Hal Brands & Charles Edel: The Lessons of Tragedy

[Tymoty]

Given the instability and revisionism roiling the international environment, it is simply beyond America’s power—if it was ever possible in the first place—to create a truly global order in which liberal values are universal, geopolitical competition has ceased, and authoritarian rivals have been fully pacified and converted into “responsible stakeholders.” Yet the existing international order, incomplete and threatened as it is, still constitutes a remarkable historical achievement. The creation of a global balance of power that favors the democracies, the prevention of unchecked aggression and intimidation by predatory powers, and the promotion of a prosperous and an integrated world in which liberal values have achieved great prevalence are all triumphs worth preserving. A more reasonable goal, then, would be to defend this existing order against the depredations of those attacking it, and America undoubtedly has the power for this essential undertaking.

It is easy to lose sight of this fact amid all the upheaval both in America and overseas.

Hal Brands & Charles Edel: The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order, Chapter Seven

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[Tymoty]

This is not to say that all is well. America’s competitors have closed the gap in some key areas; that narrowing margin is encouraging the geopolitical tests Washington confronts today. [...] But the primary limiting factors here are political and psychological rather than material. They relate to historical amnesia, and to a reluctance to make hard choices and face hard facts, rather than any catastrophic collapse of American power. The United States still possesses advantages that most previous leading powers can only envy; its capabilities are surely sufficient—particularly when combined with the strengths of its allies—to mount a credible defense of the international system it has constructed. To say the U.S.-led order is endangered is a counsel of realism, but to say the situation is irretrievable is a counsel of unwarranted despair.

In fact, those who talk down America’s geopolitical prospects and argue that the Pax Americana is doomed might consider whose geopolitical hand they would rather play, or what earlier period they would rather inhabit.

Hal Brands & Charles Edel: The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order, Chapter Seven

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[Tymoty]

The threats today are compelling and urgent, and there may someday come a time when the balance of power has shifted so markedly that the postwar international system cannot be sustained. Yet that moment of failure has not yet arrived, and so the goal of U.S. strategy should be not to hasten it by giving up prematurely, but to push it off as far into the future as possible. Rather than simply acquiescing in the decline of a world it spent generations building, America should aggressively bolster its defenses, with an eye to preserving and perhaps even selectively advancing its remarkable achievements.

Hal Brands & Charles Edel: The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order, Chapter Seven

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[Tymoty]

Preserving a free and open order cannot be done on the cheap, however, nor can it be undertaken as a solitary effort.

Hal Brands & Charles Edel: The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order, Chapter Seven

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[Tymoty]

Americans must understand that favorable military balances undergird all the security, prosperity, and liberal progress to which they have become accustomed, and that maintaining those balances in a more competitive era will inevitably come at a higher price. They must understand, then, that the United States will have to make difficult fiscal trade-offs in the coming decades to sustain its global project.11 They must understand that the United States will have to accept greater dangers and higher tensions to check the behavior of revisionist powers—that a willingness to risk conflict is sometimes the price of avoiding it. They must understand that the price of sustaining an open international economy is not zero, but that the price of not sustaining it, and thereby risking the tremendous prosperity that freer flows of trade and investment have delivered, is much higher. They must understand that protecting democratic values and human rights when they come under siege will require determination and persistent engagement. Above all, they must understand that the world will only be as congenial as they are willing to make it, and that if they decline to pay the costs and make the sacrifices involved in shaping the world, then they will also have to forfeit the benefits.

Hal Brands & Charles Edel: The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order, Chapter Seven

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[Tymoty]

What’s true for America is equally true for its broader coalition of like-minded states. In geopolitics as in many things, there is great strength in numbers. Yet that strength will hold only if the supporters of the international order lock arms and commit fully to its defense. Preventing great-power war and international aggression, promoting an open global economy that averts depression and privation, upholding democracy and human rights in the face of authoritarian resurgence, and defending liberal norms that are being assaulted are goals that can be achieved only through strong partnerships and collective effort. If the democracies are divided, the autocracies will exploit those divisions; if America and its allies struggle to achieve unity of action, they will be outmaneuvered or overawed by revisionist powers.

Hal Brands & Charles Edel: The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order, Chapter Seven

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[Tymoty]

[...] a tragic sensibility grasps the imperative of both timely and enduring action. Greek tragedy alerted its viewers to the storm clouds gathering over the protagonists, as a way of reminding the spectators that their circumstances were never quite as secure as they might appear, and that averting disaster required acting to wrench events off their tragic course. At a time when the trajectory of global affairs often seems so foreboding, cultivating a tragic sensibility means being alert to the need to take early measures to stanch the slow bleeding away of power, credibility, and ultimately security.

This is important because much of today’s revisionist behavior represents conscious efforts to test the defenses of the international order—to see which portions are strong and which invite challenge. [...] Credibility is, of course, impossible to measure. But given that the international system ultimately rests on America’s perceived willingness to defend it, the loss of credibility matters enormously for friend and foe alike. As credibility dissipates, allies become less willing to count on the United States and the defenders of open society feel less secure. [...] It can be costly to take measures, whether diplomatic, economic, or military, to counter probing behavior early. But it can be costlier to delay until that behavior has acquired momentum and the credibility of those opposed to it has collapsed.

The same applies to vindicating norms and principles when they are attacked. The liberal international order does not reside on any map, but that does not mean it doesn’t exist. Concepts like freedom of navigation and nonaggression may seem abstract or remote; in reality, they are concrete and central, for they are the intellectual foundations on which peace and stability rest. [...] the survival of any international order depends on whether its guiding principles are respected. And failing to defend those principles the first time they are challenged [...] virtually ensures that escalating challenges will occur in the future. Here, too, a tragic sensibility reminds us that waiting to confront destabilizing behavior may be the easiest course, but it is not necessarily the wisest.

Finally, an understanding of tragedy underscores that efforts to defend a particular international order permit no rest and have no foreseeable end. There is nothing organic about a world that promotes political liberty or economic openness. There is no natural law that states that the American-led system, for all its flaws, is guaranteed to endure simply because it is more attractive than authoritarian alternatives. These arrangements have persisted only because they have rested on a foundation of power and persistent engagement. When either the power or the engagement vanishes, so will the order it supports.

It may seem depressing to think that the United States is condemned to eternal, arduous struggle [...] Yet those with a tragic sensibility know better. On the ancient stage, acts of defiance and courage were celebrated as heroic, precisely because they were acts of creation. A tragic sensibility recognizes that there is similar heroism in unceasing labors to stave off the forces of authoritarian resurgence and geopolitical decay.

[...]

Those labors must, however, be tempered by a sense of proportion and restraint: this is the sixth imperative of a tragic sensibility. For the Greeks, hubris was no less a sin than complacency; excessive ambition was as dangerous as insufficient courage. America, too, has encountered trouble when it has succumbed to strategic indiscipline and the temptation to overuse or misuse its great power. Urgency and ambition are indispensable to any order-building project: how can any society undertake an endeavor so bold without them? Yet they must be carefully metered if they are not to lead to exhaustion and withdrawal.

Hal Brands & Charles Edel: The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order, Chapter Seven

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[Tymoty]

Hal Brands & Charles Edel: The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order. A short book stating elegantly and forcefuly obvious truths. Such preaching is needed, as we are overwhelmed by trivialities, sofistication and obfuscation. An US book for US audience. We, politicians and citizens of the European Union, should read it too. And take our part in the sacrifices to defend a good world order. With or without the United states. Qoutes:

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[Tymoty]

@bobojp@theblower.au @Linkshaender@bildung.social @Pierrette@mastodon.uno @xChaos@f.cz I would like you to have a look at 27 quotes from Hal Brands & Charles Edel: The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order. You may use the tag #tg211496239 or a phpBB topic 1 https://trojkatretiho.cz/viewtopic.php?p=1874#p1874 . I would like you to read the short book too. It is a very good expression of an attitude I am trying to apply to the Union, to my civic engagement and to the cooperation with you, which is of great value to me.

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[Tymoty]

Komu nevadí číst anglicky, doporučuju 27 citátů z Hal Brands & Charles Edel: The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order nebo lépe celou útlou knížku. Citáty lze nalézt pomocí tagu #tg211496239 nebo pomocí toho samého tagu na zdrojové instanci https://bagarrosphere.fr/tags/tg211496239 nebo v phpBB tématu 1 https://trojkatretiho.cz/viewtopic.php?p=1874#p1874 .

Kniha úhledně a úderně vyjadřuje přesvědčení o odpovědnosti za svět, které se snažím provozovat v Unii, ve své občanské aktivitě, ve spolupráci, o kterou se pokouším i zde, na #fcz, na Mastodonu.

@Pierrette@mastodon.uno @unterwasser@f.cz @xChaos@f.cz

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