Princeton Project Strikes Back, Part II
There false premises that Democrats, or indeed Americans, simply have to get past to get anywhere on foreign policy generally and nationals security policy more particularly. They are evident in Steve’s comments on the Princeton Project report, and also in the debate on Anatol Lieven’s excellent new book, Ethical Realism, over on America Abroad.
First, that engagement, or internationalism, equals a commitment to solve all the world’s problems. Steve is most guilty of this – it works fine if you are trying to score political points in the present climate of American concern with overstretch, but it is not a serious argument. A central point of the Princeton Project report and of countless other articles on national and global security in the 21st century is that non¬¬-engagement really isn’t an option. The question is not whether to engage or not, but how. Steve wants to engage through “off-shore balancing,” staying as removed as possible from the domestic politics of other states – e.g. the politics that determine how individuals are actually treated, or how they actually live – and instead just focusing on the balance of power. When a state becomes sufficiently powerful to be threatening, we should act to balance them. Otherwise, we should keep our powder dry. John and I agree on the powder front, in the sense that we do not support trying to change domestic politics by force unless a government is committing genocide or crimes against humanity. But we argue for a strategy of non-military engagement by the U.S. together with as many other countries as possible through international institutions. None of our commenters have really engaged that.
Second, that democracy promotion means focusing on elections. Steve claims that “liberty under law” is just a euphemism for Bush-style democracy promotion. Liberty under law instead emphasizes that democracy is not an end in itself, that it is rather a means to the establishment and preservation of ordered liberty – a society in which all individuals have sufficient liberty and sufficient order to pursue their own visions of the best life for themselves and their children. Democracy based on a foundation of sufficient prosperity, education, and institutions designed to check and balance power is the best means of achieving that balance of liberty order yet found by humankind. If that is not so, then the onus should be on Steve and similar critics to offer an alternative.
That is the core of my disagreement with Anatol’s ethical realism as well (see the recent debate on BloggingHeadsTV) – I’m all for pursuing a strategy of economic engagement, but what do we do when a government takes a sharp turn for the worse in its treatment of its own people to hang on to power in the face of liberalizing forces? Realists of any stripe immediately argue that liberals want to intervene because of their bleeding hearts and their ideals, ideals that then get us into worse trouble than just staying out. But it’s not ideals that drive John and me and other liberal internationalists. It’s interests. Interests that say over the long term America will be stronger and safer in a world of liberal democracies. And interests that say that when governments turn on their own people they are one step away from creating major trouble for their neighbors and for the regional and even international system.
Third, and most important, that a desire to promote democracy, liberty, justice, equality, tolerance – the values underpinning successful liberal democracy anywhere – means the promotion or imposition of American values. There are many reasons why people around the world may assume that today, which is one of the great failures of this administration’s foreign policy and to some extent Clinton’s foreign policy. If we cannot get past that premise, then it means that we as Americans have lost our own heritage. These are genuinely universal values. That we have promoted them so disastrously under George W. Bush and to some extent under Clinton (remember the international criminal court – hard to say we stand for justice when we seem to want justice only for others) as well means indeed that the rest of the world increasingly sees our promotion of these values as nothing more than a blind for the imposition of American power. But we as Americans must reject this equation and put our money where our mouths are in our international decisions, rather than accepting it and lobbing it as an accusation against different groups in American internal debates.
It’s one thing to say that they are universal values and that we should promote them but that America as a nation is so tarnished that we taint everything we touch. If that is Steve’s position, then the question is whether and how to redeem ourselves. That is where John and I look to international institutions, not as laundering devices but as places and mechanisms where we can in fact practice what we preach and act collectively. But if Steve’s view – and that of many of our other critics on the far left – is that these are NOT universal values, but only American values, then we need a much deeper debate about who we are and what we stand for as a nation.
