The American Conservative

Iron Man

Ron Tang — Tue, 20 May 2008 05:12:00 -0400

As I watched the new hit movie “Iron Man,” starring a guy in a flying armored suit, I asked myself: Why don’t we fight our wars like that? You know, so that we win, using the maximum amount of technology, suffering the minimum amount of bloodshed? After all, the nuclear-powered protagonist, played by Robert Downey Jr., wipes out the bad guys in Afghanistan, yet barely gets a scratch, safe inside his weaponized rocket-man outfit.

So what does Hollywood know that the Pentagon doesn’t? Even audiences, too, seem to be way ahead of our Cleveland Park Clausewitzes.

The whole point of war technology… more

The Once & Future Christendom

Articles — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 12:57:00 -0400

The Call of Duty -- and Destiny

In one of the great epics of Western literature, the hero, confronted by numerous and powerful enemies, temporarily gives in to weakness and self-pity. “I wish,” he sighs, “none of this had happened.” The hero’s wise adviser responds, “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.” The old man continues, “There are other forces at work in this world ... besides the will of evil.” Some events, he adds, are “meant” to be, “And that is an encouraging thought.”

Indeed it is. Perhaps, today, we are… more

Divide & Rule

Articles — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 08:58:00 -0400

Hidden away, secreted in the dusty stacks of the Machiavellian Library, is the definitive how-to guide, Winning Through Ethnic Manipulation. Observing the immigration and affirmative-action policies favored by the current administration, it’s one book that I am sure George W. Bush -- or at least Karl Rove -- has read.

Start with the chapter entitled “Divide and Conquer,” which instructs power-practitioners to dream up racial hierarchies aimed at keeping potentially powerful groups divided -- too busy fighting over crumbs on the floor to notice those enjoying the lavish feast at the big table. An example is found in the history of… more

Hegemony Lite

Articles — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 22:28:00 -0400

Chuck Hagel has walked the walk. His experience in military service, not to mention his medal-winning heroism in Vietnam four decades ago, distinguishes him from most of those who make American foreign policy these days. But as for talking the talk -- well, his talk about foreign policy isn’t ultimately much different from that of the foreign-policy establishment that got us into Iraq and that wants to keep us imposing martial hegemony in the Middle East forever.

So those who rhapsodize over a possible Hagel run for the White House might consider the question: if the Cornhusker senator becomes the 44th… more

To Russia with Realism

Articles — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 15:34:00 -0400

As if the US did not have enough on its plate, the latest strongly anti-American statements of President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have suggested the possibility of a new Cold War with Russia. And from the Russian point of view, these statements are only responding to a whole series of bitterly anti-Russian statements and actions by the US administration over the past year, including plans to bring Ukraine into NATO, the speech attacking Russia by Vice President Cheney in Vilnius last July, backing for Georgia in its conflict with Russian-backed breakaway republics, and the latest move to extend… more

What is Left? What is Right? Does it Matter?

Articles — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 15:55:00 -0400

James Pinkerton

The late Stephen Jay Gould quipped that the intellectual world could be divided between two camps, the “lumpers” and the “splitters.” Lumpers see commonalities, splitters see differences. Can things be sorted into a few broad categories, or do they need to be assigned to more specific and nuanced cubbyholes? Gould was mostly concerned with paleontology, but the same lumpers-splitters argument can be applied to politics: should we collapse all the variations of American thought into just two categories, liberal and conservative, or should we insist that, say, libertarian conservatives be held separate and distinct from conservative libertarians?

So long as… more

New Deals & Old Answers

Articles — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 20:36:00 -0400

What’s wrong with the Democrats? In the May issue of The American Prospect, Michael Tomasky argued that his fellow Democrats need to develop “a politics of the common good,” the sort of majoritarian thinking that “made liberalism so successful from 1933 to 1966.” Today, Tomasky observed, Democrats lack “a big idea that unites their proposals and converts them from a hodgepodge of narrow and specific fixes into a vision for society.” Ouch. But Tomasky aimed still more rhetorical punches at his own team: Dems “don’t even think in philosophical terms and haven’t for quite some time. ... They’ve all been… more

Daydream of a United Europe

Articles — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Tony Judt loves Europe. He is sad when his continent is wounded and divided, he is happy when it is healing and prospering. In Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, Judt outlines a vision for a harmonious Europe. It's a long shot, he acknowledges, but when he hopes for a continent united by culture and tradition, he is summoning up an ancient ideal: a United West. At a time when Europe is under grave threat from the East, it's a goal that makes more sense than ever -- even if it seems harder than… more

National Suicide

Articles — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 00:00:00 -0500

We were warned. Three decades ago, Jean Raspail published a novel, The Camp of the Saints, which served as a worst-case-scenario warning about the consequences of unchecked immigration into his native France and, by extension, into all of Europe. Raspail's book was a big seller in his home country, but his message was not heeded. Now, of course, he is being vindicated.

Today, after 9/11, Madrid, London, and the broad-daylight murder of Theo Van Gogh, Paris is burning.

How could this have been allowed to happen? What led to this influx of lions into countries full of lambs?

In… more

Superpower Showdown

Articles — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 04:00:00 -0500

The history of the United States is the history of confrontation, even conflict, with the other great powers of the earth.

At the dawn of the 19th century, the young Republic found itself confronted with the two great powers of that world, Britain and France. We fought them both. Everyone knows about the War of 1812, but perhaps we've forgotten the quasi-war with France from 1798 to 1800; during those years the U.S. Navy seized some 80 French vessels.

By the beginning of the 20th century, America had made its peace with Britain and France -- although many in London, as… more