PEACE THROUGH INSECURITY

Officials hovering around the President of the USA have said they feel afraid to go off for a weekend in case their President  may  change his  mind on important matters  before Monday. 

In old times emperors, especially bad ones, ruled not just by powerful armies but by making sure people did not know what the emperors  were going to do next.

The Emperor  Nero was like that - the plan for today was to forget the plan for yesterday, this week's court favourite could be next  week's head on the block.  This to make  sure that public policy is nearly impossible, all depending on the will of the emperor.  The courtiers around him who want to sit on his throne and the courtesans who want to lie in his bed make sure to find out what the emperor is thinking today before doing anything, and to change tack themselves as quickly and as ruthlessly as necessary.

So the policies and principles  of government fade away in importance as the emperor  makes one decision today and another possibly quite different one  next week.

This ancient imperial idea of The Importance of Not being  Earnest seems to be appearing in  the present regime in Washington DC.   It is consistent with the desire and activity of a person intent on creating not a strong America, not a strong presidency but a strong president who wishes to direct and control both.  A present day emperor  tweeting  while Homs burns.

This seems a reasonable  interpretation of what Donald Trump does and stops doing and then starts doing again.  We read the day's disasters in his morning face,  like the pupils reading their headmaster's in Goldsmith's Deserted Village,  tomorrow's  with fear,  next week's perhaps with relief.  Foreign governments become  unsure, home government  is unsure,and while  everyone else's  insecurity increases the person creating the insecurity becomes more personally assured, personally more powerful.  The policy of Peace Through Security becomes that of Peace Through Insecurity - for this week anyway.

But in the history of the old emperors  fate catches up with them in the end,  or rather frustration does as enemies form outside and enemies form inside while  courtiers and courtesans  see one official promoted  then discarded,  one idea tried, discarded,  then another  and a lot of officials sent packing if the conflicting promises, threats,  assertions and contradictions  don't work.  And so on and so forth.  The history of emperors may be unpleasant to read and infuriating to think about but when similar  swagger is,  as it were, resurrecting out of the history books and leering at you from The Washington Post  it requires not just fearful notice but courageous analysis.

Modern potential emperors who try to create personal kingdoms by way of the  imperial nod rather than rational politics tend to make important people impatient.  Nowadays there are in the world many  impatient courtiers and courtesans, many  business corporations and corporate moguls who have more financial clout - and therefore more real clout - than many  governments  or leaders of governments  have.  

So we will watch the present presidential  gyrations in Washington DC with considerable interest today  and  probably with increasing alarm tomorrow. As well we may.

Shakespeare wrote, "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown" but in  our day the people with the real worries are the billions of decent people who don't.