Why Washington Can’t Think

Ralph Peters, himself a retired military man, is one of America’s brightest and most unorthodox military observers (see comments on two of his previous books, Beyond Terror and Fighting For The Future in my booklist). I just got from my local library his newest book, Wars of Blood and Faith: The Conflicts That Will Shape the Twenty-First Century. The foreword alone is as full of profound insights as many full-length academic tomes.

But in the present circumstances, with Congress grappling with a series of massive taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street to correct problems that were largely created by Congress itself, I was drawn to the following paragraph in the forward:

“We are led by vultures, not eagles”

“In the middle of the last century, a grand hullabaloo followed the publication of a critique of our educational system, Why Johnny Can’t Read. We are due for a companion volume, Why Washington Can’t Think. The advertising copy for such a book might note that, despite Washington’s status as the richest, most powerful capital city in history, where advanced degrees are ubiquitous, innovative thought not only doesn’t exist, but has become distinctly unwelcome. Washington is incestuous and elitist, as closed to outside ideas as a paranoid religious cult. No matter their party affiliation, insiders at work in government or the media arise from mini-dynasties, attend the same schools and universities, share a disdain for military service, play musical chairs with the same government positions, rotate through the same cluster of (wildly misnamed) think tanks, attend the same usual-suspects policy briefings, read the same books and newspapers, live in the same neighborhoods – and dread the embarrassment threatening anyone who challenges Washington’s dysfunctional, but comfortable, way of interpreting the world.”

I am reminded of the astonishment among members of Congress that there would be such an unexpected backlash against their bailing out Wall Street. Emails to members of Congress were reported to be running about 100-1 against the initial bailout plan. They could only have been astonished at this reaction if they were completely out of touch with the mood of the country.

I am reminded of the astonishment in Washington that we were not greeted in the streets as liberators in Iraq when we overthrew their government. Washington insiders could only have been astonished at this if they were completely ignorant of the long history of the Middle East.

I am reminded of the astonishment of Washington that Russia has reverted to a bellicose, expansionist, authoritarian form of government under Putin. They could only have been astonished at this evolution if they were completely ignorant of the Russian national psyche, humiliated at being demoted from a world power and with memories of German World War II aggression still fresh in their minds.

It seems to me that events in recent years support Peter’s assessment of our governing establishment as hopelessly out of touch with the real world, deluded by their comfortable ideologies (both liberal and conservative), and largely ignorant of history or the lessons history can teach.