2022-11-28

박정미 로버트 케이건, 밀림의 귀환 The Jungle Grows Back

박정미 로버트 케이건, 밀림의 귀환 The Jungle Grows Back

미국의 두 얼굴, 무엇이 본체이고 무엇이 그림자인가

-로버트 케이건, <밀림의 귀환>을 읽고

초강대국 미국이 세계에 드리운 거대한 힘을 두고 사람들은 대체로 좌와 우로 쫘악 나뉜다. 한 편은 미국을 악마의 나라라고 저주하고 다른 한 편은 위대한 나라라고 칭송하며 서로를 비난한다.

과연 미국은 군산복합체가 산업의 근간을 이루고 전쟁장사를 통해 세계를 지배하는 <악마의 나라>인가. 아니면 2차세계대전 후 자유주의 세계질서를 만들고 유지함으로써 세계에 만연한 전쟁과 기아를 극복하고 평화와 번영으로 인도한 <위대한 나라>인가.

나 또한 두개의 모순되는 답안 사이에 흔들리면서 대충 미국의 두 얼굴 정도로 봉합해왔는데 이 책을 읽으며 생각에 진전이 있었다. 빛과 어둠이 이루는 입체적 초상화로 나름 미국을 그리게 되었다.

이 책의 핵심 문제의식은 다음과 같다. 2차세계대전 이후 지난 70여년동안 세계의 평화와 번영을 이끌어왔던 힘은 자유주의세계질서인데 이 질서는 어떻게 생겨났으며 어떻게 유지되어 왔고 앞으로도 유지될 수 있는가.

유발하라리(팍스 아토미카)나 프랜시스후쿠야마(역사의 종언)가 말하듯 많은 지식인들은 인류의 진보와 과학기술의 발전, 자유주의의 필연적 승리로 귀결되는 역사의 법칙을 들어 이를 설명한다.

하지만 만일 이 자유주의질서를 세계(특히 유럽지역의 독일과 아시아지역의 일본과 우리나라)에 보급하고 유지한 미국이라는 거대파워가 없었다면 과연 자연발생적으로 이 평화와 번영의 역사가 이루어졌을까.

이 책의 저자 로버트케이건은 19세기 이후 강대국들의 동향을 들어 미국의 힘이 이 역사를 이루어왔다고 세세하게 논증한다.

이례적인 지정학적 이점과 계몽주의적 소명의식을 가지고 태어나, 전례없는 경제력과 군사력을 획득한 초강대국 미국이 자유주의적 세계질서를 만들고 유지 관리해왔다.

미국이 자국의 돈과 젊은이들의 목숨을 투입하여 자유주의 질서를 유지하려는 노력을 끊임없이 기울였기 때문에 밀림의 세계는 정원으로 변모했다.

독일과 일본이라는 지역 강대국들의 지정학적 경로의존성에 쐐기를 박고 약육강식의 밀림으로 회귀하려는 세계를 ‘보편적 가치에 기반한 규범기반의 국제질서(윤석열대통령 11월 3일 프놈펜성명)로 정돈하려는 인위적 노력으로 이 정원이 지탱되어왔다는 것이다.

미국이 제국주의자라는 도덕적부담과 유럽과 아시아에 미군 주둔 비용과 전략자산을 전개할 수 있는 막대한 비용 등 재정적 부담을 이기지 못해 세계질서에서 손을 뗀다면 어떻게 될까.

독일의 회귀를 걱정하는 유럽과 일본, 중국의 부상을 두려워하는 아시아에서 미군이 물러나 대서양과 태평양을 양옆에 낀 고립된 아메리카대륙으로 돌아간다면 자유주의 세계질서와 이 세계는 어떻게 될까.

그 해답으로 케이건은 1차세계대전 이후 미국이 진절머리나는 세계의 분쟁으로부터 슬금슬금 발을 빼고 고립으로 돌아가던 1930년대의 세계를 소환한다.

자유주의적인 이상이 아무리 옳고 참되다고 해서 역사의 특정국면에서 반드시 승리하지 않는다는 사실을 1930년대 이후 히틀러, 스탈린, 무솔리니의 부상이 증명해주었다. 이상주의적 국제주의자들이 지닌 낙관론, 즉 자유로운 상거래와 민주정체만으로, 혹은 전쟁을 불법화한 조약과 법으로, 혹은 유엔 같은 국제기구를 통해 궁극적으로 인간과 국가의 행동을 변모시킬 수있다는 생각은 1930년대의 지식인들에게도 팽배해있었다.

그러한 낙관론과 힘의 행사에 대한 무관심이 거대한 전쟁의 참화를 불러일으켰다. 미국이 개입을 포기하고 고립를 택했을 때 제2차세계대전이 왔으며 지금의 세계는 바로 그 위험에 처해있다는 것이 케이건의 진단이다.

그는 자유주의국제질서가 담보하는 평화, 번영, 진보는 미국의 힘, 그것도 경성권력(hard power)에 달려있다고 강조한다.

이 책은 계몽주의의 지적 의지적 전통을 이어받은 자유주의의 역사적 실천과 그 도덕적딜레마를 외면하지 않고 직시한다는 점에서 신뢰감이 들었다. 국제적 책임을 떠맡으면서 미국은 라인홀드 니버가 말한 “무책임의 순수성(innocency of irresponsibility)”을 잃었다. 특히 베트남과 이라크전을 거치며 많은 진보지식인들의 지지를 잃었다. 하지만 이는 “힘으로 조종하지 않고는 공동체를 구축하기가 불가능하고 힘을 이용하고도 완벽하게 순수하기가 불가능하다”는 권력행사의 불가피한 속성이라는 것이다.

저자의 확고한 논리에 경도된 나는 두번이나 책을 연거푸 읽었는데, 그제야 정신이 나서 이 책의 실천적 귀결에 대해서 생각이 미쳤다.

미국의 하드파워를 중시하고 세계평화에 대한 사명감으로 미국이 벌인 수많은 전쟁을 정당화한다면 그것은 많이 들어본 바로 그 이야기 아닌가! 그 의구심으로 네이버 검색창에 <케이건>과 <네오콘>을 같이 집어넣어본 결과 놀라운 사실을 알게 되었다.

네오콘운동은 1970년대에 시카고대학의 정치학자 레오 스트라우스와 예일대학교 고전학자 도널드 케이건의 주도하에 생겨났다.

그리고 이 책의 저자 로버트 케이건은 예일대 도널드케이건교수의 아들인 것이다. 게다가 로버트 케이건의 아내인 빅토리아 눌런드는 아들 부시 시절 나토주재 미국대사를 지내기도 했으며 현재 바이든 정부의 국무부 차관보를 맡고 있고 그 형과 형수들도 마찬가지의 포지션을 가진 네오콘의 이론가들이다.

한마디로 이 책은 네오콘의 심장부에서 나오는 목소리라고 할 수 있다.

부시의 이라크전쟁을 이끈 네오콘, 이 기세등등한 독수리들은 전세계 진보지식인의 공적이 된 제국주의 논리의 신봉자가 아니던가.

그러고보니 케이건의 이 책은 과거 영국제국주의자들의 생각과 다를 바가 없다. 제국주의자들은 자신의 제국이 거대한 착취사업이 아니라 세계(영국은 비유럽인종을 들고 미국제국주의는 미국과 세계를 들었지만)를 위해 시행된 이타적프로젝트라고 주장한다. 영국제국주의 최고봉에 선 작가 러디야드 키플링은 이를 세계를 위해 기꺼이 져야할 <백인의 짐 White Man’s burden>이라고 표현했고 케이건은 <미국의 도덕적 책무>라고 표현한 것만 다를뿐이다.

하지만 아무리 그렇다 해도 메신저를 보지 않고 메시지 자체에 주목하다보면 이 책이 전개한 논리에 수긍하지 않을 수 없다. 과연 지금의 현실세계는 미국의 하드파워 없이 자유주의질서를 유지할 수 있는가? 나는 감히 아니라고 확언할 수 있다. 그렇다면 현실에서 우리 대한민국과 인류에 미국은 어떤 존재인가.

북한보다 남한에 태어난 것을 고맙게 여기는 나, 어린시절의 가난한 나라를 기억하고 있는 나, 그리고 부상하는 중국과 일본과 러시아의 틈바구니에 낀 날달걀처럼 위태로운 우리의 미래를 생각해보는 나는 미국에 고마워할 수밖에 없다. 시진핑과 푸틴과 김정은이 활개치는 동북아에서 멀리 이사갈 수 없는 우리 대한민국은 미국을 필요로 할 수 밖에 없다.

사실 전쟁광 제국과 자유주의질서유지자라는 두가지 상반되는 미국에 대한 평가는 다 틀리지는 않았다. 미국은 하나의 국가로 국익을 추구하는 게 당연하므로 제국주의자도 맞고 2차 세계대전 이후 세계의 경찰로서 지금까지 해온 것을 보면 질서유지자도 맞다.

두 얼굴의 통합적이해가 필요하다. 무엇이 본체이고 무엇이 그림자인지, 무엇이 본질이고 무엇이 파생적 요소인지 파악해야 한다.

거기서 미국은 세계의 질서유지자이고 그 질서유지자로서 국가를 유지해왔다는 사실이 중요하다. 미국의 군수산업의 발전, 최첨단핵항모와 미사일, 전투기와 미군주둔은 분명히 악이다. 하지만 세계의 질서유지를 위해 필요불가결한 악이다.

자유주의의 승리와 국가의 평화로운 공존과 해체, 사해동포주의의 정착이라는 역사의 이상이 장기적으로는 세계에 관철될 수도 있을 지도 모른다. 근데 역사의 법칙에는 피도 눈물도 없다. 백년 후에 천년 후에 인류가 진보하여 대동개명세상이 온들 무슨 소용인가. 나와 내 새끼가 살고 있는 이 21세기가 거대한 공멸의 위험과 전쟁과 살육의 시간을 거쳐야 한다면 무슨 소용인가.

“세계질서는 사라지고 나서야 비로소 사람들이 생각하는 그런 대상이다. 1930년대와 제2차 세계대전을 통해 미국인들이 깨달은 바다. 당시 미국인들은 뭔가가 잘못되기 시작하면 아주 급속도로 악화될 수 있고, 세계질서가 무너지기 시작하면 인류가 지닌 최악의 성정들이 표면화되어 광란이 휘몰아친다는 사실을 깨달았다.”.

이 책을 읽고난 후 나는 유발하라리의 관념적 평화에서 깨어나 현실적 두려움에 사로잡히게 되었다.

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사해동포주의 四海同胞主義 :

인종에 대한 편견이나 국가적 이기심 또는 종교적 차별을 버리고 인류 전체의 복지 증진을 위하여 온 인류가 서로 평등하게 사랑하여야 한다는 주의.

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밀림의 귀환 - 자유주의 세계질서는 붕괴하는가

로버트 케이건 (지은이),

홍지수 (옮긴이)

김앤김북스2021-12-23

원제 : The Jungle Grows Back (2018년)

223쪽

책소개

자유주의 세계질서는 정원과 같다. 누군가가 정원사의 역할을 하지 않으면 금새 잡초와 넝쿨로 뒤덮여 버린다. <밀림의 귀환(The Jungle Grows Back)>의 저자인 로버트 케이건은 지난 70여 년 동안 미국이 세계의 정원사 역할을 자처했기에 세계는 평화를 유지하고 민주주의가 확산되고 경제적 번영을 이룰 수 있었다고 말한다.

하지만 지금 미국은 정원사의 역할에 지쳐가고 있으며, 막중한 도덕적, 물질적 책임을 내려놓고 다른 국가들과 마찬가지로 행동하고 싶은 유혹을 받고 있다는 것이다. <밀림의 귀환>은 미국이 정원사의 역할을 내려놓게 되면 세계에 어떤 일이 벌어질지 그리고 그러한 사태를 막으려면 무엇을 해야 하는지를 이야기한다.

한국어판 서문

서론: 밀림이 돌아오고 있다

01 1930년대로의 회귀

02 새로운 세계질서의 탄생

03 자유주의 세계질서 안에서의 삶

04 자유주의 세계질서 바깥에서의 삶: 냉전과 그 종식

05 성공의 값비싼 대가

06 “신세계질서”

07 역사의 귀환

08 미국이라는 밀림

09 정원을 보호하기

NOTES

책속에서

P. 25 오늘날 정원에 넝쿨과 잡초가 다시 무성해져 밀림으로 회귀하려는 조짐이 온 사방에서 감지된다. 한때 자유민주정체와 자본주의라는 발전의 길에 세계 모든 나라와 국민이 합류하리라고 기대했지만, 지금도 독재체제가 번성하지는 않더라도 여전히 버티고 있다. 오늘날 러시아 독재자와 유럽의 미래 독재자들은 비자유주의적 성향을 자랑스럽게 과시하고, 중국의 지도자는 마오쩌둥의 절대 권력을 휘두르면서 자국이 세계의 본보기라고 내세우고 있다. 한때 경제적으로 성공하면 결국 국민이 정치적 자유화를 요구하게 된다고 믿었지만, 여전히 독재체제(autocracy)는 억압적인 정부와 딱히 양립 불가능하지는 않은 국가자본주의를 성공적으로 실행하고 있다. 한때 지경학(geoeconomics)이 지정학(geopolitics)을 대체했다고 믿었지만, 여전히 세계는 19세기 말과 20세기의 지정학과 아주 유사한 지정학으로 회귀하고 있다. 한때 시대착오적이라고 여겼던 영토쟁탈이 유럽에 귀환하고 있고 아시아에도 귀환할 조짐을 보이고 있다. 사해동포적이고 서로 연결된 시대에 민족국가는 한물간 과거라고 점점 믿게 되었지만, 민족주의와 부족주의가 다시 부상하면서 인터넷이라는 경이로운 신세계에서 그 입지를 공고하게 다지고 있다. 접기

P. 29 역사상 그 어떤 나라도 제2차 세계대전 이후의 미국보다 인류가 처한 여건에 대해 기꺼이 책임을 받아들이거나 세상사에 깊이 관여하지 않았다. 역사상 미국 말고 그 어떤 것에 대해서 일말의 책임이라도 느낀 나라는 극히 드물다. 대부분의 나라들은 주저하지 않고 자국의 협소한 국익을“우선시”한다. 미국은 이런 면에서 매우 비정상적이었다. 비정상적인 자유주의 질서를 보존하기 위해서 도덕적, 물질적으로 대단한 책임을 기꺼이 감수했다는 점에서 말이다. 미국이 앞으로도 계속 그런

책임을 져야 할지에 대해, 그렇게 함으로써 여전히 실보다 득이 많을지 여부에 대해 의문을 제기한다고 해서“고립주의자”는 아니다. 너무나도 당연한 의문이다. 접기

P. 65 독일과 일본이 지정학적으로 경로를 수정하면서, 궁극적으로 두 나라는 소련의 흥망보다 훨씬 더 중요하고 지속적인 변화를 낳았다. 미국은 일본 헌법 9조 첫 단락에, 일본은“국가의 주권 행사의 수단인 전쟁을 영구히 포기하고 국제분쟁 해결의 수단으로서의 위협이나 물리력 사용을 포기한다.”라고 못 박았다.54 독일의 경우 서독은 미국과 연합군의 점령하에서, 그리고 동독은 소련의 점령하에서 국제사회에서 독자적인 주체로 활동할 권리를 포기했다. 이로써 일본과 독일이 과거의 행동 양식으로 돌아갈 선택지가 사실상 배제되었다. 미국이 자국의 힘을 이용해 두 나라에서 “비무장과 민주정체의 채택”을 강제하지 않았어도 이러한 변화가 일어났을지는 의문이다. 전쟁이 끝난 후 미국이 완전히 철수했다면 두 나라가 어떤 길을 택했을지는 아무도 모른다. 접기

P. 85 제2차 세계대전 이전에는 민주정체가 쇠락하고 있었다. 그 이전 5천 년 동안에는 사실상 존재하지도 않았듯이 말이다. 1989년 후 우리는 민주정체를 인류의 자연스러운 진화의 일환으로 여기게 되었지만, 사실은 그렇지 않다. 민주정체가 지난 수십 년 동안 세계 도처에서 유지되어온 까닭은 새로 비옥한 토양에 깊이 뿌리를 내렸기 때문이 아니다. 민주정체가 확산되고 지속된 까닭은 이를 정성들여 가꾸고 뒷받침했기 문이다. 자유주의 세계질서의 규범을 통해, 국제적인 압력과 이러한 규범을 준수하게 만들 유인책을 통해, 유럽연합과 북대서양조약기구 같은 유주의적 기구 가입을 의무화함으로써, 세계에서 가장 부유한 지역은 자유주의 세계질서에 합류한 지역이라는 사실 덕분에, 세계 최강대국이 보를 보장해준 덕분에, 그리고 그 최강대국이 하필 민주국가라는 사실 덕분에 민주정체의 확산과 지속이 가능했다. 접기

P. 140 오늘날 밀림이 다시 울창해지고 있다는 징후가 사방에서 감지된다. 역사가 돌아오고 있다. 나라들은 과거의 습관과 전통으로 되돌아가고 있다. 놀랄 일이 아니다. 그러한 습관과 전통을 조성하는 막강한 힘들이 작용하고 있다. 불변의 지리적 위치, 공유하는 역사와 경험, 이성을 무색케 하는 영적, 이념적 신념이 그러한 힘이다. 나라와 국민은 본연의 유형으로 되돌아가는 경향이 있다. 오늘날 러시아는 1958년, 1918년, 혹은 1818년의 러시아와는 다르지만, 러시아인들이 지닌 지정학적 야망과 불안감, 유럽과 서구 진영에 대한 애매모호한 태도, 그리고 심지어 그들의 정치조차 변하지 않았다. 과거 수 세기 동안 역내 패권 국가였고 19세기 초를 시작으로“굴욕의 세기”를 겪은 중국의 과거가 오늘날 중국의 태도에 영향을 미친다는 사실을 누구도 의심하지 않는다. 이란의 야망이 이슬람과 페르시아라는 과거 뿌리에서 비롯되었듯이 말이다. 우리는 늘 국가들이 밟는 궤적에서 급격한 변화를 찾고 기대하지만, 그러한 변화는 우리가 기대하는 만큼 그렇게 극적인 경우는 거의 없다. 접기

추천글

이 책을 추천한 다른 분들 :

조선일보

- 조선일보 2021년 12월 25일자 '한줄읽기'

세계일보

- 세계일보 2021년 12월 25일자

한국일보

- 한국일보 2021년 12월 31일자 '새책'

동아일보

- 동아일보 2022년 1월 1일자 '책의 향기'

저자 및 역자소개

로버트 케이건 (Robert Kagan) (지은이)

브루킹스 연구소의 외교정책 프로그램에서 국제질서와 전략에 관한 프로젝트를 담당하는 선임연구위원이다. 또한 그는 미 국무부 외교정책위원회 위원이며, <워싱턴 포스트The Washington Post>, <뉴욕 타임스The New York Times>의 칼럼니스트로도 유명하다. 그는 <포린 폴리시Foreign Policy>가 주관한 '세계적인 사상가 100인'에 선정된 바 있다. 1984년부터 1988년까지 레이건 행정부에서 국무부 정책기획실무위원 및 범미주 업무국 부국장을 역임했으며, 카네기 국제평화연구소 연구위원을 오랫동안 지냈다.

