The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
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Claes G. Ryn

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Hubris Kills Diplomacy

Wednesday February 15, 2023

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International conflict cries out for statesmanship. It calls for the kind of leadership that rises above the passions of the moment, takes the long view, considers the legitimate interests of all, and looks for creative solutions. The temperament of statesmanship is prudence and restraint. This type of leadership requires not only relevant experience but a historical perspective, critical distance to the present, and imagination.

There also can be no statesmanship, no diplomacy, without empathy, that is, a willingness to see a conflict from the point of view of opponents. Neither can there be any compromise and relaxation of tensions without a measure of modesty. To assume that all right is on your side is incompatible with statesmanship. Such arrogance also runs counter to the old Western view of human nature, whether classical or Christian. It is a prescription for confrontation and disaster.

What brings these considerations to mind is America’s way of dealing with Russia since the crumbling of the Soviet Union. It can be argued that conceit, ignorance, and lack of strategic empathy have played far too large a role in American foreign policy in the post-Cold War period.

An observer can be deeply suspicious of Russia and, most recently, greatly bemoan its invasion of Ukraine and still regard US policy toward Russia as a tale of arrogance and missed opportunities. The United States, Russia, Europe, and the rest of the world would have been better served by a much different policy.
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Memorandum: How The 2020 Election Could Have Been Stolen

Wednesday January 6, 2021

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As a citizen who is also a political scientist, I have tried to do due diligence to assess what happened in the recent election. Who won what and at what level and what does it mean? And what about the charges of vote fraud? People keep asking me what I think, and I decided to write down the conclusions I have reached to date and on what grounds. Because charges of vote fraud have called the outcome of the presidential election into question, I have paid particular attention to them.

This memorandum is not written to persuade. It merely records my findings and reflections. Few people are really open to persuasion in any case—not just on political subjects but on any subject about which they care and on which they have adopted certain views. Diehard partisans for a certain outlook will refuse to have their beliefs questioned, and so will many others. They will be no less dismissive of a document challenging their opinions if it is full of footnotes and appendixes. Such a document will, indeed, make them resist it even more. As for the relatively few people who are truly open-minded, they will not find another person’s observations dispositive. They will, as they should, want to consider the evidence on a contested matter for themselves.

I hope that I am not deceiving myself when I say that I have not reached my conclusions regarding the 2020 election because of partisanship. I am a close student of politics, but have never belonged to a political party. If I have a bias, I suppose it is that of one who is largely alienated from both of the American parties and who believes that both of the presidential candidates in 2020 have major flaws.
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The Neo-Jacobin Ideology of American Empire

Friday May 3, 2013

Central to the thinking of the Framers of the U.S. Constitution was the need to tame power. The drive for power had to be contained most fundamentally in the souls of individuals but also through external restraints, including constitutional checks. The Constitution continues to enjoy great respect, at least in ceremonial contexts, but today is a norm for political conduct less in practice than in theory. The spirit of traditional American constitutionalism has greatly dissipated, if not disappeared.

In the last few decades many American leaders have spoken much about America having a moral mission in the world. But the conception of virtue that they assume is different from virtue of the traditional kind in that it does not involve a strong sense of moderation and limits. On the contrary, this putative virtue has manifested and fed the will to power and a sense of limitless possibilities. Influential forces in both the American parties have wanted the world’s only superpower to attain global supremacy in order to promote the allegedly moral cause. They have espoused an outlook on man and society that contrasts sharply with that of the moral-spiritual and political heritage that gave shape to the Constitution.

In the last several decades an ideology of American empire became increasingly common in the American foreign policy and national security establishment inside and outside of government.[i] Needless to say, the advocates of this ideology do not aspire to empire in the old sense of permanent occupation of large territories. The United States can work its will on recalcitrant powers by other means. What the ideology advocates is armed and uncontested global supremacy.

The proponents of the ideology have been able to draw upon various American antecedents, such as the foreign-policy idealism of President Woodrow Wilson, but they have provided a more comprehensive and ideologically intense and systematic justification for U.S. interventionism.
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