by DR. MATTHEW ALFORD
Chomsky’s Letters On Media & Foreign Policy Were Always Straightforward – & Devastating
The philosopher Noam Chomsky once said his political theory could fit on “on the back of postage stamp”. He meant that he didn’t have much time for fancy formulations by snobby academics. Being a snobby young academic, I emailed: “what would be on that postage stamp, Noam?”
Chomsky never replied, which was unusual, because he answered all my other questions. In the early 2000s, I had been struggling with an issue I think affects everyone – how “bad” or aggressive is necessary to protect yourself and your society? Although I had always liked Chomsky, I was worried he might be that old cliché – a wishy-washy peacenik who blamed America for everything.
So, I asked Chomsky if by behaving aggressively – even irrationally, the Western military alliance might deter adversaries. To my surprise, he actually replied to my snotty self. He said:-
“One murderous superpower can deter another. … The most successful case was Russia’s deterrence of a US invasion of Cuba. Another was the Russian-Chinese deterrence of an expanded US war against Vietnam… but these examples do not enter the deterrence literature, for doctrinal reasons.”
Ah, the old Chomsky switcheroo.
Still, I wondered, no matter how urgently the US needs deterring itself, might a welcome by-product of America’s posture at least be to prevent China from attacking Taiwan? Isn’t some evil inevitable in this world and, when push comes to shove, isn’t it better to have the US as top dog rather than China? At the time, I’d never seen Chomsky talk about this and thought it a great test case.
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