American Foreign Policy

In the last unit we addressed the arguments of Chalmers Johnson, arguing that America is the new Rome, with an aggressive, expansive, imperialist policy.

Now we’re moving to look at the argument of Francis Fukuyama.  I want to talk a bit about why I choose Fukuyama.  My first instinct was to choose someone who was supportive of the Gulf War, but I couldn’t find a clear, concise argument, the war has become so politicized.  So instead, I chose someone who has the point of view often used to rationalize the war, but from a critic of the war.

In essence, Fukuyama believes that the US can be a force for moral good in the world.  He rejects the notion that we are the modern Rome.  He breaks with neo-conservatism and embraces “realistic Wilsonianism.”  So let’s consider his argument.  First, some of his name dropping.

He notes that he is friends with Paul Wolfowitz, who was a main architect of the Iraq War as assistant Secretary of Defense.  Wolfowitz was Dean at SAIS (my MA school), and convinced Fukuyama to go there.  Wolfowitz was key behind the 1998 letter to Clinton, which Fukuyama signed.  He notes he was a student of Allen Bloom.  Bloom, who wrote “The Closing of the American Mind,” argued strongly against the bias in education towards what gets  called liberal in American politics.  Bloom was a student of Leo Strauss.

Strauss as a philosopher had a very interesting message.  He argued that modern liberalism (leftist form) had an inherent flaw.  It is open to relativism, which contains within it a form of nihilism.  This creates an inability to take moral stands in politics, and creates the myth of value free politics.  Neo-conservatives, drawing on this, are thus very straight forward in saying that America stands for something, and we should not only be proud of it, but we should act politically to promote our values.   Not because they are our values (e.g, American interests), but because these values are truly universal – freedom, liberty, virtue, and excellence.  He has worked closely with William Kristol, who remains a strong proponent of the war in Iraq, and whose magazine The Weekly Standard argues strongly for neo-conservative policies.

Fukuyama broke with the neo-conservatives over the Iraq war, in part because he thought that they were in denial about the Iraq war, not realizing how damaging it was to the United States.  He describes the dinner where Charles Krauthammer spoke of the war as a clear success, arguing for a unipolar foreign policy.  As an academic, Fukuyama felt he needed to counter that, and he wrote a piece that broke with the other neo-conservatives, starting a kind of fight, as they saw him as betraying.

He describes the views of neo-conservatives as:

1.  A concern with democracy, human rights, and internal policies in other states.  We should be focusing on democracy and moral issues, not just power.

2.  American power can be a force for good.

3.  There is a distrust of international law and multilateral institutions.

4.  Ambitious social engineering doesn’t work.

In general, his approach will not veer far from these principles.  He agrees with number one and two, but believes that given the impact of Iraq and the importance of globalization we can’t simply dismiss international institutions.  He thinks that especially in the post-Cold War period we need those institutions.  And, ironically, the problems in Iraq stem from having it become a social engineering experiment.  We need to care about democracy, but we can’t simply force it on people.  So while he may have broken with the Neo-conservatives on Iraq, he still doesn’t give up on them completely.

Compare that with realism.   Realism is inherently a relativistic approach to foreign policy.  Values matter for domestic politics, but not international relations.  This goes all the way back to Machiavelli.  What matters is power, security and the national interest.  We have different views on how to govern and what is virtue, but in politics its about security, power, and strength.

So let’s have a discussion about this.   Realists say, look, Syria is Baathist, Iran is Islamic fundamentalist, and there are a lot of non-democratic regimes.  It’s not our business to tell them that they should be like us.  We have our own cultural and political values.  What we need to focus on is national interest, security, and diplomacy.  As long as they don’t challenge our interests, we won’t try to affect their internal policies.