그는 이 책 외에도 《미국이 만든 세계The World America Made》(2012), 《위험국가: 20세기 세계 속 미국의 위치Dangerous Nation: America's Place in the World from its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the 20th Century》(2006)를 저술했다. 그의 책 《낙원과 권력에 대하여Of Paradise and Power》(2003)는 <뉴욕 타임스>에서 10주, <워싱턴 포스트>에서 14주 동안 베스트셀러였고, 25개국 언어로 번역됐다.

예일대를 졸업하고 하버드대 케네디 스쿨에서 공공정책 석사 학위를 받았으며, 아메리칸 대학교에서 미국사 박사 학위를 받았다. 접기

최근작 : <밀림의 귀환>,<돌아온 역사와 깨진 꿈>,<미국이 만든 세계> … 총 38종 (모두보기)

홍지수 (옮긴이)

연세대학교 영어영문학과 학사, 한국외국어대학교 통번역대학원 석사, 컬럼비아대학교 국제학대학원 석사, 하버드대학교 케네디행정대학원 석사를 받았다. KBS 앵커, 미국 매사추세츠 주정부의 정보통신부 차장, 리인터내셔널 무역투자연구원 이사를 지냈다.

옮긴 책으로는 『월든/시민불복종』, 『오리지널스』, 『원더랜드』, 『21세기 미국의 패권과 지정학』, 『셰일 혁명과 미국 없는 세계』, 37회 한국과학기술도서상 최우수번역상을 수상한 『죽는 게 두렵지 않다면 거짓말이겠지만』, 『미국의 봉쇄전략』, 『보수주의의 창시자 에드먼드 버크』, 『다가오는 유럽의 위기와 지정학』, 『다가오는 폭풍과 새로운 미국의 세기』 등이 있고, 지은 책으로는 『트럼프를 당선시킨 PC의 정체』가 있다. 접기

최근작 : <트럼프를 당선시킨 PC의 정체> … 총 64종 (모두보기)

출판사 제공 책소개

세계가 밀림이 되면 야수의 시대가 온다

2022년 한국인이 읽어야 할 가장 중요한 책

자유주의 세계질서는 정원과 같다. 누군가가 정원사의 역할을 하지 않으면 금새 잡초와 넝쿨로 뒤덮여 버린다. <밀림의 귀환(The Jungle Grows Back)>의 저자인 로버트 케이건은 지난 70여 년 동안 미국이 세계의 정원사 역할을 자처했기에 세계는 평화를 유지하고 민주주의가 확산되고 경제적 번영을 이룰 수 있었다고 말한다. 하지만 지금 미국은 정원사의 역할에 지쳐가고 있으며, 막중한 도덕적, 물질적 책임을 내려놓고 다른 국가들과 마찬가지로 행동하고 싶은 유혹을 받고 있다는 것이다. <밀림의 귀환>은 미국이 정원사의 역할을 내려놓게 되면 세계에 어떤 일이 벌어질지 그리고 그러한 사태를 막으려면 무엇을 해야 하는지를 이야기한다.

미국 내 가장 영향력 있는 싱크탱크 중 하나인 브루킹스연구소의 선임 연구원인 로버트 케이건이 쓴 <밀림의 귀환>은 우리가 살고 있는 세계와 역사에 대한 놀라운 혜안으로 가득 차있다. 로버트 케이건은 트럼프의 등장 훨씬 이전부터 미국의 글로벌 리더십이 쇠퇴하고 있다거나 축소해야 한다는 주장들에 맞서왔다. <돌아온 역사와 깨진 꿈>(2008)에서 냉전 종식 이후 “역사의 종말” 선언이 왜 섣부른 것이었는지 이야기했고 <미국이 만든 세계>(2012)에서는 미국 쇠퇴론을 반박하며 국제사회에서의 미국의 역할을 옹호했다. 이 책 <밀림의 귀환>에서는 세계 문제에 대한 오바마의 소극적 행보와 트럼프의 미국 우선주의로 인해 미국이 손을 놓고 있는 사이 세계 곳곳에서 민주주의가 약화되고 지정학적 갈등이 심화되고 있으며, 결국 자유주의 질서가 붕괴될 것이라고 경고한다. 세계 민주주의 동맹을 복원하려는 바이든 정부의 노력이 얼마나 현실적이고 성공적일지, 2024년 대선에서 미국의 진로가 다시 바뀌지는 않을지 이 책을 통해 가늠해 볼 수 있을 것이다.

이 책은 미국인들이 아니라 한국인들을 위해 쓰여졌다고 해도 과언이 아니다. 자유주의 세계질서의 가장 큰 수혜자는 한국이고 그 질서가 무너지면 가장 큰 피해자도 미국이 아니라 한국일 수 있다. 미국이 동아시아에서 안정자의 역할을 내려놓으면 동아시아 역시 과거의 권력 구조로 돌아가게 된다. 유리했던 세력균형이 사라지고 한국은 가장 불리한 처지가 된다. 미국이 주도하는 자유주의 세계질서와 함께 한국의 평화와 번영도 저물게 될지 모른다. 한국인들이 ‘밀림의 귀환’에 귀를 기울여야 하는 이유다.

역사가 돌아오고 밀림이 돌아오고 있다

자유주의 세계질서는 붕괴하는가

저자는 자유주의 세계질서는 역사의 필연이 아니라 우연적 산물에 가깝다고 말한다. 2차대전 이후 미국이라는 패권국이 부상했고 그 패권국이 자유민주주의 국가였기에 가능한 질서였다. 2차대전이 끝나면서 제국의 시대가 막을 내렸고 수많은 식민지 국가들이 독립했다. 미국의 보호 아래 국가들은 이웃나라와의 전쟁 공포에서 벗어날 수 있었다. 지정학에서 벗어났을 뿐만 아니라 작은 나라들도 세계의 자원과 시장에 비교적 자유롭게 접근할 수 있었다. 미국을 따라 많은 나라가 민주주의로 전향했다. 무엇보다 가장 국가주의적인 전제 국가였던 독일과 일본이 자유주의 국가가 되었다. 저자는 소련이 스스로 제국의 해체를 선택했던 것도 서구의 봉쇄정책의 성공 때문만이 아니라 자유주의 세계질서가 자신을 위협하지 않으리라는 믿음이 있었기에 가능했다고 말한다. 그리고 드디어 냉전 종식과 함께 자유주의의 최종적 승리로서 ”역사의 종말’이 선언되었다.

“역사의 종말”이 선언되고 30여 년이 지난 지금, 세계 곳곳에서 민주주의가 위협당하고 지정학이 부활하고 있다. 저자는 역사가 다시 돌아오고 있다고 말한다. 러시아는 당장이라도 우크라이나를 접수할 기세이고 우크라이나가 넘어가면 벨로루시가 넘어갈 것이고 유럽의 지정학은 요동치게 될 것이다. “독일 문제“가 다시 유럽을 뒤흔들게 될 것이다. 중국은 대만 침공을 예고한다. 대만을 장악하면 남중국해가 중국의 수중에 떨어질 것이다. ”정상 국가“를 꿈꾸는 일본에게 이보다 좋은 기회는 없다. 뿌리깊은 군국주의 국가로서 자신의 진가를 발휘할 기회가 찾아오기 때문이다. 터키는 지금도 지역 맹주를 자처하고 있고 이란은 권토중래하게 된다. 규범이 아니라 힘이 지배하는 밀림 같은 세계가 펼쳐지게 된다.

반면 해외개입 축소에 대한 미국 국민의 요구는 지난 30년 동안 점점 강해지고 있다. 미국인은 자국이 무엇 때문에 세상만사에 그토록 깊이 관여하고, 중동과 같은 가망 없는 지역에 인명과 돈을 쏟아 부어야 하며, 무엇 때문에 독일, 일본, 남한 같은 부유한 동맹국들을 지키기 위해서 부담을 짊어져야 하는지 모르겠다고 생각한다. 미국이 국제사회를 위한 “필수 불가결한 나라”라는 자유주의자들의 주장은 점점 호소력을 잃고 있다. 이러한 흐름을 되돌리지 못한다면 미국 역시 자국 이익에 충실한 “정상 국가”처럼 행동하게 될 것이다. 결국 세계 곳곳에서 민주주의가 위협받고 지정학적 갈등이 점점 치열해지지만 미국은 방관하는 1930년대의 양상이 되풀이될 것이라고 저자는 말한다.

미국은 세계의 정원사 역할을 내려놓을 것인가

이상주의와 현실주의가 교차하는 나라 미국

냉전이 끝난 지 30여 년이 지났고 2021년 8월 아프가니스탄 철수로 20여 년의 대테러 전쟁도 막을 내렸다. 저자는 오늘날 미국인들이 제기하는 의문은 1차대전 종전 후 20년 동안 미국인들이 제기한 의문과 비슷하다고 말한다. 그 당시와 마찬가지로 오늘날 미국인들은 자신의 안보와 생활방식에 대한 실존적인 위협에 직면해 있다고 여기지 않고 있다. 중국이나 러시아의 위협은 가시적이나 불확실하고 막 치른 전쟁(냉전과 대테러 전쟁)으로 인해 미국인들은 지치고 환멸을 느끼고 있다. 당시와 마찬가지로 미국은 가장 부유하고 가장 막강한 나라이지만 압도적으로 막강한 나라는 더 이상 아니다. 당시에는 1920년 대통령 후보였던 워런 하딩이 주장했듯이 “미국을 우선” 돌보고 세계 문제를 해결할 책임 다른 강대국들이 맡게 내버려두자는 주장이 그렇듯 하게 들렸다. 오늘날 대부분의 미국인들처럼 그들은 “정상으로의 회귀‘를 촉구했다. 그들은 눈 앞에 놓인 위험을 못 본체 하는 고립주의자라는 평판을 얻었지만 그들은 고립주의자도 아니었고 마땅히 제기할 수 있는 주장을 한 것뿐이었다. 그리고 결국 2차대전 참전을 결정하고 자유주의 세계질서를 구축한 것도 이들이었다.

오늘날 러시아는 우크라이나 침공을 예고하고 있고 중국은 대만 침공을 호언한다. 두 예고된 지정학적 사건은 미국 주도의 세계질서에 대한 명백한 도전이며, 그 붕괴의 시작을 의미할 수 있다. 미국이 과연 물리적으로 개입할 것인지가 문제다. 미국은 20년 넘게 중동의 정세에 개입해왔지만 참담한 실패를 겪어야 했다. 두 사건에 미국이 개입한다고 해서 해결될 수 있을지도 의문이다. 히틀러가 처음 전쟁을 시작했을 때도 미국이 파시즘이라는 풍차를 향해 돌진하는 돈키호테처럼 민주주의를 구하기 위해 기사 노릇을 할 수 없다는 주장이 있었다. 미국인들은 우려스러운 지정학적 추세보다는 비용이 많이 들고 궁극적으로 아무런 소득이 없는 전쟁에 빨려 들어가는 상황을 더 우려할 수 있다.

미국은 머지 않아 세계의 정원사 역할을 내려놓을 것인가? 미국은 단지 물질적 이해관계만으로 세계에 개입해 온 것은 아니다. 그렇다고 물질적 이해관계가 없는 사안에 숭고한 이념을 위해 무턱대고 개입하지도 않았다. 1914년 유럽에서 전쟁이 발발하자 미국인들은 강 건너 불구경하듯 했지만 결국 경제적 이해관계와 정치적, 도덕적 세계관을 공유하는 “대서양 공동체”를 방어하기 위해 참전했다. 1930년대에 파시즘이 유럽을 휩쓸고 일본이 중국을 침략해도 대부분의 미국인들은 무관심했지만 유럽이 히틀러의 수중에 떨어지려 하자 결국 2차대전에 뛰어들었다. “민주주의가 안전한 세상을 만들기 위해서”라는 윌슨 대통령의 1차대전 참전 명분은 여전히 미국 행동의 가장 중요한 기준이 되고 있다. 한편 파괴할 괴물을 찾기 위해 해외로 나가는 것을 피하라는 존 퀸시 아담스의 조언 또한 여전히 유효하다. 미국이 한동안 손을 떼고 정원을 돌보지 않을 수 있다. 미국인들이 개입에 따른 비용과 희생을 감당할 만큼 이익이 분명하지 않다고 볼 때다. 저자가 우려하는 것은 미국이 행동을 주저하는 사이 독재국가들로 인해 자유주의 세계질서가 돌이킬 수 없을 정도로 위태로워지고 폭력적이고 유혈이 낭자했던 역사가 반복될지 모른다는 점이다.

자유주의 세계질서 이후에는 어떤 세계가 기다리고 있는가

권위주의, 국가주의, 지정학이 지배하는 세계

"자유주의 질서는 정원과 같고 인공적이며, 자연의 힘에 의해 영원히 위협받는다"고 저자는 말한다. 자유주의 질서는 "내부와 외부로부터 그것을 훼손하고 파괴하기 위해 끊임없이 자라나는 잡초와 덩굴에 대한 지속적이고 끝없는 투쟁"을 통해서만 보존될 수 있다고 한다. 그리고 오늘날 그 잡초와 덩굴은 러시아, 중국, 이란, 북한과 같은 외국의 독재(권위주의) 세력과 질서, 강력한 리더십, 그리고 가정, 부족, 민족의 안전을 열망하는 국내의 보수주의자들로부터 자라나고 있다고 말한다. 저자는 독재 세력을 공산주의보다 민주주의 생존에 더 큰 위협으로 간주한다. 권위주의가 인간의 본성과 더 일치하기 때문이다. 오늘날 미국과 서유럽 국가들마저도 1945년 이후 자유주의 세계질서를 지지해온 보편주의에서 벗어나 국가주의와 부족주의로 후퇴하고 있다고 지적한다. 트럼프의 미국 우선주의가 “정상 국가‘를 갈망하는 많은 미국인들에게 호소력을 갖는 이유다.

저자는 유럽과 동아시아에서 미국의 힘이 약해지면 2차대전 직후 만들어진 권력 구조의 변화가 끝나게 될 것이라고 우려한다. 유럽에서는 지정학의 복수가 시작되고 동아시아에서는 지정학이 강화될 것이다. 국가 자본주의로 무장하고 부상하는 중국의 도전이 더욱 거세질 것이다. 심지어 미국이 억눌러온 독일과 일본의 국가주의라는 망령이 다시 한번 세계 무대에서 활개치게 될 수도 있다. 독일과 일본에게는 그럴 동기도, 그럴 능력도 있다.

결국 자유주의 세계질서는 강력하고 개입주의적이면서 자유주의적인 미국을 필요로 한다. 이 조건들 중 하나라도 사라진다면 그 질서가 유지되기 어렵다. 하지만 미국의 상대적 힘은 쇠퇴하고 있고, 개입주의는 미국 내 보수진영과 진보진영 모두로부터 공격받고 있으며, 자유주의마저도 미국사회 저변에 흐르는 백인국가주의와 반이민주의로부터 도전 받고 있다. 미국은 중국이나 러시아, 이란과 같은 외부의 비자유주의적 세력들뿐만 아니라 내부로부터 제기되는 비자유주의적 도전과도 싸워야 하는 처지다. 하지만 저자는 아직 미국에게는 자유주의 질서를 지킬 수 있는 충분한 역량이 있고 무엇보다 동맹들이 있으며, 문제는 미국인들 자신의 의지라는 것이다. 미국이 자유주의 세계질서라는 정원을 지키기 위해 “인류를 이끄는 기관차‘로서의 역할을 계속해야 한다는 것이다. 세계를 위해서도 미국 자신을 위해서도 최선이라는 것이다.

미국이 동아시아의 안정자로서 행동하지 않게 될 때

한국에 어떤 일이 벌어질 것인가

로버트 케이건의 한국어판 서문

미국이 모든 나라에게 선일 수는 없다. 하지만 적어도 한국에게만큼은 선이다. 미국이 초강대국이면 자유주의 국가이면서 한국의 동맹이라는 사실만큼 오늘날 한국의 입지를 잘 설명해주는 것은 없다. 지정학적 동맹이면서 가치 동맹이다. 중국과 일본 모두와 대결해도 한국이 존립할 수 있는 최후의 안전판이다. 한국과 미국의 관계는 단지 선의에 기초해 있지 않고 일방적이지도 않다. 동아시아는 그 자체로 세력균형이 불가능한 구조다. 동아시아에서 미국은 역내 안정자일 뿐만 아니라 중국과 일본을 동시에 견제하면 세력 균형을 완성하는 존재다. 이 질서를 깨려 하는 게 중국이고 이 질서가 깨지길 바라는 게 일본이다.

