Econ_Sep_22

The Economist

September 22nd 2018

Books and arts 77

T IS a common belief that human rights

and democracy must prevail because

they are noble and good. The world’s be-

nighted multitudes yearn for freedom and

one daywill win it. Robert Kagan, a histori-

an, thinks that is a dangerous fantasy.

Though he rejects the label, Mr Kagan is

a neocon—an unfashionable proponent of

using force to support liberal values. As he

says at the start ofhis newbook: “What we

liberals call progress has been made possi-

ble by the protection afforded liberal-

ism…by American power.” The question

is what happens to freedom when that

power retreats?His title captures his alarm-

ing answer: “The Jungle Grows Back”.

Mr Kagan touched on this theme in

“The World America Made”, published in

2012, which explained the spread of de-

mocracy after the second world war in

terms ofgrowingAmericanhegemony. But

that was before the election of President

Donald Trump—a commander-in-chief

who has not so much neglected foreign

policy as given it a good kicking.

Although Mr Trump rarely appears in

Mr Kagan’s latest book by name, it is a dev-

astating riposte to his careless, cynical and

destructive approach to diplomacy. Mr Ka-

gan tells of the chaos after the first world

war and the rise of Bolshevism and fas-

cism it engendered. He explains how the

second world war convinced Americans

that “their way of life could not be safe in a

world where Europe and Asia were

dominated by hostile autocratic powers.”

Americans have forgotten that any hos-

tile autocracy is a threat—not just the Soviet

Union (which, incidentally, was not seen

as an inevitable foe until well after Ameri-

ca’s decision to abandon isolationism). Al-

though containment of the Soviet Union

became the focus of American policy dur-

ing the cold war, the underlying logic for

global engagement has survived the Soviet

collapse. And yet there have been growing

calls for America to stop acting as the

world’s policeman. After the invasion of

Iraq, and amid the long war in Afghani-

stan, those calls became almost impossible

for politicians to resist.

Under Mr Trump, Mr Kagan argues,

Americans have also forgotten that their

allies will submit to a Pax Americana only

if it seems fair. If an alliance is merely a ve-

hicle for American power, if it neglects the

security of its junior partners, they will

drift away. If America adopts a Hobbesian

Geopolitics, security and America’s role

Weed-killing

The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our

Imperilled World.

By Robert Kagan.

Knopf;

192 pages; $22.95

N A breezy summer’s evening in 1988,

officers of Britain’s Secret Intelligence

Service, also known as

6, gathered in a

north London garden to toast Russia’s hu-

miliating retreat from Afghanistan. The

spooks’ mood was almost light-headed.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the

communist system were in sight; both

came to passwithin a fewyears.

The guest of honour at the party, Oleg

Gordievsky (pictured), was himself a Rus-

sian. Lionised by his hosts, Mr Gordievsky

was Britain’s greatest intelligence coup of

the cold war. Once a senior

KGB

officer, he

had worked secretly for

6 for years. He

provided the West with a steady stream of

high-grade intelligence considered so valu-

able that it frequently landed on the desks

ofbothMargaret Thatcher andRonaldRea-

gan. After the ghastly betrayals and disas-

ters of the early cold-war period, the era of

Kim Philby and other British defectors, Mr

Gordievsky represented a redemption of

sorts. The burly, intense Russian was as

ideologically driven as Philby had been,

and he probably did as much damage to

the Soviets as Philby had done to the Brit-

ish and Americans.

His tale has been toldbefore, not least in

his autobiography, “Next Stop Execution”.

But Ben Macintyre, a journalist who spe-

cialises in books about spies and der-

ring-do, has crafted his story as a real-life

thriller, as tense as John le Carré’s novels,

or even Ian Fleming’s. Based on many

hours of interviews with Mr Gordievsky

himself, as well as with his

6 handlers

and

KGB

veterans, “The Spy and the Trai-

tor” is a gripping reconstruction, even for

thosewith only a cursory interest in the se-

cret world. But then Mr Macintyre has

some exceptional material toworkwith.

Most exciting is the account of Mr Gor-

dievsky’s exfiltration in 1985. Recently pro-

moted to be head of the

KGB

station in Lon-

don, and thus an even more valuable

source for his British masters, he was

abruptly recalled toMoscow. Fears that his

treachery had been detected were con-

firmed when he was hauled in for gruel-

ling interrogations by

KGB

goons. Despite

swallowing a truth drug, Mr Gordievsky

bluffed for long enough to alert

6’sMos-

cowstation to his predicament.

A long-rehearsed but precarious plan

swung into operation: to get himacross the

Soviet-Finnish border under diplomatic

cover. It worked, due mainly to the quick

thinking of the wife of one of the

6 driv-

ers, who changed her baby’s nappy on the

car boot just above the stowaway spy to

put the guard-dog at the border off the

scent. So important was Mr Gordievsky’s

escape that the good news was instantly

relayed to Thatcher. It was the first time

that

6 hadmanaged to smuggle an agent

out of Soviet Russia.

It had been a renegade

CIA

officer, Al-

drich Ames, who shoppedMr Gordievsky.

On this occasion, the

CIA

was as derelict in

overlooking the tell-tale signs of his disin-

tegration (alcoholism, spending sprees) as

the Brits had been with their own traitors.

Mr Macintyre brilliantly weaves together

the two men’s parallel lives on opposite

sides of the world, until their careers inter-

sected. Mr Ameswas later sentenced to life

in prison for espionage.

How important was Mr Gordievsky in

the end? Mr Macintyre makes a plausible

case that he was the West’s most vital hu-

man asset in the 1980s. Thatcher and Rea-

gan valued himparticularly for his psycho-

logical insights into the thinking in the

Kremlin. He convinced Western leaders

that the bellicosity of their Soviet counter-

parts was a consequence more of fear and

weakness than of ideological conviction.

TheWest concluded that it couldmoderate

its own anti-Soviet rhetoric without any

loss of face or territory. The subsequent

thaw in relations, especially after Mikhail

Gorbachev took over, led to the end of the

coldwar.

In the new stand-offwith Vladimir Pu-

tin, Mr Gordievsky may still be a target for

Russian assassins. He sacrificed every-

thing, including his family, in his act of be-

trayal. “He is one of the bravest people I

have ever met,” Mr Macintyre concludes,

“and one of the loneliest.”

Oleg Gordievsky

Break for the

border

The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest

Espionage Story of the Cold War.

By Ben

Macintyre.

Crown; 368 pages; $28. Viking; £25

The price of bravery