Let's Make an Ideal

Derek Chollet and Tod Lindberg lay out the case for an American foreign policy driven by our ideals; tempered by realpolitik, but not governed by it. This has been my consistent thread through the years.

The end of the Cold War made it possible as never before. Yet at the same time the end of the Cold War -- the very way the mighty Soviet Union evaporated in the face of tribal religious fanatics and spontaneous action by Polish dockworkers and East German church groups and worldwide TV cameras -- punctured the myth of the all-powerful state and the notion that military might is the sole measure of power. America's first real chance to live in the world on the strength of its ideals arrived just as the moment when America's power seemed more vulnerable than ever.

So I wonder if this dream has any hope, or if it will be stillborn. Iraq certainly set it back severely. But still it struggles to be born. Along the way, Chollet and Lindberg describe what a truly self-interested American foreign policy, bereft of ideals, would look like. It's not pretty. And it gives the lie to the many who claim we are doing such a thing already. Using "Acirema" ("America" spelled backwards), they show that such a policy would be very different from the one now pursued with regard to, say, Israel:

The policy of Acirema toward Israel is a specific case of what would be a more general revision in alliance policy. The essential question for Acirema with regard to any ally is whether Acireman security is improved, on net, as a result of the alliance. The notion of an alliance as an all-purpose mechanism for securing the cooperation of others in mutual pursuit of security objectives would need to be reassessed.

What, specifically, is the value of “cooperation”? Needless to say, Acirema will harbor no prejudice in favor of cooperation or multilateralism, instead asking whether cooperative or multilateral means would bring a benefit that Acirema cannot obtain on its own. Acirema need not be especially concerned with the opinions of states that lack the capacity to make a difference. There will be no free-riding on the provision of security, because Acirema will not enter into alliance relationships except with partners whose tangible assets improve Acireman security.

In fact, it looks a lot like the policy most nations have with regard to America -- including some of our allies in Western Europe. And in the Middle East.

Their conclusion about ideals-driven foreign policy is more upbeat than mine. But it ought to be, since they just wrote a big-assed article advocating it:

The conclusion we come to is that while an idealistic foreign policy has become harder to defend politically, it is possible to construct a forward-looking, values-based agenda that both liberals and conservatives can support. In fact, such an approach should garner more than just passive support — the policies presented above can actually serve as part of the foundation for U.S. foreign policy in the years ahead. Neither sentimental nor coldly aloof, these values comprise the core of the rules-based, liberal international order that the United States should aspire to achieve. This is about more than what we want; it is about who we are.

Yet because the political incentives against an approach to foreign policy that promotes American values remain so powerful, as we described at the outset, such a policy will not emerge on its own. Even with greater clarity about what values we want to uphold and promote, difficult questions will remain about how to do so. There will always be debates about acceptable costs and the trade-offs involved. So success will require sustained attention and steadfast leadership. With both, the American people will rise to the challenge.

I'd love to believe they're right. Which is what believing is.

In Light Of Recent Talk: Aug. 6 Meditation

[Posted by reader_iam]

Everyone is aware of the difficult and menacing situation in which human society--shrunk into one community with a common fate--now finds itself, but only a few act accordingly. Most people go on living their every-day life: half frightened, half indifferent, they behold the ghostly tragi-comedy which is being performed on the international stage before the eyes and ears of the world. But on that stage, on which the actors under the floodlights play their ordained parts, our fate of tomorrow, life or death of the nations, is being decided.
--Albert Einstein, in "The Menace of Mass Destruction"

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Moral Foreign Policy

[posted by Callimachus]

Reliving the Ford Administration during the late celebrations of his life reminded me that this was the moment the Republican Party enshrined "morality" in its foreign policy, though it was not Ford's doing and in fact it was a repudiation of the foreign policy Kissinger was running under Ford's authority (or want of it).

The 1976 GOP convention might end up being the last of the old breed, the kind of convention where the nomination really hung in the balance when the hall doors opened. Ford had to hold off Ronald Reagan and it was no sure thing that he would accomplish it. Reagan's performance in conceding at the end just about assured himself the nomination in 1980.

When I read over the "moral foreign policy" passage in the platform today, I can see how much of it was tailored by "Reagan's Raiders" specifically to embarrass Ford, and how much of it was crafted with an eye to the immediate realities of the Cold War. Jesse Helms, among others whom nobody ever accused of being politically high-minded, had a hand in shaping it.

But there it is: Unintended consequences and all.

The goal of Republican foreign policy is the achievement of liberty under law and a just and lasting peace in the world. The principles by which we act to achieve peace and to protect the interests of the United States must merit the restored confidence of our people.

We recognize and commend that great beacon of human courage and morality, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, for his compelling message that we must face the world with no illusions about the nature of tyranny. Ours will be a foreign policy that keeps this ever in mind.

Ours will be a foreign policy which recognizes that in international negotiations we must make no undue concessions; that in pursuing detente we must not grant unilateral favors with only the hope of getting future favors in return.

Agreements that are negotiated, such as the one signed in Helsinki, must not take from those who do not have freedom the hope of one day gaining it.

Finally, we are firmly committed to a foreign policy in which secret agreements, hidden from our people, will have no part.

Honestly, openly, and with firm conviction, we shall go forward as a united people to forge a lasting peace in the world based upon our deep belief in the rights of man, the rule of law and guidance by the hand of God.

Ford's snub of Solzhenitsyn; Brezhnev at Helsinki, all now distant chapters in a cold war. Platforms come and go, but somehow, on some level, the thing stuck. "[L]iberty under law and a just and lasting peace in the world ... principles ... the restored confidence of our people ... face the world with no illusions about the nature of tyranny ... must not take from those who do not have freedom the hope of one day gaining it." Probably because four years later Regan won the election and actually began to run the show that way -- at least most of the time.

People say now we're at the end of the curve that began in Kansas City that August. That George W. Bush has run that ship on the rocks, and we'll go happily back to realpolitik. People who lay claim to the compassion of others merrily advocate pulling out of Iraq the better to let the Sunnis and Shi'ites butcher one another, as though that conflict was rooted in the people's desires and not propelled from the top down. What are they to us, after all? Just more surly brown people.

Addendum: Good lord, you think we Republicans/Americans are intolerable with our striving for morality? Imagine us without it.