Peace Party
Drum and Ackerman have already commented on Matt Continetti's efforts to divide America into a "peace party" and a "power party" with a focus on the tunnel-vision conception of national power implicit in that dichotomy. I thought, however, that one should stick up on some level for the idea of a peace party and recommend this recent post by John Quiggin.
Wars, as he says, are destructive activities. Something one should seek to avoid: "The starting point the observation that war is a negative-sum game, so the fact that one side loses does not mean that the other wins. If losing a war means coming out of it worse than you went in, then Vietnam is not the first war the US has lost. The War of 1812 ended with the restoration of the status quo ante, but 25 000 Americans were dead, Washington had been burned, and huge economic damage had been done." An even more telling example, in many ways, comes from one of our classic "good wars" -- the Civil War. The Union cause was just and the war was one, but the price was high. The quantity of resources spent on the war would have been sufficient to compensate current slave owners at market prices, give the freed slaves much more substantial aid than what was, in fact, offered them after the war. This, needless to say, would have been expensive, but it would actually have saved Union taxpayers money, to say nothing of avoiding massive loss of life and large-scale devastation of Southern infrastructure.
Given the realities of the situation, it seems unlikely that the Civil War really could have been avoided in that manner. Still, the example merely demonstrates the extent to which war is negative-sum; even when successful it's an extremely sub-optimal method of achieving policy objectives. As Quiggin elaborates, a strong aversion to war does not imply a policy of blanket pacifism or of massive American retreat from a global role: "The Iraq war showed, yet again, that in conventional military conflicts the US is unbeatable, and, for practical purposes unstoppable . . . the US has a unique capacity to enforce the global law that makes wars of aggression a crime against humanity."
Comments
The quantity of resources spent on the war would have been sufficient to compensate current slave owners at market prices . . . Given the realities of the situation, it seems unlikely that the Civil War really could have been avoided in that manner.
One of those realities was that no one knew, and few expected, the war would last so long and cost so much.
Buying out the slave owners, etc. might have been cheaper. But the South wasn't interested. They had the Constitution and the court rulings (Dred Scott) on their side. The idea was broached but never gained traction.
Most Southerners believed, with some logic, that since the Constitution did not forbid it secession was their right.
And besides, they were frankly paranoid, uninformed, pig-headed, and thought the slightest federal power was intended to enslave them. Note the irony - their freedom was paramount, the slave's mattered not.
This idea that war is expensive and destructive is a revelation. No one ever thought of that before.
The fact that it might make Republicans slightly less likely to say one obnoxious thing later on is not a good reason to send people to their deaths.
This idea that war is expensive and destructive is a revelation. No one ever thought of that before.
K: I can certainly understand the sarcasm, but let's face it - how big a role has the idea that war is expensive and destructive played in the discussions of war and peace in recent years? How many Washington Post or New York Times editorials or op-eds have even mentioned this idea, let alone given it more than lip service?
Just getting this 'revelation' into the mainstream discussion would be a major step forward.
The Union cause was just and the war was one, but the price was high. The quantity of resources spent on the war would have been sufficient to compensate current slave owners at market prices, give the freed slaves much more substantial aid than what was, in fact, offered them after the war.
Slavery was part of a bigger southern aristocratic culture whose benefactors were not going to sell for any price the north could afford to pay - they were not stupid and knew freeing the slaves, even if profitable, would completely destroy their artistocratic lifestyle. Like the European nobility, like ALL nobility in every culture and time, they defended their lifestyle even in he face of economic good-sense.
Lincoln made just such a proposal in 1862, not long before he wrote the Proclamation. He pointed out that purchase of the slaves would be cheaper than funding the war, and that by doing it through subsidies to the states no Constitutional issue would be raised. Only D.C. went for it, though.
Imagine if you could pay every Jew in America to attend church! Why, there would be no obstacles to Christian harmony (except for those pesky Muslims, and we can just deport them...)
The real problem with being for peace is that it makes you _look weak_. Gee, wouldn't it be great if all of us kids on the playground would just share our toys, and nobody would have to receive any black eyes? War is an extremely effective means of getting territory and resources; you can negotiate until the cows come home but if you point a gun at the other guy's head you can get something for nothing. And if the other guy has a gun, you have to have a gun too. Talking about how guns should be abolished means you have no gun or don't want to use it. Maybe it's a good time to shoot you. Not that bin Laden wants to take over America (he wants us out of Saudia Arabia, I think), but I do have to admit the whole Iraq mess has got to give any dictator second thoughts...sure the Americans may not be able to build a worthwhile country, but they can sure as heck screw up the one you have.
