January 08, 2005

How the World (and America) Could Benefit From Another Superpower

Victor Davis Hanson notes “growing barbarism” beyond our shores:

...an American consensus is growing that envy and hatred of the United States, coupled with utopian and pacifistic rhetoric, disguise an even more depressing fact: Outside our shores there is a growing barbarism with no other sheriff in sight. Any cinema student of the American Western can fathom why the frightened townspeople huddled in their churches and shuttered schools almost hated the lone marshal as much as they did the six-shooting outlaw gang rampaging in their streets. After all, the holed-up ‘good’ citizens were always angry that the lawman had shamed them, worried that he might make dangerous demands on their insular lives, confused about whether they would have to accommodate themselves either to savagery or civilization in their town’s future, and, above all, assured that they could libel and slur the tin star in a way that would earn a bullet from the lawbreaker. It was precisely that paradox between impotent high-sounding rhetoric and blunt-speaking, roughshod courage that lay at the heart of the classic Western from Shane and High Noon to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Magnificent Seven.

The U.N., NATO, or the EU: These are now the town criers of the civilized world who preach about “the law” and then seek asylum in their closed shops and barred stores when the nuclear Daltons or terrorist Clantons run roughshod over the town. In our own contemporary ongoing drama, China, Russia, and India watch bemused as the United States tries to hunt down the psychopathic killers while Western elites ankle-bite and hector its efforts. I suppose the Russians, Chinese, and Indians know that Islamists understand all too well that blowing up two skyscrapers in Moscow, Shanghai, or Delhi would guarantee that their Middle Eastern patrons might end up in cinders.

Part of the explanation for this is of course the absence of any superpower in that part of the world. The old Soviet Socialist Republic had the goal of forcing all of us to live under Communist rule. But they did exert influence in their part of the world that helped to keep local savagery under control. With them out of the picture, naturally the local nut jobs want to run wild.

Humanity is currently groping its way towards a new world order. Some new superpower will eventually emerge. China seems a likely candidate. Russia, with Communism in its past, will eventually get its act together. A successful, Democratic and capitalistic Iraq could lead the way to similar reforms in other Muslim nations.

Or it might arrive sooner than we think, in the form of the European Union:

Now that the European superstate is a reality, some Europeans are beginning to dream bold corporate dreams, American style.

It’s going to take a while to get there. In the meantime, as far as a world sheriff, it looks like we’re it.