Comments (23)
Just a few days ago, Dean Slaughter was accusing others of "not getting it" and asking them (in her remarkably pedantic tone) to, "Come on guys." Ironically enough, it's now clear that it's Slaughter and her co-author who don't get it. It's Slaughter who fails to see the irony of attempting to impose democratic values on another society. The question here is not about the virtue of American values. The question is about the role that the explicit and aggressive promotion of those values should play in US foreign policy.
I and other realists would have little problem with Slaughter's claim, "Democracy based on a foundation of sufficient prosperity, education, and institutions designed to check and balance power is the best means of achieving that balance of liberty order yet found by humankind." But unlike Slaughter and Ikenberry, realists recognize the limits to what the United States--even (or perhaps especially) a hegemonic United States--can achieve in promoting those values. Realists recognize that the United States perhaps does more harm than good to its interests by misguidedly and unsuccessfully trying to impose these values on others.
Would the world be a better place if it was populated entirely by liberal democracies? Absolutely. Is it within the power of the United States to make that a reality? To build that type of order, as Slaughter and Ikenberry would have us do? Realists are skeptical, and unlike Slaughter and Ikenberry, realists recognize that there are likely to be real costs for trying to do so.
Again, the Slaugher/Ikenberry arrogance--true American-style hubris--is astonishing. They continue to refer in all their posts to the "Princeton Project" as if that legitimates what they have written by implicating all with whom they consulted on this project (even though the report is distinctly Slaughter and Ikenberry). I suspect they expected the Princeton Project Report to be a major statement about the future of US foreign policy. Heck, they probably even had visions of becoming the latest buzz among the Washington cogniscenti, "Have you read the PPR [because everything in DC has to have an acronym]? Isn't it just brilliant?" Slaughter would be secretary of state in the sure-to-be democratic administration of 2008, and Ikenberry would be her director of policy planning. Now that their report has landed with a distinct thud, you wonder if they might be humbled.
GWB has said very few wise things about US foreign policy, but one of the few was his call in the 2000 debates for a more humble foreign policy (as we all know, that went right out the White House window). Both US foreign policy and Slaughter and Ikenberry could use a good dose of humility.
October 16, 2006 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I suspect they expected the Princeton Project Report to be a major statement about the future of US foreign policy. ...
Now that their report has landed with a distinct thud, you wonder if they might be humbled."
I don't know that it will land with a thud. Here, yes. But we are not her target audience; she is talking to other *elites*, and I can just imagine that when the Democratic nominee is looking for a Secretary of State, someone will just happen to point this Project out, and the reaction will be "look how moderate she is. She will appeal to the broadest range possible." No one here should be confused and think she is looking to have a real debate. This is a campaign among elites, and they are the only audience that matters to her.
Liberals would do well to remember her support of the Iraq war. They would do well to remember this Project.
Conservatives would do well to remember she has said European nations should hand over their UN Security Council votes to the EU.
Neither should forget her New World Order book. She is loyal to elites and that is all.
October 16, 2006 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
For all your anger, you don't offer an alternative. In one sentence you pay lip service to the benefits of democracy while in another you seem to question its utility.
You're proud to be a realist. Good for you. But are your assumptions borne out in reality? There's a lot of interstate cooperation for you to explain.
And you demand too much. The belief that US foreign policy should be geared towards spreading and consolidating democracy around the world does not require the belief that it is necessarily possible. For example, what if in late 2002 Saddam Hussein suffered a fatal heart attack, and a pro-democracy movement arose in Iraq? In such a case, should we support the movement? Or, being skeptical of our power to succeed, should we not intervene?
It is enough to believe that promoting democracy will possibly lead to more democracies.
October 16, 2006 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Count me as one of those who calls for a deeper debate about who we are and what we stand for.
The picture of American life presented by Ms. Slaughter is rather idyllic.
She assumes that some "invisible hand" will guarantee that this "ordered liberty – a society in which all individuals have sufficient liberty and sufficient order to pursue their own visions of the best life for themselves and their children." will result in the promotion of "liberty, justice, equality." I have my doubts about that.
