Im-Politic: On That Trump Inaugural Address

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American First, foreign policy, geopolitics, Immigration, inaugural address, inauguration, internationalism, John F. Kennedy, national interests, national security, Trade, Trump

Wow! That was some inauguration address from President Trump! We’ve literally never heard anything like it either from an incoming president or a new president or a long-sitting president or a former president. In fact, it is so no-less-than revolutionary that I almost hesitate to comment so soon.

But this is the blogosphere, so here’s the biggest takeaway I see so far: If Mr. Trump is as serious as he sounded about taking an “America First” approach to U.S. foreign policy, and trade and other international economic policies, he will not only turn the country upside down. He will turn the world upside down.

The main reasons are that literally since the Pearl Harbor attack, American leaders have defined this concept out of existence. That is, they have not believed that America’s interests can be separated in any meaningful and especially ongoing way from those of the rest of the world and its well-being. As I’ve written, this idea by no means reflects iron realities of America’s own situation, world politics, or America’s relations with other countries.

Instead, it springs from a distinctive ideology – best termed “internationalism” – that is as inherently subjective and imperfectly reflective of reality as any other ideology. And it’s fundamental assumption is that because the United States can’t be adequately secure or free or prosperous unless the rest of the world has achieved the same goals, the nation should assume whatever risks and expenses are necessary at least to generate progress regardless of the impact on America’s own circumstances. If you doubt this, recall (or take a look at) President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than half a century ago.

The way I see it, Kennedy’s ringing rhetoric about America’s supposedly infinite resolve and ability to defend freedom – especially in its Cold War context – pushed the United States much faster toward disaster in Vietnam, and produced similar fiascoes for decades afterwards. It’s also led Democratic and Republican presidents alike to sacrifice big and highly productive chunks of America’s domestic economy (notably manufacturing) on behalf of liberalizing global trade, fostering third world economic development, and buying and keeping allies.

So I’ve long argued for the imperative of a completely different grand strategy. It rejects as both delusional and dangerous – because unnecessary – the practice of indefinitely striving for a more stable and/or more secure world. And it concentrates on capitalizing on America’s considerable, matchless, and geographically and geologically based potential for more-than-adequate levels of security and prosperity. As a result, I’ve contended that any U.S. initiative in world affairs meet a strict, national interest test: It must strengthen or protect or enrich the United States in direct, concrete ways. And it must do so within a finite period.

This is essentially Trump’s stated approach – which internationalist critics on both the left and the right, at home and abroad, have denigrated as small-mindedly “transactional.” Of course, they also believe that it will destroy arrangements that have prevented great power war and global depression since 1945. My main point here is not repeating that the president and I are right and the naysayers are wrong, but to emphasize just how radical this possible change would be.

At the same time, I stuck “possible” into that previous sentence for good reasons. First, even if this is Mr. Trump’s plan, it’s not going to be put into effect right away. Barring existential crises, like major wars or the Great Depression or Watergate-like scandals, changes this big rarely take place quickly. Second, powerful forces remain aligned firmly against President Trump – in Big Business and on Wall Street, in the two major parties, and in the mainstream media and the rest of the national chattering classes. Don’t think they’ll give in easily. Indeed, from their backgrounds, it’s quite possible that several members of the president’s cabinet and leading advisory circles could be opposed, too.

Third, because events so often call the tune, especially in national security, it’s entirely conceivable that a series of real or apparent crises will result in a Trump foreign policy that’s mainly reactive – and continues along the same strategic lines. And fourth, some of the president’s ongoing rhetoric itself – i.e., on exercising global leadership, or on escalating the war on ISIS in the Middle East, or especially on “reinforcing old alliances” (as promised in the inaugural address) – don’t mesh easily (to say the least) with the idea of America First.

More optimistically (from my standpoint), the chances of changing America’s course on trade and immigration issues sooner rather than later seem higher. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, brought to you by former Presidents Bush (the 43d) and Obama, has now been scrapped. Mexico has announced that negotiations to transform the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and to deal with other bilateral issues, will start next week. Presidents also have impressive authority to impose various types of tariffs unilaterally, as well as to overhaul American approaches on other economic fronts – for example, on further curbing investments in the U.S. economy from China. And don’t forget how that Mr. Trump can repeal the controversial Obama executive orders on immigration with the stroke of a pen.

Finally, it’s important to note that any big change, even necessary big change, rarely comes without tumult. In addition, you can count on the mainstream media to exaggerate its severity whenever possible, as well as to blame Mr. Trump for much domestic and foreign turmoil even when he’s not remotely responsible. Even an alpha dog personality like the new president might find the visuals unnerving. I just hope that he remembers his own view that the alternative – allowing festering problems to become genuine calamities (including foreign military quagmires) – is likeliest to be far worse.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Russia – and Broader – Reset That’s Urgently Needed

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China, Cold War, Europe, interest-based thinking, national interests, NATO, NATO expansion, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Putin, Russia, Soviet Union, spheres of influence, third world, threat-based thinking, Vietnam

Even though American policy could take a significantly different turn after Donald Trump becomes president, it’s all too likely that U.S.-Russia relations will continue heating up to worrisome temperatures for the foreseeable future. And although much American rhetoric on the subject has veered into hysteria, there’s no shortage of real-world obstacles to any new White House hopes for a cool-off – mainly Moscow’s undeniable determination to expand its influence along in Europe, where it now directly borders the U.S.-led NATO alliance. There’s also abundant (though not yet conclusive) evidence that Russia’s government tried to interfere with the 2016 American presidential election.

