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Warrior Politics ::
At one point in this book, Kaplan pulls a quote from James Madison:
In framing a government, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the goverened; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary cautions.
A statement like that (granted without context), is quite striking when coming from Madison. History tends to describe him, as well as the other founding fathers, as an unbending idealist and optimist. His development of the American form of democracy was motivated by a faith humanity, by a belief in fundamental, inablienable rights. The consent of the people to being governed was supposed to be fundamental to the new system of government -- it was what defined it. Viewed in that context, Madison’s reference to "auxiliary cautions' is slightly inconsistent his mythic persona. It’s also slightly unnerving.
But then, the entirety of Warrior Politics is unnerving. In it, Kaplan assails all of the preconceptions, ideals, and desires that the Government, the media, and the American public have developed, then accepted about the nature of our current political world. He talks about the dangers we face, and he talks about the grim realities of war. In that regard, he addresses what should motivate us when we decide to go into war. His basic argument is that we need to be self interested when we make our diplomatic and military choices -- fighting battles over an ideology invariably leads to a loss of political power, and sometimes results in the destruction of a state.
That self-interested motivation also translates into a political philosophy. Because unlike a rigid adherence to a higher political or social ideology, having self-preservation or self-advancement be our primary motivation results in the freedom to compromise. It provides a certain level of flexibility. And compromise is necessary in order to preserve any level of social order.
Warrior Politics was hard to read. It made me angry many times, but its hard-nosed realism was also refreshing. By far the hardest thing to deal with was when I actually found that I agreed with what Kaplan was saying. But ultimately, the things he talks about are incredibly important for anyone who finds politics in this country of even slight importance. As he says himself: unless our elected officials make the choice to lead us as we are, and not as they would like us to be, it is an abdication of their responsibilities as leaders.
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