People pursuing "their own visions of the best life" allows for the darker sides of human nature to have access to power.
We see it today. Among the woes I see, we are a nation of religious hucksters fleecing the naive. We are a nation overrun by pontificating amoral politicians who with the help of Madison Avenue and the Main Stream Media convince people to vote against their own best interests. We are a nation that is deliberately conditioned to over-consume and even go into ever-deepening debt in order to keep the neoliberal machinery going. Much of what goes on in our country is morally toxic to the average man.
I'm not far-left or far-right or far anything. I try to keep my eyes wide open. I don't see an idyllic society flourishing here in America. Sorry. To maintain we need to duplicate our unfettered system of go-go capitalism all over the world is, to me, presumptuous. Your vision does not take into consideration communitarian concerns and naively thinks that if we just give people maximum liberty and freedom, they will naturally not use that liberty to exploit their fellow man.
October 16, 2006 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
These discussions on the universality or non-universality of values often seem to trade on ambiguities about what it means to be "universal".
We all agree that the world is an incredibly complicated and diverse place, and human beings differ greatly among themselves with respect to their desires, beliefs and attitudes. Still, there are certain things about which almost all human beings actually agree - more on that below. Such values are nearly universal, in the empirical psychological sense.
More interesting is the claim that there are certain important things about which people should agree, even if they actually don't agree at the present time. Such values, if they exist, are univeral in a more abstract sense - they are not psychologically universal, but they are universally binding on all of us. Perhaps the universal validity of these values is grasped by God, or by His angels, or by human beings engaged in elevated Platonic contemplation, or by those who are attuned to the deepest intimations of conscience, or by those brought to some pitch of moral enlightenment through education and good breeding.
But how much difference does this make to global politics? Practical reason must prioritize with reference to risk and achievability. Governance deals with the limits of what is possible, with the varieties of human cooperation that are achievable, given the dispositions, values and beliefs people actually have, not the ones they should have. While there may be abstract universal values that are not psychologically actualized in the minds of human beings, debate rages eternally among philosophers (I used to be one, professionally) about what those values are. But from the standpoint of practical politics, with an eye toward the goal of ordering our lives by building sustainable coalitions and enduring bonds of cooperation, a much more important consideration is what we can hope to get people to agree about. We can't afford to endanger the pursuit of hugely important immediate goals about which there is manifest, overwhelming agreement, because we lose ourselves in the quixotic pursuit of lofty, ideologically driven values about which there is far less agreement.
Now there are some desires, beliefs and that almost universal, in the psychological sense. These are things that most people actually agree about. There are other values that are fairly common among sizeable groups of Americans, but about which there is nothing close to universal agreement:
The desire that one's children not be incinerated by a nuclear weapon is a nearly universal value.
The belief that every person has the right to marry whomever they wish is not a universal value.
The desire to avoid plagues, natural catastrophes and starvation is nearly universal.
The belief that societies should not be governed by religious leaders, administering religious laws, is not nearly universal.
The desire to find heat when it is cold, light when it is dark, and the means to move from one place to the next are nearly universal values.
The belief that people should be free to wear clothing that exposes their skin and displays the outlines of their bodies, if they so choose, is not a nearly universal value.
The belief that one's society should be well-governed is a nearly universal value.
The belief that all people are equally fit to govern, and are equally entitled to participate in the work of government is not a nearly universal value.
The desire to have a comfortable life, and to accumulate good things, is a nearly universal desire.
The belief that everyone should be free to accumulate as many good things as they are able, and much more than other people if their talents enable them to do so, is a not a universal value.
There are pressing problems right in front of us to get to work on. Getting people to see things a different way, and converting them to our values, even assuming those values are universally valid in some abstract sense, is the work of centuries; getting them not to kill each other and destroy each other's property while they're arguing about those values is the work of today. Much of the current rage for intervention in the affairs of other people, and for transforming their domestic arrangements, even if well-motivated, represents a disordered set of priorities.
