“To be accepted as a paradigm, a theory must seem better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted.”
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
Thomas S. Kuhn
Dear Friends,
If you find it difficult to pinpoint or articulate a governing principle, a doctrine - dare we say, a paradigm -- about whether the U. S. should intervene in Libya, Bahrain, possibly Syria, and wherever else revolutionary spirits may awake, welcome to the 21st Century.
Consider for a moment, the basis on which precepts - national security interest, humanitarian concern, responsibility to protect, affordability - you believe decisions of this magnitude should be made.
And then imagine that you're the President of the United States.
America confronts a world as complex and uncertain as at any time in history, and we do so without “an American paradigm” - a foreign policy and national security paddle to rival George Kennan's “containment policy,” which kept us upright and afloat for a full half-century.
Hence, today's inquiry - Whither America in the 21st century global order?
And on that question, there are competing theories, schools, and models, which
reach beyond those insipid rhetorical claims -- we're in decline and we're still No. 1. - and ask us to consider our view of the first order questions.
Today we'll consider the work of three scholars who confront this question with differing perspectives, and who eschew traditional metrics about power and balance of power. As you'll note, each sees a narrower, less expeditionary and interventionist role for America.
First up is “Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War,” by Andrew Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, Colonel, U. S. Army (ret.), and a prolific author and essayist.
As the title implies, Bacevich is a contrarian of the first order whose personal transformation from orthodoxy to heterodoxy (or apostasy) is described in his Introduction, “Slow Learner:”
“By temperament and upbringing, I had always taken comfort in orthodoxy. In a life spent subject to authority, deference had become a deeply ingrained habit. I found assurance in conventional wisdom. Now, I started, however hesitantly, to suspect that orthodoxy might be a sham. I began to appreciate that authentic truth is never simple and that any version of truth handed down from on high - whether by presidents, prime ministers, or archbishops - is inherently suspect. The powerful, I came to see, reveal truth only to the extent that it suits them. Even then, the truths to which they testify come wrapped in a nearly invisible filament of dissembling, deception, and duplicity. The exercise of power necessarily involves manipulation and is antithetical to candor.”
Bacevich's call for America to return to its roots as a non-warrior nation finds inspiration from a succession of strange philosophical bedfellows, beginning with President John Quincy Adams -- who opined in 1821 that the United States, “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy,” a sentiment articulated 24 years earlier in George Washington's Farewell Address and 165 years later in President Dwight Eisenhower's. In addition, he incorporates thinking from diplomat George Kennan, Senator William Fulbright, social critic Christopher Lasch, Medal of Honor recipient and Marine General David Shoup, and Martin Luther King.
According to Bacevich, at the heart of the American Century were its credo - to lead, save, liberate, and ultimately transform the world - and its trinity - global military presence, power projection, and interventionism.
“Together, credo and trinity - the one defining purpose, the other practice - constitute the essence of the way that Washington has attempted to govern and police the American Century. The relationship between the two is symbiotic. The trinity lends plausibility to the credo's vast claims. For its part, the credo justifies the trinity's vast requirements and exertions. Together they provide the basis for an enduring consensus that imparts a consistency to U.S. policy regardless of which political party may hold the upper hand . . . From the era of Harry Truman to the age of Barack Obama, that consensus has remained intact. It defines the rules to which Washington adheres; it determines the precepts by which Washington rules.”
The author closes with his vision for America's role in the 21st century -- “a new trinity:”
“First, the purpose of the U. S. military is not to combat evil or remake the world, but to defend the United States and its most vital interests.”
“Second, the primary duty station of the American soldier is in America.”
“Third, consistent with the Just War tradition, the United States should employ force only as a last resort and only in self-defense.”
So much for orthodoxy. As the author laments: “Question its claims and your prospects of being heard in the hubbub of national politics become nil.”
Next comes the work of Bruce D. Jones, director of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, and director of the Managing Global Order project at the Brookings Institution, where he serves as Senior Fellow. Earlier this month, Jones published a Brookings Foreign Policy monograph, “Largest Minority Shareholder in the Global Order LLC: The Changing Balance of Influence and U. S. Strategy.”
