History repeating itself

by: Paul Rosenberg

Mon Jan 31, 2011 at 10:30

A succinct account of this, "Team B: The trillion-dollar experiment" by Anne Hessing Cahn, was published in the April 1993 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.  Cahn published a book-length account five years later, Killing Detente: The Right Attacks the CIA.  I mention this for three reasons.  First, because the neocon's were essentially spinning a fantasy out of whole cloth, openly disdaining facts:

Team B accused the CIA of consistently underestimating the "intensity, scope, and implicit threat" posed by the Soviet Union by relying on technical or "hard" data rather than "contemplat[ing] Soviet strategic objectives in terms of the Soviet conception of 'strategy' as well as in light of Soviet history, the structure of Soviet society, and the pronouncements of Soviet leaders."

This was directly parallel to how the neocons spun 9/11, not as a lucky shot by a marginal group of criminal terrorists who got lucky in large part due to Bush Jr.'s ineptitude and knee-jerk antipathy to anything associated with Bill Clinton, but as a signal of a new existential threat to the security of America.

Second, just as the "Team B" neocon fantasy deeply exacerbated what was actually an increasingly manageable threat, so, too, the "Great War on Terror" neocon fantasy did exactly the same thing with Al Qaeda.

Third, just as the "Team B" neocon fantasy collapsed roughly a decade later with a completely unexpected and unforseen wave of democratic revolution from below, something remarkably similar is happening in the Arab world today.  The two cycles of historical folly differ in many respects that should not be overlooked or forced into pre-conceived forms to make for a neater narrative/theory.  The similarities that do exist are striking enough on their own not to need any gussying up.

But my point here is not to delve deep into comparative narrative. Rather, I want to use it as a backdrop for better grasping what is unfolding right before us in Egypt today....

One major thing the neocons in and around "Team B" did not grasp was the tremendous soft power of Western democratic ideals, and the vibrant cultural consequences thereof.  This harkens back to a fundamental clevage in controlling models of what the Cold War was all about, which I have revisted on several occassions, and which was masterfully explained by Efstathios T. Fakiolas in "Kennan's Long Telegram and NSC-68: A Comparative Analysis," East European Quarterly, Vol. 31, no. 4, January 1998.  

Fakiolas described two models, both within the realist foreign policy tradition--the first embraced by Paul Nitze in the long-secret NSC-68, the second embraced by George Kennan in the Long Telegram:

On running the risk of oversimplification, we can make two basic classifications: the billiard ball perspective and the tectonic plates model.... The principal argument of the billiard ball perspective is that the international system is composed solely of egoistic sovereign states interested in maximizing their relative power capabilities at the expense of others; world politics is a "zero-sum" game in which national security conceived of in military and territorial terms is the one and only states' national objective. On the other hand, the main assertion of the tectonic plates model is that even though states are the most important protagonists in world politics, there exist many other non-state actors; the distribution of power determines the outcomes in many fields of international system to the extent that the interaction of states structures varying patterns of behavior; for the world is not "zero-sum," and the opportunity for mutual cooperation is most often present.

It's worth noting that these models echo the basic conceptions of orthodox neoclassical "free market" economics (the billiard-ball model, embraced by Nitze) and of Keyensian, Minskyian and various other macro-economic and other hetereodoxies (the tectonic plates model, embraced by Kennan).   The key difference between these models for the current discussion is this: Kennan recognized that Western society's greatest strengths were cultural and political, and that the greatest of these, at least potentially, was our capacity for self-correction by taking Soviet criticisms non-defensively as a guide to self-perfection.  Fakiolas wrote:

The following lines, though drawn from a subsequent piece of work by Kennan, highlights more persuasively this argument: "it is not Russian military power which is threatening us, it is Russian political power [...], the threat lay in the terrible truths which the Russians have discovered about the vulnerability of liberal democratic society [...], it is not entirely a military threat, I doubt that it can be effectively met entirely by military means."

