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Divide and Rule

A few days ago, I spent a pleasant evening at chez de Havilland enjoying a sumptuous dinner consisting of a selection of char-grilled endangered species washed down with a delightful bottle of Ultra-Extreme-Right-Wing cordial.

After dinner, we retired to the drawing room to smoke cigars (hand rolled by grossly exploited third-world children) whereupon the discussion turned to matters of international affairs. It was during the course of our deliberations that I struck upon what I considered to be a quite promising strategy for dealing with the ‘Axis of Weasels’ (France, Germany, Russia)

Since the basis of their informal ‘alliance’ appears to be the shared concern about the vast amounts of money each is owed, then would it not constitute a masterful stroke in the machiavellian art of ‘divide and conquer’ to ensure that one or more gets reimbursed while the other is told to take a hike? Then sit back and watch while the gang breaks apart and they start turning on each other.

To me, this was a screamingly obvious manoeuvre. And not just to me because I note that Brian Micklethwait has made a similar suggestion in one of his comments below:

What if an “illegitimate” world just cries all the way to the bank? – leaving France as the only one in step, and broke?

For all the reasons discussed here (and there) I think the Americans could break such a strike, indeed are already starting to.

Indeed they are, Brian. No sooner had I finished reading Brian’s comments, and marvelling upon how they echoed my own thoughts on the subject, than I notice this article in the Financial Times:

The difference in approach was evident on Friday in a newspaper interview in which Tony Blair, prime minister, said the failure to secure a second UN resolution had put British soldiers’ lives at risk.

Downing Street believes that Mr Chirac’s threat to veto such a resolution made difficult negotiations with countries such as Russia and Germany “impossible”.

Meanwhile Condoleezza Rice, the US president’s national security adviser, was reported this week to have said that France should be punished, Germany ignored and Russia forgiven as the US readjusts its relations with European allies.

The world, and it would appear the French in particular, is about to be reminded of an old axiom: to the victors go the spoils.

By the way, if any influential members of the US Government happen to be reading this, let me just say that the Samizdata Team are available to provide free-lance consultancy on International Relations. Please e-mail us for a resume.

16 comments to Divide and Rule

  • Yes, that roast Panda steak was rather delicious, wasn’t it?

  • Lol, so what are you doing to (anti-celebrate) Earth Day? I was thinking of having a cigar, some wine, a piece of un-PC steak and thowing away stuff in the regular trash instead of recycling it.

    BTW expact a post today on earth-day…or rather against it.

  • Schroeder is already down on one knee begging forgiveness for his “OTT” remarks; MB giggled at the sight of someone of his size learning to backpedal furiously on a bicycle careening down a slippery slope!

  • Not sure about influential, but send along a few of those cigars, and I’ll look into what sort of consultancies are available…

  • The world, and it would appear the French in particular, is about to be reminded of an old axiom: to the victors go the spoils.

    So much for the claim the Iraq was was all about our disinterested wish to see Iraqis free.

  • Good Lord, Scott… did anyone actually expect anything else? Just because the Iraqi people are going to vastly benefit from what has happened, why should they be the only ones to do so? You seem to have mistaken us for altruists. It is called enlightened self-interest.

  • Its called special pleading. When the War Party gets off its moral high horse, then and only then can they talk about “enlightened self interest.” Until then, just admit this is a war of conquest.

  • “The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine, and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the deity to regenerate our victims while incidentally capturing their markets, to civilize savage and senile and paranoidal peoples while blundering accidentally into their oil wells or metal mines.”
    —John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching

  • Scott,

    The ‘spoils’ in this case being the right and the means to dictate the terms of peace. That interpretation is abundantly clear from the context…except for those people who comb the internet looking for any crumb of semantics they can use to try to breathe life into their long-lost argument that it was all really about oil!

  • Nice try, but the original article said “to the victors go the spoils” and the best defense put up for that was so-called “enlightened self interest”. Deciding who gets reconstruction contracts isn’t dictating the terms of the peace, unless you are at war w/ Iraqi civilians instead of just the govt we ousted. Nobody ever referred to the right to dictate the peace in any war as “spoils” until you tried it just now.

  • Thanks for Nothing

    …Reserving government contracts for domestic companies violates international law, of course. It seems like just the other day that Donald Rumsfeld was lecturing Saddam Hussein about the importance of obeying international law. The World Trade Organization rules forbid governments to discriminate against the companies of fellow members when they are looking to spend some money. This is not one of those high-minded international laws that we agreed to just because we’re so noble and can’t really be expected to obey, my dear fellow—we being the world’s only superpower and all that. This particular law is superpower-friendly. Our country is the one with more of the big global companies that are most likely to benefit from open markets for government business. We also have a smaller government share of GDP than any of our major trading partners. That means we have more to gain from access to other nations’ government business than they have to gain from access to ours. And therefore we have more to lose if other nations retaliate by cutting off our access to their government contracts, which they are understandably threatening to do.

