American Manichaeism

For a very long time, American foreign policy has wrestled with the conflict between our ideals and a realistic response toward our adversaries. This is the problem of American Manichaeism.

Manichaeism originated as a major religion in the third century AD by the prophet Mani in the Persian Sasanian Empire. It taught the universe was constructed as an elaborate dualistic cosmology. The universe was beset by a struggle between a good, spiritual world of light and an evil, material world of darkness. Think Satan vs. God.

In American foreign policy, Manichaeism is used as a metaphor for the American penchant to put the country’s ideals ahead of its more realistic interests. Currently, whether we should take the side of light or that of dark realism in the Russian-Ukraine war is becoming increasingly controversial.

For the purposes of this essay, we will consider the side of our ideals, i.e. the side of light, as the side that wants to help Ukraine in their brutal war against Putin’s Russia. The other side, which implores we be realistic (the side of darkness) cites such concerns as possible nuclear war and the emptying of our arsenals as existential threats.

An interesting development has been progressive Democrats have lined up on the side of light, while some Republicans have urged we reconsider our supply of weapon systems and munitions to Ukraine. In the past, it was more likely Republicans would sign up for resisting autocratic states expanding their empires. To be fair, resisting revisionist states is as much a sign of realism as idealism.

Objections to U.S. Help for Ukraine

One of the first objections raised to our supply of munitions and weapons systems to the Ukrainians was we might provoke Russia into a nuclear war. Vladimir Putin certainly threatened nuclear war if we did not stop our interference. He promised nuclear war over and over again. He also declared that Western supply of weapons and other aid to Ukraine would be considered acts of war by the Kremlin. However, U.S. officials responded to Putin’s threats with promises that if Russia decided to break the 77-year taboo on the use of nuclear weapons, there would be “catastrophic consequences.” Fears of nuclear war soon abated. Score one for American Manichaeism.

A different objection to support for Ukraine was voiced by some Republicans. Part of that objection is the sheer cost of our military aid. Since the Ukrainian war began in February 2022 up to March 2023, the U.S. spent more than $48 billion for Ukrainian security assistance. In addition, the U.S. and other NATO states have not been replacing munitions and weapon systems sent to Ukraine. The U.S. weapons industry produces 30,000 155 mm howitzer rounds per year in peacetime. Ukrainian artillerymen go through that amount every two weeks. If we continue on, some Republicans fear we will lose the ability to defend ourselves. American Manichaeism may come at a very high cost.

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has somewhat different objections, as can be seen in the video below.

Mr. Carlson’s point is the Democratic Party’s enthusiasm for opposing Russia began with their delusional attempt to explain Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump. They claimed her loss of the presidency was due to Trump colluding with the Russian government to interfere with the 2016 elections. The Trump collusion delusion was later proven to be baseless by the Mueller Report.

However, the Democratic Party and the foreign policy establishment were happy to find a reason to hate Russia all over again after the Cold War. According to Carlson, hating post Cold War Russia was merely “muscle memory” for the Washington foreign policy elites. For the Democratic Party and the deep state, hating Russia had the twin benefits of paralyzing the Trump administration by association and justifying the expansion of the national security apparatus. Carlson also asserts anyone with different opinions about Russia could be accused of working secretly for Putin. Russia remained America’s greatest enemy even as China emerged as her greatest threat.

Nevertheless, an even greater threat to the U.S. is the possibility of anything causing Russia to align with China against the United States. The combination of Russia’s natural resources with China’s military would make that alliance the strongest military force in the world.

Then, the Russian Army invaded Ukraine. Carlson claims Ukraine is a corrupt one-party state, not a real democracy, and is not worthy of our support. Also, that war seems to be having the effect of driving Russia and China together with Russia as the junior partner.

Mr. Carlson suggests all these factors tell us our real national interests are best served by eliminating our support for Ukraine. We should leave the Ukrainians to the tender mercies of Vladimir Putin.

This reasoning provided by the right-wing Tucker Carlson is duplicated by some on the Left. Dr. Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, has written much the same in a Politico essay. Dresser begins his essay with all the reasons that Russians, Chinese, and Iranians dislike each other. Then he writes:

Despite these lingering resentments, however, the past year has taught all of these countries an important lesson: as much as they might have issues with each other, they have much bigger issues with the United States. Over the past year, while imposing extensive sanctions on Russia, the United States has also taken an extremely hawkish turn on China. The policies expressing this sentiment range from stringent export controls to public support for Taiwan to the possible banning of TikTok. At the same time, the Biden administration has essentially continued status quo policies toward Iran. Efforts to revive the Iranian nuclear agreement have failed. … This leaves all three countries under various degrees of U.S.-led sanctions regimes — and, unsurprisingly, they are starting to work more closely together. 

