If I were President Obama (now there's a scary thought!),
I'd ask some smart people on my foreign policy team to start thinking hard about
"Plan B." What's Plan B? It's the strategy that he's going to
need when it becomes clear that his initial foreign policy initiatives didn't
work. Obama's election and speechifying
has done a lot to repair America's image around the world -- at least in the short
term -- in part because that image had nowhere to go but up. But as just about everyone commented
when he got the Nobel Peace Prize last week, his foreign policy record to date is
long on promises but short on tangible achievements. Indeed, odds are that the first term will end without his
achieving any of his major foreign policy goals.
To be more specific, I'd bet that all of the following statements are true in 2012.
1. There won't be a two-state solution between Israel and
the Palestinians, and Israel will still be occupying the West Bank and
controlling the Gaza Strip. More
and more people are going to conclude that "two states for two peoples" is no
longer possible, and that great Cairo speech will increasingly look like hollow
rhetoric.
2. The United States will still have tens of thousands of
troops in Afghanistan. Victory will not be within sight.
3. Substantial
U.S. personnel will remain in Iraq (relabeled as "training missions"), and the
political situation will remain fragile at best.
4. The clerical regime in Iran will still be in power, will still
be enriching nuclear material, will still insist on its right to control the
full nuclear fuel cycle, and will still be deeply suspicious of the United
States. Iran won't have an actual nuclear weapon by then, but it will be closer to being able to make one if it wishes.
5. There won't be a new climate change agreement to replace
the Kyoto Protocol.
6. Little progress will have been made toward reducing the
number of nuclear weapons in the world. The United States and Russia may
complete a new strategic arms agreement by then, but both states will still
have thousands of nuclear warheads in their stockpiles. None of the nine current nuclear
weapons states will have disarmed, and I wouldn't be surprised if the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is still unratified three years from now.
Other achievements that we won't see
include the balancing of the federal budget, a major
revamping of global financial architecture, reform of the U.N. Security
Council, a significant increase in the size of the State Department
or the foreign aid budget, or the completion of new trade round. I'm not even sure we will have closed
Gitmo or ended "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" by then.
Assuming he wins re-election, therefore, President Obama is
going to be looking at a foreign policy "to do" list with remarkably few boxes
checked off. And somebody ought to
start thinking about this possibility now, because wise statecraft ought to
anticipate the circumstances one is going to face a few years hence,
instead of focusing solely on what's in the in-box today.
So what's Plan B? I'm still wrestling with that issue myself, but here's a quick sketch of
some of the fundamental ideas. Plan B begins by recognizing that the United States remains the most
secure great power in modern history and that most of damage we have suffered
recently has come from scaring ourselves into foolish foreign adventures. It means rejecting the belief -- common to
both neoconservatives and liberal internationalists -- that virtually every global
problem requires an American solution and "American leadership." It acknowledges that social engineering
in complex traditional societies is something we don't know how to do and probably can't learn, but it takes
comfort from the fact that it is also a task that we don't have to do. It accepts that there are a few bad guys
out there that do need to be confronted, captured, and sometimes killed, but
understands that the more force we use and the heavier our footprint is, the more
resistance we will ultimately face.
And yes, Plan B understands that sometimes bad things will happen to
Americans, and there is nothing we can do to completely eliminate all foreign dangers. Get used to it.
Plan B means playing "hard to get" more often, so that other
states don't take us for granted and so that they bear a greater share of
common burdens. It means
exploiting balances of power and playing divide-and-conquer, instead of trying
to impose a preponderance of U.S. power on every corner of the globe. It prizes the individual freedoms that
are the core of American democracy -- freedoms that are threatened by a steady
diet of foreign wars -- and it recognizes that other societies will have to find
their own way toward more pluralist and participatory forms of government, and at
their own pace. It seeks to
maintain armed forces that are second to none but eschews squandering lives or
money on peripheral wars that are neither vital nor winnable. It rejects "special relationships" with
any other state, if by that one means relationships where we support other
states even when they do foolish things that are not in our interest (or
theirs).
And Plan B proceeds from the belief that other states will
be more likely to follow America's lead if they look at us and like what they
see. America
used to dazzle the world by offering up a vision of opportunity, equality, energy
and competence that was unimaginable elsewhere. The
danger now is that America is increasingly seen as a land of
crumbling infrastructure, mountainous debt, uninsured millions, fraying
public institutions, and xenophobic media buffoons. Over the longer
term, getting
our house in order back home will to a lot more to shore up our global
position than conducting
endless foot patrols through the Afghan countryside.
Postscript: Some smart observers -- such as Andrew
Sullivan at the Atlantic -- have a more favorable view of Obama's performance to
date. They discern a trademark
style in Obama's cautious and reflective approach to most policy issues: he sets
forth general goals, waits to see how others react, gauges the limits of the
possible, and then decides on a course of action. There's
probably something to this view, and surely the patient examination of
alternative policy options makes more sense than relying on one's "gut
instincts" and then stubbornly
refusing to admit the possibility of error.
Whether one relies on calm deliberation or a president's
entrails, however, the proof of any approach to policymaking is its ability to
deliver tangible results. And here the jury is still out. My concern is that Obama has yet
to use American power -- in either its hard and soft forms -- in ways designed to shape
the calculations and actions of both allies and adversaries. Where Bush erroneously believed that
the United States could simply dictate to the rest of the world, thus far Obama seems
unwilling to wield American power against stubborn opponents or withhold U.S.
support from recalcitrant allies. His speeches are a valuable tool, but ultimately others need to know
that there is resolve and purpose and tangible actions behind them. Sometimes
foreign
policy is like community organizing -- i.e., you're trying to herd diverse
groups to work together for a common goal and your task is to overcome
suspicions so that the common ground can be seized. But at other times
it's more like a gang
war. And when it's the latter, you
have to take names, draw lines, and use the power at one's disposal to get the
outcomes you want.
Think about it this way: how many foreign
leaders are now grateful because the United States has backed them and their
prospects are improving, and how many governments are now worried because the
United States is successfully using its power to undermine or thwart them and force them to rethink their positions?
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