Dear Bob,

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

> Crises change the world. The change is always much greater than
> anticipated. A devout Strauss and Howe fan trying to minimize the
> ugliness of the crisis and improve the highness of the high ought
> to be looking for people like Chua and Roy. If they are not the
> people to watch, let me know who is. I am simply not content
> saying that bad times are coming to certain places. I want to know
> how the world has to change in order to make the bad times go
> away. I want to be on the side of a Jefferson, Lincoln or FDR, not
> a King George III, Jefferson Davis or Hitler.

Thank you for this explanation. This makes a lot of sense to me, and
I think we're on the same wavelength.

However, this gives to another role playing exercise:

Suppose you were President of the United States, or suppose that
George Bush or Al Gore or John Kerry or whoever is President, and
suppose that the President had read and understood the 4T paradigm,
and believes it to be true. What would he do differently?

Take the invasion of Iraq, for example. Suppose you're President,
and you are certain that a worldwide war and "clash of civilizations"
is unavoidable. Given that belief, is the invasion of Iraq a good
thing or a bad thing? You can argue it either way. On one side, the
invasion of Iraq might speed up the world war, which is bad, or might
exhaust our resources before we really need them, which is also a bad
thing. On the other side, invading Iraq gets rid of one powerful
future enemy, and also pre-positions our forces strategically for the
unavoidable future war.

This is the problem that Cassandra of Troy had. According to the
story, Apollo fell for Cassandra, and gave her the gift of being able
to foretell the future. Then he tried to nail her, but she rebuffed
him, and in revenge he made her gift useless by preventing anyone
from believing her predictions, even though she was invariable right.
Eventually she predicted a full-fledged 4T crisis war: She foretold
that the Trojan Horse would be filled with Greek soldiers. She tried
to tell everyone but no one believed her, and they brought the horse
inside the city walls, and the rest is (mythic) history.

These old myths usually contain more than a grain of truth to them,
and this one shows that people do not wish to listen to bad news. I
guess that's good in the sense that if everyone were as much of a
depressive curmudgeon as I am, then probably human progress would be
stalled.

So here's another puzzle: Suppose Cassandra had been more than an
ordinary citizen, but had been Queen of Troy. Even in that position
of power, would she have been able to prevent her citizens from
opening the gates to the Trojan Horse? I suspect not. All her
advisers and the entire citizenry would disbelieve her and think she
was nuts to be talking about Greeks filling the horse, and they'd
probably overthrow her and put in a new monarch who didn't indulge in
such crazy talk. So the end result would have been the same.

So even if the President did understand the 4T paradigm, it probably
wouldn't make any difference in the coming clash of civilizations.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Bob,

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

> Crises change the world. The change is always much greater than
> anticipated. A devout Strauss and Howe fan trying to minimize the
> ugliness of the crisis and improve the highness of the high ought
> to be looking for people like Chua and Roy. If they are not the
> people to watch, let me know who is. I am simply not content
> saying that bad times are coming to certain places. I want to know
> how the world has to change in order to make the bad times go
> away. I want to be on the side of a Jefferson, Lincoln or FDR, not
> a King George III, Jefferson Davis or Hitler.

Thank you for this explanation. This makes a lot of sense to me, and
I think we're on the same wavelength.

However, this gives to another role playing exercise:

Suppose you were President of the United States, or suppose that
George Bush or Al Gore or John Kerry or whoever is President, and
suppose that the President had read and understood the 4T paradigm,
and believes it to be true. What would he do differently?

Take the invasion of Iraq, for example. Suppose you're President,
and you are certain that a worldwide war and "clash of civilizations"
is unavoidable. Given that belief, is the invasion of Iraq a good
thing or a bad thing? You can argue it either way. On one side, the
invasion of Iraq might speed up the world war, which is bad, or might
exhaust our resources before we really need them, which is also a bad
thing. On the other side, invading Iraq gets rid of one powerful
future enemy, and also pre-positions our forces strategically for the
unavoidable future war.

This is the problem that Cassandra of Troy had. According to the
story, Apollo fell for Cassandra, and gave her the gift of being able
to foretell the future. Then he tried to nail her, but she rebuffed
him, and in revenge he made her gift useless by preventing anyone
from believing her predictions, even though she was invariable right.
Eventually she predicted a full-fledged 4T crisis war: She foretold
that the Trojan Horse would be filled with Greek soldiers. She tried
to tell everyone but no one believed her, and they brought the horse
inside the city walls, and the rest is (mythic) history.

These old myths usually contain more than a grain of truth to them,
and this one shows that people do not wish to listen to bad news. I
guess that's good in the sense that if everyone were as much of a
depressive curmudgeon as I am, then probably human progress would be
stalled.

So here's another puzzle: Suppose Cassandra had been more than an
ordinary citizen, but had been Queen of Troy. Even in that position
of power, would she have been able to prevent her citizens from
opening the gates to the Trojan Horse? I suspect not. All her
advisers and the entire citizenry would disbelieve her and think she
was nuts to be talking about Greeks filling the horse, and they'd
probably overthrow her and put in a new monarch who didn't indulge in
such crazy talk. So the end result would have been the same.

So even if the President did understand the 4T paradigm, it probably
wouldn't make any difference in the coming clash of civilizations.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Bob,

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

> Crises change the world. The change is always much greater than
> anticipated. A devout Strauss and Howe fan trying to minimize the
> ugliness of the crisis and improve the highness of the high ought
> to be looking for people like Chua and Roy. If they are not the
> people to watch, let me know who is. I am simply not content
> saying that bad times are coming to certain places. I want to know
> how the world has to change in order to make the bad times go
> away. I want to be on the side of a Jefferson, Lincoln or FDR, not
> a King George III, Jefferson Davis or Hitler.

Thank you for this explanation. This makes a lot of sense to me, and
I think we're on the same wavelength.

However, this gives to another role playing exercise:

Suppose you were President of the United States, or suppose that
George Bush or Al Gore or John Kerry or whoever is President, and
suppose that the President had read and understood the 4T paradigm,
and believes it to be true. What would he do differently?

Take the invasion of Iraq, for example. Suppose you're President,
and you are certain that a worldwide war and "clash of civilizations"
is unavoidable. Given that belief, is the invasion of Iraq a good
thing or a bad thing? You can argue it either way. On one side, the
invasion of Iraq might speed up the world war, which is bad, or might
exhaust our resources before we really need them, which is also a bad
thing. On the other side, invading Iraq gets rid of one powerful
future enemy, and also pre-positions our forces strategically for the
unavoidable future war.

This is the problem that Cassandra of Troy had. According to the
story, Apollo fell for Cassandra, and gave her the gift of being able
to foretell the future. Then he tried to nail her, but she rebuffed
him, and in revenge he made her gift useless by preventing anyone
from believing her predictions, even though she was invariable right.
Eventually she predicted a full-fledged 4T crisis war: She foretold
that the Trojan Horse would be filled with Greek soldiers. She tried
to tell everyone but no one believed her, and they brought the horse
inside the city walls, and the rest is (mythic) history.

These old myths usually contain more than a grain of truth to them,
and this one shows that people do not wish to listen to bad news. I
guess that's good in the sense that if everyone were as much of a
depressive curmudgeon as I am, then probably human progress would be
stalled.

So here's another puzzle: Suppose Cassandra had been more than an
ordinary citizen, but had been Queen of Troy. Even in that position
of power, would she have been able to prevent her citizens from
opening the gates to the Trojan Horse? I suspect not. All her
advisers and the entire citizenry would disbelieve her and think she
was nuts to be talking about Greeks filling the horse, and they'd
probably overthrow her and put in a new monarch who didn't indulge in
such crazy talk. So the end result would have been the same.

So even if the President did understand the 4T paradigm, it probably
wouldn't make any difference in the coming clash of civilizations.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

The following op-ed article appeared in the Boston Globe on Friday.
I found it extremely interesting, because it documents how
anti-American hostility is growing in the Muslim world.

First, let me say that Greenway is a Democrat and is frequently given
to anti-Bush screeds, so the political aspects of his article should
be ignored.

We see happening here what I described as happening in the 1930s,
where America was increasingly viewed abroad as hostile and warlike.
This also happened in the 1850s, when the North and the South became
increasing willing to confront, and less willing to compromise.

This is what happens during a crisis period. A psychological change
takes place on both sides, and the desire for justice and retribution
increases. Recall that on 9/11, Palestinians were rejoicing and
dancing in the streets.

Note also the definition Narcissistic Personality Disorder provided by
Greenway. I'll comment more on this in my reply to Tim Walker.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Hostility grows over US stance

1/30/2004, DAVOS, Switzerland

H.D.S. GREENWAY
Hostility grows over US stance
By H.D.S. Greenway, 1/30/2004

DAVOS, Switzerland

THE CORPORATE captains and the kings, prime ministers, and Nobel
prize-winners have departed. The armed helicopters assigned to provide
security during the World Economic Forum no longer kick up clouds of
snow in this alpine town. The forum, with its unrivaled convening
powers, is always a good place to find what ails the world, and the
conventional wisdom is that the hostility that divided many Europeans
from Americans in the run-up to the Iraq war a year ago was less in
evidence this year.

Yes, the tension was less palpable at this year's forum. Europeans
realize that what was done in Iraq is done and that it is now in
everybody's best interest to put that bitter divide behind them. But
the wounds have not completely healed. There is still dismay over the
American tendency toward unilateral action. There is dismay, too, over
the inability of the United States to deliver security in Iraq, and
the failure to find weapons of mass destruction has given credence to
the strong doubts about American wisdom and even veracity.

If Europeans realize that American primacy is something they have to
live with, the reality of Iraq is forcing the Bush administration to
climb down from its disdain of the United Nations and international
cooperation. Thus sending the administration's archduke of anti-United
Nations sentiment, Vice President Cheney, into the lions' den of Davos
was a bold move. He put his best foot forward, but little in his
speech to the forum convinced doubters that the Bush administration's
doctrine of preemptive force would end anytime soon, even as the Bush
administration begged for UN help with Iraqi elections.

Nor did Cheney leave much hope that the United States was going to
step up its efforts to secure a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian
problem. Censure was reserved for the Palestinians in the vice
president's rhetoric. When a questioner mentioned the ideas of Nobel
laureate Shimon Peres, Cheney rapped the questioner's knuckles by
saying: "Mr. Sharon is the one we pay attention to at present."

In much of the world beyond Europe, anti-Americanism is growing at an
alarming and corrosive rate. President Bush seemed genuinely shocked
when he heard this from moderate Muslim leaders in Bali last October.
In visits to four Muslim countries last year I came away equally
shocked at how the high regard in which the United States was once
held is slipping away, even among those who are still our friends.
Whether it be Cairo's council on foreign relations or Pakistan's
Foreign Ministry, the distrust of the United States is noticeably
high.

Among those not predisposed to admire the United States, even
America's good motives are misunderstood in the general climate of
mistrust. Last month in Lahore, Pakistan, a two-day meeting of Muslim
clerics to celebrate the centenary of Maulana Maududi, founder of
Jamaat-I-Islami, speaker after speaker spoke of a Muslim world under
attack and siege, saying that Bush's call for democracy was a cover
for imperialistic designs to undermine Islam and spread Western
culture.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, who is in a life-and-death
struggle with Islamic extremists in his own country, told the forum
last week that "there is a deep feeling of injustice, abandonment,
hopelessness, powerlessness and a sense of deprivation" in the Muslim
world. "The fallout of this has been resignation and desperation." In
the opinion of many experts at Davos this year, the United States had
not successfully addressed the root causes of terrorism: It has
concentrated its efforts on military solutions, which run the risk of
recruiting ever more terrorists.

Even among America's friends there is something about the trumpeting
of American exceptionalism, especially when wedded to what seems to
many to be a desire to make the world over in America's image, that is
profoundly offputting. It was during a panel on narcissism at the
World Economic Forum last week that a Yale University assistant
clinical professor of psychiatry, Bandy Xenobia Lee, quoted the
standard medical description of Narcissistic Personality Disorder from
the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual. A sufferer of this disorder is
defined as someone who:

• Has a "grandiose sense of self importance, e.g., exaggerates
  achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior
  without commensurate achievements."
  
• "Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power,
  brilliance."
  
• "Requires excessive admiration."
  
• "Has a sense of entitlement, i.e. unreasonable expectations of
  especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or
  her expectations.
  
• Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes."

In light of current events, Lee thought the diagnosis might at times
be applicable to nations as well as individuals.

H.D.S. Greenway's column appears regularly in the Globe.


http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/03..._stance+.shtml

The following op-ed article appeared in the Boston Globe on Friday.
I found it extremely interesting, because it documents how
anti-American hostility is growing in the Muslim world.

First, let me say that Greenway is a Democrat and is frequently given
to anti-Bush screeds, so the political aspects of his article should
be ignored.

We see happening here what I described as happening in the 1930s,
where America was increasingly viewed abroad as hostile and warlike.
This also happened in the 1850s, when the North and the South became
increasing willing to confront, and less willing to compromise.

This is what happens during a crisis period. A psychological change
takes place on both sides, and the desire for justice and retribution
increases. Recall that on 9/11, Palestinians were rejoicing and
dancing in the streets.

