Strength and dominance not the same thing

For Peter Beinhart, there is nothing intrinsically American about hubris, but since it is an affliction born of success, Americans have been especially prone.

In The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, Mr Beinhart, Associate Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York, explores the seductions of success of three generations: the progressives who took America into World War 1; the Camelot intellectuals who took America into Vietnam; and George W Bush and the post-cold war conservatives, who believed they could simultaneously bludgeon and liberate the Middle East.

In each case, like Icarus, America’s leaders crafted ‘wings’ – a theory about America’s relationship with the world. They flapped carefully at first, but gradually lost their inhibitions until they flew into the sun.

“Hubris is not the possession of any one party or intellectual tradition,” writes Mr Beinhart.

“It is any intellectual tradition taken too far.

“And foreign policy wisdom sometimes consists of understanding that the very conceptual seedlings you must plant now can, if allowed to grow wild, ravage the garden.”

So where does ambition end and hubris begin? Mr Beinhart says there is no formula for answering that but he identifies three warning signs.

One warning sign is overconfidence: a political climate in which influential people assume that a war’s outcome is preordained because of military prowess, economic resources or ideological appeal.

Unilateralism is another warning sign.

“What we need, in other words, is not our allies’ tanks but their judgment,” writes Mr Beinhart.

“The sober judgment of allies is especially important for a nation intoxicated with success. (As the old saying goes, when three friends say you’re drunk, lie down).”

A third warning sign was excessive fear.

The warning signs are a starting point, Mr Beinhart explains, but in and of themselves they are too crude.

“Telling the story of the last century of American foreign policy as cycles of success leading to hubris leading to tragedy leading to wisdom, and then leading to more success, is like looking at a page covered with tiny fuzzy dots and graphing the places they rise and fall,” says Mr Beinhart.

“Reality is far messier than your smooth lines suggest.”

The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris is published by Melbourne University Publishing.

Mr Beinhart will be visiting Australia from 24 to 29 August when he will be attending the Melbourne Writers’ Festival.

www.mup.com.au