로버트 케이건은 한국의 독자들을 위해 장문의 서문을 보내왔다. 그는 동아시아는 과거에도 오늘날에도 지정학적 각축전이 벌어지는 현장이라고 말한다. 1945년 이전에는 일본이 지역 패권을 노렸고 끔찍한 유혈극을 일으켰다. 오늘날에는 중국이 지역 패권을 모색하고 있다. 하지만 여전히 극복하기 힘든 난관에 봉착해 있다. 막강한 미국이 역내 패권 경쟁을 억지하고 지역을 안정화하는 역할을 하고 있기 때문이다. 하지만 만약 미국이 그러한 역할을 더 이상 맡지 않으려 한다면 어떤 일이 벌어질 것인가? 역내 강대국들은 통상적인 경쟁 관계로 복귀하게 되고, 그러한 세계에서 한국은 고통스러운 결단을 내려야 한다고 한다. 역내 강대국들에 순응할지, 아니면 충분한 군사력을 확보해서 미국을 대신해 힘의 균형을 유지함으로써 그들을 억지하는 역할을 할지 말이다.

미국은 언젠가 동아시아에서 철수하게 될 것이다. 그 시점은 우리의 예상보다 훨씬 빠를지도 모른다. 미국 이후의 동아시아는 어떤 양상으로 다가올 것인가? 미국 없는 동아시아에서 한국은 세력균형을 도모할 수 있을 것인가? 어쩌면 그 세계는 한국에게 밀림과 다르지 않을 것이다. 그러한 밀림이 너무 일찍 찾아오지 않도록 한국이 해야 하고, 할 수 있는 일은 무엇인가? 밀림이 찾아왔을 때 한국은 어떻게 대처해야 하는가? <밀림의 귀환>을 통해 한국의 지도자들과 한국인들이 찾아내야 할 답이다. 접기

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저자는 미국이 신세계 질서를 유지했기 때문에 작은 나라가 안전할 수 있었고 그 과정에서의 실패 또한 잘한것 이라고 주장하고 있다. 미국의 질서가 최선이라는 가정과 좌파적 민주주의가 진정한 민주주의라고 전제한 상태에서 이야기를 풀어나가기 때문에 주장 또한 편협하다고 느껴졌다. 구매

hezekhia 2022-03-24 공감 (0) 댓글 (0)

내용은 좋은데 번역이 너무 아쉽습니다. 문장이 제대로 읽히지 않아서 정신을 바짝 차려야해요. 홍지수님이 옮긴 책중에 좋은 책들이 많던데 앞으로 읽으려니 걱정이 됩니다. ㅎ 구매

앤 2022-04-05 공감 (0) 댓글 (0)

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밀림의 귀환

그리스 아테네에서 태어난 리투아니아 유대인의 후손인 로버트 케이건은 역사가로 알려진 친부의 영향으로 예일대와 하버드 대를 거쳐, 연방 공인 연구 대학인 아메리칸 대학에서 미국 역사와 관련한 박사 학위를 수여받습니다. 이 책의 저자나 그의 논저를 번역한 출판사는 저자인 로버트 케이건의 한가지 수식어를 빼먹고 있는데요. 그것은 그가 네오콘이었다는 사실입니다. 다만, 케이건이 공화당 당적을 포기하고 무당적으로 있는 것을 흡사 네오콘의 노선에서 벗어난 것으로 이해하고 있는 것일지도 모르겠지만 왜 그가 '네오콘'이라는 사실을 적시하지 않았는지 매우 의문이 듭니다. 물론 그가 공화당 당적을 정리하고 같은 당의 정책을 맹렬히 비판하고 있는 것에 대해 스스로의 정치적 노선을 바꾼 것으로 취급될 지도 모르겠지만 '무지의 베일'도 아니고 그러한 사실을 언급하지 않은 것은 유감스러운 부분이라 할 수 있겠습니다. 그는 2010년 9월 브루킹스 연구소의 미국과 유럽 센터의 선임 연구원으로 임명되었습니다. 한가지 특이한 부분이라 할 수 있는 것은 도널드 트럼프가 등장한 대선에서 트럼프를 지지하지 않고, 힐러리를 지지했다는 점입니다. 이 책은 원제, "The Jungle Grows Back : America and Our Imperiled World"로 지난 2018년 출간되었고, 국내에는 2021년 12월 번역 출판되었습니다. 한가지 역자와 관련해 한가지 개인적으로 언급하고 싶은 부분은 어느 극우 유튜버의 방송에 출연한 역자를 발견한 것인데요. 한동안 출연한 사람이 역자와 동일 인물인지 찾아보게 되었는데요. 그 동영상은 정치적 올바름에 대한 비판이었는데 거의 대안 우파들이나 주장할 법한 내용들이었습니다. 물론 여기서 역자의 정치적 성향을 논하고 싶지는 않지만 그래서 한동안 역자가 번역한 책들은 찾지 않았다는 것을 밝히고 싶은데요. 소위 뻔해 보이는 신자유주의적 보수주의자들의 논저를 누구보다 잘 번역할 수 있는 사람은 같은 진영을 지지하는 번역가이지 않을까 싶었는데요. 물론 이건 전적으로 우스개 소리입니다.

케이건의 이 글을 읽을 독자들을 위해, 한가지 짚고 넘어가고 싶은 것은 저자가 분명하고 확고하게, "자유주의와 자유주의 세계"에 대한 믿음과 신념을 견지하고 있다는 사실입니다.. 물론 이 부분은 충분히 이해가 될만합니다. 작게는 미국에서 자유에 대한 인식이 매우 중요한 부분이고, 크게는 미국 자신이 국제 사회에 항상 강조하고 투영하는 것이 소위 자유 민주주의이기 때문입니다. 이와는 별개로 자유주의가 이룩한 역사적 진보라는 것 또한 거대하다고 볼 수 있겠습니다. 다만, 한가지 동의할 수 없는 부분은 글 전반에 흐르는 논리적 맥락에서 소위 '민주 정체(마땅히 민주주의로 불려야 합니다만)' 역시 원대한 자유주의로부터 비롯된 것으로 뭔가 민주주의가 자유주의에 의해 그 소명을 다한 것으로 그려지고 있는데요. 제가 이론적 현미경을 들이대고 일일이 다 따지고 들고 싶지는 않습니다만 이 부분도 역시 실망스러운 지점이었습니다.

다시 원론으로 돌아와, 이 글의 9장에서 저자는 다수의 진보주의자들을 위한 발언으로 보이는 "개입주의와 제국주의는 엄연히 다르다"는 문법에 일정 부분 동의할 수 있었는데요. 많은 진보 좌파들이 미국의 패권 개입을 가지고 제국주의라는 맥락으로 비판을 가하는 것은 저 역시 다소 논점을 벗어난 것이라 생각됩니다. 다만, 오늘날의 자유주의적 세계가 오로지 미국의 지대한 헌신과 어떤 역사적 사명에서 비롯되었다고는 여기지 않습니다. 과거의 냉전이 저자가 인용한 존 르 카레의 "절반의 천사와 절반의 악마"와 같은 초월적인 선악론이 아니라 그런 대결에도 인간적인 이기심과 도덕적 무절제의 한계가 담겨 있는 것은 매우 설득력이 있었습니다. 이와 관련해 글의 5장에서 "선한 명분에도 이기적이고 타락한 측면이 있고 적도 적 나름의 사연이 있으며, 자기들의 행동을 정당화할 고충들이 줄줄이 이어진다"는 서술은 이를 명확히 대변하는 것이라 생각되는데요. 자유주의가 갖는 인상으로 말미암아 여기에 고매한 이상과 순결한 도덕론 따위를 언급할 사람들도 분명 있겠지만 '미국이 선도한 자유주의 세계' 자체가 그리 아름답지는 않았다는 사실이겠지요.

2차대전의 서막이 본격적으로 무르익기 전에 전세계가 유럽에 암운을 드리우던 전체주의에 대해 냉정한 판단을 내리지 못했던 것은 실로 문제였던 것은 확실합니다. 케이건은 이에 정치권의 무분별한 '파시즘의 전도'는 언급하고 있지만 당시 자본주의 체제에서 이익을 얻고 있던 자본가들과 산업 기반 소유자들의 히틀러에 대한 동경은 빼먹고 있습니다. 저자가 1920년대의 자본주의에 다소 경도되기 시작한 자유주의의 본질을 드러내고 싶지 않아서 그랬던 것인지 아니면 이쯤에서 자본주의와 자유주의는 별개의 문제로 인식하고자 한 것인지 명확하지는 않습니다만 3장부터 일관되게 논증되고 있는 이 '자유주의'가 대전 이후의 유럽에 만연되어 있던 민족주의와 국수주의의 망령을 미리 억제한 공로를 갖고 있으며 이것은 전체적으로 모든 유럽인들과 자유 세계의 공통된 이익을 위해 경주하게 된 원인이라 저자는 인식하고 있었습니다. 이렇게 확신하고 있는 연유에는 오늘날 점차 머리를 들고 있는 인종주의적 극우주의와 이슬람 이민을 상대로한 배타적 민족주의가 어떻게 보면 자유주의의 위기로까지 받아들여질 수도 있겠는데요. 케이건이 다소 흥분이 담긴 어조로 쓰고 있는 듯한 인상까지 받은 "이 자유주의가 과거 인류의 '계몽과 이성'에 기반하고 있다는 점은 자유주의가 어떻게 배타적 이데올로기들을 시민들 사이에 뿌리내리지 못하게 막고 있는지 그러한 연관성에 누구나 설득당하게 될 것 같습니다.

많은 미국인들이 지금까지도 불필요하게 막대한 국방비를 투입하면서까지 전세계의 안보에 미국이 희생을 해야하는 하느냐에 볼멘 소리를 내고 있습니다. 종래의 고립주의와도 유사한 미국 국민들의 이러한 불만은 충분히 납득이 됩니다. 다만, 전후 구축된 미국과 서방 그룹의 이 자유주의적 세계는 인간 본연의 숭고한 가치에 대한 믿음 때문이 아니라 '이런 재구축된 세계 자체'가 미국에게 더할나위 없는 이익이 되었기 때문입니다. 그래서 냉전 시기에 자신의 앞마당이라 할 수 있는 라틴 아메리카 지역에 대한 CIA의 더러운 군사작전과 정치적 개입을 자신들의 동맹과 일절 상의도 없이 자행했던 것입니다. 물론 저자인 케이건은 이러한 문제와 직면해, 여느 보수주의자와 마찬가지로 "필요한 일이었다"고 마무리짓고 있습니다만 적지않게 도덕적 신뢰에 타격이 되었던 비민주주의적 행태를 안고 갈 수 없을 만큼 미국이라는 나라 자체도 자신의 이익을 위해 움직였던 것이죠. 뭐 큰틀에서야 저자의 강조된 문구처럼 미국이 자유주의 체제를 지탱하게 만드는 유일한 패권국이라는 논법이 논리적인 프로파간다의 입장에서 필요한 것도 분명합니다. 후쿠야마식대로 냉전의 종말을 눈으로 경험했던 많은 세대들에겐 미국이 서방세계라고 불리우는 자유 민주주의와 시장 자유를 지지하는 체제를 존속시키기 위해 남들도 하기 쉽지 않은 국방력의 총투사로 이러한 토대를 지켜냈다고 볼 수 있을겁니다. 다만, 냉전의 훌륭한 종결이 근 40여년간의 전세계에 대한 핵전쟁의 위협을 깡그리 잊게 만들정도는 아니며, 인류를 몇번이나 절멸에 이르게 할 핵무기를 머리 위에 놓고 신자유주의적 자본주의에 몰빵하면서 그룹 모임에 있는 이들이 앵무새처럼 내뱉는 것과 같이 '그래도 적당히 안전한 세계'였다고 자위할 정도가 되는 것일까요.

이즈음에서 우리가 자유주의 체제에서 다시금 발견해 낼 수 있던 것은 이 체제가 일견 보여주는 어감처럼 실제로 나약하지는 않다는 사실일겁니다. 미국은 이라크와 아프가니스탄에서 자유 세계의 리더가 나약하지 않다는 것을 전세계에 보여줬고 관타나모에서의 포로들에 대한 고문은 이 점을 아주 명확히 했습니다. 저자인 케이건은 스스로 네오콘이라 불리우는 것을 별로 달가워 하지 않는다는 것을 어디서 본 기억이 납니다만 사실 그에게 리버럴적인 양심을 바라는 것은 아니지만 이러한 비도덕적인 문제에 대해 과거 조지 W. 부시 행정부의 중동 관여를 언급하면서 위에 언급한 점들을 꺼내지도 않은 것은 적잖이 실망스런 기분이었습니다. 이러한 맥락이 경멸까지는 아니더라도 진보주의와 민주당과 같은 리버럴에 대해 그 이중성을 지적하면서도 단순히 도덕적인 문제여서가 아니라 최소한 인간의 자격을 상실한 첨단의 미국 군대에게 아무런 비판조차 하지 않는 것은 앞선 존 르 카레의 논법을 그가 맹렬히 추종하고 있기 때문일까요. 뒤이어 글 3장에서, "자유주의 질서에 속한 국가와 사회들은 자국의 국민을 대할 때, 그리고 심지어 범죄인을 대할 때조차도 보다 인도주의적인 태도를 취했다"라는 진술은 그런 것을 잘 알고 있는 미국은 왜 그러지 못했는가에 대한 제대로 된 답변은 되지 못하는 것으로 여겨집니다. 그래서 저로서는 이 자유주의 체제에 대한 숭고한 의미를 단순히 먹고 살만해지고 자유롭다고 해서 무비판적으로 받아들여서는 안된다는 것을 밝혀두고 싶습니다. 국제 외교와 같은 것들에 논리적 선명성 따위를 지지할 생각은 없지만 최소한의 기준은 갖고 있어야 하겠죠.

새뮤얼 헌팅턴의 '미국이 없는 세계'에 대한 비관적 전망의 "미국이 월등한 지위를 유지하지 않는 세계"는 폭력이 난무하고 무질서하고 민주정체와 경제 성장이 후퇴하는 세계로 이어진다는 논법은 과거 영국이 가진 패권과 지금의 미국이 얼마나 입장이 다른지 짐작하게 합니다. 물론 그럼에도 인도와 파키스탄의 핵보유를 용인하고 이스라엘의 핵무기를 묵인하는 것처럼 미국 자신도 스스로의 국익에 따라 움직일 수밖에 없는 패권국임을 이해하게 됩니다. 더이상의 핵무기 확산을 억제하고자 했던 오마바 행정부의 노력은 이미 수포로 돌아갔고 아마도 기존의 질서를 자신들의 입맛대로 요리하고자 하는 수동적인 러시아와 매우 적극적인 중국의 부상은 말 그대로 다음 세대의 확실한 위협이 될 것입니다. 여기에는 저자의 강조래도 "자유주의 체제가 중국을 번영케 했다"면 이것의 양면성은 마찬가지로 미국의 기업들과 유럽의 자본가들에게도 마땅히 이익이 되었다는 것입니다. 중국의 강대국 지위를 회복시키기 위해 자유주의가 이에 산파가 되었던 것이 아니라는 것이죠. 보기에 따라 이들 권위주의 국가들의 행동에 대한 논리적 예측이 불가능할 수도 있지만 정말 미국이 자신들의 국민들에게 강요했던 것처럼 '개인과 시민의 자유'가 그토록 귀중하고 숭고하다면 중국의 배타적 부상을 제대로 관리할 필요가 있을겁니다. 제가 평소에도 미국의 외교 정책과 정치 일반을 비판하고 있지만 그럼에도 불구하고 러시아나 중국이 주도하는 세계 체제에 대해 지지할 생각이 전혀 없습니다. 다만, 어느 정도의 이익계산에 따라 대만을 희생할 건지 아닐 것인지와 같은 주변의 동맹국들에게 매우 잘못된 신호를 보내는 것만큼은 자제하는 편이 미국의 국익에 옳다고 여겨집니다. 저자가 인용한 라인홀드 니버의 "미국인들이 자신들이 하려는 행동에 대해 '안일한 양심'을 지니는 것을 바라지 않았다"는 것이 만약 정론이라면 정말 작금에는 치열하고 아주 명확한 대처가 있어야 할 것입니다. 미국인들과 미국 정부가 자신들이 이룩한 이 자유주의 체제에 대한 확고하고 변치않는 지지를 증명하기 위해서라면 말입니다.

-케이건은 글 중간에 노엄 촘스키를 인용하고 있었는데요. 저로서는 뭔가 자명한 기분에 빠지게 하였습니다. 단순히 진영 논리에서가 아니라 촘스키에 대한 과거 네오콘들의 수많은 공격들을 되짚어 본다면 말입니다.

-최근 우크라이나의 불행은 미국과 소련의 '부다페스트 메모랜덤'이 무력화 된 것과 더불어 앞으로 부상할 러시아에 대한 위협을 미국이 주저한 댓가라로 볼 수 있겠습니다. 물론 자국의 방위와 생존은 스스로가 답보해야 하지만 우크라이나의 사정은 그러한 당위를 거의 불가능하게 하는 지정학적 문제가 있다는 것이 '제한된 국가'의 전형일겁니다. 국제체제 역시 이들에게 등을 돌리려고 하는 작금의 시점은 2차 대전 당시, 폴란드와 체코슬로바키아와 뭐가 다른지 이해하기 어렵습니다.

