It is amazing how well someone can be versed in the minutia of the
subject about which he is writing and yet misses the proverbial 600-pound
gorilla in the room.
This is what impresses you the most when reading the article that
came under the title: “Turning Feudal Afghanistan Into Switzerland Was Always A
Fool's Errand,” and the subtitle: “The real reason behind the Afghan
misadventure is not just bureaucratic inertia, military-industrial culture, or
myopic politicians. It is hyper-emotional idealism coupled with historical
ignorance.” The article was written by Sumantra Maitra and published on
December 13, 2019 in The Federalist.
Maitra begins his discussion by decrying the reality that the
Americans spent so much in lives lost, in lives destroyed and a great deal of
money, trying to accomplish the impossible in Afghanistan when the history of
the British and Russian defeats in that same place, was staring them in the
face, and warning that they too are on a fool's errand that's taking them to
nowhere.
But the Americans ignored that warning, says Maitra, and the
reason why they did, he went on to explain, is that everybody said or accepted
lies and half-truths about the situation in Afghanistan. Lies being one of the
root causes of the problem, Maitra asked the question: “How could government
officials lie?” And he answered this way: “It is partially possible because of
the sheer mediocrity of bureaucrats, led by fanatical ideologues”.
And this is when you, the reader, begin to wonder if Sumantra
Maitra is telling the full story or if he too is missing something. Still, you
continue reading the article to see if he'll redeem himself, or if not, what
else he is saying. Unfortunately, you do not detect much in the form of
redemption. But what he does is again decry the conformity of bureaucrats, as
well as the civilians of both the liberal and conservative stripes, who are
most vocal about intervening in far-away lands, motivated by altruistic
impulses.
These do-gooders are the worst kind, he says. He explains that
they are, “the product of a hollowed-out academic curricula, which preaches
rather than teaches vacuous nonsense like the idea that everything is
eventually going to get better, and that liberal-universalism is the end state
of human social evolution”.
Maitra differs with that proposition and lays out his own point of
view. It is this: “There is pure evil in this world that cannot be changed, or
reasoned or argued with, but only exterminated or restrained.” Sounds familiar?
If it rings the bell but you cannot identify the source, let me refresh your
memory. Think Clifford D. May and his comical outfit that goes by the name:
Foundation for Defense of Democracies. That's where this kind of ideas were
baked and propagated for decades by the most fanatic characters you'll ever
encounter.
These people never came up with a theory that is complete or
coherent, and neither did Sumantra Maitra. He says America and the West should
not engage in nation building. But because there is pure evil in the world, the
West must exterminate it or at least restrain it. This means sending troops to
the homeland of the evil ones and stay there as an occupier rather than nation
builder. Well, isn't this what America did in Afghanistan, the adventure that
Maitra has decried at the start of his discussion?
Well then, does this mean that Sumantra Maitra does not believe
there is a workable solution by which to maintain Western Civilization alive
indefinitely? It seems so, which is why he quoted Henry Kissinger saying the
following: “As a historian, you have to be conscious of the fact that every
civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed,” to which Maitra has
added this piece of wisdom, “and the least one can do is not to expedite that
collapse by making terrible choices”.
This being the case, what are the terrible choices that must be
avoided? And what are the good choices that must be adopted? Maitra does not
answer any of these questions, but he ends his discussion as follows:
“With the returning great power rivalry, a coming equilibrium will
again remind people of the old wisdom: that the forces of nature are beyond
human control, that true justice and balance only exist between rough
comparative equals, and that there's no greater morality than preferring order
and preventing greater chaos”.
That is, Sumantra Maitra has parted company with the likes of
Clifford May in that he now welcomes the rise of other powers such as China and
India, if not to provide a kind of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) the way
things were during the Cold War, but something new in international politics
that may be modeled after the system of checks and balances described in the
American Constitution.