And even more pointedly, for current purposes, in the "Long Telegram" Kennan himself wrote this concluding comment item:

(3) Much depends on health and vigor of our own society. World communism is like malignant parasite which feeds only on diseased tissue. This is point at which domestic and foreign policies meets Every courageous and incisive measure to solve internal problems of our own society, to improve self-confidence, discipline, morale and community spirit of our own people, is a diplomatic victory over Moscow worth a thousand diplomatic notes and joint communiqués. If we cannot abandon fatalism and indifference in face of deficiencies of our own society, Moscow will profit--Moscow cannot help profiting by them in its foreign policies.

Certainly, this perspective played a key role in guiding national elites to seek a gradual end to segregation.  It was simply impossible, they realized, for the US to compete with the Soviet Union in the Third World so long as it practiced such blatant white supremacy at home.

And yet, Kennan's perspective was repeatedly eclipsed by Nitze's.  As I wrote before, we fought Nitze's Cold War, but won Kennan's--almost in spite of ourselves, I should have added. What I did say in November 2007 (Where's Obama? Questioning v Reinforcing (Foreign Policy) CW #3 (Political Duality of Rep v Dem 6c))  was this:

It's my own observation, based on this analysis, that we fought Nitze's Cold War, but we won Kennan's.  It was not, in the end, our military strength that defeated the Soviet Union, it was the appeal of our culture of openness and freedom.  The history of Eastern European resistance movements, especially in Checkoslavakia and Poland, makes this abundantly clear.  Through their influence on dissident culture, Frank Zappa and Lou Reed did more to win the Cold War than any division of tanks ever did-or even a wing of nuclear armed B-52 bombers.

Soft Power II: The Delusuinal Long War & Its Possible End

As then, so today as well.  An unanticpated democratic revolution from below is sweeping across an entire region of the world. But it's not Frank Zappa and Lou Reed so much as it's a combination of the Internet, WikiLeaks and Al Jazeera.  Western culture has certainly permeated the Arab world, producing it's own vibrant forms of pop culture, as well as stimulating the articulation of distinctly Arab and Muslim forms of liberal cultural movements--such as a feminism that traces itself back to the origins of Islam.  It has helped nurture a moderate, modern form of Islamic cutlure that ought to be our most valuable ally in fighting jihadist terrorism, but we have foolishly and ignorantly scorned and denied it instead, both at home and abroad.

Yet, that cultural content did not reach a critical mass point until it was properly facilitated by the democratic forms of (1) social media on the Internet, empowing citizen-centered democracy; (2) Al Jazeera, embodying an Enlightenment model of political discourse, even as American media has almost entirely abandoned it, and (3) WikiLeaks, adding to the delegitimization of elite rule, and the facade of top-down pseudo-democracy.

While the specific WikiLeaks revelations relative to Tunisia and Egypt have come somewhat late in the revolutionary processes, the general revelations--almost entirely suppressed here in the US--have elsewhere served to re-sow seeds of skepticism from the Bush era. And when cables specific to those struggles have been released, they have only strengthened the resolve of growing movements. Facebook, Twitter and their own local blogosheres have proven invaluable for the rapid evolution of democracy movements, as well as the longer periods of far less premeditated preparation.  The Egyptian government shut-down of the Internet is all the proof we need of how important it has been.  The same, of course, can be said of their belated closing of Al Jazeera's Cairo bureau on Sunday.

The last point was underscoredby Reuters' reporter Andrew Hammond in his story, "Egypt's Al Jazeera bans shows channel's key role":

Egypt's decision on Sunday to close the offices of Al Jazeera illustrates the leading role the Arabic broadcaster has taken in reporting unprecedented popular revolts against Arab rulers.

Egypt has often harassed the Qatar-based channel since it began in 1996, setting off a revolution in Arab media in the face of state-controlled information, but it had never before tried to shut down its operations completely.

But the channel led the coverage of a Tunisian uprising when it began in late December and toppled Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali on Jan. 14, even though it was already banned from the North African country.

Then, sensing that Tunisia's example would set off copycat movements elsewhere, the channel charted mobilisation in Egypt that led to huge protests in the past week demanding the end of President Hosni Mubarak's rule.

"Al Jazeera saw the gravity of the situation," said Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institute in Doha, referring to the two revolts. "They saw it was going to be big before other people did and that it would stand as one of the historic moments in Arab history."