오늘날 미국인은 자국이 무엇 때문에 세상만사에 그토록 깊이 관여하고 중동과 같은 구제불능의 지역에 인명과 돈을 쏟아부어야 하며, 무엇 때문에 독일, 일본, 남한과 같은 부유한 동맹국들이 자국을 지키기 위해서 국방의 부담을 더 짊어지지 않으며, 미국은 무엇 때문에 자국의 경제와 안보 이익과 직결되지도 않은 문제들 때문에 전쟁을 감수해야 하는지 모르겠다고 생각한다

해리 트루먼 같은 이들은 1930년대에 세계질서가 붕괴한 까닭은 미국이 "세계 강대국으로서의 책임"을 받아들이지 않았기 때문이라고 생각했다

미국은 건국 이래로 늘 독재체제 정부가 민주정체 정부보다 전쟁을 일으킬 가능성이 훨씬 높다고 생각해왔다

영국이 지탱해왔던 기존의 자유주의 질서는 사라졌다. 따라서 세계는 무질서로 빠져들든가, 미국의 국익과 원칙에 적대적인 나라들의 지배를 받든가 둘 중 하나였다

미국은 공산주의자들이 우위를 점하려는 시도를 사전에 분괘하기 위해 군사적 개입과 비밀 작전을 수행했는데, 보통 자유주의 세계질서에 참여한 다른 나라들의 승낙을 구하지 않았고, 때로는 많은 동맹국들의 반대를 무릅쓰기도 했다

그해 새뮤얼 P. 헌팅턴은 "미국이 월등한 지위를 유지하지 않는 세계"는 "폭력이 난무하고 무질서하고 민주정체와 경제 성장이 후퇴하는 세계가 된다. 미국이 국제사회에서 월등한 지위를 지속적으로 유지해야만 미국 국민의 복지와 안보, 그리고 세계의 자유와 민주정체와 개방경제와 국제질서의 미래를 담보할 수 있다"라고 주장했다

미국과 자유 세계가 이들이 "핵무기와 생화학무기, 그리고 이러한 무기를 발사할 미사일"을 갖지 못하게 막지 않으면 이들은 "한층 더 치명적인 적"이 될지 모른다고 했다

오늘날 문제는 지정학이 귀환한 게 아니라 러시아와 중국이 한동안 중단했던 과거의 야망을 다시 추구하기 시작했다는 점이다

- 접기

베터라이프 2022-01-20 공감(13) 댓글(0)

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[마이리뷰] 밀림의 귀환

일독 하였으나, 다시 한번 읽고 싶다. 다시 읽고 다듬어 독후감 남겨 보겠습니다. 짧은 분량에도 문장과 메세지에 엄청난 힘과 역동성이 느껴지는 글이 정말 마음에 듭니다만서도, 국제관계와 계약등의 전문 용어 등의 각주등 설명이 부족해, 차후에는 조사와 추가 이해를 하면서 읽어 보고 싶습니다.

신도르 2022-06-10 공감(0) 댓글(0)

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The Jungle Grows Back From Wikipedia

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The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World is a 2018 book by American historian and foreign-policy commentator Robert Kagan, published by Alfred A. Knopf. The book's argument is that the world order created by the United States in the wake of World War II is being overrun by jungle-like chaos.^[1]^[2]

References[edit]

^ "The end times of the liberal order?". Spectator. 26 October 2018. Retrieved 11 February 2019.
^ Karabell, Zachary (16 November 2018). "What Is America's Role in the World? (book review)". New York Times. Retrieved 11 February 2019.

Further reading[edit]

Ruger, Willian (14 December 2018). "Robert Kagan's Jungle Book of Forever War". The American Conservative.
Marusic, Damir (15 January 2019). "Making Up Monsters to Destroy". The American Interest.
Book Review: The Jungle Grows Back by Francis P. Sempa
Book Review: The Jungle Grows Back by Jim Miles
US China power struggle: A new world order looms, but which stars will guide the way? by Dirk Kurbjuweit
Book Review: Robert Kagan’s “The Jungle Grows Back” by Mark Chapman
The US Foreign Policy Consensus in Crisis by Richard W. Coughlin

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The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World Hardcover – 2018

by Robert Kagan (Author)

4.5 out of 5 stars 234 ratings

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A brilliant and visionary argument for America's role as an enforcer of peace and order throughout the world--and what is likely to happen if we withdraw and focus our attention inward.

Recent years have brought deeply disturbing developments around the globe. American sentiment seems to be leaning increasingly toward withdrawal in the face of such disarray. In this powerful, urgent essay, Robert Kagan elucidates the reasons why American withdrawal would be the worst possible response, based as it is on a fundamental and dangerous misreading of the world. Like a jungle that keeps growing back after being cut down, the world has always been full of dangerous actors who, left unchecked, possess the desire and ability to make things worse. Kagan makes clear how the "realist" impulse to recognize our limitations and focus on our failures misunderstands the essential role America has played for decades in keeping the world's worst instability in check. A true realism, he argues, is based on the understanding that the historical norm has always been toward chaos--that the jungle will grow back, if we let it.

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"A devastating riposte to [Trump's] careless, cynical and destructive approach to diplomacy....[Kagan] is right to detect a crisis of confidence in the democratic world. He sets out his case with characteristic brilliance and conviction."

--The Economist

"[I]t is time to say it: I am a Kaganite... There is no modern author who has taught me more, or changed the way I view the world more, than he has... For identifying and clearly explaining the chief forces driving human history, Bob is brilliant."

--Michael E. O'Hanlon, Brookings

"[S]o important... In clear and forceful language, [The Jungle Grows Back] makes the case for America continuing its role as the guarantor of a liberal world order."

--Eli Lake, Bloomberg

"[Kagan] has in many ways become the biographer of American power... He brings to the page a true sense of the stakes involved--not some abstract notion of the 'rules-based order, ' but the basic security and prosperity of Americans."

--Commentary

"The Jungle Grows Back displays the characteristic Kagan virtues of lucid writing and thought--and a strong sense of history that adds drama and sweep to his argument."

--Gideon Rachman, The Financial Times

"This short book is a valuable read and makes a valiant effort to argue for America's continued deep engagement in the world... The world order is not natural; it needed to be built and it needs to be carefully maintained."

--Doug Stokes, Quillette

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Hylari

4.0 out of 5 stars We can’t be naive in our assumptions that the future will always be better than the past.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 8 October 2018

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A thoughtful and thought -provoking analysis of American power and its use (and misuse) in the 20th centur, and what it might mean for the world in the 21stcentury if America stands back.Would recommend to anyone interested in the balance of power in the world today.

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Günther van Endert

4.0 out of 5 stars Sehr diskutabel

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on 3 February 2021

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A good book. Kagan thinks through possible geo-political and power-political constellations that could develop from the present. However, he focuses too much on a strengthened Germany that is no longer integrated in Europe and the danger that emanates from it. And he neglects the weight of Russia and China in his questions. But it's definitely worth reading.

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Sigmund Roseth

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking small but powerful volume.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on 25 November 2018

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Excellent small volume on American liberalism and contribution to world order after the second wold war; and an assessment of the future of American involvement in world order.

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The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World

Robert Kagan

4.08

880 ratings121 reviews

"An incisive, elegantly written, new book about America's unique role in the world." --Tom Friedman, The New York Times

A brilliant and visionary argument for America's role as an enforcer of peace and order throughout the world--and what is likely to happen if we withdraw and focus our attention inward.

192 pages, Hardcover

First published September 18, 2018

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About the author

Robert Kagan

22 books145 followers

Robert Kagan is an American historian and foreign policy commentator. Robert Kagan is the son of Yale classical historian and author, Donald Kagan. He is married to Victoria Nuland, the former U.S. ambassador to NATO, and has two children. He is the brother of political commentator Frederick Kagan.

Kagan is a columnist for the Washington Post and is syndicated by the New York Times Syndicate. He is a contributing editor at both The New Republic and the Weekly Standard, and has also written for the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, World Affairs, and Policy Review.

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Murtaza

664 reviews · 3,406 followers

April 11, 2019

Robert Kagan is among the most capable apologists for the U.S.-led liberal international order. While the crimes and follies of the post-WW2 order weigh heavily on our minds (Vietnam, Iraq etc.), there are also genuine accomplishments that are less noticed by critics. Kagan takes a long view of history to make the case that the last 70 years have in fact been the most peaceful and prosperous in human history.

He credits the liberal order with mostly keeping allies by persuasion rather than coercion, unlike its former Warsaw Bloc adversary.

Were the U.S. to withdraw from the world, he argues, it would fall back into pre-1945 patterns of behavior. Those patterns including chronic great-medium power conflict, territorial irredentism, authoritarianism as a norm and more terrible things that we felt that we had left in a benighted past.

Critics of American foreign policy, myself included, must take Kagan's arguments seriously.

Viewed in the context of history, the achievements of the liberal-order are indeed not so easy to dismiss. This is why it continues to enjoy such powerful support both here and abroad.

My problem with Kagan is that he makes arguments at times dishonestly, or at least myopically, which undermines trust in the rest of his case.

In making his argument about Vladimir Putin as an unreconcilable wannabe Tsar, he ignores that Putin actually supported NATO moves such as the 2011 No-Fly Zone in Libya. Later behavior, such as the deposing of Gaddafi, clearly embittered him because they appeared as a betrayal. Perhaps if things had been handled better later disputes in Syria and Crimea may not have occurred. Kagan doesn't even mention this possibility in making his case for Russia as a congenitally implacable foe.
His attempt to defend the Iraq War as merely a good-faith mistake is also predictably glib.
I feel that he is on more solid ground describing China's regional great power ambitions. But he also fails to consider how the behavior of foreign countries may also be motivated by genuine insecurity in the face of perceived threats.

There are many things we take for granted living in a liberal society. Free speech, assembly and conscience are almost like the air we breathe at this point. Such a world is not the norm. Authoritarianism may indeed be a more "natural" human state, as history strongly suggests. Communism and liberalism ironically have a lot in common as children of the Enlightenment, with Communism being the more radical sibling.

With Communism's collapse, the challenge to liberalism today comes from anti-Enlightenment forces. They would like to replace liberal freedoms with much older forms of authoritarian rule, communal and spiritual. From what we know such governments are often easily corrupted by lack of oversight, as well as prone to war. They do not have the fellow-feeling that liberal societies do and frequently are at odds with one another. There are old grudges to settle that go back hundreds of years, stemming from the unchanging geography of the world. This is the "jungle" that Kagan warns is growing back as the liberal-order recedes.

I would take liberalism, with all its flaws, over authoritarianism. I also do not relish a worldwide security vacuum where Japan and Germany feel compelled to arm themselves with nuclear weapons and the Baltic States and Southeast Asia are devoured by local hegemonic powers. Such a world would inevitably draw the United States back into war as well.

Ideally, it would be better if a third way that deprivileged the United States to some degree emerged. However the Non-Aligned Movement and Bandung Conference style politics of the past seem to have fizzled out. There is no global liberationist movement ready to manage the international system, at least not yet. Today we have a choice between bad and ugly options. We don't have the luxury of tossing out the bad in a spirit of moral outrage.

I suspect that Americans have a deeply-held feeling that they do not really need a foreign policy. The world is distant and messy, separated from them by two wide oceans. This solipsistic worldview is what leads to the election of people like Donald Trump, who rebuked the idea of even having a coherent foreign policy.

It was also more subtly expressed by Barack Obama and even the early years George W. Bush, both of whom seemed to view foreign policy as a headache to be managed.

Americans do need a foreign policy, however.

The post-WW2 order has been in some limited sense a vacation from history. As the order falters, we see history reawakening. It already does not look pretty.

I share Kagan's pessimism about what the future could hold, especially when looking at the broad scope of human history before 1945.

I'm not as sanguine about the status quo as we he is. However I appreciate that unlike many other neoconservatives he has been sincere about democracy promotion, even in places like Egypt where the governments voted into power have not been to American taste. He is a genuine believer in Enlightenment universalism, not an opportunistic one.

A short and extremely relevant book about the most important issues of world order playing out today. You do not have to accept Kagan's case to understand the gravity of what he is arguing.

47 likes

25 comments

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Esteban del Mal

191 reviews · 64 followers

January 15, 2019

This book is like one of those pharmaceutical commercials you see that portrays the happy, healthy life circumstances of people because they take Brand X pill to treat whatever condition afflicts them and that would otherwise lay them low. Meanwhile, the calming voice of a narrator ticks off all the possible side effects from taking the pill. What do I mean by this? Let’s start with a quote from the author himself:

Members of Congress from both parties have underfunded the military since the beginning of the post-Cold War era, but especially over the last decade.

And that’s it. That’s the active ingredient that is lacking in American foreign policy. It doesn’t project enough military power. However, no mention is made of the fact that the United States spends more for defense than any other country -- more than most every other significant country combined with every other significant country -- by a large margin. And what are the side effects of that mammoth spending? An underdeveloped welfare state whereby the citizenry of the U.S. are reduced to a state of economic bellum omnium contra omnes, that Hobbesian hellscape of “the war of all against all” Kagan warns against in the international sphere, excepting that it’s hardly fair because your typical U.S. citizen has neither the resources nor recourse to any intervening remediating influence, unlike those nations that have flourished because of American largesse. The fact that the past 70 years have been relatively peaceful worldwide is small consolation to the man or woman who is reduced to bankruptcy because he or she lost his or her job.

Kagan also indicts the tenure of the last presidential administration (Obama, for those of you keeping score at home) as being a principle culprit in both underfunding the military and not applying it to maintain the international order, despite that administration inheriting the biggest shit show, economic and foreign policy-wise, this side of WW II. And what precipitated that shit show? Well, largely the overreach of the preceding administration, what with its unilateral invasion of Iraq. An invasion that squandered international goodwill toward America, particularly in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Does Kagan actually believe that Obama, who won the presidency by promising to extricate the U.S. from Iraq specifically and the Middle East generally, could have committed the military to Syria, itself reduced to a years-long, regionally destabilizing war because of the missteps in Iraq? Kagan would have us spiral further down the intervention rabbit hole, exhausting an already exhausted military and populace. Exhausting a military staffed by a populace which joined the military because it was the only job available. While other liberal democracies enjoy the benefits of a welfare state because they haven't had to invest in their military to any meaningful degree, the only welfare state available to U.S. citizens IS the military.

But Kagan doesn’t see the invasion of Iraq as an overreach. Or Vietnam. He sees them as the type of natural consequence resulting from America living up to its obligation to police the world because it inherited a leadership role in the wake of WW II. What’s more, it benefits from establishing and enforcing an international order. I agree with Kagan on these points, but I also contend that, as other liberal democracies take root and flourish (read: Germany, Japan), they can contribute to the maintenance of international peace to a degree that allows the U.S. to focus more on its domestic affairs; after all, not only those liberal democracies that have been allowed to take root and flower under the American umbrella, but all of Western Europe, have well-developed welfare states that are able to flourish because of the guarantee of American military protection. Is it too much to expect that America divert some of that budget earmarked for defense to domestic development and those other countries increase their contributions to the mutual defense that guarantees international peace that they, and the entire global community, benefit from? America can certainly maintain its position as hegemon in such a scenario.

americana

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Mbogo J

379 reviews · 25 followers

October 2, 2018

In this essay Kagan prosecuted his case with such aplomb that if you have a marginal understanding of geopolitics you might wonder why his position is not the default position. The problem or lets say disagreement comes when you have a prior position...

I agree with Kagan that America has a big role to play in the global stage but I differ with him on the extent and the methods used. A lot of times Kagan seems to be a war monger and stopping short of calling for preemptive strikes. The tone was also a tad be condescending, Kagan talking about countries as if they are kids and America the good baby sitter who saw to it that they grew into good adults. All the good in those countries was somehow credited to America and lets not forget the book title that seems to suggest anything unamerican is a thicket deep in the jungle.

I could go on and on about my disagreements with Kagan but he had some good points. A lot of times he was telling it like it is and he gave conflicting positions a fair hearing. He is also a superb essayist with a good grasp of foreign policy and though you might not like his positions you will learn a lot about the open positions out there in the current geopolitical environment.

16 likes

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Richard Subber

5 books · 31 followers

October 7, 2018

If nothing in Kagan’s book surprises or terrifies you, then you’ve been unhappy for a long time.

The Jungle Grows Back teaches and motivates without consoling anyone who believes in any version of “world peace.” It is bad news all around, and Kagan bluntly says that all of us who want a stable world order have to step up and start actually doing something to keep our children and our grandchildren out of harm’s way.

“The past seven-plus decades of relatively free trade, growing respect for individual rights, and relatively peaceful cooperation among nations—the core elements of the liberal [world] order—have been a great historical aberration.”

Kagan says that fearful, competitive, militaristic, geopolitical competition among nations is stoked by regrettable elements of human nature, and that the deadly conflicts that have characterized all of modern human history are the default conditions of mankind’s dominion all over the world.

The Jungle Grows Back explains how the United States, with unique economic and geographic strengths, imposed and nurtured the relatively peaceful world order that has existed during the lifetimes of almost all of us.

For some years America has been withdrawing from its leadership role around the globe. Weaker nations are starting to revert to the combative, competitive, multipolar power struggles that they practiced for centuries.

If American continues to pull back, our world will become more dangerous.

Regardless of all the bad things that go on in the world, we enjoy the relative comforts and security of a world without world war. Kagan writes the bald truth in a blast: this world order “is as precarious as it is precious. It is a garden that needs constant tending lest the jungle grow back and engulf us all.”

Read more of my book reviews and poems here:

www.richardsubber.com

6 likes

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Karl-O

164 reviews · 4 followers

February 17, 2019

https://www.economist.com/the-america...

