Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Putting the “Dip” in U.S. Diplomacy

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bailouts, Brazil, China, China meltdown, China stock markets, CNN, Congress, coupling, decoupling, Denise Labott, emerging markets, Exim, Export-Import Bank, export-led growth, free trade agreements, global leadership, Hillary Clinton, IMF, International Monetary Fund, international organizations, Iran, Iran deal, Jackie Calmes, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, The New York Times, TPP, Trans-Pacific Partnership, Wendy Sherman

It was unintentional to be sure, but the establishment media should get some credit for providing the following two reminders of how positively dippy American foreign policy, and the analysis of this diplomacy, has become.

The latest came just yesterday, in New York Times correspondent Jackie Calmes’ article titled “I.M.F. Breakthrough Is Seen to Bolster U.S. on World Stage.” And in the likely case that Calmes isn’t responsible for the headline, the thrust of the piece is clear from the lead paragraph:

“A string of agreements between the White House and Congress, capped by last month’s surprise accord that ended a five-year impasse over the International Monetary Fund [IMF] has eased, though not dispelled, concern that America is retreating from global economic leadership.”

I’ve already explained here and here (among other places) why Calmes decision to include on this list Mr. Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and Congress’ decision to restore to life the Export-Import Bank makes no sense. So I’ll concentrate on the development she focuses on: Congress’ agreement to approve reform of the International Monetary Fund that grants more voting power to so-called “emerging market” (EM) countries like Russia, India, and especially China.

The IMF decision itself is idiotic enough. The rationale – supported by virtually every other member of the Fund – has been that these countries represent the rising powers in the global economic system, and therefore deserve more clout in one of the international organizations charged with overseeing this system. The trouble is, these countries’ wherewithal was greatly exaggerated even when they were growing strongly. The main reason is that their growth depended heavily on exporting to wealthier countries like the United States.

They’re still largely export-dependent, but rather than global growth leaders, they’ve become global growth laggards. Brazil, for example, is facing the prospect of its worst recession in more than a century. On top of its geopolitical trouble-making, Russia’s an economic mess. And China looks not only to be slowing dramatically, but completely incompetent in regulating its financial markets (not to mention its own aggressive regional moves). Even acknowledging that the United States, the European Union countries, and Japan haven’t been economic standouts either for many years, what’s the merit case now for augmenting these countries’ international influence?

But Calmes’ thesis is inane on many more fundamental levels, too. Chiefly, it parrots a series of commonplaces that, though endlessly repeated by mainstream foreign policy analysts and the politicians that bewilderingly still listen to them, keep undermining the effectiveness of American diplomacy. They start with the idea that the IMF, or any other international organization, has counted for much in world affairs. These institutions are logistically useful in providing fora (i.e., “buildings”) in which leading powers that communicate, negotiate, and otherwise deal with each other. But they have no autonomous ability to affect the course of events.

The Fund is often seen as an exception even by avowedly realist thinkers who normally take a dim view of international organizations, but contrary to Calmes’ claim, it per se has never served as “an international lender of last resort to foster global stability.” After all, it has no capacity to create wealth or other resources. In the last analysis, its lending function has always been carried out by the United States and the other major powers, who have used the Fund as a conduit. For two decades starting in the 1970s, the Fund addressed a series of financial crises in developing countries with a series of bailouts (again, financed ultimately by its members) that were conditioned on economic reform programs. But even the Fund’s staff now acknowledges that much of the advice it dispensed was lousy.

And since institutions like the Fund don’t serve as significant force multipliers for strong, wealthy countries like the United States, they’re anything but indispensable for American world leadership, economic or otherwise. As with the case of all countries aspiring to this goal, that flows from America’s own capabilities. Indeed, given America’s still crucial role as the world’s market and consumer of last resort, we’ll know that its economic leadership is at risk when its trade partners figure out another way to grow adequately.

Finally, there’s the question of whether the United States needs world leadership in the first place. I’ve explained in detail why a country this strong, wealthy, and geographically secure can remain more-than-adequately safe and prosperous even in a deeply troubled world. Indeed, America’s matchless capacity for self-sufficiency nowadays argues for less of what foreign policy types call world leadership by Washington – and therefore less exposure to the world’s woes – not more. I’m not saying that these views are beyond criticism. I am saying that they were worth debating even during the Cold War, they’re worth debating more now, and it’s dismaying that no one relying on Calmes or her Mainstream Media counterparts for their news in 2016 would have a clue that it’s not still 1956 strategically.

