Over at the American Conservative, Daniel Larison struggles manfully, as is his wont, over the minutiae of American foreign policy, in particular whether President Obama is a “realist.” Quite reasonably, he concludes that he isn’t. Realists don’t start pointless wars, as President Obama did by launching an air assault on a harmless country (Libya) because, well, because that’s “who we are”—that is, we are a nation that doesn’t tolerate anything that isn’t who we are.
But, in a larger sense, the president is a realist. It’s just that his definition of “reality” is different than Larison’s. Dan thinks that the “real world” of foreign affairs exists outside the U.S. Obama knows that it exists inside the Beltway. Let other people worry about maintaining a balance of power among nations. Obama has the real task: maintaining a balance of power among the endlessly fractious playas who make up America’s foreign policy community—that swirling, swarming, self-promoting maelstrom of present, past and future officials from State, Defense, CIA, NSA, Heritage, Hopkins, Brookings, AIPAC, and etc. Odysseus should have accounted himself lucky to have faced only Scylla and Charybdis. Obama faces swamps, sandbars, sinkholes, snags, and whirlpools by the dozen. When filling an assistant deputy directorship, the question isn’t “Does this person have experience and a wide grasp of the issues” but rather “Is this person a neo-Wilsonian, preferably a woman, from the East Coast, not from Brookings, who didn’t go to Harvard?”
It is remarkable (to me, at least) the extent to which the tilt of this double-domed mélange remains “when in doubt, intervene. When not in doubt, still intervene.” Of course, no one is talking about sending in troops. No, no. Just some training and equipment and maybe a little intelligence. And then, when, so surprisingly, things don’t work out the way we planned, well, we can’t give up now, can we? We’re not sunshine idealists, are we? And so the same cycle begins again. 1
In large part, it’s simply the secular version of the old missionary spirit. Back in the nineteenth century, the various religious sects had more or less given up on trying to convert their heretical neighbors. Instead, in the manner of Mrs. Jellyby, they tried to convert the heathen, who, basically, couldn’t fight back, and who wouldn’t try to convert you.2
That’s where, most unfortunately, it seems to me, Hillary Clinton is coming from. Her whole life has been driven by the desire to “make a difference” and one can wonder how much that would change if and when she’s elected to office. Her now book predictably veers right, particularly on Iran, because she scarcely needs to worry about a Republican getting to her left.
As for the right, well, they demand a “muscular” foreign policy because they don’t think they can win elections without a new cold war. It’s a matter of political survival, pure and simple. A Ted Cruz in office would surely engage in some sort of Putinesque puff-chestedness—a lot of “manly” rhetoric à la Ronald Reagan and the wasting of an extra $100 billion on defense.3
It’s striking to me that neither Clinton nor the Republicans want to acknowledge the deep horror the American people have at the prospect of American casualties. If the butcher’s bill isn’t zero, America isn’t interested. But inside the Beltway, this antipathy is, in effect, “noises off.” It’s just not part of the “real world.”4
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President Obama has received a lot of criticism for demolishing “straw men” in his West Point speech. But his critics insistent over and over again that the situation in, e.g., Ukraine, Syria, Iran, is “unacceptable,” though (of course) they are not, repeat not, urging military action. But if non-military actions don’t resolve matters, doesn’t military intervention become not only acceptable but “necessary”? Or perhaps the situation wasn’t so “unacceptable” after all. ↩︎
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In the U.S., competition among the various religious sects to save Indian souls after the Civil War became so fierce that, to keep the peace, the federal government parceled out chunks of Indian land for the exclusive use of each of the major groups. ↩︎
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The real burden on the right, it seems to me, is that there is no big, glossy, weapons defense system to throw money at. Drones are the wave of the future, of course, but they’re not very glamorous and they undercut existing systems. Imagine a drone aircraft carrier! Cool! Except that then, we wouldn’t need real ones! And there’s also the embarrassing fact that the American people, those lazy slobs, would rather spend money on Social Security than defense. That is so tacky! ↩︎
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The unfortunate real world impact of all this is that Clinton would be somewhat less likely to engage in military intervention but would also be under more political pressure to do so, while a Cruz would be more likely to intervene but under less pressure to do so. This is why American politics resembles a fat man sleeping in the middle of a mattress; everything slides to the center. ↩︎