Note also the definition Narcissistic Personality Disorder provided by
Greenway. I'll comment more on this in my reply to Tim Walker.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Hostility grows over US stance

1/30/2004, DAVOS, Switzerland

H.D.S. GREENWAY
Hostility grows over US stance
By H.D.S. Greenway, 1/30/2004

DAVOS, Switzerland

THE CORPORATE captains and the kings, prime ministers, and Nobel
prize-winners have departed. The armed helicopters assigned to provide
security during the World Economic Forum no longer kick up clouds of
snow in this alpine town. The forum, with its unrivaled convening
powers, is always a good place to find what ails the world, and the
conventional wisdom is that the hostility that divided many Europeans
from Americans in the run-up to the Iraq war a year ago was less in
evidence this year.

Yes, the tension was less palpable at this year's forum. Europeans
realize that what was done in Iraq is done and that it is now in
everybody's best interest to put that bitter divide behind them. But
the wounds have not completely healed. There is still dismay over the
American tendency toward unilateral action. There is dismay, too, over
the inability of the United States to deliver security in Iraq, and
the failure to find weapons of mass destruction has given credence to
the strong doubts about American wisdom and even veracity.

If Europeans realize that American primacy is something they have to
live with, the reality of Iraq is forcing the Bush administration to
climb down from its disdain of the United Nations and international
cooperation. Thus sending the administration's archduke of anti-United
Nations sentiment, Vice President Cheney, into the lions' den of Davos
was a bold move. He put his best foot forward, but little in his
speech to the forum convinced doubters that the Bush administration's
doctrine of preemptive force would end anytime soon, even as the Bush
administration begged for UN help with Iraqi elections.

Nor did Cheney leave much hope that the United States was going to
step up its efforts to secure a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian
problem. Censure was reserved for the Palestinians in the vice
president's rhetoric. When a questioner mentioned the ideas of Nobel
laureate Shimon Peres, Cheney rapped the questioner's knuckles by
saying: "Mr. Sharon is the one we pay attention to at present."

In much of the world beyond Europe, anti-Americanism is growing at an
alarming and corrosive rate. President Bush seemed genuinely shocked
when he heard this from moderate Muslim leaders in Bali last October.
In visits to four Muslim countries last year I came away equally
shocked at how the high regard in which the United States was once
held is slipping away, even among those who are still our friends.
Whether it be Cairo's council on foreign relations or Pakistan's
Foreign Ministry, the distrust of the United States is noticeably
high.

Among those not predisposed to admire the United States, even
America's good motives are misunderstood in the general climate of
mistrust. Last month in Lahore, Pakistan, a two-day meeting of Muslim
clerics to celebrate the centenary of Maulana Maududi, founder of
Jamaat-I-Islami, speaker after speaker spoke of a Muslim world under
attack and siege, saying that Bush's call for democracy was a cover
for imperialistic designs to undermine Islam and spread Western
culture.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, who is in a life-and-death
struggle with Islamic extremists in his own country, told the forum
last week that "there is a deep feeling of injustice, abandonment,
hopelessness, powerlessness and a sense of deprivation" in the Muslim
world. "The fallout of this has been resignation and desperation." In
the opinion of many experts at Davos this year, the United States had
not successfully addressed the root causes of terrorism: It has
concentrated its efforts on military solutions, which run the risk of
recruiting ever more terrorists.

Even among America's friends there is something about the trumpeting
of American exceptionalism, especially when wedded to what seems to
many to be a desire to make the world over in America's image, that is
profoundly offputting. It was during a panel on narcissism at the
World Economic Forum last week that a Yale University assistant
clinical professor of psychiatry, Bandy Xenobia Lee, quoted the
standard medical description of Narcissistic Personality Disorder from
the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual. A sufferer of this disorder is
defined as someone who:

• Has a "grandiose sense of self importance, e.g., exaggerates
  achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior
  without commensurate achievements."
  
• "Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power,
  brilliance."
  
• "Requires excessive admiration."
  
• "Has a sense of entitlement, i.e. unreasonable expectations of
  especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or
  her expectations.
  
• Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes."

In light of current events, Lee thought the diagnosis might at times
be applicable to nations as well as individuals.

H.D.S. Greenway's column appears regularly in the Globe.


http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/03..._stance+.shtml

The following op-ed article appeared in the Boston Globe on Friday.
I found it extremely interesting, because it documents how
anti-American hostility is growing in the Muslim world.

First, let me say that Greenway is a Democrat and is frequently given
to anti-Bush screeds, so the political aspects of his article should
be ignored.

We see happening here what I described as happening in the 1930s,
where America was increasingly viewed abroad as hostile and warlike.
This also happened in the 1850s, when the North and the South became
increasing willing to confront, and less willing to compromise.

This is what happens during a crisis period. A psychological change
takes place on both sides, and the desire for justice and retribution
increases. Recall that on 9/11, Palestinians were rejoicing and
dancing in the streets.

Note also the definition Narcissistic Personality Disorder provided by
Greenway. I'll comment more on this in my reply to Tim Walker.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Hostility grows over US stance

1/30/2004, DAVOS, Switzerland

H.D.S. GREENWAY
Hostility grows over US stance
By H.D.S. Greenway, 1/30/2004

DAVOS, Switzerland

THE CORPORATE captains and the kings, prime ministers, and Nobel
prize-winners have departed. The armed helicopters assigned to provide
security during the World Economic Forum no longer kick up clouds of
snow in this alpine town. The forum, with its unrivaled convening
powers, is always a good place to find what ails the world, and the
conventional wisdom is that the hostility that divided many Europeans
from Americans in the run-up to the Iraq war a year ago was less in
evidence this year.

Yes, the tension was less palpable at this year's forum. Europeans
realize that what was done in Iraq is done and that it is now in
everybody's best interest to put that bitter divide behind them. But
the wounds have not completely healed. There is still dismay over the
American tendency toward unilateral action. There is dismay, too, over
the inability of the United States to deliver security in Iraq, and
the failure to find weapons of mass destruction has given credence to
the strong doubts about American wisdom and even veracity.

If Europeans realize that American primacy is something they have to
live with, the reality of Iraq is forcing the Bush administration to
climb down from its disdain of the United Nations and international
cooperation. Thus sending the administration's archduke of anti-United
Nations sentiment, Vice President Cheney, into the lions' den of Davos
was a bold move. He put his best foot forward, but little in his
speech to the forum convinced doubters that the Bush administration's
doctrine of preemptive force would end anytime soon, even as the Bush
administration begged for UN help with Iraqi elections.

Nor did Cheney leave much hope that the United States was going to
step up its efforts to secure a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian
problem. Censure was reserved for the Palestinians in the vice
president's rhetoric. When a questioner mentioned the ideas of Nobel
laureate Shimon Peres, Cheney rapped the questioner's knuckles by
saying: "Mr. Sharon is the one we pay attention to at present."

In much of the world beyond Europe, anti-Americanism is growing at an
alarming and corrosive rate. President Bush seemed genuinely shocked
when he heard this from moderate Muslim leaders in Bali last October.
In visits to four Muslim countries last year I came away equally
shocked at how the high regard in which the United States was once
held is slipping away, even among those who are still our friends.
Whether it be Cairo's council on foreign relations or Pakistan's
Foreign Ministry, the distrust of the United States is noticeably
high.

Among those not predisposed to admire the United States, even
America's good motives are misunderstood in the general climate of
mistrust. Last month in Lahore, Pakistan, a two-day meeting of Muslim
clerics to celebrate the centenary of Maulana Maududi, founder of
Jamaat-I-Islami, speaker after speaker spoke of a Muslim world under
attack and siege, saying that Bush's call for democracy was a cover
for imperialistic designs to undermine Islam and spread Western
culture.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, who is in a life-and-death
struggle with Islamic extremists in his own country, told the forum
last week that "there is a deep feeling of injustice, abandonment,
hopelessness, powerlessness and a sense of deprivation" in the Muslim
world. "The fallout of this has been resignation and desperation." In
the opinion of many experts at Davos this year, the United States had
not successfully addressed the root causes of terrorism: It has
concentrated its efforts on military solutions, which run the risk of
recruiting ever more terrorists.

Even among America's friends there is something about the trumpeting
of American exceptionalism, especially when wedded to what seems to
many to be a desire to make the world over in America's image, that is
profoundly offputting. It was during a panel on narcissism at the
World Economic Forum last week that a Yale University assistant
clinical professor of psychiatry, Bandy Xenobia Lee, quoted the
standard medical description of Narcissistic Personality Disorder from
the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual. A sufferer of this disorder is
defined as someone who:

• Has a "grandiose sense of self importance, e.g., exaggerates
  achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior
  without commensurate achievements."
  
• "Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power,
  brilliance."
  
• "Requires excessive admiration."
  
• "Has a sense of entitlement, i.e. unreasonable expectations of
  especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or
  her expectations.
  
• Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes."

In light of current events, Lee thought the diagnosis might at times
be applicable to nations as well as individuals.

H.D.S. Greenway's column appears regularly in the Globe.


http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/03..._stance+.shtml

Dear Tim,

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

> Only a few who have posted here remember the last Crisis. Myself,
> I had never felt a shock quite like September 11th-I had to wonder
> if that was what my elders felt when Pearl Harbor was bombed.

I've been trying to draw on a number of sources to try to figure out
what people "feel" like during a crisis period.

The interesting thing about 9/11 is that it really wasn't such a big
deal from a historical point of view. It's true and it's horrible
that 3,000 people were killed, but in a typical year, over 40,000
people are killed in traffic accidents. So even in the year 2001,
you're many, many times more likely to have been killed in traffic
than from terrorism.

Suppose you had lived in London in the early 1940s, and you'd been on
the receiving end of German bombers for three years. Every day you
saw people around you killed by bombs, and every day you saw
buildings crash to the ground as bombs fell on them. In that context,
9/11 was just a bad day at the beach.

By the way, although America didn't get bombed in WW II the way
England did, Americans were still terrified. They had citizen's
watches on both coasts with telescopes looking out for incoming
bombers. In fact, the west coast actually was bombed -- Japan put
thousands of bombs onto balloons, and sent them into the atmosphere.
About a thousand of them did reach America, and one family of six was
killed. These actions may not have been effective in terms of warfare,
but they were psychologically effective in terrorizing people.

In my book, I described a crisis period as one which creates a
visceral feeling of anxiety, terror and fury throughout the
population, and one in which a desire for compromise and containment
of problems is replaced by a desire for justice, retribution and
revenge, and the desire to solve a problem "once and for all."

I noticed this even before 9/11, at the outpouring of national fury
against all CEOs after the Enron scandal in Fall of 2000. If there
had been a guillotine in Washington in 2000, then the people would
have sent every CEO in the country to the guillotine (as in the reign
of terror in France in 1793). Then after 9/11, Bush's immediate
response was to invade Afghanistan, a response which was universally
supported. I've always considered the reaction to the Enron scandal
and the reaction to 9/11 to be two aspects of the same phenomenon
that occurs during a crisis period: A widespread desire for justice
and revenge instead of compromise and containment.

That's one of the reasons that I was fascinated by Greenway's
article, quoting the description of someone with the Narcissistic
Personality Disorder:

• Has a "grandiose sense of self importance, e.g., exaggerates
  achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior
  without commensurate achievements."
  
• "Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power,
  brilliance."
  
• "Requires excessive admiration."
  
• "Has a sense of entitlement, i.e. unreasonable expectations of
  especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or
  her expectations.
  
• Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes."

Ignoring, once again, the political silliness, this, it seems to me,
is an excellent description of widespread public attitudes during a
crisis period. Americans DO act like this today. This comes from
being part of the Baby Boom generation born after WW II: The people in
the Boomer generation launched the anti-discrimination, women's lib,
antiwar, and environmental causes in the 1960s, and they won. They
know they're right, and they're more assertive and more willing to
take risks for what's right. In the 1960s, they knew that the war in
Vietnam was wrong, and today they're just as sure that the War against
Terror is right.

But it's not just the Americans that have the Narcissistic
Personality Disorder. Everyone's been wondering about suicide
bombers, and how someone could strap a bomb to herself and walk into
a crowded restaurant to kill herself and dozens of other people.

Go back and read the description Narcissistic Personality Disorder,
and you can see that it fits the suicide bombers as well, or even
more so!

So perhaps this is the way to describe the "feeling" that people get
during a crisis period.

However, there's one more aspect: How do people "feel" when things
start to go wrong during a crisis period? In my book I quoted the
words of historian Carl von Clausewitz, writing in the 1830s:

Originally Posted by Carl von Clausewitz

> The effect of [defeat] outside the army -- on the people and on
> the government -- is a sudden collapse of the most anxious
> expectations, and a complete crushing of self-confidence.
> This leaves a vacuum that is filled by a corrosively expanding
> fear, which completes the paralysis. It is as if the electric
> charge of the main battle had sparked a shock to the whole
> nervous system of one of the contestants.

The interesting thing is that we've already seen some of this. In
both the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars, the newspapers were filled every
day with stories about how our incompetent armed forces were bungling
everything, and the result was going to be disaster.

Imagine what things will be like when things REALLY start to go
wrong.

In fact, we can see what DID happen as WW II came to an end. It's
widely forgotten today, but America had an obvious and widely
supported policy of killing as many enemy civilians as possible to
defeat the enemy. (Contract this to the Vietnam war, when soldiers
were court-martialed for killing a few civilians.)

In WW II, we were bombing people's homes in Dresden furiously. We
destroyed almost the entire city of Tokyo through firebombing,
something that Robert McNamara is now going around saying that he
regrets, as he talks about his new movie, "Fog of War."

