The New Beginning: The Limits of Power

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

The Limits of Power

Democracy Now (mp3)

Interviews:
After Words with Andrew Bacevich
Bill Moyers Journal
NPR: Is This "The End of American Exceptionalism"?
Obama's Limits: An Interview With Andrew Bacevich
US Catholic

From April of this year, with Bill Moyers: Andrew Bacevich on Afghanistan (transcript, video) & extended interview

I think Ivan Illich would agree with the following assessment about American efforts to develop other countries:

BILL MOYERS: What's your take on this big offensive that is supposed to come this summer in the southern part of the country around Marjah? Where I had thought- we had thought there was a big offensive in February, in March, right?

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I think the Marjah offensive in February I think was intended to provide kind of a trial run of the new McChrystal approach, in which western forces, with Afghan forces, would clear an area of Taliban. And then establish a continuing presence. And then hard on the heels of that continuing security presence, to introduce a package of government services that would culminate in winning the hearts and minds. General McChrystal, at the time of the Mar- at the time that the Marjah operation began, promised that he was providing government out of a box. That was the phrase that he used.

My own sense is that we probably have succeeded in clearing the enemy in Marjah. We probably can succeed in clearing the enemy in any part of the country. I'm quite skeptical about whether this government out of the box concept is viable. Matter of fact, it strikes me as remarkably naïve.

BILL MOYERS: Why are you skeptical?

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, we've tried this before in Marjah. This notion of bringing government or development out of the box. It turns out that back in the 1950s, in the Eisenhower era, the US Agency for International Development had undertaken a massive agricultural reform project in Marjah with the intention of basically converting the nomadic local population into peasant farmers.

It was well-funded. I am sure that the people who designed it had the best intentions in the world. And it was utter, complete and total flop. Why was it a total flop? Because the people who lived in the region simply didn't share the view of the United States about what a better life looked like.

And the point here is, again, granting that people who are in the development business have the best will in the world. There are enormous cultural barriers that interfere with the effective deliverance of the kind of programs that are promised. So, I mean, no, let us see- but I think that the Americans tend to come at these problems with a sense of optimism and expectation that tends not to be justified by what we know from the history of development programs.

BILL MOYERS: You wrote the other day, I think, in "America" magazine, that we—Americans suffer from a deficit of self-awareness. Explain that to me.

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, it's this forgetfulness. It's this assumption that what we value, what we believe is the- are the keys to happiness, necessarily are shared by people who come from a different place, whether it's a different place historically or culturally or religiously. I have a wonderful student of mine at Boston University who worked in Afghanistan in their ministry of economic development on an internship a summer ago. And she just finished her master's degree and is heading back to Afghanistan.

And she is smart and she is just a terrific person in every respect. But the other day, we were- she was defending her MA thesis. And we were sort of arguing about this cultural question. And she said to me, "You know, there are some things that we tried to do that aren't cultural." And she-

BILL MOYERS: That we Americans try to do?

ANDREW BACEVICH: That in our programs that we try to introduce in places like Afghanistan. Not everything has a cultural connotation. And she said, "Let me give you an example." And the example she offered was a laptop. She said that, "You know, in order to have a functioning society, in order to advance yourself, in order to grow an economy, you have to have access to the Internet. And therefore, you need to know how to use a laptop."

And my response was, "I understand what you just said. But the laptop carries with it enormous cultural connotations. The Internet carries enormous cultural connotations. And for us simply to assume that because we view those mechanisms as central to our understanding of modernity, it doesn't follow that people in Afghanistan are going to share that view." That's part of our problem, I think, that we work from the assumption that at the end of the day we have the answers. And we're trying to share the answers with those who apparently need them.