Conquest is for losers

Tue 23 Dec 2014

More than a century has passed since Norman Angell, a British journalist and
politician, published The Great Illusion , a treatise arguing that the age of
conquest was or at least should be over. He didnt predict an end to warfare,
but he did argue that aggressive wars no longer made sense that modern
warfare impoverishes the victors as well as the vanquished.

He was right, but its apparently a hard lesson to absorb. Certainly Vladimir
Putin never got the memo. And neither did our own neocons, whose acute
case of Mr. Putin envy shows that they learned nothing from the Iraq debacle.

Angells case was simple: Plunder isnt what it used to be. You cant treat a
modern society the way ancient Rome treated a conquered province without
destroying the very wealth youre trying to seize. And meanwhile, war or the
threat of war, by disrupting trade and financial connections, inflicts large
costs over and above the direct expense of maintaining and deploying
armies. War makes you poorer and weaker, even if you win.

The exceptions to this dictum actually prove the rule. There are still thugs
who wage war for fun and profit, but they invariably do so in places where
exploitable raw materials are the only real source of wealth. The gangs
tearing the Central African Republic apart are in pursuit of diamonds and
poached ivory; the Islamic State may claim that its bringing the new
caliphate, but so far it has mostly been grabbing oilfields.

The point is that what works for a fourth-world warlord is just self-destructive
for a nation at Americas level or even Russias. Look at what passes for a
Putin success, the seizure of Crimea: Russia may have annexed the peninsula
with almost no opposition, but what it got from its triumph was an imploding
economy that is in no position to pay tribute, and in fact requires costly aid.
Meanwhile, foreign investment in and lending to Russia proper more or less
collapsed even before the oil price plunge turned the situation into a full-

blown financial crisis.

Which brings us to two big questions. First, why did Mr. Putin do something so
stupid? Second, why were so many influential people in the United States
impressed by and envious of his stupidity?

The answer to the first question is obvious if you think about Mr. Putins
background. Remember, hes an ex-KGB man which is to say, he spent his
formative years as a professional thug. Violence and threats of violence,
supplemented with bribery and corruption, are what he knows. And for years
he had no incentive to learn anything else: High oil prices made Russia rich,
and like everyone who presides over a bubble, he surely convinced himself
that he was responsible for his own success. At a guess, he didnt realise until
a few days ago that he has no idea how to function in the 21st century.

The answer to the second question is a bit more complicated, but lets not
forget how we ended up invading Iraq. It wasnt a response to 9/11, or to
evidence of a heightened threat. It was, instead, a war of choice to
demonstrate U.S. power and serve as a proof of concept for a whole series of
wars neocons were eager to fight. Remember Everyone wants to go to
Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran?

The point is that there is a still-powerful political faction in America

committed to the view that conquest pays, and that in general the way to be
strong is to act tough and make other people afraid. One suspects, by the
way, that this false notion of power was why the architects of war made
torture routine it wasnt so much about results as about demonstrating a
willingness to do whatever it takes.

Neocon dreams took a beating when the occupation of Iraq turned into a
bloody fiasco, but they didnt learn from experience. (Who does, these days?)
And so they viewed Russian adventurism with admiration and envy. They may
have claimed to be alarmed by Russian advances, to believe that Mr. Putin,
what you call a leader, was playing chess to President Barack Obamas
marbles. But what really bothered them was that Mr. Putin was living the life
theyd always imagined for themselves.

The truth, however, is that war really, really doesnt pay. The Iraq venture
clearly ended up weakening the U.S. position in the world, while costing more
than $800 billion in direct spending and much more in indirect ways. America
is a true superpower, so we can handle such losses although one shudders
to think of what might have happened if the real men had been given a
chance to move on to other targets. But a financially fragile petroeconomy
like Russia doesnt have the same ability to roll with its mistakes.

I have no idea what will become of the Putin regime. But Mr. Putin has offered
all of us a valuable lesson. Never mind shock and awe: In the modern world,
conquest is for losers. New York Times News Service