Алистер Смит - The Dictator's Handbook - Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics

One of the problems with seeking a policy solution is that after the democrat’s army leaves, the vanquished nation can renege. Enforcing the settlement can be very expensive, as was the case after the Gulf War. A common solution, and the one eventually used against Saddam Hussein, is leader replacement. Democrats remove foreign leaders who are troublesome to them and replace them with puppets. The leaders that rise to the top after an invasion are more often than not handpicked by the victor.

A difficult leader whom democrats don’t trust to honor an agreement will often find himself replaced. The Congo’s Patrice Lumumba, democratically elected, didn’t have policies that pleased the Belgian or American governments and before you knew it, Lumumba was dead, replaced by horrible successors who also happened to be prepared to toe the line favored by the United States and Belgium. France has been no different, stepping into its ex-colony of Chad to make sure that a French-friendly government is in charge rather a Libyan-friendly or Arab-friendly regime.

Democratic leaders profess a desire for democratization. Yet the reality is that it is rarely in their interest. As the coalition size grows in a foreign nation, its leader becomes more and more compelled to enact policies that his people want and not the policies desired by the puppeteer’s people. If a democratic leader wants a foreign leader to follow his prescribed policies then he needs to insulate his puppet from domestic pressures. This means reducing coalition size in vanquished states. This makes it cheaper and easier to sustain puppets and buy policy. US foreign policy is awash with examples where the United States overtly or covertly undermines the development of democracy because it promoted the policies counter to US interests. Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii in 1893, Salvador Allende of Chile in 1973, Mohammad Mosaddegh of Iran in 1953, and Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954 all suffered such fates.

Democracy overseas is a nice thing to believe in, in the abstract. In practice it’s probably not what we, the people want. Let’s return to reconsider Egypt and Israel and the case for democratization. Western democracies used to complain, albeit not too emphatically, about electoral malpractice in Egypt under Mubarak. With Mubarak gone, they now worry that true democracy in Egypt might be contrary to the interests of friends of Israel. Buying peace with Israel under Mubarak was costly but moves toward democracy in Egypt will make continued peace costlier at least until and if Egypt becomes a full-fledged, mature democracy whose leaders will then only fight if they are virtually sure of victory. We can hope that in the long run a democratized Egypt and democratic Israel might develop mutual trust, understanding, and tolerance. However, there is also a chance that Israel would not survive long enough to reach this long run.

While it is true that democracies generally don’t fight each other, we have also noted that they do have lopsided conflicts, and those conflicts often end with the weaker side capitulating. If a democratic Egypt mobilizes and arms itself, tiny Israel would have little hope of resisting unless the United States or NATO were prepared to make a large effort to defend it. Anyone who thinks a democratic Egypt attacking Israel is too fanciful a scenario might ask democratic Native American tribes from the American plains about their dealings with the expanding United States in the 1800s. Democratization sounds good in principle only.

Of course, many may think that we are just too cynical. Advocates of democratization are fond of pointing out the success stories. Yet all of these cases—Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—also happen to involve countries whose population’s values largely coincide with American values in resisting for decades large communist neighbors.

The big problem with democratizing overseas continues to lie with we, the people. In most cases we seem to prefer that foreign nations do what we want, not what they want. However, if our interests align then successful democratization is more likely. This is particularly so if there is a rival power that wishes to influence policy. The postwar success stories fit this category well. Generally, the people of West Germany and Japan preferred what the United States wanted to the vision expounded by the Soviet Union. Creating powerful states that wanted to resist communism and would try hard was in the US interest. As occupying powers, the United States, Britain, and France might have set Germany on a course to democracy but they did so only because it was advantageous for them. This confluence of interests is rare, and so is externally imposed democratization.

Sun Tzu exerted a lasting influence on the study of war precisely because his recommendations are the right recommendations for leaders, like monarchs and autocrats, who rule based on a small coalition. The Weinberger Doctrine—like its more recent replacement, the Powell Doctrine—exerts influence over American security policy precisely because it recommends the most appropriate actions for leaders who are beholden to a large coalition.

We have seen that larger coalition systems are extremely selective in their decisions about waging war and smaller coalition systems are not. Democracies only fight when negotiation proves unfruitful and the democrat’s military advantage is overwhelming, or when, without fighting, the democrat’s chances of political survival are slim to none. Furthermore, when war becomes necessary, large-coalition regimes make an extra effort to win if the fight proves difficult. Small-coalition leaders do not if doing so uses up so much treasure that would be better spent on private rewards that keep their cronies loyal. And finally, when a war is over, larger coalition leaders make more effort to enforce the peace and the policy gains they sought through occupation or the imposition of a puppet regime. Small-coalition leaders mostly take the valuable private goods for which they fought and go home, or take over the territory they conquered so as to enjoy the economic fruits of their victory for a long time.

Clausewitz had war right. War, it seems, truly is just domestic politics as usual. For all the philosophical talk of “a just war,” and all the strategizing about balances of power and national interests, in the end, war, like all politics, is about staying in power and controlling as many resources as possible. It is precisely this predictability and normality of war that makes it, like all the pathologies of politics we have discussed, susceptible to being understood and fixed.

10

What Is To Be Done?

A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason.

—J. P. MORGAN

IN LATE 1901, VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN WROTE A revolutionary essay called “What is to be Done?” His question was directed at justifying the creation of the communist party as the vanguard of the people. We are more interested in his literal question than in his reason for asking it and, equally, we are intrigued by his unintended answer three years later (really in a different context, but nevertheless, apt) in the title to another essay, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.” Too often, the real world of politics and business responds to problems by taking one step forward and two steps back, resulting in no progress on the problem at hand. Backsliding is, and should be, the way leaders deal with problems. It is the existing rules that have allowed them to seize and control resources to date. A headlong plunge into new ways of conducting politics might only heighten a leader’s risk of being overthrown.