John Zmirak’s review of The Unnecessary War is an interesting read, but I was struck particularly by this passage:

The distopia promised by the Nazis, on the other hand, really was possible. A dominant race really could have enslaved and exploited weaker peoples on a vast scale, just as Hitler had promised. Whole nations could have been exterminated, as Europe’s Jews and the Roma nearly were. Entire peoples could have been consigned to slavery for centuries. The Mongols managed it. So have the Moslems.

Yet the Mongols achieved this, to the extent that they did, in an era before mass political mobilization and before the age of nationalism, and to a large degree they did not achieve it at all.  Despite the amusingly anachronistic mythology of Eisenstein films, Rus’ian princes readily submitted as tributaries to the Golden Horde and were not precocious Russian nationalists, but in return they were largely left to their own internal affairs.  The conversion of the Tatars to Islam had no significant effect on the religious or political culture of the Russians, no matter how much historians speculate about the effects of the Mongol Yoke on Russian political development.  Their subjects were not “slaves” of Mongol rulers. 

Without engaging in any romanticism about the Ottoman Empire before the late nineteenth century, it was with the advent of Turkish nationalism that the greatest horrors of the Armenian genocide and the expulsions and massacres of Greek Christian populations from Anatolia took place.  Despite having been subjugated for centuries, the subject Christian peoples of the Ottoman Empire did not put up with campaigns of massacre and deportation, but typically rebelled and gained their independence—why would they have not done the same when confronted with an even more methodical exterminationist ideology in Nazism?  Meanwhile, once the era of nationalism dawned Ottoman rule and whatever slavery came with it were utterly undermined.  If Ottoman rule over subject Christian peoples did not survive the introduction of Western-style nationalism into their politics, why on earth would we imagine that German domination of other peoples would have been any more lasting?  As far as I can see, there has never been a persuasive answer to this objection to the imagined enduring rule of Nazism in a counterfactual post-WWII world. 

The citation of the examples of Mongols and Muslims actually drives home how unpersuasive this argument is.  Once exposed to nationalism, subject peoples do not cooperate or submit to such foreign domination.

Dan wrote a response on his own blog to this Orlet post at AmSpec’s blog, and he made an interesting observation:

Part of the problem on the theoretical side is that too many of the best young minds in conservatism have followed Buckley’s example by shunning grad school and embracing journalism or the movement instead.

Meanwhile, I have recently been seeing responses to my argument that we should try to go or stay at home that go something like this, “Well, Larison hasn’t gone home, so this is worthless.”  This seems to me to be the real “paleo dilemma” and the dilemma for any traditional conservative in a highly mobile society: conservatives who don’t eschew pursuing professional and academic degrees are said to lack authenticity and credibility when they make arguments to go home, and the temperamental conservatives who don’t pursue such paths find themselves arrayed against institutions dominated entirely by people who valorize constant mobility and who embrace political and cultural values antithetical to everything the conservatives treasure.  Those who don’t shun grad school, even if they go and stay at home almost immediately after finishing, have little impact on “the theoretical side” because there seems to be an assumption that anyone who has spent that much time in academia cannot identify with or have anything to do with Middle Americans. 

At Eunomia, I defend paleos who are skeptical of Obama against the absurd criticisms of an over-enthusiastic Obamacon.  Ironically, until I was shocked back to my senses by this attack, I was beginning to give the pro-Obama argument more weight, and I had started entertaining the idea that a candidate who has all the right enemies might be worth taking more seriously.  Pieces of trash such as these began moving me Obamawards, because I saw the same kinds of lies and distortions being told about Obama and his advisors that are routinely said about us.  So thank goodness that one of his supporters shook me out of my stupor and reminded me that paleos will be even worse off if Obama is elected. 

Justin was baffled by something I said earlier, so I’ll try to explain what I meant.  Richard is right that my concern is to emphasize the degree to which Obama and his camp endorse establishment views of almost every other foreign policy question.  I floated the idea that a “case can be made that a successful extrication from Iraq by Obama will open the floodgates for many more interventions, and costly ones at that,” because I think the case could be made, though I have not gone so far as to make it at any length.  Barring some massive expansion of the military (which Obama has proposed) or the return of conscription, resources for additional campaigns will be extremely limited unless Obama succeeds in getting us out of Iraq, but withdrawal will free the interventionists’ hands to meddle in many other countries and Obama has stated his willingness to do just this.  Obama’s position on Iraq is not the reason to fear his election—it is what he would do with our military and the executive power entrusted to him once that was accomplished.  That is what I was suggesting when I warned of “many more interventions.”  None of these alone may be more costly than Iraq, but that will not make any of them cheap or worthwhile.  Remember, this is the man who wrote (or had written in his name):

After thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars spent, many Americans may be tempted to turn inward and cede our leadership in world affairs. But this is a mistake we must not make. America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, and the world cannot meet them without America. We can neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission.

The rejection of bullying is welcome, but what is this but an ostensibly “kinder, gentler” hegemony, one perhaps more acceptable to international institutions and more amenable to foreign governments but fundamentally just as antithetical to the American interest and republican government?  Under the circumstances, I can understand why some on the right will prefer Obama to McCain, whose madness and recklessness I don’t doubt for a moment, but I want to make clear to everyone the risks and dangers that an Obama presidency would represent.  If my objections are just self-defeating purism, I expect that I will persuade few.  If, however, Obama is as dangerous as his assumptions about America’s role in the world suggest, caution will have been warranted.