Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

Just a textual note: Is there a paragraph missing between the following two paragraphs? I kept waiting for some interesting insights from your German Christian Democratic relative...

"My sister spent some time last weekend with one of our relatives by marriage--a man whose family successively fled communism in Russia and then communism in Silesia to settle in West Germany. A former Bundestag member (Christian Democrat): one of the most staunch allies of the United States in western Europe, and one of the Europeans most willing to cut us extra slack in the face of our stupidities. In the top 5% of the European establishment as far as commitment to the Western Alliance with the United States is concerned.

The Bush administration has casually trashed our alliances of fifty years. This is a big problem--repairing the damage done to the Western Alliance is a big foreign-policy task over the next four years. Nobody should be in the business of pretending that it hasn't happened--not even those searching hard for specious reasons to vote for George W. Bush."

Is it just me or is does it seem that multilateralism is limited by the proclamation that we are interested in maintaining a hegemony? The interests of de Gaulleist France, for example, are primarily to mitigate US power. They do this not through defence spending of their own, but through glorious multilateral institutions.

I can understand arguing that we shouldn't want that much military power, and that we should encourage our allies to pick up the slack when we reduce our forces. This is surrendering the de Gaulleist point and asking the French, "Okay, now what?"

I can also understand the argument that that much projectable power is desirable, and that we want it precisely for those situations in which we can't secure committments from our allies.

What I don't understand is the argument that we should maintain large force projection capabilities and never use them unless those militarily incapable of doing anything themselves give us the green light. It is certainly right to seek world support, but lets not kid ourselves about what this means. It is a nice Kerry campaign thought to imagine that if only someone as charming as he had shown 'proper respect for international institutions', there would be great global support for toppling Saddam. Conveniently, the argument shifts at this point. I know, that was the wrong fight, right? Okay, how about Kim Jong Il? We very diplomatically use carrot and stick on N Korea, and he cheats on the deal -again. There is a moment when we must assert credible military threat. What does international support mean here? Something, perhaps, but there just isn't that much for them to offer. The problem comes up at any time we decide to employ ground troops.

Besides, countries will act in their own interests, and if those interests include showing the world that you can chain the US military without having to spend a dime, we will invariably come to an impasse.

There are two sources of this dispute - aside from the debate over Bush's foreign policy.

First, public commentators who discuss grand strategy never get around to telling us what they mean by the term. TV pundits really love the sound of it, but are content to translate grand strategy as "big strategy."

In the early 1980s Barry Posen and Steven Walt defined grand strategy as a "political-military means-ends chain." This somewhat awkward phrase highlighted the central idea of grand strategy: the achievement of national security goals by leveraging all available national resources. The quality of grand strategy rested on the degree to which ends were calibrated with means.

The Bush Administration clearly has big goals: (1) preventing terrorist attacks; (2) preventing WMD proliferation; (3) spreading democracy; and (4) staying a step ahead of any possible peer competitor. But grand objectives are not the same as grand strategy, and the Administration has not connected the availabe means to the desired ends. Bush's advocates confuse clarity with strategy.

Second, everyone loves Gaddis. And Gaddis also understands grand strategy. But Gaddis (sorta) admires the Bush doctrine. Which leaves us all scratching our heads. He is often cited without criticism, leading to needless pissing matches about whether Bush is unilateral, or multilateral, or what. Time to be more critical of Gaddis before the battle of citations gets out of hand.

Once again Giblets tackles Drezner.................www.fafblog.blogspot.com

I think it's time to stop referring to the "Bush doctrine" and the "Bush administration," because the man called "Bush" doesn't think and doesn't administer. We should refer, instead, to the "Cheney doctrine" and the "Cheney administration". Awkward and inconvenient as this may feel, it at least co-ordinates the deeds of an administration with the words and actions of an person. (We might, for the sake of convenience, refer to a "Cheney-Bush administration", but not to a "Bush-Cheney administration". )

A solution begins, first, with the recognition that the community that came into existence after the Second World War is endangered both from within and from without. If it is to survive, its core values must be collectively reaffirmed; if it is to survive, new norms and rules must be designed multilaterally, including those allowing for the collective and pre-emptive use of force; if it is to survive, the hegemonic role of the United States must be relegitimized. But the United States cannot presume to give voice to the community’s values if it ignores its rules; nor can it expect the community to defer to its power if it threatens the interests of its members

The problem here existed before Bush. The problem is that the Europe powers want to have the power to manage the military force of the United States. By 'manage' I mean that they want to be able to direct where the United States uses its enormous military power and where it does not. They do not want to pay for that military power with money or the lives of their own citizens. But they want the benefit of that military power. This problem was not created by Bush. He exposes the problem, but it existed before him. Pretending he is the problem isn't going to convince most Americans that Europe should have an equal say in military matters when their contribution is paltry.

