Can the pull of a culture become so overwhelming,
it would cloud the judgment of a professional that's trained to remain
objective no matter how much the conventional wisdom of the reigning culture
conflicts with his empirical observations and/or reasoned judgment?
The answer seems to be yes; this can happen, and
the evidence is all around us. One of these is the article that came under the
title: “Return of the Balance of Power” and the subtitle: “But the problem is
neither nationalism nor globalism. In today's world, the two are
complementary.” The article was written by Henry R. Nau, a well-educated and
experienced professional, and was published on October 18, 2018 in The National
Interest.
When you read Nau's article, you get the sense
that, shedding his professional training, the man had subscribed to the theory
which says what happens in the world happens because America willed it. Also,
when something that's supposed to happen fails to happen, it's because America
neglected to make it happen. This, in fact, was the theory that began to
develop right after the Soviet Union, the other superpower at the time, had
collapsed, and the people of America felt they were holding “the whole world in
their hand”.
And so, a new popular culture began to grow in
America. What it failed to acknowledge however –– even as the evidence mounted
–– was that the bipolar world that used to exist, was now becoming a
multi-polar world with several new players entering the rink. What's more,
America was beginning to stand alone in the world, diminished by what it was
doing and what it was neglecting to do. All this was happening while the
nations of the world were moving on to a new era, motivated as they were by a
powerful new vision that America's political and diplomatic elites could not
even begin to grasp.
Whereas America should have been able to count on
the venerated members of its educated classes to guide it through the turbulent
times, it was let down by them. That's because instead of playing the role of
anchors meant to keep the ship of state from slugging in every direction, the
educated classes chose to dance to the tunes of the new popular culture. They
let America drift aimlessly into an ocean that was studied by others around the
world but remained unknown to Americans.
Thus, while making certain not to step outside the
boundaries of the culture that continues to sweep America, Henry Nau undertook
to discuss his own theory concerning the balance of power. He says that America
has gone through three stages in its quest to “strike the right balance between
nationalism and globalism.” The trouble is that he defines “globalism” through the
prism of the new culture, a false choice that led him astray.
Nau says that America did not turn to globalism
until after World War II when –– in its second stage –– it adopted the Wilson
and Roosevelt, “internationalist strategy to transform the decentralized
nation-state, balance of power system into the centralized global institutions
of the United Nations.” So far so good because there is nothing here that says
Woodrow Wilson or Franklin Roosevelt saw the nations of the world as a mere
chorus meant to accompany the lead singer that is America.
But this view has changed according to Nau. It
did, he says, when during the third stage, Bill Clinton and then George W. Bush
“perpetuated internationalist strategies to spread democracy and markets”
across the parts of the world that didn't have them. And it was this
Jewish-inspired messianic zeal that moved superpower America from seeing the
world as it was, to seeing a world of delusion; one that resulted in the
country going from one preposterous misadventure overseas to another
preposterous misadventure.
Going further on the wrong path to harmonize his
views with the political exigencies of the current situation, Henry Nau came up
with a new concept; this one: “The problem is neither nationalism nor
globalism. In today's world, the two are complementary.” What he did, in
effect, was reinterpret history to show that Donald Trump's brand of
Republicanism can coexist with the globalism that he admits is irrevocably here
to stay.
Nau made attempt to redeem himself near the end of
the article when he stated the following: “Respect the people [of the world...]”
but he spoiled it all when he added the following: “...Give them time to absorb
unprecedented political, economic and social change”.
In so doing, Nau has acknowledged that the seven
and a half billion people on Planet Earth are human beings that must be
respected, not pawns that were placed on a cosmic chessboard for America's
political operatives to make their moves, entertain themselves and score
points.