Russian president Vladimir Putin is by no means solely to blame for rising bilateral tensions. As I’ve written previously, much and possibly most of the problem stems from the American decision – supported by presidents and Congresses of both parties – to expand NATO right up to Russia’s doorstep after the end of the Cold War. And facing up to this wholly unnecessary, gratuitous effort to capitalize on Russia’s post-1990 weakness looks to me like the key to a genuinely successful reset of bilateral ties.

But ultimately, just as important for the United States as dealing with this urgent short-term problem is learning a lesson about how to think about its national interests that sadly was missed after the decades-long superpower struggle ended. The lesson: The key to foreign policy success is basing actions on identifying overseas interests of intrinsic, material importance, rather than on assumptions about actual or potential adversaries.

During the Cold War, American foreign policymakers across the board used both sets of criteria as lodestars – and created big, unnecessary trouble for the nation as a result. Washington reasonably treated the security of, for example, Western Europe and Japan as vital interests of the United States – because these regions were reasonably judged to be centers of critical economic and therefore military capability and potential. Losing them to Soviet influence could indeed have tilted the balance of global power against the United States in genuinely damaging ways. Moreover, an equally reasonable determination was made that Western Europe and Japan could be defended at acceptable cost and risk to America.

Tragically, however, this form of “interest-based” thinking was not applied to much of the developing world. In these regions of Latin America, Asia, and Africa, major defense commitments were taken on even though the countries in question were typically of little or no intrinsic interest to the United States – in terms of their actual or (realistically potential) wealth or military power, their raw materials, or even their location.

Instead, Washington based policy on the type of threat it concluded was posed by these countries, by ascendant forces within them, or by Soviet or Chinese designs on them or activity within their borders. Therefore, as I’ve written, Americans consumed themselves with debates over subjects like:

>whether rival superpowers’ activity in these areas was fundamentally offensive in nature or defensive;

>whether the relationships between these rival superpowers and local forces were simply alliances of convenience that meant little in the long run and could be easily broken up with appropriate U.S. overtures, or whether they were strongly ideological ties with real staying power; and similarly

>whether the local forces themselves should be seen simply as Soviet of Chinese pawns (and therefore needed to be fought on some level), or whether they were fundamentally nationalistic and on “the right side of history” (and therefore needed to be accepted and cooperated with).

These are all fascinating questions, and the resulting debate made fascinating reading – at least from an academicky or purely rhetorical standpoint. But they were dangerously off-base as fundamental determinants of American policy. The main reason: They all presented supposed answers to questions that are virtually unknowable – unless we imagine that certain foreign policy-makers and analysts are mind-readers or have highly reliable crystal balls. Disaster in Vietnam – a war never consistently, or even often, justified for intrinsically important reasons – reveals the price America can pay for indulging in these fantasies.

Defining specific, concrete U.S. interests is no science, either. But answers here are relatively knowable. Sure, subjectivity can’t be avoided. But Americans depend on our government to make judgments like this all the time. If the nation has decided otherwise, then it’s hard to make the case for any government at all.

How should this argument affect how Americans think about the new Russia challenges in Europe? Principally, they should stop focusing on whether Putin is a new version of the Soviet leaders who many thought aimed at worldwide dominion, or simply a nationalist feeling besieged by the West and seeking greater security along Russia’s frontiers. And they should start focusing on the intrinsic importance of the countries that Putin seems to be threatening.

In other words, how has Washington viewed Ukraine or Georgia or Moldova? What about new NATO members such as Poland or Hungary or the Baltic countries? Have they ever been placed in the category of vital interests, either from a national security or economic standpoint? Have U.S. leaders ever been willing to risk war on their behalf, even when the United States enjoyed a nuclear monopoly or overwhelming superiority? If the answers here are “No” (Spoiler alert: It is.), then has anything about these countries and their concrete and even perceived value changed since the end of the Cold War? In fact, has anything about them economically or strategically changed other than new NATO membership in some cases?

In my view, history makes obvious that the answer to those latter questions is “No” as well. Further, nothing has happened either in these parts of Europe, or in the American or Russian militaries, that has made them more easily defended by the West with conventional weapons alone than during the Cold War.

So it’s easy to see how more threat-based thinking can too easily lead Washington into a corner in which its only choice to defend all of its new treaty allies from some new form of Russian hegemony is to threaten nuclear war more loudly; and how interest-based thinking can lead to the alternative of offering to recognize how geography inevitably (however sadly) relegates these countries to a Russian sphere of influence, and seeking the best possible arrangement for them. And it’s even easier to see which alternative, however imperfect, is vastly superior.

Im-Politic: Why Trump-ism Could Have Staying Power

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2016 election, America First, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, foreign policy, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, internationalism, Jimmy Carter, John Kerry, national interests, national security, Obama, Peggy Noonan, Richard Nixon, rule of law, The Wall Street Journal, Trade

Welcome to the Age of Trump!

Since ages these days come and go a lot faster than previously in history, this one could well end in November, if he loses the presidency. Who, though, can doubt that, until then, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee will dominate the news cycle with his outsiders’ instincts and his matchless flair for publicity, and keep his presumptive rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, the quintessential insider, continually on the defensive?

