Our So-Called Foreign Policy: (Unintentional) Gifts from the Globalists

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America First, globalism, international institutions, internationalism, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Joseph S. Nye, multilaterism, nation-building, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Project-Syndicate.org, sovereignty, Trump

One of life’s great pleasures is seeing views you’ve held for decades validated by your intellectual or ideological or political opponents. And there’s a special gratification in seeing them validated unwittingly (though nothing beats outright admissions of error).

So imagine how I’m feeling today having just learned that two of America’s leading globalists have just made clear (except to themselves) that the foreign policy approaches they’ve championed for decades are, in one case, only loosely at best related to the nation’s security and prosperity and, in the other, almost suicidally moronic.

The globalist who now apparently believes that globalism is unnecessary – along with, by implication, all the costs and risks it imposes on the United States – is Harvard University political scientist and former top U.S. national security official (under Democratic presidents) Joseph S. Nye, Jr.

In an essay published yesterday on the Project Syndicate website, Nye focused on explaining why American foreign policy can never escape and should never seek to avoid efforts to advance moral objectives. I disagree – but that’s another debate. What was most intriguing to me was a central argument used to advance his case: “Some foreign policy issues relate to a nation-state’s survival, but most do not. Since World War II, the United States, for example, has been involved in several wars, but none were necessary for its survival.”

This claim may seem to be nothing more than the essence of common sense (it is). But it also happens to clash violently with the core assumption of globalism (which in the pre-Trump years was called “internationalism”). As I originally wrote here, this assumption holds that America’s security, independence, and prosperity are so completely inseparable from the security, independence, and prosperity of literally every corner of the globe that the country literally has no choice but to anchor its foreign policy to the goal of creating a world so free of security, economic, and social challenges that threats to the United States will never arise in the first place.

Subsequently, I’ve contended that, however true this argument may or may not be for other countries, it is uniquely inapplicable to the United States, due to its towering degree of geopolitical security and its equally formidable potential for economic self-sufficiency.

Leave aside for the moment the issue of whether I’m right or wrong. Nye’s acknowledgment that none – i.e., not a single one – of the (often frightfully costly) wars fought by the United States in the last seven decades was a war of necessity signals loudly and clearly that Nye (at least now) agrees with me. And if these conflicts were in fact wars of choice, then logically the various globalist policies they were intended to advance or reinforce in the name of creating that threat-free world need to be seen as optional as well – ranging from prioritizing the maintenance of international alliances and institutions to the extension of foreign aid and involvement in nation-building.

Not that their optionality means that they should always or even often be opposed. But it does mean that Americans – and especially the globalist elites that have controlled and dominated the way Americans discuss foreign policy (at least in systematic ways) – need to pay more attention to alternative approaches for achieving and maintaining adequate levels of security, independence, and prosperity. As a result, the types of America First impulses displayed by President Trump and articulated more completely by some of his like-minded compatriots (including yours truly) need to be examined carefully, not ruled out of hand with pejoratives like “isolationism” or “bullying.”

The second globalist to have made my day today is former U.S. Senator John Kerry, who of course also won the Democratic nomination for President in 2004 and then went on to serve as Secretary of State in Barack Obama’s administration.

Kerry has been campaigning for his Obama era colleague Joe Biden’s bid to win the White House this year, and this morning was shown on CNBC making the following statement while touting the former Vice President’s qualifications for the Oval Office: “He [Biden] is completely committed to the notion that before you send American troops into harm’s way, before you ask families to risk the lives of their loved ones, you owe it to everybody in the world to exhaust the capacity for diplomacy. This President has not done that.”

It’s one thing of course to support caution in using America’s military overseas. No sensible person of good will could object. But such decisions should be made with “everybody in the world” in mind? Seriously? Even national populations with absolutely no stake in the outcome? Even the population of the country being targeted? Even its leaders? Even the allies of those leaders, like Vladimir Putin? Come to think of it, what did Franklin Roosevelt owe Adolf Hitler before he declared war on Germany in 1941, beating the Nazis to that punch. Talk about a formula for endless inaction and outright paralysis – however urgent the circumstances or imminent the threat. I really try avoiding use of the word “stupid,” but if the shoe fits….

Moreover, Kerry wasn’t simply having a bad day here. He expressed almost identical views during his 2004 presidential run when he insisted that American decisions to go to war must be submitted to a “global test” of legitimacy. It’s like he either doesn’t know that the United States is a fully sovereign country, which means that according to any framework you care to use (utilitarian, legal, ethical) it is completely and unreservedly entitled to decide for itself whether its own actual or even perceived interests justify this step – or he doesn’t believe it.

