When asked what sort of thing was most likely to
blow
governments off course, British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan famously
replied, "Events, dear boy, events." I thought
of that line as I was reflecting on the
series of bad bounces that the Obama administration has experienced in
recent
weeks, most notably in the case of the BP blow-out and oil leak
down in the Gulf of Mexico. I think there's a
broader lesson there,
however, so permit me to briefly ascend one of my familiar soap-boxes.
One of the many reasons I think the United States
should
adopt a more restrained
grand strategy is the fact that our current level of
(over)-commitment leaves us with little latitude for dealing with
surprises. Presidents think they can set an
ambitious foreign and domestic agenda
and then just proceed to implement it. They know they will face various obstacles along the way, but
they forget that they
will also have to spend enormous amounts of time on problems that just
come out of nowhere. But if you're already trying to
do too much, then there's no time to handle anything else and either the
new
problems get bungled or your original goals have to be sacrificed.
Lord knows I have a certain sympathy for the Obama
team,
insofar as they inherited a very tough situation. But
from the start they've acted as if they could do
everything at once, didn't need to set priorities, and didn't really
need to have
a clear and well-articulated
strategy for
achieving their various lofty goals. As
I noted last
week, their
new National Security Strategy devotes
a lot of lip-service to relying more on partnerships, institutions,
etc., but it still sees the United States
deeply engaged virtually everywhere and it anticipates Washington
retaining the
lead role on most if not all major issues. It is
decidely not a document that anticipates our doing less.
The obvious danger with an overcrowded agenda is
that
there's no slack in the system when the inevitable surprises occur. Nobody expected an oil well to blow in
the Gulf of Mexico, but that unforeseen event is going to consume a lot
of
Obama's time and energy and limit his ability to act in other areas. (He's already canceled a trip to
Indonesia for the second time). Meanwhile,
the U.S. military is stretched to the max in Iraq and Afghanistan (in
part
because Obama foolishly decided to double down in the latter), and
Secretary of
Defense Gates is now telling the Pentagon to start cutting
costs in order to
keep those wars going. North Korea
has raised the temperature in East Asia, the Prime Minister of Japan has
just resigned, relations with Turkey ain't so hot, and the administration's tepid response
to the Gaza flotilla debacle is putting the last nail in the coffin of
Obama's
"New Beginning" with the Arab and Islamic world.
I'm sure the Obama team feels like they can't catch
a break
right now, but unpleasant surprises happen all the time and they should
have
planned for that reality even if they didn't know exactly what the
nature of the surprise
would be. One good reason to plan
on doing a bit less is so that we have the capacity to handle the stuff
that
just happens.
P.S. I don't have much to add to my earlier
comments on the
Gaza Flotilla, but I did want to alert readers to a very clear-eyed and
unsentimental analysis
of the incident by M.J. Rosenberg of Media Matters for
America. It's about the most sensible thing
I've read yet, and is well worth your attention. Plus, Glenn Beck attacked it
on his show last night, which virtually guarantees that M.J. is right.
Read More
(8)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE