Of non-interests

As dull as it may be to see agreement around this blog, I think Damir gets it largely right in his response to Christian Brose over at Foreign Policy. I’m not going to go over his argument, but I would like to address a related point.

I think that implicit in Brose’s argument is a presumption that it is possible for us to involve ourselves in situations in which we have no interests at stake or, at the very least, where we have no geopolitical interests; where our interests are almost normative in nature, having to do with the defense of sovereignty, human rights, the integrity of the international system and so forth.

I think this is wrong-headed. Even if one accepts that our motives are somehow altruistic, once we become militarily or even diplomatically involved we create a de facto sphere of influence. Even if we don’t see it this way — and even if this assertion of interest results in an attenuation of our power — we can be damn sure that other nations view our actions that way and will respond accordingly. While I’m less concerned than Damir about neo-Spartans, I think it would behoove us to recognize the primacy of the geopolitical dimension to every move we make, whether in central Asia or east Asia or the Caucusus and so ad infinitum.