At The Nation Andrew J. Bacevich has penned a jeremiad against all of the warmongering from our political leaders and media these days:
While some wars may be necessary and unavoidable, a war pitting Russia against Ukraine—and potentially involving the United States—doesn’t make the cut. Yet, should such a war occur, some members of the American commentariat will cheer. They have yearned for a showdown with Vladimir Putin. The depth of their animus toward Putin and the hyperbole it inspires is a bit of a puzzle that deserves examination.
A veteran New York Times correspondent charges that Putin “has put a gun to the head of the West.†In an op-ed recently published in the Times, a former US national security official accuses President Biden of “sending the message that the United States is afraid of confronting Russia militarily.†“In an era when fascism is on the march,†a Boston Globe columnist warns, “much more may hang in the balance†than simply the security of a single country on the far eastern fringe of Europe.
A sense of impending doom punctuates the taunts: With unnamed fascists gathering outside the city gates and the very survival of the West at risk, the sitting president succumbs to cowardice. Whence does such overheated language come? What does it signify?
He attributes it first to Russophobia (likely), then American exceptionalism, before finally proposing it’s a “wag the dog” scheme:
Those eager for a showdown with Russia over Ukraine offer one answer to that question: Putting a brutal bully in his place will go far toward restoring American exceptionalism’s lost luster. It’s “wag the dog†in modified form: militarized assertiveness in faraway places promising a shortcut to redemption.
Don’t believe it. The people gunning for a showdown with Putin come from the ranks of those who two decades ago were gunning for a showdown with Saddam Hussein, while promising a happy outcome.
but I want to offer full-throated support for his next suggestion:
There is an alternative approach far more likely to yield positive results. That alternative approach posits a reformulation of American exceptionalism based not on muscle flexing in faraway places but on modeling liberty, democracy, and humane values here at home. The clear imperative of the moment is to get our own house in order. Stumbling into yet another needless war won’t help.
I do want to complain about one thing in his piece. That America is an outlier, different from other countries, is obvious. Much of what progressives object to in it are those very qualities. However, Dr. Bacevich is confusing American exceptionalism and Americanism. American exceptionalism is a fact of life; it is what makes America America. Americanism, the notion that we are superior to all other countries and have a mission to transform the world, is a curse, a blight.
