Everyone knows, history teaches lessons. I've read enough history, and a number varied enough and of different vintages of the same history, to know one of the most important lessons that can be derived from history, is to learn just how wrong historical analysis can be. These more subtle lessons learned from history provide a better analysis for revising strategies already implemented based upon the lessons taken from conclusions wrongly made by an initial faulty representation and subsequently erroneous interpretation of history.
The Neocon analysis of American history written in the few decades prior to their incomprehensible strategic planning assertions, and, providing the basis for faulty empirical deductions, has provided the nation with catastrophic leadership in recent years. These strategic planners quite literally had not their facts straight. They have made horribly illegitimate blunders, even if they have had the seat of power under their now rapidly loosening control.
These sorts of mistakes are the rule when planners rely upon empirically derived knowledge sets that are invariably based upon the gross assumptions intrinsic to the approximations of empirical reason, the faire of the empirical process. To be fair to the New American Century planners, undeserving ideologues though they are, they actually thought they had gotten it right.
To write a New American Century (Revised), it thus becomes necessary to review and critique for a better analysis common historic assumptions that led the original concept astray. These false historic assumptions were the basis for the assumptive errors that are so brilliantly and painfully apparent in the original, and, surely maniacal strategic decisions of the now utterly failed New American Century.
The conclusion of the necessity for, and, the published desire for the catalyst of a Pearl Harbor-like event, was doubtlessly the impetus for the staged terrorist attack of 9-11 that is now almost universally accepted as the most treasonous act ever committed in the history of the world. But treason is not what I want to write about today. I have posited that it can still be a New American Century, regardless of these past ignominious failures.
As an introductory premise to the New American Century Chairman, William Kristol states:
"The Project for the New American Century intends, through issue briefs, research papers, advocacy journalism, conferences, and seminars, to explain what American world leadership entails. It will also strive to rally support for a vigorous and principled policy of American international involvement and to stimulate useful public debate on foreign and defense policy and America's role in the world."
"The Project for the New American Century is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; and that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle."
I have reversed the order of the two above parenthetical statements scribed as if enshrined upon the New American Century website. I reversed these two separate statements because they seem quite out of order otherwise. And, because I want to emphasize by placing last, exactly where the original analysis of strategic necessities propounded in the original New American Century went wrong.
American leadership of late, has neither been good for the world or for the country. Our military strength is intact and expanding, desirous of breaking nuclear test ban treaties and unbelievably advocating the use of nuclear weapons. Our diplomatic energies as well as our moral principles have been grossly enfeebled by a rough-them-up diplomacy and an end-justifies-the-means ethic.
As I began this article, I noted the importance of varied levels of historical analysis and noted the importance of revising one's understanding of history as it is written and re-written in every era. We are in one of those new eras now, the post-terror-war era. And as I revise the idea of a New American Century into a cogent thesis for contempory thinkers, I will first look again at the reading of history that has gotten the country into such a horrible state of confusion.
The American notions of an historically supported moral superiority, a notion widely fostered upon the rest of the world at large, arises in large part from a self-aggrandizing interpretation of the end result of the Second World War.
The end result of the Second World War and the resultant American military, industrial, technological and economic supremacy in the immediately following decades, is most often portrayed as an almost theistically moral pre-determined justification for that end and its continuance. This reasoning however, is circular, crude in it application, blatant national-centrism, and impossible to support by any close measure of the political ideologies and human philosophies that were existent at the time, or, that have continued since the time of the Second World War.
A simple condition, the U.S. geographic isolation from the theaters of the Second World War that devastated all of Europe as well as Asia, and to a lesser extent much of the rest of the world as well, in large part defined the end result. Too much has been made of the ability of the U.S. during this time of war to build up its industrial complexes and motivate its people into an unsurpassed technological configuration of war production. There were other nations that were equal to that task, as there are even more today, were they then as geographically isolated from the physical devastation resulting from this conflict.