At the same time, the reasons for supposing that what might be called “Trump-ism” in American policy (and yes, I’m aware of all the contradictory views he still needs to resolve) is no flash in the pan are much stronger than widely realized.

Even given the implacable hostility he’s generated throughout the Mainstream Media, because of all the of digital ink spilled already on Trump’s remarkable rise, it’s hard to imagine anyone recently coming up with something fundamentally new – including me. But the Wall Street Journal‘s Peggy Noonan (who gained fame as a star speechwriter for Ronald Reagan) achieved just that objective in her April 28 column, when she wrote that the key to Trump’s appeal has been his supporters’ conviction that “he is on America’s side.”

Moreover, before you say, “Duh,” Noonan’s basic analysis ultimately also explains why Trump is so detested by the nation’s policy establishment across the political spectrum, along with the establishment journalists that flack for them – and why his approach to America’s challenges and opportunities holds much more promise than the reigning framework, especially in world affairs.

As you’ll see if you read the article, Noonan’s definition of “pro-American” entails much more than an avowed determination to defend and advance the nation’s interests. Of course, all public officials will call that their goal, and nearly all will sincerely mean it. What Noonan emphasizes, however, is the tendency of mainstream liberal, conservative, and centrist politicians alike to dilute that goal with numerous other considerations. These often are compatible with what’s best for America, or could be. But they’re not necessarily or intrinsically “pro-American” and can easily – and often have – compromised U.S. security or prosperity.

Noonan’s writes that Trump’s literal America First outlook “comes as a great relief to [his backers] because they believe that for 16 years Presidents Bush and Obama were largely about ideologies. They seemed not so much on America’s side as on the side of abstract notions about justice and the needs of the world. Mr. Obama’s ideological notions are leftist, and indeed he is a hero of the international left. He is about international climate-change agreements, and leftist views of gender, race and income equality. Mr. Bush’s White House was driven by a different ideology—neoconservatism, democratizing, nation building, defeating evil in the world, privatizing Social Security.

“But it was all ideology.

“Then Mr. Trump comes and in his statements radiate the idea that he’s not at all interested in ideology, only in making America great again—through border security and tough trade policy, etc. He’s saying he’s on America’s side, period.

I’d elaborate with two points. First, there’s a fundamental, bipartisan worldview and approach to world affairs underlying all these disparate positions. As I’ve explained, it’s called internationalism, and its bedrock tenet holds that America’s best bet for security and prosperity is pursuing what political scientists call milieu goals – literally trying to shape the world to make it safe for America.

As a result, especially since Pearl Harbor, this strategy has led the nation’s leaders on what I’ve called (especially in writing about national security and international economic policy) a search for abstract (a word Noonan uses in passing) standards to guide policy rather than simply asking what makes America and its people safer or wealthier. In fairness to the policy gurus and their acolytes, they insist that they’re simply taking a broader, more complex (sophisticated, etc.) and indeed more realistic view of U.S. interests. In particular, they claim to understand that the long run is more important than instant gratification.

That’s why even long before President Obama entered the White House, American leaders have been talking about strengthening peaceful global norms of behavior and the international institutions that should be administering them; about preserving relationships; about submitting to a “global test” before going to war (Secretary of State John Kerry’s words as the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate); about creating New World Orders and balances of power and “global structures of peace” (a Richard Nixon favorite); about freeing global trade and commerce to the greatest possible extent; about winning foreign “hearts and minds” (a Vietnam War campaign); about figuring out who’s on the “right side of history” (a big bone of contention during Jimmy Carter’s presidency); about eradicating global poverty; about controlling arms; about demonstrating credibility; about exercising or maintaining “global leadership.”

Of course, America and the world as a whole would indeed likely be much better off if much of this substantive progress (i.e., disarmament, trade liberalization) came to pass. But the main question facing policy-makers is rarely, “What would be advantageous” but “What is achievable at acceptable cost and risk?” Just as important is the question, “Compared to what?” For countries without alternatives, questing for a more congenial world environment is arguably the policy to follow – even though, paradoxically, however, their very lack of alternatives logically reflects a weakness that places this goal far out of reach.

As I’ve argued, however, the United States is in a different, and much more favorable, situation entirely, thanks to its geographically isolated location, its still dynamic social system, its sheer size, and its consequent economic power and potential for self-sufficiency. And logically, a policy of relying on variables that are relatively easy to control (i.e., a country’s own capabilities and actions) makes much more sense than a policy relying on variables that are relatively difficult to control (i.e., the capabilities and actions of others).

The arguments for pursuing the procedural aims of internationalism (those institutional goals) are even weaker for the United States. Given its military and economic superpower status and potential, yoking America to internationally agreed on standards of behavior seems likeliest to crimp valuable freedom of action, and hand influence over America’s fate over to powers that are either indifferent or hostile, without contributing on net to national security or well-being.

Also worth fretting about are time-frames (which are closely related to cost and risk issues). Let’s assume that even all of the above goals would benefit America sufficiently to warrant their pursuit. That still leaves the matter of how long the nation is supposed to wait for the benefits to start flowing. And nowhere is this question more important than in the international trade field, where Americans have repeatedly been told either (a) that their jobs and incomes should be sacrificed for the greater good by decisions to win and keep allies by handing them chunks of U.S. markets; and (b) that whatever economic pain liberalized trade is inflicting will eventually be more than offset by greater efficiencies or wider consumer choices or even more employment opportunities and higher wages (when foreign countries finally decide to open their markets).

