Robert Kagan: Obama's Year of Failed Diplomacy
[Robert Kagan is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, and author of The Return of History and the End of Dreams.]
President Obama’s policies toward Afghanistan and Iran—or lack thereof—have received more attention than any other issues during his first year in office. And with good reason. An American defeat in Afghanistan would throw an already dangerous region further into turmoil and severely damage America’s reputation for reliability around the world. Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would bring about a substantial shift in the regional power balance against the United States and its allies, spark a new round of global proliferation, provide a significant boost to the forces of Islamic radicalism, and bring the United States that much further under the shadow of nuclear terrorism. If Obama’s policies were to produce a geopolitical doubleheader—defeat in Afghanistan and a nuclear-armed Iran—his historical legacy could wind up being a good deal worse than that of his predecessor. If he manages to make progress in Afghanistan and finds some way to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, he will be remembered for saving the world from a dire situation.
Less noticed amidst these crises, however, has been a broader shift in American foreign policy that could have equally great and possibly longer-lasting implications. The Obama presidency may mark the beginning of a new era in American foreign policy and be seen as the moment when the United States finally turned away from the grand strategy it adopted after World War II and assumed a different relationship to the rest of the world.
The old strategy, which survived for six decades, rested on three pillars: military and economic primacy, what Truman-era strategists called a “preponderance of power,” especially in Europe and East Asia; a global network of formal military and political alliances, mostly though not exclusively with fellow democracies; and an open trading and financial system. The idea, as Averell Harriman explained back in 1947, was to create “a balance of power preponderantly in favor of the free countries.” Nations outside the liberal order were to be checked and, in time, transformed, as George F. Kennan suggested in his Long Telegram and as Paul Nitze’s famous strategy document, NSC-68, reiterated. The goal, expressed by Harry Truman in 1947, was first to strengthen “freedom-loving nations” and then to “create the conditions that will lead eventually to personal freedom and happiness for all mankind.”
It is often said that Bill Clinton was the first post–Cold War president, but in many ways the Clinton presidency was devoted to completing the mission as set out by the architects of America’s post–World War II strategy. The National Security Strategy Document of 1996, as Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier observe in America Between the Wars, used the words “democracy” or “democratic” more than 130 times. As Clinton’s term ended, American foreign policy rested on the same three pillars as in the days of Truman and Acheson: the primacy of America, now cast as the “indispensable nation”; an expanding alliance of democratic nations; and an open economic order operating in line with the “Washington consensus.”
Obama and his foreign policy team have apparently rejected two of the main pillars of this post–World War II strategy. Instead of attempting to perpetuate American primacy, they are seeking to manage what they regard as America’s unavoidable decline relative to other great powers. They see themselves as the architects of the “post-American” world...
Read entire article at World Affairs
President Obama’s policies toward Afghanistan and Iran—or lack thereof—have received more attention than any other issues during his first year in office. And with good reason. An American defeat in Afghanistan would throw an already dangerous region further into turmoil and severely damage America’s reputation for reliability around the world. Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons would bring about a substantial shift in the regional power balance against the United States and its allies, spark a new round of global proliferation, provide a significant boost to the forces of Islamic radicalism, and bring the United States that much further under the shadow of nuclear terrorism. If Obama’s policies were to produce a geopolitical doubleheader—defeat in Afghanistan and a nuclear-armed Iran—his historical legacy could wind up being a good deal worse than that of his predecessor. If he manages to make progress in Afghanistan and finds some way to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, he will be remembered for saving the world from a dire situation.
Less noticed amidst these crises, however, has been a broader shift in American foreign policy that could have equally great and possibly longer-lasting implications. The Obama presidency may mark the beginning of a new era in American foreign policy and be seen as the moment when the United States finally turned away from the grand strategy it adopted after World War II and assumed a different relationship to the rest of the world.
The old strategy, which survived for six decades, rested on three pillars: military and economic primacy, what Truman-era strategists called a “preponderance of power,” especially in Europe and East Asia; a global network of formal military and political alliances, mostly though not exclusively with fellow democracies; and an open trading and financial system. The idea, as Averell Harriman explained back in 1947, was to create “a balance of power preponderantly in favor of the free countries.” Nations outside the liberal order were to be checked and, in time, transformed, as George F. Kennan suggested in his Long Telegram and as Paul Nitze’s famous strategy document, NSC-68, reiterated. The goal, expressed by Harry Truman in 1947, was first to strengthen “freedom-loving nations” and then to “create the conditions that will lead eventually to personal freedom and happiness for all mankind.”
It is often said that Bill Clinton was the first post–Cold War president, but in many ways the Clinton presidency was devoted to completing the mission as set out by the architects of America’s post–World War II strategy. The National Security Strategy Document of 1996, as Derek Chollet and James Goldgeier observe in America Between the Wars, used the words “democracy” or “democratic” more than 130 times. As Clinton’s term ended, American foreign policy rested on the same three pillars as in the days of Truman and Acheson: the primacy of America, now cast as the “indispensable nation”; an expanding alliance of democratic nations; and an open economic order operating in line with the “Washington consensus.”
Obama and his foreign policy team have apparently rejected two of the main pillars of this post–World War II strategy. Instead of attempting to perpetuate American primacy, they are seeking to manage what they regard as America’s unavoidable decline relative to other great powers. They see themselves as the architects of the “post-American” world...