Is American leadership brain dead— or is it something else?

27 November 2017

Are pejorative impressions of the rational quality of American leadership accurate?

Legitimate criticism of the intellectual acuity of leadership depends upon understanding its motivations and goals.

We too readily assume that sanity sets a standard against which apparently dopey actions should be judged. But what if those strategically foolish actions were aimed at accomplishing something other than sane long-term outcomes?

Are American leaders as intellectually idiotic as they appear to be?

Why I address this topic

People critical of American warmongering assume that Sun Tzu's precepts about military strategy and implementation apply. Because American policy ignores those (or any reasonable substitute) at virtually every turn, our impulse is to chastise US leadership for being ignorant, rock-headed or just plain dumb.

Is that pejorative characterization fairly framed? More important, by applying an arguably mistaken intellectual standard, do we miss the core of what is really going on?

And if we miss that core, do we fumble in effectively addressing it?

Why the answer matters

It is difficult to correct perceived stupidity, when one mischaracterizes what those who pursued it were really trying to achieve.

I can hardly argue someone out of a course of intended action, if I do not understand what he or she is trying to do.

In illustration

Let's start with Tom Engelhardt's conclusion that the United States' string of perpetual wars reflects a "brain dead" leadership:

America’s wars go on and on. Tactics vary modestly. Troop strength rises and ebbs, only to rise again. The air war similarly ebbs and then escalates again. For those in charge of American policy in that ever-vaster region of conflict, the options always seem the same.

Nothing is imaginable but more (or a little less) of what’s been tried for the last decade and a half.

That those conflicts add up to an ongoing disaster with a staggering price tag seems to matter not at all.

Logically, this should be the definition of brain dead . . . .

In apparent accord is former Army Colonel, now Professor Andrew Bacevich. He recently wrote that:

Whether generals . . . are deluded or dishonest is ultimately beside the point.

More relevant is the fact that the views they express . . . are essentially of no value.

[N]o reason [— based upon their performance to date —] exists to believe that they know what they are doing.

To reground US national security policy in something that approximates reality would require listening to new voices, offering views long deemed heretical.

More sweepingly in the same vein, Uri Avnery has written that:

The older I get, the more convinced I am that sheer stupidity plays a major role in the history of nations.

Let's examine the assumptions that underlie these stupidity critiques

As most rational people would, all three thinkers appear to presume that the purpose of war is to achieve desirable political and strategic objectives — without simultaneously putting the nation's future existence and well-being into jeopardy. Consequently, they assume that assessing:

(i) appropriate geopolitical strategy

(ii) the financial and human costs of implementing it,

as well as

(iii) the likelihood of achieving the goal —

should come before policy is implemented.

The American war-making apparatus, however, consistently ignores these factors. Much to ancient strategist Sun Tzu's metaphorical disappointment.

Ergo, Englehardt and company conclude that "brain dead" (or its equivalent) is an apt description of American performance.

But . . .

Does our predilection for engaging in uninterrupted and strategically unsuccessful wars really indicate leadership's stupidity?

Maybe not.

Let us here tentatively propose that people generally do what benefits them directly. Usually to the exclusion communal considerations.

If that is true, then our state of perpetual war can be explained, without resorting to brain-deadism or idiocy as a description of American leadership's combined intellect.

The Military Industrial Complex benefits many millions of Americans. For it and them, personal considerations — like money, employment and prestige — make the communal strategic picture difficult to see.

Personal and organizational self-interests, not stupidity, propel American policy outcomes. Profit, employment and professional advancement take precedence over implementing geopolitically effective strategy.

Benefiting the abstracted community that is the United States, over the long term, is not primarily on these folks' radar.

Achieving a viable future, acting morally and nurturing peace are not issues that the American plutocracy and its leadership realistically engage. Except under the guise of national security propaganda.

We slyly abandon strategic reason by pretending to act in its name. Pretense is not equivalent to idiocy. Hypocrisy, not stupidity, sells the populace the benefit of lining American pockets with other people's blood and belongings.

The moral? — Narrow self-interest can be intelligently pursued

Even when those outcomes are societally insane.

The American plutocracy and its (essentially bribed) government leadership are not idiots. Both just aim at achieving self-benefiting outcomes that few people morally want to admit to.

Chris Hedges and Noam Chomsky's attribution of anti-humanitarian wrongdoing to our capitalistic system is more perceptive than writers who assume that leadership is actually attempting to do what it pretends.

The world's devils are intelligent. This quality makes them resilient and difficult to root from power. Especially so, among populations that lack the physical means to fight back, or the knowledge and motivation to do so.

Wolves rule. The rest of us bleed. Until, perhaps, we begin to rattle the pack.

PeteFree.com

Is American leadership brain dead— or is it something else?