International Relations Theory Doesn’t Understand Culture
foreignpolicy.com
foreignpolicy.com
We do talk in broad brush strokes about how overarching cultural norms impact the way countries act in a way that does seem to marry up with reality. The way the US acts does marry up with a commitment to a broadly liberal international order, underpinned by the principles of the Constitution. The UK acts in a way that is informed by its history and a respect for the rule of law. China and Russia, on the other hand, act in a way that respects individual sovereignty and the 'international order' much less.
The English school has much to say, even if you acknowledge that it may not pick up finer distinctions, and is still tied to a Westphalian view of the world (both valid criticisms)
The talk about constitution, rule of law, etc doesn't matter ultimately. The constitution or the rule of law are just things we follow when it suits our interests. It's why we broke every treaty with native americans and committed heinous genocides against them. It's why we enslaved blacks and then treated them as second rate citizens after slavery. And how many illegal wars have we been engaged in?
All the intellectual niceties are meaningless. At the end of the day, nations act in the way that the elites ( or a sufficient number of the elites ) of the nation want them to act. Nations are created by the elites to benefit the elites.
This is a contingent fact that's only true as of the end of WWII. The international world order was British before it was American; it was French (however partially) before it was British - and indeed, French is still an international language in diplomacy and e.g. at the UN. It still was, and is, an international order, ruled by the same sort of basic principles and norms. Of course there are some opportunistic advantages to that stewardship role, but that's all they are - advantages. Nobody would rationally want to upset the apple cart, even though they might physically be able to do so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Naval_Treaty
French is an offical language of the UN, but so is mandarin, arabic, russian, spanish, etc. Using your logic, the chinese, egypt, russia, etc ruled the world?
There has been one international world order. The american world order. The british empire never created one. Neither did the french, russians, chinese or arabs.
What basic principles and norms? The international world order, like all order, is ruled by the fist ( or might ). A lot of people had to die and will continue to die for "order". "Priniciples and norms" are just fluff we make up to distract from or justify the fist.
Lots of people would want to "upset the apple cart". Do you really think the chinese or the russians or even the germans or japanese or eventually the indians or any other major nation wouldn't want to be top dog?
There had been two successive world orders before WWII. The first emerged at the 1815 Congress of Vienna and ended with WWI. The second was created after WWI and ended with WWII. See this Foreign Affairs magazine article for more explanations: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2018-1...
There was no world order after ww1. It was great powers building up to fight. How anyone could claim there was an international order between ww1 and ww2 is beyond me.
I've read the foreign affairs article before. It's propaganda junk like all foreign affairs articles. Foreign affairs is published by a think tank ( aka propagandists ).
Take one of it's central thesis : "The American grand strategy that emerged in this era—continental expansion and internal development combined with self-righteous aloofness from the world beyond the seas—suited a commercial republic deep in the global periphery. It could work, however, only because the United States was protected by geography and British naval supremacy. "
The idea that america was "aloof" in the 1800s is laughably false. And the idea that we depended on british naval supremacy is also patently false.
Nevermind that we fought and won against the "mighty" british in the early 1800s and essentially forced our will on them in the western hemisphere, we were also busy partaking in the opium wars in china, destroying the spanish empire in the US and abroad and forcing japan to open its ports ( something the "mighty" british couldn't get japan to do ). We became a world power in spite of the british naval supremacy, not because of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangtze_Patrol
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/japan_1750_perry.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams%E2%80%93On%C3%ADs_Treaty
There's plenty in there that isn't about culture, but it's hard to parse TFA without at least skimming over the definitions of Realism, Liberalism and Constructivism.
My personal view, from someone who studied International Relations in undergrad: at the end of the day, these are all just conjectures with few real-world implications. Basically a bunch of academics trying to one up each other with the most creative, elegant and innovative model of how States operate and what drives foreign policy, despite the fact that virtually none of them have ever been in a room where the real meaningful foreign policy decisions are made, and with a very myopic view on the role that Economics / Business / Psychology shape international relations.
I always liked this quote about policymaking:
"This is the most pervasive of of all Washington legends: that politicians in Washington are ceaselessly, ruthlessly, effectively scheming. That everything that happens fits into somebody’s plan. It doesn’t. Maybe it started out with a scheme, but soon enough everyone is, at best, reacting, and at worst, failing to react, and always, always they're doing it with less information than they need.
That's been a key lesson I’ve learned working as a reporter and political observer in Washington: No one can carry out complicated plans. All parties and groups are fractious and bumbling. But everyone always thinks everyone else is efficiently and ruthlessly implementing long-term schemes."
I'm sure it's not a small circle of shadowy people that only meet at 2am and require a heavily sedated black cat for each participant, but there are plans and decisions, and actions carried out that commit the country to tens or hundreds of billions of dollars and military involvement measured in decades. Those aren't "oh gosh, what's this now? well, put some duct tape on it, I suppose" reactions.
