America: Idea Or Nation?

We’re approaching the end of an eventful year and the beginning of a year that looks like being eventful for the American Empire and the republic on which it was based. This past year saw what mainstream commentators are now openly calling the imminent collapse of America’s proxy—Ukraine—in our war on Russia. I was listening to Charles Freeman a bit this morning, who sees NATO fracturing as a direct result. Moving into 2024, America has become involved in a genocide against the Arab population of Palestine. This, in conjunction with the debacle of our war on Russia, has led to a collapse of the American brand around the world—a matter, seemingly, of no import to Israel or the Zionist/Neocon claque that rules America. This genocide is now leading to the increasing flight from the USD and the beginning of restrictions on maritime sea corridors—with a further visible fracturing of the collective West, as European nations scramble to dissociate themselves from American genocide. Foreseeable events that were either foreseen and ignored—for overriding ideological reasons—or, perhaps, not foreseen at all.

This may be a good time, therefore, to attempt a “concept” post. Simplicius the Thinker draws attention today to the second part of a programmatic Neocon screed which is a desperate attempt to both justify their war on Russia as well as to keep digging—having led America into a hole. Here is Simplicius’ piece:

Breaking Down Thinktank-land's Latest: Estonian MoD & ISW Analysis

Of course, nobody cares about an “Estonian MoD” analysis. I assume that it’s actually an MI6 propaganda piece, given that MI6 runs Estonia, a country that doesn’t actually have a military to begin with. That’s not a criticism, per se—there’s no reason for Estonia to have a military beyond what it has. No, our interest is in the Institute for the Study of War screed:

THE HIGH PRICE OF LOSING UKRAINE: PART 2 — THE MILITARY THREAT AND BEYOND

Simplicius correctly locates the core concept in this article—that America is an idea—but we’ll approach that passage gradually. I take that concept to be in opposition to the understanding of America as a nation in the traditional sense. However, we note at this point that the lead author of this piece is Frederick Kagan. This Kagan is the brother of the Robert Kagan who recently—in the pages of the WaPo—called for the assassination of Donald Trump. Fred, thus, is the brother in law of Victoria Nuland—Bob’s wife.

A good lead-in to this discussion is the idea of American Exceptionalism. This description will suffice for our purposes:

Political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset argues that the United States is exceptional in that it started from a revolutionary event. He therefore traces the origins of American exceptionalism to the American Revolution, from which the U.S. emerged as "the first new nation" with a distinct ideology and having a unique mission to transform the world.^[5] This ideology, which Lipset called Americanism, but is often also referred to as American exceptionalism, is based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, democracy, and laissez-faire economics; these principles are sometimes collectively referred to as "American exceptionalism".^[6] As a term in social science, American exceptionalism refers to the United States' status as a global outlier. Critics of the concept claim that the idea of American exceptionalism suggests that the US is better than other countries, has a superior culture, or has a unique mission to transform the planet and its inhabitants.^[7]

So, Americans are not a people with a common national culture and traditions and ties to a geographically defined location. They are ideologues. Where would Lipset have received such a strange idea? Well:

Seymour Martin Lipset (March 18, 1922 – December 31, 2006) was an American sociologist and political scientist. He was the president of the American Political Science Association. His major work was in the fields of political sociology, trade union organization, social stratification, public opinion, and the sociology of intellectual life. He also wrote extensively about the conditions for democracy in comparative perspective. A socialist in his early life, Lipset later moved to the right, and was considered to be one of the first neoconservatives.^[2][1]

At his death in 2006, The Guardian called him "the leading theorist of democracy and American exceptionalism";^[2] The New York Times said he was "a pre-eminent sociologist, political scientist and incisive theorist of American uniqueness";^[1] and The Washington Post said he was "one of the most influential social scientists of the past half century."^[3]

Lipset was born in Harlem, New York City, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants.^[4] He grew up in the Bronx among Irish, Italian and Jewish youth. "I was in that atmosphere where there was a lot of political talk," Lipset recalled, "but you never heard of Democrats or Republicans; the question was communists, socialists, Trotskyists, or anarchists. It was all sorts of different left wing groups." From an early age, Seymour was active in the Young People's Socialist League, "an organization of young Trotskyists that he would later head."^[5]

I don’t know how many of readers have an Irish or Italian background. Personally, I have an Irish and Polish background. My parents were Catholics who would have been generally New Deal Dems, progressives with a definite Catholic social doctrine twist—a movement that, in America, often arose from German Catholic intellectual roots. Growing up, politics was a major topic in my home and community, but it was all about Dems and GOPers, as far as I can recall. The topic of Trotskyism never arose. Readers should feel free to correct me on this point, but to have been absorbed in the questions of “communists, socialists, Trotskyists, or anarchists … all sorts of different left wing groups," I probably would have needed to have had a Jewish background. Which also explains why people who use the term “Neocon” are sometimes accused of being anti-semites—because Neoconservatism is an intellectual movement that arose among and has been guided by mostly formerly Trotskyite Jews. That leads us to Fred Kagan’s article.

