain, Pasternak’s former next-door didn’t suspect that he would win a Nobel neighbor, the novelist Boris Pilynak, “was Prize for Literature. And he certainly never executed with a single bullet to the back of dreamed that he would prompt an elaborate the head in April 1938.” Isaak Babel, the covert action by the Central Intelligence great chronicler of Jewish life in the Black Agency, whose operatives saw his novel as Sea city of Odessa (from which both of Pasternak’s parents hailed), met the same Christian Caryl is a senior fellow at the Legatum end two years later. Finn and Couvée put Institute in London and a contributing editor at the number of Soviet writers who were The National Interest and Foreign Policy. either “executed or died in labor camps for

76 The National Interest Reviews & Essays various alleged infractions” after 1917 at embarked on a cautious political opening nearly 1,500. that came to be known, somewhat I’m not sure where this precise figure optimistically, as the “thaw.” Millions of comes from, but surely it’s on the low side, prisoners returned home from the camps. considering the vast reach of the scythe that And in February 1956, just a few months cut down many of the leading intellectuals before D’Angelo’s visit, Nikita Khrushchev among the ussr’s various ethnic groups in had taken matters one dramatic step further the 1930s and 1940s. (Much depends, I by denouncing Stalin’s “cult of personality” guess, on how the Soviet regime defined the to a closed audience of top-ranking word “writer.”) So Pasternak can hardly be Communist Party officials. The party accused of hysteria when he predicted the faithful were stunned by Khrushchev’s tales worst. On that Sunday morning in May, of his predecessor’s viciousness and caprice; as Pasternak took his leave from Sergio several members of the audience had heart D’Angelo, the visiting Italian Communist attacks. For many Soviet citizens, of course, whom he had just entrusted with the this “news” about Stalin wasn’t news at all. manuscript, he said: “You are hereby invited For them, this tentative exorcism of the to my execution.” dictator’s ghost prompted a collective sigh It didn’t quite come to that—partly of relief. because the immense publicity stirred up by the affair around the book made it t was this climate of possibility that virtually impossible for the Politburo to I emboldened D’Angelo, who had been have Pasternak packed off to the uranium commissioned by a novice Milan pub- mines. In that respect, for all of his self- lisher, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, to keep professed ignorance of political intrigue, an eye open for new Russian works that Doctor Zhivago’s author showed a shrewd might be worthy of publication in Italian sense of timing. The ussr in the spring of translation. While going about his job as 1956 was still a Communist dictatorship, a foreign hire at Radio Moscow, D’Angelo but it wasn’t the same as it had been, say, chanced upon a notice in the Soviet media in 1949, when Stalin’s henchman Andrei announcing the imminent publication of Zhdanov launched a vicious public a novel by Pasternak, by that point wide- campaign against Akhmatova (famously ly considered one of the greatest Russian dubbed “half whore, half nun” by Zhdanov) poets alive. In fact, though, Pasternak had and the satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko. submitted the book for publication long Akhmatova’s son Lev Gumilev, whose before, only to find himself stymied. By father had been shot by the Bolsheviks for the time D’Angelo turned up on his door- allegedly counterrevolutionary activities, step, Pasternak “had endured five months was dispatched to the camps—for the of complete silence from Goslitizdat, the second time. state literary publishers, to which he had Stalin died in 1953. His successors submitted the novel.” Two leading liter-

Reviews & Essays July/August 2014 77 ary journals had also refused to publish Committee memorandum labeled excerpts. Pasternak was not entirely sur- Doctor Zhivago the work of a “bourgeois prised: “‘In the ussr,’ he said, ‘the novel individualist,” and recommended that the will not come out. It doesn’t conform to Kremlin use its sway with the powerful official cultural guidelines.’” So when Italian Communist Party to claw the D’Angelo broached the manuscript back before it idea of publishing the could be published. Like book overseas, Pasternak D’Angelo, Pasternak’s seized the moment. publisher Feltrinelli was He went upstairs to a longtime member of his second-floor study the Italian Communist and returned bearing a Party, and he soon found large package wrapped himself under siege from in newspaper. This was his Italian comrades as the manuscript of the well as unsavory envoys new novel, which told from Moscow like Alexei the story of a Pasternak Surkov, the head of the alter ego, an apolitical Soviet Writers’ Union. doctor and poet who Surkov harangued experiences an ecstatic Feltrinelli in his Milan and illicit love affair office for three hours— against the background to no effect. Feltrinelli of World War I, Russia’s responded that he was a dual revolutions and the “free publisher in a free civil war that followed. country,” and that “by “‘This is Doctor Zhivago,’ publishing the novel he Pasternak said. ‘May it was paying tribute to a make its way around great narrative work of the world.’” D’Angelo Soviet literature.” Later was happy to oblige. He had little inkling Feltrinelli described Surkov as “a hyena of the incredible risk that Pasternak was dipped in syrup.” Never have I imagined taking by choosing to publish the book that I could feel such affection for an Italian overseas, thus staging an end run around Communist. the elaborate apparatus of state control On Pasternak’s explicit request, Feltrinelli that the Communist Party maintained over sold the translation rights to a number writers and other intellectuals. of other publishers around the world. As The party’s response was not long translations were prepared and buzz about in coming. The kgb quickly learned Doctor Zhivago began to build, so too did of Pasternak’s plans. A secret Central the hysteria within the Soviet leadership. All

78 The National Interest Reviews & Essays A photocopy of Pasternak’s manuscript found its way into the hands of the cia. A plot was hatched: Why not publish the book in its original tongue and smuggle copies back into the ussr?