It’s important to note that a “Trump-ian” crockery-breaking pursuit of greater and quicker policy benefits has no place in domestic politics. At home, Americans have developed a strong consensus on acceptable standards of behavior that justifies the supremacy of rule of law and its consequent proceduralism.  Nothing close to such a consensus is visible internationally.

But here’s something that’s at least as important to note: Even though it’s by no means certain that internationalism’s assumptions have been discredited, or that its promises have been broken, what is certain from the success this year of Trump as well as Democrat Bernie Sanders – another staunch critic of U.S. trade policy – is that Americans increasingly are out of patience. They’re demanding policies that safeguard their livelihoods and raise their wages now. And they’re in no mood to be told that such measures might violate World Trade Organization rules or antagonize allies whose own free trade bona fides are dubious at best – or offend populations in a dysfunctional Middle East that hasn’t exactly been showering Americans with affection lately.

Finally, the politics of the divide between Trump supporters and policy elites has been positively inflamed by the latter’s ability to avoid most of the costs and risks of glittering, quasi-utopian visions still all too far from panning out. Precisely because these electoral considerations dovetail so neatly with a policy shift strongly grounded in geopolitical and economic realities, unless U.S. security and international economic policies start delivering concretely for many more Americans very soon, the Age of Trump could have real legs.

Im-Politic: American Elites’ America Last Leanings

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E.J. Dionne, elites, Establishment Media, globalization, Im-Politic, incomes, middle class, national interests, offshoring, Steven Weisman, The Washington Post, Trade, trade agreements, working class

Although I don’t know E.J. Dionne well, the Washington Post columnist has always been one of my favorite journalists. It’s not his politics – they’re too orthodox lefty for me. It’s been his personality – always respectful and open-minded in our limited dealings, and equally gracious, tolerant, and genuinely curious in print, despite being highly opinionated.

That’s why it pains me to write that his newest offering widely missed the mark on the first-order issue of identifying the U.S. government’s top economic priorities. It’s only saving grace is underscoring how wide the philosophical and worldview gaps have grown between the the Establishment Media (at least much of it) and the general public (at least much of it).

Summarizing a new book on the new world economy, Dionne commends the author for “painstakingly avoiding dogmatism” and taking care “in laying out the often-agonizing choices” created by globalization. For example, he continues, the rapid growth of international trade and investment,

“has ‘elevated the living standards of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people worldwide’ but also ‘has helped suppress the incomes of low-skilled middle-class workers in rich countries.’ Where do our loyalties lie? How do we balance obligations to our fellow citizens in the communities and countries in which we live against the interests of those far away?”

Excuse me, but “Time out”! “Where do our loyalties lie”? Not only should the answer be screamingly obvious to any American citizen, but just when did this become a legitimate question? It certainly would never be asked with any sincerity anywhere else in the world, except perhaps in affluent Scandinavia and elsewhere in guilt-ridden northern Europe. That undeniable reality alone should warn Americans against such cosmopolitanism. A U.S. leadership unsure whether its first obligations are to its own citizens is a poor bet to protect their interests adequately in a world where other major-power leaders aren’t nearly so confused.

Then there’s the democracy angle (which Dionne ironically deals with – from a different angle – in his following sentence). How many American voters do you know have elected public officials to pursue foreign interests – however morally compelling – over their own? Just as important, how many of those public officials themselves put America Last? At the least, aren’t they obliged to identify themselves clearly, so their constituents can know who they’re supporting? Private citizens of course have every right to set their own international priorities (provided, of course, that they don’t clash with or undermine official American diplomacy). But elected or appointed members of the U.S. government can’t legitimately enjoy this option – unless they’ve advertised their views before entering public life.

To be clear, I’m not arguing that the United States should never subordinate its needs and wants to those of others. Often in world politics, and politics in general, long-term gain can justify short-term pain. But if the pain is likely to last longer, and keep intensifying, the American people have a right to know about such consequences before the key decisions are made. Nor do I have any intrinsic problems with using U.S. assets to create overseas benefits for their own sakes (as opposed to self-interested goals like buying and keeping allies). But again, these choices need to be approved in advance by the voters. Otherwise, politicians would have free rein to be charitable and compassionate with Other People’s Money.

And in a sense, this is what Dionne and the author he lauds (former journalist-turned Washington think-tanker Steven Weisman) arguably, if unwittingly, are engaged in. For it’s much easier to call for more altruism in American policy when high incomes make such measures affordable. Unfortunately, the kinds of Americans who Dionne and Weisman at least recognize will bear the brunt of the price aren’t in this position.

There are also major policy reasons to doubt the wisdom of globalization policies that elevate raising foreign incomes over maintaining American incomes. As I’ve written repeatedly, offshoring-friendly U.S. trade policies that have had these effects bear much responsibility for the last financial crisis, which harmed the populations of first and third world countries alike. But that’s an argument that’s reasonably debatable on the merits. Acting as if foreign populations’ interests should outweigh Americans should be completely out of bounds – again, unless the public actively approves. And the fact that thoughtful commentators like Dionne even view this option as deserving consideration, whether as an “agonizing choice” or not, tells you most of what you need to know about why so many working- and middle-class voters nowadays are so furious at their nation’s elites.

Im-Politic: Is Jeb Bush Now Singing His Swan Song?

