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My Fellow Americans: Let’s Pick a Foreign Policy Model and Stick With It
Claire’s post this morning reminds us just what an unbelievable mess our foreign policy has become under this administration. While President Obama bears an enormous amount of blame for that situation, I’d like to channel Jay Nordlinger by pointing that a majority of the American people elected Obama on a platform of withdrawal from Iraq. The president’s blunders and missteps have clearly made the situation even worse than it might have been under a more competent commander-in-chief, but responsibility primarily lies with the electorate for selecting him and, implicitly, the policies he promised. This wasn’t primarily a matter of competence, but of vision.
Indeed, the American people seem to have no clear idea about the kind of relationship we want with a post-Cold War world, and we seem to change our strategic vision at least as often as we change presidents. The Bush-Obama transition is the sharpest to date, but it may well be eclipsed by the difference between what we have now and the policy of whomever is sworn in next January. These sorts of national mood swings are not only unbecoming of a great nation, but also extremely dangerous; tactical flexibility is good, but strategic incoherence is always, always bad news.
There are — as there have been for a very long time — a variety of options for us to chose among, ranging from building a moat around Fortress America, to being the World’s Policeman, to becoming an occasional dragon slayer, to liberal imperialism, to multinational dithering. All of these have their smarter and stupider manifestations, as well as their moderate and extreme versions, and I’ve got my own highly-opinionated judgments about each (more on that another time), including a rather low opinion of our current preferences. But oscillating from one to the other and back again is a very bad idea. We need to pick a policy, soon, and stick with it.
No policy should ever be permanent, and any smart strategist regularly reevaluates and adjusts as circumstances change. But some degree of consistency that extends beyond predictable eight-year cycles will not only be greatly to our advantage, but the world’s.
Good leadership from on top should help, but the real answer will have to come from within the hearts and minds of 300 million citizens.
Published in Foreign Policy
I like what you’ve said, Dan! The part that bothers me is that we seem to provide most of the defense of our allies. How do we get them to pony up to building up their militaries? It seems that most of Europe still wants to use the excuses of WWI and WWII to make peace, not war.
The great thing about our system is that the people get to blame their leaders for policies that they themselves endorsed without having to accept any responsibility.
We should have stayed in Iraq, with a whopping big permanent air base right in the middle of the country. ISIS would never have happened. The region would not have crumbled.
The iWe doctrine:
America will aggressively promote freedom around the world using the most efficacious means possible:
Japan and Germany were both conquered. The Japanese occupation didn’t end up April 28, 1952 and the German occupation ended May 05, 1955. That’s when those nations regained their sovereignty. We didn’t negotiate any kind of withdrawal before then (or after).
South Korea was an example similar to Vietnam, in that the North Koreans were part of the negotiations for a peace accord.
Iraq regained sovereignty in 2004, about a year after the war ended. When we negotiated our departure, it was with the sovereign government of Iraq, not as part of a larger peace accord. And unlike Germany or Japan, Iraq was always framed as a “liberation,” not a conquest or an occupation. We didn’t demolish the country, we just toppled the existing regime.
As I said, if you have an example of a situation similar to Iraq, I’d like to read it. But suffice it to say since Vietnam, Korea, Japan, and Germany are not analogous situations, they can’t be pointed to as examples of how this “always” goes.
With an axe that rusty, no wonder you’re grinding it here.
Shh! If you haven’t learned by now that everything done since 2008 is terrible, and everything done between 2000-2008 was awesome, then I doubt you’ll get it now.
I have an idea: how about instead of constantly complaining about everything under the sun, Republicans propose an alternative that a) isn’t contradictory b) doesn’t make things worst and c) isn’t a repeat of the steps which got us into this mess in the first place.
Too much to ask for?
Bomb Assad. Don’t bomb Assad! Arm the rebels. Don’t arm the rebels! Attack Libya. Don’t attack Libya! But it’s all Obama’s fault because he didn’t pick one of the two contradictory positions of the Republican Party. Ok, thanks for the clarification.
Maybe now is a good time to reconsider the wise-ness of invading Iraq in 2003, or getting involved in ME messes that aren’t our business. I know, too much to ask for. Political expedience demands that we maintain the position that Iraq under GWB was an unconditional success story, and only when Obama took over did things turn ugly. If only we had stayed there for 100 more years…imagine how wonderful things would have turned out.
So, can we see a coherent alternative, please?
Right on schedule.
What assets is the US missing for doing a “two front war”? None that I can think of.
I have another idea: don’t get involved in pointless wars that cannot be won, spend trillions of dollars on it, and re-engineer the armed forces to fighting rats in the desert instead of nation states, thus opening yourself up to potential adversaries.
The Philippines.
We fought a decade long insurgency, helped them form a stable government, had a bit of unpleasantness with the Japanese, and kept a military presence there for decades.
To the benefit of both nations, I would add.
Well said. Alas, the typical Trump voter doesn’t get the feel-good “strong man” vibe from such a stance.
Also, this doesn’t in any way contradict Obama’s current position, so clearly it can’t be Republican foreign policy position, as the only coherent constant in the Republican’s position is “do the opposite of what Obama says, even if we said it first!”
Tom the reason why our foreign policy seems erratic right now is because the world has become erratic. During the Cold War there was a balance to the US, something for us to focus our actions. I’m not saying that I agree with the Madeline Albright nonsense about the world being unsafe with us as the lone super power, but the absence of a balancing force has caused us to react as erratic as the world. We are basically chasing the pitch, as they say in baseball.
Now some of you might point to terrorism and say that is our focal point or even China or cyber security, but none of those things on their own pose the threat that the Soviet Union posed and required us to have that focus and, the key point, to maintain that focus from administration to administration. To the extent that terrorism threatens us it is only from the standpoint that we will willingly refuse to fight them with the full force of our might. China’s threat to us is economic and not militaristic because–and this is just my own view–they are simply Russia, Jr. They don’t want to exchange nukes because they don’t want to die. And cyber security? Okay there might be some threats to power grids or something like that, but do you really think that we can’t get back up and running in a short time?
Continued.
The singular focus for our foreign policy should be to get the Western World believing in itself again. Not to the point where we start colonizing the non-Western world, but to the point where if someone within our own borders starts chanting “death to America” we lock their butts up if not more. We should be able to say “this is who we are as a society and if you don’t like it leave.” We should be encouraging the rest of West to do the same thing. But that starts at home, domestically. Until then we will continue to have an erratic foreign policy.
But then libertarians would not have approved. We had to withdraw on principle.
Not to worry, everything will work out, ISIS or no ISIS.
Because, principles.
Hmm. This may come as a surprise to you, but the US does have an airbase in Iraq with Apache helicopters etc. I thought we did such a wonderful job during the prior years that we had created a great awesome democratic government in Iraq, and had trained an awesome and trustworthy army during all those years.
It didn’t happen you say? So we’re back to contradictory statements: either we did a great job in Iraq prior, or we did a miserable job prior. Which is it?
Okay. Finally an example.
I’ll be honest: I don’t know enough to argue against that example.
However,
First, it’s one example, so I don’t think it’s fair to say that’s how these things “always” happen. Second, I think it says something that to find an example of how these things “always” happen that’s analogous (which it may not be, I just don’t know enough) we needed to reach back more than a century.
Like I don’t know how this moves the conversation forward. First, libertarians would say that we shouldn’t have gone in in the first place. (And not for nothing, but I think the last 13 years proved that one right.) Second, I could make sweeping generalizations mischaracterizing the arguments of my opponents too, but I don’t see how it helps things.
The Philippines was a mostly Catholic country, and with major support for US occupation. Many of them wanted to become a territory of the US. (and we didn’t fight a decade long war. The war lasted 3 years, the rest was limited to the Moro minority)
Are there examples where it works? Of course. Does it mean it will work in a place like Iraq or Afghanistan? Of course not. Widely different circumstances. If one didn’t understand in 2003 that all we were doing was handing the country over to Iranian proxies, that what we wanted to accomplish is incompatible with the culture and religion of the region, and that there are some places you don’t go to, you end up with Iraq today.
There are many more examples than the Philippines: Germany, Japan, Kosovo. None, however, were in places that were unreceptive, Westernized, with a tradition of government, and weren’t separated by 1,400 years of history from us.
That’s like saying that you can keep a tiger as a pet, because you can keep a cat as a pet.
The McReynolds Doctrine:
Continued
4. Any state that continues to act in a way that is not in accordance with our Bill of Rights, especially freedom of religious choice and exercise, freedom of the press, and freedom to petition governments for grievances will not be given any special trade treatment.
Why? What do I care what they do in their countries?
Why? Is Congress renown for its long-term thinking? Or the “people” for that matter?
So react after the fact, rather than be 10 steps ahead in technology? And what’s the problem this is trying to solve?
Why? What’s the problem with NATO?
This isn’t different from right now.
Green
It did answer your question though. Maybe you should have been more specific. If your point is events are never exactly alike, that is very true, but Mark Twain covered that in saying history does not so much repeat as rhyme.
This is one of the dumbest conversations I’ve read in some time.
Not your fault, Tom.
To Fred Cole—We were caught flat-footed over the advance of ISIS into Iraq, after Team Obama abandoned ship. Now we’ve been cuckolded by Putin’s moves into Syria with materiel landing while President Obama met with Putin at the U. N. meeting in NYC-an intentional insult. And incidentally, Iranian forces are now pouring into Syria. And those Russian strikes were primarily used to degrade and destroy our allies, not ISIS
Nice. So now Syrian Bad Man Assad (who Must Go!) lives for another day with the assist of Putin and Iran and we are reduced to Secretary of State Kerry, in a presser with FM Lavrov, talking about “de-confliction”, meaning Russia has told us to get the hell out of the way and we are obliging. So what is the logical reaction to this?
