A drawdown of American forces in Iraq is inevitable over time; the debate in Washington is largely about pacing. But the kind of enemy we face today - violent jihadist networks - will not allow us to remain at peace. What has been called the Long War is likely to be many years of persistent, engaged combat all around the world in differing degrees of size and intensity. This generational campaign cannot be wished away or put on a timetable. There are no exit strategies. To paraphrase the Bolshevik Leon Trotsky, we may not be interested in the Long War, but the Long War is interested in us. (my emphasis)Tags: neoconservatives, robert gates, trotskyism
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Robert Gates and the Troskyist theory of war
One more post today on the Summer 2008 Parameters. The lead article is by Defence Secretary and former CIA Director Robert Gates, Reflections on Leadership. I was struck in this passage in which he endorses the idea of the "Long War" on terrorism - essentially the Cheney-Bush administration's replacement for the Cold War - he mentions Leon Trotsky, who's thinking really did have a lasting influence on the neoconservatives:
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2 comments:
nuts. I never thought I would miss the cold war and the right's irrational fear of everything Commie.. Fascism that's another good name for it, I think:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dmccarthy/dmccarthy23.html
(Springtime for Trosky)
"In most circles the word "fascist" is a generic pejorative, an epithet that conveys a moral judgment rather than a description. We Americans have perhaps become so accustomed to this use of the word that we don't even think about it. We should, because "fascist" in this sense was specifically coined by the Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky to identify all of his rivals, even Stalin, with Hitler and Mussolini – and with "the right." Its use reveals the undying influence of Trotsky.
By calling Stalin a fascist, Trotsky and his followers could claim that "real" socialism is not a murderous ideology. They could further claim that all true threats to human dignity and freedom really come from the right. Although Trotsky himself had a rather fateful encounter with an icepick in 1940, Trotkyists today continue his fight on behalf of international social democracy. These days however, Trotskyists prefer to call themselves "neoconservatives."
One of these days, I'm going to make time to write two posts that I've had in my head on the topic "Transformations of Trotskyism".
That article you quote seems to touch on one of the things that I imagine appealed greatly to the original neocons who actually were Troskyists in the 1930s. It let them be "radical" without having to take responsibility of any kind for what would come to be called "real existing socialism" in the Communist world.
And most of today's neocons also don't want to take any kind of responsibility for the disasters their non-reality-based foreign-policy dogmas have caused.
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