Philosophy of Containment

Time magazine recently published an essay entitled "Let Your Enemies Crumble" by Peter Beinart. In it he discusses an extremely important lesson of the Cold War that the U.S. forgot or ignored when it came to Iraq. I found the article interesting because I did wonder why this important lesson hadn't been discussed as an option, instead of war. I felt vindicated because the article made a case for a foreign policy I believed was superior to Bush's choice of 'preemptive war', which Beinart said he had initially supported but now acknowledges was a failure.

The gist of Beinart's essay is about the policy of 'containment' America devised to deal with the ideological expansion and military build-up of its arch enemy, the Soviet Union (USSR). This foreign policy was adopted during the Truman administration, following WWII. The idea behind it was that instead of going to war with the USSR, as many wanted, to prevent it from becoming a political and economic threat to the U.S., the USSR would be 'contained' through a number of measures that would limit and thwart its expansion. The idea was that the U.S. would patiently wait out the USSR until it could no longer compete with the U.S. The belief was that eventually the USSR would collapse and crumble of its own accord because its system was inferior and corrupt. In those days, thought, as was with the Iraqi war, it was conservatives who pushed for war. Fortunately, it was liberals who prevailed with their policy of containment, which in the end did the trick. Beinart wondered why liberals didn't evoked this example when it came to Iraq.

One reason America adopted the policy of containment when it did was that America was in no mood to get into another war soon after finishing one. Also, there was fear that a war with the USSR might trigger a third, even more dangerous world war. Under the circumstances, the policy of containment was a prudent choice. Because it didn't start another war, instead, America was free to employ its energies to build and reinforce its democratic institutions, which helped contain the USSR. America's efforts to reinforce democracy at home and abroad succeeded, by way of comparison, in exposing and portraying the USSR's system of governance for what it was, fraudulent and a bad alternative.

This is Wikipedia's definition: "Containment refers to the foreign policy strategy of the United States in the early years of the Cold War in which it attempted to stop what it called the Domino Effect of nations moving politically towards Soviet Union-based Communism, rather than European-American-based Capitalism."

As Wikipedia added, the strategy and policy of containment became a tactic. The tactic was one of military and economics. Militarily, the idea was to continually keep one step ahead of the Soviet Union through advancements in military technology. That technological advancement could only be achieved if the U.S. invested heavily in science and education, which it did and could. Having a military advantage also acted as a deterrent, which was an intended consequence of containment. Another tactic the U.S. had, which it naturally has at its disposal, was capitalism and the free-market. This was a huge advantage the U.S. had over the Soviet Union - which prohibited free-market enterprise - because the competition generated by capitalism and the free market continually developed and produced the best possible military equipment. This tactic came to a climax under President Reagan, whose huge increases in military spending was virtually the straw that broke the back of the USSR, causing it to crumble. The Soviet Union could not keep up or compete with the U.S.'s industrial-military complex, scientifically or financially. This is a classic example of how the U.S containing the USSR.

The main idea behind containment is that an adversary can be kept at bay and eventually defeated through the superiority of ideas rather than through the use of military power. The practitioners of democracy knew they had a superior product to communism because democracy catered to human nature and its predisposition, unlike communism which tried to subvert and alter it. The pioneers of containment were convinced that the best way to combat the expansion of communism was to promote and cultivate democracy in as many places as possible so as to not only stand-up to communism but to show the world its exceptionalism in comparison. After the second world war The Marshall Plan was set-up specifically to do just this. The Plan's intention was to economically redevelop Europe in free market, democratic principles so that countries there would not be susceptible or vulnerable to communist take over. Communism prayed on economically and politically weak nations. The Marshall Plan was meant to off-set the allure of communism's false promises. The intention was to encircle and contain communism with shining examples of democracy and capitalism, as beacons. Japan and South Korea are other example of America's democracy building for the purpose of resisting and containing communism.

Communism and the USSR were contained and defeated in the manner the original practitioners of containment had envisioned. However, the the policy of containment didn't do it all on its own. It had help from within the enemy that was been containing. Communism essentially brought about its own demise because unlike Democracy it was a stagnant economic and political systems, incapable of reform or reinventing itself. The USSR and communism eventually atrophied and collapsed of its own accord. Containment essential hastened the process because one of the provisions of containment was that no trading be done with the enemy (except for humanitarian aid) that might help sustain it, such as much needed technology, financial assistance or anythings that might help prolong its life. The USSR's economy was inherently such that it was incapable of developing the technologies or financing then so as to keep it up with America or the modern world. This kind of containment, Beinart argues, could have also brought down Iraq because it too was vulnerable to such pressure,