The second example of foreign policy dippiness came during the summer, from CNN’s Denise Labott’s August profile of Wendy Sherman, the chief staff-level U.S. negotiator of the nuclear weapons deal signed with Iran. Although I’m not enthusiastic about the agreement, I still view it as the best possible option available to America to keep Iran bomb-free short of military strikes. My confidence, however, has definitely been shaken having read Labott’s cheery revelation that “Her first career as a social worker and community organizer may seem like odd training for nuclear negotiations. But Sherman said she actually drew upon those experiences with her Iranian counterparts.”

Continued Labott : “Her ‘caseload’ may be more global, but she said the work is similar — involving the complex relationship and budding detente between Washington and Tehran, as well as managing a series of clients both inside and outside the meeting room.

“‘That skill set came in handy,’ she said. ‘You have to see all the parts in front of you. You really learn how to understand people.'”

Meaning no disrespect for the profession, but I can’t think of a background less suitable than social work for dealing with regimes like Iran’s (or North Korea’s – which was a Sherman responsibility under former President Clinton). Unless you think that the ruthless mullahs in Tehran or the arguably sociopathic leadership in Pyongyang have anything in common with a troubled American individual or family? And that the assignment is providing relief?

From another standpoint, social work and comparable activity are defined by enhancing a client’s well-being. Self-interest doesn’t even enter the picture. Is that how Sherman viewed her priorities? At least judging from this article, that’s how it seems. And Labott apparently considered this nothing less than delightful.

An optimist could finish Labott’s profile relieved that Sherman is now esconced in the academic world. A pessimist, though, could note that she’s a close confidante of her former Foggy Bottom superior, Hillary Clinton, and that she’s being talked about as a possible Secretary of State herself should the Democratic front-runner win the White House.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Obama’s (Way Too) Partial Victory on 60 Minutes

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60 Minutes, global leadership, internationalism, ISIS, Mainstream Media, national interests, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Steve Kroft, Syria, Vladimir Putin

If you watched 60 Minutes Sunday, you know that President Obama had quite the verbal joust with CBS News reporter Steve Kroft about the crisis in Syria. If you care about scoring talking-point type hits, it seemed to me that Kroft came out on top. If you care about trying to explain to the American people why or whether they should care about this mess to begin with – which strikes me as a heck of a lot more important – Mr. Obama prevailed.

Not that his margin of victory was big – by a long shot. But at least the president briefly tried to focus the conversation on the paramount subject of advancing and protecting American interests, as opposed to Kroft’s preoccupation with treating the Syria conflict as a personal duel between the president and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. What’s frustrating is that this outburst of presidential common sense is an isolated incident, rather than part of a long pattern of statements aimed at keeping the nation focused on what it needs in foreign policy as opposed simply to what it wants. Moreover, Mr. Obama spent way too much time taking Kroft’s bait – trying to refute his premises instead of challenging them.

Kroft was entirely justified in calling attention to what are at least the terrible recent optics of U.S. policy toward Syria – and indeed, in the Middle East as a whole. After all, there is indeed a chasm between administration pronouncements on the region and what’s been happening on the ground. Further, Mr. Obama’s claim that Russia’s newest intervention in Syria reflects weakness rather than strength sounds especially unconvincing – and all the more so when juxtaposed with what looks like simple inaction from Washington.

Yet however wide and potentially damaging the resulting credibility gap – since perceptions can influence and in fact create diplomatic reality – that’s far from the main issue facing Americans in Syria. In fact, such problems only matter crucially if Americans and their leaders decide that Syria itself is intrinsically important to begin with, or that its fate will affect broader intrinsically important U.S. interests in the region as a whole.

So contrary to Kroft, it’s ultimately not particularly important in and of itself that the death toll in and refugee flow from Syria are rising or not; or whether the United States is succeeding or failing in destroying ISIS; or if Washington is making progress fast enough; or how much territory the terrorists control; or how dismally the president’s efforts to aid the moderate Syrian opposition have failed; or whether Russia is back militarily in the Middle East; or whether – as Kroft emphasized so dramatically – Putin is “challenging your leadership, Mr. President. He’s challenging your leadership-….”

