Narratives, tribes, and The Pentagon’s New Map

I’ve written before that I believe that the single most significant failing
of the Bush Administration is its inability (or unwillingness) to communicate
clearly with the American people. And I agree with Robert Reich
(registration required or use BugMeNot) that, in order to communicate effectively, politicians need to frame the explanations of policies that they propose in terms
of narratives that make sense to most Americans.

This isn’t just true for the Administration, of course. It’s true
for the Democrats (as Reich points out) and it’s true for Thomas Barnett.
If he really wants to get the American people on board with his Pentagon’s
New Map approach to, as he puts it, “creating a future worth living in”,
he needs to frame his arguments in terms of the actual points-of-view that
have had historical force in constructing American foreign policy. Barnett clearly
recognizes that himself when he writes:

Because until the Bush Administration describes that future worth
creating in terms ordinary people and the rest of the world can
understand, we will continue to lose support at home and abroad
for the great task that lies ahead.

Communication begins at home and so far he appears to have been preaching to the choir: Wilsonians. But he
notes something interesting in The Pentagon’s New Map in the correspondence
he’s received on his Esquire article that formed the basis for his book:

The first basic response I would locate on the left, or liberal, end of the political
spectrum. What these people are most upset about is the notion that the U. S.
military is clearly headed toward “perpetual war” all over the Gap,
which in their minds will only make things worse there. They advocate a sort of
Hippocratic “do no harm” approach that readily admits that the Core is
largely to blame for the Gap’s continuing misery and therefore should rescue those
in pain, but do so primarily through state-based foreign aid and private charities.

That’s not a characteristic Wilsonian view. A true Wilsonian would have no
problem with the use of force to “make the world safe for democracy”
so long as we played by the rules. In my estimate that’s why those
who have expressed such outrage at the issues of detention of illegal combatants, torture of prisoners
at Abu Ghraib prison, and extraordinary rendition (assuming they’re sincere in their
concern and not merely using these issues as stalking horses for opposition to
the Administration or opposition to war per se) have reacted as they have. But, without putting
words into Barnett’s mouth, holding illegal combatants indefinitely without trial
or counsel and the torture of prisoners (and extraordinary rendition) are not inconsistent
with the “different rule-sets in the Core than those in the Gap” approach that
he’s advocating. Those who hold this view (quoted above)
would appear to believe that there is neither Core nor Gap but just one big
Kantian parousia already in which case he has a major sales job ahead of him. It
might be reasonably contended that this view has no particular influence over current
policies and can be discounted. The problem here is that this view does appear
to have substantial support among Democratic Party activists. If Barnett is going
to develop real bi-partisan support for his PNM, this point-of-view must either be converted
or marginalized. And without such support there’s no practical likelihood for maintaining
the policy over the long period of time that will be necessary.

Wilsonians like Barnett would appear to be best situated for critiquing the Kantian one-worlders by couching their critique in the language of morality and holding their feet to the fire for moral turpitude. We haven’t seen nearly enough of that kind of critique so far.

An additional virtue of the “one set of rules for the Core and another for the Gap” argument is that it’s language that Jacksonians understand and provides a rationalization for the course of action that Jacksonians are inclined to favor anyway. For Jacksonians the only rule in warfare is winning (and doing that as quickly as possible). The problem, of course, is where do you draw the line? Jacksonians don’t draw such lines at all but Wilsonians do and that’s why there’s inescapable tensions between them. Still, since a very high proportion of the troops in the field are drawn from among the ranks of Jacksonians on the one hand and the conceptual impetus behind Barnett’s connectivity model for America’s future foreign policy is highly Wilsonian on the other some kind of modus vivendi will need to be reached.

Since, in the final analysis, they’ll be called upon to actually pay for integrating the Gap into the Core, the Hamiltonians are indispensable in producing longterm support for the visionary PNM grand strategy. While on the one hand protecting existing markets and opening up new ones would seem to be good motivations for bringing Hamiltonians into a consensus for the policy, Hamiltonians do like stability and the PNM grand strategy is indifferent or antagonistic to stability. Recall that it was Hamiltonian realists like the Bush 41 bunch we continue to hear from who got us into the mess we’re in now over a period of many years.

Are there any Jeffersonians left to worry about? I believe there are but they’ll be the hardest of all to bring into the fold. The PNM grand strategy is profoundly un-Jeffersonian.

So why is communicating these ideas clearly to the disparate tribes of American thought important to Dr. Barnett and those who believe in his grand strategy for America’s place in the world? Simple. Because that’s the way things work here. In the United States building support for a revolutionary plan is not just a matter of convincing a few well-placed leaders and letting the leaders inspire the troops into taking the field. Here the leaders are the sheep and the people are the shepherds. Convince the people of what needs to be done and the leaders will follow. Leadership here largely consists of restraining the people not urging them on.

So, Dr. Barnett, I suggest you adopt a Gramscian strategy and get academics and the media to support your plan. Perhaps that’s the reason you’ve got a blog of your own and several associated blogs and bloggers like T. M. Lutas, CITAR, and Zenpundit. You’re going to need some converts among the Old Media punditocracy to make any real headway.