That is the lesson the U.S. forgot when it came to Iraq, that instead of going to war, the U.S., with its allies, could have contained Iraq economically and politically, without firing a shot or killing so many people. And, as it happens, Iraq was on the verge of crumbling anyway. Moreover, because the U.S. couldn't contain its desire for war with Iraq it has seriously damaged its image around the world for being a pragmatic and thoughtful nation. However, the irony is that because of its war and its image problem, it is the U.S. that has been contained. With the Bush doctrine of preemptive war the U.S. acted unilaterally. But as the U.S. has found, to its consternation, containment can also work in reverse. The world, because of its distrust of America's unilateral behavior, has essentially contained the U.S. The majority of world has indicated to the U.S. in various ways that in this modern, globalized world it is imprudent and foolish to act unilaterally, ignoring institutions like the U.N. and bilateral treaties. To compound it all, the cost of the failing war in Iraq has been another self-containing mechanism for the U.S. Because of the expenditure and poor results, the U.S. will now think twist before starting another war, instead relying more on the the time tested policy of containment.

Liberalism vs Liberalism

There is classical liberalism and then there is contemporary, modern liberalism. I have tried to understand the distinction between the two. I have also wondered why conservatives admire and quote classic liberalism but detest modern liberalism. Now I think I have the answers.

Classical liberalism, in many respects, is the foundation of modern conservatism. It started off with the idea that people should be liberated and free from the tyranny of government and that governments should exist for the purpose of helping people purse their own self-interest. Classical liberalism was about "natural rights" as defined by John Locke. Those natural rights are the rights to life, liberty and property. Locke's idea was that government should ensure those rights. Conservatives today whole heartily agree that those rights are sacrosanct, that no government should stand in the way of them.

I suspect that the conservatives of John Locke's day were quite against his liberal ideas because they believed those ideas would challenge the status quo and bring about social upheaval. Conservative in all eras have generally been against social change because it disrupts the existing order they've grown accustom to. Locke's liberalism greatly changed the social and political order of 17th century England. His brand of thinking forced the King of England, Charles I, to relinquish a lot of his authority to Parliament. Because of this, conservatives and liberals battled each other in England's Great Civil War. The conservatives lost. However, in time conservatives adopted the reforms brought about by the civil war and embraced them as sacred conservative values, the rights of life, liberty and property. Today, American conservatives point to the inclusion of those values in their Declaration of Independence as sacred conservative value. However, it was classical liberalism that revealed them and brought them to life.

I wrote about this before, that liberalism is the wedge behind which social change occurs and conservatives are the ones that conserve, hence the label conservative, and consolidate the best of what liberalism produces. Liberalism also play a much needed and vital role. If it didn't instigate social change, and social change didn't occur periodically, there would be more civil wars like the one which took place in England between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651. If social change had occurred in Czarist Russian, and the Czar had relinquished some of his authority to the people, the Russian Revolution probably would not have occurred. Similarly, had the Shah of Iran been liberal minded and brought about social reform in his country he probably would have remained in power.

Classical liberalism and modern liberalism aren't that different. The latter is an extension of the former. However, liberalism today has taken on a derogatory connotation and conservatives have become very expert at painting it that way, especially neoconservatives (new born conservatives). Both have felt that liberalism had become too extreme and socialistic. Yet liberalism's mission is still the same, to fight for and entrench peoples natural rights, those of life, liberty and property. Today's conservatives point to the 1960s as a time when liberalism went extreme.

In the 1960s there was sort of a civil war, a revolution between conservative and liberals. Again, such a social revolution occurred because conservative wanted to keep the status quo, which included the continuance of racial and sexual inequalities and a stubborn support for a ruling class that was proofing illegitimate. Why liberalism went extreme in their demands for sexual and racial equality is because it had to if it wanted to permanently move and over come the conservative mindset that stubbornly refused to budge and implement changes. Conservatives were as determined to keep the status quo of racial segregation and social differences as liberals were determined to change things and create a more open and flexible society.

Classical liberalism as espoused by Locke encompassed something that sounded natural and logical, and is something that was assumed enlightened future generations would naturally bring to reality. Moreover. this Reason was enshrined in one of the most salient and revered documents in history, the American Declaration of Independence, which later became the foundation for the UN Charter. However, though the Declaration and the Charter said life, liberty and property were unalienable and self-evident rights, those rights were not logically or naturally recognized or bestowed to all. In American, many citizens, blacks, women and minorities, were denied them. Those self-evident, unalienable rights were not naturally bestowed to all as the Declaration and the Charter pronounced. It is this state of affairs that gave birth to the modern, more radical liberalism of today. In the case of America, if conservatives had not blocked some of the social changes society was due in the 60s, liberalism would not have taken some of the extreme measures it did, such as affirmative action, busing and sexual promiscuity, extremes that were necessary to ensure that true social change did occur so that people would get what was naturally due them, the rights of life liberty, and property.