By the end of WW II, the American population's anger and even desire
for revenge was palpable, especially because of news reports of
Japanese' brutal treatment of American prisoners, including torture
and beatings. Those emotions were captured and conveyed perfectly by
President Harry Truman, in his famous speech on August 9, 1945,
shortly after destroying the city of Hiroshima with an atomic bomb:
"Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those
who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who
have starved and beaten American prisoners of war, against those who
have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare.
We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to
save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans. We
shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan's power to
make war. Only a Japanese surrender will stop us."

There have been numerous wars since then, the major ones being the
Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the 1991 Gulf War. But none of
these wars terrorized and infuriated the American public the way World
War II did. Nobody feared that the Vietnamese would endanger the
American way of life, for example. That's what's different about the
American population today, and what's different about every
population during a crisis war.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Tim,

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

> Only a few who have posted here remember the last Crisis. Myself,
> I had never felt a shock quite like September 11th-I had to wonder
> if that was what my elders felt when Pearl Harbor was bombed.

I've been trying to draw on a number of sources to try to figure out
what people "feel" like during a crisis period.

The interesting thing about 9/11 is that it really wasn't such a big
deal from a historical point of view. It's true and it's horrible
that 3,000 people were killed, but in a typical year, over 40,000
people are killed in traffic accidents. So even in the year 2001,
you're many, many times more likely to have been killed in traffic
than from terrorism.

Suppose you had lived in London in the early 1940s, and you'd been on
the receiving end of German bombers for three years. Every day you
saw people around you killed by bombs, and every day you saw
buildings crash to the ground as bombs fell on them. In that context,
9/11 was just a bad day at the beach.

By the way, although America didn't get bombed in WW II the way
England did, Americans were still terrified. They had citizen's
watches on both coasts with telescopes looking out for incoming
bombers. In fact, the west coast actually was bombed -- Japan put
thousands of bombs onto balloons, and sent them into the atmosphere.
About a thousand of them did reach America, and one family of six was
killed. These actions may not have been effective in terms of warfare,
but they were psychologically effective in terrorizing people.

In my book, I described a crisis period as one which creates a
visceral feeling of anxiety, terror and fury throughout the
population, and one in which a desire for compromise and containment
of problems is replaced by a desire for justice, retribution and
revenge, and the desire to solve a problem "once and for all."

I noticed this even before 9/11, at the outpouring of national fury
against all CEOs after the Enron scandal in Fall of 2000. If there
had been a guillotine in Washington in 2000, then the people would
have sent every CEO in the country to the guillotine (as in the reign
of terror in France in 1793). Then after 9/11, Bush's immediate
response was to invade Afghanistan, a response which was universally
supported. I've always considered the reaction to the Enron scandal
and the reaction to 9/11 to be two aspects of the same phenomenon
that occurs during a crisis period: A widespread desire for justice
and revenge instead of compromise and containment.

That's one of the reasons that I was fascinated by Greenway's
article, quoting the description of someone with the Narcissistic
Personality Disorder:

• Has a "grandiose sense of self importance, e.g., exaggerates
  achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior
  without commensurate achievements."
  
• "Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power,
  brilliance."
  
• "Requires excessive admiration."
  
• "Has a sense of entitlement, i.e. unreasonable expectations of
  especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or
  her expectations.
  
• Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes."

Ignoring, once again, the political silliness, this, it seems to me,
is an excellent description of widespread public attitudes during a
crisis period. Americans DO act like this today. This comes from
being part of the Baby Boom generation born after WW II: The people in
the Boomer generation launched the anti-discrimination, women's lib,
antiwar, and environmental causes in the 1960s, and they won. They
know they're right, and they're more assertive and more willing to
take risks for what's right. In the 1960s, they knew that the war in
Vietnam was wrong, and today they're just as sure that the War against
Terror is right.

But it's not just the Americans that have the Narcissistic
Personality Disorder. Everyone's been wondering about suicide
bombers, and how someone could strap a bomb to herself and walk into
a crowded restaurant to kill herself and dozens of other people.

Go back and read the description Narcissistic Personality Disorder,
and you can see that it fits the suicide bombers as well, or even
more so!

So perhaps this is the way to describe the "feeling" that people get
during a crisis period.

However, there's one more aspect: How do people "feel" when things
start to go wrong during a crisis period? In my book I quoted the
words of historian Carl von Clausewitz, writing in the 1830s:

Originally Posted by Carl von Clausewitz

> The effect of [defeat] outside the army -- on the people and on
> the government -- is a sudden collapse of the most anxious
> expectations, and a complete crushing of self-confidence.
> This leaves a vacuum that is filled by a corrosively expanding
> fear, which completes the paralysis. It is as if the electric
> charge of the main battle had sparked a shock to the whole
> nervous system of one of the contestants.

The interesting thing is that we've already seen some of this. In
both the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars, the newspapers were filled every
day with stories about how our incompetent armed forces were bungling
everything, and the result was going to be disaster.

Imagine what things will be like when things REALLY start to go
wrong.

In fact, we can see what DID happen as WW II came to an end. It's
widely forgotten today, but America had an obvious and widely
supported policy of killing as many enemy civilians as possible to
defeat the enemy. (Contract this to the Vietnam war, when soldiers
were court-martialed for killing a few civilians.)

In WW II, we were bombing people's homes in Dresden furiously. We
destroyed almost the entire city of Tokyo through firebombing,
something that Robert McNamara is now going around saying that he
regrets, as he talks about his new movie, "Fog of War."

By the end of WW II, the American population's anger and even desire
for revenge was palpable, especially because of news reports of
Japanese' brutal treatment of American prisoners, including torture
and beatings. Those emotions were captured and conveyed perfectly by
President Harry Truman, in his famous speech on August 9, 1945,
shortly after destroying the city of Hiroshima with an atomic bomb:
"Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those
who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who
have starved and beaten American prisoners of war, against those who
have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare.
We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to
save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans. We
shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan's power to
make war. Only a Japanese surrender will stop us."

There have been numerous wars since then, the major ones being the
Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the 1991 Gulf War. But none of
these wars terrorized and infuriated the American public the way World
War II did. Nobody feared that the Vietnamese would endanger the
American way of life, for example. That's what's different about the
American population today, and what's different about every
population during a crisis war.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Dear Tim,

Originally Posted by Tim Walker

> Only a few who have posted here remember the last Crisis. Myself,
> I had never felt a shock quite like September 11th-I had to wonder
> if that was what my elders felt when Pearl Harbor was bombed.

I've been trying to draw on a number of sources to try to figure out
what people "feel" like during a crisis period.

The interesting thing about 9/11 is that it really wasn't such a big
deal from a historical point of view. It's true and it's horrible
that 3,000 people were killed, but in a typical year, over 40,000
people are killed in traffic accidents. So even in the year 2001,
you're many, many times more likely to have been killed in traffic
than from terrorism.

Suppose you had lived in London in the early 1940s, and you'd been on
the receiving end of German bombers for three years. Every day you
saw people around you killed by bombs, and every day you saw
buildings crash to the ground as bombs fell on them. In that context,
9/11 was just a bad day at the beach.

By the way, although America didn't get bombed in WW II the way
England did, Americans were still terrified. They had citizen's
watches on both coasts with telescopes looking out for incoming
bombers. In fact, the west coast actually was bombed -- Japan put
thousands of bombs onto balloons, and sent them into the atmosphere.
About a thousand of them did reach America, and one family of six was
killed. These actions may not have been effective in terms of warfare,
but they were psychologically effective in terrorizing people.

In my book, I described a crisis period as one which creates a
visceral feeling of anxiety, terror and fury throughout the
population, and one in which a desire for compromise and containment
of problems is replaced by a desire for justice, retribution and
revenge, and the desire to solve a problem "once and for all."

I noticed this even before 9/11, at the outpouring of national fury
against all CEOs after the Enron scandal in Fall of 2000. If there
had been a guillotine in Washington in 2000, then the people would
have sent every CEO in the country to the guillotine (as in the reign
of terror in France in 1793). Then after 9/11, Bush's immediate
response was to invade Afghanistan, a response which was universally
supported. I've always considered the reaction to the Enron scandal
and the reaction to 9/11 to be two aspects of the same phenomenon
that occurs during a crisis period: A widespread desire for justice
and revenge instead of compromise and containment.

That's one of the reasons that I was fascinated by Greenway's
article, quoting the description of someone with the Narcissistic
Personality Disorder:

• Has a "grandiose sense of self importance, e.g., exaggerates
  achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior
  without commensurate achievements."
  
• "Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power,
  brilliance."
  
• "Requires excessive admiration."
  
• "Has a sense of entitlement, i.e. unreasonable expectations of
  especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or
  her expectations.
  
• Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes."

Ignoring, once again, the political silliness, this, it seems to me,
is an excellent description of widespread public attitudes during a
crisis period. Americans DO act like this today. This comes from
being part of the Baby Boom generation born after WW II: The people in
the Boomer generation launched the anti-discrimination, women's lib,
antiwar, and environmental causes in the 1960s, and they won. They
know they're right, and they're more assertive and more willing to
take risks for what's right. In the 1960s, they knew that the war in
Vietnam was wrong, and today they're just as sure that the War against
Terror is right.

But it's not just the Americans that have the Narcissistic
Personality Disorder. Everyone's been wondering about suicide
bombers, and how someone could strap a bomb to herself and walk into
a crowded restaurant to kill herself and dozens of other people.

Go back and read the description Narcissistic Personality Disorder,
and you can see that it fits the suicide bombers as well, or even
more so!

So perhaps this is the way to describe the "feeling" that people get
during a crisis period.

However, there's one more aspect: How do people "feel" when things
start to go wrong during a crisis period? In my book I quoted the
words of historian Carl von Clausewitz, writing in the 1830s:

Originally Posted by Carl von Clausewitz

> The effect of [defeat] outside the army -- on the people and on
> the government -- is a sudden collapse of the most anxious
> expectations, and a complete crushing of self-confidence.
> This leaves a vacuum that is filled by a corrosively expanding
> fear, which completes the paralysis. It is as if the electric
> charge of the main battle had sparked a shock to the whole
> nervous system of one of the contestants.

The interesting thing is that we've already seen some of this. In
both the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars, the newspapers were filled every
day with stories about how our incompetent armed forces were bungling
everything, and the result was going to be disaster.

Imagine what things will be like when things REALLY start to go
wrong.

In fact, we can see what DID happen as WW II came to an end. It's
widely forgotten today, but America had an obvious and widely
supported policy of killing as many enemy civilians as possible to
defeat the enemy. (Contract this to the Vietnam war, when soldiers
were court-martialed for killing a few civilians.)

In WW II, we were bombing people's homes in Dresden furiously. We
destroyed almost the entire city of Tokyo through firebombing,
something that Robert McNamara is now going around saying that he
regrets, as he talks about his new movie, "Fog of War."

By the end of WW II, the American population's anger and even desire
for revenge was palpable, especially because of news reports of
Japanese' brutal treatment of American prisoners, including torture
and beatings. Those emotions were captured and conveyed perfectly by
President Harry Truman, in his famous speech on August 9, 1945,
shortly after destroying the city of Hiroshima with an atomic bomb:
"Having found the bomb we have used it. We have used it against those
who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who
have starved and beaten American prisoners of war, against those who
have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare.
We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to
save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans. We
shall continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan's power to
make war. Only a Japanese surrender will stop us."

There have been numerous wars since then, the major ones being the
Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the 1991 Gulf War. But none of
these wars terrorized and infuriated the American public the way World
War II did. Nobody feared that the Vietnamese would endanger the
American way of life, for example. That's what's different about the
American population today, and what's different about every
population during a crisis war.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com

Originally Posted by elilevin

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

I She is not on the side of Mr. Butler or Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Roosevelt or that creature waiting to be born- the next Gray Champion.

Since the Gray Champion is usually a member of the prophet generation, he or she has already been born. :wink:

Just a quibble.

Prophets in the Placenta of Progress:



Another version of a waterworld

We now have a culture in which people are frightened of what the future might hold and are terrified of taking risks, so they seek refuge in past certainties - and what could be more comforting than our childhood or teenage years?' Ironically, the same stimulus is forcing youngsters to grow up faster. Dr Nick Baylis, a psychologist and lecturer at Cambridge University, says: 'Fears for the future, job and financial insecurity, and the "work hard, play hard" mentality are forcing young people to work in a neurotically hard and grown-up way to achieve what they think will be satisfaction.'

Is the time coming for the application of a late term medical procedure on the Crowns of Creation? Is the health of the "mother" society of concern? Will "she" be happier if this Prophet Gen doesn't come to term?


This is tending closer to Mr. Martin Amis' Time's Arrow. <- <- <-

Originally Posted by elilevin

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

I She is not on the side of Mr. Butler or Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Roosevelt or that creature waiting to be born- the next Gray Champion.

Since the Gray Champion is usually a member of the prophet generation, he or she has already been born. :wink:

Just a quibble.

Prophets in the Placenta of Progress:



Another version of a waterworld

We now have a culture in which people are frightened of what the future might hold and are terrified of taking risks, so they seek refuge in past certainties - and what could be more comforting than our childhood or teenage years?' Ironically, the same stimulus is forcing youngsters to grow up faster. Dr Nick Baylis, a psychologist and lecturer at Cambridge University, says: 'Fears for the future, job and financial insecurity, and the "work hard, play hard" mentality are forcing young people to work in a neurotically hard and grown-up way to achieve what they think will be satisfaction.'

Is the time coming for the application of a late term medical procedure on the Crowns of Creation? Is the health of the "mother" society of concern? Will "she" be happier if this Prophet Gen doesn't come to term?


