Jackass former warmonger turned fleeing rat off sinking ship tells about lessons that millions knew years ago but who were called naive.

Author speaks on campus about five lessons since 9/11

By Lizzie Mytty

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, said Francis Fukuyama, political and economic development author and scholar, at the Weasler Auditorium Thursday night.

Fukuyama spoke on "American Foreign Policy after the Bush Doctrine" for the Allis Chalmers Distinguished Professor of International Affairs Lecture. He is best known for his essay, "The End of History," in which he argued that the passing of the Cold War suggested the end of the progression of history.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Fukuyama, a neoconservative, found he disagreed with the people with whom he had always aligned about the Iraq war.

"It was kind of an autobiographical issue for me," Fukuyama said.

"I was quite surprised as we moved toward the Iraq war in the way the administration made the arguments," Fukuyama said. "The arguments coming from many of my friends started to become less and less persuasive."

Fukuyama said there were five lessons that the United States should draw from the time since Sept. 11.

The limited usefulness of military power when dealing with political problems in the arc of political instability is the first lesson, he said.

"The United States today spends as much on military as the rest of the world combined, and yet, that margin of power is not sufficient to support this little country (Iraq)," he said.

The next point was preventive war cannot be the basis for American policy.

After Sept. 11, prevention became part of the Bush Doctrine, he said. The justification for many people to intervene in Afghanistan was that "you have to proactively go out and get them before they get you."

"Preventive war is like committing suicide because you are afraid of dying," Fukuyama said.

The third point is that the promotion of democracy for securing American interests is a limited means.

"There is an assertion that the lack of democracy in the Middle East is the cause of terrorism, but something like the opposite may be the case," he said.

The major terrorists of the last few years "were radicalized in the hearts of democracies - modern Europe - not in a cave in the Middle East," Fukuyama said.

He said modernization can cause a severe identity problem for the second generation of traditional Muslims who reject their parents' religiosity, but aren't well integrated or accepted in Europe.

The fourth lesson, Fukuyama said, is the need for multilateral solutions, especially to the problem of proliferation.

"The United States can reach out and overturn a country, and they can't do anything about it," he said.

As a result, countries feel threatened and think nuclear weapons are the answer.

Lastly, "the fact that the United States government is incompetent," Fukuyama said.

"To the degree (to) which we were unprepared for this war, our failure to execute, to follow through, I think, has been absolutely terrible," he said. "I think you've got to scale executions to what you're actually capable of."

"If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail," Fukuyama concluded. "But we cannot regard our power in that fashion anymore."

Jack Vrett, a Marquette law student who attended the lecture, said, "These are complex issues which require debate and discussion; Dr. Fukuyama presented both."

Jocelyn Broman, a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences, agreed.

"I consider myself a Republican and a supporter of Bush, but I thought it was a very balanced way of presenting what happened," she said.

Original article posted here.