This most important factor in American dominance is often missed by war and post-war historians. It is that the end result of the Second World War was given to us due in large part to a lack of initial and immediate antagonisms directed at the U.S. And, more specifically that the U.S. geographic isolation from those antagonists was great enough that bridging the divide proved an insurmountable task given the extent to which the war consumed the resources and the soldiers of those antagonists at a distance from U.S. shores.
In other words, despite the common historical read of an heroic moral effort, the U.S. was more lucky than divinely or morally graced by the outcome of the Second World War. U.S. geographic isolation was great enough, and likewise, due to the stage of technological development of the world at the time, technological innovations were great enough to make the outcome possible, even while these same technological innovations were not so great as to fatally reduce the fortuitous geographic insular distance and isolation that made the inevitable outcome of the war possible.
All of these insular conditions have changed since that era.
The continued dominance of the U.S. over world affairs after the Second World War can be put into a different than often supposed light. We need merely consider what might have been, had U.S. cities and people suffered the same degree of damage and the same extent of the casualties as occurred in Europe, Russia and Japan. Hypothetically then, American capitalists would have lacked the capacity to seize the economic opportunities of U.S. post-war reconstruction foreign aid. And the world would have then been quite sure to have plunged right back into the economic depression out of which it arose due to the economic activities of the war that largely bestowed an infusion of economic strength into the U.S. capitalist economy.
The worldwide post-war economic reconstruction efforts were largely funded by the U.S. government and headed by U.S. capitalists who extended for some decades the result of this U.S. global dominance at the end of the Second World War.
It is thus easy to see, the U.S. was simply lucky that in classical economic interpretations, what was good for the world, was also good for U.S. economic interests in the post-war era. This analysis is juxtaposition to the opening statement of the New American Century. And, it is also true the historically mistaken opening statement of the New American Century is in large part set forth in a circular argument as substantiating the moral base upon which the whole premise of the New American Century rests. That assertion is, the U.S. is the only capable moral leader-nation in world affairs today.
In the vernacular for which I have a well-tuned penchant, HORSE-shit.
Wishing these falsely interpretive notions were veritable, then justifying an ends-justifies-the-means strategic plan based upon such a wish, and in this case a wish sustained by a lofty and condescending prayer, ends in the tragedy for the world that the U.S. terror war has become. Furthermore, this is the only result that was possible for any strategy planning derived from the assertions and false historical premises of the New American Century.
Yes, there are terrorists now. But they clearly have the moral high ground. The moral high ground was surrendered to the terrorists by U.S. actions.
These actions arose from a lack of a cogent historical analysis on the part of the current administration. There was a failure of a malignant American political system in the Congress. There also was a failure in the courts when they were ill-served by the U.S. Attorney General. Each failed to keep these renegade leaders from making such an historically unsupported and utterly criminal strategy blunder.
Were I a political ideologue intent upon the total destruction of the ideas of the New American Century at this point in this article, it would be easy to become sidetracked from my purpose here. I write philosophy however, and setting the bar even higher for myself, I write moral philosophy. It thus becomes a wasteful effort to detail any further the faults of the premises offered by the New American Century. Instead I will focus upon illuminating the moral high ground, so that others may plot out and plan the New American Century as it should be revised.
It is my contention, any such plan of such broad reaching importance to the world as any plan for a New American Century would be, should then be offered up to the world for input and a minimum of tacit approval. Such a plan should be made expecting U.S. efforts to be modified as circumstances merit. The New American Century thus becomes a democratic statement with diplomacy paramount. The country must invite the input and approval that is necessary for a moral outcome. Though this may come as a surprise to those who endorsed the original New American Century, debate and diplomacy are reasonable tests of moral worth.
To understand the scope of my effort here it is necessary for the reader to understand that I agree with the New American Century in its identification of a problem that needs to be addressed. This problem is a lack of cogent moral leadership in world affairs and the danger immoral leadership represents not just to the U.S., but also to the world as a whole. I agree with the New American Century thesis that there are dangers in the world that require great moral leadership.
