Once the U.S. gets into the business of being world protector and policeman, world’s do-gooder and world’s sword, there is no logical or apparently moral stopping point from this protection being expanded to worldwide scope. The moral high ground will seem to be on the side of using the state’s organized force wherever and whenever “wrong” is detected. The stopping point will be the costs of taking on this role, but the zeal of do-gooders can easily lead to the deaths of their followers and themselves. People often go to their deaths and endure great sacrifices for the sake of what they believe in.
The morality of a state’s saving the world is questionable in the extreme, of course, but that doesn’t matter to those people who choose a course that they think is the morally right one and pursue it vigorously. They think they know what is right and nothing else matters. They will use coercion and weapons and not think twice about it. They will label the use of force as defensive, progressive and for the good. Collateral damage will be brushed away as “sacrifices” that have to be made. Reforming the world is a project that fires the imagination and sweeps away many restraints.
In the case of Crimea and the protection of Europe, listen to statements like the following to see how the zeal translates into calls for action:
Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Bob Menendez: “President Putin’s military invasion and annexation of Crimea is brutal, totally unacceptable, and sadly returns us to a period of Cold War aggression and hostility.”
Ranking Member Bob Corker of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee: “Vladimir Putin is seizing a neighboring territory – again…”
Senator Ben Cardin: “With today’s vote the Senate sent a clear message of solidarity with the people of Ukraine, and indignation for those responsible for the invasion of the Crimea.”
Congressman Tom Cotton: “The hours ahead will decide whether this invasion of Crimea is repelled or expanded to the whole of Ukraine, and whether the West finally confronts Putin or again blinks in disgrace.”
Senator Jeanne Shaheen: “Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea marks the first time that one European nation has seized territory from another since the end of World War II.”
Senator Marco Rubio: “Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea is a direct challenge and long-term threat to the post-World War II international order for which the United States and our allies have made great sacrifices over the past seven decades.” Rubio also urged Obama to call Russia’s move “a military invasion”.
Obama has been much more circumspect, but his record shows that pressures from the more zealous militarists among us push him into their camp. Once the U.S. state’s operators accept the view that American interests are at stake in Europe or anywhere else and that it’s moral for the state to resist what they see as aggression, it is hard for them not to follow the logic out to its militaristic conclusion, that it is necessary to apply force and that this is the right thing to do.
8:15 am on April 4, 2014