This is not a debate about internationalism vs. "isolationism". It is mainly a debate about different forms of internationalism. Nor is it only a debate about liberalism vs. "realism", as the latter is conventionally understood. Realism is usually taken to view responsible global politics as restricted to maintaining a balance of power among highly autonomous sovereigns. Internationalism differs from this style of realism. Internationalists seek progressively to attenuate the autonomy and sovereignty of individual states by incorporating them into a network of agreements, compacts and institutions which grows over time into something approaching government
But we do need to consider a global internationalism that differs greatly in emphasis from the more parochial moralizing internationalism endorsed by the Princeton Project. The world is a complicated place. But that is even more reason for keeping our overall strategy simple, and focusing on fundamentals.
In my view, the Princeton Project report suffers from an unresolved ambivalence about two very different approaches to US engagement with the world – global internationalism and democratic multinationalism. The former aims above all to mute the strife of ideologies; to preserve and establish peace and international law; and to establish cooperative frameworks for addressing truly global problems of public health, population growth, resource management and environmental preservation and restoration.
The latter is an inherently revolutionary program that seeks to place the United States at the head of a liberal democratic internationale bent on pursuing political transformation around the globe. While the authors seek to construct an intellectual framework in which these two agendas exist in harmony, and see these cooperative systems as embedded in concentric circles, the two approaches are actually destined to collide. If we pursue both at once, neither will succeed. It is necessary to pick one. I am convinced that the times call for the more global approach.
Now is not the time for international cliquishness, clubiness and parochialism. The Concert of Democracies idea is akin to setting a mighty ship upon the ocean called The United Nations, and then following along in the aircraft carrier Democracy, with a hose in the UN fuel tank to siphon off all of its vital energy. The concert will not reinforce the UN mission. It will do precisely the opposite. It is provocative, divisive and distracting project.
No matter which we choose, we have a daunting road ahead. That is why it is necessary to insist on focus. We cannot maintain national and global commitment to complicated, tension-riddled projects that pull us in several directions at once. Internationalism – as many have noticed - is in deep trouble; in part that is due to the damage the US has done to it during the Bush administration, but in part internationalism has suffered because global powers have not moved decisively to build an international order out of the creaky dysfunctional contraptions of the era of Cold War rivalry.
There seemed to be a brief moment of opportunity in the post-9/11 environment for a rekindled internationalist global movement, a movement of the same sort that took shape in the aftermath of each of the two World wars of the 20th century. But the US stupidly and wantonly squandered that opportunity by pursuing an aggressively nationalist course organized around the themes of exceptionalism, primacy and hegemony. Consequently, there has been an entirely predictable global backlash, a fragmentation of the sporadic efforts toward international governance, and a retreat into the dangerous games of multipolar great power competition.
Now some - such as those represented by the Princeton Project report - would seek to modify and extend this misguided approach, rather than make a decisive break with it. While they hope to rely less on martial tools in accomplishing the revolutionary task, the task is still the same. While the United States will no longer seek to be a revolutionary national hegemon, it still seeks to be the “leader” of a multinational democratic revolution. Primacy is to be extended to this special club, rather than held by the United States alone. It is the politically aristocratic concert of democracies that will now be embraced as “exceptional”. The balance of tools is different, and the sphere of the special and exceptional is somewhat expanded. But the same zeal, the same urge toward ideological exclusion that animates the neoconservatives is here as well.
The preeminent global need, the supreme task of our international endeavors, should always be the preservation of peace. This was the lesson that our internationalist ancestors took from the hideous wars that wracked the globe in the 20th century. They hoped to save their descendants from the scourge of war. Much of this momentum has now been lost. Human beings, being forgetful and time-bound creatures, have forgotten the horrors of war since many of them have not had to endure one personally for a while. (Europeans have been decidedly less forgetful than Americans.) It rankles me how little attention contemporary liberal multinationalists give to this topic; they mention it, but only to give it lip service. The overall thrust of their discourse suggests that they consider the preservation of peace to be a subsidiary goal, and almost a nuissance, one that interferes with their broader agenda.