This is tending closer to Mr. Martin Amis' Time's Arrow. <- <- <-

Originally Posted by elilevin

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

I She is not on the side of Mr. Butler or Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Roosevelt or that creature waiting to be born- the next Gray Champion.

Since the Gray Champion is usually a member of the prophet generation, he or she has already been born. :wink:

Just a quibble.

Prophets in the Placenta of Progress:



Another version of a waterworld

We now have a culture in which people are frightened of what the future might hold and are terrified of taking risks, so they seek refuge in past certainties - and what could be more comforting than our childhood or teenage years?' Ironically, the same stimulus is forcing youngsters to grow up faster. Dr Nick Baylis, a psychologist and lecturer at Cambridge University, says: 'Fears for the future, job and financial insecurity, and the "work hard, play hard" mentality are forcing young people to work in a neurotically hard and grown-up way to achieve what they think will be satisfaction.'

Is the time coming for the application of a late term medical procedure on the Crowns of Creation? Is the health of the "mother" society of concern? Will "she" be happier if this Prophet Gen doesn't come to term?


This is tending closer to Mr. Martin Amis' Time's Arrow. <- <- <-

It doesn't take an advanced degree in political science or a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to recognize that Samuel P. Huntington had it wrong when he wrote "The Clash of Civilizations." All it takes is a look through the daily newspaper to realize that we face a more fundamental problem, one that drives the cultural and political clashes we see at home and abroad, and will fuel even greater conflicts to come. That problem is a clash of generations -- in which the interests of an aging, developed world are pitted against those of a developing world that is young and increasingly frustrated.

The Coming Battle of the Ages

Under the circumstances, creating record federal budget deficits is like placing a straitjacket on a man before you send him into battle. The deficits must be eliminated. Another stunning formula for disaster is putting 60 times as much foreign direct investment in the developed nations that will be home to only 20 percent of the world's labor force as we do in the nations that are home to the other 80 percent; fixing that is in everyone's self-interest. This may seem to be a more complex and daunting problem than clashing civilizations. But quite the contrary, the solution here is simpler and more sure than building an international order around respecting our differences. It means, instead, building one that recognizes our common interests.

It doesn't take an advanced degree in political science or a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to recognize that Samuel P. Huntington had it wrong when he wrote "The Clash of Civilizations." All it takes is a look through the daily newspaper to realize that we face a more fundamental problem, one that drives the cultural and political clashes we see at home and abroad, and will fuel even greater conflicts to come. That problem is a clash of generations -- in which the interests of an aging, developed world are pitted against those of a developing world that is young and increasingly frustrated.

The Coming Battle of the Ages

Under the circumstances, creating record federal budget deficits is like placing a straitjacket on a man before you send him into battle. The deficits must be eliminated. Another stunning formula for disaster is putting 60 times as much foreign direct investment in the developed nations that will be home to only 20 percent of the world's labor force as we do in the nations that are home to the other 80 percent; fixing that is in everyone's self-interest. This may seem to be a more complex and daunting problem than clashing civilizations. But quite the contrary, the solution here is simpler and more sure than building an international order around respecting our differences. It means, instead, building one that recognizes our common interests.

It doesn't take an advanced degree in political science or a trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to recognize that Samuel P. Huntington had it wrong when he wrote "The Clash of Civilizations." All it takes is a look through the daily newspaper to realize that we face a more fundamental problem, one that drives the cultural and political clashes we see at home and abroad, and will fuel even greater conflicts to come. That problem is a clash of generations -- in which the interests of an aging, developed world are pitted against those of a developing world that is young and increasingly frustrated.

The Coming Battle of the Ages

Under the circumstances, creating record federal budget deficits is like placing a straitjacket on a man before you send him into battle. The deficits must be eliminated. Another stunning formula for disaster is putting 60 times as much foreign direct investment in the developed nations that will be home to only 20 percent of the world's labor force as we do in the nations that are home to the other 80 percent; fixing that is in everyone's self-interest. This may seem to be a more complex and daunting problem than clashing civilizations. But quite the contrary, the solution here is simpler and more sure than building an international order around respecting our differences. It means, instead, building one that recognizes our common interests.

Virgil:

I am not sure that article captures the worldview of the boomers. A lot of the adults described sound more like X-ers to me.

I am married to a boomer (b. 1952) and I spend a lot of time with boomers who are members of the faculty in my department. (I think I am the only X-er in my department and there are not any Millenials. There is one Silent who will probably retire this year. Our faculty has a lot of longevity).

..but I digress. What I mean to say is that many of the boomers that I know do wear Nike trainers, but it is the X-er parents who are reading Harry Potter and have a more friendly relationship with their kids. I have a cell phone and my husband does not. He is the serious one in the house, always urging us to turn off lights, keep the heat turned down and giving the kids ( born '85 and '93) lectures about energy conservation and responsibility. ("If you see that something needs to be done around here then it is your job to do it."). I see a good deal of this more serious approach with our boomer friends as well--although there is a slightly wacky element to some of the Boomer "Bobos in Paradise" that I am acquainted with.

Virgil:

I am not sure that article captures the worldview of the boomers. A lot of the adults described sound more like X-ers to me.

I am married to a boomer (b. 1952) and I spend a lot of time with boomers who are members of the faculty in my department. (I think I am the only X-er in my department and there are not any Millenials. There is one Silent who will probably retire this year. Our faculty has a lot of longevity).

..but I digress. What I mean to say is that many of the boomers that I know do wear Nike trainers, but it is the X-er parents who are reading Harry Potter and have a more friendly relationship with their kids. I have a cell phone and my husband does not. He is the serious one in the house, always urging us to turn off lights, keep the heat turned down and giving the kids ( born '85 and '93) lectures about energy conservation and responsibility. ("If you see that something needs to be done around here then it is your job to do it."). I see a good deal of this more serious approach with our boomer friends as well--although there is a slightly wacky element to some of the Boomer "Bobos in Paradise" that I am acquainted with.

Virgil:

I am not sure that article captures the worldview of the boomers. A lot of the adults described sound more like X-ers to me.

I am married to a boomer (b. 1952) and I spend a lot of time with boomers who are members of the faculty in my department. (I think I am the only X-er in my department and there are not any Millenials. There is one Silent who will probably retire this year. Our faculty has a lot of longevity).

..but I digress. What I mean to say is that many of the boomers that I know do wear Nike trainers, but it is the X-er parents who are reading Harry Potter and have a more friendly relationship with their kids. I have a cell phone and my husband does not. He is the serious one in the house, always urging us to turn off lights, keep the heat turned down and giving the kids ( born '85 and '93) lectures about energy conservation and responsibility. ("If you see that something needs to be done around here then it is your job to do it."). I see a good deal of this more serious approach with our boomer friends as well--although there is a slightly wacky element to some of the Boomer "Bobos in Paradise" that I am acquainted with.

Earlier this week, in response to a message from Bob Butler on the
subject "A Role Playing Exercise," I suggested my own role-playing
exercise: If you were a President who knew the 4T paradigm and
believed it, what would you do differently?

This question was sort of answered by a Wall Street Journal article
on Tuesday. It shows how America has gone from a policy of compromise
and containment of problems to a policy to confront, defeat and
transform.

The article is below.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com


A Historian's Take on Islam Steers U.S. in Terrorism Fight

Bernard Lewis's Blueprint -- Sowing Arab Democracy -- Is Facing a
Test in Iraq

By PETER WALDMAN

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Bernard Lewis often tells audiences about an encounter he once had in
Jordan. The Princeton University historian, author of more than 20
books on Islam and the Middle East, says he was chatting with Arab
friends in Amman when one of them trotted out an argument familiar in
that part of the world.

"We have time, we can wait," he quotes the Jordanian as saying. "We
got rid of the Crusaders. We got rid of the Turks. We'll get rid of
the Jews."

Hearing this claim "one too many times," Mr. Lewis says, he politely
shot back, "Excuse me, but you've got your history wrong. The Turks
got rid of the Crusaders. The British got rid of the Turks. The Jews
got rid of the British. I wonder who is coming here next."

The vignette, recounted in the 87-year-old scholar's native British
accent, always garners laughs. Yet he tells it to underscore a
serious point. Most Islamic countries have failed miserably at
modernizing their societies, he contends, beckoning outsiders -- this
time, Americans -- to intervene.

Call it the Lewis Doctrine. Though never debated in Congress or
sanctified by presidential decree, Mr. Lewis's diagnosis of the
Muslim world's malaise, and his call for a U.S. military invasion to
seed democracy in the Mideast, have helped define the boldest shift in
U.S. foreign policy in 50 years. The occupation of Iraq is putting
the doctrine to the test.

For much of the second half of the last century, America viewed the
Mideast and the rest of the world through a prism shaped by George
Kennan, author of the doctrine of "containment." In a celebrated 1947
article in Foreign Affairs focused on the Soviet Union, Mr. Kennan
gave structure to U.S. policy in the Cold War. It placed the need to
contain Soviet ambitions above all else.

Terrorism has replaced Moscow as the global foe. And now America,
having outlasted the Soviets to become the sole superpower, no longer
seeks to contain but to confront, defeat and transform. How
successful it is at remolding Iraq and the rest of the Mideast could
have a huge impact on what sort of superpower America will be for
decades to come: bold and assertive -- or inward, defensive and cut
off.

As mentor and informal adviser to some top U.S. officials, Mr. Lewis
has helped coax the White House to shed decades of thinking about
Arab regimes and the use of military power. Gone is the notion that
U.S. policy in the oil-rich region should promote stability above all,
even if it means taking tyrants as friends. Also gone is the
corollary notion that fostering democratic values in these lands
risks destabilizing them. Instead, the Lewis Doctrine says fostering
Mideast democracy is not only wise but imperative.

After Sept. 11, 2001, as policy makers fretted urgently about how to
understand and deal with the new enemy, Mr. Lewis helped provide an
answer. If his prescription is right, the U.S. may be able to blunt
terrorism and stabilize a region that, as the chief exporter of oil,
powers the industrial world and underpins the U.S.-led economic
order. If it's wrong, as his critics contend, America risks provoking
sharper conflicts that spark more terrorism and undermine energy
security.

After the terror attacks, White House staffers disagreed about how to
frame the enemy, says David Frum, who was a speechwriter for
President Bush. One group believed Muslim anger was all a
misunderstanding -- that Muslims misperceived America as decadent and
godless. Their solution: Launch a vast campaign to educate Muslims
about America's true virtue. Much of that effort, widely belittled in
the press and overseas, was quietly abandoned.

A faction led by political strategist Karl Rove believed
soul-searching over "why Muslims hate us" was misplaced, Mr. Frum
says. Mr. Rove summoned Mr. Lewis to address some White House
staffers, military aides and staff members of the National Security
Council. The historian recited the modern failures of Arab and Muslim
societies and argued that anti-Americanism stemmed from their own
inadequacies, not America's. Mr. Lewis also met privately with Mr.
Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. Mr. Frum says he
soon noticed Mr. Bush carrying a marked-up article by Mr. Lewis among
his briefing papers. A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Says Mr. Frum: "Bernard comes with a very powerful explanation for
why 9/11 happened. Once you understand it, the policy presents itself
afterward."

His exposition and the policies it helped set in motion heralded a
decisive break with the doctrine that prevailed during the Cold War.
Containment, Mr. Kennan said, had "nothing to do with outward
histrionics: with threats or blustering or superfluous gestures of
outward 'toughness.' " It rested on the somber calculation that even
the most aggressive enemy wouldn't risk its own demise by provoking
war with a powerful U.S.

------------------------------------------------------------\

AMERICA ABROAD

Some ideas that have shaped U.S. foreign policy:

1900: Open Door Policy rejects efforts to carve up China or restrict
its ports

1901-09: Gunboat Diplomacy used by Theodore Roosevelt to exert U.S.
influence and deter Europeans from Americas

1917: Making the world safe for democracy is Woodrow Wilson's
rationale for entering World War I

1919-20: Isolationism rises as U.S. shuns League of Nations Wilson
championed

1930: Protectionism reflected in Smoot-Hawley tariff bill

1932-3: Good Neighbor Policy of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt
forswears armed intervention in Latin America

1941: FDR looks to a world with Four Freedoms: of speech, of worship,
from want and from fear--meaning deep arms reduction

1947: Containment of Soviet power by counterforce is urged by George
F. Kennan; later, notion of mutually assured destruction helps keep
U.S.-Soviet relations peaceful

1947: Truman Doctrine, focused on Turkey and Greece, says U.S. will
back free peoples resisting armed minorities or outside pressures

1948: Secretary of State George C. Marshall implements Marshall Plan
that sets out to lift Europe from postwar poverty

1957: Eisenhower Doctrine offers U.S. aid to any Mideast country
threatened by communism

1960s: Domino theory and vow by John Kennedy to "bear any burden, pay
any price" for freedom motivate U.S. to fight Vietnam war

1969-76: Realpolitik of Henry Kissinger leads to opening with China,
detente with Soviets

Late 1970s: Human rights guides foreign policy in Carter years

Mid-1980s: Reagan Doctrine aids insurgents fighting leftist
governments in Central America, Africa and Afghanistan

1990: New World Order of superpower cooperation declared by George
H.W. Bush after Iraq invades Kuwait

2001-2003: "Lewis Doctrine" calls for seeding democracy in failed
Mideast states to defang terrorism

------------------------------------------------------------/

The Lewis Doctrine posits no such rational foe. It envisions not a
clash of interests or even ideology, but of cultures. In the Mideast,
the font of the terrorism threat, America has but two choices, "both
disagreeable," Mr. Lewis has written: "Get tough or get out." His
celebration, rather than shunning, of toughness is shared by several
other influential U.S. Mideast experts, including Fouad Ajami and
Richard Perle.