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2016 elections, Animal House, Christians, Donald Trump, foreign policy, Im-Politic, Israel, Jeb Bush, John F. Kennedy, Middle East, national interests, national security

If you (rightly) think that Donald Trump has made some bizarro remarks during this bizarro – and still young – presidential campaign – get a load of what his Republican rival Jeb Bush has just said:

“If this election is about how we’re going to fight to get nothing done, then … I don’t want any part of it. I don’t want to be elected president to sit around and see gridlock just become so dominant that people literally are in decline in their lives. That is not my motivation….I’ve got a lot of really cool things I could do other than sit around, being miserable, listening to people demonize me and me feeling compelled to demonize them. That is a joke. Elect Trump if you want that.”

Talk about pissy! This kind of “I’m taking my ball and going home” bellyaching sounds an awful lot like a prelude to a withdrawal – not that you’ll see Big Media journalists trying to suggest Bush’s imminent demise the way they’ve continued to talk up this scenario for (the front-running) Trump. (Check out the panel discussion on yesterday’s edition of Meet the Press for the latest instance.)

Yet even the former Florida governor has acknowledged his fall from inevitability status, and the need to raise his game dramatically to avoid a truly historic implosion. Hence his decision to scrap the national juggernaut model – in favor of a leaner, more focused (and, necessarily, more affordable) campaign apparatus. And of course, this course change has attracted the expected coverage. What’s been neglected, however, is how the message transformation Bush is also counting on seems spectacularly tone – & substance – deaf.

As the Washington Post has reported, “Bush plans to subtly adjust his message by presenting himself as someone who can ‘fix’ a broken Washington and by focusing on national security….” Americans definitely want to see the nation’s dysfunctional governing system repaired.

But a foreign policy-focused presidential run? Please. And not just because, as the conventional wisdom holds, “zeroing in on national security, however, Bush invites a discussion about the Iraq legacy of his brother, former president George W. Bush.” Instead, the main obstacle faced by Jeb! is that his evident international strategy has much less to do with preserving national strategy than with pursuing elitist visions of an American national mission – whose relation to the safety and well-being of the nation’s citizenry is far from obvious.  Here’s a new Bush TV ad on the subject: 

“America has led the world, and it is a more peaceful world when we’re engaged the right way. We do not have to be the world’s policeman. We have to be the world’s leader. We have to stand for the values of freedom. Who’s going to take care of the Christians that are being eliminated in the Middle East? But for the United States, who? Who’s going to stand up for the dissidents inside of Iran that are brutalized each and every day? But for the United States, who? Who’s gonna take care of Israel, and support them, our greatest ally in the Middle East? But for the United States, no one. No one is capable of doing this. The United States has the capability of doing this, and it’s in our economic and national security interest that we do it. I will be that kind of president and I hope you want that kind of president for our country going forward.”

No one listening to this clarion call can reasonably doubt Bush’s sincerity – even if the “world leader/world policeman” reference suggests some punch-pulling. It’s also hard to deny its emotional appeal, invoking nothing so much as former President John F. Kennedy’s declaration that Americans should and would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

But that’s what Bush doesn’t seem to get. This isn’t 1961. The folly of that hubris has now been tragically exposed. Although they clearly don’t like regular reminders on the nightly news of vast regions of the planet disintegrating into chaos or exploding into anti-Americanism – or both – they’re also now sophisticated enough to understand that overseas disorder isn’t necessarily a harbinger of disaster for this fortunately insulated country. At a minimum, they’re no longer willing simply to trust leaders who describe various interventions, humanitarian and otherwise, as serving the nation’s interests. They’ve learned to say, “Show me.”

Perhaps more important, I’m skeptical that Bush’s big donors regard this pitch as a winning message. If they have the slightest feel for public opinion, they may well conclude instead that it’s what Otter in Animal House memorably called “a really futile and stupid gesture.” And although Jeb Bush may indeed be “just the guy to do it,” that doesn’t sound like an investment they’ll want to keep funding.

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

Tags

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.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: What to Do About Russia in Syria

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Afghanistan, Donald Trump, energy, Iran, ISIS, Middle East, national interests, Obama, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Persian Gulf, Putin, Russia, Shah of Iran, Soviet Union, Syria, terrorism, Vietnam

During the Cold War, American leaders got into two bad habits that often wound up costing the country dearly. First, the Soviet Union, or some of its surrogates (like Cuban military advisors), or some local forces calling themselves Communists would show up or emerge in a place that rigorous thinking made clear had no important strategic or economic value to the United States. And all of a sudden, Washington would act like the fate of this place would make or break that of Western civilization. Second, a major setback would be incurred in a region of genuine importance, and since no viable countermeasures were available, the United States would simply assume that things would turn out OK eventually.

Worrisomely, variations of both bad habits are evident in the foreign policy world’s reactions to Russia’s recent burst of military intervention in the Syrian civil war. They demonstrate that if Washington’s response – either under President Obama or whoever succeeds him – winds up enhancing American security and prosperity, U.S. leaders will have to focus like the proverbial laser beam on American interests.