The reason for the preservation of peace was eloquently put by that great hater of war, Thomas Hobbes:
Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
Everything valuable we want to achieve requires peace as a pre-condition. Liberty suffers, and authoritarianism thrives under conditions of vulnerability and threat - even if that threat is the threat of the "good" to transform the "evil". If we truly want to see other countries make progress, we have to begin by promoting global peace and security. Then the urge for freedom and progress will make itself felt. Consider the progress China is making economically. It is no coincidence that it has made this progress in a post-Cold War period when its fear of external threats has lessened.
Liberal transformationists continually argue that we have to agressively move to reshape non-democratic or "illiberal" societies, because they cannot be trusted to preserve the peace and to refrain from aggression. But again, look at China. If anything, the complaint by our usual foreign policy experts is that China is too disengaged, too isolated, and too unwilling to play a more constructive and activist role in policing the world. On the other hand the United States has been eagerly throwing its weight around the world for decades. And the United States only follows in the footsteps of a British empire that vigorously threw its weight around the world for centuries, when it was one of the most democratic countries in the world, if not the most democratic. So it hard to see what lies at the bottom of the theory that it is essential to work to transform countries into liberal democracies so that we can ultimately rely on their peaceful "democratic" nature.
Dean Slaughter argues:
I’m all for pursuing a strategy of economic engagement, but what do we do when a government takes a sharp turn for the worse in its treatment of its own people to hang on to power in the face of liberalizing forces? Realists of any stripe immediately argue that liberals want to intervene because of their bleeding hearts and their ideals, ideals that then get us into worse trouble than just staying out. But it’s not ideals that drive John and me and other liberal internationalists. It’s interests. Interests that say over the long term America will be stronger and safer in a world of liberal democracies. And interests that say that when governments turn on their own people they are one step away from creating major trouble for their neighbors and for the regional and even international system.
But interventionists are forever overplaying this hand, and exaggerating the extent to which our security interests - and the world's - depend on global political transformation. In any case, the argument is disingenouous, because Dean Slaughter immediately goes on to bewail the crisis of faith in what we "stand for", and it seems clear that at this point interests have little to do with it.
I have much more to say about the Princeton Project, but I've already gone on too long for now.
October 16, 2006 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I should probably point out something Ezra Klein did on the Prospect weblog in his referencing the Kagan TNR piece: America has always been an expantionist power in a historical sense. So it's more than Bushian or Clintonian policy that makes the rest of the world see us this way, it's our own tendencies as a nation throughout our existence.
I think somtimes this can be good and reference a possible outcome in my comment on the post.
But it can and has led to disaster both for us and for those we attempted to "help" or happened to be expanding against. The Phillipine rebellion/war whatever comes to mind.
I could repeat myself, but instead I'll just direct anyone who is interested to see my comment on theories of power for the tactical direction I think is best suited for US foreign policy.
October 16, 2006 9:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just for clarification, did you mean the Moro or Huk war in the Phillipines? In the first, I'm afraid the US committed war crimes. The second is more of an example of how things ought to work -- but it certainly helps to have a competent and popular national leader.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
October 16, 2006 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
My alternative is similar to the offshore balancing alternative laid out in Steve Walt's response to the Princeton Project. The United States should only use military force in cases of a clear and present danger to core US interests (i.e., the US homeland and important US allies). The only possible exception to this should be in cases where a genocide is underway. The United States should understand that others are likely to be skeptical of American power and are not likely to rollover when the United States exerts that power (even when we believe the US may be doing it for good). The United States should endorse the spread of democracy everywhere, but it should be careful to avoid taking steps that actually make the spread of democracy less likely, not more. The United States should always be cognizant of the benefits and costs of using its military capabilities, especially for purposes like spreading democracy. The United States should not have undue faith in the ability of international institutions to transcend or transform national interests. The United States should recorgnize that there are limits--and fairly low limits at that--to what it alone can accomplish in shaping the structure of the international order. I could go on at length, but in short, the United States should use its power in a modest and prudent way to best ensure the safety and security of the United States.