I’m going with the latter answer, especially given globalism’s bottom line about the supremacy of multilateralism, – i.e., about creating, reserving, and continually strengthening international institutions as the only conceivable way to achieve that benign global environment they seek.

But my swelling head aside, let’s not forget the most important silver lining to this post. For decades, Nye and Kerry have done more than their share to push the United States into endless globalist wars, to assume needless nuclear attack risk (through the tripwire forces deployed to defend wealthy, free-riding U.S. allies), to waste massive resources on nation-building fool’s quests, and to undercut its precious sovereignty for the sake of utopian global governance dreams.

In the last 24 hours, though, they’ve strengthened the case – however unintentionally – for avoiding these blunders going forward. And I’m certainly more than happy to say “Thanks!” instead of “I told you so.”

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Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Case for a “Made in America” Approach

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Africa, AIDS, border security, climate change, corruption, diseases, foreign policy, foreign policy establishment, globalism, HIV, human rights, internationalism, Iran, Iran deal, Islamic terrorism, Israel, Jeffrey Goldberg, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Middle East, missile defense, nuclear proliferation, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, population control, Project-Syndicate.org, shale, terrorism, The New York Times, Thomas Friedman

I’m picking on New York Times uber-pundit Thomas Friedman again today – not because of any personal animus, but because, as noted yesterday, he’s such an effective, influential creator of and propagandist for the conventional wisdom on so many public policy fronts. And just to underscore that it’s nothing personal, I’ll also put in my cross-hairs another, though lower profile, thought leader: Harvard political scientist Joseph S. Nye, Jr. The reason? Both recently have provided us with quintessential illustrations of how lazy – and indeed juvenile – the justifications for American international activism served up by the bipartisan foreign policy establishment have grown.

The analyses I’m talking about aren’t quite as childishly simplistic as the establishment theme I wrote about last month – the assumption that American involvement in alliances and international organizations and regimes is automatically good, and that withdrawal or avoidance is automatically bad. But because it’s a little more sophisticated, it can be even more harmful. It’s the insistence that whenever the United States faces a problem with an international dimension, the remedy is some form of international engagement.

A recent Friedman column revealed one big weakness with this assumption: It often logically leads to the conclusion that a problem is utterly hopeless, at least for the foreseeable future. Just think about the only sensible implications of this October 31 article, which insists that the apparently metastasizing threat of Islamic terrorism in Africa can’t be adequately dealt with through the military tools on which the Trump administration is relying.

Why not? “Because what is destabilizing all of these countries in the Sahel region of Africa and spawning terrorist groups is a cocktail of climate change, desertification — as the Sahara steadily creeps south — population explosions and misgovernance.

“Desertification is the trigger, and climate change and population explosions are the amplifiers. The result is a widening collapse of small-scale farming, the foundation of societies all over Africa.”

I have no doubt that Friedman is right here. And as a result, he has a point to slam the Trump administration “for sending soldiers to fight a problem that is clearly being exacerbated by climate and population trends….” (That’s of course a prime form of American international activism.)

But he veers wildly off course in suggesting that other forms of such activism – “global contraception programs,” “U.S. government climate research” and the like are going to do much good, especially in the foreseeable future. Unless he supposes that, even if American policies turned on a dime five or even ten years ago, Africa would be much less of a mess? The only adult conclusion possible is that nothing any government can do is going to turn the continent into something other than a major spawning ground for extremism and refugees.

And this conclusion looks especially convincing considering the African problem to which Friedman – and so many other supporters of such approaches – gives short shrift: dreadfully corrupt governments. For this is a problem that has afflicted Africa since the countries south of the Sahara began gaining their independence from European colonialists in the late-1950s. (And the colonialists themselves weren’t paragons of good government, either.)

So I’m happy to agree that we shouldn’t pretend that sending American special forces running around Africa helping local dictators will actually keep the terrorists under control (although as I’ve argued in the case of the Middle East, such deployments could helpfully keep them off balance). But let’s not pretend that anything Friedman supports will help, either – at least in the lifetime of anyone reading this.

Nye has held senior government foreign policy posts in Democratic administrations and, in the interests of full disclosure, we have crossed swords in print – mainly about the proper definition of internationalism and about a review of an anthology he edited that he didn’t like (which doesn’t seem to be on-line). But I hope you agree that there’s still a big problem with his November 1 essay for Project-Syndicate.org about the implications of America’s domestic energy production revolution for the nation’s approach to the Middle East.

In Nye’s words: “Skeptics have argued that lower dependence on energy imports will cause the US to disengage from the Middle East. But this misreads the economics of energy. A major disruption such as a war or terrorist attack that stopped the flow of oil and gas through the Strait of Hormuz would drive prices to very high levels in America and among our allies in Europe and Japan. Besides, the US has many interests other than oil in the region, including nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, protection of Israel, human rights, and counterterrorism.”

