Realpolitik vs. Reality - Philip Slater

[Jade Fox]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-slater/realpolitik-vs-reality_b_143312.html

Obama's election provides an opportunity to reconsider the utility of realpolitik, the guiding principle of American foreign policy for the past sixty years. Realpolitik is supposed to be 'practical', but one can't escape the feeling that it would be better termed dummheitpolitik, since it has been the major cause of almost every foreign policy problem we face in the world today. Building up Osama bin Laden to harass the Russians in Afghanistan comes to mind, not to mention building up Saddam Hussein to fight Iran. And of course there's Iran--possibly the most democratic nation in the Muslim world before we sabotaged Mossadegh and installed the Shah's dictatorship, whose oppressive regime opened the door to the fundamentalist Mullahs.

When you get right down to it, realpolitik is merely macho politics--a kind of Johnny-one-note foreign policy. You rattle sabers, hoping someone will wimp out. When they don't, you waste billions slaughtering civilians for a few years, then carry on as before, only with a considerably weakened economy, fewer resources, more enemies, and less real influence. Or you subvert other countries--overthrowing their democratically-elected governments, as we did all over Latin America, achieving nothing beyond a few years of easy sailing for American corporations followed by a huge loss of influence and goodwill all over the continent, so that today more than half of Latin America either views us as the enemy or simply ignores us altogether.

-snip-

Realpolitik has always been contrasted with internationalism, which was seen as idealistic. That was true a century ago. Today, internationalism is the only reality. The problems we face all require international solutions. The world has shrunk, and the nation-state is obsolete as an ultimate authority. Corporations are international, terrorism is international, the economy is international, nature is international, pollution is international, labor is international, poverty is international, disease is international.

The credit crisis should have been a wake-up call. Banks and other corporations have for a long time taken rich advantage of the fact that politicians cling to meaningless national boundaries. Nations compete with one another, allowing multinationals to play them off against each other. But when trouble came, the banks were forced to reveal the truth to their nationalistic suckers: unite or we all go down.

[Demeter]

1. Putting a Stake Through Kissinger's Heart

and about time, too.