It's been dividing its own moral multipliers through its tendency to behave, on an array of multilateral issues ranging from the Kyoto Protocol to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to the International Criminal Court, like a sullen, pouting, oblivious, and overmuscled teenager.

I hate to say it again, but these problems existed before Bush. Clinton knew that Kyoto wasn't going anywhere, Clinton knew that the ICC wasn't going to be good for the US. The difference is that he played along as if they were ever going to work out. Funny that the international community prefers the president who was playing them for fools.

worth noting: a series of bilateral agreements != a multilateral agreement.

"The problem here existed before Bush. The problem is that the Europe powers want to have the power to manage the military force of the United States. By 'manage' I mean that they want to be able to direct where the United States uses its enormous military power and where it does not. They do not want to pay for that military power with money or the lives of their own citizens. But they want the benefit of that military power. This problem was not created by Bush. He exposes the problem, but it existed before him. Pretending he is the problem isn't going to convince most Americans that Europe should have an equal say in military matters when their contribution is paltry."

This may or may not be true overall, but it certainly wasn't the case in the Kosovo operation. The US paid 22% of the aggregate costs of the operation, and the most dangerous of the five NATO patrol sectors was manned by French troops.

Jason Ligon alluded to it, but it is true that U.S. Allies have been reducing their military capabilities at a rather alarming rate since the end of the Cold War. While the U.S. has reduced force levels since the fall of the Berlin Wall, combat power and force projection capabilities have actually increased rather substantially due to further investments in technology (e.g., steath), precision weapons (e.g., GPS-guided bombs and cruise missiles), fighter aircraft (e.g., F/A-18D/E/F), long-range bombers (e.g., B-2), large transport aircraft (e.g., C-17), and naval combatants (e.g., several nuclear-powered carriers launched). Moreover, the U.S. has even more advanced capabilities waiting in the wings (e.g., Joint Strike Fighter, F-22, V-22, etc).

There are many metrics one could use to prove this; however, except for a very low tech mission that does not involve force projection beyond the European continent (e.g., peacekeeping in Bosnia), U.S. Allies aren't worth a whole lot from a war fighting perspective. The British do have some magnificiantly trained ground forces, but the British Army is substantially smaller than the U.S. Marine Corps! Our Canadian friends are great for offering up small peacekeeping contingents, but as a fighting force they are just about out of the business. Germany, which reduced its forces considerably at the end of the Cold War, is hard pressed to maintain 10,000 troops in Bosnia and maybe 1,500 in Afghanistan, provided the Russians will rent them transport aircraft.

So one wonders just what military capabilities U.S. Allies can bring to the table in the future assuming they even want to be at the table? They may be more trouble than they're worth save for a small British ground force.

Drezner also doesn't seem to have read that infamous Chomskyite, Fukuyama. Unipolar, unilateral, it's all the same:

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/08/the_neoconserva.html#comments

Jason,

There is a long-standing "just war" argument according to which the US has the right to defend itself from attack without so much as a "hope ya don't mind" to the rest of the world. In the most recent instance, though, there was no evidence of a threat to the US. In that case, "with your permission" to the UN seems entirely reasonable. Why should the US be able to go to war with whomever we please? There is the usual list of answers, but when we are not directly threatened, the risk that we will make up reasons and attack when we ought not has to be considered. Limits placed by the joint decisions of many nations on the actions of strong nations seems a reasonable step.

Damn you Americans are warlike and aggressive!

Of course most (if not all) European states have little capabilities to project force outside of Europe! Why should they as their military forces are primarily meant for defense and not attack?

(Sorry about the anonymous post...)

The Bush strategy will work to a point. It depends on how much money and lives the US willing to put on the line to be the Microsoft of world politics. If we don't mind spending hundreds of billions of dollars to destroy Iraq and kill thousands of people in the process, then we can do it George's way. That there might be a better way that would benefit more people and be less costly to the US should be the essense of the political debate.

Juan Cole:

Najaf is a source of wealth through the pilgrim trade and prestige because ownership of the shrine of Ali bestows honor. The Allawi government and the US Defense Department seem to have decided that Muqtada should not be allowed to control it.

