The Kagans We Need
Matthew Yglesias
Atlantic.com
8 Apr 2008
Having earlier noted that the United States of America is suffering from a dire shortfall of Kagans, the good news is that we now have more words written by Fred Kagan that ever before, courtesy of National Review. In the course of a 5,000+ word essay he pulls of the neat trick of analogizing his opponents to Neville Chamberlain in the second graf. The general structure of the argument seems to be that, given that Chamberlain was skeptical of the merits of fighting a war over a "far-off country of which we know little" any and all refusal to fight wars in such countries is likely to lead to Adolf Hitler conquering the world.
I mean that characterization pretty seriously.
Here's Kagan loading the argumentative dice in paragraph three: "Unless the advocates of defeat can show, as they have not yet done, that the consequences of losing are very likely to be small not simply the day after the last American leaves Iraq, but over the next five, ten, and 50 years, then what they are really selling is short-term relief in exchange for long-term pain."
Now, of course, not being a hugely dishonest person I can't tell you that I have any real way to predict with any confidence what Iraq, the Middle East, or the world at large will look like in 50 years. The best I could offer is the commonsensical observation that it will depend on a great many things other than Iraq. It seems, however, that Kagan is a hugely dishonest person and hence has no compunction about propounding this nonsensical standard of argument. But Iraq has, obviously, opportunity costs. There are lots of things we could be doing with our military that aren't being done. Can Kagan guarantee that every single one of those things has consequences are very likely to be small over the next 50 years? Of course not -- it's preposterous. Similarly, by this standard (which is usual with neocon arguments) it can never be correct for any country to bring any war to an end.
Meanwhile, this seems like as good a time as any to revisit Fred Kagan's three point plan for winning the war on terror. It's something I uncovered doing Heads in the Sand research and appeared in his article "Fear not the Taliban" in the November 19, 2001 issue of The Weekly Standard:
(Continued here.)
Atlantic.com
8 Apr 2008
Having earlier noted that the United States of America is suffering from a dire shortfall of Kagans, the good news is that we now have more words written by Fred Kagan that ever before, courtesy of National Review. In the course of a 5,000+ word essay he pulls of the neat trick of analogizing his opponents to Neville Chamberlain in the second graf. The general structure of the argument seems to be that, given that Chamberlain was skeptical of the merits of fighting a war over a "far-off country of which we know little" any and all refusal to fight wars in such countries is likely to lead to Adolf Hitler conquering the world.
I mean that characterization pretty seriously.
Here's Kagan loading the argumentative dice in paragraph three: "Unless the advocates of defeat can show, as they have not yet done, that the consequences of losing are very likely to be small not simply the day after the last American leaves Iraq, but over the next five, ten, and 50 years, then what they are really selling is short-term relief in exchange for long-term pain."
Now, of course, not being a hugely dishonest person I can't tell you that I have any real way to predict with any confidence what Iraq, the Middle East, or the world at large will look like in 50 years. The best I could offer is the commonsensical observation that it will depend on a great many things other than Iraq. It seems, however, that Kagan is a hugely dishonest person and hence has no compunction about propounding this nonsensical standard of argument. But Iraq has, obviously, opportunity costs. There are lots of things we could be doing with our military that aren't being done. Can Kagan guarantee that every single one of those things has consequences are very likely to be small over the next 50 years? Of course not -- it's preposterous. Similarly, by this standard (which is usual with neocon arguments) it can never be correct for any country to bring any war to an end.
Meanwhile, this seems like as good a time as any to revisit Fred Kagan's three point plan for winning the war on terror. It's something I uncovered doing Heads in the Sand research and appeared in his article "Fear not the Taliban" in the November 19, 2001 issue of The Weekly Standard:
(Continued here.)
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