Neo-conservatives, and Wilsonian realists reject this.  Moreover, Fukuyama notes that the Cold War wasn’t completely defined by realism.  Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter all took idealist positions.  Reagan wanted internal change in the USSR, Kennedy said we’d bear any burden and pay any price to defend liberty, Truman saw communism as an evil to counter, and Carter tried to promote human rights as a goal.   For Fukuyama and neo-conservatives, the need to act assertively in promoting our values comes from the nature of global politics, we’re not just billiard ball states interacting, we’re linked.

So, ignoring the specifics of Iraq and dilemmas of US power, should we have a more realist, relativist approach, or should we focus on democracy, human rights and the like?

Policy After 9-11

1.  The US demanded Afghanistan release Osama Bin Laden to the United States.  The Taliban, the government of Afghanistan at the time, refused.

2.  NATO invoked Article 5, considering the attack on the US as one warranting NATO collective self-defense.  The US rejected that (but thanked NATO), arguing that this would not be a NATO actions.  Fears that this would tie the hands of the US, memories of Kosovo problems.

3.  Neo-conservatives: early on there is a desire to hit Iraq.  They had often seen Iraq as the lynchpin for changing the Mideast.  President Bush took office bringing a lot of neo-conservatives into office, but wasn’t himself convinced.  He was focused first on Afghanistan.

4.  Afghanistan required closer ties between the US and Pakistan.  The price for this would be closing our eyes to Pakistani human rights abuses and Musharraf’s authoritarian rule.  Most importantly, it would require removing sanctions put in place after the Pakistani nuclear test (in response to India’s).  For realists, this made sense; Pakistan is important strategically if you are to invade Afghanistan.  But neo-conservatives hoped this opening to Pakistan could help bring change, especially if Afghanistan became democratic and pro-western.

5.   When the war started, the US policy for Operation Enduring Freedom was to rely on American and British air power, with much of the ground forces provided by the Northern Alliance.  The northern alliance had ruled Afghanistan in the early 90s, but it was a disaster, with no security and massive corruption.  Yet the northern alliance was anti-Taliban, and arguably their failures were partially due to lack of attention and aid from the outside.   So they were armed and aided, supported by special forces.

6.  The war starts on October 7, 2001, and is over by December.  The Taliban’s regime crumbles, as the Northern alliance creates partnerships with local tribal leaders and with massive aerial support from the US defeats the Taliban.   Though most of the fighting is done by tribal forces, US and UK special forces take the lead in the battle of Tora Bora in December.  Al qaeda agrees to lay down its weapons and call a truce.  In retrospect, this may have been a ruse, allowing Osama and his top lieutenants to escape.

The war was seen as proof that US military action was likely to be relatively easy and effective.  Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, already looking towards Iraq, complained there weren’t enough sites in Afghanistan to bomb.  The US promised to make sure this time Afghanistan wasn’t neglected after the war, and moved to create a conference of donors in Bad Godesberg Germany, pledging support for a new, democratic Afghanistan.

In 2002 Hamid Karzai was elected President, and took a strongly pro-American, pro-Western stance.  Throughout 2002 Afghanistan was celebrated as an emerging democracy, with US aid and support going in, and mop up operations to try to defeat remaining Taliban.  Al qaeda and Taliban figures had escaped to the tribal regions of Pakistan, and most people thought Pakistan would be able to take care of those people.

In that framework, the focus shifted to Iraq, and by 2002 the US was mounting a full diplomatic effort to get support for a strike on Iraq.  In retrospect, the optimism over Afghanistan was pre-mature.  By 2003 the Taliban started to regroup and plan an insurgency, building alliances throughout the country.  The Karzai government never really was able to expand its influence outside of Kabul, and local tribal leaders and war lords were in command.  As Taliban attacks grew more frequest, reconstruction and democratic development slowed.  NATO was put in charge of the Afghanistan mission at this point, but after the US war in Iraq started, there was a lack of troops to really stabilize Afghanistan.  Opium production skyrocketed, and as of 2008 there are warnings NATO could lose Afghanistan.