From the piece:

Canada’s instinct is to redouble its commitment to old principles rather than to adopt new ones. It remains a vocal defender of human rights, which pleases idealists but annoys despots. Ms Freeland says that one of her favourite new books is Robert Kagan’s “The Jungle Grows Back: America and our Imperilled World”, a gift from Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas. It argues that jungle-like chaos is taking over the ordered garden created by the United States. Ms Freeland believes that Canada must fend it off as best it can. “The rules-based international order is powerfully in our national self-interest,” she says.

history

5 likes

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Mostafa

110 reviews · 49 followers

August 30, 2019

A journalistic writing- without methodological framework- in defence of the current "liberal world order".

3 likes

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Billhotto

321 reviews · 5 followers

April 3, 2019

An extended essay in which Kagan passionately argues that America must continue in its role as the world's policeman. After WW II, American economic, military and political power secured a "liberal world order". In Western Europe and the Far East democracy flourished and the war ravaged economies were rebuilt. Although this was achieved in the context of the Cold War, Kagan states that American leadership was planned by leaders like President Truman and Dean Acheson before the confrontations with the Soviet Union began in 1946. It was a reaction to the results of American isolationism after WW I. To Kagan the most significant event in post WW II was not the fall of the Soviet empire, but the democratization and pacification of Germany and Japan. However, the threat of international Communism justified, to many Americans, the enormous cost of defending allies who had by 1989 grown prosperous. After the collapse of the Soviet Union we adopted a naïve belief that we had reached the "end of history" and allowed the world to slip into its current confused and perilous state. The threat now is from revanchist, nationalistic and intolerant states and non-state actors. Authoritarianism, a more comfortable form of government in stressful times, is now ascendant. Russia, China, Eastern Europe, the Mid East are dominated by leaders who disparage democracy and individual rights and promise a return to past glories.

Kagan doesn't see either democracy or autocracy as inevitable. However, even in the U.S., the golden child of the Enlightenment, we have elected a president who is as illiberal and tribalistic as Hungary's Viktor Orban. More constrained domestically, but far more dangerous to the world's future. Kagan posits a world much like that in the first half of the 20th century. Without the guarantee of American protection, Germany and Japan will return to militarism. Their neighbors will form alliances to protect themselves. We will be back to a Hobbesian world, this time with nuclear weapons.

Kagan takes a too expansive view of America's capabilities and responsibilities. He blames every bad thing in the world on our failure to act. He sees Vietnam and Iraq as justified efforts undone by poor execution. I see them as being based on false premises . These adventures reduced the credibility of the American people in their government. He doesn't mention our previous support of jihadists in Afghanistan. Blowback does not seem to concern him, failures of omission are much worse than those of commission. It's possible that the world is now evolving towards a rejection of the post war "liberal world order" or neo-liberalism as it's often termed. The U.S. has to develop new strategies involving greater flexibility. Unfortunately we have a president with no knowledge or sense of history, who has apparently no idea of the fire he is playing with. Kagan sees Obama as being weak, but that Trump is an unmitigated disaster.

Overall, I agree with Kagan that because of her geography, wealth and democratic experience, America is "the indispensable nation" as Bill Clinton put it.. If any other nation aspires to the title, no one should trust them.

3 likes

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1,252 reviews · 42 followers

July 10, 2019

Kagan is predictable in his likes, dislikes, and beliefs. He speaks and believes in absolutes and absolutely believes that what he believes is the only logical thing for anyone not foolish to believe. He is a believer in the absolute right of capitalism as the best and truest form of government.

Like most conservatives of his flavor, he can't see the forest for the trees. He wrote an entire book about the political aspects of war, foreign policy, and American power projection, and never once mentioned climate change (which the Department of Defense has said is a major threat for over a decade) or any number of other real world threats.

“Democracy has spread and endured because it has been nurtured and supported: by the norms of the liberal order, by global pressures and inducements to conform to those norms, by the membership requirements of liberal institutions like the EU and NATO, by the fact that the liberal order has been the wealthiest part of the world, and by the security provided by the world’s strongest power, which happens to be a democracy.”

All of that is true, and as I sit here reading this I think more and more that this book is a response to Trump's attacks on the liberal order and should probably be seen as such. That said, this book will likely lose relevancy faster than most because of that very fact. Trump is not an anachronism. (I despise him) What he is, is the product of a confluence of everything bad in American culture made manifest. He's a monster that wouldn't have been possible without the American values of the time. He's greedy, immoral, capitalism run wild and Kagan's absolute defense of the system that created Trump while condemning him is hypocritical at best. Don't like Trump? Fix the system that created, nurtured, and rewarded him. Otherwise, you're a part of the problem.

I cannot in good conscience recommend this title while there are other truly good books left unread.

audiobooks

national-security

public-administration

3 likes

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Daniel Cunningham

226 reviews · 25 followers

February 11, 2019

This is one of that books that I love because it makes me really wonder if maybe a bunch of things I believe are ill-founded while bolstering a strain of thought that I think I've "secretly" harbored for a long time. But I also think the book leaves out a lot. Sure, a "unipolar" world, a US-led liberal order, is safer and more stable (for many... or at least for some.) And, sure, a "balance of powers" between "great powers" has a 100% terrible history. And a China-led illiberal order seems like it would be the worst of the US-order, writ large.

But there is a part of me that just... pushes back and says, "There's got to be a better way." I think part of that comes from the (obvious) admission from Kagan that of course the US, as global cop, will have to make choices: we can't be everywhere, we can't "fix" things, so we have to pick where and how much and how long and how hard. And all those choices leave a lot of room to f* up. Which Kagan also admits.

I guess it come comes down to the "Communism" question. I.e., communism is great on paper, it just turns into a disaster when you actually do it in the real world. I don't think the US ever did anything even approximately Stalin-scale, so I'm not drawing a false equivalency here. That said, maybe the US-led unipolar world is "great on paper" only. Maybe the alternatives aren't a US-led liberal order or a new "Great Game." Maybe we can actually have a truly multi-polar world... but I suspect that might be more a wish than a reality.

commentary-politics

geopolitics-empire-etc

THE JUNGLE GROWS BACK

AMERICA AND OUR IMPERILED WORLD

BY ROBERT KAGAN

RELEASE DATE: SEPT. 18, 2018

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/robert-kagan/the-jungle-grows-back/

Why a strong, interventionist America remains the world’s best hope against the return of international chaos.

Washington Post columnist and Brookings Institution senior fellow Kagan (The World America Made, 2012, etc.), who served in the State Department during the 1980s, sees the United States in retreat from its responsibility at a time when its leadership is needed most. “If Obama’s policies put a dent in the liberal world order, Trump’s statements and actions have been driving a stake through it,” he writes. “For if the United States cannot be relied upon to provide the secure environment in which members of the liberal world order can flourish, and if in addition it is going to be jealous and spiteful and demand ‘wins’ when they do flourish, then the United States starts to look more like a rogue superpower than a nation defending any order of any kind.” The 20th century elevated America into a unique position through a combination of the country’s ideals and power and geography; to abdicate that position, argues Kagan, would be to fall from “a relative paradise” into a natural disorder of darkness and chaos. In the wake of Vietnam and Iraq, both of which the author sees as strategically sound if unfortunate in outcome, America is less likely to see its responsibilities extend beyond its borders. If America pulls back, Russia, Japan, China, Germany, or another nation might rush to fill that vacuum. Peace isn’t a given, and neither is democracy; they must be guarded and defended. Kagan’s argument should appeal to unrepentant Cold Warriors and to others who believe that might makes right where America’s place in the world is concerned. Yet the metaphor for the title is unfortunate, implying (more strongly than the text does) that without the primacy of developed nations, the hordes of barbarians will infest the planet with their jungle ways.

A provocative argument that runs counter to popular sentiment and conventional wisdom.

What Is America’s Role in the World? Three Authors Offer Very Different Views

By Zachary Karabell

Nov. 16, 2018

1] A NEW FOREIGN POLICY

Beyond American Exceptionalism

By Jeffrey D. Sachs

253 pp. Columbia University. $17.95.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/books/review/robert-kagan-jungle-grows-back.html

Sachs, whose long career has spanned academia and public policy, has never been one to focus on shades of gray. In stark prose, he announces that the United States today faces a binary choice, “poised between two possible futures — one of conflict, even nuclear war, and one of peaceful cooperation.” The only way to avoid the former, he argues, is for America to abandon its toxic notion of exceptionalism, the deep-seated (and in Sachs’s view mistaken) conviction that the United States is a nation unlike any other, destined for greatness and bound to lead. Whether that has taken the form of a belief in the American Century, which propelled the country throughout the 1900s, or the harsh strains of America First animating the current White House, the idea of exceptionalism has at times served American power but today, Sachs says, is a recipe for disaster.

It will come as no surprise that Sachs excoriates Donald Trump as the purest distillation of America’s worst instincts, “aiding the rich at the expense of the poor,” “impetuous, unstable and inexperienced.” But he sees Trump as simply the latest, albeit one of the more pernicious, manifestations of an exceptionalist mind-set that has involved America in endless, unnecessary and unjust wars of choice, covert and overt, from Guatemala and Iran in the 1950s to Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years. It has also led to a dangerous disregard for the environment, a blinkered approach to the Middle East and North Korea, and a failure to confront the challenge of China by investing in domestic economic growth and innovation. American leaders time and again have hypocritically looted the international system for purely nationalist ends. Trump is a dark symptom, but for Sachs he walks a familiar path blazed by generations of others.

What’s called for, Sachs concludes, is a new embrace of an internationalist approach that rejects a zero-sum mentality and does not pretend that the United States is a nation that can do no wrong. Forceful and angry, Sachs verges on hyperbole in his indictment of America past and present, but he does highlight the perils of continuing on the same path.

2] UNRIVALED

Why America Will Remain the World’s Sole Superpower

By Michael Beckley

231 pp. Cornell University. $29.95.

In contrast to the many voices warning of the imminent decline of the United States, Beckley — a political scientist at Tufts and a fellow at the Kennedy School — contends that the days of American hegemony are far from numbered. In his analysis, American “unipolarity is not guaranteed to endure but present trends strongly suggest that it will last for many decades.” He neither celebrates nor excoriates this dominance; he argues simply that it is a statistical fact, and he marshals reams of evidence to prove his thesis.

In measured, data-driven prose, Beckley demonstrates that no country is poised to upend American primacy, not economically, not militarily and not technologically. He methodically measures the relative power of nations today “by tallying the wealth and military assets of each country.” While other countries may surpass the United States in population or in total economic output or in numbers of soldiers, none, Beckley argues, comes close in terms of net assets.

China would appear the most logical candidate to surpass the United States. Beckley isn’t buying it. “China is big but inefficient. … The United States, by contrast, is big and efficient.” China has to spend egregiously to produce its growth, and while its results have been impressive, on no per capita metric (for example, education, productivity or income) is China close to the United States. Beckley also convincingly dents the emerging view of China as a military threat. It is surrounded by neighbors with formidable defenses and confronts a United States that has built up decades of military stock, forward bases and advanced systems.

The greatest threat to the nation’s hegemony for Beckley is not a rising power but domestic decay, which, he worries, will make life worse for most Americans. His suggestions that we end gerrymandering and try to increase voter turnout, while laudable, seem tacked on and thin compared with the overall statistical rigor of his argument. He also does not adequately grapple with the precipitous decline of American soft power in recent years. Still, if his perspective about the imperviousness of American power strikes a dissonant note in our current pessimistic climate, the evidence he assembles should be part of any serious debate about where we are heading.

3] THE JUNGLE GROWS BACK

America and Our Imperiled World

By Robert Kagan

179 pp. Knopf. $22.95.

The post-World War II liberal order of nation-states bound by treaties and international institutions, and favoring democracy, capitalism and the rule of law, has, in Kagan’s telling, seen more peace and prosperity than any other time in history. But its continuance is anything but guaranteed, and its emergence after 1945 was “a great historical aberration” that saw the simultaneous collapse of the old power centers of Europe and Asia and the rise of a liberal, capitalist, democratic United States committed to internationalism and locked in a competition with a nuclear Soviet Union. The result was a sharp break from a past of endless cycles of powers rising, warring and falling, and one that saw “amazing progress over the past seven decades.”

Now, however, that system is in jeopardy. The jungle — that place of chaos and disorder and war — “is growing back. History is returning. Nations are reverting to old habits and traditions.” Kagan does not lay all the blame on the United States, but he does see the country as responsible, through acts of omission and commission, for letting the system unravel. Trump is accelerating that, though he cannot be faulted for the rise of antidemocratic nationalism in Europe or the return of Asian rivalries. Kagan passionately believes that the only way to beat back the jungle and reverse these dangerous trends is for the United States to recommit itself to lead.

To do that, Kagan concludes, Americans must first address the fraying of the liberal order domestically. On that score he is fairly sanguine: “Americans will come out of it.” They “cannot escape the principles of the Declaration, even if they want to. They have nowhere else to go.” Not so the rest of the world. As much as many Americans would like to turn inward, that path will imperil the United States. Kagan may well overstate the role the United States can and should play going forward, but he powerfully underscores just how tenuous the world order is and always has been.

Potentia: Journal of International Affairs 91

BOOK REVIEW

Kagan, R. (2018). The jungle grows back: America and our imperiled world. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Douglas Eduard Steinert, University of Ottawa

A reoccurring theme in international politics is the alleged threat to the established liberal world order, which can be illustrated by protectionist measures on trade and the rise of populism in several countries, including those that are traditionally described as “liberal democracies”.

This international order, which finds its origin in the aftermath of World War II, has been institutionalized through the creation of organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), among others. The United States was pivotal in conceiving the current arrangement of international institutions and has supported it over decades.

In his latest book, The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World, Robert Kagan writes about the role that America’s global military engagement has played in forging and protecting this order. In short, he portrays such engagement as necessary to promote prosperity and calls for its continuation to ensure that liberal values are preserved. The bookprovides a significant contribution to the analysis of international politics by outlining the historical perspective of America’s role in global politics.

Nevertheless, when defending America’s military undertaking, Kagan’s analysis fails to recognize the shortcomings it has had in recent years.Through a chronological structure, the author provides the reader with an insight into America’s sentiments towards the state of international affairs over time. From debates surrounding America’s role in World War I up to the Syrian conflict, Kagan outlines key historic moments that shaped the United States as a hegemonic superpower. The book’s message will resonate with those interested in geopolitics, particularly if they are interested in the democratic peace hypothesis.

The author asserts that the progress the international community has witnessed over the past few decades, namely the peace achieved in Europe, consolidation of democracy in many countries, as well as immense technological, economic and social advances, was not inevitable or the culmination of anything.

Neither was global progress the result of a change in the basic nature of human beings. It has been the product of a unique set of circumstances, contingent on a particular set of historical outcomes, including on the battlefield, that allowed for the rise of American power. And, as it happened, America had a national ideology based on the liberal principles of the Enlightenment (Kagan, 2018).

Kagan argues that the world is a jungle and in order to keep our liberal gardens free from unwanted weeds, the international order requires permanent engagement. It requires America’s engagement.

According to the author, it is America’s military presence around the globe, which can be exemplified by NATO in Europe or by the commitment to Japan and South Korea, that allows countries to overcome the power struggles and competitive animosities of world politics.

In turn, an environment for progress has been created. Detached from these concerns, nations can focus on economic development and trade, which, in a world with a rules-based liberal order, benefits the U.S. as much as the other countries within the order. America, therefore, should change the course adopted under Donald Trump and reclaim its position as the indispensable superpower, thereby benefiting the global community.

The jungle that is growing back in the world, according to Kagan, is the result of an uninterested atmosphere currently present in American politics and society, unable to engage and promote liberal values across the globe. He mentions the rise of populism in Europe, particularly in Hungry, Poland, and Italy, but also in America under President Donald Trump. The jungle grows back at home, too.

Kagan draws attention to familiar geopolitical concerns—such as Russian attitudes towards neighbours as well as China’s awakening—but also introduces topics that are rarely mentioned in present-day debates about America and its closest allies. After so many decades, according to the author, a historic underlying desire for military autonomy could become more prominent in Japan and in Germany.

One New York Times reviewer called it “lucid and elegant,” and I also believe the book to be well-written. It does justice to the role the United States played in securing peace and prosperity in the West and does so with historical accuracy. In present times, it is hard to postulate if a similar outcome would have been feasible without America. The author builds his argument on the successes achieved in this regard.

The spirit of the book is perhaps best illustrated by Hilary Clinton’s speech at the Council of Foreign relations in 2013, where she asserts,

“our ability to convene and connect is unparallel, and so is our ability to act alone whenever necessary. So, when I say we are truly the indispensable nation, it’s not meant as a boast or an empty slogan. It’s a recognition of our role and our responsibilities. That’s why all the declinists are dead wrong. It’s why the U.S. must and will continue to lead in this century” (Clinton, 2013).

Such reasoning is welcomed by audiences, particularly in the U.S., who envision a continuation of the interventionist foreign policy practiced under George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Nevertheless, when encountered by a non-American public, the argument risks presumptuousness.

Furthermore, other American authors on foreign affairs, such as John Mearsheimer, have heavily criticized positions similar to these in matters of international relations.

Although recognizing the nature of chaos in the international system and defending the need for an offensive defense strategy, Mearsheimer calls for containment when it comes to projects that contemplate socially engineering other jurisdictions in America’s image (Mearsheimer, 2018).

The legacy of regime changes pursued in the Middle East by the U.S. is a good example of where such a critique is due.

Not withstanding political views on the issue of America’s military engagement, the historical perspective provides readers with a more thorough comprehension of both the fundamental nature and differing reactions towards America’s contemporary foreign policy.

History is enlightening. The book is certainly a relevant contribution to the analysis of international affairs and makes for a worthwhile read.

References

Council on Foreign Relations. (2013, January 31).
Hillary Clinton -Remarks on American Leadership [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B3wBkYK3Es
Kagan, R. (2018). The jungle grows back: America and our imperiled world. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Mearsheimer, J. J. (2018). The great delusion: Liberal dreams and international realities. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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A NEW THEORY OF AMERICAN POWER
The United States can—and must—wield its power for good.

