tied “War News.” It shows four middle-aged working men in arndiner, huddled around a Philco radio. When I see those men,rnI see my family—ordinary people who voted for Roosevelt duringrnthe Depression and who then, a few years later, spent eachrnevening wondering if their sons were dead on some Pacific island.rnAnd never did they cease to worship Roosevelt.rnBut World War II, even more than the Civil War, remainsrnthe holy war of the American establishment—the event thatrngave legitimacy to arrangements of power absolutely opposedrnto the arrangements established by the Constitution. It not onlyrncompleted the consolidation of domestic power in Washington,rnbut turned Washington into the capital of an enormousrnempire, which itself consolidated during the Cold War. Ofrncourse consolidation is never quite complete, and though therernare no more wodds to conquer, there are still a few parts of thernworld we have not fully subdued.rnAmericans do not like words like “conquest” and “empire,”rnso these terms are not part of the official vocabulary. After all,rnour rulers led us into war by telling us that the Kaiser, Hitler, thernJapanese, and the Soviets were bent on “world conquest.” Sornwe speak of “leadership,” “defense,” and “promoting democracy.”rnEverything we do, everywhere, is “defense.” Even thernDepartment of War has been rechristened the Department ofrnDefense.rnAmerican military action is now defensive by definition. Nornmatter how many troops we place abroad, no matter how farrnfrom home, no matter how many people we kill in their ownrnhomelands with advanced weaponry they cannot hope tornmatch or resist, we are merely “defending” ourselves. Whyrncan’t those foreigners understand this?rnIt is odd that we attach such opprobrium to “isolationism.”rnWe Americans are a psychically isolated people who, in ourrndealings with the rest of the world, are peculiarly uninterestedrnin other people. We have very little curiosity about how thernworld looks from other places. When we fight a war, we do notrneven ask ourselves why there is another side. That may havernsomething to do with why we are becoming so widely hated—rna fact that seems to surprise us.rnOn the one hand, we are told that military interventionrnabroad is in our “national interest.” But if we conclude, afterrnweighing costs and benefits, that intervention is actually againstrnour interests, we are accused of “isolationism” for failing to supportrnit anyway. It seems that intervention is our duty, no matterrnwhat it costs us.rnWe have come a long way from “the common defense ofrnthe United States.” This originally meant that if one ofrnthe 13 states were attacked by a foreign power, the other statesrnwould consider themselves under attack too, and act accordingly.rnForeign policy is a lot less literal-minded than it used to be.rnWho knows what “vital interests” are? We are told that our “vitalrninterests” are at stake everywhere in the wodd. George Bushrnspecified Iraq, but never explained why—or rather, explainedrntoo often: the reasons Bush gave for the war included the evil ofrnaggression, oil, and “jobs.”rnTo be literal-minded about it, a “vital interest” is one onrnwhich your survival depends. In that sense, the survival of thernUnited States has never been threatened except by Russianrnmissiles, which came into existence, ironically, because of thernUnited States entry into World War II on the Soviet side. Anyrn”threat” posed by Germany and Japan in 1940 was as nothingrncompared with the threat posed by our Soviet “ally” ten yearsrnlater. I doubt that even Franklin Roosevelt would have enteredrnthat war if he could have foreseen its results.rnSo why did we fight World War II? In terms of real interests,rnit is hard to explain—especially if we mean the interests of ordinaryrnAmericans, as opposed to a ruling elite and special interests.rnWe are given the ex post facto reason that the Nazi regimernwas absolute evil, which puts foreign policy into the realm ofrnmetaphysics. That could hardly have been the real reason. Myrngrandfather gave my father an earthier explanation: “You can’trnhave two bulls in the same pasture.” That may not be a sufficientrnreason either, but at least it makes some sort of sense.rnSwitzedand has recently faced what some people have calledrnits greatest foreign policy crisis since World War II: the demandrnfor the return of Nazi-confiscated wealth, deposited in Swissrnbanks, to its rightful owners. If this is its worst crisis over the lastrnhalf-century, one can only envy Switzerland. That little countryrnis also under renewed attack for having stayed out of the war.rnYet it is none the worse for wear for its notorious neutrality; itrnspared the lives of tens of thousands of its sons. You mightrnthink it deserves some credit, or at least human consideration,rnfor that. But one hardly dares to ask in public: Why should thernSwiss have fought? Apparently the Swiss government actuallyrnidentified its national interest with the good of its people.rnWhatever others may say, I honor Switzerland for keeping itsrnsanity. It remains a serenely civilized country. But of course wernseldom ask whether the Swiss may know something we do not.rnFor example, if Switzerland, in the midst of belligerents, couldrnremain aloof from the war, surely the United States might haverndone so. Switzerland has only mountains to buffer it; we haverntwo oceans. Why not use them?rnToday the American government is still looking for trouble.rnIt is currently trying to expand NATO to include countries borderingrnon Russia, but not Russia itself; and Mrs. Albrightrnhas tried to explain to the Russians that this policy is not anti-rnRussian. Certainly not. No more than it would be anti-rnAmerican for the Russians to form a military alliance withrnCanada and Mexico, and to place troops on our borders. Againrnour rulers show the American trait of incomprehension ofrnother perspectives.rnRussia is still a potentially dangerous country, with a hugernnuclear arsenal. What on earth is gained by provoking it now?rnIts communist ideology is dead; its problems are local and internal;rnit has no natural reason to be our enemy anymore. Yetrnour rulers want to give it a reason gratuitously. Are they insane?rnIf not, they are criminally irresponsible.rnI used to try to understand the sophisticated rationale forrnAmerican foreign policy that I was sure existed. It took a longrntime for the truth to dawn on me: American foreign policy is anrninsult to the intelligence. Yes, highly sophisticated people try tornshape it, and some of their machinations and rationalizationsrnare extremely clever; I’ll give Henry Kissinger that much. But itrnis as futile to seek integrated rationality in American foreignrnpolicy as to seek it in our government’s domestic policy. Bothrnare chaotic. If they have a common denominator, it is the habitrnof accumulating power, of starting and continuing on risky andrnexpensive courses whose final consequences no man can foresee.rnWhether your literary taste runs to Hayek or Hamlet, the lessonrnis the same: the future cannot be controlled. MichaelrnOakeshott has shown the inherent futility of “rationalism inrnpolitics.” Rationalism of the kind Oakeshott described may bernJUNE 1997/19rnrnrn