Governments Achieve The Reverse Of Their Stated Objectives - Walrus.

I believe, as a general rule, Governments achieve the reverse of their stated objectives. I hesitate to call it a unique universal law and there may also be other formulations. I first observed this in watching Governments at work in Australia. The Socialist, reformist Whitlam Federal Government did more to enrich the already wealthy and further impoverish the poor despite this being the reverse of its stated intentions. Similarly I noticed that the working man was better off under an avowedly conservative right of center administration while the wealthy marked time.

I then realised that what I was observing was not simple corruption, although there is still plenty of that, it is human fallibility. The actors I watched were honest striving believers. I know, but have  not researched, the works of Isiah Berlin who perhaps among others observed that even good ends, diligently pursued, by their very nature preclude other good ends - good ends conflict.

International examples of this putative law are not hard to find. The desire of the British and French for "peace at any price" emboldened Hitler, resulting in the exact reverse of the stated intentions. Our recent attempts at establishing a purple fingered democracy in Iraq have resulted in the creation of a situation where at least some of us are longing for the relative peace and quiet of Saddam Hussiens Government. I am sure you can find even better examples.

This apparent law of nature seems entirely unknown in foreign policy circles in Washington, Canberra, Ottawa, London and other Western capitals. "Destroying ISIS" and "The Freedom of the Ukraine" are the stated goals and under that banner we embark on yet another crusade in the Middle East while simaltaneously poking the Russian Bear. What could possibly go wrong?

If we apply our new law, it is not hard to speculate that attacking ISIS does a number of things that are not in our interests:

1) It dignifies and recognises ISIS as a serious player in international affairs - A state with borders, leaders, spokesmen and institutions. By calling on other muslim states to participate in its destruction we risk internal destabilisation of those states themselves.

2) It makes ISIS a rallying point for every disaffected male muslim teenager and young adult in the entire world, not to mention the older and perhaps wealthier muslims who have had to put up with the thirteen years of injustice, discrimination and abuse dealt out to them by the West since 911.

Applying the law suggests the consequences of attacking ISIS will be to make it stronger, spawn associated radical muslim factions in Western countries and completely destabilize the Persian Gulf - the exact reverse of our stated intentions.

Similarly our efforts to confront Russia should actuallly strengthen its voice in international affairs, drive it closer to China and the other BRICS nations and weaken NATO and the European economy.

Not only do we need "hard hearted empaths" in Government, we need cynical well educated old men who understand:

"After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now

History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors

And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,

Guides us by vanities.  Think now

She gives when our attention is distracted

And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions

That the giving famishes the craving.  Gives too late

What’s not believed in, or is still believed,

In memory only, reconsidered passion.  Gives too soon

Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with

Till the refusal propagates a fear.  Think

Neither fear nor courage saves us.  Unnatural vices

Are fathered by our heroism.  Virtues

Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.

These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree." 

Comments

[Ex-PFC Chuck]

Awesome post! Who's the poet?

[kao_hsien_chih]

There is something like that work in governments, fairly close to a universal rule....

In most European governments, a friend of mine who specializes in European political economy told me, most successful advances in labor rights and welfare states took place under governments controlled by (or, at least led by, in case of coalitions) right-wing, pro-market parties. Likewise, most major market reforms took place under allegedly left-wing, socialist governments. It is worth remembering that the first serious attempt at a welfare state in the world was created under Otto von Bismarck, who supposedly lived his whole life in mortal fear of socialist-inspired social unrest.

I think this process works like this. To the degree that the party/parties in control of government are successful at establishing credibility with their own side, they don't really need to do much to appease them. But they can do much to deprive the other side of rallying points, by stealing their thunder. If the unions have been granted extensive social welfare state, for example, they have very little to fight for (exactly what Bismarck did). "We want even more of X" does not carry the same ring as "we want X."

If we have right-wingers who need to advance right-wing policy (and vice versa for the left), that means the right wing (or the left) has failed politically, that they don't have enough credibility that they have to pick fights to be respected by their own side at all, even if that means the other side is going to be energized as well, I suspect. That's my two cents, at any rate.

[William R. Cumminh]

Walrus! Pretty much agree with the post and noting the confusion in Washington over whether this is war or CT!

[rjj]

thought that was by design - not a bug or a perverse outcome, but a feature

[Tidewater]

Tidewater, responding to Ex-PFC Chuck,

It's T.S. Eliot. "Gerontion." The poem dates from 1920. Wikipedia has a nice essay on it. Also on Youtube you can find both Eliot and a Tom O'Bedlam reading it. The latter is terrific; hearing Eliot once is essential.

I was intrigued to learn that in earlier drafts the poem was called Gerousia. The Gerousia was a Council of Elders in Sparta created by Lycurgus. You had to be over sixty to be on it. Among other things the Gerousia "prepared motions for the wider citizen assembly to vote on." They advised! Gerontion is not exactly a word in a dictionary, but its meaning is "old man." Amusingly, there is an argument that it is really J.Alfred Prufrock grown older. I don't think so. My reading, which is, of course, irresponsible, is that this old man, who doesn't think like Prufrock, the social butterfly and presumed aesthete, was a British Intelligence agent in War I who worked on a contract basis. That would account for knowing a lot of odd continental types and being in a rooming house. Like some of Smiley's people, he is having a hard time of it later on. It seems that the phrase "wilderness of mirrors" in Gerontion is very dear to the intelligence communnity. That is a very strange coincidence is it not?

[oth]

I remember when there were only 5000 dead enders in Iraq.

Now just 31K?

[rst]

As many who contribute to the Colonel's site no doubt know, the poem is "Gerontion," and its author is T.S. Eliot. It is said to have been a favorite of the late James Angleton, who adopted another phrase from the poem as a preferred description of his own milieu - the "wilderness of mirrors."