By George Packer

NOVEMBER 21, 2022

Anational mood disorder afflicts America, causing wild swings between mania and despair, superhuman exertion and bruised withdrawal. We overdo our foreign crusades, and then we overdo our retrenchments, never pausing in between, where an ordinary country would try to reach a fine balance. American exceptionalism has two faces, equally transfixed with a sense of specialness—one radiant with the nation’s unique beneficence, the other sunk in its unrivaled malignity. These extremes, confounding friends as well as enemies, are unrealistic and unsustainable.

Until the early hours of February 24, when Russian tank columns crossed the Ukrainian border and airborne troops targeted Kyiv, the United States was a chastened and declining superpower. The Biden administration seemed to have picked up where the Trump administration left off, accepting the harsh diagnosis of critics: After 20 years of failed wars, the age of intervention was over. Any thought of using force to transform other countries met the definition of insanity. A wave of recent books—Spencer Ackerman’s Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump, Andrew Bacevich’s After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed, Samuel Moyn’s Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, Luke Mogelson’s The Storm Is Here: An American Crucible—portrays a country so warped by endless war, white supremacy, and violence that its very nature now drives it to dominate and destroy. Ackerman concludes that it is “increasingly difficult to see America as anything more than its War on Terror.”

The best that such a country can do for the world is as little as possible. After the fall of Afghanistan, Moyn, a law and history professor at Yale, told Vox: “The most remarkable fact about liberals today is that, aside from a few, they’ve all learned their lesson.” What lesson? That “humanitarian intervention” is a contradiction, and war itself almost always wrong; that the U.S. cannot change other countries and does a lot of harm trying; that Americans are willing to accept far too much violence in the name of “security” and “democracy”; that the period of American global hegemony was a disaster best consigned to history.

In the past half decade, this deep skepticism has led to an odd convergence of views. From opposed starting points, the pacifist, anti-imperialist left and the nationalist, “America First” right have arrived at a common position: restraint. They have been joined by geopolitical “realists” from the center—mostly academic experts—who view international relations in terms of national interests and security, holding that the goal of foreign policy should be stability among great powers, not the spread of democracy and human rights.

The old labels have lost their predictability. Progressives now call for a return to “spheres of influence,” and conservatives denounce the U.S. military; The Intercept and Fox News sometimes sound alike; Noam Chomsky recently praised the statesmanship of Donald Trump. The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft (named for John Quincy Adams, who warned the young American republic not to go abroad “in search of monsters to destroy”) emerged in 2019 as a stronghold of restrainers from across the spectrum. It draws experts from the staff of former Vice President Dick Cheney, the Nation Institute, the oil industry, and the CIA; they’ve been paid by both George Soros and Charles Koch.

Beneath the restrainers’ views lies a shared hostility to what they often call “liberal elites”—the policy makers and plugged-in experts and pundits who never listened, and whom they despise for continuing to see America as a benevolent power. How could anyone still believe that fairy tale? For restrainers on the right, liberal zeal threatens national sovereignty and traditional values around the world and at home. For those on the left, democracy is the pretty lie that hides the brutality of capitalism and imperialism. These views are at bottom antithetical: The right wants more national power without international rules, and the left wants the nation-state to disappear. But the two sides have made a temporary marriage at what they see as liberalism’s sickbed.

THE ATLANTIC DAILY

From the March 2022 issue: George Packer on the betrayal of Afghanistan

With the withdrawal last year of the final troops from Kabul, restraint appeared to have won an uncontested victory. It lasted six months.

In february, as more than 130,000 Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border, restrainers refused to believe the Biden administration’s warning that Vladimir Putin was about to invade. A war would upend their fixed views of international politics: that states pursue rational interests, not mad dreams of ancient glory; that U.S. leaders manufacture intelligence for their own ends; that imperialism is a uniquely American sin. Therefore, a war wasn’t possible. When it came anyway, restrainers found ways to place the blame on the U.S.:

“Emulation of the American way of being in the world is largely complete with Putin’s shock and awe assault.”

“The neocons on the right ... they’re power drunk, they are bloodthirsty, and they cannot be trusted ... Joe Biden is sleepwalking us towards war.”

“At first Putin’s invasion of Ukraine had at least the morally instructive quality of showing what a humanitarian intervention looks like from the other side.”

“It’s very important to understand that we invented this story that Putin is highly aggressive and he’s principally responsible for this crisis in Ukraine.”

These statements could all have come from the left, right, or center. As it happens, in order they’re from Pankaj Mishra, a left-wing anti-imperialist; Joe Kent, a pro-Trump Republican candidate for Congress in Washington State; Thomas Meaney, whose career has spanned the Claremont Institute and the New Left Review; and John Mearsheimer, a realist international-relations scholar. They give neither Russia nor Ukraine any agency—only the U.S. drives history. The war is not about Putin’s fantasy of a restored empire, or Ukraine’s determination to remain an independent democracy. It’s simply one move of a long game in which America is the aggressive player, Russia a threatened opponent capable of being restored to reason, and Ukraine a hapless pawn. Putin was only reacting to NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders.

From the October 2022 issue: Ukrainians are defending the values Americans claim to hold

None of this analysis held up. The NATO alliance has always remained a defensive one, posing no military threat to the Russian Federation, never seriously considering Ukrainian membership, and guilty of no historic betrayal, either, as the Johns Hopkins historian M. E. Sarotte shows in Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post–Cold War Stalemate. The book argues that both superpowers squandered the chance for cooperation after the Cold War, but it refutes the Russian claim that expansion broke an explicit American promise to advance NATO “not one inch eastward.” In any case, Putin had offered an entirely different justification on the eve of the invasion: Ukraine was part of Russia. Ukraine didn’t exist.

In the months following February 24, a few restrainers quietly changed their minds on Ukraine; others fell silent about one of the most important geopolitical events of the century. Most persisted with the conviction that American arms would achieve nothing, that a doomed Ukraine should find the quickest way out of pointless bloodshed by negotiating away territory and human beings for neutrality and peace. When I went to Ukraine this past spring, Oleksandr Sushko, the executive director of a prodemocracy foundation in Kyiv, told me that some progressive American colleagues recoiled when Ukrainians like him spoke of fighting for liberal values. “Don’t say the word freedom,” Sushko was warned, “because ‘freedom’ was used to intervene somewhere in the world.” In an essay, Samuel Moyn advised the West to follow the example of countries in the “global south” and criticize the invasion without doing a thing to stop it—which would have left Ukraine a Russian-occupied wasteland and encouraged future aggressors around the world.

With the withdrawal last year of the final troops from Kabul, restraint appeared to have won an uncontested victory. It lasted six months.
This restraint is not a hard-won prudence in the face of tragic facts. It’s a doctrinaire refusal, by people living in the safety and comfort of the West, to believe in liberal values that depend on American support. The restrainers can’t accept that politics leaves no one clean, and that the most probable alternative to U.S. hegemony is not international peace and justice but worse hegemons. They can’t face the reality that force never disappears from the world; it simply changes hands.

Meanwhile, the war has reduced their position to rubble. U.S. intelligence turned out to be accurate. Putin has rejected any serious negotiations, both before invading and since. His purpose is not to neutralize or “liberate” Ukraine, but to annihilate it for the dream of Greater Russia. Occupying troops have committed atrocities on an unimagined scale. NATO weapons have allowed Ukrainians to defend themselves and eventually regain lost territory in a conflict they understand to be a fight for survival. European support has not disintegrated under Russian blackmail. American leadership has proved decisive in holding the West together in defense of collective security and democratic values. The war is about freedom. Russia is likely to lose.

But we should pause before closing the book on the post-9/11 years and never listening to the restrainers again. The war has kindled hope, at times bordering on triumphalism, for a renewal of liberal democracy, not just as a guide to foreign policy but as a mission at home. In September, the political philosopher Francis Fukuyama told The Washington Post, “If Ukraine is able to defeat Russia, the demonstration effect is going to be really tremendous. It’s going to have domestic political consequences inside every democracy that’s threatened by one of these populist parties … I do think that we could recover a little bit of the spirit of 1989. Ukraine could trigger something like that in the United States and Europe.”

Imagining that a Ukrainian victory would have a decisive effect on the internal politics of Western democracies is unwarranted exuberance. Illiberal populism continues to thrive in countries whose governments support Ukraine—Poland, the U.K., France, Italy, Sweden. The major non-Western democracies—India, Indonesia, Brazil, and South Africa—have stayed more or less neutral on the war; India began to criticize only when Russia began to lose. In the U.S., arming Ukraine still has bipartisan backing in Congress and from the public, but a Republican win in the midterm elections could allow the party’s Trumpist wing to block military aid; and if Trump is reelected in 2024, the U.S. might well switch sides. In that case, American politics would transform Ukraine, not the other way around.

From the January/February 2022 issue: George Packer on how to fend off Trump’s next coup

In 1989 it was possible to believe that Europe would lead the way toward a more integrated, cosmopolitan world under an American security umbrella; it was easy to discount the force of nationalism. That ceased to be true a long time ago, as Fukuyama knows: It’s the subject of his latest book, Liberalism and Its Discontents. He argues persuasively that liberalism—individual freedom, equal rights, rule of law, consent of the governed, open markets, scientific rationalism—is in retreat around the world, not because of “a fundamental weakness in the doctrine,” but because of “the way that liberalism has evolved over the last couple of generations.” The causes of its decline run deep: globalization, rapid technological change, inequality, mass migration, institutional sclerosis, failures of leadership. In the past few decades, an exaggerated emphasis on freedom has driven polarization in democracies, including ours: radical egalitarianism on the left, reactionary authoritarianism on the right. Both forms of illiberalism seek to forge group identities—exclusive, intolerant ones, steeped in resentment—to replace the national identities that have become corroded in an era of globalization.

Fukuyama believes that liberalism can recover and thrive again through “a sense of moderation,” by toning down its individualistic extremes—sensible advice, but not exactly an antidote to a global crisis that has reached even Sweden. When writers like Fukuyama and Robert Kagan—in his 2018 book, The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World—call for liberalism’s renewal, they often assume its self-evident appeal. They downplay the erosion of American legitimacy and will, and they gloss over a question that doesn’t interest the restrainers but that has returned in full force with a new European war: Can America still lead? And if not, can the liberal order survive?

The institutions and rules of the postwar era, which enabled a historic expansion of freedom and prosperity around the world, depended on not just U.S. power but the American example. It doesn’t seem possible for liberal democracy to remain healthy abroad but not at home, and vice versa. Its decay in the U.S. has coincided with the rise of authoritarianism globally. The likely successor is not, as the left wishes, world government and international law under the aegis of the United Nations, but rival nationalisms, including Trump’s “America First,” with “might makes right” in every neighborhood.

The Biden administration, while disavowing the term cold war, is already waging one—invoking a global contest between democracy and autocracy, using industrial policy to gain strategic advantage over China in areas such as microchip production. In The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us About Great-Power Rivalry Today, Hal Brands, a historian at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, revisits the U.S.-Soviet contest for its now-forgotten lessons on how to conduct “high-stakes, long-term competitions.” But a new twilight struggle would be far murkier than the Cold War’s stark ideological contest between two systems across the globe. China, a totalitarian state that delivers the goods, is the obvious peer adversary today, but Brands also includes Russia, though he was writing before Putin and Xi Jinping announced a friendship with “no limits” between their two countries on February 4 at the Beijing Olympics. Their statement featured the terms multipolarity, polycentric world order, and civilizational diversity , but its real message for the U.S. and the West was blunt: You had your turn—now butt out. Three weeks later, Putin gave the world a look at the multipolar future.

American policy in the original Cold War was to contain Soviet communism until it finally altered its character or collapsed. This time around there’s no universal ideology to combat, only brutal, cynical dictatorships. Illiberalism today is entirely negative. In place of utopia, it offers resentment—of American power, Western elites, decadent globalists. Putin gives the Russian people nothing they’re willing to die for. When he declares a national emergency, they flock to the airports and borders rather than risk their skins in defense of the motherland.

Brands is concerned with “winning a long-term rivalry,” but what this would mean today isn’t clear. Maintaining military and technological supremacy? The fall of authoritarian regimes? Limitless expansion of the free world? Or something more modest, like improved behavior from Moscow and Beijing? Brands is well aware of flaws in the Cold War analogy, but he doesn’t reckon with the most important difference. When the last twilight struggle began, the U.S. had just emerged from the ruins of World War II energized and unified by victory, the world’s dominant country by far. Today we can’t hold an election without fear of civil war. Any thought of winning a new cold war has to start from this dismal fact.

Rather than relearning the lessons of the Cold War, or overlearning those of the post-9/11 years, we have to escape the old pattern of wild swings by facing what is new. We’re left to resolve two hard and conflicting truths: Autocratic regimes will exploit American restraint to enlarge their power at the expense of their own people, their neighbors, and the international order. But American action will stoke illiberal reactions when it brings domination, not freedom.

One way out of this dilemma was proposed by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams in 1821, when, after warning against going abroad to destroy monsters, he added: America “is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.” The best thing we can do for the world’s disrepair is to fix our own collapsing house. That sentiment is becoming more and more common today, expressing a prudent sense of limits. Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, recently wrote that “democracy promotion at home rather than abroad should be the focus of U.S. attention,” because there’s more at stake here and a better chance of success.

But separating these projects is a lot harder to do in the postwar, post–Cold War world than it was two centuries ago. Striving to be an exemplary bystander, for all the urgency of our own problems, is too narrow an approach, either abroad or at home. The American-led order lasted three-quarters of a century, and people struggling for democracy in other countries are less eager to see it end than the Quincy Institute is. Even when they resent our interference, they also want our support. And in this country, invocations of “national interest” and strategies for “long-term rivalry” absorb experts more than they move ordinary people. As American history shows, we’re loath to sacrifice for an international cause that has nothing to do with freedom.

Russia’s war has demonstrated that a decent world isn’t possible without liberalism, and liberalism can’t thrive without U.S. engagement. Ukraine shows one way for America to use its power on behalf of freedom: Instead of sending troops to fight and die for democratic illusions in inhospitable countries, send arms to help an actual democracy repel a foreign invader. No U.S. troops, no meddling in civil wars, no nation building, no going it alone. Collaborate closely with allies and take measures to avoid catastrophe. Call it the Biden doctrine—it’s been remarkably successful.

In the age of Putin, Xi, and Trump, liberalism and nationalism seem to be mortally opposed. In a healthy society, they’re inextricable.
Do its principles extend beyond this war? For example, what can the U.S. do to support Iran’s democratic protests that wouldn’t ultimately undermine the cause and, eventually, bipartisan backing at home? Broader sanctions would further the destruction of Iran’s middle class. Withdrawing from nuclear talks during this brutal crackdown, though the right thing to do, would not affect the regime’s behavior. The Biden administration—unlike the Obama administration during an earlier surge of protest in 2009—has chosen to give Iran’s brave young demonstrators strong rhetorical support and practical help in the form of access to satellite communications as a way around the regime’s internet blackout. Any deeper U.S. involvement in an internal struggle as dramatic and enduring as Iran’s—for example, arming insurgents or trying to manipulate regime change—would be destructive, and it would stir up the kind of domestic battle that precludes steady, reliable support for democracy abroad.

This recognition of limits would make a foreign policy founded on liberal values more persuasive abroad and more sustainable with the American electorate, holding off the next oscillation toward grandiosity or gloom. Where democracy exists, strengthen it and defend it against foreign subversion, if necessary with arms. Where it doesn’t, take care to understand particular movements for change, and offer only support that preserves their legitimacy. Align U.S. policy with the universal desire for freedom, but maintain a keen sense of unintended consequences and no illusions of easy success.

Liberalism suffers from inherent weaknesses that Putin and other autocrats shrewdly exploit. Championing borderless values such as freedom and equality, it falls prey to a kind of imperialist zeal (in his September speech announcing the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions, Putin held up Russia as a bulwark against Western colonialism). Declining to affirm any transcendent moral order, liberalism loses its attractive power when it offers a flat world with a smartphone in every pocket and nothing meaningful to live for. And it triggers bitter reaction when it fails to grasp the abiding appeal of nationalism.

In the age of Putin, Xi, and Trump, liberalism and nationalism seem to be mortally opposed. The first is universal (“globalist,” in the derisive phrase of nationalists), the second particular; the first ennobles the individual, the second exalts the community. But in a healthy society, liberalism and nationalism coexist; in fact, they’re inextricable. Without shared identity and strong social bonds, liberty atomizes citizens into consumers, spectators, gamers—easy targets for a demagogue. But national solidarity can’t endure if it’s coerced. A people kept compliant with lies of national greatness, shopping, and police roundups will turn on one another in the face of crisis.

When I asked Ukrainians what the war was about, they inevitably gave two answers in a single phrase: survival and freedom. “Patriot war and democratic war—you cannot distinguish,” Denys Surkov, a crew-cut, scowling doctor, told me. “It’s the same war.” Ukraine is fighting for its existence as an independent nation, and for the right of Ukrainians to choose their own way of life, their own form of government—which is democracy. These two causes are inseparable and reinforce each other. Without a sense of nationhood, Ukrainians wouldn’t have the unity and collective will to resist at such a steep price. Without liberal values and a democratic government, Ukraine would likely divide into ethnic and regional factions.

Something similar is true here in the U.S. Our national identity has always been rooted in democracy. Nothing else, not blood and soil, shared ethnicity or faith, common memories or moneyed pursuits, has ever really held Americans together—only what Walt Whitman called “the fervid and tremendous idea.” It’s as fragile as it is compelling, and when it fails, we dissolve into hateful little tribes, and autocrats here and abroad smile and rub their hands. Don’t imagine that America can bring the light of freedom to the world, but don’t think the world will be better off if we just stop trying.

