Firstly, how does a conservative foreign policy “look”? To answer this question, let us turn to one of the most insightful books ever written about political worldviews and ideologies, Thomas Sowell’s “A Conflict of Visions.” In it, Dr. Sowell famously juxtaposes the “constrained vision” of human nature, which tends to favor conservative politics, with the “unconstrained vision,” which tends to favor leftist and socialist policies. I will be referring to the 2002 edition published by Basic Books.
Dr. Sowell uses this concept of clashing “visions” to explain
"why the same people [frequently] line up on opposite sides of different issues. The isues themselves may have no intrinsic connection with each other. They may range from military spending [!] to drug laws to monetary policy to education. Yet the same familiar faces can be found glaring at each other from opposite sides of the political fence, again and again" (p.3).
"why the same people [frequently] line up on opposite sides of different issues. The isues themselves may have no intrinsic connection with each other. They may range from military spending [!] to drug laws to monetary policy to education. Yet the same familiar faces can be found glaring at each other from opposite sides of the political fence, again and again" (p.3).
The constrained vision maintains that human nature is seriously flawed and, therefore, our wishes can never be completely fullfilled. It is anti-utopian and looks for tradeoffs to address political problems rather than for perfect solutions. On the other hand, the unconstrained vision believes that human behavior may be deeply flawed at the moment, but this is due to harmful traditions and social institutions. To the unconstrained vision’s adherents, human nature can be perfected and utopian ambitions achieved. They place less value on checks and balances, trusting that certain enlightened individuals are highly qualified to lead as representatives of the common good.
Obviously, conservatism generally goes hand in hand with the constrained vision of human nature, whereas socialism tends to coincide with the unconstrained vision.
So what kind of foreign policy does the constrained vision recommend? Dr. Sowell writes:
"As in other areas of human life, the unconstrained vision seeks to discover the special reasons for evils [of war] while the constrained vision takes these evils for granted as inherent in human nature and seeks instead to discover contrivances by which they can be contained" (p.153).
To those with the unconstrained vision, “war results from a failure of understanding, whether caused by lack of forethought, lack of communication, or emotions overriding judgment” (ibid.). Meanwhile, those with the constrained vision (typically conservatives) understand military conflict as a natural result of mankind’s failings and seek to limit it by “raising the cost of war to potential aggressors” (p.154), “negotiating only within the context of deterrent strength and avoiding concessions to blackmail that would encourage further blackmail” (ibid.), and so forth.
So how does this apply to the current war in Ukraine? One major problem with the reaction to the war in American politics has been the mass phenomenon of supposed conservatives basing their foreign-policy prescriptions on arguments which are not remotely conservative and are much more in line with the unconstrained vision. Since these arguments are also usually at odds with basic facts, they tend to be substantiated by lies and distortions. See my past articles for case studies.
This sordid trend is further exemplified by a recent article from the pen of one A. J. Smuskiewicz entitled “America, the Great Warmonger and War Criminal.” In what follows, I will show how this essay is not only totally wrong in its assessment of the war in Ukraine, but, more specifically, is wrong because it is inspired by the unconstrained view of the issue. However, this focus should not be taken to mean that the rest of the piece is unobjectionable. The whole thing is littered with falsehoods and unsubstantiated assertions, including this doozy about the Korean War: “during the Korean War, an estimated 20 percent of the civilian population in Korea was killed by US napalm and firebomb attacks.” Nope. The actual figure is that “North Korea lost 20% of its population” during the war. According to Soviet statistics, North Korea suffered “1.2 million civilian casualities,” but the overwhelming majority of these people “fled to the South or [went] missing,” rather than being unambiguously killed. More importantly, Smuskiewicz implies that fewer people would have died had the United States not intervened in the war. Well, to quote the late Christopher Hitchens, “what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.”
But let us get to the promised discussion of Smuskiewicz’s position on Ukraine. “This war was totally avoidable,” he tells us, “if the US government wasn’t led by warmongers.” “The US should have respected and addressed Russia’s frequently expressed and legitimate security concerns about NATO expansion and hostile Ukrainian actions near the Russian border,” he adds – without, of course, providing any specifics. Smuskiewicz is channeling the unconstrained vision of war: the world is peaceful by default, and we could all be singing “Kumbaya” and trading friendship bracelets if not for the mean people in our institutions, who so stubbornly stand in the way of peaceful world utopia. On the contrary, as an adherent of the constrained vision, I submit that there are bad people out there and bad people tend to do bad things – invade Ukraine, for instance. The United States, as a country which generally wields its military might for humanistic purposes, is the exception rather than the rule. Peace, historically, has been the exception rather than the rule in international affairs – which is why it is so important to penalize aggression when it does happen, to prevent backsliding into the perpetual war which used to be the norm.
So which view is closer to reality? I think you know how I answer that question. Anyone who knows the first thing about Russian politics understands that Smuskiewicz’s argument is piffle from start to finish. The notion that NATO expansion provoked Russia’s war against Ukraine is utter nonsense. As Robert Kelly, professor of International Relations at Pusan University, writes, “Putin’s Ukraine war is not about NATO, but dead imperial dreams.” Professor Kelly correctly notes that the Russian dictator’s claims that NATO was a threat to Russia are completely contradicted by his acceptance of Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to the alliance. Indeed, the whole charade about fearing NATO expansion “seems mostly designed for a Western audience” – that is, to be swallowed up by useful idiots like Smuskiewicz.
"But domestically," Professor Kelly notes, "Putin has served up traditional Russian nationalism. Ukraine does not exist, Putin has asserted. It is not meaningfully independent of Russia or the ‘Russian world.’ Putin even took to comparing himself to Peter the Great, strongly signaling a traditional Russian imperialist approach to the smaller peoples on Russia’s fringes."
