The
accompanying photo depicts the views of a couple of protesters who were opposed
to Australian involvement in the United States led invasion of Iraq in 2003. I
still don’t support defacement of the Sydney Opera House but, in retrospect,
the actions of the protesters seem more defensible than those of the Australian
government at that time. The government attempted to justify the invasion on
the flimsiest of evidence that Iraq still possessed weapons of mass destruction,
and then sought to blame its decision on poor intelligence. The net impact of
the invasion was to further destabilize the Middle East, including by generating
a new terrorist organisation.
The Iraq
invasion is part of a pattern of pathetically unsuccessful military operations
in which Australia has participated, in partnership with the US, over the last
60 years. Few readers will need to be reminded of similarly unsuccessful
military adventures that occurred in Vietnam and Afghanistan.
Nevertheless,
a case can be made that involvement in those conflicts has served Australian
interests by encouraging US governments to view this country as a staunch ally
in pursuit of well-meaning global objectives. Australia is a sparsely populated
country that is not easy to defend, so it is understandable that Australians
should seek to have great and powerful friends who share similar values, who
might come to their aid if they are bullied by a monster in their region. That
strategy might come unstuck, however, if public reaction in the US to adverse outcomes
of military interventionism results in adoption of an isolationist policy by
the US government. Hopefully, the US will find a better approach to foreign
relations, rather than resort to isolationism.
Christopher
Coyne’s book
I was
intensely interested in the consequences of military interventionism during the
Vietnam war, but have not spent much time thinking about such matters since then. The question I have ask
above, of whether polycentric defence could protect us from monsters, was
prompted by my reading of Christopher Coyne’s book,
In
Search of Monsters to Destroy.
Anyone
seeking a better understanding of why so much US military intervention has been
counterproductive should read Coyne’s book. From my perspective, one of the
most illuminating contributions that Coyne makes is to draw attention to the
relevance of Friedrich Hayek’s views about the hubris of economic planners to the
“nation building” efforts that have followed military intervention. Hayek pointed out that economic planning often
has unintended consequences because economic planners can never have “the knowledge
of particular circumstances of time and place” that is reflected in the
decisions of individuals in a market system. Similarly, nation building efforts
have unintended consequences because the architects of such efforts lack the
knowledge of how to design and implement policies supporting rule of law, property
rights, free speech etc. in settings with different belief systems, values, and
ideals.
Rather than
attempt a comprehensive review of the book, I want to focus here on polycentric
defence, the approach Coyne suggests as a potential path forward. (Several
podcasts are available for readers interested in hearing Christopher Coyne
discuss his book. I recently listed to his discussion with Jeffrey
Sachs and was pleasantly surprised by the extent to which Sachs agreed with
Coyne.)
Polycentric
defence
Christopher
Coyne claims that his position is inherently non-isolationist:
“It
is not a retreat from the world, but a call for global engagement by means
other than militaristic imperialism and the associated
hubris which assumes the world can be controlled by Western government elites”.
He advocates a culture of peace which requires “shedding the
belief that the military operations of the nation-state are the central source
of security in a free society”.
As an alternative to the current “monocentric order” where
there is only one centralized decision-making unit with a monopoly on the use
of violent force, he proposes a polycentric system “involving numerous
decision-making units – each with autonomy in action – operating within a shared
set of rules”.
I see this as a utopian ideal, but one that is worth moving
toward. Coyne points out that polycentric defence already exists to some extent
because ordinary citizens engage in a diverse range of security activities, individually
and in collaboration with their neighbours, to protect themselves against
violence and plunder. He reminds readers that non-violent action has sometimes been
used successfully against foreign invaders as well as internal usurpers. He
also notes that polycentric defence already exists at an international level
because nation-states exercise autonomy in decision-making.
The main point that Coyne is making is that a culture of
military interventionism has had perverse consequences, unintentionally eroding
liberal values and creating enemies abroad. He suggests that we view the search
for a stable peace as an ongoing project “entailing self-governing individuals
engaged in an active process of discovery, experimentation, and practice to
navigate conflicts without resort to violence”.
What about
Ukraine?
In the epilogue to his book, Christopher Coyne expresses
disappointment that the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine in February
2022 has “led to renewed calls for the reassertion of American empire”. He
regards that response as “speculative, first best theorizing about
international relations” which could potentially devolve into violent conflict
between nuclear powers.
My view is that this time it is different. The West’s supply of arms to Ukraine to
help it defend itself against Putin’s aggression is far removed from the examples
of military interventionism that Coyne discusses in his book. It would
obviously be crazy to attempt to destroy an invading monster with
nuclear weapons at his disposal, but it would be equally crazy, it seems to me,
to avoid giving the victims of his aggression the support they need to defend
themselves.
Conclusions
Christopher
Coyne makes a strong case that much of the military interventionism of the United
States and its allies has had the unintended consequence of eroding liberal
values and creating enemies. Attempts to impose the institutions of liberal democracy
on people with different belief systems, values, and ideals were doomed from
the outset.
Coyne
suggests moving away from this interventionist culture, which assumes
that the world can be controlled by Western government elites, to a system of polycentric defence. It seems
to me that the appropriate answer to the question of whether a polycentric
defence system can protect us from monsters depends on how we view polycentricity.
It is difficult to see how the governments of the liberal democracies could abandon
centralized decision-making on national defence without weakening the ability of
their citizens to defend themselves against the autocratic monsters outside of
their borders. However, a system in which nation-states exercise autonomy in
decision-making on national defence is not far removed from what we have at
present. Rules of just conduct that have evolved via diplomatic efforts within
this system have done much to promote peaceful coexistence among nations. A
system in which nation-states exercise autonomy can do much to protect us from
monsters when nation-states are willing to act in concert to punish overt
violations of international law.