This article appears in the December 2022 print edition with the headline “America Can Still Lead.” When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

George Packer is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

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David Lindsay

3.0 out of 5 stars Forever Wars are Necessary

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 22 August 2021

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The book was written in 2018 by Robert Kagan who is a neoconservative and a leading advocate of liberal interventionism. This book is dark and depressing, Kagan has a pessimistic Hobbesian worldview and sees enemies everywhere. He argues that after WW2 the US created an international system that has kept the peace and the result has been “amazing progress over the past seven decades.” He argues that the post-1945 order is “the world America made” and still depends largely on American power to underpin it. That much I agreed with. However, the ongoing debacle in Afghanistan may have changed America’s relationship with its allies and the rest of the world. Kagan wants a more macho foreign policy, but there is less appetite for more neocon adventurism. The country also lacks the economic clout to bend the world to its liking. Our share of world output was 30% in 1950, it is about 15% today. The U.S. is no longer the economic powerhouse it once was.

Kagan claims that before 1945, the world was in a state of violent anarchy. Apparently, Hitler and Mussolini were the norms in Europe. He argues that the liberal world order is in jeopardy because humans and their institutions are deeply flawed. If left unchecked, the jungle — that place of chaos and disorder and war — will grow back: "History is returning. Nations are reverting to old habits and traditions.” The US must therefore be constantly vigilant to root out evildoers around the world. This is paranoid nonsense. If the White House listens to Kagan, the rest of the world may start to view the US as a threat to world peace, especially if it throws its weight around unilaterally.

The book starts with a flawed and inaccurate history lesson and assumes that without American leadership the world will return to the 1930s. Kagan does not fully understand pre-war European history, because he foresees a return to totalitarianism. Modern European politics is unrecognizable from the 1930s. Modern societies are vastly more prosperous than they were. Trade, capital and people now flows across boundaries between the European democracies. There is free movement of people in the EU and they travel on vacation to other countries. The Germans and Italians are pacifists these days. The US is constantly complaining that the other NATO countries are not spending enough on defense. The reality is that Europe is no longer a military threat to anyone, they have outsourced their defense to the US.

Another difference is that in recent times the world has not endured anything like WW1. This generated a sense of grievance for a generation of Europeans after 1918. The economic slump after 2008, which saw real GDP per capita fall by 6 per cent, is nothing like the depression after 1929, which saw a fall of nearly 30 per cent. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the economic depression which followed, with 35% unemployment, enabled Hitler to become chancellor. The world before 1914 is probably more relevant as a comparison to today, but many Americans also get that wrong. Harvard professor Graham Allison believes that WW1 was mainly a power struggle between Germany and Britain. However, Germany did not feel threatened by Britain, which has never been interested in invading mainland Europe. It had the world’s largest navy, but a small land army. Bismarck famously threatened to send the police to arrest if it ever landed in Europe. Germany was afraid of Russia, with whom it shared a long border. Both powers were competing for dominance in Central and Eastern Europe. Russia has always been an expansionist power. It had a huge army that was rapidly modernizing. The German army wanted to crush Russia before it became too powerful. Moltke, the head of the German army predicted that would happen in 1916-1917. France, Britain, and Belgium were just collateral damage. France was attacked because it was allied with Russia. Britain and Belgium were considered irrelevant.

The US is in a similar situation to Germany in 1914. It is faced with a rapidly growing power in China that threatens its Asian hegemony. Xi talks of 'Asia for the Asians' and wants the US military to leave Asia. Does the US take out China before it gets too powerful? That is the make or break decision that the US faces. Americans are reluctant to admit it, but the US wants to remain the dominant power in the world, however, it is wasting blood and treasure in backwaters like Afghanistan which are not strategically important. Kagan is advocating more wars like Afghanistan. He seems to have forgotten what brought down the Soviet Empire.

Kagan also assumes that the US knows what is good for the world and Americans are smarter and morally superior to everybody else. The current secretary of state wants to punish human rights violators. If the US invades and occupies a country, it does so for the right reasons and for the greater good. Kagan is straightforward about what the US should do next, more forever wars. The neocons also wrongly assumed that countries with a majority Muslim population could be Americanized. They rarely seem to understand the history and culture of the countries they want to invade. Americans are rarely treated as liberators.

The American people seem to be against utopian failed adventures, like Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Iraq. In May, over 70% approved of pulling out of Afghanistan. The people, as opposed to the Washington elite, seem to realize that the relative power of the United States is in decline. Kagan wants the US to continue with the neocons' failed Sisyphean strategy, and it mustn’t be deterred by future failures and potential bankruptcy. The US government debt/GDP ratio is now 130%, before Reagan it was 30%. The US has a current account deficit of 3.5% of GDP (Q2 2020) and a net international investment position of nearly minus -$14 trillion. The war in Afghanistan has cost $2.3 trillion. The US can’t afford to keep fighting major wars in perpetuity.

A war with Iran, Russia or China would be expensive. It could also signal the end of the American empire. Niall Ferguson, a Stanford professor, recently discussed the impact of a war with China in a recent article in Bloomberg. A lost war with China would seriously damage American prestige. He suggests that it could also be its Suez moment when it is revealed as a paper tiger. General Jim Mattis, when he was Defense Secretary, told Congress in 2017 that the US could no longer fight a two-front war. Following the US departure from Afghanistan, where the NATO allies were not consulted about the withdrawal, some European pundits on the left and right are starting to suggest that NATO is finished, and they cannot rely on the US to protect them. The former French prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve wrote an article in the London Times in March that suggested something similar. The US does seem more interested in cultivating its Asian relationships.

Kagan's strategy of never-ending war will appear extremist to many Europeans, they will want no part of it post-Afghanistan. The US needs help if it is to successfully confront China. However, polls indicate that many Europeans believe that within 10 years China will become a more powerful country. The Europeans will therefore become increasingly detached from the US as they seek a better relationship with China and Russia. A GDP forecast for 2050 from PWC shows the US as the world’s third-largest economy, with Germany and Britain in ninth and tenth place. The economic center of the world is moving to Asia, and the US is probably tilting at windmills if it tries to reverse that trend or tries to assert dominance over the Asian region.

Kagan urges persevering with liberal hegemony despite a quarter-century of failure and folly in nation-building and liberal democracy promotion. Ordinary Europeans and Asians look at Bush, Trump and Biden and they don’t believe they are very bright or very wise. The American world order may end because foreigners lose faith in American leadership. Kagan will have the US plowing its own path overthrowing governments it disapproves of and becoming increasingly friendless and isolated. I find it surprising that neocons like Kagan are still influential in Washington. What he is recommending just seems clueless and is based on a misunderstanding of history.

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Eric

5.0 out of 5 stars A solid analysis of the precarious state of the international world order in the 21'st century.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 5 May 2022

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This short but prescient book has become all the more relevant since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He outlines the broad current context of the current international order led by the United States and the present degradation caused by administrations of both political parties. Indeed we are living in dangerous times. I recommend this to the general public. As a professor and practitioner of international relations, I recommend this to all students that study international relations. I also highly recommend this book to economists who are not political scientists but need to have a good grasp of international affairs.

My only issue with this book is that it does not mention or gloss over the many sins American foreign policy has committed since World War II. Namely, the overthrow of fellow democratic governments during the cold war, including but not limited to, Chile, Iran, the Congo, Brazil, and Argentina, and our support for some of the worst human rights abuses on the planet in the name of 'stability.' For example, we can not talk about America upholding the international order when the United States brazenly violated that order when it invaded Iraq in 2003. Kagan leaves out that he supported the invasion in 2003. This is one of many examples where America created international instability and violated it's own principles. Weather it's Saudi Arabia, to Kagame in Rwanda and so forth. Overall I agree America is a force for stability and good in the world but we can not paper over our many mistakes if we hope not to repeat them. However realistically the alternative to American hegemony is far worse.

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Andrew W. Johns

5.0 out of 5 stars Here's why US involvement with the world is important

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 8 January 2021

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Some have argued that the progress towards a world of democratically elected governments with capitalistic economies is an inevitable evolutionary destination for the world order. Before reading this book, I might even have believed it. Having grown up inside the world order established after WWII, it is easy to take it for granted, to overlook just how remarkable the last seventy-five years have been in terms of human history.

This book reminds us what the previous world order looked like. It was a multi-polar world, where the powerful nations looked upon each other with suspicion and/or hostility, and devoted significant resources in efforts to ensure their own security. This feeling of insecurity in the face of powerful neighbors motivated people to willingly accept authoritarian leadership, and resulted in arms races that led to war after war, each sowing the seeds for the next.

This was the world order that the US and its allies intentionally tried to change in the aftermath of WWII. The strength of the US military provided security to all nations that were part of the order, allowing them to devote their energy and resources towards building stable economies and democratic governments. At the same time, the US (mostly) refrained from using its military strength to enforce economic conditions that were exclusively favorable to the US. Instead, the US allowed all nations to compete on a (mostly) level playing field, with the result being the most unprecedented economic growth the world has ever seen.

But all of this runs counter to the natural flow of historical forces, and requires an ongoing commitment from the US to sustain it. It now appears that the US might not be willing to remain engaged in preserving this world order, and if the US pulls back, it will likely collapse, returning us to the old world order and the tensions, hostility, and violence that it generated.

This book is a powerful argument for maintaining the US commitments to providing the security and support that allows the world order built since WWII to continue. This world order has resulted in the least violent period of human history, coupled with the largest period of economic growth ever seen. Only by maintaining this international order can we hope to see these trends continue...they won't happen on their own.

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James Wink

5.0 out of 5 stars A Critical Book Doomed to Be Ignored

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 5 May 2019

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The Jungle Grows Back – America and our Imperiled World by Robert Kagan is a call to protect the international system that has been slowly dismantled by both American political parties. Kagan describes how this post-World War II international order began and highlights how it has benefited the world. In its genesis, Kagan points out that this order is fundamentally unstable but the west has grown complacent as it appreciates the benefits but is increasingly unwilling to pay the costs. The end result is the slow decay of the order with external actors including China and Russia actively undermining it. U.S. conservatives are reverting back to the pre-World War I isolationism while U.S. liberals constantly portray the U.S. as a malignant world actor. The Jungle Grows Back asserts that the end result will threaten the prosperity and peace of the west. This book is a vital wake-up call to both sides of the political spectrum. The challenge is that it is likely that Kagan is preaching to the choir and those that need to read the Jungle Grows Back never will. Highly Recommended.

The Good – Kagan presents a multifaceted account of the post-World War II western consensus. He highlights the tradeoffs the U.S. made to its allies and correctly portrays that the United States’ allies remained because they wanted to and unlike the USSR’s – weren’t forced to. The end of the Cold War is where you first saw the consensus’s weakening but Kagan also dispels the myth that NATO enlargement resulted in a belligerent Russia. Finally – the exhaustion of the U.S. following the War on Terror laid the groundwork for the U.S. public’s loss of confidence with Both President Obama and President Trump actively dismantling it. Kagan understands that the foreign policy elites have made mistakes – Vietnam and Iraq to name two but argues that it is impossible to only throw touchdowns and that the world the west has made benefits everyone and needs to be tended to make sure the jungle doesn’t consume us all.

The Bad – This a brief book but fairly dense. The acknowledgements admit that The Jungle Grows Back originated out of an unpublished essay and the overall book reads like it. It would have been far more digestible to have broken the themes up into chapters. The irony is that this book would have been far more effective as the original magazine article so that the message could better get to those that need it.

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Rick Howell

5.0 out of 5 stars This book must be read!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 27 March 2022

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Not finished with it yet, but it's everything I hoped it would be. It's a strongly persuasive and urgent warning of very real threats to democracy in our country and the world. Given the number of autocrats in power around the world today, this should be ready by everyone who has previously taken democracy for granted.

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Sam Freedman

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books I have ever read on Geopolitics

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 20 April 2022

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A clear, concise review of how the world order came about and how fortunate we are to live in the current era despite our many problems. Gives one faith that there may be hope for humanity yet.

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Maureen Bitoff

5.0 out of 5 stars Relevance in 2022

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 25 January 2022

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Clear concise writing on a topic that is so relevant today 5 years after the date this book was written. I appreciated the organized approach outlining the the concept of the Liberal Order using history and the present state of the world today. Human nature seems so natural and simple as the source of much of the international strife we are experiencing now. But of course as Robert Kagan exposed it is so much more complicated.

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Pamela of the Mesa

5.0 out of 5 stars We've been taking peace for granted

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 28 March 2019

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I am one of the complacent liberals Kagan writes about, a person who believed that the world order would prevent major upheaval in our lifetime. After all, we've got climate change and the transitioning economy to worry about, right?

I've changed my mind, thanks to the history presented so lucidly here. It's obvious that I (and most people I know) have taken peace for granted, a peace only made possible by America's dominance in the world. Kagan does a superb job of explaining how this happened and why we should expect it to change.

As an argument, it's compelling and convincing. What I would love to see is some sort of debate between Kagan and a representative of the opposing view, perhaps Andrew Bacevich, to get a better sense of the trade-offs involved with continuing to be the world's enforcer or relinquishing that role. Many citizens seem to have fallen into the latter position from tiredness and cynicism about America's motives; however, the issue of America's future role in the world merits a genuine discussion, one based on goals, strategies, and costs rather than the public mood.

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roy l. curry

5.0 out of 5 stars history of governments and of mankind with a tendency to drift into wars.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 16 April 2022

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Well written engaging informative and used at book club

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WB Hill

4.0 out of 5 stars Is the best of the free life behind us now?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 4 October 2018

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I don't think I have ever read a book that consists entirely of generalizations and opinions before this one. Strangely, I found it compelling in spite of a contrarian desire to challenge the thesis: that without the military protection of the USA the "liberal world order" is doomed to succumb to authoritarian regimes. The author traces recent history for support of his point of view and cites an impressive bibliography. His thesis is clearly and persuasively presented. I am nearly convinced. His overall view that there is no imperative based on history or human nature for preservation of the "liberal word order" is certainly correct. History is not over and human nature has not changed since the end of WWII. His insistence on the phrase "liberal world order" is curious; most would say "the free world" or simply "the West." But I believe the author clearly makes his case, arguable though it may be, that the USA must stay involved in international affairs, even to the point of military involvement, to preserve the way of life we have enjoyed since the second world war.

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Micheline Beauchemin

5.0 out of 5 stars America first or America alone?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 10 January 2019

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An essential book by R. Kagan. He explains that it is not the first time that in America, there are calls to stop engaging the world, always to unintended mostly bad consequences. He argues in the clearest arguments I’ve ever read, that it is in the best interests of the Americans themselves, to be the world’s policeman. Who else, China or Russia? Or Canada? Only the US can assume the role. Mistakes are made, and the results are not a perfectly peaceful world, but the opposite could be much worse. Relative peace created the conditions for the mighty dollar and exponential increase in trade. America stopped two world wars to great costs human and treasury: what if they had intervened earlier and stopped Hitler or Stalin in their tracks before they got too big for their own boots. Obama didn’t engage in the “stupid war” in Syria resulting in millions dead or displaced. Maybe containment is the best we could hope for in a not perfect world. As the title’s imply: when a garden is not tended, the jungle grows back.

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Günther van Endert

4.0 out of 5 stars Sehr diskutabel

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on 3 February 2021

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EricW

5.0 out of 5 stars America must work hard to sustain the liberal world order

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 3 October 2018

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Excellent analysis of the last seven decades of relatively peaceful cooperation among nations, and the dangers of taking the "American-made liberal world order" for granted. Kagan reminds those who clamor for more isolationism that without the continuing full involvement of the United States in every part of the globe -- yes, as the world's policeman and as the best model of democratic capitalism -- the world order can very rapidly fall apart. He analyzes the history (most recently in the first half of the 20th century) of how fragile democracies can easily devolve into authoritarian, fascist systems. He confronts the truth of hypocrisy, immorality and even egregious error in American geopolitical calculations but demonstrates quite convincingly that this is the best we have in a time of rising right-wing nationalism worldwide. Kagan insists that the United States must continue to support its allies economically and militarily and must continue to support a cohesive European Union, which is in danger of coming apart. Very persuasive, a must read.

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Joe Briggs

3.0 out of 5 stars Good read. His perspective. Lacks balance but good read.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 2 July 2019

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The Jungle Grows Back by Robert Kagan is a leading conservative's survey of US foreign policy over the last century. He argues that our unprecedented 75 years without a world war is soon to come to an end because short-sighted Americans have grown weary of what they perceive as expensive, misguided foreign blunders. This is excellent and thought-provoking work and the competence in which it is articulated would convince most to accept it as gospel. But it would be a mistake to proceed without challenge. For example, was our toppling of leaders such as Iran's Mosaddegh or Libya's Gadaffi more responsible for world peace than the United Nations? Are we safe today because of divine American meddling or in spite of it? I recommend balancing with John Mearsheimer's The Great Delusion or Andrew Bacevich's Twilight Of the American Century.

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David B. Wade

5.0 out of 5 stars A necessary reminder

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 8 March 2019

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Geopolitics does not end any more than history does. Kaplan masterfully cuts through all of the opinionation and misinformation on the nature of the Cold War and the structures which the Liberal world, led by America, built up to ensure and perpetuate stability and prosperity. As the consensus against this global order gains ground on both ends of the political spectrum, a return to mutlipolarity is queueing up as the natural tendency towards tribalism and fragmentation reasserts itself - with all of the attendant horrors. Kaplan's argument has been made elsewhere, but rarely in such a succinct, accurate and accessible manner. An important read, indeed.

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Amazon Customer

5.0 out of 5 stars Written concisely & elegantly, Kagan's recent publication is a thought provoking masterpiece.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 15 October 2019

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This hould be required reading for those who've been shocked, confused, and angry at global developments over the past decade+. Kagan has detailed what went wrong and why it's done so. If that sounds too simple for such high praise that's my point. His ability to articulate his vision and use history as his references while simultaneously pointing out the flaws in the arguments against him is brilliant to behold.

