Issue No. 602
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5 - 11 September 2002 Issue No. 602 Opinion |
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The Kagan thesis (3)
In this third and final instalment, Mohamed Sid-Ahmed compares Robert Kagan's conceptualisation of present-day international relations to other schools of thought dealing with the same subject
Beyond Fukuyama and Huntington?
This concluding article in the series on Robert Kagan's thought-provoking essay will not attempt to assess the validity of this theory that power, or the lack thereof, defines our respective locations in history, but, rather, test its usefulness as a tool in foreseeing future developments and casting light on events that would otherwise be difficult to predict, or even identify. From this viewpoint, it would be interesting to compare the Kagan thesis to other theories which have provoked wide debate in recent years.
Although Kagan's theory is distinct from Fukuyama's end-of-history theory and Huntington's clash-of-civilisations scenario, his conceptual construct is related to both in a variety of ways.
Both Kagan and Fukuyama assume that there exists something in human experience "beyond history". For Fukuyama, history does not only involve events which affect human and social life as time passes by. It is a specific stage of human development that engulfs humankind as a whole at a given moment -- a post-ideology stage of human development, a stage where differences over first principles (ideology) vanish. Fukuyama postulates that history ended when one ideology was seen as having defeated all others; more specifically, when post-liberal capitalism was seen as having scored a final victory over the "totalitarian" ideologies of communism and fascism. We have not yet had Fukuyama's comments on the significance of the cracks which appeared in recent months in the structural buildups of many major American and, more generally, Western, corporations. It would major American and, more generally, Western, corporations. It would be interesting to see whether he still believes that one ideology has triumphed definitely over all others. For Kagan, post-history (according to his definition of the term) can be reached by part of humankind at a time the rest of the human species is still mired in history -- a scenario that Fukuyama did not address.
On the other hand, Kagan's theory does not exclude Huntington's. If the human condition can be partly in history and partly beyond, clashes cannot be excluded, even if not exclusively between those inside and those outside history. Moreover, those clashes can be sparked off by antagonisms between civilisations, even if not always necessarily so.
Huntington predicted a collision between "the West and the rest", between the Judeo-Christian Western civilisation and other civilisations, mainly Islam and Chinese Confucianism. The fact that, almost a decade later, the dramatic events of 11 September erupted at a time the Palestinian problem had sunk to its lowest ebb ever, is not in itself proof that Huntington was right and that his prediction was historically inevitable. But the concomitance of the two events, the apparent realisation of Huntington's prediction and the actual course history has followed, is striking. Further analysis is needed to distinguish between the inevitable, the likely and the random in this matter.
Kagan concentrates on the relationship between America and Europe -- both entities belonging to the Western world and products of Western civilisation. But what about the relationship between America and Russia, the two main antagonists throughout the Cold War era, and which also belong to the world of Christianity, especially following the blow dealt to the communist atheistic ideology by the demise of the Soviet state?
America and Europe are not the only two players in the global arena, and, "since September 11, Bush has treated Russia as a more reliable partner than his European allies," writes veteran columnist, Jim Hoagland, in The Washington Post. "For Washington, the Europeans are too strong to be treated like Russia, as a junior partner, but too weak to oppose American designs. They are bothersome in- betweens." The traditional "power gap", not ideology, nor relatedness to history, has been the key factor in determining the triangular shifts in mutual relations between America, Europe and Russia.
Russia appeared to have two choices after the collapse of the Soviet Union: either to implement the idea Primakov came forward with, when he was Russia's prime minister under Yeltsin, of forging a coalition with India and China, and thus establishing a counter-pole to America as the all-exclusive driving force of a unipolar world order, and perpetuating the bipolar global game; or to abandon bipolarity with the United States altogether, accept the status of junior partner, and, as Hoagland put it, make cooperation with the US "the key to Russian economic and political revival". As Putin has admitted to senior members of his administration, "Russia is unequipped to respond to free markets, modern media and the threat of global terrorism -- and must be overhauled."
In the light of this second choice Putin seems to be heading for an era of global entente with Washington that could eventually reduce the strategic influence of Europe, China and Japan. Significant in this respect is Putin's acquiescence to Bush's national missile defence, and particularly to his proposal to scrap the Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty which evaporated last autumn when Putin quietly accepted Washington's withdrawal from the 1972 accord.
If Putin adopts as quiescent a line on the Iraqi question as he did on arms control, this will significantly change the international environment, particularly in the United Nations. Russia's position towards Baghdad will not differ much from that of France or Great Britain. Critical here is what happens if Saddam risks war rather than accept intrusive inspections.
A key element in the American-Russian rapprochement is the common interest in fighting terrorism. Formerly, Washington sided with the Chechen rebels against Moscow's intervention to crush the revolt. Since 11 September Bush has understood the relevance of Moscow's stand. Washington now regards the Chechen rebellion as a variant of Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qa'eda. In a way, history, to the extent that it is perceived as distinct from post-history, tends, since 11 September, to be reduced to the anti-terrorist drive. More than ever, the violence that is inherent to history is identified with terrorist violence. That is why what happens in Iraq will carry a symbolic meaning far beyond Iraq -- actually, far beyond the whole Middle East. Is the emergence of post-history potent enough to defeat the logic of history, now that the latter identifies itself with the fight against terrorism? Which of the two logics, that of history, or of post-history, will get the upper hand?
Kagan ends his essay by questioning whether Europe's post-history is of any relevance in changing the main course of history. I prefer leaving it to him to formulate his conclusion in his own words: "Americans are powerful enough that they need not fear Europeans. Rather than viewing the United States as a Gulliver tied down by Lilliputian threads, American leaders should realise that they are hardly constrained at all, that Europe is not really capable of constraining the United States. If the United States could move past the anxiety engendered by this inaccurate sense of constraint, it could begin to show more understanding for the sensibilities of others. A little generosity of spirit. It could pay its respects to multilateralism and the rule of law and try to build some international political capital for those moments where multilateralism is impossible and unilateral action unavoidable. It could, in short, take more care to show what the founders called a 'decent respect for the opinion of mankind'. But if Europe's Kantism carries a paradox, so does America's Hobbesianism. The United States cannot move out of history and be at the same time its most authentic contemporary expression. Bush's assertion that every citizen on Earth is either with the United States or with terrorism demonstrates how far this paradox has gone.
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