A central Lewis theme is that Muslims have had a chip on their
shoulders since 1683, when the Ottomans failed for the second time to
sack Christian Vienna. "Islam has been on the defensive" ever since,
Mr. Lewis wrote in a 1990 essay called "The Roots of Muslim Rage,"
where he described a "clash of civilizations," a concept later
popularized by Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington. For 300
years, Mr. Lewis says, Muslims have watched in horror and humiliation
as the Christian civilizations of Europe and North America have
overshadowed them militarily, economically and culturally.

"The question people are asking is why they hate us. That's the wrong
question," said Mr. Lewis on C-SPAN shortly after the Sept. 11
attacks. "In a sense, they've been hating us for centuries, and it's
very natural that they should. You have this millennial rivalry
between two world religions, and now, from their point of view, the
wrong one seems to be winning."

He continued: "More generally ... you can't be rich, strong,
successful and loved, particularly by those who are not rich, not
strong and not successful. So the hatred is something almost
axiomatic. The question which we should be asking is why do they
neither fear nor respect us?"

For Mr. Lewis and officials influenced by his thinking, instilling
respect or at least fear through force is essential for America's
security. In this formulation, the current era of American dominance,
sometimes called "Pax Americana," echoes elements of Pax Britannica,
imposed by the British Empire Mr. Lewis served as a young intelligence
officer after graduate school.

Eight days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with the Pentagon still
smoldering, Mr. Lewis addressed the U.S. Defense Policy Board. Mr.
Lewis and a friend, Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi -- now a member
of the interim Iraqi Governing Council -- argued for a military
takeover of Iraq to avert still-worse terrorism in the future, says
Mr. Perle, who then headed the policy board.

A few months later, in a private dinner with Dick Cheney at the vice
president's residence, Mr. Lewis explained why he was cautiously
optimistic the U.S. could gradually build democracy in Iraq, say
others who attended. Mr. Lewis also held forth on the dangers of
appearing weak in the Muslim world, a lesson Mr. Cheney apparently
took to heart. Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press" just before the
invasion of Iraq, Mr. Cheney said: "I firmly believe, along with men
like Bernard Lewis, who is one of the great students of that part of
the world, that strong, firm U.S. response to terror and to threats to
the United States would go a long way, frankly, toward calming things
in that part of the world."

The Lewis Doctrine, in effect, had become U.S. policy.

"Bernard Lewis has been the single most important intellectual
influence countering the conventional wisdom on managing the conflict
between radical Islam and the West," says Mr. Perle, who remains a
close adviser to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "The idea that a
big part of the problem is failed societies on the Arab side is very
important. That is not the point of view of the diplomatic
establishment."

Mr. Lewis declined to discuss his official contacts in Washington.
When told his political influence was a focus of this article, he
turned down an interview request. "It's still too early," he said.
"Let's see how things turn out" in Iraq. In speeches and articles, Mr.
Lewis continues to advocate assertive U.S. actions in the Mideast, but
his long-term influence is likely to turn on whether his
neoconservative acolytes retain their power in Washington in years to
come.

Born in London in 1916, Mr. Lewis was drawn to the study of history
and foreign languages by a deep curiosity about "what things looked
like from the other side," he said on C-SPAN in April. He earned
undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Mideast and Islamic history from
the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of
London, then spent five years working on Mideast issues for British
intelligence during World War II.

Among other things, his wartime service taught him the dangers of
appeasement, he told a seminar at the University of Toronto last
spring. He said speeches by foes of war in Iraq reminded him of the
arguments of peace activists in the 1930s. "All I can say is thank God
they didn't prevail then," he said. "If they had, Hitler would have
won the war and the Nazis would be ruling the world."

In 1945, Mr. Lewis returned to the University of London as a
professor, where he earned renown in Ottoman and Turkish history. He
was lured to Princeton in 1974 and soon became a mentor to many of
those now known as neoconservatives.

Mr. Perle recalls hearing Mr. Lewis speak in the early 1970s and
inviting him to lunch with Mr. Perle's then-boss, the late Sen. Henry
"Scoop" Jackson of Washington. "Lewis became Jackson's guru, more or
less," says Mr. Perle. Mr. Lewis also was an adviser to another
Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, when Mr. Moynihan was
ambassador to the United Nations in the 1970s. He formed lasting ties
with several young Jackson and Moynihan aides who went on to apply his
views to Iraq. Among them were Paul Wolfowitz, now deputy defense
secretary; Elliott Abrams, now National Security Council Mideast
chief; and Frank Gaffney Jr., a former Pentagon official. Talking with
Mr. Lewis, Mr. Perle says, was "like going to Delphi to see the
oracle."

Mr. Lewis retired from teaching in 1986 but has maintained ties with
many former students in high posts. One, Pentagon analyst Harold
Rhode, has played prominent roles as Mr. Wolfowitz's adviser on
Islamic affairs, as a planner of the Iraq occupation and as an aide to
Pentagon strategist Andrew Marshall. Mr. Lewis dedicated his latest
book, "The Crisis of Islam," to Mr. Rhode -- who says Mr. Lewis is
"like a father to me."

Mr. Lewis is also close to government circles in Israel and Turkey --
non-Arab lands he describes as the only successful modern states in
the region. He warmly praises Kemal Attaturk, who made Turkey a
secular republic after World War I by suppressing Islam. (He has also
said the Ottoman Turks' killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians in 1915
wasn't genocide but the brutal byproduct of war. It was a stance for
which a French court convicted Mr. Lewis in 1995 under France's
Holocaust-denial statute, imposing a token penalty.) Israeli experts
say Mr. Lewis's contacts with Turkish generals and politicians helped
cement Israeli-Turkish military ties in the 1990s.

Mr. Lewis became politically involved with Israel by the mid-1970s,
when he wrote an article for the American Jewish Committee publication
Commentary. At a time when Israel was dead-set against a Palestinian
state, he recommended that Israel "test the willingness" of the
Palestine Liberation Organization to negotiate a two-state solution to
the conflict.

But Mr. Lewis also wrote that Palestinian Arabs didn't have a
historical claim to a state, because Palestine hadn't existed as a
country prior to British rule in 1918. Israeli leaders jumped on that
part of his thesis. The late Prime Minister Golda Meir required her
cabinet to read the article, says Amnon Cohen of Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, who worked for the West Bank military government. He says
Mrs. Meir summoned Mr. Lewis and "they spoke for hours. Her aides
tried to end it, but Golda kept going and Bernard didn't want to be
rude. She was very much in favor of his point" that Palestine as a
nation had never existed.

Mr. Lewis began spending months at a time at the Dayan Center at Tel
Aviv University in the 1980s. He became the confidant of successive
Israeli prime ministers, including Ariel Sharon. Mr. Cohen organizes
an annual conference at Hebrew University in honor of Mr. Lewis's
birthday.

Mr. Wolfowitz took part by videoconference in 2002. Signaling the
administration's acceptance of Mr. Lewis's prescription for Iraq, Mr.
Wolfowitz said: "Bernard has taught how to understand the complex and
important history of the Middle East, and use it to guide us where we
will go next to build a better world for generations to come."

Mr. Lewis's work has many critics. Some academics say Mr. Lewis's
descriptions of Arab and Muslim failures epitomize what the late
Edward Said of Columbia University dubbed "Orientalism" -- the shading
of history to justify Western conquest. Mideast historian Juan Cole of
the University of Michigan praises Mr. Lewis's scholarly works earlier
in his career but says his more-popular writings of recent years tend
to caricature Muslims as poor losers, helpless and enraged.

Mr. Cole is among those who say Mr. Lewis's call for military
intervention to transform failed Muslim states risks making the
culture clash between Islamic lands and the West worse. So far, they
say, Iraq looks more like a breeding ground for terrorism than a
showcase of democracy -- not surprising, they say, given that the U.S.
invaded an old and proud civilization.

"Lewis has lived so long, he's managed to live into an era when some
people in Washington are reviving empire thinking," says Mr. Cole.
"He's never understood the realities of political and social
mobilization and the ways they make empire untenable."

Ilan Pappe of Haifa University says Mr. Lewis's view that political
cultures can be remade through force contributed to Israel's decision
to invade Lebanon in 1982. "It took the Israelis 18 years, and 1,000
soldiers killed, to abandon that strategy," Mr. Pappe says. "If the
Americans operate under the same assumptions in Iraq, they'll fail the
way the Israelis failed."

After Sept. 11, a book by Mr. Lewis called "What Went Wrong?" was a
best-seller that launched the historian, at age 85, as an unlikely
celebrity. Witty and a colorful storyteller, he hit the talk-show and
lecture circuits, arguing in favor of U.S. intervention in Iraq as a
first step toward democratic transformation in the Mideast.
Historically, tyranny was foreign to Islam, Mr. Lewis told audiences,
while consensual government, if not elections, has deep roots in the
Mideast. He said Iraq, with its oil wealth, prior British tutelage and
long repression under Saddam Hussein, was the right place to start
moving the Mideast toward an open political system.

Audiences lapped it up. At the Harvard Club in New York last spring,
guests crowded the main hall beneath a huge elephant head, sipping
cocktails and waiting for a word with the historian before his speech.
On a day when Baghdad was falling to U.S. forces, one woman wanted to
know if the American victory would make Arabs more violent. Mr. Lewis
politely deflected the question.

When the throng shifted, another interrogator pushed forward, this one
clearly intent on the possible next phase of America's remolding of
the Mideast. "Should we negotiate with Iran's ayatollahs?" asked Henry
Kissinger, drink in hand.

"Certainly not!" Mr. Lewis responded.

Up on the podium, Mr. Lewis lambasted the belief of some Mideast
experts at the State Department and elsewhere that Arabs weren't ready
for democracy -- that a "friendly tyrant" was the best the U.S. could
hope for in Iraq. "That policy," he quipped, "is called 'pro-Arab.' "

Others, like himself, believe Iraqis are heirs to a great
civilization, one fully capable, "with some guidance," of democratic
rule, he said. "That policy," he added with a rueful smile, "is called
'imperialism.' "

Write to Peter Waldman at peter.waldman@wsj.com

Updated February 3, 2004


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Updated February 3, 2004

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Earlier this week, in response to a message from Bob Butler on the
subject "A Role Playing Exercise," I suggested my own role-playing
exercise: If you were a President who knew the 4T paradigm and
believed it, what would you do differently?

This question was sort of answered by a Wall Street Journal article
on Tuesday. It shows how America has gone from a policy of compromise
and containment of problems to a policy to confront, defeat and
transform.

The article is below.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com


A Historian's Take on Islam Steers U.S. in Terrorism Fight

Bernard Lewis's Blueprint -- Sowing Arab Democracy -- Is Facing a
Test in Iraq

By PETER WALDMAN

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Bernard Lewis often tells audiences about an encounter he once had in
Jordan. The Princeton University historian, author of more than 20
books on Islam and the Middle East, says he was chatting with Arab
friends in Amman when one of them trotted out an argument familiar in
that part of the world.

"We have time, we can wait," he quotes the Jordanian as saying. "We
got rid of the Crusaders. We got rid of the Turks. We'll get rid of
the Jews."

Hearing this claim "one too many times," Mr. Lewis says, he politely
shot back, "Excuse me, but you've got your history wrong. The Turks
got rid of the Crusaders. The British got rid of the Turks. The Jews
got rid of the British. I wonder who is coming here next."

The vignette, recounted in the 87-year-old scholar's native British
accent, always garners laughs. Yet he tells it to underscore a
serious point. Most Islamic countries have failed miserably at
modernizing their societies, he contends, beckoning outsiders -- this
time, Americans -- to intervene.

Call it the Lewis Doctrine. Though never debated in Congress or
sanctified by presidential decree, Mr. Lewis's diagnosis of the
Muslim world's malaise, and his call for a U.S. military invasion to
seed democracy in the Mideast, have helped define the boldest shift in
U.S. foreign policy in 50 years. The occupation of Iraq is putting
the doctrine to the test.

For much of the second half of the last century, America viewed the
Mideast and the rest of the world through a prism shaped by George
Kennan, author of the doctrine of "containment." In a celebrated 1947
article in Foreign Affairs focused on the Soviet Union, Mr. Kennan
gave structure to U.S. policy in the Cold War. It placed the need to
contain Soviet ambitions above all else.

Terrorism has replaced Moscow as the global foe. And now America,
having outlasted the Soviets to become the sole superpower, no longer
seeks to contain but to confront, defeat and transform. How
successful it is at remolding Iraq and the rest of the Mideast could
have a huge impact on what sort of superpower America will be for
decades to come: bold and assertive -- or inward, defensive and cut
off.

As mentor and informal adviser to some top U.S. officials, Mr. Lewis
has helped coax the White House to shed decades of thinking about
Arab regimes and the use of military power. Gone is the notion that
U.S. policy in the oil-rich region should promote stability above all,
even if it means taking tyrants as friends. Also gone is the
corollary notion that fostering democratic values in these lands
risks destabilizing them. Instead, the Lewis Doctrine says fostering
Mideast democracy is not only wise but imperative.