“Is the United States Creating a ‘Legion of Doom’?

Another perspective is provided by an article by Andrew J. Bacevich, Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History at Boston University and Chair of the Board of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, in Foreign Affairs. Entitled The Reckoning That Wasn’t: Why America Remains Trapped by False Dreams of Hegemony, Bacevich asserts that American hubris has more often than not led the U.S. into catastrophic foreign adventures. He writes “‘Isolationist’ remained an epithet hurled at anyone not supporting the vigorous use of U.S. power abroad to cure the world’s ills.” And in fact, his essay is a justification for isolationism. Nevertheless, most (if not all) of the foreign military disasters noted by Bacevich were created by foolish political limitations of the armed forces by civilian leaders. I have written about this at length in the post Why Has the U.S. Lost Almost All Major Wars Since World War II?

Why We Should Resist Putin’s Revisionist State

The demurrals above are impressive. Nevertheless, every one of these objections to the U.S. support of Ukraine are not the most relevant factors. The most relevant fact is that the Russian Federation is a revisionist state.

In literature on foreign affairs, countries are commonly divided into status-quo states and revisionist states. Status-quo powers work to preserve the international order as it is. They benefit from the current balance of power and seek to keep it in place. In contradistinction, a revisionist state seeks to change the international order in some way. They seek major changes in international institutions, grab territory, and challenge the status-quo. All imperialist powers while building their empires are revisionist states.

The two ideas of status-quo states and revisionist states are polar opposite platonic ideals. In modern usage, a platonic ideal is something that might be closely approached in reality, but never reached in reification. For example, a circle is defined as the set of all points equidistant from a center point. If we try to actually draw a circle, there will always be some deviations from the ideal circle. When we call a state status-quo or revisionist, what we mean is that country most closely resembles that platonic ideal.

With that caveat in mind, the United States is a status-quo power, while the Russian Federation, China, and Iran are revisionist countries. Russia is revisionist because it strives to reconstruct the old Soviet Empire. The United States is status-quo because it opposes violent military changes in international borders and more-or-less supports a rules based international order.

In 2005, Vladimir Putin famously asserted the collapse of the Soviet empire “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” At a 2022 meeting with young entrepreneurs, engineers, and researchers, the sum of his remarks plainly stated his desire to reinstate the old Russian Empire. In part, he said:

Yes, there were eras in the history of our country when we had to retreat, but only in order to mobilise and move forward, concentrate and move forward. … Peter the Great waged the Great Northern War for 21 years. On the face of it, he was at war with Sweden taking something away from it… He was not taking away anything, he was returning. This is how it was. The areas around Lake Ladoga, where St Petersburg was founded. When he founded the new capital, none of the European countries recognised this territory as part of Russia; everyone recognised it as part of Sweden. However, from time immemorial, the Slavs lived there along with the Finno-Ugric peoples, and this territory was under Russia’s control. The same is true of the western direction, Narva and his first campaigns. Why would he go there? He was returning and reinforcing, that is what he was doing.

Clearly, it fell to our lot to return and reinforce as well. And if we operate on the premise that these basic values constitute the basis of our existence, we will certainly succeed in achieving our goals.

Meeting with young entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists / Office of the President of Russia

The problem with allowing an imperialistic revisionist power to conquer and assimilate a country outside its borders is its appetite for expansion is always whetted, never sated. This will be as true for Vladimir Putin as it was for the Roman emperors or for Adolf Hitler.

Also, should Putin be successful in conquering Ukraine because the U.S. will no longer support the Ukrainians, China will be encouraged to expand its own borders. The defeat of Ukraine would be closely followed by the Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The projected high cost for China for attempting the conquest of Taiwan would only happen if the U.S. is willing to defend that island. If the U.S. shows it is no longer willing to support allies, then the temptation for China would be very great.

There is one more reason to continue support for Ukraine. Properly supported, Ukraine could defeat Russia outright in about a year’s time. Retired General Jack Keane explains this in the video below.

If what General Keane says is correct, we could satisfy both the light and the dark in American Manichaeism.

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