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Misunderstanding International Relations A Focus on Liberal Democracies Scott Burchill Misunderstanding International Relations Scott Burchill Misunderstanding International Relations A Focus on Liberal Democracies Scott Burchill School of Politics & International Studies Deakin University Burwood, VIC, Australia ISBN 978-981-15-1935-2 ISBN 978-981-15-1936-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1936-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21- 01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore For Anna with all my love A cknowledgements The quality of the manuscript was significantly improved by the careful reading and helpful comments of Clinton Fernandes, Anna Moss and Zoë Burchill. I have also benefited enormously from suggestions made over many years by Andrew Linklater, Noam Chomsky and Gabriel Kolko. Conversations with Amira Hass, Antony Loewenstein, Brian Toohey and Lance Collins significantly improved my understanding of the subjects I have attempted to grapple with here. I am also grateful for the patience and forbearance of Anushangi Weerakoon at Palgrave Macmillan and the professional support of Matthew Clarke at Deakin University. All mistakes and infelicities, however, remain mine. Earlier versions of some of the arguments that can be found in the chapters were trialed in the online commentary sites New Matilda, Crikey, The Conversation, Arena and Pearls and Irritations. Scott Burchill vii c ontents 1 Introduction 1 2 Critical Thinking: Part One—The Limits of the Expressible 5 3 Critical Thinking: Part Two—Escaping the Zeitgeist and Building an Intellectual Self-Defence 27 4 Israel-Palestine: Part One—Do States Have a “Right to Exist”? 53 5 Israel-Palestine: Part Two—Australian Foreign Policy and the Israel-Palestine Conflict—Avoiding the Colonialist Narrative 63 6 Is There a Deep State? 85 7 U nited States Foreign Policy: Radical Islam and the West 107 8 T he Vietnam War: Morality and History 133 ix x CONTENTS 9 Class Power in the United States and Australia 141 Index 161 CHAPTER 1 Introduction Abstract As a discipline, International Relations is widely misunderstood, both in theory and in practice, largely because of its politicised nature. This book explains how thinking about international politics has been affected by critical errors in reasoning, ideology and argument. It intro- duces a number of case studies which are affected by these errors, including the legal status of the modern nation-state, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the unique relationships constructed by settler-colonial societies, the idea of the Deep State, the relationship between the West and radical Islam, the impact of moral righteousness on historical memory and understanding, and the role played by class conflict in modern Western politics. Keywords Chomsky • Propaganda • Zeitgeist • Nation-state • Deep State • Class Given the intrinsic political nature of the subject, it is not surprising that International Relations is a widely misunderstood subject. Some of these misunderstandings come from faulty thinking, theoreti- cal limitations and cognitive bias. In other cases it is the product of ideo- logical indoctrination and state propaganda. The Western world likes to highlight the shortcomings of international thought and practice in rival states, and amongst rival groups, outside its © The Author(s) 2020 1 S. Burchill, Misunderstanding International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1936-9_1 2 S. BURCHILL own domains. However, it remains strikingly allergic to examinations of its own thought crimes and breaches of international law. At its root, this allergy is deeply unethical. As Noam Chomsky points out in his compari- son of the West’s responses to conflicts in Kosovo and East Timor, “for profession of high principles to be taken seriously, the principles must first and foremost be applied to oneself, not only to official enemies or others designated as unworthy in the prevailing political culture.”1 This book treats this sensitivity to introspection in two ways, first by exposing how thinking about international politics has been affected by critical errors in reasoning and argument. It then explores a number of case studies which are affected by these errors, including the legal status of the modern nation-state, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the unique relationships constructed by settler-colonial societies, the idea of the Deep State, the relationship between the West and radical Islam, the impact of moral righteousness on historical memory and understanding, and the role played by class conflict in modern Western politics. Chapter 2 examines how limitations are placed on the available spec- trum of permissible thinking about international relations. Why are some views regarded as mainstream and acceptable, while others are considered to be beyond the bounds of the expressible? Where are those boundaries and who sets them? This chapter looks at the relationship between interests and ideas, the consequences of self-censorship, and the ways in which the particular interests of elites are presented as the national interests of the state. The literature on totalitarian and authoritarian societies is saturated with studies of how the state indoctrinates citizens with government propaganda. Chapter 3 argues that indoctrination and propaganda, as well as the marginalising of dissent, also exist in self-described free societies where coercive means to achieve conformity and subordination are not so readily available to the state. In fact those strategies need to be subtle and effec- tive if they are to work. The chapter also examines the dangers of pre- sentism and the importance of escaping the zeitgeist of contemporary dramatic events if a deeper understanding of them is to be found. The claim that states have a “right to exist” has found currency in contemporary discussions of international politics, specifically in relation to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Chapter 4 argues that no such legal or moral right exists today or has ever existed for states. Furthermore, the invoca- tion of such a right by Israeli negotiators was first raised in the 1980s as a way of blocking a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict by erecting an