Leaving little to the imagination with that title, Jones succinctly states the case for his thesis:
“America's dominance is dulled, but its influence is sustained. From its new position, the United States confronts not a rigid bloc of emerging powers, but complex and shifting coalitions of interest. The greatest risk lies not in a single peer competitor, but in the erosion of systems and institutions vital to U. S. interests and a stable order. U. S power is indispensible for international order, but not sufficient. No longer the CEO of the Free World Inc., the United States now holds a position akin to that of the largest minority shareholder in Global Order, LLC.
Like much of the literature on globalism, the global order, power in a multipolar world, and the like, Jones focuses on those nations commonly called “the rising powers:” the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) as well as a second and third tier of nation-states, including Australia, Canada, Chile, Iran, Korea, South Africa, Spain, and others.
And the questions are to what extent and in what ways will these 'rising powers' affect the international system, for which he offers three postulates:
o “First, rapid growth is generating exponential increases in the demand for scarce supplies of energy and consumable resources.”
o “Second, emerging powers have every interest to maneuver for greater influence over the rules of the global economic game.”
o “Third, the simple fact is that with rising capacity comes rising ambition.”
Where Bacevich sets out to save the soul of a nation and to 'call it home,' literally and figuratively, Jones' concern is with how the current and future administrations should retool American strategy to optimize its influence and its capacity to bend the global order in the direction of stability and predictability while protecting its national security.
Finally, we have “The Frugal Superpower: America's Global Leadership in a Cash-Strapped Era,” by Michael Mandelbaum, the Christian Herter Professor and director of American Foreign Policy at Johns Hopkins' School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Known to many outside the academy as Tom Friedman's tutor on the broad range of foreign policy and national security issues, Mandelbaum is noted also for two skills not often found in the same body - keen intellectual insight and economy of language.
Hence the title, which captures his thesis in 11 words, and in the following 194 pages, he posits that, “Just what the United States will and will not do will be the most important issue in international relations in the years ahead.”
And in Chapter 1 -- “The Tyranny of Numbers” - he lays out the predicate for America's choices:
“The collapse of 2008, the surge in American indebtedness, and the retirement of the baby boomers with the resulting explosion of claims on the federal government will create a different economic imperative: higher taxes more saving, and less consumption. This change will reduce the resources available for all public purposes: there will be less to go around. Along with other publicly funded activities, the change will impose new limits on the conduct of foreign policy. It will do so by altering the framework within which American foreign policy is made and carried out.”
Mandelbaum reminds us that all great powers have experienced periods of waxing and waning in power and influence, citing historian Paul Kennedy's thesis of “imperial overstretch,” but adds two caveats:
“First, the American decline will not be nearly as steep as the previous ones.
“No other country will, in the foreseeable future, rise to challenge America's global role, let alone supplant it as the most powerful member of the international system.”
And then this:
“What the world's strongest power faces in conduct of its foreign policy is not only (and perhaps not mainly) weakness in relation to others but also, where usable foreign policy resources are concerned, scarcity.”
What sets Mandelbaum's thesis apart from the rest is his unequivocal policy recommendation - to reduce the American consumption of oil. As his tutee, Tom Friedman, reminds us in his many op-eds on the subject, Mandelbaum says very simply: “Thus it is that the United States is waging a war against terrorism and funding both sides.”
And in what he calls a policy of “New Containment,” he observes that:
“Substantially reducing the role of oil in the American, Chinese, and global economies would, over the long term, lower the cost of America's international obligations in one final way: it would enhance the prospects for democracy, and therefore for democratically inspired peaceful foreign policies. Oil is the enemy of democracy.
Each of these messengers takes primary aim at a different audience: Bacevich is addressing the citizenry, calling on them to help steer the country away from guns and back to butter; Jones aiming his message directly to the White House and the foreign policy and national security decision-makers and managers; and Mandelbaum is teeing up a new way for the Congress and the Administration to think about national security and the politically challenging necessity of imposing a gasoline tax.
And now it's over to you.
R. Garrett Mitchell
The Mitchell Report
March 24, 2011
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