Power as Meditation

Power as Meditation


Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote a series of books called Meditations, laying out his Stoic philosophy, provoked by the rigours of maintaining the Pax Romana, even as he oversaw one campaign after another, against the Syrians, the Serbians, the present day Hungarians and last of all against the scrappy “northern barbarians”, tribes of fierce Picts and Goths that constitute part of today’s Germans.

Marcus Aurelius fought the good fight, prevailing each time with legendary Roman organisation, technological superiority, discipline, attention to detail. It was his lot to strive to preserve the extensive Roman Empire, but he also saw that it was imperative for a Caesar to look beyond immediate events.

Caesar must plot a course for the future, he implied, taking into account the changing dynamics of the situation. And he must do so, unburdened by sentiment, the glories of the past, despite the civilising influence of the Pax Romana and its pantheon of victory ordaining Gods!

Marcus Aurelius meditated, like others before and after him, on human frailty and limitation, the inevitability of physical and mental decline, the interruptions of a span of life, the fact of mortality, the burdens of succession. But he pondered most famously on the nature of power itself, always bracketed within a context, elaborating on its responsibilities, its possibilities…

He visualised the fall of the Roman Empire, not from the ravages of external attack but the onslaught, the challenge posed by erstwhile barbarians, now safely ensconced within the gates. Those who were once rude and rebellious, ostensibly vanquished, enslaved even, and embraced by that sinuous Pax Romana.

Marcus Aurelius saw these subordinated hordes, empowered, enabled to strive and grow, using Roman infrastructure and facilities, steadily gathering strength and inspiration from under Roman eaves. They, the self same, who were vassals, tributaries, outright slaves, yes, but freed forever from the threat of sudden death from marauders. Marcus Aurelius saw them clearly as the future usurpers. And Marcus Aurelius saw this organic process, fostered by the Empire, leading to its eventual downfall.

Back in the future today, we see American commanders, charged with beefing up their fighting forces in Afghanistan in the early days of the Obama Presidency, thinking they have a “winnable” ticket. Quoted in The Economist of February 21st, 2009, they point to changed circumstances for their optimism. They say that unlike the debacle faced by the Soviets in the eighties at the hands of the US supported Mujahideen, this time, there is no other Super Power supporting and balancing the equation.

But do the Taliban really need Super Power support in what is already emerging as a multi-polar world, albeit still under the hegemonic shadow of the globe’s sole Super Power?

In Afghanistan 2009: aren’t the Americans ignoring the cluster-bomb effect of the many sources of support the Taliban can draw upon including the clandestine siphoning of the very American funds and resources intended to put them out of business?

Aren’t they ignoring the diplomatic difficulties of receiving adequate cooperation from a disaffected Russia still smarting from US adventurism in Georgia and oil rich Kazakhstan? Can Russia possibly be happy to see America working to put down roots in areas which were, not very long ago, firmly part of their own bailiwick?

And what about the Iranians, on Afghanistan’s other border? Notwithstanding talk of an Obama led thaw after some thirty years of estrangement, Iran is advancing its own agenda by supplying missiles to the Taliban. They would like to limit the spread of NATO influence in Afghanistan. Why would Iran want the establishment of American hegemony in such close geographical proximity to themselves? How will this impact their own bitterly contested nuclear weapons ambitions, dressed up, for the time being, sheep as lamb, or as a desire to put nuclear power to its peaceful uses?

And can we really ignore the sustained double-game that Wahhabi Saudi Arabia has been playing in the calculus of global Islamic militancy? And what about the profits from the extensive Poppy cultivation in Taliban controlled areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan?

And indeed what of the almost completely Talibanised nuclear weapons state of Pakistan? We can see its liberal democratic impulses being rapidly swallowed up by the python of radical Islamic insurgency. And we can see the sorry state of America’s dithering and faltering “War on Terror” made more ridiculous by the ineffectual pursuit of the Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan’s “northern tribal areas”.

The broader, if blown cover, for a blatantly hegemonic America circa 2009, is in terms of promoting “democracy”. But oddly, democracy, like a transplant, either takes or it doesn’t. It has, for what it’s worth, in India. It has not, despite vigorous effort, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and even less in President Zardari’s Pakistan.


This, while America dreams on and President Obama makes clear he will not pursue policies that will dilute American “leadership”, a word that is seen as a euphemism for hegemony, by the influential and centrist US Atlantic Magazine in its January/February 2009 issue.

Soaring above such immediate concerns, a new US Government’s National Intelligence Council (NIC) report entitled “Global Trends 2025” looks ahead and projects a decline of US power as the “unintended consequence” of the policies it is pursuing at present.

It says the rise of a multi-polar world order is inevitable, precisely because various American allies and partners will grow steadily stronger and will have to be negotiated with rather than commanded. Other power players, not present in the world order after WWII, will join the high table and bring new rules and stakes to the game of international power sharing. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen thinks the transfer of power has begun already as a consequence of the Global recession playing out right now. Still, no hegemon deliberately wants to dilute its own power and America won’t give up without a fight.

All this portends well for India, willy-nilly emerging as a major power in the run up to 2025. India will, soon enough, not just have a voice but a say in world affairs. We may not have fully realised it as yet, but as the Slumdog Millionaire put it with little regard for cliche, this leg up in the world is simply meant to be. It is our destiny.

(1,051 words)

Thursday, 05 March 2009
Gautam Mukherjee

Published as the OP-Ed Page Leader on Friday, 13th March, 2009 as "Imperial hubris at last?" and online at www.dailypioneer.com. Archived under columnists.