The War That Never Ended

There's lots of good commentary on the home page to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I think Ross Douthat makes a cogent point in the New York Times today:

Twenty years later, we still haven’t come to terms with the scope of our deliverance. Francis Fukuyama famously described the post-Communist era as “the end of history.” By this, he didn’t mean the end of events — wars and famines, financial panics and terrorist bombings. He meant the disappearance of any enduring, existential threat to liberal democracy and free-market capitalism.

This thesis has been much contested, but it holds up remarkably well. Even 9/11 didn’t undo the work of ’89. Osama bin Laden is no Hitler, and Islamism isn’t in the same league as the last century’s totalitarianisms. Marxism and fascism seduced the West’s elite; Islamic radicalism seduces men like the Fort Hood shooter. Our enemies resort to terrorism because they’re weak, and because we’re so astonishingly strong.

Yet nobody seems quite willing to believe it. Instead, we keep returning to the idea that liberal society is just as vulnerable as it was before the Berlin Wall came down.

Part of this idea that the West is perpetually under siege is pure cynicism on the part of those who wish to perpetuate (and expand) America's Cold War military posture under the guise of "benevolent hegemony."

Part of it, and related to the above, is the fact that because America has a fair number of security commitments and an expansive view of what are "vital" interests, we tend to see a multiplicity of minor threats which collectively contribute to a kind of siege mentality. If we were to be a bit more judicious with how we engage with the world (particularly militarily), and if we had frankly a more mature public debate that didn't default to 1939/Hitler/Chamberlain as the template for all international relations, this mentality would abate.

There is, though, a legitimate debate to be had over the course of market democracy and whether China has hit upon a sustainable model with its autocratic capitalism. But even if China proves to have a durable development model, it does not mean that it will seek to supplant Western democracies with systems in its image, as the Soviet Union sought to do during the Cold War.

In short, we should celebrate today and recognize that the world is considerably less dangerous than it was 20 years ago and, with prudential leadership, these gains could deepen.