As typified by much of the preceding discussion, the post-WW2 American and Euro-American consensus about why it was both in our interests and in keeping with our moral concept of ourselves to stay engaged worldwide, has begun to splinter. Paleo-conservative and yahoo isolationism with its simplistic, superficial, and utterly fantastical pseudo-answers to international challenges become more and more seductive.

We lost the Soviet Union as an active, seemingly equal enemy to keep “the West” united, and, despite the election of more conservative national governments, the Euros within NATO are still far from being dependable or always very useful allies when conflicts approach. The jury is out on whether they will remain committed long-term to their pacifistic and market-socialist approach to just about everything and anything you can think of.

At the same time, there are numerous countries at the edges of Europe or completely outside of it – like Poland, Japan, India, Australia, South Korea, Israel, even Iraq and Afghanistan sooner or later – who have in common a devotion to democratic capitalism, out-sized economic influence, and a willingness to stand up for themselves and each other. Forces within old Europe – still a nuclear-armed economic powerhouse and not yet ready to be completely written off – could also benefit from an alternative source of influence and validation.

It probably would be better to avoid formalizing such a coalition until and unless a single major challenge drawing them together arose, but there’s nothing wrong with coordination between the countries that work, for all our sakes, or with thinking about what advances our mutual interests.

CK MacLeod on May 2, 2008 at 5:41 PM

Everyone seems to have a good idea about John McCain, who he is, and what he thinks, but who are the people standing behind him and whispering in his ear?

rockhauler on May 2, 2008 at 5:32 PM

McCain reads and studies widely in foreign affairs. One adviser/author whose work is fairly accessible and very worth taking in in this context is Robert Kagan, whose 2003 book-length essay OF PARADISE AND POWER prevents a very helpful overview of relations between the US and Europe in historical context and going forward. It’s only around 100 pages, and very clear and cogent.

I haven’t read Kagan’s newer book yet, but intend to. Like the other title, it comes with prominent recommendations from McCain himself, as well as from other foreign policy thinkers.

There are several other authors and advisers who can help clue you in on where McCain gets his ideas, but he didn’t start with this stuff yesterday, and he also reads authors “from the other side.” I saw a note earlier this year, at Hugh Hewitt’s blog, that McCain was reading THE COLDEST WINTER – the late David Halberstam’s political-military history of the Korean War. If you can leave aside a few gratuitous paragraphs in which Halberstam leaps ahead to embrace conventional liberal wisdom about Vietnam and Iraq, it’s an extremely interesting and useful look at the formation of US Cold War strategy amidst fierce political and military rivalries, against the background of a fiercely fought yet widely misunderstood war.

The historian Niall Ferguson has sometimes also been mentioned as a McCain guy, though I recall Ferguson himself saying, in effect, that he’s more of a fan than a member of the brain trust. His book THE WAR OF THE WORLD, essentially a history of the 20th Century as a single long struggle defined by the decline of Europe and resultant turmoil, is great and informative, if sometimes deeply depressing, reading.

CK MacLeod on May 2, 2008 at 6:21 PM