04-29-2009, 09:51 PM
http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/AD_Issue...gall_dawn3.html
And that is what leads me to conclude that the best way to prescribe an approach to U.S. foreign policy in the unpredictable era to come is not to draft A, B, and C lists of our various goals and interestsâwe all pretty much agree on what a perfect world would look likeâbut to concentrate instead on the assets that make any sound foreign policy possible. Here, then, is an A list of conditions that make everything else possible:
1. A strong U.S. economy subject only to mild recessions and modest inflation.
2. A robust military boasting technological superiority, a full complement of well-trained and well-rested personnel enjoying high morale, able to project force worldwide, and sufficient to fight and win at least one regional war while supporting (but not dominating) U.N. peacekeeping: in short, a military designed to deter or defeat major threats to the U.S. and its allies, but only to assist in operations other than war.
3. Presidential leadership, which is to say a commander-in-chief with an ambitious, consistent, and prudent vision of Americaâs role in the world, skilled at communicating that vision to the public and foreign leaders, and self-confident and patriotic enough not to mortgage U.S. foreign policy to a political, much less personal, agenda.
4. A bipartisan internationalist consensus in Congress, which should not be difficult for a strong president to revive, but which is easily dissipated by an executive that is too arrogant, insecure or distracted to give Congress the attention and consultation it needs.
5. Sturdy regional alliances, because not even the United States can do everything that needs to be done by itselfâbut alliances, like Congress, require care and feeding, and nothing harms alliances more than taking them for granted, invoking them only when crisis erupts, asking them to do too little (as if their members really had few interests in common), or insisting they do too much (as if their members shared everything in common).
6. Engagement to promote balances of power in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, which means American efforts to help manage relations among Russia, China, Japan, India, Iran, Iraq, and their neighbors, because the prevention of war among the big powers is the most moral task the U.S. can undertake, and because we can scarcely hope for peaceful solutions to future crises over Korea, Taiwan, Central Asia, the Caucasus or Eastern Europe if Washington is not even on speaking terms with Beijing, Moscow, Delhi, or Tehran.
7. Finallyâand this may surprise youâthe U.S. must wield the asset of strong Pan-American institutions, including a broader and deeper NAFTA and Organization of American States, because the most predictable and direct challenges are liable to stem from the invasion of the U.S. by illegal immigrants and drugs on our southern tier or by the prospect of civil strife tearing Colombia, Mexico, and the lands in between, to shreds.
Note that nowhere on that A list does human rights appear, or free trade, or public opinion. As to public opinion, it is clay, made to be shaped by presidential leadership backed by Congress. As to human rights and free trade, they are goals that cannot be advanced in the absence of the seven assets on the A list.
Just remove any of themâone by oneâand try to imagine progress toward our four goals of security, stability, free trade, and human rights. You canât do it. A U.S. economy in reverse, a weak or demoralized military, a floundering president, a divided, partisan Congress, a crack-up of our alliances, a Europe or Asia gripped by wars cold or hot, with China or Russia checking U.S. diplomacy at every turn, or an America fixated on its own ethnic tensions and relations with the Hispanic world: if only one or two of these conditions exist, then Americaâs sermons and sanctions will suffice to control very little abroad.
It is on this questions of assets, therefore, that the realist and idealist positions ought to converge, and a new bipartisanship ought to emerge. Without ideals the United States of America would be just another selfish empire, standing for nothing and bound to decay. But without leadership, power, and unity America would become a ridiculous caricature of itself.
Mark Twain, ever the cynic, said statesmanship was a matter of getting the formalities right, and never mind the moralities. Edmund Burke expressed a similar principle when he defined statesmanship as âa disposition to preserve and ability to improve.â But the most telling observation, perhaps, is that of historian Arnold Toynbee: great empires, he wrote, do not die by murder, but suicide. And the moment of greatest danger is their moment of greatest strength, for it is then that complacency and hubris infect the body politic, squander its strength, and mock its virtues.
To be sure, we cannot know just what challenges will arise. But no nation in history has possessed more foreknowledge of how it needs to prepare, or more resources with which to prepare. We need only exercise the wisdom and will to prepare. And if, this time, we do it, then we may finally put to rest Winston Churchillâs dictum to the effect that Americans always do the right thing, but not until they have tried all the alternatives!