Impact: Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban are increasing power there, and likely al qaeda is able to develop new plans.  Pakistan, however, has become if anything less reformist, as Musharaff has had to crack down to hang on to power.  Even then, the response to the US war in Iraq has been to strengthen Islamic extremists, and make it very difficult for the Pakistani government to exercise control in the tribal areas.  A few highly publicized operations yielded little results, and many think they were mostly cosmetic to satisfy the Americans.  Musharraf had bet that support of the US would help him hang on to power and increase Pakistan’s role.  By 2006 that bet seemed to be failing, and he moved away from close cooperation with the US.  Now, Afghanistan and Pakistan are problems.

Pre-emption:  While Afghanistan was posited as a defensive war against al qaeda, that could not be used to justify war against Iraq.  Moreover, the Taliban had been perhaps they most despised regime on the planet, so there weren’t a lot of problems in getting support.  Nonetheless, support was soft.

In Germany, the Schröder government got into trouble for supplying troops for the Afghanistan war.  In November, the Greens and the SPD threatened to take down the government, and he called for a ‘vote of trust’ to force his coalition to support the action.  If Afghanistan was that questionable in countries like Germany, Iraq would be extremely difficult to support.

The first step was the policy of pre-emption.  In usual foreign policy terms, a pre-emptive strike was acceptable if there was a clear and present danger.  Clear means direct and visible; all should agree the danger is there.  Present means NOW.  If we don’t act now, we may be hit hard.  The doctrine as defined by the Bush administration was looser.  Pre-emption meant the ability to attack countries that threatened our interests by potentially working with terrorist organizations. 

Was this real, or a manufactured doctrine to hide neo-conservative goals?  From 2002 into 2003 when the Iraq war begun, two different story lines can be told.  Story line one is the public story line.

Intelligence sources believe Saddam Hussein has been cheating on his weapons of mass destruction pledges, and has started WMD programs again.  Inspectors have been out since 1998, when President Clinton decided to launch operation Desert Fox.   We know Saddam has the will to act against the US, and no doubts wants revenge.  If he gets weapons of mass destruction, he could share them with groups like al qaeda.  Vice President Cheney said, in response to doubts that Saddam would aid a group so diametrically opposed to his rule and his philosophy, that ‘if there is even a 1% chance, we should act. (The so-called 1% doctrine). 

This meant that Saddam was near having WMD, and likely would give it to terror organizations which could then launch an even more devastating attack than 9-11.  In the panic and uncertainty directly after 9-11, even the possibility raised concerns.  Thus, it would be important to pre-empt that real threat, and remove Saddam.

Story line two:  Iraq is weakened by sanctions, yet has a secular, more modern population.  Saddam can be removed relatively easily.  We were able to defeat Iraq in 1991, and by 2002 our forces were superior, with technological advances immense, while Iraq had been weakened by the weapons inspections regime.  Once Saddam was gone, Iraqis would welcome us, greet us as liberators.  Our natural allies would be the majority Shi’ite Arab population in the south through Baghdad.  They had been brutalized by Saddam, and felt betrayed when we didn’t help them rise up in 1991.  This time, we’d make it clear that we were going to get rid of Saddam, and that with their majority status, a democratic Iraq would give them power.  Once Saddam was gone, we’d pour money and resources into Iraq to make it a model democracy for the region, and use our position there to open permanent bases, and pressure Iran and Syria.  In short, this was a chance to bring real democratic change to the Mideast, to support a moral foreign policy.

But if story line two is the cause, why is that not what the public heard?

Two responses:  1) the Bush Administration itself was divided, the neo-conservatives were becoming influential, but many – including the President – may have believed a mesh of one and two, or even put one first; and 2) the neo-conservative argument would have no traction in building international support, or even domestic support.  So therefore we needed to ‘sell’ the war on the basis of story line one, then the success of story line two would make it a foregone conclusion that the war was the right choice.

My view: the neo-conservatives believed 2, the administration was probably split.