Even a decision to go to war is full of uncertainty. Iraq I was days, Iraq II was decades. A general can never promise you it will come out one of those ways or the other.
Maybe I'm wrong though. It'd at least be nice to imagine someone has a plan and that it's not all just organic chaos.
"The Thick of It" does a good job explaining my side though -- it almost feels like a documentary for policy circles. The environment at that level is unbelievably frenetic. Getting anything done with intention is a near miracle.
But you're probably right that sometimes, at least on rare occasions, important people are able to clear off enough space to make important things happen that are long lasting with intention. I just think it's the exception, not the rule.
Biological theories - in such theories biology is key factor. For example: scientific racism (Arthur de Gobineau), Social Darwinism (Herbert Spencer), or theories where you treat civilisations like a living organism that always have to go through 3 phases: youth/development, adulthood/prosperity, senility/decline (for example Oswald Spengler theory).
Economical theories - economy as key factor. For example: Liberalism, Marxism, etc. Right now those theories are very popular, a lot of people assume that there is actually one big human civilisation and differences are just in economic level of each country/region/group.
Ideological theories - ideology/religion as key factor. Examples: Christianity, Islam, Freemasonry, Cultural Marxism, etc.
There were also attempts to merge all of those aspects: Toynbee, Koneczny (someone mention his work in one of the comments), Huntington (personally I think he ineptly copied Koneczny work).
Because of Pax Americana after WWII most people start belive that liberal democracy and capitalism was finall destination of all civilisations (Fukuyama famous book: "End of history"). But right now with rise of China and their model of state/economy/politics people start looking for much broader theories.
For what it's worth, unlike Christianity, Islam, Freemasonry, etc. there is no such thing as 'cultural marxism'. The modern usage seems to be as a catch-all term used by (literal) fascists and fascist-associated groups for literally any progressive or postmodern viewpoint, but in addition usually has the connotations of 'cultural perversion' and 'conspiracy'. Prior usage seems to be to describe an anti-semitic conspiracy theory (that is in part related to modern usage), and the term as a whole dates back to when it was coined by the German Nazi Party ("Cultural Bolshevism" - Kulturbolschewismus) to describe modernist art movements that they thought were 'degenerative'.
Rational Wiki's second description is incredibly descriptive:
""""Cultural Marxism" (both uppercase) is a common snarl word used to paint anyone with progressive tendencies as a secret Communist. The term alludes to a conspiracy theory in which sinister left-wingers have infiltrated media, academia, and science and are engaged in a decades-long plot to undermine Western culture. Some variants of the conspiracy allege that basically all of modern social liberalism is, in fact, a Communist front group."""
See:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Marx...
My point wasn't that Marxism as a whole does not exist, as you seem to have replied. My point was that "Cultural Marxism" specifically does not exist, and is literally neo-nazi propaganda.
It's fascinating to me that Woodrow Wilson is seen as such a man of peace, when his promulgation of national self-determinism came straight out of his racist Jim Crow views, and was a key element in the development of WWII and its aftermath.
Can you expand on this? I'm having some trouble understanding the connection.
Sure it was a handy tool to use against a multiethnic empire like Austria-Hungary, but the whole idea of "national self-determination" sprang from his racist beliefs that people are fundamentally different.
And we often use “nation” and “country” indistinguishably (especially Americans) but the point of “national sovereignty” was that each “nation” or “race” (in his time it was common to say “Italian race” or “Irish race”) should have self-government regardless of whether they had been living happily together or not.
Not that he felt the US should be slit up or anything — having the “white man” (as they phrased it then) run everything was important to him.
On a related note, "On the Plurality of Civilizations"[0] by Feliks Koneczny offers interesting insights. Koneczny, too, wrote this book in the 1930s, but I have no reason to think he falls into the same camp(s) the article mentions. For instance, while he classifies civilizations according to a set of criteria he develops in the book, he does not believe that any society is civilizationally "pure". However, he does believe that any self-respecting civilization does spread and "wants" to spread. Spreading, of course, may be accomplished by sharing ones civilization with others, confident that it is good and right. It may be spread by the sword. I may also be spread in incidental ways, such as the way laws governing marriage may require e.g. that children in interfaith marriages be raised in the faith of the father or the mother which I believe is how Islam spread in Egypt (Muslim women are forbidden from marrying non-Muslim men but Muslim men may marry non-Muslim women but must raise their children in the Islamic faith). In any case, economics suffers from problems, too, when it begins with a false understanding of Man and society. The hyperindividualistic, atomistic extreme on the one hand (e.g. libertarianism) and the collectivist, individual-denying extreme on the other (e.g. socialism) both completely botch the proper comprehension of man and society and how they relate. FWIW, Koneczny avoids both.
[0] https://www.scribd.com/doc/4464979/ON-THE-PLURALITY-OF-CIVIL...
These 'old fashioned' ideas were formed in a world where equals competed from resources, and the 'modern' ideas are being formed in a world where there is only one superpower. The situation could easily change.
[0] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-military-might-struggle-to-...