Global News : Passport : Ricks : Drezner : Walt : Rothkopf : Lynch
The Cable : The AfPak Blog : Net Effect : Shadow Govt. : Madam Secretary : The Call
A "rebirth of realism" offers few answers for the GOP
One short supplement to Will Inboden's good post on GOP foreign policy futures. The tendency to divide foreign policies into "idealist" and "realpolitik" is a telltale warning that frothy, superficial thinking lies ahead. For example, reflect briefly on the recent portrayals of the George H.W. Bush administration as one that exemplified "realpolitik."
Of course officials of that administration regarded themselves as capable and practical people. Elderly folks like me well recall when Republicans like George Shultz or Brent Scowcroft or Bob Gates or Dick Cheney (back then) regarded themselves, whatever their other differences, as the party of competence. Back then it was the Democrats who seemed trapped by shibboleths, harried by zealots, and uncomfortable wielding power.
Competence, though, did not mean indifference to deep political convictions or a commitment to preserving the status quo. The Bush administration's push for German unification and the transformation of Europe was hardly a play it safe approach. Contrast, for instance, the Bush administration's course in its European strategy with the quite different path recommended at the beginning of 1990 by Henry Kissinger himself (or George Kennan, for that matter) -- and those two men represented cautions then found across the spectrum of editorial and public commentary.
Or, perhaps there are those who think the obvious "realist" path in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 was to put 500,000 U.S. troops in the Arabian desert where before there had been none. Remember, this was the war that passed the Senate, after a real cliff-hanger debate, by a mere five votes. (Authorization for the 2003 war, the one that is now regarded as so much more discretionary, passed the Senate by fifty votes.)
As a historian, I think one of the more remarkable things about the Nixon-Kissinger approach to great power relations and détente is actually how anomalous it was in comparison to the record of America's international rhetoric and goals. That administration's relative indifference to the character and governance of the other states in the international system has no equal in any other other U.S. administration of the last 120 years.
The reasons for the Nixon-Kissinger anomaly are probably to be found more in the Vietnam War challenge and the upheavals around the world bucking the general ossification of the cold war system. There was a global retrenchment among governing elites across the globe in the early 1970s (a thesis Jeremi Suri has introduced in the last chapters of his Power and Protest). These more particular explanations seem more useful than arguments finding in this period the recurrent flowering of some long-running but dormant "realist" strain in America's collective thought. And the domestic base for the "détente" policy of that era had eroded almost to the vanishing point even by the end of 1974, eaten away from both left and right.
For at least the last hundred years, most full-throated critiques of how America should approach the world regard their views as realistic, whatever their argument. They all regard their foes as naïve or venal, people who either bury their heads in the sand or exaggerate threats to chase imaginary monsters. Arthur Link wrote quite thoughtfully of the "higher realism" of Woodrow Wilson.
So as Republicans wonder where they will find a foreign policy, please don't think the problem will be solved if only Republicans will be "realists" once more. On the other hand, there is a certain nostalgia in recalling a team that took so much pride in professional competence ...
Advertisement
FOREIGN POLICY is published by the Slate Group,
a division of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC.
All contents ©2009 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC. All rights reserved.
Shadow Government is a blog about U.S. foreign policy under the Obama administration, written by experienced policy makers from the loyal opposition.
Oh, really.
Oh, really. Franklin Roosevelt's administration allied with the Soviet Union, one of the most monstrous regimes in the history of the world, in an actual war. It was indifferent to the character of Stalin's state because it had to be. Nixon, saddled first by Johnson's war and later by the burden of his own misconduct, had scarcely more choice. It is worth considering as well that the empty rhetoric favored by other administrations as their contribution to promoting freedom and human rights had costs to this country, putting America in the position of making promises it could not keep.
What I've always thought curious is the ascription of "realism" to both Nixon and the elder Bush, though Nixon's administration sought actively to shape events and Bush's mostly reacted to them. I do agree with Zelikow that the modern use of the term is somewhat promiscuous; nearly everyone thinks of himself as a realist, thought many also think they are other things besides.
Spot On!
Supporting democracies, constant confrontation and selective intervention against unfree, autocratic or nigh unhinged regimes is the way to go.
After all, if a tiny place like Syria that fears Facebook, abuses Palestinians as strategic non citizen resources and literally bombs a semi democratic UN members political cadre out of existence then how tough would it be to totally crash the regime?
There is hope for GOP though - several of the ancient PNAC cats have rebranded as FPI - and they have a very appealing FP outlook.
I'll bite
OK I remember the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), but what is FPI?
FPI
MCJ - FPI is show biz talk for Foreign Policy Initiatives.
Their mission statement is unlike anything GOP or Donkey Party has in Foreign Policy circles --
"The United States remains the world's indispensable nation -- indispensable to international peace, security, and stability, and indispensable to safe-guarding and advancing the ideals and principles we hold dear."
http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/index.html
FPI rejects Realpolitik and Isolationism and they are heavy with PNAC cats and 'daemoneocons". True believers in 'daemocrazy'
Thanks
Thanks for that. Hadn't heard of them. What do all these 501(c)(3)s do anyway (Lefties and Righties alike)? Are they all just social clubs? They seem to have proliferated over the last few years in DC and emerge and disappear at will, with a board of directors of a couple quasi-famous people and an address that's actually one of those cheapie "answer my phone" virtual offices. Is this some under-the-table mechanism for funding policy wonks that aren't working in the administration in power and can't get a job at AEI or PPI? Regardless of their ideology are these created for the sake of lobbying or what? I'd be appreciative if someone could demystify this issue for me.
How and who takes the lead?
I have to admit that I fell into the naive neo-conservative trap in 2003. I never completely bought the WMD argument, but thought the prospect of changing the Middle East and saving Iraq from their dictator would be worth it. Wow, what a lesson to learn! Thank God the military, in its ingenuity, has done well to turn it around and make the best of a bad idea war.
Looking back, I see the realist tradition in American FP as wise. You are right to suggest that realism is not without principle or risk. Is it not also true that no President or party entirely has owned realism? Even Bush-41 got us into Somalia, even if it was Clinton's team that finished it badly.
Further, it seems to me that Obama is (wisely) taking the road of trying to seem practical in foreign policy. Though that is fairly easy to do after 6 yrs of Bush FP.
1. How, then, does my party go forward with reclaiming that torch of realism?
2. Who takes the lead? Who are the big name prospects who can claim realism, without having too much "history" associated with the neo-con and [small 'l'] liberal notions of remaking the ME via war with Iraq? The likes of Sarah Palin do not scream "realism," "competence," and "Baker-esque." Who is the new Scowcroft?
3. And does your vision of GOP's new realism match that of those Republicans who opposed U.S. involvement in Bosnia and Kosovo during the 1990s, which turned out largely successful in the eyes of the public? Do missions like these--with objectives clearly in defense of people against the worst atrocities of the day--now lie within the circle of Republican realism? Or will GOP suffer a Somalia syndrome in response to the guilt of Iraq? and how things went under Bush in Afghanistan?
Thanks very much.
Ian Smith
As I understand it, "realism"
As I understand it, "realism" means that we accept we are not all-powerful, and so we have to accept some things we might morally disapprove of -- because we can't take on all the evils of the world at once.
A harder version of "realism" would say that it's so hard for us to manage simple survival that we can't afford ideals beyond that.
Vietnam should have given us the first of those -- as a superpower we were not strong enough to prevent south vietnam from collapsing.
Now as we slip away from being a superpower we are more approaching the second.
I'm not clear what anybody should do about it. We'd like to keep some of our ideals and occasionally try to do the right thing. Our situation gets more precarious by the month, and we try to keep commitments we made when we thought we were all-powerful which make us weaker and may lead to disasters.
To my way of thinking, in the medium run we desperately need alternate energy. Without reasonably cheap alternate energy we aren't going to be a nation we'd think of as the United States of America, we're going to be third-world. We might not stay one nation and various of the fragments are likely not to be democracies.
And in the short run we desperately need to balance the priorities that could let us achieve our medium-run goal. We must quickly withdraw from iraq and afghanistan because we can't afford them, regardless whether we could achieve something we'd consider "success" if we put in enough resources for a long enough time. These wars are expensive luxuries that we can't currently afford.
We desperately need to free up a lot of the hi-tech engineering talent that's sequestered in military R&D so we can devote it to alternate energy.
But politically we can't do any of that. The US public still believes we're a superpower. They'll probably keep believing that until we get some sort of decisive defeat. What kind of defeat would be enough? If our army gets cut off in afghanistan, say the supply lines get cut off and we lose something like 50% casualties before the rest are allowed to surrender -- would that be enough? Probably not. It would seem like a fluke and we'd harden our resolve and we'd announce that we'll do whatever it takes to go back in there and win.
We probably can't change course until we lose a couple of aircraft carriers. Or possibly a severe enough economic crisis might do it. Say the dollar gets devalued to the point that oil is $400/bbl here, but for the rest of the world it amounts to $50/bbl. And US oil companies start exporting oil for hard currency.... Maybe that would do it.
On the other hand maybe I have it wrong. Maybe we are still a superpower and we can do what we want.
It all comes down to coming
It all comes down to coming up with a 'realist' energy policy.
Really, it does.
Obama's is a disaster.
A Republican Foreign Policy
Here are some things that would change the game....
1. Forget the two state solution in the Middle East. Put serious sanctions on whomever violates human rights, international law or American interests.
2. Fight China for African resources. Right now they are taking all the pieces off the board.
3. Support Mevedyev in Russia because you know he would like to dump Putin.
4. Tell the Pakistanis thanks, but no thanks. Let them fall apart and encourage India to pick up the pieces. We have been had by Islamabad for too long and nothing suggests things will change.
5. Funnel money to the Iranian opposition and to democrats everywhere. including inside China.
6. Be more generous with foreign aid. Right now we are pathetic skinflints.
7. More free trade, especially with the developing world. Make Dems look like protectionist clods.
8. Get out of Afghanistan. It's a loser's graveyard.
9. Reinstitute the draft
10.Get Colin Powell back into the party
Yeah... no. It's not quite
Yeah... no. It's not quite that simple, is it?
Actually, I don't see that
Actually, I don't see that the GOP is in any shape to make foreign policy initiatives. After the last 8 years people don't particularly believe you when you come out in favor of motherhood, and I'm not sure how well you'd do with apple pie.
The brand has become a liability. It would be better to start a new Conservative Party and start fresh.
Much easier to say what you stand for when you start fresh. And you can dump the various tired old corrupt politicians too.
And if you name it the Conservative Party people will *know* what you stand for.
People voted Democrat this last time because it was the only alternative they had. When they're ready to vote for any alternative to Democrats, don't make them vote GOP. Give them an actual hope.