What’s ultimately important, and justifies attention on the above developments, is identifying whether Syria’s fate can impact U.S. security and prosperity – and Kroft never sought the president’s views on whether it does, and if so, why.

As for Mr. Obama, he never proactively tried addressing this question. He spent much too much time insisting that the facts on the Middle East’s bloody ground are better than they look; that “Syria has been a difficult problem for the entire world community”; that military action alone won’t stabilize that country; that if you doubt that, look at the war in Afghanistan – which still hasn’t quelled the Taliban after 13 years – and that real leadership actually consists of fighting climate change, (temporarily) denying Iran a nuclear weapon, and assembling a broad anti-ISIS coalition.

It wasn’t until mid-way through this foreign policy segment that the president touched on what could have been a game-changing contention: “America’s priorities [have] to be number one, keeping the American people safe. Number two, we are prepared to work both diplomatically and where we can to support moderate opposition that can help convince the Russians and Iranians to put pressure on Assad for a transition.” A few minutes later, he elaborated a bit further: “[T]he problem that I think a lot of these critics never answered is what’s in the interest of the United States of America and at what point do we say that, ‘Here are the things we can do well to protect America. But here are the things that we also have to do in order to make sure that America leads and America is strong and stays number one.'”

Exactly – safeguarding U.S. national security and exercising American world leadership (however that’s defined) are two different missions, and the former doesn’t necessarily require the latter. In fact, that view would logically explain the president’s insistence that “we are not going to do is to try to reinsert ourselves in a military campaign inside of Syria.” It would just as logically explain his repeatedly stated, evident satisfaction with the goal of destroying ISIS “over time” (that is, once you recognize that the United States can fend off an ISIS threat to the homeland by keeping it too busy defending against attacks to plan, much less launch, September 11-like attacks).

Except Mr. Obama never made this or similar connections last night on 60 Minutes. Moreover, he’s never made them throughout his presidency. And he’s certainly never come close to taking the natural next step and articulating the advantages of replacing the current strategy (at least by default) of aiming to eliminate threats to the United States emanating from the Middle East by trying to manage or transform the region with one of countering these threats through domestic policies like fostering further progress on energy self-reliance and securing America’s borders.

What he’s done instead is talk in general, often abstract terms about the need to “degrade” terrorism, and about the imperative of reforming the Middle East by eradicating the alleged socio-economic roots of extremism, and about the importance of preventing the region’s political and broader dysfunction from worsening by relying on military force excessively, and using it ham-handedly.

Further, he doesn’t link these objectives to America’s safety and well-being in concrete and specific ways not because, as his domestic adversaries insist, he’s a radical or an apologist for America or a defeatist or a dreamer.  The president fails to make these links because he’s something quite different. He’s a card-carrying member – including a buy-in on the importance of “global leadership” – of the left wing of an American internationalist establishment that has long viewed as shamefully pedestrian, and unworthy of powers deserving the label “great,” foreign policies that aim first and foremost at keeping their countrymen (and women!) adequately secure and provided for.

What the 60 Minutes interview also makes clear, of course, is that Kroft – like most of the rest of the Mainstream Media – also enthusiastically endorses demonstrating national greatness through foreign policymaking. In other words, although the press is supposed to serve as democracy’s watchdog, its views of America’s world role are as remote from Main Street’s prime, and decidedly un-grandiose, concerns as those of the leaders it’s supposed to be holding accountable.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: After the Fact, a Big TPP Rationale is Shredded

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Asia-Pacific, Australia, China, CNN, Congress, credibility, fast track, global leadership, Obama, Pew Research Center, TPA, TPP, Trade, Trade Deficits, Trade Promotion Authority, Trans-Pacific Partnership, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Now that Washington’s big fight over the fast track bill is over, the national media will surely return to its norm of almost completely ignoring trade policy until a new trade deal like a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) comes before Congress. The only likely exceptions will be the extent that trade comes up in the intensifying presidential campaign.