As for the interstate cooperation out there that I apparently need to explain, please be more specific. Are you referring to the EU, which continues to run up against the old European bugaboo of nationalism? Or are you referring to the UN, which continues to be used by the most powerful states only when it is most convenient to them?
And finally, you write, "And you demand too much. The belief that US foreign policy should be geared towards spreading and consolidating democracy around the world does not require the belief that it is necessarily possible." I wholeheartedly disagree. We are talking about the foreign policy of the most powerful and influential country in the world. This is high stakes poker. We simply must be in the realm of the possible because the consequences of a misguided idealist grand strategy are too significant to do otherwise.
October 17, 2006 4:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
No the one that started with the 1899 battle of Manila led by Aguinaldo. I suppose that first one is properly a war while I'd consider the Moros more of a rebellion. Though they fought both sides I think.
Imagine that, being able to work with and striving to actually better the lives of muslims! Pershing!
October 17, 2006 5:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
The bloggingheads link in the parent post doesn't work.
Try here: Bloggingheads.tv with Anne-Marie Slaughter and Anatol Lieven
October 17, 2006 7:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
The rest of the world is not mistaken about this. Does rejecting the equation mean we should stick our heads in the sand in the face of this fact? Why should we refrain from pointing out painful truths in American internal debates? Who are we trying to kid?
October 17, 2006 7:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have a question for Slaughter and Ikenberry. In the past, all US administrations have supported vile dictatorships when it suited this country's geopolitical interests.
Is the Princeton Project claiming to break with that tradition? Is it willing to say that US support of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt would end?
Is it willing to say that, even when our economic well-being or strategic interest is at stake, we will NOT support any god-awful regime that does our bidding.
Is the Princeton Project saying that protecting the free flow of oil, for example, will not take precedence over the "spreading of our democratic values"?
And what do we do with strategic countries like Kazakhstan?
Realism stinks but at least it's honest. The problem with the Princeton Project is that it's a fig leaf: a document we wave in the air with one hand, as if to say "see how good we are" while, with the other hand, we sign new cooperation agreements with repellent regimes.
And if you believe that Slaughter/Ikenberry would be willing to put heavy pressure on our tyrannical friends to mend their ways, I've got a nice to bridge to sell you on the East River.
So all this talk about "our values" has more than a whiff of hypocrisy.
PS it's so revealing to hear Slaughter tell us that democracy promotion is not good because it's good but because it's in our interests.
Which suggests there will be cases where it's NOT in our interests, in which case we'll do as we please.
October 17, 2006 8:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is democracy necessary? Singapore has done quite well with a "benevolent" dictator over the past several decades. The standard of living has risen at an unprecedented rate. The people just enjoy their new, better, lifestyles and ignore politics. China is also doing quite well economically and is far from having democratic principles.
Why is it of any concern to the US what form of government exists elsewhere? This sounds like an updated version of the white man's burden and sending out missionaries to save the heathens.
If the US has any national interests in other countries it is because we want their raw materials, finished goods or as a market for our products. Let's stop all the hypocrisy of sugar coating this with claims of supporting liberty and democracy. Who put us in charge of the world's morality?
The fact that there have been dozens of comments to Slaughter and Ikenberry and they have not understood a single one is a perfect example of why US foreign policy is a disaster.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
October 17, 2006 9:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
What Anne-Marie writes sounds rather reasonable, but perhaps she could give some links -- or some direct answers -- that would explain what the principles stated by Princeton Project truly mean in the minds of their authors.
I would especially appreciate policy prescription for some selected cases in Africa where we have no strategic or economic interests that would overwhelm considerations based on principles.