And that is what leads me to conclude that the best way to prescribe an approach to U.S. foreign policy in the unpredictable era to come is not to draft A, B, and C lists of our various goals and interestsâwe all pretty much agree on what a perfect world would look likeâbut to concentrate instead on the assets that make any sound foreign policy possible. Here, then, is an A list of conditions that make everything else possible:
1. A strong U.S. economy subject only to mild recessions and modest inflation.
2. A robust military boasting technological superiority, a full complement of well-trained and well-rested personnel enjoying high morale, able to project force worldwide, and sufficient to fight and win at least one regional war while supporting (but not dominating) U.N. peacekeeping: in short, a military designed to deter or defeat major threats to the U.S. and its allies, but only to assist in operations other than war.
3. Presidential leadership, which is to say a commander-in-chief with an ambitious, consistent, and prudent vision of Americaâs role in the world, skilled at communicating that vision to the public and foreign leaders, and self-confident and patriotic enough not to mortgage U.S. foreign policy to a political, much less personal, agenda.
4. A bipartisan internationalist consensus in Congress, which should not be difficult for a strong president to revive, but which is easily dissipated by an executive that is too arrogant, insecure or distracted to give Congress the attention and consultation it needs.
5. Sturdy regional alliances, because not even the United States can do everything that needs to be done by itselfâbut alliances, like Congress, require care and feeding, and nothing harms alliances more than taking them for granted, invoking them only when crisis erupts, asking them to do too little (as if their members really had few interests in common), or insisting they do too much (as if their members shared everything in common).
6. Engagement to promote balances of power in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, which means American efforts to help manage relations among Russia, China, Japan, India, Iran, Iraq, and their neighbors, because the prevention of war among the big powers is the most moral task the U.S. can undertake, and because we can scarcely hope for peaceful solutions to future crises over Korea, Taiwan, Central Asia, the Caucasus or Eastern Europe if Washington is not even on speaking terms with Beijing, Moscow, Delhi, or Tehran.
7. Finallyâand this may surprise youâthe U.S. must wield the asset of strong Pan-American institutions, including a broader and deeper NAFTA and Organization of American States, because the most predictable and direct challenges are liable to stem from the invasion of the U.S. by illegal immigrants and drugs on our southern tier or by the prospect of civil strife tearing Colombia, Mexico, and the lands in between, to shreds.
Note that nowhere on that A list does human rights appear, or free trade, or public opinion. As to public opinion, it is clay, made to be shaped by presidential leadership backed by Congress. As to human rights and free trade, they are goals that cannot be advanced in the absence of the seven assets on the A list.
Just remove any of themâone by oneâand try to imagine progress toward our four goals of security, stability, free trade, and human rights. You canât do it. A U.S. economy in reverse, a weak or demoralized military, a floundering president, a divided, partisan Congress, a crack-up of our alliances, a Europe or Asia gripped by wars cold or hot, with China or Russia checking U.S. diplomacy at every turn, or an America fixated on its own ethnic tensions and relations with the Hispanic world: if only one or two of these conditions exist, then Americaâs sermons and sanctions will suffice to control very little abroad.
It is on this questions of assets, therefore, that the realist and idealist positions ought to converge, and a new bipartisanship ought to emerge. Without ideals the United States of America would be just another selfish empire, standing for nothing and bound to decay. But without leadership, power, and unity America would become a ridiculous caricature of itself.
Mark Twain, ever the cynic, said statesmanship was a matter of getting the formalities right, and never mind the moralities. Edmund Burke expressed a similar principle when he defined statesmanship as âa disposition to preserve and ability to improve.â But the most telling observation, perhaps, is that of historian Arnold Toynbee: great empires, he wrote, do not die by murder, but suicide. And the moment of greatest danger is their moment of greatest strength, for it is then that complacency and hubris infect the body politic, squander its strength, and mock its virtues.
To be sure, we cannot know just what challenges will arise. But no nation in history has possessed more foreknowledge of how it needs to prepare, or more resources with which to prepare. We need only exercise the wisdom and will to prepare. And if, this time, we do it, then we may finally put to rest Winston Churchillâs dictum to the effect that Americans always do the right thing, but not until they have tried all the alternatives!