Vietnam of course was the prime example of the first pattern. As most surely remember, it showed the disasters that can result from massive conflicts not remotely justified by the tangible stakes. Iran and Afghanistan were great, though more obscure, examples of the second. After the pro-Western Shah was thrown off his throne in Tehran in 1979, and after Soviet forces plunged into Afghanistan later that year to try keeping their stooges in power, all manner of rationalizations for U.S. inaction popped up – even though America and the world desperately needed the Persian Gulf’s oil. Even though the worst case never unfolded and the flow of crude has continued pretty much uninterrupted, America’s ongoing exposure to the region’s turmoil indicates that hope isn’t an acceptable foundation for policy.

Russia’s entry is certainly a new factor not only in the Syrian conflict but into the entire Middle East/Persian Gulf equation. And it’s one I didn’t expect. But even though it greatly increases the chance of some kind of dangerous mishap involving U.S. and Russian forces operating in an uncoordinated manner in a relatively confined theater of action, Moscow’s move doesn’t change the fundamental situation, which consists of three main components.

First, the Middle East, because of its energy resources and its potential as a platform for terrorist strikes against the United States, remains a vital concern for Americans. Second, as a result, and equally important, Washington can’t afford to depend on optimistic predictions about the so-called foreseeable future. And third, Putin’s venture has no bearing on the inability of the United States – whether acting alone or multilaterally – to turn Syria or the Middle East into a substantially more stable, less dangerous region from America’s standpoint.

In other words, President Obama is wrong to be confident that whatever energy or terrorism threats will eventually fade because Vladimir Putin will get bogged down militarily, or because Russia’s economy can’t sustain prolonged military ventures, or because Moscow will ultimately turn the Sunni Muslim world against him. Other dovish voices are wrong to oppose a stronger U.S. response simply because past interventions have flopped and arguably worsened the region’s instability, and to suggest that standing aloof per se will somehow produce better results.

Donald Trump is wrong as well to assume that simply because Russian leaders also oppose Islamic terrorism that Washington should simply count on their military conveniently doing the dirty and dangerous work of defeating ISIS – and bogging themselves down in the Middle East. And both Democratic and Republican hawks are wrong to believe that the Russian gambit strengthens their case for deeper U.S. armed involvement in Syria and the region as a whole, whether to create no-fly zones to protect civilian populations or to start sending American troops into the fray whether in “advisory” or more active roles.

Therefore, the best American approach to the Middle East post-Putin remains exactly the same as it was pre-Putin – transitioning from a strategy of countering threats emanating from the region by trying to transform it into something better, to one of dealing with these threats through domestic policy measures like accelerating efforts to marginalize the Gulf in the national and global energy pictures, and preventing terrorist attacks by securing America’s borders.

As I’ve written, because the second goal in particular remains far from achievement, the United States can’t simply pick up militarily from the Middle East and go home. But its operations need to be linked tightly to the transition strategy, which means air and some ground activity (e.g., special forces) to keep ISIS and similar groups off balance enough to prevent them from consolidating control over areas large enough to become training centers for overseas attacks. These operations, however, need not and should not continue for one additional minute once the U.S. government has reliable systems in place for keeping terrorists away from its frontiers.

Defeating ISIS may actually entail actively cooperating with the Russian military until the mission is accomplished, and in fact the greater the burden on Russian forces, the better for Americans. But realizing longer term benefits from such efforts – either for relations between Washington and Moscow, or for the Middle East – is as unrealistic as expecting American shows of force to drive the Russians out.

And it’s as unnecessary. The root problem posed for the United States by the Middle East stems not from the specific activity or designs of hostile or potentially hostile local or outside forces, but from the fact that this terminally dysfunctional, and thus easily exploitable region matters to America at all. Washington’s top priority still should be ending this importance, and becoming indifferent to the Middle East’s future no matter how it evolves or who’s (supposedly) in control.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Desperately Seeking Real Retrenchment

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Afghanistan, American exceptionalism, Asia-Pacific, Baltic states, Bashir Al-Assad, boots on the ground, Charles Lanes, chemical weapons, defense budget, defense spending, Earl Ravenal, George W. Bush, international law, Iraq, ISIS, isolationism, Middle East, multilateralism, national interests, NATO, Nixon Doctrine, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, pivot, Poland, Richard Nixon, Russia, sequestration, Soviet Union, Stephen Sestanovich, Syria, Ukraine, Vietnam War, vital interests, Vladimir Putin, Washington Post

Washington Post columnist Charles Lane has just done an excellent job of demonstrating how powerfully universalist America’s bipartisan foreign policy establishment remains – even as powerful reasons keep multiplying for climbing down from this wildly ambitious approach.

According to Lane, a new book by former American diplomat and Columbia University political scientist Stephen Sestanovich bears out President Obama’s claim to be a kindred spirit with Richard M. Nixon as a “retrenchment” president – one of the chief executives who has sought to “correct the perceived overreaching of their predecessors and free up U.S. resources for domestic concerns.” In fact, says Lane, Sestanovich has written that post-World War II U.S. foreign policy has been marked by a “constant pendulum-swing between administrations that aggressively pursued U.S. goals abroad” (who the author calls “maximalists”) and those Nixon- and Obama-style retrenchers.

I hate to comment on books I haven’t yet read. But Lane’s description of Mr. Nixon and Mr. Obama both qualify as retrenchers reveals a mindset so enthusiastic about massive and potentially open-ended U.S. involvement in literally every corner of the world if necessary that it sees even talk about a more discriminating approach as a major departure.