But I have to say, it does seem to me that there were more pressing problems in Iraq, and that the dynamics of Najaf were not at a crisis point. I think the attack by the Americans is elective.

It is also among the most stupid political moves any military has ever made. The War on Terror requires winning hearts and minds. The attack on Najaf has made all the Shiites in the world furious at the U.S. It doesn't matter whether that is fair or not, it is the way it is. And it is highly undesirable, and our grandchildren may be living with the effects of it.

The problem is that the Europe powers want to have the power to manage the military force of the United States. By 'manage' I mean that they want to be able to direct where the United States uses its enormous military power and where it does not. They do not want to pay for that military power with money or the lives of their own citizens. But they want the benefit of that military power.

This is not a problem. This is a highly desirable state of affairs for the US. This is a state of affairs the US has actively tried to encourage for the past 50 years.

The opposite state of affairs - that a number of big economic and technological players decide that the US is neither to be trusted nor relied on - is an expensive, unmanageable, and unpredictable problem. Europeans are not genetically immune to arrogance or jingoism, and an EU militarily on a rough par with the US will have more incentive, not less, to act in its own selfish hegemonic interests, than it does now.

"Of course most (if not all) European states have little capabilities to project force outside of Europe!"

I simply wouldn't say so of France and the United Kingdom. It is the American military might which is the historical "anomaly" here. But it's not clear to me whether it's in Europe's interest to race with the US on military spending. I would just want, for everyone's sake, the EU to succeed in building up its dreamed rapid intervention forces that could pinpointedly fight along the US in the (real) war on terror and elsewhere for humanitarian purposes. As for occupation and peace-building, European forces seem entirely adequate to me.

"Is it just me or is does it seem that multilateralism is limited by the proclamation that we are interested in maintaining a hegemony? The interests of de Gaulleist France, for example, are primarily to mitigate US power. They do this not through defence spending of their own, but through glorious multilateral institutions."

The purpose of this obsession with the French is to divert the attention away from the fact that most of the rest of the world was against the war in Iraq. And, surprise!, the rest of the world seems to have made the better choice.

Since when has France been this universal vilain in the US? I would expect some memories from and perhaps, let's dream, some thankfulness for France's participation in Gulf War I. But no, of course not. A country is labelled anti-American if it does not aggree to every *single* American military initiative, however insane and self-defeating.

The Spaniards now know something about that. They were one of the few to accept to be taken for a ride in Iraq, and as soon as they went home, they were insulted with all the same names as the French. A decent country would have said something like this instead: "We regret your decision, but we thank you for having walked with us so far. We shall not forget."

P.S. As for France's decision, I am grateful that Islamists cannot as of today characterize the West to be united in a new global cruisade against Muslims. Imagine if every Christian country had joined the coalition... What a boost for terrorist recruitment.

The reason France understands this is that 10-15% of its population is Muslim and / or of Arab origin. And like it or not, France has some credibility with the Muslim world, contrary to the United States (if the US had any left after the invasion of Iraq, W's endorsement of Sharon's settlement policies terminated it.) This credibility may very well come handy (if it's not already been) in the global fight against terrorism - the real one. You know, the war that every single European was ready to join the US for, in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks.

kharris:

I confess that the question, "Why should the US be able to go to war with whomever we please?" strikes me as odd. What is the yardstick here for measuring 'should'? We should go to war if it is in our national security interests to do so, and if the threat mitigation that WE BELIEVE will result from the war outweighs the terrible costs of wars in general and this one in particular. We pay for a military precisely so we can make that judgement. A war that includes a damaged relationship with allies has a cost that other wars might not. By all means, lets include those costs in our analysis.

What I am saying is that we need to be realistic about measuring the magnitude of the cost of damaged relations by trying to figure out what the best case scenario might be even if they agree with us. It seems to me that the flavor of campaign rhetoric makes those costs seem to dwarf all other concerns, and I just don't think that is the case. (BTW: I hope Brad starts talking a bit less politically charged after the election. Please? Your take on macro is great, but the election has made this nondistinguishable from straight DNC content for a while now.)

Oldeuropean:

The Maginot Line as a theory of defence has been proven largely ineffective since the advent of maneuver warfare, nevermind the occasional desire to prevent a rogue state from going nuclear. Defence is offense in the modern strategic picture. Further, it is worth noting that the only force backing any UN mandate is projectable power. There is no enforcability without it.

There's got to be some middle ground between retreating behind a Maginot line and the desire to be able to project power all over the globe...

Jean Philippe:

"The purpose of this obsession with the French is to divert the attention away from the fact that most of the rest of the world was against the war in Iraq."