Two related aspects of this list of reasons for continued American engagement in the region stand out. First, it’s completely indiscriminate. And second, for this reason, it completely overlooks how some of these unmistakably crucial U.S. interests can be much more effectively promoted or defended not through yet more American intervention in this increasingly dysfunctional region, but through changes in American domestic policies.

For instance, we’re (rightly) worried about nuclear proliferation, especially in Iran? How can today’s engagement policy help? Even if the the current Iran nuclear deal works exactly as intended, what happens when it runs out? Should we simply assume that Tehran will be happy to keep its nuclear genie in a bottle for another fifteen years? Will Iran be persuaded to give up the nuclear option permanently if Washington cultivates even closer ties with its age-old Sunni Muslim enemies, like Saudi Arabia?

Although I’m a missile defense skeptic – especially when it comes to the near-term threat from North Korea – isn’t figuring out a more effective way to repel an Iranian strike more likely to protect the American homeland? It’s certainly a response over which the United States will have much more control – and indeed, any control. In addition, if the United States withdraws militarily from the Persian Gulf region, Iran’s reason for launching such an attack in the first place fades away and, as I’ve argued in the case of North Korea, America’s own vastly superior nuclear forces become a supremely credible deterrent for any other contingencies.

Of course the United States faces a big Middle East-related terrorism problem. But as I’ve argued previously, the keys to America’s defense are serious border security measures. They, too, pass the “control test” with flying colors, and consequently seem much more promising than the status quo approach of trying to shape the region’s future in more constructive ways. But as I’ve also written, it would also make sense to keep in the Middle East small-scale American forces whose mission is continually harassing ISIS and Al Qaeda and whatever other groups of vicious nutballs are certain to appear going forward.

Nye’s point about the integration of global energy markets is a valid one. But in the same article, he acknowledges how the U.S. domestic energy revolution’s “combination of entrepreneurship, property rights, and capital markets” has changed the game for America. Why does he suppose that its effects won’t spread significantly beyond our borders?

As for Nye’s other two reasons for continued U.S. Middle East engagement, the notion that Washington can do anything meaningful to promote the cause of human rights simply isn’t serious, and Israel has amply demonstrated that, with enough American military aid, it can take care of itself.

Moreover, as you may recognize, the arguments for mainly focusing on border security to handle the Middle East terrorist threat applies to the African menace that’s preoccupying Friedman.

The main takeaway here isn’t that U.S. international engagement will never be needed to protect national security, safeguard the nation’s independence, or enhance its prosperity. It’s that Made in America approaches will turn out to be vastly superior in many cases – and certainly in many more cases than the bipartisan globalist foreign policy establishment recognizes. How long will it take for President Trump to get fully on board?

By the way, I first began exploring the idea of Made in America solutions to foreign policy problems and international threats when I read this article by current Atlantic Monthly Editor Jeffrey Goldberg. He argued in 1999 that the nation was making a big mistake ignoring Africa in its diplomacy because the continent was likely to become a source of deadly diseases sure to cross oceans and eventually afflict Americans and others; that “H.I.V., of course, is a particularly vicious warning shot”; and that it was high time for Washington to deal with “poverty, poor sanitation and political instability” as well as put “a global system of public health and disease surveillance in place.”

Not that Goldberg presented a stark either-or choice, but my reaction was “If we do need to figure out whether to place more AIDS-fighting emphasis on promoting African economic development, or on finding a cure through medical research, isn’t the latter much likelier to deliver major results much sooner?”

As is clear from the Friedman article, Africa’s array of problems continues unabated. And according to no less than the (devoutly globalist) Obama administration, as of last year, the United States was “on the right track to reach most of its “National HIV/AIDS Strategy” goals for 2020 – which seek an America that’s “a place where new HIV infections are rare” and where “high quality, life-extending care” is available.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: U.S. Cyber Strategy Still Seems Full of Holes

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arms control, asymmetrical war, China, cyber-war, deterrence, Iran, James Clapper, Joseph S. Nye, multilateralism, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Politico, Project Syndicate, Russia, treaties

Terrorism has understandably grabbed all the recent national security headlines lately, but two big articles this week have also valuably reminded us that major cyber threats still loom. Unfortunately, these pieces also (unwittingly) remind of all the reasons to worry that Washington still doesn’t have its arms around two of the biggest challenges facing the nation on the cyber front. The first is the asymmetry issue, which is a fancy way of saying that many of America’s current and likely cyber adversaries have much less to lose than the United States in a computer-war exchange. The second is the unlikelihood that the kinds of legalistic foreign policy approaches favored by much of the American establishment can meet this challenge.