Simplicius focuses on a single paragraph. I want to expand that focus to the broader passage. This passage doesn’t proceed in a strictly logical fashion from a theoretical standpoint. What I mean is that certain key presuppositions are buried within the passage, whereas logically these are concepts that need to be discussed. For example, a key passage informs us that “the rules-based international order … remains a pillar of US prosperity and security.” In other words, given that the rules of the rules based order are defined by the US, it follows that the purpose of the “rules based order” is to advance US interests. Not that many years ago—I know, “note that many” is a relative concept—I probably would not have imagined writing what follows. Kagan claims that the consequences of Russia’s victory in Ukraine will be the “normalization” of what he describes in a highly disingenuous, actually dishonest, laundry list—disingenuous, because the laundry list actually applies with far more justice to the American international regime of forever wars abroad—often including support for terrorist proxies like al Qaeda and ISIS—and grotesque moral relativism at home. Wait—make that, grotesque moral relativism at home and abroad, because America is also an enthusiastic exporter of coercive moral relativism. Many of these points also apply, perhaps not so incidentally, to Israel:

Allowing Russia to win in Ukraine would result in a reshaped global order that favors US adversaries and normalizes the following ideas:

• Russia (and other states strong enough) deserves its perceived sphere of influence, regardless of its neighbors’ will.

• Predators can redraw borders by force and victims must justify their right to exist.

• Western international institutions fail to fulfill the very missions they were built for.

• Russia can treat people in areas it controls any way it wants, including subjecting them to perpetual atrocities.

• The United States will face an international environment in which moral relativism further resurges and values further erode, fueled by arguments to the effect of if Russia won, maybe they were not that bad, maybe it wasn’t a black and white issue after all.

The hypocrisy is quite stunning. It is at this point that we can appreciate the core passage that Simplicius also focuses on:

America is an idea. America is a choice. America is a belief in the value of action. US domestic resilience and global power come in no small part from people and countries choosing the United States and from Americans preserving their agency to act with intent. An adversary learning how to alter these realities is an existential threat — especially when ideas are that adversary’s core weapon.

The Neocons’ great fear, as Kagan makes clear, is that Russia is winning the “information war.” The rest of the world no longer sees American Exceptionalism in terms of American founding documents like the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United State, George Washington’s Farewell Address, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The rest of the world sees America using terms like “democracy” and “freedom” as cover for coercive power projections, as hypocritical expressions of a belief in the value of having our own way, of preserving economic dominance financed by deficit spending based on the dollar’s use as a reserve currency, and enforced by perpetual military intimidation. No opposition can be brooked or else the house of cards—and this rules based order is being exposed as just that—will collapse. We will be forced to live within our own means.

That’s actually what the rest of the world wants of us, and it would be good for us. America would remain an important and wealthy country on its own merits. But it would no longer be the country that Lipset and the Neocons envisioned making it: an ideologically driven nation with “a unique mission to transform the planet and its inhabitants.” My argument is that the Neocon notion of a “mission to transform” actually began right here in America. A key part of that mission is to transform America from a national embodiment of a people informed by Christian traditions, beliefs, and principles into one that is ideologically driven to project power on behalf of its ruling class—the Neocons and their proxies and their values. The idea of living on terms of equality and mutual respect with other nations, following traditional principles of international law, doesn’t enter into the Neocon rules based order.

This is at the heart of the desire to eliminate Trump from the national scene by any means necessary. Trump, for all his flaws, appealed to the sense of America as a community for itself, rather than a platform for power projection. As such, he was uninterested in going to war. But he was interested in following a foreign policy that reflected principles of law, and at home in building up a judiciary with that same devotion to principles of law based in our national principles as a people. That animosity toward Trump’s “populism”—love for his fellow Americans—is not at all what the Neocons have in mind. The desire to transform America into a platform for Neocon ambitions goes so far that it leads the likes of Bill Kristol to raise the question of whether "new Americans" are needed to replace pockets of "lazy" white people. A country on a mission needs a people on a mission.

That’s enough for now. I realize that I’ve raised some questions without providing answers to all of those questions. However, if Substack will allow, I’d like to insert the extended passage from the Kagan paper that I was addressing.

Note at the start here that Kagan is, typically, portraying America as a potential victim. Putin has throughout his 20 year public career scrupulously adhered to international law, while the US has rejected those time honored norms in favor of its own creation of self serving rules—to be modified at whim:

3) The Kremlin is targeting global will to act. Putin is working to create an international order that would simply accept, and never fight, Russian principles — such as the Kremlin’s claimed right to own Ukraine and commit atrocities inside of Russia and globally at will. [43] Russian officials frame this effort as Russia’s goal to “architect a fair global future.”[44]

Note in this next paragraph that the core concern is to preserve the image of US resolute determination—not to argue the rights and wrongs of the US coup in Ukraine, the support of Ukro-Nazis, etc. We have to continue as is without self doubt. Because. That’s just it.

If Russia wins in Ukraine, US adversaries will learn that the United States can be manipulated into abandoning its interests in a winnable fight. … The global anti-Western coalition will learn that it can asymmetrically defeat the West through manipulation and by outlasting it. Learning how to diminish US decision superiority is a dangerous lesson for US adversaries, especially China, to learn.

In this next paragraph, focus on the reference to “communities penetrated by the Russian narratives, including in the United States.” That, I would maintain, is a subtle reference to Donald Trump and his supporters—”lazy white people” who need to be replaced or put in their places. This is an expression of the danger the Neocons see in Trump’s appeal to traditional America, which is more interested in pursuing happiness at home rather than foreign conquest.

This scenario would necessarily mean that one of the few Russian capabilities that poses a real threat to the United States — information-based warfare — has received a major boost. Russian information-based warfare and reflexive control specifically have been among the stronger Russian capabilities and a core element of Russia’s strategy against the United States for years.[47] ... Russia’s true sphere is its global information space — communities penetrated by the Russian narratives, including in the United States. If Russia wins in Ukraine, it will likely mean that Russia has managed to change America’s perception of itself, its interests, and the risks and costs it is willing to incur — and for what purpose.

Altering America’s will is no small thing. America is an idea. America is a choice. America is a belief in the value of action. US domestic resilience and global power come in no small part from people and countries choosing the United States and from Americans preserving their agency to act with intent. An adversary learning how to alter these realities is an existential threat — especially when ideas are that adversary’s core weapon.

If that last sentence suggests to you that the Neocons are deeply interested in controlling the narratives in the American public square under the guise of protecting the country from an “existential threat”, well, you just may be on to something.

A geostrategic environment that favors US adversaries

Allowing Russia to win in Ukraine would result in a reshaped global order that favors US adversaries and normalizes the following ideas:

• Russia (and other states strong enough) deserves its perceived sphere of influence, regardless of its neighbors’ will.

• Predators can redraw borders by force and victims must justify their right to exist.

• Western international institutions fail to fulfill the very missions they were built for.

• Russia can treat people in areas it controls any way it wants, including subjecting them to perpetual atrocities.

• The United States will face an international environment in which moral relativism further resurges and values further erode, fueled by arguments to the effect of if Russia won, maybe they were not that bad, maybe it wasn’t a black and white issue after all.

These principles are antithetical to the rules-based international order, which remains a pillar of US prosperity and security.

An ugly world

This next is a strikingly cynical turn of phrase: “Billions of people are watching this war. They will not remember the nuances. They will remember the results …” In the passage that is framed in terms of the possible results of a Russian victory. But imagine how it would apply to a Neocon victory. Billions of people won’t remember the nuances—they’ll remember only that crossing the Neocons, refusing submission to the Nulands and Kagans of this world, to the Netanyahus of this world, will lead to death and destruction on an almost unimaginable scale. The exercise of power justified by the fact that we can get away with it.

Russia winning in Ukraine would result in a world accepting of the Russian way of war and of life. Billions of people are watching this war. They will not remember the nuances. They will remember the results, including the principles that humanity collectively confronted or tolerated. If Russia wins, many horrific practices that the Kremlin is trying to justify will be normalized. To name a few:

Again, I invite the reader to substitute America and Israel for Russia in what follows, and then reflect on the course of history, the course of America’s forever wars, since the Cold War ended:

• Atrocities as a way of war that are not only not condemned but are often lauded by the Russian media, such as Russia’s deliberate attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.[48]

• Brutality as a way of life — both as a means to control civilian populations and to discipline warfighters, like the horrific practice of late PMC Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin having his own men executed with sledgehammers and ‘Prigozhin’s sledgehammer’ then becoming a lauded symbol within the Russian nationalist community.[49]

• A playbook for ‘disappearing’ or ‘digesting’ a nation through an identity and statehood eradication campaign that Russia is undertaking across occupied Ukraine, including forceful deportation of children.

If Russia wins, it will refocus its information efforts on rewriting history and launching narratives for why the above mentioned actions were justified through its information sphere of influence.