Not really. It is because France was the most vocal opponent of our traditional allies. I am not one who holds that France is a great villain (there are certainly those who do), but I do see that there are differing interests at play. I am asking what we should be doing when we disagree. My answer is that multilateralism is not a weighty to me in a realistic view of what international relations actually looks like.

We don't know if France made the better decision, and, here is the kicker, France may have made the right decision FOR FRANCE. We should not be pretending that any country involved in international affairs is Mother Theresa-like in their motives. The question of the day is, should France's acting in her interests in and of itself prevented the deployment of US forces?

Just out of curiosity, what is your take on Chiraq's offer to support the US if we didn't seek another UN resolution? What would this support have actually meant?

Jason Ligon wrote:
"We should go to war if it is in our national security interests to do so, and if the threat mitigation that WE BELIEVE will result from the war outweighs the terrible costs of wars in general and this one in particular."

"We" is a misplaced pronoun here. "You" don't get to decide if the US goes to war. The President of the US does. The question then becomes, to what extent should the executive have the power and the resources to wage unlimited war, and to what extent should independent oversight on his activities reach?

Unless one is an afficionado of wars in general, or unless you believe that the adage "power corrupts" is irrelevant when designing a political system, it helps when considering this to imagine that the president in question is a particularly incompetent specimen from a political party you loathe.

Elliott:

Er, I don't recall saying anything about approving of allowing the executive to wage unlimited wars. I was only talking about the limits of multilaterlaism for any 'we' you choose to discuss.

Did I mention that rabid antibushism seems to distort messages around here? I'm not voting for the guy. I'm sitting at home and crying for lack of a real small government candidate that is worth a crap.

I don't see the point, Jason. Unilaterism is and has always been an option. What the US should do is carefully weight the costs of going down that road with the associated benefits. Gulf War II was not the right time to go unilateral. Benefits, for those with a tiny bit of foresight, were clearly few and, in the context of the real war on terror, risks and costs were many.

Would there be circumstances where, although it would be good for the US to have France by it side and would the war in question make sense in cost-benefit kind of way, France would not join the US? Perhaps, perhaps not. All I can tell you is that France is NOT hellbent on containing the US. It has such a tendency but it has many other concerns and tendencies, such as feelings of friendship and respect towards the US, and thankfulness for the Great Generation's scarifices in World War II. Overall, I believe that with proper diplomacy, the US will get France by its side whenever the US contemplates a "reasonable" war, meaning a war that can reasonably be sold as profitable for the West.

In some sense, the refusal by France, China and Russia and pretty much everyone else but the Brittish poodle, to rubber-stamp Gulf War II with international legitimacy is what will make future endorsements legitimate. Let's not be schizo here: if all the UN and US allies are good for is to be America's faithful poodles, then the concept of international legitimacy becomes void and useless. At that point, you can still perhaps fool part of the domestic American electorate, but the rest of the world will see right through it, at least as long as Rupert Murdock does not own all media in all countries...

If you're trying to argue that there is a cost to multiralism, well of course there is. But it seems to me that in most cases, it's worth it, if not on the spot, but in terms of geopolical capital than can later be spent on America's own perceived priorities. In other words, no geopolitical capital, no geopolitical party. And this is what the Bushies are trying to deny. They want to sell the American electorate the hyper-macho delusion that geopolitical capital with the UN and allies is not worth beeing accumulated for we are - YEEEEEAAAAAAH! - stronger than life. And our allies have very very small military penises - HAHAHAHA! Haven't we been reminded of a few things lately? Or are we doomed to repeat this Iraqi debacle?

Jean-Philippe:

International legitimacy is not, IMHO, a meaningful concept. Syria, legtimized by an international body, gets to tell us how to monitor our human rights. Oh, goody.

All rule making bodies of sufficient size make pronouncements in a process like the making of sausage. Legitimacy is nothing more than the represented population's willingness to be forced by those pronouncements. There are many reasons this willingness must come about, but it is fundamentally about the acceptance of a power relationship.

International legitimacy does not arise out of the clown school that the UN has become, it arises out of the ability to enforce a mandate. Absent the US military, the answer to every UN proclamation is, "So what?"

Legitimacy is ONLY employed as a concept by a country when the body of enforcement (the US) does not agree with the UN, and that country agrees with the UN. Suddenly, after decades of laughing at UN mandates and proclamations, one becomes very concerned about the legitimacy of actions not sanctioned by the same body.