Judging by the record, it hasn’t been. In fact, both the Nixon talk and the Obama talk about retrenchment have been overwhelmingly that – talk. Just as important, and closely related, what have arguably looked at least superficially like exercises in retrenchment have in fact been exercises in wishful thinking. Both presidents have actually agreed that the security, stability, and even prosperity of the entire world are U.S. vital interests. They’ve simply differed with the maximalists in insisting that these interests can be defended through means that are less dangerous and violent, and more globally popular, than the unilateral U.S. use of military force.

To cite the leading historical example, the ballyhooed Nixon Doctrine of 1970 was never a decision to cross Vietnam or any part of Asia off the list of vital U.S. interests – those whose defense was thought essential for maintaining America’s own security and prosperity. As explained initially by Earl C. Ravenal shortly after the Doctrine’s declaration, Mr. Nixon had decided, in the absence of any evidence, that this vital set of objectives could be defended without an early resort to U.S. military involvement – chiefly, by the militaries of America’s regional allies.

Therefore, Ravenal wrote:

“the Administration’s new policies and decision processes do not bring about the proposed balance [between the country’s foreign policy ends and the means to be used to attain them]; in fact, they create a more serious imbalance. Essentially we are to support the same level of potential involvement with smaller conventional forces. The specter of intervention will remain, but the risk of defeat or stalemate will be greater; or the nuclear threshold will be lower.”

President Obama has given us a different version of such dangerous wishful thinking. More accurately, he’s given us several different versions. His original 2008 candidacy for the White House was largely motivated by a conviction that the overly unilateralist and militaristic tendencies of George W. Bush had produced disaster in Iraq, and were actually undermining U.S. security by damaging America’s international image.

That’s why Mr. Obama focused so much attention on repairing that image. He never indicated that he would scale back that list of U.S. vital interests. He simply suggested that they could be better defended if need be by acting multilaterally, with international approval, rather than by going it alone. And he conveyed the clear impression that challenges could be prevented in the first place if only America became more popular in regions like the Middle East.

Once in office, Mr. Obama did try to establish a hierarchy of U.S. worldwide interests that would have operational impact. He decided that the nation had been so preoccupied with Middle East wars that it had been neglected the Asia-Pacific region, which he considered at least as important. So he launched a “pivot” that would transfer some American forces from the former to the latter.

But the president never apparently judged the Middle East to be less important to America’s fate. He simply concluded that, with the Afghanistan and Iraq wars supposedly winding down, it had become less dangerous. Having been proven wrong by the rise of ISIS. in Afghanistan, he’s (gradually) boosting the American military presence in region again. The president is claiming, moreover – based on as little evidence as Mr. Nixon required – that any remaining capabilities gap can be filled by the armed forces of regional countries. Worse, many of his Republican critics, who are just as reluctant to deploy many more U.S. “boots on the ground,” agree with Mr. Obama’s fundamental assessment.

Further, the president has actually expanded the list of circumstances in the Middle East (and presumably elsewhere) that should justify American military responses – the kinds of chemical weapons attacks launched by Bashir Al-Assad against Syrians revolting against his dictatorship, along with similar major violations of international law.  (This effort, so far, has not yet won over the public.)

Nor does that exhaust Mr. Obama’s efforts to lengthen the list of U.S. vital interests. He has understandably responded to Russia’s recent provocations against allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by strengthening U.S. forces and deploying them more conspicuously in new NATO members like Poland and the Baltic states, former Soviet satellites clearly in Moscow’s line of fire. Less understandable have been the Obama administration’s numerous suggestions that the security of Ukraine, too, is a matter of urgent American concern – even though this country was actually part of the old Soviet Union for decades with no apparent effects on U.S. safety or well-being.

Yet like the debate over countering ISIS, that over dealing with Vladimir Putin spotlights one major difference between President Obama and his (mainly) Republican foreign policy critics: Many of them have strongly backed big boosts in the U.S. military budget (if not always using these forces), including aggressive moves to circumvent spending caps established by the sequestration process. Mr. Obama has not sought comparable increases.

The president unquestionably has often spoken in terms that seem to support a smaller U.S. role in the world – e.g., his remarks suggesting that America’s exceptionalism isn’t all that exceptional, and reminding that much of the world has legitimate historical grievances against the West, and in some cases against the United States specifically. But his strategic walk has never matched this talk, and the continuing flood of contentions to the contrary in the punditocracy and even academe (if Lane’s Post column is accurate) plainly are serving their (partly) intended purpose of preventing searching debate on foreign policy fundamentals.

Given the nation’s resulting over-extension militarily, therefore, when the chattering class powers-that-be start labeling presidents or most other politicians as retrenchers or minimalists (an improvement to be sure over the hackneyed charge of “isolatonism”), the only legitimate reaction is a thoroughly exasperated, “If only.”

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: New White House Blueprint Flunks the Main Test of Strategy

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allies, budget, energy, Middle East, milieu goals, national interests, National Security Strategy, Obama, oil, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, resources, Russia, sequester, strategy

I was of course planning to read the entire new U.S. National Security Strategy statement released last Friday by the White House before posting on it, but my plans have been upended, at least for now, by the sheer number of ditzy statements in President Obama’s two-page introduction.  (After all, he’s the boss.)

