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Posted By Stephen M. Walt
Monday, February 2, 2009 - 2:47 PM
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Now that we know who the main players on Obama's foreign policy team are, it's time to ask: who is going to be in charge of grand strategy? By "grand strategy," I mean the administration's "theory" of foreign and national security policy, its broad plan for employing the various instruments of national power to advance the U.S. national interest.
Grand strategy is about identifying the critical forces that are shaping the current international environment, and then deciding how our resources can be used to make the United States more secure and more prosperous. It means setting priorities, making choices, figuring out the big picture, and where possible, getting other states to work with us instead of against us. Most of all, it means making sure that different policy initiatives are reinforcing each other instead of working at cross purposes.
Here's why this is important. Obama says he wants to make progress on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and he also wants to pursue a diplomatic engagement with Iran. If this is done right, those initiatives can reinforce each other. Engaging in a serious and non-confrontational effort to reach a modus vivendi with Iran would reduce Tehran's incentive to play spoiler on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, which will in turn encourage Hamas and other radical groups to rethink their own positions. By contrast, opening discussions with Iran by listing a lot of demands and refusing to address Iran's legitimate security concerns will make them look for ways to increase their own leverage, and that means more help to hardliners in Hamas or Islamic Jihad. So who is going to see to it that we approach both problems in a way that makes sense?
Here's another example: the United States keeps asking Russia to support tougher sanctions on Iran's nuclear program, while continuing to expand NATO despite persistent Russian objections. Not surprisingly, this hasn't worked. A well-integrated grand strategy would determine which of these goals is most important and downgrade the other, at least for the time being. And that requires having a clear sense of which dangers matter most and which opportunities are ripest for plucking.
The need for a coherent strategy is especially great given the economic crisis and the array of problems Obama has inherited from President Bush. We don't have a lot of surplus resources to throw at global problems these days, and some foreign policy challenges (e.g., Pakistan) may defy a solution. If we try to do everything, or if actions taken by one part of the government end up undercutting other initiatives, the results are not going to be pretty.
Looking over the administration's main appointees, it's hard to see the person (or people) who are going to provide the sort of clarifying, conceptual architecture that will help President Obama sort out the important from the trivial, and then help him figure out how to approach them in an integrated way. Whatever her other gifts may be, Secretary of State Clinton has never articulated a clear strategic vision of her own. Her chief aides are traditional liberal internationalists who are good at devising laundry lists of problems to be solved but less inclined to set priorities or to devise integrated strategies for achieving them.
James Jones at the NSC may have a strategic vision for our current situation but I have no idea what it is.
George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke are accomplished diplomats with impressive track records, but they are also powerful egos who will push to make sure that their areas of responsibility get top priority. And neither is in a position to articulate a global strategy.
Larry Summers has a million ideas about everything (including foreign policy) and he'll hardly be bashful about sharing them, but I really do hope he fixes the economy first.
During the campaign and transition, President Obama suggested that he was going to be the one that provided that vision. I'd like to think so, but I don't think he can do it alone. He has his hands full with lots of other problems, and he will ultimately need someone to keep his eye on the big picture and to keep all those big foreign policy egos in check.
So who's it going to be?
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Obama himself seems to understand a lot of thinks, but I think the one who gets the clearest ideas is Bob Gates. Whether he will have influence on the next Grand Strategy is still to be seen, but for sure the guy has a lot of advices to provide - see his piece on FA.
greetings.
I have the impression that Obama's campaign speeches on foreign policy were pretty much in sync with the ideas of the Princeton Project and that he brought Anne-Marie Slaughter to help develop and operationalize these ideas. Although I agree with your arguments about the Project and with Realist critiques of liberal internationalism writ large, one has to concede that they have been successful in promoting a coherent set of foreign policy ideas; making it look consistent both with a long-standing American tradition (however wrong-headed it may be) and the promise of change by focusing on (and somewhat exaggerating) the differences between this approach and the outgoing administration's; and constructing a powerful political case for this strategy, so that it enjoys, for at least the time being (while people are still blind with hope), wide public support in the US and the rest of the world.
It could end up being BiBi, Vlad, Supreme Leader and Bashar.
Indeed, the person who has been determining the FP grand strategy since the 06 midterms, Bob Gates. As you say, who wlse is i going to be.
Why not U Professor Walt? (importent modification done)
Professor!
as usual your or the US' Grand Strategy ignored the Grand Modifications on the Constitution of the US.