"International legitimacy does not arise out of the clown school that the UN has become, it arises out of the ability to enforce a mandate. Absent the US military, the answer to every UN proclamation is, "So what?"

The UN has trouble enforcing mandates because, for most of its history, it had no armed troops of its own. This was due to Cold War concerns: neither the US nor the USSR wanted a UN force with real teeth, because that would encroach on their own gamesmanship.

Witness what happened in Bosnia/Kosovo and E. Timor: UN mandates of safe havens were worse than useless because the UN couldn't actually protect the safe havens.

"UN armed actions" depend on member nations contributing their own troops; there is still no UN army per se. When you only have one really pre-eminent military power (ie, the US) any meaningful UN action will depend on the US wanting to play a role by contributing forces. This gives the US veto power over UN mandates, simply by refusing to contribute those forces.

No country that I'm aware of wants to let the UN raise and keep its own armies. There are a lot of reasons for this, from the eternal fear of losing national sovereignty, to who will be responsible for funding and commanding such an army.

If we really want the UN to be able to enforce its own mandates, it needs its own standing armies. And that just isn't going to happen. So its always going to be in the position of having responsibility but little authority. If that means the UN is a "clown show," it's because the member nations want it that way.

When Kerry talks about bringing in the world community to deal with terrorism, he isn't talking about giving the dreaded French veto power over US foreign policy. He's trying to reconcile the conflict between what we demand of the UN and the way we've arranged matters so that the UN can't possibly meet those demands.

I might also point out that Bush/Cheney-style unilateralism only "works" for as long as the US does have an overwhelming military superiority. How long will we have that? I don't see it lasting more than another 20 years, maximum -- and I base that on inevitable demographic shifts (aging population + declining birth rate). I'm not even trying to factor in the demoralizing effect Iraq has had on our armed forces, or the financial consequences of a superheated defense budget. Those can be argued; the demographic shift can't.

So what happens to our doctrine of unilateralism when we lose our overwhelming edge? What are going to be the mid-term effects of treating our allies as if they're dispensible, and world opinion as if it's irrelevant?

Same question as the very first commenter, David Ross --

There must be a missing paragraph in this post...I really wanted to hear what the pro-US CD in-law had to say.

"When Kerry talks about bringing in the world community to deal with terrorism, he isn't talking about giving the dreaded French veto power over US foreign policy. He's trying to reconcile the conflict between what we demand of the UN and the way we've arranged matters so that the UN can't possibly meet those demands."

How? I don't really understand what he is proposing to do along these lines, he just keeps saying that everyone would be more involved, even in the Iraq war, which he would still fight.

I also submit that you overlook another possibility for the UN. Members besides the US could increase force projection capabilities and offer them up for UN missions. As it stands, if you have to cross the ocean and put boots on the ground, if you need air dominance in such a region and if you need any logistics at all, there is only one place you can go.

Unilateralism is just a statement that we are willing to go it alone, it is not expressing a preference for doing so. If we don't have overwhelming military power, clearly we won't have that option in some cases any longer.

"He's trying to reconcile the conflict between what we demand of the UN and the way we've arranged matters so that the UN can't possibly meet those demands."

What does that mean? Did France and Germany and Russia secretly want to keep Saddam in check despite their public intentions to remove sanctions and not have inspections?

Would the UN act in the Sudan if only the US wasn't pushing them to act? What do you mean?

Ciel wrote:

"I might also point out that Bush/Cheney-style unilateralism only "works" for as long as the US does have an overwhelming military superiority. How long will we have that? I don't see it lasting more than another 20 years, maximum -- and I base that on inevitable demographic shifts (aging population + declining birth rate). I'm not even trying to factor in the demoralizing effect Iraq has had on our armed forces, or the financial consequences of a superheated defense budget. Those can be argued; the demographic shift can't."

It is true that demographics is destiny. But just what effect does the demographic destiny of U.S. Allies have on their future military capabilities What does it all portend?

Looking at the future aging and declining and possibly less weathy populations of Europe, Japan, and Russia (assumed an ally of Europe), one can only conclude that their warfighting capabilities will further diminish relative to that of that of the U.S. In comparison, the population and wealth of the U.S. continues to grow and its military capabilities continue to increase through significant infusions of technology, high levels of training, and reasonably well-paid personnel.

Europe and Japan will likely become more like fortified retirement communities. How much interest will these "seniors" have in joining the U.S. to counter threats that are not at their front doors? Russia will have a population the size of Yemem and with such a large land mass will be kept busy beating off land poachers from the Arab south and Chinese east. Don't expect a lot of military help from Ivan.

