Machiavelli counseled that one should always give his enemy a graceful out, a means of escape that preserves his dignity and allows him to live decently after his defeat. Never box anyone in. A cornered animal has no choice but to bite.
Machiavelli’s advice is worth remembering in light of breaking news that Edward Snowden, the NSA leaker, has been forced to accept political asylum in Russia.
From the standpoint of United States, and its intelligence agencies in particular, there could be no worst possible outcome. Never doubt for a moment that the FSB is about to get its claws on those five laptops full of NSA intelligence files that he’s been lugging around. It would’ve been far smarter for the US to allow Snowden to make his way to Venezuela or Ecuador or Bolivia.
Between VP Joe Biden’s phone calls to Latin American leaders sucking up to them while threatening them, scrambling air-traffic control networks all over Europe to block the flight of the president of Bolivia on the off chance that he might be trying to spirit Snowden away from Moscow, and the threat of trade sanctions and diplomatic problems to any country that would consider taking him in, the United States’ diplomatic offensive has been relentless and thuggish.
Some cultural historians attribute America’s general approach – crushing enemies with ruthless efficiency – to our Anglo-Saxon heritage. I don’t know if there’s any truth to that or not, but there’s no denying that we use a sledgehammer when something a little bit more subtle would plainly be more effective. Here is yet another example.
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“… there’s no denying that we use a sledgehammer when something a little bit more subtle would plainly be more effective. Here is yet another example.”
I couldn’t agree more. Greenwald has alluded to this as well. The more they try to trash people like Snowden, to smear him, persecute him — it actually has the opposite effect. It galvanizes (some) people even more.
And yet Machiavelli is still largely condemned and equated with evil policy. And yet, the father of political science’s words are still true today. This isn’t a good outcome for Mr. Snowden either. He wanted to avoid giving people reasons to believe he was a traitor not that anyone was having a hard time calling him one.
America likes to swing its big stick around. A good outcome is irrelevant. I think they just can’t stand not quite being omnipotent. They don’t want to allow a traitor anything even when it’s to their benefit.
I think the historical analysis is accurate. The English tried for hundreds of years without success to subjugate Scotland when a more nuanced approach might have resulted in conquest. Since William the Bastard, all the British and we have done is take everything and crush anyone we could and made up excuses as we saw fit regardless of ethics or past arrangements or future problems. Such a mindset leaves no room for subtlety. Anglo-Saxons are, for the most part, the ultimate brutes and scourge of humanity.
Samuel Johnson: “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”
It certainly does. We used to live in a country that was proud and free, but now we live in a country full of constant supervision. Wouldn’t it be easier, cheaper and kinder to help each other?
Yeah, that was a real class act to stop President Morales’ plane in midair like that. Stay classy, Obama.
I haven’t read Machiavelli in about two years, but I think his premises suffer in the modern world. He is finally heading toward obsolescence. In Machiavelli’s time, war was expensive. Lots of things could go wrong. (Compare Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” where one of the main pricing factors is transportation risk. A freighter could sink in a storm due to weather forecasting limitations in the 18th century. That factor doesn’t exist to any similar degree today.)
Now, we have neurotoxins that leave no traces. We have drones. We have computer networks and satellites that allow us to track a person without any telltale clues. And the people who assassinate the inconvenient do not need decades of training. We no longer require the techniques that did in Georgi Markov. A 17-year-old can operate the Nintendo controls to blow up a wedding party half a world away. For all we know, someone is already whipping up a virus that will attack Snowden–and only Snowden–based on his genetic code.
The government will kill Edward Snowden at its convenience. If he’s still alive at the end of the year, it will be because of only two possible reasons:
1. He has threatened the government’s corporate and political leaders with complete public disclosure of details that are not just embarrassing or a security risk, but details that are horrifically, immorally criminal. If he had proof that the U.S. was running Nazi-style concentration camps, complete with gas chamber showers and involuntary human experimentation, that would keep him alive.
2. The whole thing’s a piece of political theater. To deal with the whistleblowers once and for all, a deep-cover op named Snowden has been given a role to play: uber-concerned citizen who can no longer stand by and let these things happen!!!
Alex,
Another part of the problem with understanding On Principalities (The Prince) is that, as the title suggests and as he states in the beginning, there are two fundamental types of government, principalities and republics. He is writing about governing principalities. Much of the advice is plain not applicable to republics. He was vilified ever since he wrote the book. Some of his suggestions flew in the face of standard ruling practice. Other things they already did but railed against him because they were supposed to be good Christian kings. He was genuinely concerned with the protection and welfare of a state. Many rulers are only concerned with themselves. He says many times that a leader should be benevolent as far as possible–just not to his and his people’s detriment.