I would simply point to my earlier analysis
Today, the Dow is down 250-ish at noon Eastern; the Nasdaq is down about four percent. People are seeing this war for what it is, a diplomatic and battlefield disaster that will have huge economic consequences. Note that the Nikkei is up, indicating the Japanese know they can separate their economy from ours to some extent. See what I wrote a week ago. We are in very dangerous territory, since there is no way to get out of this without engaging in a savage battle against an army of roughly the same size as ours -- not a good formula for success in war.
As for the growing chorus of anti-Americans in the U.S. who say that it is unpatriotic to criticize and protest in the time of war, I give you the words of Nicias, the Athenian who was against the campaign that led to Athens' fall and spoke strongly against it even though he led the troops to his best after the city-state decided to fight:
"I affirm, then, that you leave many enemies behind you here to go there far away and bring more back with you. You imagine, perhaps, that the treaty [with Sparta] which you have made can be trusted; a treaty that will continue to exist nominally, as long as you keep quiet--for nominal it has become, owning to the practices of certain men here and at Sparta--but which in the event of a serious reverse in any quarter would not delay our enemies a moment in attacking us; first, because the convention was forced upon them by disaster and was less honorable to them than to us; and secondly, because in this very convention there are many points that are still disputed."
Nicias, from 2,500 years ago, could be describing the United States' situation with regard its two great foes of the late 20th century, China and Russia. Nicias then describes the problems of taking over a tribal region commanded by strong men as continues later in his speech:
"...while the Sicilians, even if conquered, are too far off and too numerous to be ruled without difficulty. Now it is folly to go against men who could not be kept under even if conquered, while failure would leave us in a very different position than that we occupied before the enterprise.... Instead, however, of being puffed up by the misfortunes of your adversaries [as the U.S. media and administration were before this war], you ought to think of breaking their spirit before giving yourselves up to confidence, and to understand that the one thought awakened if the Spartans by their disgrace is how they may even now, if possible, overthrow us and repair their dishonor...." [which the Spartans did and, at least economically, China aims to do to us]
"When I see such persons [who want to fight a war to increase their reknown and wealth, referring to Alcibiades of the war party] now sitting here... alarm seizes me; and I, in my turn summon any of the older men that may have such a person sitting next to him, not to let himself by checked by shame, for fear of being thought a coward if he does not vote for war, but remember how rarely success is gained by wishing and how often by forecast, to leave to them the mad dream of conquest, and as a true lover of his country, now threatened by the greatest danger in its history, to hold up his hand on the other side to vote that the Sicilians be left in the limits now existing between us--limits of which no one can complain.... and that for the future we do not enter into alliance, as we have been used to do, with people whom we must help in their need, and who can never help us in ours."
Four years later, Athens was defeated in the Peloponnesian War.
We desperately need to recognize that if there is a conquest to be made, it will be fought on an economic field, which requires vastly more educational and international development investment and far fewer bombs and missiles. Prosperity would have defeated Arab anti-American feelings eventually, but now we are up to our necks in a war that we may not be able to retreat from until my scenario of last Monday plays out and we are economically and politically isolated.
I'm off to the airport to San Francisco to moderate a panel for Invest Northern Ireland and to attend a Deloitte CEO summit. More from available hotspots.
Posted by Mitch Ratcliffe at March 24, 2003 08:25 AM | TrackBack