If U R playing for the role make your Grand Move - a TE based on a new Constitution. U won't fail!
Stephen!
look around yourself Mate!, there is nothing left _Grand_ out there, nothing _Grand_ can be built on this Constitution, not even a _Grand Strategy_. You very well know that.
Put that _Grand_ next to your Mona Lisa smile, then even the rest of the Bloggers will know what I and you mean.
You know whatmakes things, actions, people Grand, you had a taste of it : to be on the side of truth and reality that is what we call _Grand_.
The Grand Strategy should aim to get equipped to express the truth and reality rather than salvare apparentias.
Your existing constitution is there to distort and degenerate your own people, deny the truth and reality of your own people. When some of them show you their real face you get alarmed, want to scratch it, assimilate it to an appereance dictated by your constitution. Forget about the realities of FP you can't even bear the reality of your own people, why?
Professor Walt!
Please put your hand on this Constitution and _do not_ swear on it;->
Grand Sen~or
Whomever it turns out to be, it's most likely going to be someone who hasn't paid their taxes...
I'd hate to end the comment thread on that note, so instead I'll posit that perhaps Obama and Biden could work it out. I think it would be beneficial for them to have a couple of group meetings with diplomats and scholars to emphasize this linkage idea, which is a very good one. Basically, just so long as Henry Kissinger's advice isn't welcome anymore I think we're in better shape.
It does seem odd that no one seems to have an overarching view of how these things work together. Biden's a sharp guy though and he and his staff hopefully are thinking along those lines.
Former grad might be right that Bob Gates could contribute, though I'm wary of putting a former CIA chief, despite his reputation for moderation and quasi-realism, in charge of formulating global diplomacy. And I second blue's comments that we should probably be looking for tax delinquents to head it up ;)
I'm afraid that if the new administration doesn't get this prioritizing and grand strategizing up and running soon then Courtney's prediction will come true and our strategy will instead be reacting to Bibi, Putin, Khamenei, et al instead of proactively figuring it out.
i think it makes most sense in anne-marie slaughter's portfolio. if a president shows up-- as Obama has-- without a clear theory of foreign policy already laid out, the task should fall to State, and to the Office of Policy Planning, oft referred to as the "in-house think tank" at State.
lib internationalism has its critics, and its flaws, but Slaughter's views appear to be close to Obama's, and we know she has the theoretical grounding crucial for this task.
... is Lee Hamilton.
Isn't Mitchell about 76 years old? He's suspiciously hoary.
Samantha Power seems like a big picture kind of person. I gather her title will be something like senior director for multilateral affairs at the NSC. Sounds like a fit to me.
Slaughter and Ikenberry together?
Ikenberry? AM Slaugther? Samantha Power? Guys, there are idealists who have no clue of what international politics is.
Do we need to remember what happend when idealists formulated a Grand Strategy? (hint: Carter and GWB).
Secondly: Obama is not such an idealist. He said several times that he was strongly influenced by Reinold Niebuhr... how he manages politics suggests he really was...
not just about people, but subjects
While most of the right names have been invoked here, it's interesting that one of the arguable pillars of Pres. Obama's grand strategy, or at least Presidential priorities, the comingled climate change and energy security issues, is not mentioned above. Whatever you think about where those will really fall in the priority list or the grand strategy context, the "national security community" definitely shows its spots when it lapses into discussion of ideological camps and not disruptive issues. Will Chu or Browner play seriously here? It's at least a more interesting discussion than the normal Kremlinology, of which we're still guilty.
There is no such thing as grand strategy
Grand strategy is a myth that rationalizes the incremental decisions of policymakers. If there were a grand strategy, it would not work. The world is too complex and changes too much to impose a theory on it that would do all the things you say a grand strategy should do. Unfortunately, it sounds so cool that it makes you feel important talking about it, which is why people talk about grand strategy all the time. I do this myself at times.
Hamilton is a very good, so is Sam Nunn. Richard Lugar is also very good. But if I had to pick one, it would be Lee Hamilton
Why one person? Obama's style seems to be huge group conferences, which he'll then sift through until he finds the most appealing plan. That might prove an issue for something that demands as much coherency as grand strategy, but how likely is it really that he'll turn to one or two individuals for this?
I think Obama is in charge of grand strategy. He has picked a lot of other people that have other priorities, to hear their point of view, but ultimately he is the one in charge.
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.
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