On (double) bottom

On (double) bottom
Editor's Column


Publication date: April 17, 2003

And again the “Civil Debates” took place. And again about Iraq, as if there was nothing more to talk about. Is Putin right? What are Russia's prospects in the next "brave new world"? Are we on the same path as America? Or maybe we’ll be on a better path with Europe? What kind of nasty thing do the wise Chinese cherish? How is it on the front of the fight against global terrorism?..

I will not touch on all these extremely important topics. I will dwell only on some of the theses that have been voiced, which make it possible to use the Iraq war not as a reason for current constructions, but as (which for me seems much more valuable) an academic example .

1. Sergei Markov noted at the very beginning of the Debate that our military experts screwed up their forecasts. Indeed, the war went strangely : the Americans started it for peace, but ended it for health. However, we should not throw stones at our military (their garden has already turned into a “rock garden”). It is more reasonable to assume that the United States won not entirely by military means. By the way, the same thing happened in Afghanistan .

2. Gleb Pavlovsky pointed out two alternative options that Russia had at the beginning of the war: the “Stalinist” option ( “alliance with the Anglo-American coalition and entry into Iraq with it” ) and the “De-Gaulle” option - not to strive to dominate the world until the dominance of the central government is established in the territory of its own country. In the current conditions, the “Stalinist” option was regarded by Pavlovsky as “madness.” We can also add here the speech of Kurginyan, who pointed out the inappropriateness of strong gestures in the absence of real force.

3. According to Irina Khakamada , “the task of the expert community is not to continue dialogue on a global topic, but to ensure diplomatic routine.” The States, as Khakamada believes, will have to legitimize the new government of Iraq: after all, “nobody excluded Iraq from the UN.” And within the framework of the supposed diplomatic games, Russia can snatch something... Hmm, in recent months, ideas about legitimacy have changed slightly, so Khakamada, at first glance, is not entirely right. Nevertheless, her thesis is valuable in that legitimacy is introduced as one of the significant factors - along with secret diplomacy (as a result of which the forecasts of naive warriors did not come true) and force .

4. As for the dynamics of the listed factors, Modest Kolerov pointed to it: “A real creation of a mechanism for limiting sovereignties is taking place” and Russia’s task is “at least to get the broth from the eggs,” that is, to be able to use this mechanism at its own borders. Kolerov already voiced this idea in more detail a little earlier .

So I turned experts and politicians into social philosophers. In order not to spoil the impressions, I will not quote anyone else, but will get to the point. The Iraq War shows us, firstly, three levels of politics: the level of legitimacy , the level of force and the level of compromise . Secondly, there has been a dangerous shift in the boundaries between these levels - dangerous, first of all, for the United States itself (I, however, do not insist that this danger is serious).

Strength is the main part of this triad. In a formal society, force is a necessary condition for the legitimacy of power and government decisions. In an informal community, authority can also be determined by force, but this is not necessary. The basis of informal authority is, first of all, trust (student to teacher, child to mother, etc.). In the formal unification of people, “Hobbesianism” triumphs: the guarantor of compliance with agreements (from which formal ties are built) is the power of the sovereign; the imperious voluntaristic decision that Schmitt loved to talk about is also impossible without force - otherwise it will not be a decision, but that very inappropriate strong gesture that Kurginyan spoke about. It remains to add that modern large states, where citizens (and if we leave euphemisms aside, then not citizens, but subjects ) fundamentally cannot personally know their rulers, are inevitably “Hobbesian societies.”

Nevertheless, a person cannot refuse (atavistic?) “simple human feelings” - and constantly tries to give the formal the appearance of an informal: to talk about marriage in terms of love, about law in terms of morality, in general - about the virtual in terms of the real. For example, about state power in terms of informal authority. A person instinctively strives to trust the authorities - even though rational considerations do not recommend this. But rational considerations in themselves are a formality: struggling with the formal within oneself, a person gets caught in the network of external forms. Therefore, politically correct chatter about “international law”, “human rights”, “democracy”, “state interests”, etc. inevitable. Without it, formalized humanity will fall into mass neurosis.

The American administration tried to act honestly: babble about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and human rights was drowned in the roar of the main argument: “It’s your fault that I want to eat.” And what happened? Soldiers threw grenades at their own commanders, and fat-bellied American women ran around New York with anti-war posters.

Secret diplomacy, however, worked clearly: there were no border dynamics here. Strength is the starting point in secret negotiations, where there is no need to hide behind politically correct euphemisms. Judging by the imminent cessation of hostilities, a compromise has been reached (by whom and with whom is a question for conspiracy theorists, but for us the obvious things are enough to discuss). Now the Americans are urgently restoring their desecrated legitimacy. To begin with, they save ordinary Ryans (in order to cure their own subjects from their neurosis), then they will proceed to the “rules of international law” and additional demonstrations of force, without which the law loses its PR persuasiveness.

Kirill Yakimets