Robert Gates. Exercise of power.

 

Previously, I identified neoconservatism as a contagious disorder of mind, similar to animal rabies. Even smart and well-rounded people after prolonged contact with neocons start repeating its ideological dogma in a continuous stream as a drunk spews profanities on everyone and no one in particular. 

Robert Gates may be one of the smartest neocons but neocon he became after he was bitten by some. He quotes as influences of his book "Exercise of Power" Hadley, Haas, Edelstein and Flournoy and no one else--all adepts of the great sect of neoconservatism. There is another frequently quoted source--Condolezza Rice--who cannot be called "neocon", or anything. Her only conviction in life was convincingly lying to superiors and castigating critics of her pompous ignorance as racists. 

The main premise of his book is that 535 mostly provincial lawyers, few knowing any foreign languages or traveled abroad with purpose other than sex tourism or murdering natives in the US colonial wars, can and able to determine the fate of 7.5 billion people on the Planet Earth. If only the "exercise of power" is correctly managed. It never occurs to Gates' mind that may be, the world domination may be neither possible, nor even desirable goal of the US foreign policy.

Concerning his prescription towards this goal, they are carefully worded and mostly sane--stop relying exclusively on the armed coercion, antagonizing the allies for trifle goals and such. But his belief in achievability of the world as an American Imperium is unswerving. 

Gates confidently proclaims that the United States is still the world's largest economy and the strongest military power. Well, how long ago he had looked at the IMF statistics of the GDP? Probably, Pentagon may still be ahead of all the world in the art of demolition of lots of buildings with civilians in them from the air--the ruins of Raqqa and Mosul testify to that. But the fact that all American military power could not defeat several tens of thousands of rag-tag Taliban militia for twenty years does not bode well for the perception of American military prowess. 

In the chapter on Iran he recycles the usual hogwash of "regime change". Obviously, this is to please "our friend Bibi" and his influential American supporters. Gates' approach is typical of neocon thinking--one size fits all and little thought is given to ethnic/tribal/linguistic problems. Regime change in Iran is more than likely result in even more hardline Shia state and it can split Iran into core Persian lands and leave Iranian Azerbaijan and Iranian Kurdistan to join compatriots abroad. Cleptocratic secular Sunni elite of much less populous Azerbaijan proper might not last either in the face of village Shiism or an aggressive Pan-Turkism. 

To partly justify war in Iraq--which he correctly views as a disaster--he claims that Iraq is a "democracy, kind-of". I still remember times when tribal-based Afghan mujahideen were also called different names--"Jeffersonian democrats" and "de-centralizers"

The chapter on Russia is the weirdest. It consists of two completely disjoint parts discussing the same thing--one pretty lucid, despite all his racial disdain and condescension--and another, recounting all neocon talking points. I suspect that Ministry of Truth Commissars now sitting in every respectable publishing house requested the second part as a precondition for publishing the book even from the person of Gates' stature. 

With China, Gates recommends approach much saner than the current incessant bullying. Yet, his views on American "soft power" are that of his youth. Chinese are not poor peasants anymore, tens of millions travel abroad every year, hundreds of thousands study in Western universities and a significant proportion of Chinese now enjoys similar availability of consumer goods and a better infrastructure . The idea of sending Americans lecturing them about American "freedoms" and "prosperity" as an instrument of political influence is preposterous. 

But the main reason that all these think tanks, aid programs and covert support of thugs are not likely to produce world dominion is that American model is not as attractive as it once has been. Moreover, recent attempts at intervention--Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere have hardly produced results, which the rest of the world wants to follow. 

And yet, the plank in American foreign policy thought went so low that if President Biden appoints Robert Gates his Secretary of State, this would be one of the better choices possible. It is by far superior to Albright-Power approach: "War yesterday, war today, war tomorrow".