To anticipate Russian nuclear weapons in Ukraine and the possibility of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is frightening indeed; but perhaps we can at least shed the silly, sophistical notion that has long shaped our policy toward these regimes.
That notion is the childishly naive belief that these authoritarian regimes actually respond to old fashioned bourgeois concerns. We have long believed that if we engaged these autocracies, opening their economies to trade and economic competition, their citizens would come to clamor for economic freedom, and the political freedom that we believed was sure to follow. Peace would follow prosperity, or so we thought.
The same naive capitalistic faith that open markets generate open societies spawned the belief that aggression could be deterred by the terrifying economic weapon known as sanctions. Well timed sanctions could counter occasional mischief.
It is past time to recognize that autocrats and imperialists are not motivated primarily by economics. We may be, but they are not. The currency in which they trade is power. They seek power, control, and even glory. They disdain our obsession with trade and open markets.
If any good is to come from these international crises there should at least be a lesson for us to learn.
I’m Bob Evans and that is my perspective.