In short, demographics makes for a much bleaker future wrt to both the total military capabilities of U.S. and its Allies even given harmonious relations. One can only surmise that it's going to be mostly U.S. forces that go in harms way against threats that are not already on the front porch of either Europe or Japan. Iraq is a premonition of the "out of area", large force military future.

Exactly which of America's alliances have been "trashed" anyway? Only those that weren't worth a damn. France was never really an ally anyway, and Germany was always too pacifist to be any use for anything except defending its own eastern border. America's alliances with England, Israel, Australia and Japan are the ones that really count, and those are as sturdy as ever.

"Repairing the damage done to the Western Alliance" is just a euphemism for brown-nosing Jacques Chiraq and Schroeder to a lesser extent for no obvious reason. Chiraq is still in mourning for the overthrow of his "best friend" Saddam Hussein after all.

Americans have very little idea the kind of pressure that was placed on thier allies at the beginning of 2003, or the reaction it caused.

Almost every country in the world has anti-Americans. They are generally tiresome people whose national amour propre is offended by the fact of American power. A tiny subset of them are violent extremists.

Most countries also have broadly liberal pro-market populations that were instinctively pro-American in 2000, and reacted with horror to the September 11 attacks. Some of them read the Financial Times or the Economist.

The singular achievement of the Bush administration is not that it enraged the first group, but that it alienated the second.

I am a pro-market, generally pro-American (or at least anti-anti-American) Canadian. I supported the war in Afghanistan, and was initially unsure about whether a war against Iraq would be on balance worth the risks. However, I am also a Canadian, and my patriotism is not owed to the US.

In early 2003, the Chretien government made a deal with the US that it would not participate in the Iraq war, but would not criticize it either. In the UN, it proposed a compromise resolution to follow up on 1441 that would put a hard deadline on Iraq's compliance with the demands of the weapon inspectors. It is worth noting that Candian troops were in Afghanistan at this time, and some had been killed by US friendly fire.

Ambassador Celluci responded by making a veiled threat that the Bush administration would tie support for the Iraq war to bilateral trade disputes. ("We value trade. But we value security more than trade.") I saw almost no comment on US blogs, but I know my own reaction was one of betrayal. We sent our boys to die in Afghanistan on your behalf, and you were threatening us for making a sovereign decision not to participate in a war that turned out to be based on false pretences.

Front page of our local tabloid was the story of the father of a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan who lost his job because of the softwood tarriff.

American nationalists seem to have a blind spot in understanding that other countries have their patriots too. It is humilating to be threatened into war, and people react badly to humilation.

I hate to say it, because it hardly puts us in a favourable light, but the reaction of most Canadians to US problems in Iraq is schadenfreude. Americans, who are notoriously uninformed about the rest of the world, find it all puzzling, and ungrateful. But it is wrong to put economic pressure on a friendly state to participate in a war it doesn't think is just or prudent.

Canada is closely tied to the US by history, culture and interest. Turkey is another story. The humilation that Turkey was threatened with to participate in the Iraq adventure is better known, as is Wolfowitz's complaint that the Turkish military did not impose a pro-American policy on Parliament.

Is it possible for Americans to understand that statements about unconstrained hegemony by the world's most powerful state *frighten* everyone else? Or that people resent having their countries' humilated?

What many forget is that as USA is the most powerful nation in the world, our allies do not vocally oppose us without good reason. When you have Canada, France, Germany (as well as Russia, India, China, almost entire Latin America, the Pope etc.) all vocally opposed, it hints that the proposed policy --- like "pre-emptive war" with Iraq --- is stupid in the extreme.

Thus one one of framing the issue is "should our allies have veto power over our use of military power", but perhaps a more fruitful frame is "should we take a hint when all our friends, the most shameless enablers excepted, try to explain that our position is really, really stupid"?

As it is, we spent 200 billion dollars for the privilege of being stuck in a mire and becoming most hated country in a vast region of the world. And what we can show on the positive side of the ledger?

While the issue of Iraq is extreme, other are quite similar. We oppose a treaty against the use of the landmines -- and improvised mines happen to be the most effective weapon against our forces. We oppose verification provisions for treaties against proliferation of biological and atomic weapons -- which borders on the insane. And so it goes issue after issue.

International consensus is not a proof that a given position is correct, but is definitely a hint that should not be casually dismissed.

I don't think enough people in this thread are commenting on how hard Brad just schooled Dan Drezner. Boo-ya!