Here’s the first (it’s clear that this document will be blogging fodder for many days going forward): The president’s ideas flunk the most basic test of a successful strategy – aligning ends and means on a sustainable basis.  He seems to be no more willing than any of his post-World War II predecessors to deal seriously with the dangerous contrast between the sweeping, and indeed millennial goals set for the nation’s foreign policy on the one hand, and the finite amount of resources inevitably available to pursue these goals on the other. Indeed, it’s arguable that the gap between Mr. Obama’s views on the wherewithal that can be brought to bear on international objectives (or at least, his views on the resources that should be brought to bear), and the objectives he seeks, is unusually large by historical standards.

In his introduction to the strategy document, the president speaks of (in order of appearance):

>”shaping the opportunities of tomorrow”:

>”promoting global security and prosperity as well as the dignity and human rights of all people”;

>”confronting the acute challenges posed by aggression, terrorism, and disease”:

>”cementing an international consensus on arresting climate change”;

>”shaping global standards for cybersecurity”:

>”advancing human rights and building new coalitions to combat corruption and support open governments and open societies”:

>”defending our interests and upholding our commitments to allies and partners”; and

>”countering the ideology and root causes of violent extremism”:

It’s important to note that none of these objectives is accompanied by any geographical limitations. In other words, the United States is going to seek these goals everywhere. These positions are nothing more than the president’s distinctive version of the utopian – and bipartisanly supported – milieu goals that have led the nation so disastrously astray so often, and which in fact conveniently define most genuinely strategic challenges and dilemmas out of existence. 

To be fair, the president does address resource issues. He touts the multi-dimensional strengths of the American economy, which certainly looks good compared with the economies of most major allies and, among rivals, Russia. But is a recovery still heavily dependent on unprecedentedly loose monetary policies a strong enough foundation for such worldwide endeavors?  

Mr. Obama also promises to “continue to insist on budgets that safeguard our strength and work with the Congress to end sequestration, which undercuts our national security.” In addition, he emphasizes the importance of contributions from allies, although wheezing economies in Japan and Western Europe, along with the chronic internal weaknesses, to put it kindly, of Middle East partners appear to make these countries less reliable than ever.

But in the same preface listing all those ambitious goals, the president also specifies that although the nation will “lead from a position of strength,” this “does not mean we can or should attempt to dictate the trajectory of all unfolding events around the world. As powerful as we are and will remain, our resources and influence are not infinite.” He adds that “we have to make hard choices among many competing priorities, and we must always resist the over-reach that comes when we make decisions based upon fear.”  Not a word is devoted to what these priorities and hard choices might be, or how the president proposes to make these decisions.

Just as serious, the president makes no acknowledgment that the nation’s unrivaled strength and geopolitical security argues, even in at least some cases, for less, rather than more international engagement, or at least moving toward that goal (e.g., in the Middle East, whose role as an energy supplier has been greatly reduced by the boom in America’s domestic energy production).  In this post, I sketch out some of the case for such retrenchment.

That’s just one reason that it seems long overdue to rename this series of National Security Strategy blueprints. National Security Wish List is much more appropriate.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: McCain’s Call for a New Security Strategy…Isn’t

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Brent Scowcroft, Caspar Weinberger, defense budget, foreign policy establishment, George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, internationalism, John McCain, Madeleine Albright, national interests, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Shultz-Weinberger debate, Zbigniew Brzezinski

To a degree, new Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain deserves praise for holding a series of hearings on “Global Challenges and the U.S. National Security Strategy.” Heaven knows signs abound that today’s strategy could use intensive scrutiny. Kudos to the Arizona Republican, too, for urging “a strategy-driven [defense] budget, not budget-driven strategy.” The worst approach a wealthy country like the United States can take to safeguarding its security and prosperity would be to put some arbitrary level of expenditures in the driver’s seat.  (See “sequester.”)

Unfortunately, McCain’s hearings so far have epitomized everything that’s seriously wrong with the way Washington debates foreign policy. Chiefly, it limits the participants to representatives of the mainstream liberal and conservative wings of modern American internationalism. In other words, it seeks the views only of figures who strongly support – and in many cases, have carried out – a doctrine holding that the nation’s safety and well-being literally are inseparable from the safety and well-being of every corner of the world. As I’ve written for many years, the only important differences between liberal and conservative internationalists have concerned the tactics best suited to achieve these limitless internationalist goals in any particular set of circumstances.

Doubt me? Just look at the witness list. Former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, George Shultz and Madeleine Albright, former national security advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, and a few former senior military officers (whose job doesn’t include developing strategies, only carrying out their military dimensions).  More important, read through their various statements.

I’m not saying that none of these figures has anything useful to contribute to the debate. Certainly their experiences and views are all worth considering. In addition, Kissinger has written some exceptionally thoughtful histories and analyses of American foreign policy. (Although he’s also indulged in much confusing and contradictory quasi-internationalism, as I recently noted here.) Shultz, for his part, engaged in an intriguing debate with then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger in the 1980s about when the nation should use military force to accomplish goals. (Although, as I’ve written, the debate focused heavily on tactics, and both participants made thoroughly contradictory points about setting realistic foreign policy goals).

The point is that the merits of what might be called liberal and conservative foreign policy universalism are constantly argued in Congress and in the Mainstream Media. One set of more fundamental alternatives has been presented in my own writings over the years. Many others worth thinking about are available also. If McCain – and the rest of the foreign policy establishment – really believe that new foreign policy approaches are needed, it’s high time they paid them heed. But if the establishmentarians simply think that their own version of internationalism should be substituted for the one prevailing today, they should drop the pretense of seeking innovation.