After Sept. 11, 2001, as policy makers fretted urgently about how to
understand and deal with the new enemy, Mr. Lewis helped provide an
answer. If his prescription is right, the U.S. may be able to blunt
terrorism and stabilize a region that, as the chief exporter of oil,
powers the industrial world and underpins the U.S.-led economic
order. If it's wrong, as his critics contend, America risks provoking
sharper conflicts that spark more terrorism and undermine energy
security.

After the terror attacks, White House staffers disagreed about how to
frame the enemy, says David Frum, who was a speechwriter for
President Bush. One group believed Muslim anger was all a
misunderstanding -- that Muslims misperceived America as decadent and
godless. Their solution: Launch a vast campaign to educate Muslims
about America's true virtue. Much of that effort, widely belittled in
the press and overseas, was quietly abandoned.

A faction led by political strategist Karl Rove believed
soul-searching over "why Muslims hate us" was misplaced, Mr. Frum
says. Mr. Rove summoned Mr. Lewis to address some White House
staffers, military aides and staff members of the National Security
Council. The historian recited the modern failures of Arab and Muslim
societies and argued that anti-Americanism stemmed from their own
inadequacies, not America's. Mr. Lewis also met privately with Mr.
Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. Mr. Frum says he
soon noticed Mr. Bush carrying a marked-up article by Mr. Lewis among
his briefing papers. A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Says Mr. Frum: "Bernard comes with a very powerful explanation for
why 9/11 happened. Once you understand it, the policy presents itself
afterward."

His exposition and the policies it helped set in motion heralded a
decisive break with the doctrine that prevailed during the Cold War.
Containment, Mr. Kennan said, had "nothing to do with outward
histrionics: with threats or blustering or superfluous gestures of
outward 'toughness.' " It rested on the somber calculation that even
the most aggressive enemy wouldn't risk its own demise by provoking
war with a powerful U.S.

------------------------------------------------------------\

AMERICA ABROAD

Some ideas that have shaped U.S. foreign policy:

1900: Open Door Policy rejects efforts to carve up China or restrict
its ports

1901-09: Gunboat Diplomacy used by Theodore Roosevelt to exert U.S.
influence and deter Europeans from Americas

1917: Making the world safe for democracy is Woodrow Wilson's
rationale for entering World War I

1919-20: Isolationism rises as U.S. shuns League of Nations Wilson
championed

1930: Protectionism reflected in Smoot-Hawley tariff bill

1932-3: Good Neighbor Policy of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt
forswears armed intervention in Latin America

1941: FDR looks to a world with Four Freedoms: of speech, of worship,
from want and from fear--meaning deep arms reduction

1947: Containment of Soviet power by counterforce is urged by George
F. Kennan; later, notion of mutually assured destruction helps keep
U.S.-Soviet relations peaceful

1947: Truman Doctrine, focused on Turkey and Greece, says U.S. will
back free peoples resisting armed minorities or outside pressures

1948: Secretary of State George C. Marshall implements Marshall Plan
that sets out to lift Europe from postwar poverty

1957: Eisenhower Doctrine offers U.S. aid to any Mideast country
threatened by communism

1960s: Domino theory and vow by John Kennedy to "bear any burden, pay
any price" for freedom motivate U.S. to fight Vietnam war

1969-76: Realpolitik of Henry Kissinger leads to opening with China,
detente with Soviets

Late 1970s: Human rights guides foreign policy in Carter years

Mid-1980s: Reagan Doctrine aids insurgents fighting leftist
governments in Central America, Africa and Afghanistan

1990: New World Order of superpower cooperation declared by George
H.W. Bush after Iraq invades Kuwait

2001-2003: "Lewis Doctrine" calls for seeding democracy in failed
Mideast states to defang terrorism

------------------------------------------------------------/

The Lewis Doctrine posits no such rational foe. It envisions not a
clash of interests or even ideology, but of cultures. In the Mideast,
the font of the terrorism threat, America has but two choices, "both
disagreeable," Mr. Lewis has written: "Get tough or get out." His
celebration, rather than shunning, of toughness is shared by several
other influential U.S. Mideast experts, including Fouad Ajami and
Richard Perle.

A central Lewis theme is that Muslims have had a chip on their
shoulders since 1683, when the Ottomans failed for the second time to
sack Christian Vienna. "Islam has been on the defensive" ever since,
Mr. Lewis wrote in a 1990 essay called "The Roots of Muslim Rage,"
where he described a "clash of civilizations," a concept later
popularized by Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington. For 300
years, Mr. Lewis says, Muslims have watched in horror and humiliation
as the Christian civilizations of Europe and North America have
overshadowed them militarily, economically and culturally.

"The question people are asking is why they hate us. That's the wrong
question," said Mr. Lewis on C-SPAN shortly after the Sept. 11
attacks. "In a sense, they've been hating us for centuries, and it's
very natural that they should. You have this millennial rivalry
between two world religions, and now, from their point of view, the
wrong one seems to be winning."

He continued: "More generally ... you can't be rich, strong,
successful and loved, particularly by those who are not rich, not
strong and not successful. So the hatred is something almost
axiomatic. The question which we should be asking is why do they
neither fear nor respect us?"

For Mr. Lewis and officials influenced by his thinking, instilling
respect or at least fear through force is essential for America's
security. In this formulation, the current era of American dominance,
sometimes called "Pax Americana," echoes elements of Pax Britannica,
imposed by the British Empire Mr. Lewis served as a young intelligence
officer after graduate school.

Eight days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with the Pentagon still
smoldering, Mr. Lewis addressed the U.S. Defense Policy Board. Mr.
Lewis and a friend, Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi -- now a member
of the interim Iraqi Governing Council -- argued for a military
takeover of Iraq to avert still-worse terrorism in the future, says
Mr. Perle, who then headed the policy board.

A few months later, in a private dinner with Dick Cheney at the vice
president's residence, Mr. Lewis explained why he was cautiously
optimistic the U.S. could gradually build democracy in Iraq, say
others who attended. Mr. Lewis also held forth on the dangers of
appearing weak in the Muslim world, a lesson Mr. Cheney apparently
took to heart. Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press" just before the
invasion of Iraq, Mr. Cheney said: "I firmly believe, along with men
like Bernard Lewis, who is one of the great students of that part of
the world, that strong, firm U.S. response to terror and to threats to
the United States would go a long way, frankly, toward calming things
in that part of the world."

The Lewis Doctrine, in effect, had become U.S. policy.

"Bernard Lewis has been the single most important intellectual
influence countering the conventional wisdom on managing the conflict
between radical Islam and the West," says Mr. Perle, who remains a
close adviser to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "The idea that a
big part of the problem is failed societies on the Arab side is very
important. That is not the point of view of the diplomatic
establishment."

Mr. Lewis declined to discuss his official contacts in Washington.
When told his political influence was a focus of this article, he
turned down an interview request. "It's still too early," he said.
"Let's see how things turn out" in Iraq. In speeches and articles, Mr.
Lewis continues to advocate assertive U.S. actions in the Mideast, but
his long-term influence is likely to turn on whether his
neoconservative acolytes retain their power in Washington in years to
come.

Born in London in 1916, Mr. Lewis was drawn to the study of history
and foreign languages by a deep curiosity about "what things looked
like from the other side," he said on C-SPAN in April. He earned
undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Mideast and Islamic history from
the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of
London, then spent five years working on Mideast issues for British
intelligence during World War II.

Among other things, his wartime service taught him the dangers of
appeasement, he told a seminar at the University of Toronto last
spring. He said speeches by foes of war in Iraq reminded him of the
arguments of peace activists in the 1930s. "All I can say is thank God
they didn't prevail then," he said. "If they had, Hitler would have
won the war and the Nazis would be ruling the world."

In 1945, Mr. Lewis returned to the University of London as a
professor, where he earned renown in Ottoman and Turkish history. He
was lured to Princeton in 1974 and soon became a mentor to many of
those now known as neoconservatives.

Mr. Perle recalls hearing Mr. Lewis speak in the early 1970s and
inviting him to lunch with Mr. Perle's then-boss, the late Sen. Henry
"Scoop" Jackson of Washington. "Lewis became Jackson's guru, more or
less," says Mr. Perle. Mr. Lewis also was an adviser to another
Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, when Mr. Moynihan was
ambassador to the United Nations in the 1970s. He formed lasting ties
with several young Jackson and Moynihan aides who went on to apply his
views to Iraq. Among them were Paul Wolfowitz, now deputy defense
secretary; Elliott Abrams, now National Security Council Mideast
chief; and Frank Gaffney Jr., a former Pentagon official. Talking with
Mr. Lewis, Mr. Perle says, was "like going to Delphi to see the
oracle."

Mr. Lewis retired from teaching in 1986 but has maintained ties with
many former students in high posts. One, Pentagon analyst Harold
Rhode, has played prominent roles as Mr. Wolfowitz's adviser on
Islamic affairs, as a planner of the Iraq occupation and as an aide to
Pentagon strategist Andrew Marshall. Mr. Lewis dedicated his latest
book, "The Crisis of Islam," to Mr. Rhode -- who says Mr. Lewis is
"like a father to me."

Mr. Lewis is also close to government circles in Israel and Turkey --
non-Arab lands he describes as the only successful modern states in
the region. He warmly praises Kemal Attaturk, who made Turkey a
secular republic after World War I by suppressing Islam. (He has also
said the Ottoman Turks' killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians in 1915
wasn't genocide but the brutal byproduct of war. It was a stance for
which a French court convicted Mr. Lewis in 1995 under France's
Holocaust-denial statute, imposing a token penalty.) Israeli experts
say Mr. Lewis's contacts with Turkish generals and politicians helped
cement Israeli-Turkish military ties in the 1990s.

Mr. Lewis became politically involved with Israel by the mid-1970s,
when he wrote an article for the American Jewish Committee publication
Commentary. At a time when Israel was dead-set against a Palestinian
state, he recommended that Israel "test the willingness" of the
Palestine Liberation Organization to negotiate a two-state solution to
the conflict.

But Mr. Lewis also wrote that Palestinian Arabs didn't have a
historical claim to a state, because Palestine hadn't existed as a
country prior to British rule in 1918. Israeli leaders jumped on that
part of his thesis. The late Prime Minister Golda Meir required her
cabinet to read the article, says Amnon Cohen of Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, who worked for the West Bank military government. He says
Mrs. Meir summoned Mr. Lewis and "they spoke for hours. Her aides
tried to end it, but Golda kept going and Bernard didn't want to be
rude. She was very much in favor of his point" that Palestine as a
nation had never existed.

Mr. Lewis began spending months at a time at the Dayan Center at Tel
Aviv University in the 1980s. He became the confidant of successive
Israeli prime ministers, including Ariel Sharon. Mr. Cohen organizes
an annual conference at Hebrew University in honor of Mr. Lewis's
birthday.

Mr. Wolfowitz took part by videoconference in 2002. Signaling the
administration's acceptance of Mr. Lewis's prescription for Iraq, Mr.
Wolfowitz said: "Bernard has taught how to understand the complex and
important history of the Middle East, and use it to guide us where we
will go next to build a better world for generations to come."

Mr. Lewis's work has many critics. Some academics say Mr. Lewis's
descriptions of Arab and Muslim failures epitomize what the late
Edward Said of Columbia University dubbed "Orientalism" -- the shading
of history to justify Western conquest. Mideast historian Juan Cole of
the University of Michigan praises Mr. Lewis's scholarly works earlier
in his career but says his more-popular writings of recent years tend
to caricature Muslims as poor losers, helpless and enraged.

Mr. Cole is among those who say Mr. Lewis's call for military
intervention to transform failed Muslim states risks making the
culture clash between Islamic lands and the West worse. So far, they
say, Iraq looks more like a breeding ground for terrorism than a
showcase of democracy -- not surprising, they say, given that the U.S.
invaded an old and proud civilization.

"Lewis has lived so long, he's managed to live into an era when some
people in Washington are reviving empire thinking," says Mr. Cole.
"He's never understood the realities of political and social
mobilization and the ways they make empire untenable."

Ilan Pappe of Haifa University says Mr. Lewis's view that political
cultures can be remade through force contributed to Israel's decision
to invade Lebanon in 1982. "It took the Israelis 18 years, and 1,000
soldiers killed, to abandon that strategy," Mr. Pappe says. "If the
Americans operate under the same assumptions in Iraq, they'll fail the
way the Israelis failed."

After Sept. 11, a book by Mr. Lewis called "What Went Wrong?" was a
best-seller that launched the historian, at age 85, as an unlikely
celebrity. Witty and a colorful storyteller, he hit the talk-show and
lecture circuits, arguing in favor of U.S. intervention in Iraq as a
first step toward democratic transformation in the Mideast.
Historically, tyranny was foreign to Islam, Mr. Lewis told audiences,
while consensual government, if not elections, has deep roots in the
Mideast. He said Iraq, with its oil wealth, prior British tutelage and
long repression under Saddam Hussein, was the right place to start
moving the Mideast toward an open political system.

Audiences lapped it up. At the Harvard Club in New York last spring,
guests crowded the main hall beneath a huge elephant head, sipping
cocktails and waiting for a word with the historian before his speech.
On a day when Baghdad was falling to U.S. forces, one woman wanted to
know if the American victory would make Arabs more violent. Mr. Lewis
politely deflected the question.

When the throng shifted, another interrogator pushed forward, this one
clearly intent on the possible next phase of America's remolding of
the Mideast. "Should we negotiate with Iran's ayatollahs?" asked Henry
Kissinger, drink in hand.

"Certainly not!" Mr. Lewis responded.