    And, lest we forget, the doctrine of free trade holds—based on near-mathematical proof, not just pious wishful thinking—that a nation benefits by buying foreign goods, not just by selling its own goods to foreigners. As the folks footing the bill, we should want the reconstruction of Iraq to be as inexpensive as possible. If a firm from Uzbekistan can patch a pipeline for less than a firm from Texas, giving the work to that firm in Texas is just paying too much. Even if the Uzbeki firm is able to underbid the Texas one only because it is getting an Uzbekistan government subsidy, that just means a bit of the burden is being shifted from American taxpayers to the taxpayers of Uzbekistan…

  • Sheesh, wotta rant.

    And exactly which “international law” would that be?

    The only contracts that have been awarded so far have been funded by US taxpayers, and yeah, those go to US firms. No kidding. The US is not (always) a charity. France and Germany want contracts? Bring money.

    As to who gets contracts funded by other sources, if and when, let’s wait until that happens before we start screaming about it.

  • mad dog barker

    Well Perry I hear you panda to all tastes but to do you really have to taste all Pandas. No doubt you tried the Bear faced cheek. It is particularly succulent….

    However as for the Coalitions of two’s invasion of Iraq. One would have to be completely stupid to suppose that Mr Bush ordered in the troops on a humanitarian mission. Mr Bush (and I suspect Mr Carr) are not particualrlyinterested in humanity. They are far too pragmatic for that. The mission to Iraq always has been a two fold operation in which the population of Iraq would seem to be regarded with as much contempt by the forces of liberation as it was by the Ba’thist regime.

    The two objectives are quiet simple. The first is to wave a big stick at the Arab world so that it trembles in terror before the “great Satan”. The second is to ensure that the proceeds from the sale of oil goes to “Anglosphere” approved uses.

    The American and to a lesser extent the British troops are a forece of occupation. They have NOT brought democracy to Iraq – they have brought “Pax Americana” the nature of which will slowly unfold as time progresses. The first indecations of what this might be was indecated by Mr Bush on television at the weekend. He said that he was unmoved by large protests of Iraqi people demanding the coalition forces leave quickly.

    In a democracy the leaders listen to what the population says. Mr Bush seems to be blindly ignoring the will of the Iraqi people who want the troops to go home. It’s alright though as they are used to living under military dictatorship who choses the local cronies who will carry out the orders blindly. So guys, “meet the new boss”.

    On a personal note – I do understand sometimes these things happen and are the most pragmatic way out of a tangled and dangerous mess. But let’s not start mixing fact and wishful thinking. The coalition forces ARE an army of occupation. They do not operate by democratic means. So please libertarian hawks do not think you are supporting democracy in action. This is a war. The only thing that war proves is that the winner is a bigger thug that the looser.

  • Ponder

    <Scott reads David’s article> “See! See! He said ‘spoils’! Toldya! Toldya!… and spoils is just OIL with an ‘sp’ in front and an ‘s’ after! See? See?”

  • Of course the armies in Iraq are occupying it. It never occurred to me anyone would think otherwise. As for Iraqi ‘self determination’, once the Ba’athists have been purged and the security situation stabilized, sure, the allied troops need to make like the shepherds and get the flock out for all sorts of practical reasons.

    As for supporting democracy, I do not support it in its current form in Britain so why would I want it imposed in Iraq? In a tribal multi-ethnic multi-confesional place like Iraq, a US or UK style democratic set up would be a disaster. Perhaps a confederated system of de facto regional autonomy with a fairly liberal constitution imposed. Just setting up ballot boxes however is not going to solve anything. Almost as bad would be to let the UN have any input.

    To the extent that some things work better in the United State than they do in Britain, it is because the US is far less democratic due to the constitutional nature of its government and the limits places on what voters can get their proxy thugs to do. Democracy is fine, provided it is bound hand and foot and vast areas of civil society are placed off limits to politics. The areas where the US gets it badly wrong are where this no longer applies due to the decay of their constitution and the deculturation of parts of civil society by the the state.

    I care nothing for democracy per se, I am only concerned with liberty.

  • As for Iraqi ‘self determination’, once the Ba’athists have been purged…

    Ba’athists slip quietly back into control

    Suzanne Goldenberg in Baghdad
    Monday April 21, 2003
    The Guardian

    They have quietly removed the pictures of Saddam Hussein from their sitting rooms, and reconfigured their memories to transform lives of privilege into tales of suffering. Less than two weeks after the collapse of the regime, thousands of members of the Arab Ba’ath Socialist party, the all too willing instrument of Saddam, are resuming their roles as the men and women who run Iraq.

    Two thousand policemen – all cardholding party members – have put on the olive green, or the grey-and-white uniforms of traffic wardens, and returned to the streets of Baghdad at America’s invitation.

    Dozens of minders from the information ministry, who spied on foreign journalists for the security agencies, have returned to the Palestine Hotel where most reporters stay, offering their services as translators to unwitting new arrivals.

    Seasoned bureaucrats at the oil ministry – including the brother of General Amer Saadi, the chemical weapons expert now in American custody – have been offered their jobs back by the US military. Feelers have also gone out to Saddam’s health minister, despite past American charges that Iraqi hospitals stole medicine from the sick.

    It has become increasingly apparent that Washington cannot restore governance to Baghdad without resorting to the party which for decades controlled every aspect of life under the regime.

    It has equally become apparent that the Ba’ath party – whose neighbourhood spy cells were as feared as the state intelligence apparatus – will survive in some form, either through the appeal of its founding ideals, or through the rank opportunism of its millions of members….