means were used to pressure Pasternak to Russia Division, penned some freelance lit- withdraw the novel for publication. erary criticism for his colleagues: The party’s literary bureaucrats even resorted to using Pasternak’s mistress, Olga Pasternak’s humanistic message—that every Ivinskaya, as leverage. In 1950, she had been person is entitled to a private life and deserves arrested and sent off to the camps, only to respect as a human being, irrespective of the be released after Stalin’s death. Needless to extent of his political loyalty or contribution say, she was terrified of getting caught up in to the state—poses a fundamental challenge the meat grinder again, so she too ended up to the Soviet ethic of sacrifice of the individual pushing Pasternak to back down. The irony to the Communist system. There is no call to here is especially poignant, considering that revolt against the regime in the novel, but the she was the model for Lara, Yuri Zhivago’s heresy which Dr. Zhivago preaches—political muse (immortalized by the radiant Julie passivity—is fundamental. Pasternak suggests Christie in the 1965 movie version of Doctor that the small unimportant people who re- Zhivago directed by David Lean). main passive to the regime’s demands for active In the telling of Finn and Couvée, participation and emotional involvement in Ivinskaya emerges as a rather more official campaigns are superior to the political complicated beast—exulting in her lover’s “activists” favored by the system. Further, he immense literary mojo while at the same dares hint that society might function better time pleading with him to avoid provoking without these fanatics. the authorities’ ire. At one point she even prevailed upon him to send Feltrinelli a Could anyone in Langley now write telegram, actually authored by Soviet with such verve and insight about, say, apparatchiks, asking that Doctor Zhivago’s the historical roots of Vladimir Putin’s publication be postponed. Pasternak irredentist views on Ukraine? I’m inclined followed up by sending Feltrinelli a to doubt it. But, of course, these were the message in French, telling him to ignore days when the agency was still populated the previous one. (In a nice bit of tradecraft, by pipe-smoking Yale grads who had spent the novelist and his publisher had agreed their New Haven days boning up on the beforehand that only messages sent by New Criticism and editing student literary Pasternak in French were to be regarded as magazines. There were also plenty of authentic.) mustachioed, hard-drinking White émigrés straight out of some future David Lean t some point, a photocopy of the Rus- movie—just the sort of guys you wanted A sian manuscript found its way into the to have around when it was a matter of hands of the cia. A plot was hatched: Why reintroducing an instant Russian literary not publish the book in its original tongue classic into the homeland where it was and smuggle copies back into the ussr? banned. (Or maybe not. When Pasternak John Maury, the head of the agency’s Soviet finally got ahold of one of these early, illicit

Reviews & Essays July/August 2014 79 editions of his book, he was incensed by the-clock campaign denouncing Pasternak all the errata. Such are the casualties of as a contemptible turncoat lusting after cultural warfare.) After various mishaps, foreign currency. Literaturnaya Gazeta, lovingly documented by Finn and Couvée, the ussr’s flagship literary publication, the agency finally managed to sponsor treated its readers to a venomous assault several print runs of the book—one on Pasternak’s character that included anti- of them produced by a publisher in the Semitic references to Judas and his “thirty Netherlands helpfully provided by the pieces of silver.” Members of the Writers’ Dutch intelligence service. Union were summoned to Stalinist But how to get the novel into the hands meetings where they were expected to of Soviet citizens? The cia operatives join the chorus of denunciation. Friends decided to distribute their Russian- renounced him. language edition at the 1958 World’s Fair in The Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, Brussels. The Belgians issued some fifteen studying in Moscow at the time, recalled: thousand visas to Soviet citizens visiting “The radio, from 5 in the morning until the fair, which Moscow and Washington 12 at night, the television, the newspapers, turned into a classic Cold War cultural face- the journals, magazines, even for children, off. For the sake of plausible deniability, were full of articles and attacks on the though, the Americans couldn’t simply renegade writer.” Pravda even brought hand out the books at their own pavilion. a famed Stalinist hatchet man out of Instead, they hit upon the perfect cover: the retirement to declare Pasternak a “weed.” Vatican. Soviet visitors who wandered into When two young poets told the author the Vatican exhibit were approached by a how they were being pressured to sign a Russian-speaking priest who offered them statement denouncing him, he responded copies of the book: with characteristic largeness of soul: “‘Really now,’ said Pasternak, ‘what does it matter? Finally, the cia-sponsored edition of the novel It’s an empty formality—sign it.’” But he was pressed into the hands of Soviet citizens. later confided to a friend that he saw their Soon the book’s blue line covers were found lit- visible relief upon hearing this from him as tering the fairgrounds. Some who got the novel a small betrayal. were ripping off the cover, dividing the pages, Happily, there were a few signs that and stuffing them in their pockets to make the Russians hadn’t entirely succumbed book easier to hide. to the climate of fear. A few Muscovites participated in a small demonstration And then, in October 1958, the denouncing the anti-Semitic tone of the big news came through: Pasternak had official diatribes against Pasternak. In some won the Nobel Prize. For the Soviet organizations, the number of those who leadership, it was now time to take the refused to sign the obligatory statements gloves off. The party launched a round- condemning him was quite high.

80 The National Interest Reviews & Essays The low point came when the Writers’ health, he died in 1960, just two years after Union announced Pasternak’s expulsion receiving the Nobel Prize. from the organization. Battered by the His funeral offered an opportunity for nonstop vituperation, Pasternak even those who supported him to celebrate his suggested to Ivinskaya that they commit moral example: the young writers Yuli joint suicide; she declined to accept the Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky, who would invitation. In the end, he mollified his go on to become leaders of the dissident persecutors by agreeing to send a telegram to Oslo rejecting the prize. And yet, as Finn and Couvée rightly observe, Pasternak never backed away from his initial decision to publish. He had spent some ten years on the book, and he clearly regarded it as the crowning achievement of his life as an artist. “The publication of Doctor Zhivago has become the most important thing in my life, and I don’t intend to do anything movement in the 1960s, carried the lid to prevent it,” he told Ivinskaya at one of his coffin. There remains some dispute point. In one of his letters to Feltrinelli, about the precise number of people who Pasternak wrote, “Ideas are not born to be took part in the funeral ceremony: some hidden or smothered at birth, but to be estimates put the figure as high as several communicated to others.” thousand, though between five hundred Akhmatova observed, not entirely and a thousand seems more likely. As the unjustly, that Pasternak got off relatively authors note, the fact that anyone showed easy in the end, if one compared his trials up at all was remarkable enough, given the with the fate of so many of his colleagues circumstances. during the period of High Stalinism. She noted that Pasternak and his family were inn and Couvée unite fine literary left untouched in his house, calling the F spadework with a highly readable nar- story of his encounter with the party “a rative. The usual tendency in a book like battle of butterflies.” Yet there is no this is for authors to identify so completely question that this battle took its toll on with the protagonist that the rough edges Pasternak. Never in particularly good of the story get smoothed away. Not here:

