Grand Strategy

Matthew Yglesias has such a good post up today — honest, heartfelt and smart. The discussion of his intellectual journey from cautious multilateral hawk to Grand Strategy neocon and back is one of the first pieces I’ve read that actually describes the salient difference between the two, and one which (for once) accurately describes the difference between most Democrats and the starry eyed idealists in the “grown-up” administration.

I certainly agree that Americans aren’t especially suited for unilateralism. Spartans we aren’t. We’ve got other things to do than fight an extremely expensive perpetual war for global dominance. And our president hasn’t exactly made a case for term sacrifice other than to shop til we drop.

However, I think he gives short shrift to the “much-maligned Clinton policy of crisis-management … keep the country strong, the alliances firm, and when something goes wrong to try to set it right.” I actually think it IS a grand strategy, in that it allows the US, through step-by-step example, education, commerce and leadership to lure the world to liberal democracy. It is the only way it will work in the long term. Force is on the menu, and will of course be necessary from time to time to protect ourselves or our allies. But, it alone cannot create the necessary environment for positive change.

The fallacy of the Bush Doctrine and the entire Neocon Grand Strategy lies in its internally illogical belief that democracy and freedom can be forced on others through the barrel of a gun.

It’s basically the difference between enticing someone into bed and raping them. They both end with the same basic act, but those who are the object of the first feel quite differently about the method of getting there than the second. It’s true that the charmed may feel manipulated, but they are unlikely to feel violated and angry. The difference, needless to say, is the difference between choice and coercion.