The next wars

National Review, June 30, 2008 by John Fonte

The Return of History and the End of Dreams, by Robert Kagan (Knopf, 128 pp., $19.95)

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ROBERT KAGAN has produced a brief and lucid book on world politics in the 21st century, a well-written manifesto clearly aimed at influencing U.S. foreign policy. It features blurbs from John McCain, Joseph Lieberman, and Richard Holbrooke.) Some conservatives will, no doubt, be attracted by Kagan's clarity; his robust distinctions between democrats and autocrats; and his realistic recognition of the limits of negotiations with bad guys--all presented in limpid prose, making it a delight to read. Nevertheless, as we shall see, conservatives should be wary of internalizing Kagan's core narrative as a way to understand America's role in the world, past, present, and future.

In general, Kagan posits three overlapping conflicts that will face world politics: first, a return of international competition ("for status and influence") among great powers "with Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, Iran, the United States, and others vying for regional predominance"; second, the reemergence of the "old competition between liberalism and autocracy"; and third, the re-eruption of "an even older struggle" between the forces of radical Islam and modern secular regimes and cultures.

Kagan begins with the premise that Francis Fukuyama's original 1989 thesis of the "end of history"--that in the future there will be "no serious ideological competitors" to liberal democracy--is outdated. This is so, Kagan tells us, because "autocracy" in the form of China and Russia is "making a comeback" and is now challenging liberal democracy ideologically as well as materially. Moreover, the autocrats in Beijing and Moscow are not simply opportunists, but believe autocracy is good for their nations. Although, unlike the Communists of old, they are not seeking to export their ideology to the West, they could, Kagan insists, provide a model of successful autocratic rule that could be emulated by developing countries.

Kagan rightfully decries the smug "ideological and economic determinism" of the early post-Cold War years. Ideological determinism insisted that "history moves in only one direction," toward human progress. Economic determinism posited that economic growth and material wealth must lead to political freedom and peaceful intentions toward other states. Kagan notes that these predictions have not been borne out (at least so far) in the case of China and Russia. Nor, for that matter, were they borne out in the cases of the Kaiser's Germany, Hitler's Germany, or--as Hamilton explained in Federalist No. 6--various other economic powerhouses throughout human history.

Kagan declares that China and Russia have developed a new model. They have shown that it is possible to achieve economic progress, be involved in the global economy, and, at the same time, remain undemocratic and often uncooperative with the West. Moreover, Beijing and Moscow are enabling the radical Islamist regime in Tehran, the anti-democratic government in Damascus, the terrorists of Hezbollah, and anti-democrats elsewhere.

Radical Islamists, Kagan states, can create "horrendous damage," but they cannot achieve their goal of sweeping "infidel accretions" from the Islamic world--they "cannot win." Therefore, Kagan believes, radical Islam "may ultimately have less impact on international affairs than [will] the struggle among great powers and between the forces of democracy and autocracy." Nonetheless, a concerted effort among the great powers to deal with radical Islam is unlikely to work because China and Russia will use the Iranian regime, Syria, and Hezbollah to gain geopolitical advantage against the United States.

Kagan's description of the three conflicts of world politics that will "combine and collide" in the 21st century--great-power rivalries, ideological tensions between autocracy and democracy, and the violent challenge of radical Islam--contains some important truths. A crucial fourth conflict, however, is missing. This conflict, which will likewise "combine and collide" with the other three, is the struggle between the forces of transnational global governance and the liberal-democratic nation-state.

Ideologically, Kagan envisions a contemporary bipolar world with Western democracy locked in conflict with "Eastern" autocracy. This struggle between liberalism and autocracy has continued steadily since the late-18th-century Enlightenment. It has resumed in recent years with the rise of autocratic China and Russia, and thus "history" or ideological conflict has returned. The Enlightenment project promoted modernity, secularism, liberalism, and democracy and was resisted by the autocratic, reactionary powers of Europe that sought (in Kagan's words) the "maintenance of a monarchical and aristocratic order against the liberal and radical challenges presented by the French and American revolutions." The United States, Kagan tells us, has been on the secular, liberal, Enlightenment side of this conflict since its beginnings.