On Wed, 26 Mar 2003, Alexandre Fenelon wrote:
> Yes, but if they start to get heavy losses and become even more
> agressive, this will led to further losses, increased expenses and
> progressive weakening of economy, which could led to an weakened US.
Which won't by itself lead to saner policy. Look at Israel.
> The Republicans lose, of course, but then US hegemony became stronger
> and the US leadership became more and more inclined to interventionism
> in the 90´s, so Bush´s defeat didn´t help too much.
That's absolutely true. But things are different now. We anti-interventionists who preferred alternatives to war were a tiny minority then. Now we're a majority of both the left and the policy making elite. The combination will change the agenda.
IFF we survive these guys, they will have done us a favor by finally revealing the world the evil consequences of the policy of creeping unilateralism legitimated by human rights discourse that we've been following ever since Somalia. If human rights means anything it means a framework of international law. And if international law is ever to mean anything, it requires an international law-making body with democratic legitimacy. Which we wever never had except in our imagination. But which we could.
> I don´t want to have a democrat president elected. I want to have a
> weakened USA, both in economics and military terms,
The direct cost of war is not in itself a big economic drain. The current estimate cost on the high end is 5% of the tax cuts they passed last year. What costs money is peace -- that's where the big money is. And the political costs of a reputation for devil-may-care selfish belligerance.
The big costs, these costs of peace and belligerence, will be just as big after a quick war.
> not that I think other powers will be much better, but a better balance
> of power is a good thing itself.
No it's not. The balance of powers brought us World Wars I and II and the Cold War. We can do better than that.
Hegemony in the true sense of the word -- domination to which there is *consent* -- is not a bad thing in international relations. It's a good thing. We should get back to it.
But of course the most important thing is the content of foreign policy. That's not given by formal structural relations. The Concert of Vienna was a balance of power system -- in the service of pure reaction.
Lastly, a military balance of power is simply impossible at the moment. And a world in which it would be possible in 20 years would be a world of 20 years of unchecked arms racing, which is the last thing the world needs today, both militarily and economically.
What we need is a world in which the hegemon becomes conscious that for the first time in history, it is under no threat -- there is no conceivable military enemy that could destroy it -- and that the simplest way to perpetuate it's privileged position is by institutionalizing peace. That it is its interest to perpetuate peace just as it is in its interest to perpeture free trade. Except peace is more unequivocally a good. And for the first time in human history, entirely within our collective grasp.
Michael