This neglect is even more of a shame than usual, and not just because America’s relentlessly growing trade deficits keep slowing its already slow-enough semblance of a recovery. It’s a shame because the main justifications for the TPP keeping falling apart – most recently with the release of a new survey of international opinion from the Pew Research Center.

As will be recalled by those whose memories exceed the short term, a major set of arguments for concluding the TPP pretty much as it stands sprung from geopolitics. One especially prominent claim was that the agreement was vital for maintaining and strengthening America’s preeminence in the fast-growing Asia-Pacific region.

No one should be surprised that President Obama himself insists that the fast track legislation that will ease TPP’s journey through Congress “will reinforce America’s leadership role in the world -– in Asia, and in Europe, and beyond.” (The wisdom of a national leader suggesting that his country’s position needs strengthening is another subject entirely.) Somewhat more surprising is how completely the national chattering class accepted this view. Thus even someone as remote from trade (and foreign policy) issues as senior CNN politics reporter Stephen Collinson felt comfortable presenting as a fact, “Had the fast-track provision crashed,” the TPP “would have died, likely taking U.S. credibility in Asia and Obama’s pivot to the region with it.”

As I have repeatedly pointed out, such assertions are (take your pick) moronic or deceptive on their face. Examining America’s role as the leading final consumption market for export-dependent Asia, and its role as the only conceivable source of protection against a rising China, makes its centrality beyond legitimate dispute. But since doubters will always remain – and especially self-interested ones – it’s great that Pew has just made clear that the populations of the Asia-Pacific region itself clearly understand America’s importance economically.

Pew asked publics in several first-round TPP countries (and many other countries) to “name the world’s leading economic power” and gave them the choice of the United States, China, the European Union, Japan, or “Other/None/Don’t Know.” Although there was some country-by-country variation, the Asia-Pacific region was the one that most often awarded the United States the top spot – with solid majorities.

Specifically, respondents in Japan, Malaysia, and Vietnam considered the United States to be Number One by majorities of 59 percent, 53 percent, and 50 percent, respectively. The share of their populations that believed China had gained the lead? Twenty-three, 33, and 14 percent, respectively. Only one TPP first-round country placed China atop the world economy – Australia, by a whopping 57 percent to 31 percent over the United States. These results indicate that Australians know that their economy has relied heavily on exporting raw materials to China – but also that Australians need to learn about where much of China’s own growth comes from.

Indeed, the Chinese are apparently well-positioned to instruct the Aussies. They named the United States as the world’s leading economy over their country by 44 percent to 34 percent.

In fairness, another Pew survey reveals some evidence of America’s perceived top dog status slipping between 2014 and 2015. At the same time, this decline could have resulted from several months of Mr. Obama and other American leaders warning about China’s rise and thereby implicitly poor-mouthing their own country.

In fact, the only main TPP-related question surrounding the Pew results concerns timing: Why did the Center wait to release them four days after fast track’s final passage by the House?

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Have Americans Lost too Much Confidence?

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autarky, China, confidence, decoupling, foreign policy, Gallup, global leadership, national security, public opinion, Trade, {What's Left of) Our Economy

A new Gallup poll on how Americans perceive their country’s position in the world economy can be summed up with the classic “good news/bad news” formula, but encouragingly, the former outweighed the latter. At the same time, for anyone believing that major changes are needed in the nation’s approach to the world, the results are much more mixed.

First, the encouraging data – the latest survey showed the highest share of Americans believing “that it’s important for the United States to be No. 1 in the world economically” since the firm started studying the matter in 1993. This year’s 50 percent level easily beat the low point of 39 percent recorded in 2007 – when the last such poll was taken. Recall that 2007 was a year when major housing market problems had become apparent, but that the last recession officially began only at its very end. In 1993, 46 percent of the public considered global economic leadership important.

At the same time, 49 percent regarded “being No. 1” as “not that important, as long as the U.S. is among the leading economic powers.” The share of respondents offering that answer not surprisingly peaked in 2007 (at 60 percent). In 1993, 53 percent of respondents downplayed the importance of unquestioned number one world economic status.

