documentYet we also know — or at least we believe — that in the long run a more democratic world is a better if not always a safer worldHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
and that it would be immoral as well as impractical to stand in the way of the changes that need to come.
documentWe do not agree among ourselves about the proper sequence of these changes. We know that in the short runHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
democratic voting procedures may not produce liberal governments. We know that demagogues and aspiring despots can use the language and even the mechanisms of democracy to build personal dictatorships (Napoleon III and Hugo Chavez
documentFew assumptions can lead you into as much trouble this quickly. Even in 1989-90House Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
those countries were the exception and not the rule. Think Ukraine
documentThe revolutions that ‘work’ are the exceptionsHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
not the rule. The peaceful revolutions in the Central European countries as Soviet power melted in 1989-1990 are a unique exception to the rule that most revolutions either turn nasty or fail. When many American idealists think about revolu...
documentMost revolutions don’t work like this at all. Many of them failHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
with the old despots crushing dissent or making only cosmetic changes to the old system. (This happened in Austria in 1848 and something very like it may be happening in Egypt today.) Others move into radicalism
documentModern history teaches two great lessons about revolution: that revolutions are inevitableHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
and that a large majority of revolutions either fail or go bad. Americans almost instinctively look at revolutions in terms of our own past: the 1688 Glorious Revolution that made Parliament more powerful than the King in England
documentIf the desire of our realists to conduct foreign policy with foreign despots as if unprincipled cooperation with the bad guys could build a stable world is unrealisticHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
the idealism of our enthusiasts that every new foreign revolution will bring a millennium of democratic peace is absurd.
documentThere is another problem with realism. Like it or notHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
the United States is a revolutionary power. Whether our government is trying to overthrow foreign dictators is almost irrelevant; American society is the most revolutionary force on the planet. The Internet is more subversive than the CIA i...
documentMany Americans responded with the same generous enthusiasm to the South American revolutions against colonial rule. Once againHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
those revolutions failed to establish anything like liberal democratic rule.
documentPutting the dark economic outlook together with the problematic cultural and political situation makes optimism a tough position to hold. Without in any way scanting or minimizing the idealismHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
dedication and vision of the democrats rising in the Arab world today
documentBut the idealists who seek to replace them already have egg on their faces. “DaysHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
not weeks” is what they promised the President when he began to bomb for democracy in Libya. The democratic revolution in Egypt is looking less democratic by the day; it looks more and more as if the Army used public unrest to block the Mub...
documentNone of the experts look particularly smart at the moment. The ‘realists’ who counseled President Obama to forget George W. Bush’s support of Middle Eastern democracy and cultivate our relations with regional despots like Hosni MubarakHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
the Iranian mullahs and the younger Assad have been sent back to the benches in disgrace. Their counsel is now seen as both morally dubious and pragmatically unwise; the ‘realists’ would have put the US on the wrong side of history in the s...
documentAs for Afghanistan – that conflict has now lasted almost twice as long as the second world war. Western governments are also only beginning to come to terms with what may soon be required in Libya. Against this backgroundHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
there are very few takers for yet another military venture – this time in Syria.
documentMoney is not the only problemHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
however. Over the past 20 years it has become apparent that swiftly agreed-upon military actions can lead to entanglements that last for many years. There is still a Nato mission in Kosovo and an EU military mission in Bosnia
documentEven more significant in the long run is the American anxiety that budgetary constraintsHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
documentThe Gates speech effectively marks the end of the American ambition to turn Nato into the globalHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
military arm of a unified western world. The Americans have flirted with this idea
documentJust a few weeks agoHouse Oversight Committee — Epstein Estate Records (Nov 2025)1 pp.
that would have seemed a surprising conclusion. Supporters of “liberal interventionism” hailed the decision to bomb Colonel Gaddafis forces in Libya as evidence of a longed-for new era