-If you are Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel or, hopefully, the U. S., you have to be concerned about the rise of Shia-supremacist Iran, which has engaged in destabilizing operations throughout the region and is about to go nuclear and have another 150 billion USD to
If you are an ally of the U. S., you have to be considering your options in an uncertain world with a resurgent, revanchist Russia ( which may explain the increased air traffic over Moscow).
– If you are the remaining moderate Syrian rebels fighting Assad, you have to worry about being caught in a pincer movement between Russian troops to your front and ISIS to your rear.
– If you’re the Kurdish forces in Syria, you are worried about Russian and Turkish strikes and no support from your ally, the U. S.
-If you’re a Syrian citizen, you’re heading for the hills, causing chaos in a Europe deeply divided over the sudden influx of not just Syrians, but hundreds of thousands of people on the march.
We haven’t even address the geopolitical ramifications of a resurgent Russia in a position of dominance from Iran through to the Mediterranean. I realize Team Obama didn’t approve of the Iraqi war begun under President Bush, but you inherit the foreign policy of your predecessor. I’m sure President Nixon wasn’t so thrilled with inheriting a hot war in Vietnam, begun under President Kennedy and escalated by President Johnson. But he and Secretary of State Kissinger fought the good fight. In Iraq we won the war but have lost the peace in no small part due to the bungling of this administration and now the region writ large will be dominated by Russia and Iran. Boom. The pooch has been royally screwed. Why does this matter? Because we are a global power and have global interests. We are not a backwater country…yet!
“America and it’s allies, and friends could be heading into one of the most dangerous periods since the height of the Cold War.” Dr. Leslie Gelb
EDIT POST QUOTE POST
Yes of course. Things were going swimmingly prior to Obama in Iraq. What…only 2,000 terrorist attacks in Iraq per year prior to Obama. They were almost as peaceful as Utah by the time Bush left office!
And we’re supposed to care about Putin moving into Syria…because?
It insults our manhood? LOL
Incidentally they were also pouring into Iraq long before then, under Bush. But oh well, that was so long ago.
Wait, wasn’t the GOP itching to bomb Assad’s enemies this whole time? Or was it bombing Assad? I can never keep the GOP’s foreign policy arguments straight.
We were never in the way.
Oh if you are them, you’ve been worried about that since 2003, when GWB handed Iraq over to Iran on a sliver platter. But hey, that was sooo long ago!
Sure, like all the European countries who have placed sanctions on Russia and are increasing US troop deployments on their soil. A lot of reconsidering going on.
Huh? What? There were 3,100+ bombs dropped on ISIS by the US in December 2015. (latest data isn’t available yet). Who is that in support of? No support?
But somehow you need to blame him for failing to glue humpty dumpty back together again, not the guy who broke it.
As I recall it, we lost Vietnam and retreated to a complete and total communist victory. But I see that I was wrong in my recollection. It was “the good fight”
Pretty sure we won nothing in Iraq. There were thousands of terrorist attacks in Iraq prior to our withdrawal. This fantasy that we “won” is just bizarre.
What did we win? We placed an Iranian proxy government in charge in Iraq, the same Iranian proxy government that today is feeding in thousands of Iranians into Iraq and Syria. We jacked up the price of oil to the ceiling, allowing Russia to re-emerge again.
But somehow, this was a “victory”. On what planet?
So that means, jump head first without looking?
Surely, there is some objective tangible historical reality surrounding Iraq and our involvement, success or failure in the region. Surely, it’s not possible for one person to claim that Iraq was a unmitigated success, while for others to claim it was miserable failure. One of these, or none of these, has to be right.
Either one of us, or both of us, live in a parallel universe.
I suspect, however, that claiming that the Kurds receive “no US support”, is sufficient to answer that question.
So, Republicans, you want to pick a “foreign policy model”? Start with picking a version of history that has some connection to reality, not fantasy you read on Breitbart.com
PPS: Speaking of altering historical narratives every 5 minutes, remember when “conservatives” were accusing Obama of aiding AQ and Islamists when we first started supporting some of the “moderate” Syrian rebels?
Pepperidge farm remembers.
Back then, he was “aiding our enemies!”
Now that those Syrian rebels are going the way of the Dodo, it’s “moderate Syrian rebels” which Obama has betrayed.
2 years, at least 3 contradictory stances from the GOP: bomb Assad, bomb the rebels, arm the rebels. I have to say that’s a smart political strategy by the GOP because whichever one Obama picks, “conservatives” can always say “see we told you to do the opposite!”