[Jim Buck]

Stated intentions may be at odds with the actuality. I am not convinced that the territorial gains allowed to Hitler were intended to dissuade him from warfare. Some historians (i.e. C. Quigley) argue that Western powers plan was to strengthen Nazi Germany's tactical and strategic position, with regard to an attack on the USSR. If that was indeed the case, then the plan succeeded---even though the eventual outcome let much to be desired.

[Babak Makkinejad]

I had also arrived at the same conclusion - never having read Quigley at all.

Late into 1939, the Imperial General Staff's war plans called for a war with USSR and not Germany.

In France, they called that period the phony war.

The foreign policy of England for 600 years consisted in preventing a central European great power to rise.

They succeeded all too well in Europe; they made Western Europe as well as themselves a dependency of the United States - and with no end in sight.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Like this Spaniard told me - "Franco was better than these (socialists)".

[DH]

I read Prufrock as the opposite of social butterfly and presumed aesthete, i.e. an introverted depressive too negative and fearful to actually try for the woman he yearns for. It was far more convenient to daydream about her.

[shepherd]

This is great. I agree with you that I don't see how we can defeat IS without spawning new versions. The only question is whether those new versions will arise anyway. IS has provided a positive blueprint for a state, a new program, quite different from the nihilistic efforts of Al Qaeda. That makes them much scarier, though perhaps more manageable.

I'd observe also that your rule also applies to IS as well. In attempting to terrify the West into leaving them alone, they're prodding it into action.

[pbj]

kao_hsieh_chih,

"In most European governments ..."

I've heard this too. I think the explanation is this:

Any reform finally happens when the last opponents of the reform stop blocking it. Perhaps in exchange for something, or to move their focus to another issue with more current relevance, or maybe because the reform is an obviously good idea and gains universally popularity.

In any case, it is much easier to abandon a long-standing roadblock when you're in power -- it doesn't look like you're "giving in". That way the opponents of the reform actually get credit for implementing it, and deny the victory to the original party which everyone knows proposed the idea the victory.

In short, it's a side effect of politics.

[Kunuri]

What else could they have done? Looking way back, I think they have been pretty reasonable given the circumstances of the times they lived in. American Revolution being one example, independence of India another and many more in between. A much more unrealistic nation would have done worse.

[Kunuri]

shepherd,

They have already prodded the West into action, perhaps a miscalculation on their part. But if they can ride it out, they will come out stronger than ever. Maybe that was also a grand strategy on their part, who knows?

[Mark Logan]

I really like that. Government are always wrong because they appeased Hitler therefore government will be wrong if it attempts to stomp out ISIL.

One of the best features of Russian humor is it's irony. Mark Twain struck a chord with many Russians, or so I've heard. Irony, at it's best, incorporates the ability to laugh at ourselves. Being able to laugh at one's own folly is the key to defeating one's own self importance and a survival tool. The combination of realism and knowledge tends to curl most people into an intellectual fetal position frequently labeled cynicism, perhaps the exact opposite of wisdom.

[tv]

So, by this reasoning:
Ignore ISIS and they'll fade away,
Shrug off Putin and he'll roll over and leave Ukraine.
People are in love with the so-called "law of unintended consequences" because it provides a default (and simplistic) answer when there no clear solutions for a complex problem,
ISIS can be totally destroyed - by ruthless brutal use of force - with no concern for fallout,"collateral damage", diplomatic BS, etc.
Which means they will not be destroyed.

[ex-PFC Chuck]

Tidewater:
Thanks for answering my question. Although I must confess that I'm not much of a poetry reader, I did read and study Prufrock and, of course, Wasteland in college more than half a century ago. The former made such an impression on me that I still can quote verbatim (I think) the first half dozen lines or so:

Let us go then you and I
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table
Let us go through certain half deserted streets
The muttering retreats of restless nights
In one night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster shells

That's where my memory burns out. Now I'll have to find the text online and see how badly I screwed it up.

[ex-PFC Chuck]

Shepherd:
in re "The only question is whether those new versions will arise anyway."

You'll be happy to know The Onion is on the case:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/obama-vows-to-split-isis-into-dozens-of-extremist,36903/

[Peter Brownlee]

A sub-set of this may be the old journalistic saw about never believing anything until it has been officially denied (attributed to Bismarck via Claud Cockburn).

The gerousia was part of Sparta's much admired (Polybius, American Founding Fathers, etc.) "balanced" constitution but I am not sure what was theory and what was actually practised, how much was flimflam even at the time and if, as usual, people just believed whatever they wanted.

[Jim Buck]

The "rule" (if it is one) seems nothing more than a footnote to Hegel.

[Walrus]

TV, no, not "ignore them", engage with them in the friendliest manner and then stick a stiletto between their ribs, if you understand my meaning.

Ridicule them, taunt them, slander them, tell muslims that ISIS is about raping children, do anything but treat them as a threat to our way of life! Make examples of their supporters as enemies of all muslims not us. Do anything but this building a bogeyman thing.

[rjj]

Anyone remember the old Firesign Theater line "The first word in Turkish is "border" ??? At one time thought the first word- or one of the first words to teach a child is "paradox." It's a fundamental principle.

[jonst]

You would not find too many among the 100k + people he jailed, tortured, killed, or at best, blacklisted, offering that opinion. Me thinks some people have very short memories. Or else, some people, because of the ubiquity of torture in their culture tend to down play it with others.

[nick b]

I was thinking more along the lines of Newton, but with a twist. Perhaps it is Walrus's western government corollary to Newton's Third Law: Every action has an equal and opposite unintended reaction?