Actually, the asymmetry issue has several cyber-related dimensions. One, widely noted (and especially by Chinese strategists), is that today’s civilian computer networks, whose development has long emphasized openness and information sharing, are vulnerable to attacks even from relatively low-tech countries. So for that reason alone, cyber-war can be a great geopolitical equalizer.

The second, however, is less widely noted. As I’ve written, the decision to launch a cyber attack against an adversary with significant cyber-war capabilities of its own rests on much more than a calculation of whether any assets the attacker values (its own cyber forces, its other military forces, its economy or broader society) can survive a retaliatory strike in meaningful form. This decision also hinges on more than how “meaningful” is defined for one or both parties to the conflict. It depends as well on a more fundamental, more political assessment regarding how much pain the two countries and societies can withstand.

Paradoxically, and especially relevant to Americans, the more advanced a country is, the less able it arguably is to deal satisfactorily with the disruptions stemming from a major cyber strike. And because the converse makes sense, too, it may not be decisive that the United States could inflict more damage in absolute terms in a cyber exchange on foes such as North Korea or Iran or Russia or even China than vice versa. The kinds of hardships stemming from the disabling of modern infrastructure could be much more tolerable for the peoples of these less developed, less prosperous countries than for Americans because much greater percentages of them rely so much less on these systems. Moreover, life without them is a much more recent memory – as are knowledge of and experience with coping.

That’s where, for all the information it contains (and keeping in mind that national cyber capabilities are closely guarded secrets), this detailed new Politico article on U.S. forces in this realm falls short. Even if America’s technological edge is as strong as portrayed, some of its adversaries might not be impressed enough to be deterred. One big possible policy implication: Asymmetry means that shoring up the nation’s cyber defenses, difficult as that is, is at least as important for ensuring cyber-security as creating matchless offenses. And as RealityChek readers know, U.S. intelligence chief James Clapper and other senior officials have said – for attribution – that these offenses actually aren’t so matchless. Another big implication – at least against China, trade and broader economic sanctions may be the most effective cyber counter-moves, since China’s dictators will struggle so to remain in power without the growing prosperity created largely by exporting to the United States.

One conclusion that shouldn’t be drawn from this cyber predicament is that a realistic way out is an international treaty or code of conduct banning or limiting cyber war. In this respect, it’s encouraging that Joseph S. Nye’s new essay for Project Syndicate is hardly a ringing endorsement of such legalisms and their effectiveness. But he does suggest that these measures can strengthen deterrence, and notes approvingly that

“major states have agreed that cyber war will be limited by the law of armed conflict, which requires discrimination between military and civilian targets and proportionality in terms of consequences. Last July, the United Nations Group of Government Experts recommended excluding civilian targets from cyberattacks, and that norm was endorsed at last month’s G-20 summit.”

Nye isn’t an Obama administration official, but he has been at the center of Democratic Party foreign policy circles for decades, and his pioneering emphasis on “soft power,” multilateralism, and other supposed substitutes for military might fits right in with Mr. Obama’s belief that world affairs is coming to be dominated by a fundamentally new, more cooperative set of dynamics and relationships. 

So it’s important to note that these ideas are simply efforts to define America’s biggest international problems – and international tensions in general – out of existence. Think about it: If the United States faced cyber-armed adversaries who were willing to abide fully by the conflict-limiting agreements they signed, these agreements wouldn’t be needed in the first place. For those countries would never take such commitments seriously unless they decided that their stake in maintaining whatever degree of (shaky) global peace and order prevails significantly outweighs whatever goals they could hope to achieve through major use of cyber-weapons – or any other weapons.

That is, if the world’s Chinas, Russias, and Irans were truly devoted to competing for influence peacefully and according to a set of rules, the rules would simply codify that reality. Their existence on a piece of paper cannot create it. And the asymmetry problem makes assuming their reasonableness (at least as Americans judge it) or perceived support for the global status quo even less reasonable.

Moreover, anyone believing that the history of nuclear arms control debunks that pessimism doesn’t understand that the various Cold War agreements signed by the United States and Soviet Union had nothing important to due with preventing armageddon. Instead, in this case, the conditions for a successful “balance of terror” – of mutual deterrence – were obviously in place. Fears of final physical destruction trumped all other considerations and produced restraint.

Sadly, there’s no evidence that any of the presidential candidates this year have better ideas. But as I wrote above, what the public doesn’t know about America’s cyber-war programs and strategies greatly (and properly) exceeds what it knows. So perhaps there’s some hope that truly realistic approaches are being developed, and that the next president will start learning about them once he or she is elected.