History lives!

[MarkOttawa]

But where is it heading? Here are excerpts from two reviews of Robert Kagan's book The Return of History and the End of Dreams (with a nod to Thucydides).
http://www.amazon.ca/Return-History-End-Dreams/dp/030726923X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217964310&sr=8-1

1) James Kirchick, assistant editor of The New Republic:
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/bc0801jk.html

...
Over the past seven years, many essays and books have presented some variation on the thesis that the world has changed since 9/11. It is refreshing, then, to read an argument that begins with the proposition that far from changing, the international scene has simply reverted to the not so distant past. Once again, the United States leads the free world against authoritarians, who are ensconced in the same places that they were during the Cold war: Beijing and Moscow. An original aspect of this book, and what many of his critics have failed to note, is that Kagan—the most eloquent and persuasive of the neoconservative thinkers—concludes that state authoritarianism, not jihadist terrorism and its state sponsors, is the central problem of the twenty-first century. Indeed, Kagan does not address radical Islam until the end of his book, and his discussion of it lasts but a few pages. If there is a lesson to be learned from The Return of History and the End of Dreams (aside, of course, from the insights that Kagan himself lends), it is that there is real disagreement among neoconservatives, those believers in the robust projection of American power who have recently become the subject of such fear and fascination for so many conspiracy theorists. They are hardly a bunch of hacks taking identical orders from the (now-defunct) Project for a New American Century...

2) Lord Black of Crossharbour, guest of the US government:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/08/01/conrad-black-the-west-is-confronted-by-opportunity-not-a-retreat.aspx

...
As Iraq continues to improve and the United States finally becomes serious about energy imports — and more constructive governments take hold in France, Germany and Italy — a world that is neither unipolar nor multipolar, but led by a renascent political alliance headed by the United States, should emerge. The end of terrible national animosities in Europe is a great and benign event, but the European Union is an over-bureaucratized shambles, almost inert economically, and stranded between nation states and confederation. Europe wants, and should receive, leadership from an American president to whom it cannot condescend, such as Roosevelt, Kennedy, or Nixon. It is not clear that such a candidate is on offer this year, but there is room for hope.

Of course, Russia and China are not democracies, but they are closer to democracy than to the totalitarian terror-states run in those countries for almost 30 years by Stalin and Mao. There is nothing sinister in their quest for Great Power recognition. China has intermittently had that status much longer than any other country, and Russia has been a Great Power since the time of Peter the Great in the late 17th century, when the Americans were a scattering of colonial settlers terrified by the French in Canada and the indigenous peoples.

...Russia and China can, if advisable, be accommodated without dishonouring the West or sacrificing its strategic interests. There is little history of Chinese strategic impetuosity, and as long as they do not become neurotic about Taiwan, there is no reason for any particular friction. A Grand Alliance, led by the United States, France, Germany, Japan, the UK, and India should always be able to outbid China or Russia for any country’s goodwill, including each other’s. (There would be an important role in it for the treasure house of Canada, if it can outgrow the self-conscious, genetically transmitted bunk about being a middle power.)..

Ultimately, the Russians and Chinese are just as much threatened by Islamic extremism as the West is, and the threat to the West is not a fraction as serious as were those of Imperial and Nazi Germany and their allies, and of the Cold War USSR. There are only about 20,000 Islamic terrorists in the world. They are a terrible and treacherous nuisance, but not a serious rival or a mortal threat to our civilization...

The concurrence of views on the Islamist threat is interesting. I think Lord Black may have the better analysis--but Kagan's emphasis on the authoritarian threat may yet be the wiser approach. Think Churchill on Hitler. Time will tell.

Update: Upon brief reflection it seems to me that any conflict with China (Taiwan aside) would be most likely to result from its ever-growing lust for natural resources.
http://www.forbes.com/markets/2008/08/04/imperial-energy-sinopec-markets-equity-cx_vk_0804markets03.html
Russia, with a relatively small (in great power terms, and likely declining) population doesn't worry me that much.

Mark
Ottawa