The Requisites of Change

During the holidays, I've had the freedom to set aside required readings (Shakespeare and his contemporaries) in favor of other things.  Thus far, the most intriguing read has been Thomas E. Ricks' The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008.

I've enjoyed Ricks' writing in the past, and his new book, The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today is on my list for spring break.  But The Gamble has interested me for more than its history of America's conduct of the  counterinsurgency in Iraq.  It also contains lessons which inform and encourage my thinking about a matter close to my heart, and to the main purpose of this blog - i.e., reforming the American political system.

According to Ricks, the war in Iraq had come close to being lost in 2006 - before advocates of "the surge" persuaded the Bush Administration to try a new strategy grounded in classic counterinsurgency doctrine.  What interests me is that the decisive pressure for the new strategy came - neither from the White House nor from within the Pentagon - but from a few relatively junior officers, a retired four-star general, and a handful of intellectuals at a conservative think-tank. 

Which is real-world confirmation, if any were needed, that - even in an institution as hierarchical and conservative as the US military - meaningful change can come through the efforts of a small, determined tribe of insurgents.

Of course, no serious student of history - or of evolution - should doubt this.  Big change nearly always begins with a few courageous, determined individuals.  The key questions are whether those agents of change begin early enough - and with a clear, well-thought-out vision.

Historically, human institutions come into being to meet a certain set of challenges, but persist long after those challenges have disappeared and been replaced by new ones.   Often, established institutions lack the ability to evolve to meet new challenges, resulting - over time - in internal revolution, external conquest, or societal death.

Occasionally, a set of institutions will have in them the ability to evolve gradually, adapting to changing times and circumstances while avoiding disaster.  Since the Civil War of the 1640s, Britain has managed this trick fairly well - though it flirted with disaster in the late 1930s, when the cabinet system failed to respond appropriately to the threat of Hitlerism.

As an offshoot of Britain, the United States inherited political ideas which - adapted through two revolutionary decades - led to our present Constitution.  This document has proved remarkably durable, and Americans have usually managed to find a way forward through the political process.  The one exception was extraordinary - the unpleasantness of the early 1860s, which cost over 600,000 military casualties and untold human misery. 

That exception allowed, Americans have shown a genius for reforming their institutions without excessive bloodshed or repression.  Most often, periods of rapid evolution have come through the rise of popular movements led by visionary leaders, such as the Jeffersonian "revolution of 1800". 

Sometimes, the leaders have been more charismatic than visionary, as was the case with Andrew Jackson's populist movement in the 1820s and 1830s.  In such cases, the results have been more mixed.   

The necessary prerequisite to such movements has been the existence of new challenges, and the failure of the existing power structure to deal effectively with them.  The key to success has usually been the leadership of an individual, or a small group, with a clear, positive vision for the next phase of American history.

Vision is the key.  In any society, popular frustration or anger arises fairly often, and in an open society such discontents will inevitably attract potential leaders.  When these leaders lack vision, they can take public discontent in an essentially negative direction - which may benefit the leaders, but not their cause.

A recent example would be the Tea Party movement, which achieved great initial success, but which lacks the vision to do more than play an obstructionist role.  The Vietnam era anti-war movement shared many of the same failings, and - curiously - not a few of the same, Baby Boom participants.

Other movements have been more successful.  The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and early 1960s is a case in point.  Not only did the movement have an extraordinary wealth of local leaders - many of them ministers and lawyers - but its national voice was Martin Luther King, Jr., a man of extraordinary vision.

Dr. King was able to do the two essential things which seem essential for a successful American popular movement.  He was able to connect the movement with our national history and traditions, and he was able to enunciate a positive vision which most Americans could understand and accept.

Dr. King's link with the past focused - as  was Lincoln's a century earlier - on the core philosophy of the Declaration of Independence.  By framing the Civil Rights movement as an evolutionary development along the lines laid out by our Founders, Dr. King touched Americans in their point of greatest national pride. 

His link with the future was equally effective.  For all the power of his case for equal justice, it was the vision of "I Have a Dream" - of an America where children of all races could grow up together in friendship - which proved irresistible to millions of Americans not of African ancestry.

My purpose in writing this blog has been, from the outset, to inform the process of starting something new - a third political party, rooted in America's history and values, and with a vision for the future.  I believe such a party could succeed - if success is defined in terms of changing the terms of our nation's political debate and raising the importance accorded to challenges and opportunities largely ignored by our two-party system.

In the past, here and elsewhere, I have sketched out what I believe to be a viable strategy for such a party.  In coming months, I propose to continue elaborating on that strategy.

But I am even more interested in connecting a certain cluster of discontents with America's great past, and with a vision for the future.  These two connections - especially the latter - seem to me the real test of any successful movement for change.

Change can happen, and it can start with a very few individuals who are determined to make it happen.  The need is clear.  Are we ready to launch an insurgency?