The alliances of fools
Recently the Globe and Mail published former NDP campaign chairman and resident philosopher Gerald Caplan’s weltanschauung, a worldview that seems remarkably fuzzy even by left-liberal standards. Judging by his piece, Caplan blames the West, primarily if not exclusively, for the upheavals in the Middle East, and ascribes terrorism to America’s mistreatment of Muslims.
Last Saturday, the National Post carried a devastating critique by Conrad Black under the title of “The pacifism of fools.” Does Caplan recommend, Black wonders rhetorically in his column, “Western appeasement of terrorists, the abandonment of the Muslim world to its most extreme inhabitants and the renunciation of any legitimate Western interest in it, including its Christian and Jewish minorities?” Caplan would presumably say no, yet his evident outlook inevitably leads to this conclusion. By extension, so does the NDP’s philosophy and political platform.
In addition to being friends, Conrad and I are frequent neighbours on these pages. By coincidence, in the same issue I wrote a short piece called “This is not Sparta,” about some parallels between our times and the world of antiquity, with reference to the Peloponnesian War between the Greek citystates Sparta and Athens. Our topics being somewhat similar — essentially, questions of war and peace — some readers had the impression that Conrad and I disagreed (“for once” as one correspondent put it). I don’t think we do, actually. In my column I quote with approval the ancient Greek historian (and Athenian general) Thucydides, who ascribes the long and devastating war between the coalitions led, respectively, by Athens and Sparta, to a quest for dominance. The author of the History of the Peloponnesian War blames the 30-year conflict that nearly destroyed the civilization of antiquity on human ambition for riches, glory and power. In my piece I suggest that these failings and tendencies can be exacerbated by incautious military alliances, and further propose that in the case of the Cold War alliance, NATO, with which the Atlantic community sought (and succeeded) in defending itself against Soviet Russia, they have been.
I’m not going to speak for Conrad. He’s one of Canada’s foremost public intellectuals, a biographer, historian, and the founder of this newspaper, and is more than capable of speaking for himself. Speaking just for myself, however, I doubt if we disagree at all on basic questions of war and peace. I certainly don’t disagree with a word of what he wrote about the pacifism of fools. And while I can’t be sure that he shares my reservations about military alliances in general and the post-Cold War expansion of NATO in particular, I should be surprised if he didn’t share at least some.
My general reservations are due to the reduction of sovereignty that is the inevitable consequence of any alliance or partnership between nations (or individuals, for that matter). My particular reservations have to do with the spectacle of NATO gloating its way to Russia’s borders after the Soviet Union’s demise in 1991. We did so first by distastefully throwing NATO’s weight around in the Balkans, and then by expanding the Atlantic community’s defensive alliance right into the Baltic region.
One feature of defensive pacts is to regard an act of aggression against an allied state as an act of aggression against one’s own. If any country attacks a member country of a military alliance, there’s an obligation to treat it as an attack on all member states.
My excuse for such a pedantic statement of the obvious is that a self-evident aspect of a mutual obligation may be overlooked at first
If Russia attacks Germany, there isn’t a thing Estonia can do about it
glance. It’s that the mutuality of an obligation hinges on the capacity of the contracting parties to carry it out. In the absence of this capacity, a “mutual” obligation is a sham, an illusion or, often enough, a mask for an ulterior motive or aggressive intent.
If Russia attacks Germany, there isn’t a thing Estonia can do about it, a treaty obligation to come to Germany’s aid coupled with a perfect willingness to do so notwithstanding. On the other hand, if Estonia is invaded by Russia, Germany has the capacity to lend a military hand in Estonia’s defence. The absence of a treaty obliging Germany to unsheathe its sword wouldn’t prevent it from doing so, if it considered its national interest or humanitarian duty. What it would have is the option.
In a letter to the editor this week a reader expressed the view that current events in Ukraine illustrate the dangers of a military alliance not being extended to a vulnerable country. My view is the opposite. If Ukraine were a member of NATO, by now we may be on our way of stumbling into war with Russia.