Incoherent Empire Revisited: Against Interventionism

Abstract

The author’s book Incoherent Empire was written in 2002–3 in a burst of anger at the malevolence and stupidity of Western foreign policy. The book did not primarily take an ethical stance against American breaches of the Geneva Conventions and defiance of United Nations resolutions, but rather took a Machiavellian view, judging the morality of actions by whether they may lead to better or worse outcomes. Revisiting the book more than decade later, its predictions of disastrous outcomes for the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq proved to be amazingly accurate. America and its allies failed notably to understand that social order is a prior condition for good government. Rule of law and political accountability may follow, but order is the prerequisite. This failure of understanding has had catastrophic consequences not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in Libya and Syria too. The conclusion is that there should be no further interventionism, with two possible exceptions: when action has been approved by international authorities such as the UN or ICC; and, on Machiavellian grounds, when favourable out comes can be realistically expected.