Another sophomore heard from ...

ARTICLE: "Gorbachev accuses U.S. of imperialism," by Alex Nicholson, Indianapolis Star, 28 July 2007, p. A9.

Here's the killer putdown:

The Americans want so much to be the winners. The fact that they are sick with this illness, this winners' complex, is the main reason why everything in the world is so confused and complicated.

Does it get any more simplistic than that?

If America's more humble, the world's no longer confused and complicated.

I'm not arguing against the humility that Bush promised and then most definitely did not deliver. I'm not arguing against a more multipolar understanding of the world.

But pretending we're all the same in this globalized economy and security situation is truly sophomoric. The reason why America must lead in military matters is that we have the ONLY military that can project power anywhere. Contextualizing that employment within a larger rule set is the main problem, not simply our having it. But that contextualization is a multipolar "street," so to speak. We can't manage that rule-set adjustment on our own, although we can definitely start the process.

Just like DoD has to get the rest of the USG to grow up and take on the responsibilities of what comes next, the U.S. is forced to do similarly with rising powers like Russia, Brazil, India and China. Admittedly, Bush has done this poorly in many ways, but not too bad in others.

But it's the larger alarmism that I find so silly, much like Krauthammer's asinine specter of Chavez haunting our presidential photo-ops: this is a "confused and complicated world" that features the biggest, broadest and fastest growing global economy we've ever seen. It also includes the least amount of mass violence, world-wide, than we've enjoyed in decades. Deaths from natural disasters are down about 98% from 1900 (per capita and over 90% in absolute terms--according to research Bjorn Lomborg compiles in his brilliant Skeptical Environmentalist). The great powers are integrating their economies like never before (and puh-leeze, do not pull out those Germany-Britain stats from 1910s, because if you think Wal-Mart's global supply chain can be compared to that simplistic stuff, then it's back to International Economics 101 for you!) and we've got global cooperation on stuff that was simply unimaginable as recently as two decades ago.

Look around you! Our big fights are over farm subsidies, tainted products and unfloating currencies. We've even got space to debate global warming responses ad nauseum. All this while terrorists are allegedly "running our world"!

Yes, yes, a "confusing and complicated world" for Gorby, but as we know, a lot of things confused and complicated Gorby's worldview. As useful idiots go (yes, the old Leninist chestnut), Gorby was the very best: so misundereducated that he knew in his heart of hearts that he could rebuild Soviet socialism from within--God love him!

So, sure, give him his Nobel and leave him where he belongs--in the 20th century.

Comments

[michael]

Interesting how Gorby is viewed by the American media and academic left as the one who brought the Cold War to an end (and thereby dismissing the contributions of the Pope, Thatcher and Reagan). Yet, the man is almost universally despised in Russia.

Why is it when this guy opens his mouth certain segments of the American public genuflect as if it is the word of God.