As chance would have it I stumbled across AMERICA’S SECRET WAR: INSIDE THE HIDDEN WORLDWIDE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND ITS ENEMIES by George Friedman today. Highly recommended.

The “Norman Goldman” review on the Amazon site provides an accurate summary of the book.

Friedman runs STRATFOR, billed as the largest private intelligence company, not surprisingly, Friedman analyses the war from the point of view of a hard headed strategist. At one point in his concluding chapter, he discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the arrayed Jihadist and American forces that may shock some readers in it’s candour.

He points out that American forces are well armed and equipped and capable of enduring hardship. He points to the long history of foreign powers underestimating the fighting prowess of American troops (Valley Forge, Corregidor, Khe Sanh..) and the war fighting ‘stomach’ of the American people.

“The weakness of the U.S. is not our soldiers, or their numbers, but the vast distance that separates American leaders from those who fight. From government officials to media moguls… few members of the leadership class have children who are at war. To them, the soldiers are alien, people they have never met and don’t understand… A ruling class that sends the children of others to fight, but not their own, cannot sustain it’s power for very long.”

Friedman’s analysis helps explain many of the apparent paradoxes of contemporary US and world politics. To Friedman, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are two campaigns of the same war between America and the Al Qaeda jihadist network. The Bush administration has failed to explain the link, not because there is none, but because the goal is diplomatically incorrect to advertise in public. The administration has the “realist” aim is to pressurise Saudi Arabia and Pakistan into dismantling their decades long financial and intelligence links to Bin Laden’s network. The road to Riyadh is through Baghdad.

The removal of Hussein, a goal held by the two previous US administrations, would provide a base for the US to become the dominant US military position in the heart of the middle east. This would (and has) stiffen the Saudi government in taking a stronger stand against Jihadists at home. This change is a bitter pill in Saudi domestic politics and has led to hightened violence between Saudi authorities and Jihadists within the Kingdom.

As a non-interventionist, I believe the best approach is to leave the mid east to it’s own devices. The market has proven itself better able to handle threats to oil supply, than governments. Both the supply importance of Persian Gulf Oil and the economic impact of boycotts are greatly overblown. The main damage from the 1970s OPEC boycotts was from Nixon’s price controls, they did the real damage. The US would be the winner if it were to disengage from the region militarily and to reduce it’s massive aid flow that keeps both Israel and Egypt afloat. Bin Laden may dream of pan-Islamic caliphate, that is an even more unlikely prospect than Nasser’s dream of a pan-Arab secular state, or the neo-con of a democratic Iraq.

Whether Friedman’s linkage of Iraq and the War on Terror is right or wrong or not is irrelevant. It does, however, help explain the political war on the homefront. Much of the voting public certainly perceives the Iraq / 9-11 link, where much of the elite cannot, and it can’t all be put down to Fox News propaganda. I have argued elsewhere (see my “WHEN WARS COLLIDE” series on this blog) that the main anti-war groups are too closely identified with causes in the “culture wars” that the public sees as antithetical to their own. Like the “boy who cried wolf” these critics are not believed, even when they are right. them from public opinion or interests.

A large section of the US public recognises that forceful measures are required to defeat terrorism and that not all the tactics will be found in the Marquis of Queensbury rulebook. Much of the American public is what historian Walter Mead would call “Jacksonian”.

Here’s a brief introduction to the Jacksonians and their kin.

”(Mead) divides American foreign policy positions into four schools. Mead’s four schools are:

Jacksonians—They are the patriotic fighters for whom the worst sin is not going to war, it’s losing one. Examples would be people who hung flags and attended pro-America rallies after 9/11. When Jeffersonians attack President Bush for acting unilaterally, they are probably helping his popularity with Jacksonians. For Jacksonians, unilateralism is a virtue not a vice—or to put it in geekspeak, a feature, not a bug.”

Understanding Jacksonian America is important. Mead says:

“A principal explanation of why Jacksonian politics are so poorly understood is that Jacksonianism is less an intellectual or political movement than an expression of the social, cultural and religious values of a large portion of the American public. And it is doubly obscure because it happens to be rooted in one of the portions of the public least represented in the media and the professoriat. Jacksonian America is a folk community with a strong sense of common values and common destiny; though periodically led by intellectually brilliant men—like Andrew Jackson himself—it is neither an ideology nor a self-conscious movement with a clear historical direction or political table of organization. Nevertheless, Jacksonian America has produced—and looks set to continue to produce—one political leader and movement after another, and it is likely to continue to enjoy major influence over both foreign and domestic policy in the United States for the foreseeable future.”

The approach of most of the liberal elite, and much of the European and Australian commentariat, is portray the Jacksonian impulses of at least 50% of the American public as ignorant, bigoted , stupid. The other hypothesis is that the pro-Bush voters have been brainwashed by propaganda, unlike those sections of the population who have been brainwashed by more acceptable propaganda! (Interestingly there is a strong case to be made that it is intellectuals who are the most likely to be manipulated by propaganda)

The recent, ill-fated Guardian Clark County  exercise seems to have been intended to deliberately provoke the Jacksonian impulses of voters. It was not only mischievious but condescending and elitist. It generated wholly predictable nativist reaction from ordinary Americans for the entertainment of Euro elites. Had an American journal attempted to influence a British or European election in similar matter it would have been howled down by the Guardian crowd. I can imagine what sort of reaction would be generated from say working class Liverpool or Glasgow if Americans were to write to them explaining how they should vote! If The Guardian wasn’t playing games here, then perhaps it’s editorial board that is stupid.

The reality is that the liberal elites, including almost all of the critics of Bush, are themselves are wholeheartedly interventionist. And they, just like Bush, seek to use US military and economic power to drive their push for a more “internationalist” “multilateral” liberal / democratic /humanist world order. The liberal elites presumably want American Jacksonians as the cannon fodder to build it, just as they remember with fondness the Jacksonian impulse of FDR’s America in World War Two.

Is it any wonder today’s generation of American Jacksonians see Bush’s stance as more straightforward and honest than that of the liberal left?

What neither the left or right seem to understand is what Jacksonian Americans really want. It is to be left alone. They have no desire to be the police force of the planet, they do not want to be globocop serving either left liberal or Bushian masters, with the former prospect being somewhat worse the second. They are however willing to fight for their country when called. Unfortunately, they are called too often.