The Gallup results also reveal a wide recent political gap on this question, with Republicans this year much more likely (64 percent) to emphasize top dog status economically than independents (48 percent) or Democrats (41 percent). Yet the changes over time are at least as interesting. Back in 1993, majorities of none of these groups prized their country being the world’s top economy. Views began diverging notably right around 2000, with the biggest changes being the steady surge starting that year of Republicans valuing America as number one economically. Independents grew less likely to value this status through 2007, but since then, their valuation of global leadership has jumped from 29 percent to 48 percent. Democrats’ views on the issue have changed least, varying between 49 percent viewing such leadership as important in 1993, and 38 percent agreeing with the proposition in 2007. Since 2000, the Democratic numbers have remained virtually unchanged.

Less encouraging – in part because it’s simply not tracking with the facts – is how Americans have viewed their economy’s actual standing in the world. Since 2010, only 17 percent of total Gallup respondents have considered the United States as the world’s leading economy, and since the firm began asking this question, the share believing that the nation held this status has peaked at only 40 percent, around 2000. During the 1990s – or at least starting in 1993 – popular belief in America as the world economic leader grew steadily from the 21 percent level.

In other words, according to Gallup, Americans don’t recognize that, in the last few years, the U.S. economy has outperformed most major competitors by most measures. Indeed, in separate results, China has been credited with world economic leadership. Because there’s no question that China has narrowed the gap with America dramatically since its economic reforms began roughly three decades ago, it seems clear that changes in global rankings – especially related to China – have made powerful impressions on U.S. public opinion. Going forward, I’ll be interested to see whether and how greatly American awareness of China’s mounting list of economic troubles grows – and how it compares with judgments about America’s own fortunes.

Overall, it’s heartening to see Americans increasingly appreciating the importance of world economic leadership – especially given their leaders’ continuing determination to define the nation’s security interests in practically limitless, and indeed utopian, terms. There’s no one-to-one correlation between a country’s economic performance and its foreign policy record. But there’s no doubt that, especially over time, a country losing ground in not only growth but in innovation and productivity will be harder pressed to achieve ambitious security goals, especially in a world of strengthening rivals.

In fact, economic out-performance is especially important for a country with broadly representative government like the United States. In the absence of dire and prolonged national security threats and other emergencies, the public is unlikely to support needed defense budget levels unless domestic spending programs remain generously funded as well. A robustly growing economic pie, in other words, greatly eases the competition between guns and butter.

I’m less happy, however, with Americans’ apparent belief in their country’s current economic weakness, or at least ordinariness. Although the recovery’s future is far from guaranteed, the United States recently has been the best looking house on a block of shabby properties, and in national security terms, relative economic growth and performance is at least as important as absolute growth and performance. And despite new evidence that it will keep military spending levels strong, China’s economic momentum has unmistakably flagged, and it depends heavily on debt for growth. So the Gallup results indicate that Americans are significantly underestimating their country’s power and influence globally, or at least its potential, and overestimating the degree to which its prosperity depends on (or to use the fashionable lingo, is “coupled to”) prosperity abroad.

This seeming misjudgment could be troubling for reasons that, strangely, are diametrically opposed. First, a nation that shortchanges its capacities could falter unnecessarily in the face of security challenges or opportunities. And on the economic front, by wrongly viewing itself in a weak bargaining position, it could settle for needlessly adverse trade deals and other policy outcomes.

Just as important, the Gallup results indicate that Americans don’t even remotely recognize their country’s enormous potential for achieving security and prosperity at much lower levels of risk and vulnerability than those created by regnant strategies of deep global engagement in both spheres. Nor, as a result, do they understand the possibilities of economic and foreign policy approaches that simply seek to reduce risks and vulnerabilities, as opposed to the radical step of seeking substantial autarky.

Gallup speculates that until the financial crisis struck, “Having been the world’s largest economy since the 1870s, Americans — at least in recent decades — may have taken their country’s leading economic stature for granted.” Gallup adds that, as other powers have risen, notably in the developing world, “Americans have begun to value being the world’s dominant economic power more highly.”

That sounds positive, because although Gallup provides no insights as to why economic preeminence is prized, its numbers suggest that the public is focused on its tangible benefits, not intangibles like bragging rights. At the same time, the poll also indicates that, since the admittedly subpar American recovery began, the public’s views of their country’s strengths and its policy implications have swung too far toward the opposite extreme.