Arab governments have often closed the offices of the channel, which helped put tiny Gulf state Qatar on the map and boosted its status as a leader of regional diplomacy.

.... Emad Gad of the Al Ahram Strategic and Political Studies Centre said the effort to smother Al Jazeera was the last effort of a dying authoritarian system to control events in the traditional heavy-handed manner.

He cited the government's move to completely shut off the Internet and mobile phone lines on Friday in an effort to stop people gathering.

"Is cutting the Internet or the mobile network in 2011 a solution? This is equivalent to that. It's the behaviour of a dictatorial state breathing its last," Gad said.

Social media and mobile phone technology have also been cited as playing a major role in the street mobilisations of the past month, which touched Yemen and Jordan too.

While Al Jazeera has been so successfully demonized in America that it's virtually impossible to find on cable systems, it is available online, and it has proven utterly invaluable these past few days. Even before the weekend Alex Pareene wrote in Salon's "War Room":

Al Jazeera's Egypt coverage embarrasses U.S. cable news channels
The English-language version of the Arab network is making the failures of cheap American cable "news" obvious

By Alex Pareene

There is a curfew in effect in Egypt, but thousands of protesters remain in the streets in Cairo, Suez, Alexandria and across the rest of the country. President Hosni Mubarak is expected to speak soon. Police might've fired tear gas at praying demonstrators. And Fox reported on how ICE arrested some immigrant sex offenders in Virginia.

Fox, CNN and MSNBC are all acquitting themselves better than they did the day Tunisia's government collapsed. All of them have reporters in Cairo, and are airing footage of the demonstrations on the streets. But none of them are reporting on the situation as compellingly as Al Jazeera English, which has reporters across the country.

And if you're in the United States, you can probably only see Al Jazeera English online. If you're watching Al Jazeera, you're seeing uninterrupted live video of the demonstrations, along with reporting from people actually on the scene, and not "analysis" from people in a studio. The cops were threatening to knock down the door of one of its reporters minutes ago. Fox has moved on to anchor babies. CNN reports that the ruling party building is on fire, but Al Jazeera is showing the fire live.

CNN, to its credit, is using coverage from the grown-ups at CNN International. MSNBC had Dan Senor (council on foreign relations) reporting from Davos. Yes, liberal MSNBC was getting live analysis from a neoconservative former spokesperson for the occupying U.S. government in Iraq. Fox just had former U.N. Ambassador and ultra-hawk John Bolton on to warn us about the Muslim Brotherhood. Al Jazeera had an opposition party leader on the phone.

All three of the major U.S. cable news networks are prefacing breaking news on their chyrons with the words "Al-Jazeera reports." Al Jazeera was criticized for being reluctant to cover the Egyptian protests as zealously as it covered Tunisia -- and I can't speak to that, because I obviously can't watch the Arab-language version of the channel -- but its English-language network is, today, mandatory viewing for anyone interested in the world-changing events currently happening in Egypt. The American networks barely qualify as an interesting supplement.

Of course, you don't need anyone to tell you this if you've been watching Al Jazeera yourself.  The difference between its coverage and any American media is simply embarrsing.  A good college radio station could do better than the American offerings.  And Al Jazeera is considerably better than a good college radio station.

All of this is to say that, yes, history is repeating itself.  The impact of our democratic culture--which we ourselves don't just take for granted, but openly scorn--is reverberating across the world, bringing our values vibrantly alive in ways that our cynical political leadership cannot possibly comprehend as it unfolds--much less see coming in advance.  Of course democracy for them will mean something different than it does for us.  It wouldn't be democracy if it didn't.  And of course the coming of democracy isn't the solution of all our problems--it's only the foundation of beginning to have a chance to actually address them in a serious way, and maybe, just maybe start to solve them.

But the really big question for Americans today is whether we will even be anywhere close to the new game, much less be in it.  Or will we simply sink back into the parochial darkness of Europe in the Middle Ages, a backwards, superstitious, inward-looking society not even worthy of being called a "civilization"?

We're more than halfway there already.