And of course, the Russian arguments that NATO had aggressive intentions towards Russia were utterly insane all along. For why that is, read the professor’s article – I don’t want to repeat too much of it here. Suffice it to say that Smuskiewicz’s talk of the Kremlin’s “legitimate security concerns” would be inadequately described by the word “ludicrous.”
Not that Ukraine was going to join NATO in the foreseeable future anyway. As a further illustration of the dishonesty of the Kremlin’s supposed grievances with the West’s policies, Professor Alexander Motyl observes:
"For months official Moscow insisted that Ukraine’s membership in NATO was imminent and that the threat of missile emplacements in Ukraine was real. In fact, Moscow knew what the West and Ukraine knew—that Ukraine’s chances of joining the Alliance in the next two decades were nil and, hence, that missiles would not be emplaced there as well. Given this proneness to exaggeration and mendacity, Moscow cannot be trusted to mean anything it says."
Further refuting the idea that NATO expansion or the specific actions of Ukraine caused the present war, Russia and (perhaps unintentionally) Belarus have already implied that Russia is considering invading Moldova next.
And of course, the United States and NATO have for a long time “respected and addressed” Russia’s ridiculous pretend “security concerns.” For instance, they have established the NATO-Russia Council, an arrangement the likes of which the alliance does not have with any other state. Yet Russia has continued to commit aggression against one country after another.
Smuskiewicz’s world is divorced from reality to a comical degree when he contends that Russia has reaped “substantial benefits” from its conflict with the civilized world. What are these “benefits”?
According to Smuskiewicz, “the US actions have prompted Russia to become more more economically self-sufficient.” Yet what is probably the most extensive study to date of the war’s and sanctions’ impact on the Russian economy concludes that Russia is doomed to “economic oblivion.” The official summary states: “Despite Putin’s delusions of self-sufficiency and import substitution, Russian domestic production has come to a complete standstill with no capacity to replace lost businesses, products and talent.”
According to Smuskiewicz, Russia has “detach[ed] itself from the rot of American/Western culture." As of this year, Russia has the world’s highest divorce rate. Meanwhile, the nine countries with the greatest average lengths of marriage include such “rotten” Western states as Germany, New Zealand, the UK, Australia, Canada, Sweden, and the USA.
According to Smuskiewicz, Russia has “strengthen[ed] its alliances with China and other US adversaries.” This is true to a point, but not to such an extent as to confer a net “benefit” on Russia. Contrary to what one might think, economists Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Steven Tian point out that
"Chinese exports to Russia plummeted by more than 50 percent from the start of the year to April, falling from over $8.1 billion monthly to $3.8 billion. Considering China exports seven times as much to the United States than Russia, it appears that even Chinese companies are more concerned about running afoul of U.S. sanctions than of losing marginal positions in the Russian market, reflecting Russia’s weak economic hand with its global trade partners."
In short, Smuskiewicz’s article is one more example of the intellectual vacuity and mendacity of the isolationist movement, as well as of the representatives of the unconstrained vision as applied to international politics.
A much better alternative is provided by Daniel Riggs, who has developed an approach for thinking about foreign affairs through the lens of Thomas Sowell’s “A Conflict of Visions.” In his lengthy and elaborate argument, Riggs maintains that “groups with the constrained vision are suitable for US support as their objectives and subsequent governance will be limited, concrete, and understandable, in contrast to the unconstrained.” As an example of a group espousing the constrained vision, he cites the American revolutionaries, since their “guiding principles were specific, concrete, and attempted to limit the ambitions of those with a scientific or sociopathic desire to perfect man or create utopia.” Furthermore, Riggs points to the Reagan administration’s support for the Polish Solidarity movement, a group which was also animated by the constrained vision. As he observes, this policy was a resounding success, leading to a large-scale “peaceful return of self-determination.” Stability resulted from the implementation of the constrained vision: “The streets of Warsaw were not Paris of the 1790’s. It was prosaic. It was not mayhem, nor was it utopia."
The parallel with the current situation is almost too obvious to point out. Once again, an Eastern European nation is threatened by Russian imperialism. Once again, the defenders pursue limited, completely respectable aims which almost no-one could denounce in principle: self-determination, territorial integrity, democracy, freedom from the genocide which Russia is conducting against them. The Ukrainian government does not pursue utopia, and it is not a government of fanatics. It is committed, whatever its flaws and occasional failures to live up to its ideals, to such outgrowths of the constrained vision as the rule of law and checks and balances – unlike Russia and Belarus, the two aggressor states. Supporting Ukraine is just about the most unobjectionable major foreign-policy move imaginable, and yet isolationist zealots like A. J. Smuskiewicz are losing their minds over it and machine-gunning distortions into the discourse like there’s no tomorrow.
What can explain the propensity among many American conservatives to adopt completely un-conservative (not to mention irrational) stances on foreign policy in accordance with the unconstrained vision rather than the constrained vision one would expect from them? Dr. Sowell remarks that, on foreign affairs, libertarians tend to subscribe to an unconstrained view typical of leftists. So while they may hold to the constrained vision on matters of economics, they do not necessarily do so when it comes to foreign policy. Therfore, libertarian influence can explain some of the insanity on Ukraine which we have been seeing on the American right, especially in such cases as that of Blake Masters (explored in one of my previous articles), who seems more libertarian than conservative on other issues as well. This is not a full answer, however. That is beyond the scope of this essay. The important thing is to note the fundamental error many have made in thinking about foreign policy and leave it behind.