Up on the podium, Mr. Lewis lambasted the belief of some Mideast
experts at the State Department and elsewhere that Arabs weren't ready
for democracy -- that a "friendly tyrant" was the best the U.S. could
hope for in Iraq. "That policy," he quipped, "is called 'pro-Arab.' "

Others, like himself, believe Iraqis are heirs to a great
civilization, one fully capable, "with some guidance," of democratic
rule, he said. "That policy," he added with a rueful smile, "is called
'imperialism.' "

Write to Peter Waldman at peter.waldman@wsj.com

Updated February 3, 2004


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Earlier this week, in response to a message from Bob Butler on the
subject "A Role Playing Exercise," I suggested my own role-playing
exercise: If you were a President who knew the 4T paradigm and
believed it, what would you do differently?

This question was sort of answered by a Wall Street Journal article
on Tuesday. It shows how America has gone from a policy of compromise
and containment of problems to a policy to confront, defeat and
transform.

The article is below.

Sincerely,

John

John J. Xenakis
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com


A Historian's Take on Islam Steers U.S. in Terrorism Fight

Bernard Lewis's Blueprint -- Sowing Arab Democracy -- Is Facing a
Test in Iraq

By PETER WALDMAN

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Bernard Lewis often tells audiences about an encounter he once had in
Jordan. The Princeton University historian, author of more than 20
books on Islam and the Middle East, says he was chatting with Arab
friends in Amman when one of them trotted out an argument familiar in
that part of the world.

"We have time, we can wait," he quotes the Jordanian as saying. "We
got rid of the Crusaders. We got rid of the Turks. We'll get rid of
the Jews."

Hearing this claim "one too many times," Mr. Lewis says, he politely
shot back, "Excuse me, but you've got your history wrong. The Turks
got rid of the Crusaders. The British got rid of the Turks. The Jews
got rid of the British. I wonder who is coming here next."

The vignette, recounted in the 87-year-old scholar's native British
accent, always garners laughs. Yet he tells it to underscore a
serious point. Most Islamic countries have failed miserably at
modernizing their societies, he contends, beckoning outsiders -- this
time, Americans -- to intervene.

Call it the Lewis Doctrine. Though never debated in Congress or
sanctified by presidential decree, Mr. Lewis's diagnosis of the
Muslim world's malaise, and his call for a U.S. military invasion to
seed democracy in the Mideast, have helped define the boldest shift in
U.S. foreign policy in 50 years. The occupation of Iraq is putting
the doctrine to the test.

For much of the second half of the last century, America viewed the
Mideast and the rest of the world through a prism shaped by George
Kennan, author of the doctrine of "containment." In a celebrated 1947
article in Foreign Affairs focused on the Soviet Union, Mr. Kennan
gave structure to U.S. policy in the Cold War. It placed the need to
contain Soviet ambitions above all else.

Terrorism has replaced Moscow as the global foe. And now America,
having outlasted the Soviets to become the sole superpower, no longer
seeks to contain but to confront, defeat and transform. How
successful it is at remolding Iraq and the rest of the Mideast could
have a huge impact on what sort of superpower America will be for
decades to come: bold and assertive -- or inward, defensive and cut
off.

As mentor and informal adviser to some top U.S. officials, Mr. Lewis
has helped coax the White House to shed decades of thinking about
Arab regimes and the use of military power. Gone is the notion that
U.S. policy in the oil-rich region should promote stability above all,
even if it means taking tyrants as friends. Also gone is the
corollary notion that fostering democratic values in these lands
risks destabilizing them. Instead, the Lewis Doctrine says fostering
Mideast democracy is not only wise but imperative.

After Sept. 11, 2001, as policy makers fretted urgently about how to
understand and deal with the new enemy, Mr. Lewis helped provide an
answer. If his prescription is right, the U.S. may be able to blunt
terrorism and stabilize a region that, as the chief exporter of oil,
powers the industrial world and underpins the U.S.-led economic
order. If it's wrong, as his critics contend, America risks provoking
sharper conflicts that spark more terrorism and undermine energy
security.

After the terror attacks, White House staffers disagreed about how to
frame the enemy, says David Frum, who was a speechwriter for
President Bush. One group believed Muslim anger was all a
misunderstanding -- that Muslims misperceived America as decadent and
godless. Their solution: Launch a vast campaign to educate Muslims
about America's true virtue. Much of that effort, widely belittled in
the press and overseas, was quietly abandoned.

A faction led by political strategist Karl Rove believed
soul-searching over "why Muslims hate us" was misplaced, Mr. Frum
says. Mr. Rove summoned Mr. Lewis to address some White House
staffers, military aides and staff members of the National Security
Council. The historian recited the modern failures of Arab and Muslim
societies and argued that anti-Americanism stemmed from their own
inadequacies, not America's. Mr. Lewis also met privately with Mr.
Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. Mr. Frum says he
soon noticed Mr. Bush carrying a marked-up article by Mr. Lewis among
his briefing papers. A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Says Mr. Frum: "Bernard comes with a very powerful explanation for
why 9/11 happened. Once you understand it, the policy presents itself
afterward."

His exposition and the policies it helped set in motion heralded a
decisive break with the doctrine that prevailed during the Cold War.
Containment, Mr. Kennan said, had "nothing to do with outward
histrionics: with threats or blustering or superfluous gestures of
outward 'toughness.' " It rested on the somber calculation that even
the most aggressive enemy wouldn't risk its own demise by provoking
war with a powerful U.S.

------------------------------------------------------------\

AMERICA ABROAD

Some ideas that have shaped U.S. foreign policy:

1900: Open Door Policy rejects efforts to carve up China or restrict
its ports

1901-09: Gunboat Diplomacy used by Theodore Roosevelt to exert U.S.
influence and deter Europeans from Americas

1917: Making the world safe for democracy is Woodrow Wilson's
rationale for entering World War I

1919-20: Isolationism rises as U.S. shuns League of Nations Wilson
championed

1930: Protectionism reflected in Smoot-Hawley tariff bill

1932-3: Good Neighbor Policy of Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt
forswears armed intervention in Latin America

1941: FDR looks to a world with Four Freedoms: of speech, of worship,
from want and from fear--meaning deep arms reduction

1947: Containment of Soviet power by counterforce is urged by George
F. Kennan; later, notion of mutually assured destruction helps keep
U.S.-Soviet relations peaceful

1947: Truman Doctrine, focused on Turkey and Greece, says U.S. will
back free peoples resisting armed minorities or outside pressures

1948: Secretary of State George C. Marshall implements Marshall Plan
that sets out to lift Europe from postwar poverty

1957: Eisenhower Doctrine offers U.S. aid to any Mideast country
threatened by communism

1960s: Domino theory and vow by John Kennedy to "bear any burden, pay
any price" for freedom motivate U.S. to fight Vietnam war

1969-76: Realpolitik of Henry Kissinger leads to opening with China,
detente with Soviets

Late 1970s: Human rights guides foreign policy in Carter years

Mid-1980s: Reagan Doctrine aids insurgents fighting leftist
governments in Central America, Africa and Afghanistan

1990: New World Order of superpower cooperation declared by George
H.W. Bush after Iraq invades Kuwait

2001-2003: "Lewis Doctrine" calls for seeding democracy in failed
Mideast states to defang terrorism

------------------------------------------------------------/

The Lewis Doctrine posits no such rational foe. It envisions not a
clash of interests or even ideology, but of cultures. In the Mideast,
the font of the terrorism threat, America has but two choices, "both
disagreeable," Mr. Lewis has written: "Get tough or get out." His
celebration, rather than shunning, of toughness is shared by several
other influential U.S. Mideast experts, including Fouad Ajami and
Richard Perle.

A central Lewis theme is that Muslims have had a chip on their
shoulders since 1683, when the Ottomans failed for the second time to
sack Christian Vienna. "Islam has been on the defensive" ever since,
Mr. Lewis wrote in a 1990 essay called "The Roots of Muslim Rage,"
where he described a "clash of civilizations," a concept later
popularized by Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington. For 300
years, Mr. Lewis says, Muslims have watched in horror and humiliation
as the Christian civilizations of Europe and North America have
overshadowed them militarily, economically and culturally.

"The question people are asking is why they hate us. That's the wrong
question," said Mr. Lewis on C-SPAN shortly after the Sept. 11
attacks. "In a sense, they've been hating us for centuries, and it's
very natural that they should. You have this millennial rivalry
between two world religions, and now, from their point of view, the
wrong one seems to be winning."

He continued: "More generally ... you can't be rich, strong,
successful and loved, particularly by those who are not rich, not
strong and not successful. So the hatred is something almost
axiomatic. The question which we should be asking is why do they
neither fear nor respect us?"

For Mr. Lewis and officials influenced by his thinking, instilling
respect or at least fear through force is essential for America's
security. In this formulation, the current era of American dominance,
sometimes called "Pax Americana," echoes elements of Pax Britannica,
imposed by the British Empire Mr. Lewis served as a young intelligence
officer after graduate school.

Eight days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with the Pentagon still
smoldering, Mr. Lewis addressed the U.S. Defense Policy Board. Mr.
Lewis and a friend, Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi -- now a member
of the interim Iraqi Governing Council -- argued for a military
takeover of Iraq to avert still-worse terrorism in the future, says
Mr. Perle, who then headed the policy board.

A few months later, in a private dinner with Dick Cheney at the vice
president's residence, Mr. Lewis explained why he was cautiously
optimistic the U.S. could gradually build democracy in Iraq, say
others who attended. Mr. Lewis also held forth on the dangers of
appearing weak in the Muslim world, a lesson Mr. Cheney apparently
took to heart. Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press" just before the
invasion of Iraq, Mr. Cheney said: "I firmly believe, along with men
like Bernard Lewis, who is one of the great students of that part of
the world, that strong, firm U.S. response to terror and to threats to
the United States would go a long way, frankly, toward calming things
in that part of the world."

The Lewis Doctrine, in effect, had become U.S. policy.

"Bernard Lewis has been the single most important intellectual
influence countering the conventional wisdom on managing the conflict
between radical Islam and the West," says Mr. Perle, who remains a
close adviser to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "The idea that a
big part of the problem is failed societies on the Arab side is very
important. That is not the point of view of the diplomatic
establishment."

Mr. Lewis declined to discuss his official contacts in Washington.
When told his political influence was a focus of this article, he
turned down an interview request. "It's still too early," he said.
"Let's see how things turn out" in Iraq. In speeches and articles, Mr.
Lewis continues to advocate assertive U.S. actions in the Mideast, but
his long-term influence is likely to turn on whether his
neoconservative acolytes retain their power in Washington in years to
come.

Born in London in 1916, Mr. Lewis was drawn to the study of history
and foreign languages by a deep curiosity about "what things looked
like from the other side," he said on C-SPAN in April. He earned
undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Mideast and Islamic history from
the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of
London, then spent five years working on Mideast issues for British
intelligence during World War II.

Among other things, his wartime service taught him the dangers of
appeasement, he told a seminar at the University of Toronto last
spring. He said speeches by foes of war in Iraq reminded him of the
arguments of peace activists in the 1930s. "All I can say is thank God
they didn't prevail then," he said. "If they had, Hitler would have
won the war and the Nazis would be ruling the world."

In 1945, Mr. Lewis returned to the University of London as a
professor, where he earned renown in Ottoman and Turkish history. He
was lured to Princeton in 1974 and soon became a mentor to many of
those now known as neoconservatives.

Mr. Perle recalls hearing Mr. Lewis speak in the early 1970s and
inviting him to lunch with Mr. Perle's then-boss, the late Sen. Henry
"Scoop" Jackson of Washington. "Lewis became Jackson's guru, more or
less," says Mr. Perle. Mr. Lewis also was an adviser to another
Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, when Mr. Moynihan was
ambassador to the United Nations in the 1970s. He formed lasting ties
with several young Jackson and Moynihan aides who went on to apply his
views to Iraq. Among them were Paul Wolfowitz, now deputy defense
secretary; Elliott Abrams, now National Security Council Mideast
chief; and Frank Gaffney Jr., a former Pentagon official. Talking with
Mr. Lewis, Mr. Perle says, was "like going to Delphi to see the
oracle."

Mr. Lewis retired from teaching in 1986 but has maintained ties with
many former students in high posts. One, Pentagon analyst Harold
Rhode, has played prominent roles as Mr. Wolfowitz's adviser on
Islamic affairs, as a planner of the Iraq occupation and as an aide to
Pentagon strategist Andrew Marshall. Mr. Lewis dedicated his latest
book, "The Crisis of Islam," to Mr. Rhode -- who says Mr. Lewis is
"like a father to me."

Mr. Lewis is also close to government circles in Israel and Turkey --
non-Arab lands he describes as the only successful modern states in
the region. He warmly praises Kemal Attaturk, who made Turkey a
secular republic after World War I by suppressing Islam. (He has also
said the Ottoman Turks' killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians in 1915
wasn't genocide but the brutal byproduct of war. It was a stance for
which a French court convicted Mr. Lewis in 1995 under France's
Holocaust-denial statute, imposing a token penalty.) Israeli experts
say Mr. Lewis's contacts with Turkish generals and politicians helped
cement Israeli-Turkish military ties in the 1990s.

Mr. Lewis became politically involved with Israel by the mid-1970s,
when he wrote an article for the American Jewish Committee publication
Commentary. At a time when Israel was dead-set against a Palestinian
state, he recommended that Israel "test the willingness" of the
Palestine Liberation Organization to negotiate a two-state solution to
the conflict.