My analysis departs significantly from any ideas set forth by any political ideologue. My analysis does not harken back to what I view as the self-defeating days of the Second World War. I too however, draw upon history to point to problems I see needing to be addressed, if the world is going to benefit from a New American Century as it will inevitably be revised.
Instead of focusing upon the production efficiencies of a war economy, I am going to focus upon the inevitable decline associated with the post-war years from 1950 to the present. As I have lived throughout all these years, and these are the years during which the problems originally arose to the extent that the New American Century identified the problems that exist, I believe this focus is where to start.
Why, otherwise, despite a lack of worldwide war, in an era of unprecedented technological advance has the world foundered upon these shoals that some see our circumstance as requiring such urgent attention as another world war?
But let me address this notion of needed wars first.
If I take the naive view that the Second World War ended the great national political evils, as was widely asserted it would until the Cold War arose, the post-war decline seems paramount to understanding the problems identified by the New American Century. Indeed, since that time we have also seen an end to the Cold War, which if there were a veritable positive-outcome premise to be derived from winning these political wars, this triumph too should have led logically into an era where even less political evil threatened the world. But we here and now have again stranded upon these same shoals, needing another world war? It seems we are looking at the wrong foe, and that the post-war decline and competitive economic friction might be the culprit that gives rise to a need for a political war foe.
Neither premise however, is a worthy enough to base strategic planning for a New American Century, since one seems invariably to lead to the other and back again. We have merely identified both a political and an economic diversion of our efforts, each one only logically leading from one to the other.
The problems identified by the New American Century are apparently not political or economic problems, if every time a new political evil is identified, and, it is satisfactorily addressed, the same or similar problems arise again. It should be clear, the world's problems will not be lessened by defeating terrorism, any more than they were lessened by defeating communism, and, any more than they were lessened by defeating fascism.
In fact, these terms, terrorism, communism, and fascism are so vague, it can be and, it has been widely asserted, and properly so, by someone at sometime that every country today is to some extent fascist, communist, and terrorist. These are techniques of political manifestation. And they have virtually no basis nor anything more than a tangential comment upon a moral course that might be good for the world.
Similarly, if we focus solely upon economics as the problem needing addressing for the New American Century, we find the economic strategy field leads invariably to decline, inter-national accusations, and again to competitive friction that leads to another political war. Such are the problems of free trade, globalization, the oil cartels, and growing appetites and competition for world markets and resources.
We are clearly on the wrong track, if we allow political ideologues and their attendant economists to stage the debate. The debate must be asserted morally, if it is to be embraced by the world and progress toward a moral and thus sustainable course is possible.
I will again assert the moral imperative of life. This is what Immanuel Kant described and presaged as a categorical imperative, that which Kant was only able to speculate about for its possible existence before the time of his death in 1804.
The moral imperative of life is to live a life that detracts not at all from the lives available to those who will follow us into this world.
I have written elsewhere, as well as in other articles published on Thomas Paine's Corner about the moral imperative of life. It is a complex philosophic conjecture reduced to a single sentence. Part of this conjecture is that the moral imperative is the only cogent well-spring of every possible moral precept. It also seems the only basis for what is categorical knowledge, true in every instance without exception. I have posited the moral imperative and in so doing I have asserted it is categorical knowledge without any possible philosophic refutation. (I again invite refutation as a side note to this article.)
But what does the moral imperative say about the New American Century as it might be more cogently revised?
It says many things, most conflicting with everything espoused by all of our political leaders. It speaks directly to the needs of the future and the obligations the present has to the future. But most importantly, if the U.S. is going to regain the moral high ground, the moral imperative must set the stage for the cogent and moral framework upon which the debate concerning any New American Century to can ensue.
Surely, if America is to lead the world again, the country will need to regain the moral high ground from those who fight against the current curiously hideous mistakes. This is what the New American Century (revised) must become, if there is ever again going to be a future for American world leadership other than quite simply bombing the world, or a very large portion of it, back into the Stone Age again.
Don Robertson, The American Philosopher
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