it's legitimacy, stupid

As I've been saying, it's a question of legitimacy. I'm not a historian but rather a philosopher and international policy analyst and lover of tropical fruit. We'll soon do some theoretical explanation and analysis of the question of legitimacy here on Phronesisaical.

The very basis of legitimacy has shifted over the past few decades. The Bush Administration is still living in a world of realist notions of legitimacy where power is based in military and economic domination. While this is still certainly a significant part of international affairs, it is not the only element, certainly not of legitimacy. The state-centered realist or neo-realist view of the present US administration is intellectually and practically archaic. The rest of the world knows this whether they speak the language of international relations or not. This administration doesn't have a clue. They're not only emperors with no clothes, they're also theoreticians that are all hat.

For now, the esteemed historian William Polk gives some historical analysis. Read here (read the series) Polk on "What America Needs to Do to Achieve Its Foreign Policy Goals (Part 1)."

...Ideally, America would seek to recapture the universal respect, indeed the love and admiration, from which it derived its influence, its real power, for so long. To those who question whether respect, a belief in American legitimacy and benign leadership, constitutes real power, consider the contrast between a city where the government is respected as legitimate and one where it is not: Dallas can live in reasonable security with a small police force while Baghdad cannot be controlled by a whole army. Historical example after example provides ample proof that even overwhelming force does not produce the level of security that comes when societies believe they are being treated with an acceptable degree of fairness and attention to their well-being.

It is not only "ideally" that America must seek to recapture respect for its role in world affairs. It is essential. Without the sense that a state or a government is legitimate in the exercise of its power, it is seen as tyranny. That is the downward trend on which we are embarked. Every recent public opinion poll taken -- even among traditional friends and allies -- indicates that the reservoir of goodwill which for long gave America its unique strength is now well drained.6 Refilling that reservoir with what President Eisenhower, drawing on Thomas Jefferson, called "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind," will be a long-term process.