Michael Vlahos: Has the American narrative authored its own undoing?
[Michael Vlahos is principal professional staff at the
National Security Analysis Department of The Johns
Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.]
We are losing our wars in the Muslim world because our
vision of history is at odds with reality. This is a
well-established condition of successful societies, a
condition that inevitably grows more worrisome with
time and continuing success. In fact, what empires
have most in common is how their sacred narratives
come to rule their strategic behavior—and rule it
badly. In America’s case, our war narrative works
against us to promote our deepest fear: the end of
modernity.1
A nation’s evolving storyline gives concrete form to
an accumulation of success and translates this into an
assurance of transcendence. Those that claim to be the
grandest societies in their own world inevitably style
themselves as empires, not simply as large kingship
domains exalted by good fortune but as regnant
successors to a universal ideal. Thus the Ottoman
vision as successor to the Roman Empire of Justinian,
and of the contemporary Hapsburgs as the true heirs of
the Western Roman Empire. Thus also Louis XIV, so too
the Czars, as sons of Byzantium. This self-styling
grows into a collective conviction that the
once-national, now-imperial, soon-to-be-universal
narrative is not only an inevitable story but is
actually coterminous with history itself.
Later, when threats seem to come out of nowhere,
society is surprised, affronted, and deeply
apprehensive because the presence of such threats
symbolically suggests that the narrative might be
false. All threats are then mortal threats—not because
they put at risk the viability of the society itself
but because they threaten the sacred symbolism of
history that has become inseparable from national
identity. They are a chilling announcement that the
story is about to meet a bad end, or worse—be replaced
by someone else’s story.
Empires in their later stages therefore see threats
not only as physical but also as symbolic, and the
symbolic threat is always the more important, for it
represents existential value—identity itself—and
requires a necessarily existential response. It is not
simply the actual threat that must be countered: the
experience of meeting the threat must reclaim the
divine certainty of the imperial narrative for all to
see.
When such attacks come, they come for a reason. Their
very existence reveals that the imperial-sacred
narrative has become a war objective in its own right.
Indeed, because the narrative has become enshrined as
a sort of national tabernacle, successfully attacking
it can reap as many rewards for an enemy in terms of
authority as any material gains.
The imperial narrative of the grand nation thus
becomes its double-edged sword. In day-to-day
politics, its celebration reminds the people of their
strength and unity. Even more important for external
imperial relations, narrative becomes the badge of
legitimacy as lead nation.
But the imperial narrative also makes the grand nation
vulnerable to symbolic attack, a weak strategic
position because the empire must maintain not only its
material interests but also the perfect integrity of
the tabernacle—and as a symbolic edifice, the imperial
narrative is brittle and relatively easy to attack.
Moreover, if it is attacked successfully, regaining
lost authority requires disproportionate effort so
great as to risk being self-defeating. Even empires
that are truly decadent and surely should know
better—for whom even the smallest shock might unleash
an historical avalanche—have put defense of the
narrative above reality. Both Austria-Hungary and the
Ottomans did just that in 1914....
Read entire article at American Conservative
National Security Analysis Department of The Johns
Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.]
We are losing our wars in the Muslim world because our
vision of history is at odds with reality. This is a
well-established condition of successful societies, a
condition that inevitably grows more worrisome with
time and continuing success. In fact, what empires
have most in common is how their sacred narratives
come to rule their strategic behavior—and rule it
badly. In America’s case, our war narrative works
against us to promote our deepest fear: the end of
modernity.1
A nation’s evolving storyline gives concrete form to
an accumulation of success and translates this into an
assurance of transcendence. Those that claim to be the
grandest societies in their own world inevitably style
themselves as empires, not simply as large kingship
domains exalted by good fortune but as regnant
successors to a universal ideal. Thus the Ottoman
vision as successor to the Roman Empire of Justinian,
and of the contemporary Hapsburgs as the true heirs of
the Western Roman Empire. Thus also Louis XIV, so too
the Czars, as sons of Byzantium. This self-styling
grows into a collective conviction that the
once-national, now-imperial, soon-to-be-universal
narrative is not only an inevitable story but is
actually coterminous with history itself.
Later, when threats seem to come out of nowhere,
society is surprised, affronted, and deeply
apprehensive because the presence of such threats
symbolically suggests that the narrative might be
false. All threats are then mortal threats—not because
they put at risk the viability of the society itself
but because they threaten the sacred symbolism of
history that has become inseparable from national
identity. They are a chilling announcement that the
story is about to meet a bad end, or worse—be replaced
by someone else’s story.
Empires in their later stages therefore see threats
not only as physical but also as symbolic, and the
symbolic threat is always the more important, for it
represents existential value—identity itself—and
requires a necessarily existential response. It is not
simply the actual threat that must be countered: the
experience of meeting the threat must reclaim the
divine certainty of the imperial narrative for all to
see.
When such attacks come, they come for a reason. Their
very existence reveals that the imperial-sacred
narrative has become a war objective in its own right.
Indeed, because the narrative has become enshrined as
a sort of national tabernacle, successfully attacking
it can reap as many rewards for an enemy in terms of
authority as any material gains.
The imperial narrative of the grand nation thus
becomes its double-edged sword. In day-to-day
politics, its celebration reminds the people of their
strength and unity. Even more important for external
imperial relations, narrative becomes the badge of
legitimacy as lead nation.
But the imperial narrative also makes the grand nation
vulnerable to symbolic attack, a weak strategic
position because the empire must maintain not only its
material interests but also the perfect integrity of
the tabernacle—and as a symbolic edifice, the imperial
narrative is brittle and relatively easy to attack.
Moreover, if it is attacked successfully, regaining
lost authority requires disproportionate effort so
great as to risk being self-defeating. Even empires
that are truly decadent and surely should know
better—for whom even the smallest shock might unleash
an historical avalanche—have put defense of the
narrative above reality. Both Austria-Hungary and the
Ottomans did just that in 1914....