2003-04-16
... ? Clash of VisualizationsPaul Berman's Terror and Liberalism is concerned with what he seems to believe is an entirely different problem: How should liberal societies defend themselves against totalitarian ones? In fact, however, it is the same problem, with the same solution: adherence to prevailing international law and whatever collective security regime exists to enforce it. Such adherence is of course anathema to the present American government and its apologists, whose viewpoint was summed up by spokesmen for the first liberal superpower, Athens, as it prepared to invade a smaller neighbor for reasons of "national security": "The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must."