This is a must read.

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rotney oshea

4.0 out of 5 stars Good service

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 18 June 2020

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Arrived on time and nothing wrong with the book

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Sigmund Roseth

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking small but powerful volume.

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on 25 November 2018

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Excellent small volume on American liberalism and contribution to world order after the second wold war; and an assessment of the future of American involvement in world order.

2 people found this helpful

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Hylari

4.0 out of 5 stars We can’t be naive in our assumptions that the future will always be better than the past.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 8 October 2018

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Jeffrey Rabin

5.0 out of 5 stars Really "enjoying" this book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 13 February 2019

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I'm about 1/2 way through. Every sentence is engaging and thought provoking. Kagan persuasively and convincingly makes the case that American leadership in the world is vitally important for the West (and the world) in general and America, in particular, and although such leadership is expensive - at least in treasure and sometimes in lives -- and mistakes are costly, abdicating that role will allow Russia, China, and Radical Islam to fill the vacuum we leave behind.

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The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled Worldhttps://www.amazon.com › Jungle-...

... and the growing threats that Americans perceive from North Korea, Iran, ...

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서평: ..https://www.goodreads.com › show

He repeats ludicrous claims about the dangers of countries like Iran and North Korea. World events happen discretely and are driven by a clash of ideas, ...

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Excerpt

The American-led liberal world order was never a natural phenomenon. It was not the culmination of evolutionary processes across the millennia or the inevitable fulfillment of universal human desires. The past seven-plus decades of relatively free trade, growing respect for individual rights, and relatively peaceful cooperation among nations—the core elements of the liberal order—have been a great historical aberration. Until 1945 the story of humankind going back thousands of years was a long tale of war, tyranny, and poverty. moments of peace were fleeting, democracy so rare as to seem almost accidental, and prosperity the luxury of the powerful few. Our own era has not lacked its horrors, its genocides, its oppressions, its barbarisms. Yet by historical standards, including the standards of the recent past, it has been a relative paradise. Between 1500 and 1945 scarcely a year passed when the strongest powers in the world, the great powers of Europe, were not at war, but since 1945 there have been no wars among the great powers. The great Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union ended peacefully, a historical rarity. Meanwhile, deaths from all recent smaller wars have declined dramatically, as indeed have violent deaths of all kinds. Since the end of the Second World War the world has also enjoyed a period of prosperity unlike any other, with more than seven decades of global GDP growth averaging almost 3.5 percent per year, despite the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Since 1945, some four billion people around the world have climbed out of poverty. The number of democratic governments has grown from no more than a dozen in 1939 to more than a hundred today. The power of the state has been curbed in favor of the individual in large parts of the world, and an ever-expanding panoply of individual rights has come to be respected. What Abraham Lincoln called the "better angels" of human nature have been encouraged, and some of human beings' worst impulses have been suppressed more effectively than before. But all this has been an anomaly in the history of human existence. The liberal world order is fragile and impermanent. Like a garden, it is ever under siege from the natural forces of history, the jungle whose vines and weeds constantly threaten to overwhelm it.

The American-led liberal world order has never been a natural phenomenon. The story of humankind going back thousands of years is a long tale of war, tyranny, and poverty. Moments of peace have been fleeting, democracy so rare as to seem almost accidental, and prosperity the luxury of the powerful few. Our own era has not lacked its horrors, its genocides, its oppressions, its barbarisms. Yet by historical standards, including the standards of the recent past, it has been a relative paradise. Between 1500 and 1945 scarcely a year passed when the strongest powers in the world, the great powers of Europe, were not at war, but since 1945 there have been no wars among the great powers. The great Cold War confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union ended peacefully, a historical rarity. Meanwhile, deaths from all recent smaller wars have declined dramatically, as indeed have violent deaths of all kinds. Since the end of the Second World War the world has also enjoyed a period of prosperity unlike any other, with more than seven decades of global GDP growth averaging almost 3.5 percent per year, despite the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Since 1945, some four billion people around the world have climbed out of poverty. The number of democratic governments have grown from no more than a dozen in 1939 to more than a hundred today. The power of the state has been curbed in favor of the individual in large parts of the world, and an ever-expanding panoply of individual rights has come to be respected. What Lincoln called the "better angels" of human nature have been encouraged, and some of human beings’ worst impulses have been suppressed more effectively than before. All this has been a great aberration, an anomaly in the recorded history of human existence.

Unfortunately, we tend to take our world for granted. We have lived so long inside the bubble of the liberal world order that we can imagine no other kind of world. We think it is natural and normal, even inevitable. We see all its flaws and wish it could be better, but it doesn't occur to us that the more likely alternative to it would be much, much worse. Unlike other cultures, which view history as a continuous cycle of growth and decay, or as stasis, we view history as having a direction and a purpose. We believe in "modernization," in stages of economic and political development, in the link between prosperity and democracy. As children of the Enlightenment, we believe the expansion of knowledge and material progress goes hand in hand with improvements in human behavior and moral progress. From Montesquieu and Kant we learned that commerce tames the souls of men and nations, reducing conflict and increasing harmony and cooperation. From Marx and others we learned to treat stages of economic developmentas the drivers of political development—feudalism produces government by monarchs and aristocrats, capitalismproduces government by parliaments and democracies, all as part of some iron logic of economic determinism. From Hegel we learned that history is but "the progress of the consciousnessof freedom" and that, as Francis Fukuyama put it in his famous description of the "End of History," there is "a common evolutionary pattern for all societies . . . something like a Universal History of mankind in the direction of liberal democracy." Hence we have come to believe that, while there may be occasional bumps and detours on the road, progress is inevitable.

This story of human progress is a myth, however. If the last century has taught us anything, it is that scientific and technological progress and the expansion of knowledge, while capable of improving our lives materially, have brought no lasting improvement in human behavior. Nor is history rightly viewed as a progressive upward march toward enlightenment. That perception rests on a carefully curated set of facts. We jump from Periclean Athens to the birth of Christianity, from the Renaissance to the Reformation, from the Magna Carta to the American Revolution. Omitted from this tale of golden ages and great leaps forward are the dark ages and great leaps backward. When it comes to human behavior, history is a jagged line with no discernible slope. Where on the scale of progress would we put the Thirty Years’ War, which killed off almost half the populations of the German principalities, or the Napoleonic Wars, which killed more than three million Europeans, destroyed the lives of many millions more, and helped produce the revolutionary nationalism that would wreak so much havoc in the first decades of the twentieth century? How do World War I, World War II, the famines, and the genocides of the last century fit into our story of human progress? Were the horrors perpetrated against Ukrainians and Chinese in the 1930s and against Jews in the 1940s part of our story of progress? Were they just aberrations, or were they harbingers of the future? Only by ignoring much horrendous bloodshed and brutality, and quite recently in historical terms, can we believe that there has been anything like a steady improvement in the way humans treat each other.

Nor has there been steady progress toward liberalism. Liberal government flickered into existence at the end of the eighteenth century, first in Great Britain and America and then, inspired by the French Revolution, in parts of Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But as liberalism grew, so did the modern police state, which was born in Austria, Prussia, and Russia at the end of the eighteenth century and was gradually perfected in the nineteenth and twentieth. (And the French Revolution did not produce liberalism in France before going through stages of totalitarianism followed by strongman rule.) Stirrings of liberalism in nineteenth-century Germany, Italy, and Poland were repeatedly crushed by absolutist powers using force, repression, and censorship. A brief flowering of democratic government after World War I was quickly extinguished and supplanted by the rise of fascism and communism. If the Second World War had produced a different set of victors, as it might have, liberalism might not have survived the twentieth century outside of North America.

Few in the middle of the last century saw liberalism on the rise. A survey of the world in 1939 would not have suggestedto anyone that history was pointing toward a triumph of the liberal idea. "I am . . . a bear on democracy," Joseph Kennedy told Walter Lippmann in London that year. "It’s gone already." As Hannah Arendt put it, writing in 1950, to view Western Civilization as a steady march of progress was to ignore the "subterranean stream of Western history." History had not led to the triumph of liberalism; it had led to Hitler and Stalin. Throughout the Cold War, which seemed as if it would last forever, there was little reason to regard history as a steady progression toward a better world. The political theorist Judith Shklar, writing in the late 1950s, observed that in an age of two world wars, totalitarianism, and mass murder, "no reasonable person" could "believe in any 'law' of progress." After witnessing humanity at its worst, Arendt insisted, "we can no longer afford to take that which was good in the past and simply call it our heritage, to discard the bad and simply think of it as a heavy load which by itself time will bury in oblivion."

But apparently we can. Among the worst horrors of recorded history occurred in the lifetimes of our grandparents. Just seventy-five years ago Hitler was rampaging across Europe, Stalin was starving millions through forced collectivization, Japanese soldiers were raping and killing in Nanjing, millions were systematically being put to death in gas chambers in Eastern and Central Europe, and the United States was dropping nuclear bombs on Japanese cities. Yet after a few remarkable decades of relative peace, prosperity, and democracy, many became convinced that the human race had changed fundamentally, that after millennia of war, poverty, and tyranny, of individual and collective brutality, of tribalism and racism, human beings had over the course of a few decades suddenly become less violent, less warlike, more caring, more open. Some international relations theorists continue to believe that "the grand mechanism for overturning old international orders—great power war—has disappeared"; law professors argue that the very "nature of conflict" among nations "has changed fundamentally" (because of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 "outlawing war"); the cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, who documents the decline of violence in the world since 1945, argues that the reason this happened in such a "short span of time was that the arguments that slew them belong to a coherent philosophy that emerged during the Age of Reason and the Englightenment." Perhaps fewer people today believe that the "liberal idea," all but extinguished in the 1930s, won an irreversible victory after the collapse of Soviet communism, now that authoritarianism is enjoying a renaissance. But many continue to assume that, even so, our dark recent past is indeed in the past and cannot recur.

Here is an alternative hypothesis. We have witnessed amazingprogress over the past seven decades, and not just technologicalprogress but also human progress. Yet this progress was not the culmination of anything. It was not the product of evolution, of expanding knowledge, of technological advances, the spread of commerce, and least of all of any change in the basic nature of human beings. It has been the product of a unique set of circumstances contingent on a particular set of historical outcomes, including on the battlefield, that could have turned out differently. It has been, above all, the by-product of a new configuration of power in the international system, the rise to preeminence of a new player on the international scene with a unique and advantageous geography, a large and productive population, unprecedented economic and military power, and, as it happened, a national ideology based on the liberal principles of the Enlightenment. The present world order has favored liberalism, democracy, and capitalism not only because they are right and better—presumably they were right and better in the 1930s, too—but because the most powerful nation in the world since 1945 has been a liberal democratic capitalist nation. That, too, was not fated but was the consequence of unique circumstances and contingent historical events. After World War II, because of America's unrivaled power, those Enlightenment principles suddenly enjoyed a force behind them that they had never before possessed. What we liberals call progress has been made possible by the protection afforded liberalism within the geographical and geopolitical space created by American power. This was not the inevitable unfolding of some Universal History. On the contrary, the creation of the liberal order has been an act of defiance against both history and human nature.

People today ask what threatens the present order, but that is the wrong question. The order is an artificial creation subject to the forces of geopolitical inertia. Deeply etched patterns of history, interrupted these past seven decades, remain and exert their pull. The question is not what will bring down the liberal order but what can possibly hold it up? If the liberal order is like a garden, artificial and forever threatened by the forces of nature, preserving it requires a persistent, unending struggle against the vines and weeds that are constantly working to undermine it from within and overwhelm it from without.

Today there are signs all around us that the jungle is growing back. Where once many hoped that all the nations and peoples of the world would converge on a common path of liberal democratic capitalist development, we now see authoritarianism surviving if not thriving. Today a Russian dictator and European would-be dictators boast of their illiberalism, and a Chinese leader, wielding the absolute power of a Mao, portrays his nation as a model for the world. Where once we believed that economic success must eventually require political liberalization, we now see autocracies successfully practicing a state capitalism compatible with repressive government. Where once many believed geo-economics had replaced geopolitics, today we see the world returning to a geopolitics much like that of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Territorial aggression, once thought to be an anachronism, has returned to Europe and threatens to return to Asia. Where once people believed that the nation-state was a thing of the past in an increasingly cosmopolitan and interconnected age, we now see nationalism and tribalism reemerging, more than able to hold their own in the brave new world of the Internet. Meanwhile, a profound and extended crisis of confidence besets the democratic world, even in the birthplace of modern democracy. Liberal international institutions like the European Union, once considered the vanguard of a postmodern future, are now under assault from without and within. In America, racial and tribal forces that have always been part of the "subterranean stream" of American history have reemerged to reshape politics and society. Where thirty years ago the dreams of Enlightenment thinkers going back three centuries seemed to be on the cusp of fulfillment, today a Counter-Enlightenment of surprising potency stirs in Moscow, Budapest, Beijing, Tehran, and Cairo, in parts of Western Europe, and even in the nation that saved liberalism seventy-five years ago.

In the face of this unanticipated shift in direction, our excessive optimism has turned to excessive pessimism. Less than three decades ago we were told that the triumph of liberalism was inevitable; today we read that liberalism’s failure is inevitable. On fatalistic determinism has replaced another.

As the liberal order confronts multiplying crises from both within and without, Americans and their political leaders have not responded as they might have in the past. There is no call to action to reverse the trends. Some still hold to the old optimistic assumptions, as if nothing has happened to make us doubt their validity. Even some of our best-informed experts still believe China must eventually open its political system, notwithstanding China's determined move in the opposite direction; that Russia cannot continue on its current political and geopolitical trajectory without collapsing economically, despite two decades of evidence to the contrary; or that in Europe liberal ideals are so deeply implanted that they can never be uprooted. Many still regard peace as the norm and war the aberration, something that occurs only by accident or miscalculation. They still see the world through the distorting lens of the liberal order’s bubble. For some, belief in the End of History dies hard.More pervasive these days, however, is a profound skepticism about the liberal order’s durability and even its desirability. An increasing number on both the left and the right have come to regard the struggle to uphold the order as either hopeless or mistaken. Self-described "realists" insist that Americans must learn to accept the world as it is, not as we would wish it to be. Decrying the "failures and follies" of the past quarter century—the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the interventions of the 1990s, the expansion of NATO, which they regard as a mistake, and the broader effort to support democracy in allegedly inhospitable places—they call fora new policy of "restraint." American policies in support of a liberal world order have not only overtaxed and exhausted Americans, they argue, but have done no good for them or for others. In 2011, Barack Obama, in announcing a draw-down of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, argued that it was "time to focus on nation building at home." Five years later Donald Trump echoed the sentiment, telling voters that the liberal order was a bad deal and it was time to put "America First."

Polls show that Americans mostly agree. In 2016, 57 percent of Americans polled believed the U.S. should "mind its own business" and let the rest of the world manage its own problems, up from just 30 percent a decade a half earlier. When Americans elected Trump, 41 percent believed the United States was "doing too much" in the world, and only 27 percent believed it was not doing enough. This mood did not begin with Trump, or even with Obama. The 2016 election was the fourth presidential contest since the race between George W. Bush and Al Gore in in which the candidate promising to pursue a narrower definition of American interests and to reduce American involvement overseas defeated candidates in the primaries and in the general election who stood for a more expansive foreign policy. The public desire for a reduction of overseas involvement has been growing for three decades. It preceded the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan, and it persisted despite the events of September’ 11, 2001, the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, the continuing threat of radical Islamic terrorism, and the growing threats that Americans perceive from North Korea, Iran, China, and Russia. Today Americans question why their nation has to be so deeply involved in the rest of the world, why they have to spend lives and money on such apparently hopeless places as the Middle East, why rich allies like Germany, Japan, and South Korea cannot take care of themselves, and why the United States must risk war for matters that seem at a remove from America's immediate economic and security interests.

These are reasonable questions, and it is wrong to refer to those who ask them as "isolationists." Few are suggesting that the United States pull up the drawbridge and cut off all ties with the outside world. What most critics and skeptics of American foreign policy today want is for the United States to act more like a "normal" country. No nation in history has ever been more deeply involved in the affairs of the world nor accepted more responsibility for the state of humankind than the United States since the Second World War. Very few nations in history have ever felt any responsibility for anything but themselves. The vast majority of nations do not think twice about looking after their own narrow interests "first." Americans have been abnormal in this respect—abnormal in their willingness to shoulder great moral and material burdens in order to preserve this abnormal liberal order. To question whether they must continue to do so, to ask whether the benefits still outweigh the costs, is not "isolationist." It is natural.

So how to answer the many Americans who are skeptical of the benefits of such extensive global involvement? One can try to point out that the costs and risks of not continuing to play this role will be much higher, but that is a hard thing to prove before events take their course. Americans see the costs of upholding this order; the costs of not upholding it are unknown. We can see the risks of taking action; the risks of inaction are harder to predict. Perhaps the best we can do is look to our past for guidance.

케이건은 부쉬 주니어 대통령에게 이란 침공을 직접 권한 인물이라는 것을 알게 되었습니다. 부쉬 주니어 대통령에게, 또 북한의 미사일 사이트를 선제공격해야 한다고도 권했다고 합니다. 이란 침공은일어났고, 북한 공격은 일어나지 않았는데, 부쉬 대통령의 북한공격에 대한 주저함에 비판적이었다고 합니다. 그런 인물이 주장하는 무력행사에 의한 자유 세계의 세계질서는 오히려 위태하게 보입니다.

동아시아의 평화와 화해의 정치학 Scrapbook

2022-11-28

박정미 로버트 케이건, 밀림의 귀환 The Jungle Grows Back

The Jungle Grows Back From Wikipedia

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