But Mr. Lewis also wrote that Palestinian Arabs didn't have a
historical claim to a state, because Palestine hadn't existed as a
country prior to British rule in 1918. Israeli leaders jumped on that
part of his thesis. The late Prime Minister Golda Meir required her
cabinet to read the article, says Amnon Cohen of Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, who worked for the West Bank military government. He says
Mrs. Meir summoned Mr. Lewis and "they spoke for hours. Her aides
tried to end it, but Golda kept going and Bernard didn't want to be
rude. She was very much in favor of his point" that Palestine as a
nation had never existed.

Mr. Lewis began spending months at a time at the Dayan Center at Tel
Aviv University in the 1980s. He became the confidant of successive
Israeli prime ministers, including Ariel Sharon. Mr. Cohen organizes
an annual conference at Hebrew University in honor of Mr. Lewis's
birthday.

Mr. Wolfowitz took part by videoconference in 2002. Signaling the
administration's acceptance of Mr. Lewis's prescription for Iraq, Mr.
Wolfowitz said: "Bernard has taught how to understand the complex and
important history of the Middle East, and use it to guide us where we
will go next to build a better world for generations to come."

Mr. Lewis's work has many critics. Some academics say Mr. Lewis's
descriptions of Arab and Muslim failures epitomize what the late
Edward Said of Columbia University dubbed "Orientalism" -- the shading
of history to justify Western conquest. Mideast historian Juan Cole of
the University of Michigan praises Mr. Lewis's scholarly works earlier
in his career but says his more-popular writings of recent years tend
to caricature Muslims as poor losers, helpless and enraged.

Mr. Cole is among those who say Mr. Lewis's call for military
intervention to transform failed Muslim states risks making the
culture clash between Islamic lands and the West worse. So far, they
say, Iraq looks more like a breeding ground for terrorism than a
showcase of democracy -- not surprising, they say, given that the U.S.
invaded an old and proud civilization.

"Lewis has lived so long, he's managed to live into an era when some
people in Washington are reviving empire thinking," says Mr. Cole.
"He's never understood the realities of political and social
mobilization and the ways they make empire untenable."

Ilan Pappe of Haifa University says Mr. Lewis's view that political
cultures can be remade through force contributed to Israel's decision
to invade Lebanon in 1982. "It took the Israelis 18 years, and 1,000
soldiers killed, to abandon that strategy," Mr. Pappe says. "If the
Americans operate under the same assumptions in Iraq, they'll fail the
way the Israelis failed."

After Sept. 11, a book by Mr. Lewis called "What Went Wrong?" was a
best-seller that launched the historian, at age 85, as an unlikely
celebrity. Witty and a colorful storyteller, he hit the talk-show and
lecture circuits, arguing in favor of U.S. intervention in Iraq as a
first step toward democratic transformation in the Mideast.
Historically, tyranny was foreign to Islam, Mr. Lewis told audiences,
while consensual government, if not elections, has deep roots in the
Mideast. He said Iraq, with its oil wealth, prior British tutelage and
long repression under Saddam Hussein, was the right place to start
moving the Mideast toward an open political system.

Audiences lapped it up. At the Harvard Club in New York last spring,
guests crowded the main hall beneath a huge elephant head, sipping
cocktails and waiting for a word with the historian before his speech.
On a day when Baghdad was falling to U.S. forces, one woman wanted to
know if the American victory would make Arabs more violent. Mr. Lewis
politely deflected the question.

When the throng shifted, another interrogator pushed forward, this one
clearly intent on the possible next phase of America's remolding of
the Mideast. "Should we negotiate with Iran's ayatollahs?" asked Henry
Kissinger, drink in hand.

"Certainly not!" Mr. Lewis responded.

Up on the podium, Mr. Lewis lambasted the belief of some Mideast
experts at the State Department and elsewhere that Arabs weren't ready
for democracy -- that a "friendly tyrant" was the best the U.S. could
hope for in Iraq. "That policy," he quipped, "is called 'pro-Arab.' "

Others, like himself, believe Iraqis are heirs to a great
civilization, one fully capable, "with some guidance," of democratic
rule, he said. "That policy," he added with a rueful smile, "is called
'imperialism.' "

Write to Peter Waldman at peter.waldman@wsj.com

Updated February 3, 2004


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Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

However, this gives to another role playing exercise:

Suppose you were President of the United States, or suppose that
George Bush or Al Gore or John Kerry or whoever is President, and
suppose that the President had read and understood the 4T paradigm,
and believes it to be true. What would he do differently?

Take the invasion of Iraq, for example. Suppose you're President,
and you are certain that a worldwide war and "clash of civilizations"
is unavoidable. Given that belief, is the invasion of Iraq a good
thing or a bad thing? You can argue it either way. On one side, the
invasion of Iraq might speed up the world war, which is bad, or might
exhaust our resources before we really need them, which is also a bad
thing. On the other side, invading Iraq gets rid of one powerful
future enemy, and also pre-positions our forces strategically for the
unavoidable future war.

This is the problem that Cassandra of Troy had. According to the
story, Apollo fell for Cassandra, and gave her the gift of being able
to foretell the future. Then he tried to nail her, but she rebuffed
him, and in revenge he made her gift useless by preventing anyone
from believing her predictions, even though she was invariable right.
Eventually she predicted a full-fledged 4T crisis war: She foretold
that the Trojan Horse would be filled with Greek soldiers. She tried
to tell everyone but no one believed her, and they brought the horse
inside the city walls, and the rest is (mythic) history.

I've been thinking on this. This is my fourth draft. I had decided that my first three got too rambling and unfocused. I'd write something quick and short. I had to continue the conversation. Alas, this is as long and rambling as the prior three.

For a prophet to attempt change, there seems to be two problems. First, you have to figure out what is going to happen. Cassandra had this part of the problem solved by magic. Second, you have to convince someone to do something about it. In the myth, this becomes impossible by magic.

While I'll try to get into your role playing exercise, my role is not that of powerful politician. I'm an INTP personality type, an introverted thinker, rather than a extroverted leader type. Thus, the best I can to is to come up with a good model of what is going on, and hope people might act on this knowledge. Thus, I focus on models like 'Waves of Civilization,' 'Cycles of History', 'Market Dominant Majorities' and 'Clash of Civilizations' rather than specific policies. Looking at past crises, there have been radicals who have anticipated the issues to be dealt with, have laid out the direction of change, but traditionally what happens is more fundamental even than the radicals anticipate this early in the unraveling/crisis cusp. I attempt to correct for this by erring on the side of boldness in presenting my views on what we are about to get into.

Specifics for Iraq of a few years back...

I would have tried to implement a policy that could be sustainable through a crisis, rather than deal with Iraq as a one time incident. I believe autocratic tyrants with WMD can be contained. US doctrine for WMD is use only when faced with a conventional threat that cannot otherwise be met. I anticipate most tyrants will use similar doctrines, thus using force against a WMD wielding tyrant is more apt to increase risk of use than make the world a safer place. I also think, as technology advances, that preventing tyrants from acquiring WMD is going to become difficult to impossible.

I am more concerned with reactionary fundamentalist terrorists than military dictators. I would have committed security forces accordingly.

I figure cooperation among the developed countries is more important than Iraq. NATO and the UN are more significant than Saddam. During the Clinton years, the global community was stumbling towards a policy of intervention when failed states generate genocide, ethnic cleansing, famine, or similar massive human rights violations. While the UN might focus on the human rights aspects of failed states, the ethnic, religious, territorial, cultural and economic aspects are not far beneath the surface. Bush 43 shifted the emphasis from protecting human rights, consensus, and cooperation to unilateral preemptive use of force.

I do not see the unilateral preemptive approach as sustainable, as a long term policy for resolving the crisis. The US alone does not have the resources to pacify and nation build every potential failed state. This will take a global effort and the equivalent of a war time economy.

In short, focus more energy on Afghanistan and Al Qaida. Contain Saddam. Build a world policy for resolving failed states. Use the political kickback from September 11th to build alliances and international consensus, rather than to destroy them.

A larger question might be asked. At this point, should we be trying to avoid a crisis, or win it. Someone asked if Amy Chua was a 'conservative'. Well, yes and no. Let me propose extending the two dimensional line somewhat, from right to left, reactionary, establishment, compromiser, then radical.

On the far right, we have the Agricultural Age tyrants, Bin Ladin and Saddam, rejecting democracy and other Industrial Age limits on absolute power. Bin Ladin is openly fighting to maintain an Islamic Agricultural Age value system, to prevent the development of a modern Middle East. While Saddam was not a classic hereditary Agricultural Age king, he follows the fascist - communist - military dictatorship pattern. Many leaders have attempted to embrace modern technology and economy while rejecting Industrial Age political structures in favor of absolute power. While we have two flavors of reactionary - religious and military - both are reactionary. Neither leader, nor any of their ilk, can possibly lead to a satisfactory resolution to the crisis.

Next major step would be The Establishment. On this scale, the US Red and Blue world views are so close together as to be indistinguishable. Both US parties have a policy of maintaining US prosperity, using force to defend against terror, with nation building where 'terrorist' governments must be removed from power. The poverty and ethnic strife of the Third World is remote, far away, and must not be allowed to impact the US economy. While generally not overtly imperialist, the establishment must maintain the expectations of the First World, and is not overly concerned about improving the situation in the Thrid World.

I would put Amy Chua next. Her perspective is that fundamental shifts must be made to avoid revolution and catastrophe. She would keep the dominant ethnic minorities in power, but institute reforms to avoid the crisis. I would classify Chua as a compromiser, similar to the congressmen who tried to avoid the US Civil War, and did manage to avoid it for a time.

Well to the left would be Arundhati Roy. She takes the perspective of the impoverished Third World majorities, and is advocating nonviolent revolution. If crises are driven by radicals who perceive injustice and strive to fix things, I am watching for people like Roy.

I am not yet seeing much in the way of radical violence at a global scale. At the moment, Al Qaida is doing most of the exporting of violence. As they are dedicated to a perversion of religious values, are (supposedly) attempting to return to more traditional culture, I would rank them as reactionary, to the right of the establishment. However, the repressed majorities in many failed states have resorted to genocide and ethnic cleansing. The underlying economic tensions are going to lead the repressed majorities to seek change. The choice is between reactionary change and radical change. I can't agree with everything Roy is saying or doing, but at this point in the unraveling / crisis cusp, I would rather see radicals with a new vision of the future and nonviolent means of reaching said future, rather than reactionaries striving to use violence to maintain agricultural age values and totalitarian government.

(This is not to say all religious values are evil. There is much to be admired in the old religions. It is quite possible that in the long run, the core values found in religion might help find positive resolution to crisis. Still, I won't let the good in people like Jesus Christ get in the way of my opinions of Bin Ladin.)

Mind you, there are lots of live possibilities. I see radical nonviolence, radical violence and reactionary violence as occurring at the same time, and blurring together. Reactionary nonviolence seems less likely. Those embracing the old value systems are less likely to be followers of Thoreau, Gandhi and King.

So, at one level, we have the reactionaries and establishment locked in a violent struggle. The Establishment originally declared they are not going to look at underlying issues, but there is an absolute need to nation build after overthrowing a government. Thus, in Afghanistan and Iraq at least, the underlying issues are being met head on. Can democratic structures overcome the economic, political and ethnic difficulties of these two states? Will the resultant states produce a solid economy and empower all the varied ethnic groups? Will Chua like compromises and concessions appease the oppressed majorities, or will the radicals demand more?

Roy is actively fighting the Iraqi Reconstruction. She is seeing a few US companies as getting the bulk of the contracts, and setting themselves up as market dominant minorities. She is seeing an element of imperialism, with military conquest leading to a zone of influence where the conquering nation and its agents gain political and economic power. I can quite agree that imperialism and dominant minorities are problems to be addressed, but there is also the basic question of whether one can build a better alternative. If Haliburton doesn't end up running a peaceful and prosperous Iraq, who else can get the job done?

But that's one other thing I'd do different. Bush 43 is pushing the theme that if our people are dying to bring peace and prosperity to Iraq, shouldn't our people make the profits? I would say no. We must avoid not only imperialism, but the appearance of imperialism. We must empower the various ethnic groups, and avoid setting up even the perception of ourselves as a 'market dominant minority' controling and profiting.

Or, if I were willing to play a double game, could the US act in such a way to empower and enable Roy and her non-violent movement? Would it be possible to demonstrate that non-violent radical change works, while reactionary violent change is counter productive? I'll leave this as an abstract question. I hardly believe Bush is steering contracts towards Haliburton as a means to empower Roy and her ilk. In previous for-fun role playing games, I've seen players being clever. I don't think Bush 43 is being clever. (My characters in political role playing games hate clever politics... but that's another story.)

I'm not sure entirely where I belong at this point. I don't see Chua convincing the establishment to moderate policies such that the radicals will be happy. I don't entirely agree with the radicals, but I would like to see a perspective that embraces the true underlying causes dominate. I see the Gray Champion as eventually falling in somewhere between Chua and Roy. He or she will have to address the concerns of both, while dragging the establishment along, perhaps kicking and screaming.

The ultimate resolution of recent crises generally involved the total destruction of the establishment. Both Radical and Establishment factions believed their ability to dish it out would exceed the other side's ability to take it. This belief was clung to well beyond the point of rationality. Think in terms of Atlanta 1865 and Berlin 1945. Thus, I keep repeating the phrase, 'terrorist delievery of weapons of mass destruction.'

I'm not entirely happy with this post. I'm not confident I've role played Xenakis' scenario sufficiently. Still, after 3 attempts, I figure I'd best post something.