War? What is it good for? Stamping out fascism, for starters. If we'd gone after Nazi Germany a few years earlier there'd be a lot more Jews in Europe (though perhaps no Israel). Getting rid of the British and letting us have our own country. A decapitation attack (heh heh) on a corrupt ancien regime.
Not that being bellicose is always a great idea either, as the rest of this discussion demonstrates. Bush's idea of 'staying the course' is a gigantic morass down which we are pouring the lives of our soldiers and untold amounts of money...for starters. We should have quit Vietnam earlier. We shouldn't have gone into World War I...and, come to think of it, neither should anyone else. There are very few absolute rules in life, unfortunately.
While I do think we need to err more on the side of diplomacy *at this particular point in time* when we don't really want to get into a shooting war with the Muslim world, arguing for 'peace' in the abstract tends to give all those populist types in the purple states whose votes we need memories of the hippies. So while peace might be a good idea, actually calling it that isn't.
The Union cause was just and the war was one,
If you count Reconstruction the war was really two.
Ever since the advent of nukes and the increaeed ability of terrorists and insurgents to fail to lose to superpowers, how much utility does war have anyway these days? I would guess not much. Once in a while you might have a situation like our strikes against the Serbian paramilitary in Bosnia or what a war in Afghanistan sans the Iraq invasion would have been, but these situations are rare. Even before NK had nukes, attacking them would have been insane because they could still destroy Seoul before we could stop them. We would have lost the heart of one of our biggest allies to take down a nuisance. War isn't going to democratize China and Russia or bring peace to Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. So what does war accomplish anymore?
Re: The idea was broached but never gained traction.
It was broached even as late as Feb 1865 when the CSA was on the verge of collapse and large numbers of slaves had already been freed
and escaped and the South still refused. The South was actually addicted to slavery in a very non-rational way.
Re: Slavery was part of a bigger southern aristocratic culture whose benefactors were not going to sell for any price the north could afford to pay - they were not stupid and knew freeing the slaves, even if profitable, would completely destroy their artistocratic lifestyle.
And yet the Southern upper classes went right on being the Southern upper classes, pretty much running the show, after the War and Reconstruction.
War is brutal, expensive, and sometimes futile. These are facts; unpleasant facts do not prove we have better options. To simply say nothing can ever be worse is dogma.
What seems murder to one person is self-defense to another. We literally don't know what war is; we do know it breaks things and kills people. That great phrase sums it up to me.
Sometimes better alternatives are available and sometimes not. If this stuff were easy we would all know what to do. There is nothing wrong in trying. For sixty years the UN has been the world's Peace Party. How has that worked out?
A few things will be needed. All peoples forget or forgive past wrongs, not believe their faith or culture or ethic superior, not be willing to force a world system (ala Marx) upon others.
The productive must gladly share with the idle. The poor must not think the prosperous selfish. The shrewd must not use inside knowledge, friends must not help one another more utter, even hostile, strangers.
K's post is actually the typical pro-war stupidity which believes it is "realism" and "common sense". Any actual application of common sense to the world will tell you very quickly that there is no real need for the United States to fight wars to protect itself, as there are no states capable of fighting a conventional war against the U.S. This has zero to do with anyone being selfish, or violent, or believing their ethnicity to be superior, or other commonplaces of human nature. Yet one regularly sees people trot out these bits of schoolyard wisdom as though it discredited the idea of seeking peace. The only real threat the U.S. faces is criminal actions by terrorists, which can be handled as a police matter. If states actually give sanctuary to people who commit terrorist acts on U.S. soil, this can be handled with a raid, kidnapping of the terrorists, or some punitive bombing.
War is not only massively destructive and expensive, but it fuels the terrorist movements we are supposed to be stopping.
MQ: I agree with you. There are other ways of fighting terrorists. I have no diagreement with another approach. But how would raids, kidnapping, and putative bombing differ from war? Do you think wars might follow raids, etc?
As far as using police methods - kidnapping is a crime worldwide - so after we kidnap those (we think are the) bad guys from abroad how could we legally hold them? Exactly which nations want to help us kidnap? Do you admire such nations?
What you really said is that you know what to do and others don't. What I said was it isn't always clear. I cited some of the factors widely believed to be the causes of great conflict and said wars aren't likely to go away until they are resolved. I stand by that.
There have been and are many peace parties worldwide; thousands or millions of activists, hundreds of ideas, charters, conferences, and proposals. It is not the absence of such that leads to war or why new ones keep springing up. It is because war is seen as better than not in some conditions - human judgement flawed though it may be.
You conclude your last sentence with a belief. It may be right. Or not.
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