What should we do when we got information about genocide that is about to start, or is ongoing, in Rwanda? Recall that Rwanda and Burundi are riven by a deep conflict between Hutus and Tutsis which can be interpreted as an ethnic conflict or class conflict (two groups share the same language, but one comprises the traditional ruling class). Would we overthrow government of Rwanda to prevent genocide, we would have to take part in that conflict. We could support Tutsis agaist Hutus, as we supported Croats against Serbs, or we could try to be more micro-managing to avoid a dictatorship by an ethnic (or class) minority. Or we could decide that doing it right would take too much resources so we would decide, after much thought, to do nothing.
Second case would be Zimbabwe, now. What should we do?
Third case. Should we make some link between the aid and democracy (Uganda falls behind Nigeria), or between aid and the level of corruption (Nigeria falls behind Uganda), or try to direct it through NGOs to bypass the problem or what?
Fourth case. Darfur is not just a site of genocide, but of a multi-lateral armed conflict. Any detailed policy prescriptions?
I guess that answers would have to include caveats for incomplete information and assumptions that cannot be verified from an academic perch, but nevertheless they should be more complete then "we cannot remain idle" (unless the prescription is to remain idle).
October 17, 2006 9:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Some miscellaneous observations.
As far as Rwanda, I suggest that it would be quite useful to understand the social dynamics of some of the cases where peace broke out in Africa, between hostile ethnic groups. One strikingly effective one was between the Nuer and Dinka in Sudan, starting with the Wunlit conference. It's impressive enough when you have the chiefs of each side washing the feet of ordinary people on the other; it was even more significant when the then-Arab Sudanese government tried ethnic cleansing against the Nuer, and the Dinka opened their homes to them.
While I'm less familiar with it, my impression was that after the Biafra/Nigeria Civil War, there were at least some attempts to reconcile the sides, including banning ethnic political parties. It's hard to separate out much in Nigeria below the kleptocracy.
Obviously, the South African Truth and Reconciliation process worked to a reasonable extent.
Investigation of all these might feed into your point 1.
Point 3 is tough. A start would be looking at more social indicators than democracy vs. corruption. Channeling through NGOs makes sense only if they can ensure money gets where it needs to go. As far as other social indicators, I'm aware of Uganda lowering its rate of new cases of HIV, and also becoming the fiscally responsible darling of international financial organizations. If one follows the theory that much of democracy requires a middle class, economic growth and distribution is a factor.
I have made numerous specific posts about Darfur, but, especially when I start talking about logistics, or creative economic warfare rather than sanctions, the thread dies out.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
October 17, 2006 9:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Democracy is not necessary, and even if it was, we cannot impose democracy on China, or even on Singapore.
However, it is worth to remember that the lack of democracy usually penalizes the population in ways that economic indicators do not capture (not to mention dictatorships that are economically incompetent, by far the most numerous kind). For example, provincial government of Honan tolerated an enterprise that collected blood plasma from poor villagers and in the process, due to their shoddy techniques, infected ca. 1 million people with AIDS. This is an extreme example, but according to many reports, the quality of life of the majority of Chinese is much lower than the economic growth of the country could afford. Health indicators for China are no better than in much poorer Vietnam -- also a dictatorship, but with a different set of priorities.
So if you have benevolent dictators (in the last poll, 100% claimed to be benevolent) who do not care about something important for you -- tough luck. Even if it is important for most of the population. Democracies tend to be better in sorting the concerns and finding compromise solutions.
October 17, 2006 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yep; it's hard to have an honest debate with two professional bullshitters.
October 17, 2006 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was being a bit tongue in cheek about democracy.
My real opinion in my short essay: Is Democracy Necessary?
(For those who don't want to read the link, I come out in favor of yes.)
