An interesting theory: we’ve evolved past war
For many years, John Mueller, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, has devoted himself to two intellectual passions, one in the arts, the other in public policy.
The first, dating back to the 1980s, focuses on Hollywood idol Fred Astaire’s dancing. In 1985, Mueller wrote a detailed 440-page study of every Astaire move seen in his films from 1933 to 1968, every swoop, tap dance or stutter step. It was an impressive work.
Mueller’s other passion, dating back roughly to the 9/11 attacks, has been to trumpet his core belief that, since the end of World War II, despite booming evidence to the contrary, an “ardent quest for international peace” has supplanted war as the fundamental condition of global relations. Not that “perfect harmony or justice has been achieved,” he stresses. Conflicts may persist, but war as a key instrument of state policy has “substantially been abandoned” and ought no longer to be considered “inevitable or necessary.” He seems to be saying we’ve entered a new age of stability and nobility.
What, you ask? You hadn’t noticed?
“The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and the Case for Complacency” By John Mueller Cambridge. 332 pp. $27.95
Mueller, also an adjunct professor of political science at Ohio State University, wisely anticipates your skepticism. Defending himself as a cool analyst of global affairs - no “grinning cherub” or “cooing dove,” he insists Mueller provides heavily footnoted proof in his latest book, eye-catchingly called “The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and the Case for Complacency.” It is a powerfully argued, clearly written but ultimately unpersuasive update of his conviction that since war has now become a thing of the past, a policy of “complacency,” even “appeasement,” would be a far more sensible substitute. Either would save lives, fortune and face. Besides, he contends, endless wars, nuclear stockpiles and fat Pentagon budgets have so far produced only misery, failure and national humiliation. (Earlier Mueller books, such as “Atomic Obsession” and “Chasing Ghosts,” made essentially the same points.)
In one chapter after another, whether the challenge be Korea or Vietnam, Iraq or
Afghanistan, Bosnia or Gaza, Mueller bolsters his argument by using his own definitions of reality and by assuming, somewhat arrogantly, that he knows the mind and strategy of every democrat or dictator, past and present, perhaps better than the democrat or dicta- tor himself.
Mueller is certain, for example, that Stalin never had ambitions to communize Western Europe! Really?
A diplomacy more open to compromise and concession, rather than an overpowering show of military force, would have persuaded Saddam Hussein to abandon Kuwait! Really?