Reviews & Essays July/August 2014 81 Pasternak never backed away from his initial decision to publish. He had spent some ten years on the book, and he clearly regarded it as the crowning achievement of his life as an artist.

even some of the repulsive Soviet cultur- sat silent and grim as idols; they were men al bureaucrats come across as complicated in whom everything alive and human had human characters. The authors note that been driven out by political conceit.” the critical reception of Pasternak’s book, Pasternak’s antirevolutionary animus despite its huge popular success, was quite manifests itself on every other page: he mixed; if anything, I suspect, today’s ver- equates White atrocities with Red ones, and dicts will be even more divided, given the shows one of the book’s most disgusting novel’s frequent lapses into kitschy phi- characters, a rank, upper-class opportunist, losophizing. (Akhmatova herself was among turning up to serve the Soviet cause. The those who didn’t think it was very good.) book’s literary quality is debatable, but there But there can be no denying that the scan- can be little question about its political dal surrounding the banning of Paster- direction. “The [U.S. and European] nak’s novel was one of the great intellec- press focused on what they saw as [Doctor tual causes célèbres of the Cold War—an Zhivago’s] anti-Communist flavor,” write incident that, coming on the heels of the Finn and Couvée rather cautiously. But it’s Soviets’ brutal crackdown on the Hungar- awfully hard to see how anyone could have ian Revolution, contributed to the waning failed to see the book in that light. credibility of the Communist model. The story told in The Zhivago Affair Unfortunately, Finn and Couvée do not offers a potent reminder that the demise of spend quite enough time on the novel itself. Communism has been an enormous blessing They devote only a few paragraphs to their to the world (and especially to Russia). But synopsis of Doctor Zhivago, and are much it also fills me with melancholy about the too diffident about the reasons the Soviet decline of Russian literary culture. Pasternak authorities rejected the book so ferociously. may not have been entirely convincing as They characterize Doctor Zhivago as a sort a novelist, but he was a remarkable poet of general paean to the primacy of the who emerged from a spectacularly fertile individual, which is true enough. But in literary culture. Today’s Russia, by contrast, rereading the novel, I was struck by how is a singular cultural wasteland. It’s almost explicitly and emphatically it denounces impossible to imagine a European publisher the idea of revolutionary Communism, sending scouts to present-day Moscow to which Pasternak consistently depicts as a search for exciting or original literary work. bloody abstraction inherently opposed, in Anyone who wishes to understand how this the novel’s allegorical scheme, to the life could have happened, after the triumphs principle that it celebrates. (Zhivago’s name of Russian literature in the nineteenth and is derived from the Russian root for “life.”) early twentieth centuries, need only consider Here’s how Pasternak describes a group of the systematic assault on the creative spirit revolutionary leaders: “Numbered among organized by the Soviet regime. Finn and the gods at whose feet the revolution had Couvée offer us a valuable account of that laid its gifts and its burnt offerings, they system in action. n

82 The National Interest Reviews & Essays the Habsburgs. . . . Our Emperor is a secular The Exile brother of the Pope. . . . The Emperor of Aus- tria-Hungary cannot be abandoned by God. By Jacob Heilbrunn But now God has abandoned him!” Chojnicki’s lament reflects the George Prochnik, The Impossible Exile: profound sense of abandonment that Stefan Zweig at the End of the World (New assailed not only Roth, but also his York: Other Press, 2014), 408 pp., $27.95. compatriot Stefan Zweig. Both mourned the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy n Joseph Roth’s novel Radetzky March, and the loss of the comforting stability Count Chojnicki drives district captain it had represented, not least for Jews like I Franz von Trotta and his son Carl Jo- themselves. Both became refugees, going seph, a lieutenant in the Austrian infantry, into exile years before the Anschluss, or in a straw-yellow britska to his small hunt- annexation, of Austria by Nazi Germany ing lodge in the Galician forest near the in March 1938—in a 1933 letter, Roth border with Ukraine. After pouring glasses warned Zweig that it was all over once of 180 proof, Chojnicki disconcerts his two Hitler had been appointed chancellor by guests by declaring that the Habsburg Em- the senescent President Hindenburg. And pire is doomed: both ended up destroying themselves—the alcoholic Roth, dependent on handouts With great effort Herr von Trotta asked anoth- from Zweig, perished of delirium tremens er question: “I don’t understand! Why shouldn’t in a Paris hospital in 1939 at the age of the monarchy still exist?” “Of course,” Cho- forty-five; Zweig, together with his young jnicki answered, “taken literally, it continues to second wife, Lotte, swallowed poison in exist. We still have an army”—the count mo- a little bungalow in 1942 in Petropolis, a tioned to the lieutenant—“and officials”—the lovely mountain resort located near Rio count pointed to the district captain. “But it is de Janeiro. Unlike Roth, however, Zweig’s disintegrating. . . . An aged one, whose number literary star dimmed after his death, even is up, endangered by each sniffle, hangs onto though he was one of the most popular his throne simply by the miracle that he can authors in the world during the 1930s, an still sit upon it. How much longer, how much era when books, like the cinema, could longer! This era doesn’t want us any longer! command a mass audience. This era wants to create nation-states! No one Now, in his beguiling study The believes in God. The new religion is nation- Impossible Exile, George Prochnik examines alism. . . . The monarchy, our monarchy, is Zweig’s odyssey. Prochnik, who is the based on piety: in the belief that God elected author of In Pursuit of Silence, sets Zweig in the context of literary and social Vienna. Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of The National Interest. It’s very much a life and times rather than

Reviews & Essays July/August 2014 83 a discussion of the old boy’s oeuvre, which an acute lens through which to examine was rather vitriolically attacked as “just not only the cultural contradictions of the putrid” by Michael Hofmann in 2010 in imperial city, but also the plight of the the London Review of Books. That his works numerous cultural émigrés from Central don’t measure up to Thomas Mann’s or Europe whom Nazi propaganda minister Roth’s almost goes without saying. Joseph Goebbels ridiculed as “cadavers on leave.” Zweig was a pacifist and visionary, an ardent exponent of a pan-European culture. But in contrast to Mann, who could confidently declare, “Where I am there is German culture” and who flourished during his California exile, he became increasingly mentally unmoored as the Third Reich went from success to success. He was constantly searching for a safe harbor—southern France, Paris, London, New York, finally Brazil—only to encounter new and ever more turbulent emotional waters. “I would like to live forgotten on a forgotten place somewhere and never to open more a newspaper,” Zweig told a friend in New York. In losing the narrative thread of his life, Zweig himself, you could even say, ended up becoming the story.

orn into a wealthy Viennese family in B 1881, Zweig was cosseted by his moth- But Zweig, a compulsive collector whose er, whose claustrophobic embrace he came possessions included Goethe’s pen and to resent. Both his friends and enemies Beethoven’s desk, makes for a fascinating viewed him as a somewhat protean figure. subject (Wes Anderson’s charming new film His dapper dress and ambiguous sexuality, The Grand Budapest Hotel was inspired by his suave manners and emotional detach- him). Prochnik mines both Zweig’s memoir ment, were of a piece with the glittering The World of Yesterday as well as his letters sheen of fin de siècle Vienna, where, as the to offer numerous insights. He suggests that novelist Arthur Schnitzler had one of his Zweig, who was friends with everyone from characters mordantly announce, “With us Richard Strauss to Sigmund Freud, provides indignation is just as insincere as enthusi-

84 The National Interest Reviews & Essays asm. Only envy and hatred of real talent are some hazy, higher mission on humanity’s genuine here.” As Klaus Mann mused about behalf.” Zweig, “Only Vienna produced that pecu- Still, Zweig rejected Herzl’s Zionist liar style of behavior. French suavity with ideals. To him they were backwards and a touch of German pensiveness and a faint insular—redolent of nationalism. In a tinge of Oriental eccentricity.” revealing 1917 letter to the philosopher But that suavity could not mask the Martin Buber, Zweig explained that he virulent anti-Semitism pullulating in the had “never wanted the Jews to become a imperial city—as the German historian nation again and thus to lower itself to Brigitte Hamann has shown, Hitler’s taking part with the others in the rivalry mental world was largely formed in Vienna of reality. I love the Diaspora and affirm by sinister pan-Germans such as Guido it as the meaning of Jewish idealism, as von List and Georg Ritter von Schönerer. Jewry’s cosmopolitan human mission.” But The critic Karl Kraus described Vienna as cosmopolitanism could only take one so a “laboratory for world destruction.” Its far. The scholar Gershom Scholem said homunculus went on to transform German that the conviction that intellectuals such politics into a kind of mass theater, with as Zweig had of belonging to the German himself as the impresario, living out his people on purely cultural terms was a “lurid thwarted artistic ambitions. “Brother and tragic illusion.” Hitler,” as Thomas Mann referred to him, Time and again, Zweig was confronted is probably best viewed as a lethal Viennese with the realities of Nazism that he would export who made it big after he left his probably have preferred to elide. In exile homeland. Zweig himself wrote in his in London in 1935, where he learned that memoirs that he could not recall when he his beloved publisher Insel Verlag had had first encountered Hitler’s name. dropped him, Zweig tried to avoid politics. Zweig, who was hardly oblivious to the According to Prochnik, he “gave feebly seamier sides of Austrian society, never anodyne responses about what a nice, quiet sought to suppress his Jewish heritage. place England was to work in . . . making Quite the contrary. “What human no mention of the fact that he was fleeing problem,” he said in 1931, “can be so the encroachment of National Socialism, important as that of the race to which one the ascendancy of homegrown Austrian is born?” Always an extremely facile writer, Fascism, and the ever-more-virulent anti- Zweig began contributing at age nineteen to Semitism throughout Central Europe.” the Neue Freie Presse, where Theodor Herzl, Zweig shrank from enmeshing himself the father of modern Zionism, served as in politics. Instead, he wanted to create literary editor. They had much in common: great art that would serve as a standing “For all his enviable fluency,” Prochnik refutation of Nazi doctrine. In Prochnik’s writes, “Zweig, like Herzl, viewed literature view, “Zweig wasn’t suggesting that not as an ultimate task, but as a bridge to intellectuals should do nothing, but rather

Reviews & Essays July/August 2014 85 Time and again, Zweig was confronted with the realities of Nazism that he would probably have preferred to elide.

that they got nowhere by simply vilifying most ominous manifestation of the years after their adversaries.” the First World War, which struck his native Zweig’s high point came during an Austria more violently than any other Euro- address to the European PEN Club in pean country: unemployment. May 1941 at the Biltmore in New York to hundreds of his fellow émigrés, including This is the critique of Zweig as the Thomas Mann, Andre Maurois, Franz grand seigneur, oblivious to the dangerous Werfel and Lion Feuchtwanger. In it, Zweig currents swirling beneath that would hurl surprised his audience by apologizing for him and his brethren into the cataract of the inhumanity of Nazism: history. According to Prochnik, “Zweig set himself up for such attacks by virtue We writers of the German language feel a secret of having been, undeniably, an awfully and tormenting shame because these decrees wealthy man who preferred the company of oppression are conceived and drafted in the of established great artists and ardent young German language, the same language in which male poets to just about anyone.” we write and think. I feel it is my duty publicly Prochnik goes on to defend Zweig. to ask forgiveness of each of you for everything He observes that Zweig does cite which today is inflicted on your peoples in the unemployment in his memoirs as a reason name of the German spirit. for Hitler’s rise. Zweig, together with his first wife Friderike, had established This address amounted to a self-reproach education courses for workers living in for the rise of Nazism. It was as close as Salzburg. His solution to the woes of the Zweig came, or could come, to confronting time was education. According to Prochnik, the moral abyss of Nazism publicly. “Like Zweig believed that “school curricula might German culture,” Prochnik writes, “Zweig be turned away from their focus on political was a wreck.” and military history, toward a program Does Zweig’s detached stance merit of cultural enlightenment that would criticism? Hannah Arendt, writing in elucidate the shared efforts of European Aufbau, the New York German Jewish peoples to create a ‘great and wonderful newspaper, thought it did. She said that spiritual edifice.’” Of course, these exalted Zweig had romanticized the past in The aspirations remain almost as elusive today as World of Yesterday. Sounding like Scholem, they were then. she said that it was not the world of yesterday but, rather, a gross illusion: till, Prochnik’s supple defense of Zweig S may not even be entirely necessary. For The gilded trellises of this peculiar sanctuary one thing, Arendt’s critique assumes that were very thick, depriving the inmates of every Nazism was inevitable. It’s easy enough to view and every insight that could disturb their say in hindsight that Jews in Austria or Ger- enjoyment. Not once does Zweig mention the many were blind to the looming peril, but

86 The National Interest Reviews & Essays they weren’t endowed with political clair- voyance. There was no guarantee that Hitler would come to power and, indeed, had the German elite resisted him in January 1933, he most likely would have become a spent force. The criticism also makes the assump- tion that a writer has a moral obligation to take a political stand, to act as a kind of Praeceptor Germaniae. It envisions Germany as the land of Dichter und Denker, the poets and thinkers. This romantic belief—the fusion of spirit and power—lingers on in Germany today, where authors on the right (Martin Walser) or left (Günter Grass) periodically issue their addresses to the German nation. But was a polyglot country, but here, so Zweig it’s not clear that these interventions have thought, everyone seemed to mingle ever been all that instructive or profitable. peacefully, in contrast to the bloody ethnic In fact, the record of German intellectuals, quarrels of Central Europe. He even wrote at least when it comes to political one last book, a tribute to his hosts, called pronouncements, is pretty dismal. Stefan Country of the Future. But Zweig clearly George started his own authoritarian cult. didn’t believe that he had a future, here or Bertolt Brecht, cynical and opportunistic, anywhere else. Soon he divested himself embraced, or pretended to embrace, of his remaining belongings. In February Communism, setting up shop in East 1942, he created a bonfire in his garden Germany. Martin Heidegger supported and consigned his papers to the flames. the Nazi movement during its early days. Then came the doses of Veronal and a And Thomas Mann espoused anti-Western farewell letter: “I think it better to conclude sentiments after World War I in his murky in good time and in erect bearing a life in Reflections of an Unpolitical Man, which which intellectual labor meant the purest appeared to posit a German spirit superior joy and personal freedom the highest good to that of the decadent and corrupt West— on earth.” Flower-bedecked coffins were though Mann, of course, became a foe of carried through town. Petropolis shut down the Nazis and effectively repudiated his for the day. Zweig could only ask, like earlier work. the disconsolate Franz Ferdinand Trotta In moving to Brazil, Zweig appears to in Roth’s final novel The Emperor’s Tomb, have tried to say goodbye to all that, to “Where can I go now, I, a Trotta?” It was a recuse himself from a world seemingly question that the possessor of Goethe’s pen intent on self-destruction. Like Austria, it was unable to answer. n

Reviews & Essays July/August 2014 87 it. François Mitterrand’s achievement was France’s different. He successfully led the French Left to power for the first time since de Citizen King Gaulle’s rule and then proceeded to govern in much the same fashion as Le By Aram Bakshian Jr. Grand Charles himself. As an imperial president, Mitterrand reduced the French Communist Party—which he had run in Philip Short, A Taste for Intrigue: The Mul- coalition with—to an insignificant force tiple Lives of François Mitterrand (New York: in French politics, and twice governed Henry Holt and Company, 2014), 640 pp., in conjunction with conservative prime $40.00. ministers and legislatures in an arrangement the French referred to as a state of political ome of the greatest historical coups “cohabitation.” de théâtre have been staged by actors While the comparison would have irked S playing against type. The most obvi- him, Mitterrand played a transitional role ous American example would be hard-line in French politics similar to that of Harold anti-Communist Richard Nixon’s dramatic Wilson in British politics a generation opening to Chairman Mao’s China. No earlier—a temperamentally moderate, less dramatic—though of considerably less socially middle-class leader of a political international importance—was the election faction traditionally dominated by militant of François Mitterrand as the first social- trade unionists and radical members of the ist president of the French Fifth Republic intelligentsia. Neither man is remembered nearly a decade later. for towering individual achievements, but In both public and private life, François both avoided class warfare at home while Mitterrand was a man of quirks and remaining staunch members of the Western contradictions, sometimes verging on the alliance. And neither ultimately drove his absurd. He was the second most important country leftward. Harold Wilson, like Tory French leader of the twentieth century, prime ministers before him, was a steadfast outpaced only by Charles de Gaulle. De advocate of the “special relationship” Gaulle resurrected France twice, first from between Britain and the United States, even the ravages of the Nazi occupation and then on Vietnam, despite rumbles on the left of from the political paralysis of the Fourth his Labour Party. Republic. At the height of his influence he In the case of Mitterrand, this meant did more than lead France; he embodied crucial, and rather courageous, support for the deployment of Pershing missiles—the Aram Bakshian Jr. is a contributing editor to The so-called Euromissiles—as a deterrent to National Interest and served as an aide to Presidents Soviet aggression against nonnuclear nato Nixon, Ford and Reagan. allies such as West Germany. The occasion

88 The National Interest Reviews & Essays was an address to the Bundestag in Bonn Germany would find themselves in the front in 1983 on the twentieth anniversary of the line. Later that year he would encapsulate the Franco-German friendship treaty initiated thought in an aphorism: “Pacifism . . . is in the by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer. West, the missiles are in the East.” The speech The speech Mitterrand was to give had was a game-changer. . . . Mitterrand’s back- gone through numerous wishy-washy drafts ing comforted [West Germany’s] Christian before he sat down at a typewriter and put Democrats in their support of deployment and it into his own words: helped [Helmut] Kohl to victory in the parlia- mentary elections which were held two months A simple idea governs French thinking: war later. The Americans, after drawing a deep must remain impossible and those who are breath, applauded. Henry Kissinger telephoned tempted by it must be deterred. [It is] our to say he had found the speech “quite remark- conviction that nuclear weapons, as the instru- able.” Reagan, declaring that Mitterrand’s re- ment of deterrence, are, whether one likes it or marks were “of inestimable value,” thanked him not, the guarantee of peace from the moment for “strengthening the Alliance at a time when that there is a balance of forces . . . The main- the European countries have to admit their . . . tenance of this balance requires that no region anxiety before the pressure of public opinion.” of Europe be left defenceless against nuclear weapons directed specifically against it. Anyone To men like Henry Kissinger and Ronald who gambles on “decoupling” the European Reagan, it all came as a pleasant surprise; and American continents would, in our view, the first socialist president of the French be calling into question . . . the maintenance Fifth Republic had proved a more stalwart of peace. I think—and I say—that this “decou- supporter of the Atlantic alliance than pling” is a danger in itself, . . . a danger which some of his conservative predecessors. But, weighs particularly on those European coun- then, for friends and foes alike, François tries which do not possess nuclear arms. Mitterrand had always been a puzzle. Far from being an authentic man of the people As British author and journalist Philip or a politician with a consistent ideological Short remarks in his exhaustively researched commitment to socialism, he had begun new biography of Mitterrand, certainly the life as a child of a conservative, affluent most comprehensive one in the English bourgeois family with deep Catholic and language, the much-revised speech “turned monarchist roots. An early dabbler in far- out to be worth waiting for”: right politics between the world wars, a fledgling journalist of flexible convictions Decades later, it is difficult to appreciate the on the eve of World War II, a minor impact of those few sentences. Mitterrand’s functionary in the Vichy regime headed argument was that the pacifists, by seeking to by the elderly Marshal Petain after France’s leave Europe defenceless, were inviting a new humiliating defeat by Hitler, a late-in-the- war in which non-nuclear powers like West day member of the French resistance as the

Reviews & Essays July/August 2014 89 In both public and private life, François Mitterrand was a man of quirks and contradictions, sometimes verging on the absurd.

fortunes of war began to shift—the only nent coup d’état,” and the manner in which de consistent thing about the young François Gaulle utilised them as an abuse of personal Mitterrand was his unflagging ambition power, he found, once in office himself, that and his unshakeable belief in a personal they fitted him like a glove, and in the decade destiny. and a half he was President opposed any at- Though an indifferent student—he was tempt to change them. They gave him greater held back a year while working for his powers over his own country than any other baccalaureate—he proved a quick study Western leader and, like his august predecessor, with a clever, wide-ranging mind and a he used them to the full. voracious appetite for history, literature and, in later life, women other than his Those of us who accompanied President wife. Although he would denounce the Reagan on his European trip in June 1982 “Republican Monarchy” of Charles de witnessed this firsthand. The rather musty Gaulle’s Fifth Republic, no one enjoyed the solemnities of an address to the House of pomp, power and perquisites of high office Lords in London, a drowsy visit with Pope more than François Mitterrand. He liked John Paul II in the gilded but cramped to think of himself as a refined, cultivated Vatican and the small-town, Rhenish man of the world in a field dominated charm of Bonn all were as nothing by vulgar mediocrities. To a considerable compared to the son et lumiére spectacle extent, he was. The personal physician who presided over by Mitterrand at Versailles. came to know him well in later life once Even his presidential news conference, described Mitterrand as a combination of complete with liveried flunkies whose “Machiavelli, Don Corleone, Casanova and white gloves held the microphones pointed the Little Prince.” at the press corps, was more evocative of French royalty than French republicanism, ore than anything else, however, he and he obviously enjoyed every moment M was a twentieth-century reincarna- of it. tion of Monsieur Jourdain, the titular Bour- But there was more than stagecraft to geois Gentilhomme of Molière’s celebrated Mitterrand’s mastery of his role. From time seventeenth-century comedy, a man intent to time, he managed to come up with a on assuming the airs and graces of a true witty put-down or bon mot that would grand seigneur. But unlike Monsieur Jour- have passed muster in the court of the Sun dain, who fails laughably in the attempt, King himself. For instance, there is his Mitterrand mastered the pose he aspired to. description of Margaret Thatcher, whom As Short points out: he found impressive as a politician and fascinating as a woman. The Iron Maiden, Not least of the ironies of Mitterrand’s rule he said, had “the eyes of Caligula and the was that, having in opposition denounced the mouth of Marilyn Monroe.” Or consider institutions of the Fifth Republic as a “perma- his thumbnail portrait of General Henri

90 The National Interest Reviews & Essays Giraud, whom he initially supported and secure interviews with a number of aging then abandoned as an alternative to Charles Mitterrand family members, friends and de Gaulle as French leader-in-exile during political sparring partners finally willing the German occupation: “He had a justified to speak candidly about a man some of reputation as a magnificent warrior . . . but them respected, some loved, some loathed, once you took away the heroic images . . . and almost all found intimidating—and his falsetto voice and tapering moustache, enigmatic—while he was alive. which seemed to be stuck on with glue, Part of the problem may have been gave him the quaint, almost unreal, look of deliberate. Mitterrand’s choice of historical a soldier out of an illustrated magazine from role model says a lot about his view of before 1914.” public affairs and human nature: Cardinal Nearly half a century later, Mitterrand Mazarin. Jules Mazarin was a seventeenth- still had the touch. Witness his deft century Italian adventurer who is better riposte to the elder President Bush’s rather known for his political intrigues than for rambling thoughts on the post–Cold War any positive achievements. Unlike Cardinal role of nato during a meeting at Key Largo Richelieu, a statesman of formidable vision in April 1990: whose leadership led to France supplanting Spain as Western Europe’s dominant land MITTERRAND: I’d like to know what we’re power, Mazarin is mainly remembered as really talking about. If the American leaders a venal opportunist who looted the royal would spell out what they mean by “the po- coffers and practiced nepotism on a grand litical role of nato” everything would be a lot scale. He was probably the lover of the easier . . . widowed Queen Anne, Louis XIII’s rather BUSH [struggling]: Well, in a political situation dim Spanish Habsburg consort, the mother that has changed, nato’s role will be different. of Louis XIV and regent during her son’s Not just military, but more political . . . nato minority. While Mazarin did manage to will have to change gear . . . to get us through keep the monarchy afloat through the civil the critical period. We don’t know who the unrest of Louis XIV’s childhood, he was enemy is anymore. also one of the main political irritants that MITTERRAND [silkily]: Yes, it’s a nuisance exacerbated the civic strife to begin with. not having an enemy. Above all, he was a glib survival artist with no moral or ethical core and no larger sense One of Short’s strengths is his ability to of purpose. draw on only recently accessible official Mitterrand so admired Mazarin that transcripts and accounts like the one above when his own longtime mistress insisted to show us what his subject actually had to on having a baby before it was too late, he say—if not what he was really thinking— named the resulting daughter Mazarine. As as events unfolded around him. Short Short remarks, “Much of what the cardinal also managed, just in the nick of time, to wrote in his Breviary for Politicians could

Reviews & Essays July/August 2014 91 be taken as a vade mecum for Mitterrand f Mitterrand had a blind spot, a policy himself,” as the following passage confirms: I area where his own ignorance left him prey to the “-isms” of others, it was eco- Be sparing with your gestures, walk with mea- nomics. He was a true economic illiterate. sured steps and maintain a posture at all times Between family allowances and the perks which is full of dignity . . . Each day . . . spend available to a member of the French govern- a moment studying how you should react to ing elite, he never needed to think much events which might befall you . . . Know that about money and therefore acquiesced to a how you will appear [to others] will be deter- pie-in-the-sky series of socialist entitlements mined by the way you have fashioned your in the early days of his presidency: workers inner self beforehand. Always keep in mind got a fifth week of paid vacation; the retire- these five precepts: Simulate; dissimulate; trust ment age was lowered from sixty-five to nobody; speak well of everyone; anticipate be- sixty; the workweek was reduced from forty fore you act . . . There is scant chance that to thirty-nine hours with no pay cut; the people will put a good complexion on what minimum wage and welfare entitlements you say or do. Rather they will twist it and were substantially increased; and “hundreds think the worst of you. of thousands of civil servants were recruit- ed.” Banks, insurance companies and key However, Short adds, the saying that industrial corporations were also national- fit Mitterrand best was one he attributed ized, and 130,000 illegal immigrants were to another corrupt seventeenth-century granted residency permits. French cleric, Cardinal de Retz: “If you set Intoxicated by the mood of the moment, aside ambiguity, it is always to your own Mitterrand himself would crow, “We’ve detriment.” In his later years, Short says, started the true rupture with capitalism. Mitterrand’s “secretiveness and mistrust Class struggle is not dead. It is going to grew more pronounced,” but have a second youth!” But youth is fleeting. When Mitterrand came to power in May his ambiguities had begun much earlier. In 1981, “the whole of the Western world was the 1940s Mitterrand was at Vichy and in the already in recession,” stricken with massive Resistance; in the 1950s he was elected to par- unemployment and runaway inflation. As liament by voters from both Left and Right. Short points out, “Pursuing expansion at His personal friends ranged from communists a time when the rest of the industrialized to those who, before the war, had supported world was committed to deflation, as fascist groups. Even at his most doctrinaire, as Mitterrand did in 1981 and the first half of head of the Socialist Party, he rejected ideologi- 1982, was economic madness.” cal constraints. He believed in social justice, he “Reagan was no economist either,” he said, which meant that he was on the Left. But concludes, “but at least he had the good he would not allow any else’s “-ism” to dictate sense to do what his advisers told him. to him what he should think. Mitterrand did not.” Actually, Reagan had

92 The National Interest Reviews & Essays majored in economics at Eureka College— against those occupying social, economic for whatever that was worth—but the larger or political positions above him. There point is that perhaps the biggest blunder are two striking examples from his early of Mitterrand’s presidency was the result life. His family’s wealth was based on a

Wikimedia Commons/Jacques Paillette. CC BY-SA 3.0. of one of the few times he allowed socialist vinegar distillery in the heart of cognac dogma to blind himself to economic country, which was a little like brewing reality. Today, the stagnant, stratified state beer in champagne territory: respectable of the French economy is still the largest, but not quite up to snuff socially. The most lingering debit on the balance sheet Mitterrands were also Catholic in an area of François Mitterrand’s fourteen-year where most of the traditional commercial presidency. elite had Protestant Huguenot roots. So, Why did he think and act the way he while the young François was relatively did? That unreconstructed eighteenth- affluent—dressing, dancing, and playing century Tory, Samuel Johnson, presciently golf and tennis like the local grandees— defined the Mitterrandian mind-set when socially he was on the outside looking in. he told Boswell that “your levellers wish Given his personal sense of real or imagined to level down as far as themselves; but they superiority, this had to rankle. cannot bear leveling up to themselves. They would all have some people under itterrand also professed a distaste them.” Convinced of his own superiority, M for the officer class, claiming—after Mitterrand never had much respect for the fact—that on the eve of World War II, the mass of “oppressed” mankind. He he had deliberately chosen to do his na- did, however, nurture a deep resentment tional service as an enlisted man rather than

Reviews & Essays July/August 2014 93 Mitterrand liked to think of himself as a refined, cultivated man of the world in a field dominated by vulgar mediocrities. To a considerable extent, he was.

mingle with the official elite. Actually, he towards Dead Man’s Hill. The weather was won- had done his best—insufficient, as it turned derful, and as though in tribute to the splendor out—to join the officer corps, entering a of that month of June . . . the assault troops preparatory course for officer cadets at the paused for a moment. Morot-Sir and I had only military college of Samur, originally set up to stretch out our hands to pick the wild straw- to train cavalry officers after the debacle berries that carpeted the hillside. Then a shell of the Franco-Prussian War. Short informs exploded above our heads . . . I was knocked out us that Mitterrand “failed ignominiously by the explosion. . . . because he botched a question about military theory.” As a result, Short adds, Mitterrand was even able to strike a “His vanity was wounded. Just as he always gallows-humor note when describing passed over in silence the year he had had to how, while he was being wheeled along repeat at the college in Angoulême, so now in a stretcher as part of a retreating crowd he put it about that he had decided not to of troops and refugees, Italian aircraft seek a commission, preferring to serve in appeared and machine-gunned the column. the ranks.” Everyone ran for cover, including the After being drafted, he rose to the grade orderly in charge of Mitterrand’s stretcher, of sergeant. He was wounded in action, decorated for bravery and escaped from a who left me with the comforting words, “Don’t German prison camp. His experience as a worry, I’ll be back!” I remained there, immo- noncommissioned officer and pow resulted bile, looking up at the sky, watching the planes in two of his few lifelong friendships based punching holes in the road with a rosary of on a footing of equality. Both were with bullets. The alert over, we resumed our wander- exceptionally able, “street smart” members ing. Everywhere we went, there were wounded of the working class. Two of Mitterrand’s . . . At Esnes-en-Argonne, surgeons were op- finer qualities—his ability to step back and erating in a cave, amputating arms and legs. I observe even life-or-death situations with wasn’t keen [on that], so we pressed on. calm objectivity, and a poetic strain in his nature that enabled him to view even trench It was his experience as a soldier and warfare with a poetic eye—are on display in then as a pow that provided Mitterrand his account of the day he was wounded by with a base on which to build a political German artillery fire near Verdun: career. As a Vichy functionary dealing with the repatriation of French pows, he was I was sleeping in a shell-hole . . . Suddenly at able to use his arguably collaborationist 5 a.m., machine-guns and artillery opened fire position to become a covert member of the with a long barrage aimed in our direction . . . Resistance with a potential constituency The Germans marched towards us, singing . . . of thousands of combat veterans behind Our commander [Edouard Morot-Sir, a philoso- him. It paid off, and continued to do so phy professor in civilian life] ordered us to move under the fragmented Fourth Republic,

94 The National Interest Reviews & Essays a demoralized, ramshackle parliamentary their own agenda—including showing up system with short-lived governments François Mitterrand. presiding over a destitute country For most politicians, that would have recovering from an alien occupation and been the end. Not for Mitterrand. Slowly simultaneously losing most of its overseas but surely he started anew, climbing the colonies. There were ups and downs, but Mitterrand, by carefully hedging his bets and cultivating the right leaders, benefited from what might be called political “bracket creep,” occupying numerous cabinet posts in transient governments while biding his time. Gradually, however, his star began to wane. From being one of the bright, promising young men to emerge from the Resistance, he morphed into a middle-aged professional politician in a rut. By 1959, Wikimedia Commons/BrokenSphere. CC BY-SA 3.0. with Charles de Gaulle freshly installed as an empowered president under greasy pole to leadership of what remained a new constitution, the game of political of the French Left. Reorganizing and musical chairs was over, especially for energizing it, he led it in several losing a man increasingly identifying himself elections—but with gradually improving with the Left. This led to what can only showings—until he finally came to power be described as a grotesque episode. as the first socialist president of the Fifth Mitterrand became involved in a complex Republic. scandal that has never been fully explained: the “Observatory Affair,” so called because t this point le bourgeois gentilhomme the staged shooting occurred beside the A finally came into his own, playing a seventeenth-century observatory erected by twentieth-century role in French politics that Louis XIV near the Luxembourg Gardens. might be compared to that of Louis Philippe This much, however, is clear: Mitterrand in the nineteenth century. Louis Philippe was party to a faked, prearranged was an intelligent but not particularly char- assassination attempt designed to boost his ismatic member of a junior branch of the popularity. It backfired because some of French royal family. When the last legitimist the dubious characters who set it up had Bourbon king, Charles X, was sent packing

Reviews & Essays July/August 2014 95 by the Parisian mob in 1830, he became be remembered, if not as a great statesman, the “Citizen King,” surviving for eighteen then at least as the embodiment of a years by juggling ministries, manipulating venerable French tradition. He was a leader public opinion and playing the role of a both devious and dignified who—having superior but benevolent “first citizen.” The retired from public office to die quietly and revolutionary fervor that swept Europe in with courage from terminal cancer—would 1848 brought an end to his experiment in be attended at his graveside by both his bourgeois monarchy, but it had been a good wife and legitimate sons and his mistress show while it lasted. Like Mitterrand’s four- and illegitimate daughter; a man who was teen years in office, however, Louis Philippe’s flagrantly unfaithful to his lifelong spouse reign had been more of an exercise in per- but, for many years, tolerated her own sonal political survival than a serious attempt affair with a live-in lover considerably her at productive, principled governance. junior who often made a third party at their What Mitterrand rather ungraciously said breakfast table. of Charles de Gaulle’s immediate successor, If it hadn’t all happened in real life it Georges Pompidou, could just as easily would have made for an excellent, if not have been applied to Louis Philippe or entirely plausible, Feydeau farce. But it Mitterrand himself: “What will he have did happen, and the twisted, tragicomic left as a memory of his time? Nothing or so tale of a man who represented many of little.” the contradictions—and some of the And yet there is something so ideals—of the problematic nation he led quintessentially bourgeois French about has now been chronicled with insight and François Mitterrand that one hopes he will exactitude by Short. n

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