Somewhat off the topic of a muscular foreign policy, here is my companion essay on why the US is in real danger of no longer being a true democracy (particularly apropos with Bush signing a patently unconstitutional torture bill today):
Saving Democracy
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
October 17, 2006 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Putting us into the realm of the possible does not end the discussion. The question would become what is the best method of promoting democracy. Or, if you please, what is the most realistic way of promoting democracy. It does not call for a contrary strategy, which is what you seem to advocate.
In any case, I'm interested in what you think of the implications of this claim: "The United States should recognize that there are limits--and fairly low limits at that--to what it alone can accomplish in shaping the structure of the international order."
It seems that "alone" is doing a lot of work for you there, especially since it immediately followed your claim that the international order cannot directly affect national regimes. So, haven't you painted yourself into a corner? International groups can't do it. The U.S. can't do it. Might as well not try. In any case, I think the Princeton paper largely advocates the use of international organizations (I've only glanced at it, to be honest).
What a realist needs to be able to explain at minimum is the democratic peace. If every state were merely out for its own interests, shouldn't democracies at least occasionally have gone to war with each other?
October 17, 2006 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually Americas real interest is in a stable trading and financial system. The Iranians and Hugo Chavez sell oil into the international market and oil, for example is fungible. Since the dollar is the currency of the world there are few raw materials that can be bought by the United States.
However, the United States is both the guarantor of the real peace in most parts of the world, especially Europe and East Asia. Obvious if North Korea touches off an arms race among South Korea, Taiwan and Japan a dangerous region gets more dangerous. Similarly, in the Middle East a nuclear Iran that leads to a nuclear Egypt and Saudi Arabia is that much more dangerous.
Since the United States is the largest trading power in the world it is in America's interest ot stifle priracy and other forms of predatory behavior. It is one of the reasons why Bush's foreign policy is such a disaster. He has neglected that role.
If people think the Middle Class are squeezed today they should wait and see what will happen if chaos should break out within the trading system. War, acts of terrorism and the spread of disease can all be sources of restrictions on the trading system which will be bad for the poorest of the poor, and American consumers and the world's farmers, automakers and software makers.
Foreign policy may not need grand structures but it can be base on massive naivite either.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
October 17, 2006 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
And a nuclear Israel that leads to a nuclear Iran that leads to . . . ? Is that dangerous, Daniel?
October 17, 2006 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, why don't you try implementing that utopian dream in the United States first!! The rest of the world sees us as the world leader in arrogance and denial. We refuse to see that we don't provide our own people with health care. We tell our young people to go do 3 tours in Iraq and we'll provide you a higher education. We've redefined "order" to mean everyone gets a gun and no one gets habeus corpus.
The major problem I have with you dreamers is that you are willing to take every last tax dollar and squander them all on grandiose international schemes but you wouldn't be caught dead in or spending money in Louisiana, Mississippi or downtown Detroit.
October 17, 2006 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think I've "painted myself into a corner," but I am a pessimist when it comes to international relations. I just don't think democracy is easily imposed from abroad, whether it be by the United States alone or in conjunction with international institutions.
As for the democratic peace, again, I think a world entirely populated by liberal democracies would be a desirable thing. I just don't think that type of order is easily engineered, and I don't think it's likely to arise organically anytime soon. And remember that the key to the democratic peace is *liberal* democracy. As Fareed Zakaria has pointed out, illiberal democracy (such as contemporary Russia or Pakistan) is hardly a bargain. Liberal democracy is not easily established, especially if the local population has not yet accepted the rights and responsibilities that come with liberal, constitutional democracy. The United States should certainly encourage the growth of democracy everywhere, but we should not overestimate the efficacy of our encouragement. And we should not pursue policies in the cause of democratization, like invasion and occupation, that actually make America weaker, not stronger.
So, if you believe as I do that an idyllic world of liberal democracies is not likely to arise anytime soon (despite our proclaimed best efforts) and if you question the ability of international institutions to provide order and stability as I do, then what's the alternative? The prudent and modest use of American power to protect US national interests.
October 17, 2006 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink