Exercising Global Leadership
I thank Michael Hollerich and David Shorr for their comments and offer the following by way of a brief response to some of the points they raised.
Despite its present woes, the United States remains the most powerful actor in the international system. It will therefore attempt to exercise "global leadership" because that's what great powers do. Yet based on the historical record, I just don't see why at this juncture we should expect the United States to begin demonstrating (in David's phrase) "benevolent exceptionalism." Although others will read the narrative of the American past differently, I see little in that record to suggest that the United States will now suddenly manifest any particular tendency toward altruism. The best we can hope for is a bit less emphasis on ideology and a bit more emphasis on pragmatism, which may foster a greater awareness of those "points of concurrence" to which Niebuhr referred. During his first term, President Bush disdained "points of concurrence" -- it was our way or the highway. Obama and his advisers are unlikely to repeat that mistake.
Perhaps this is a bit unfair, but I sense in Michael and David's comments a belief that if the United States really /did /begin acting consistent with its professed ideals, then it would become a force for good in the world: "global leadership" truly would become benign and constructive. I'd like to believe that would be the case, but I have my doubts. Here it seems to me the Somalia intervention is especially instructive. The U. S.- led intervention there may not have been inspired by selflessness (I see George H. W. Bush's desire to leave office on a grace note plus Colin Powell's determination to stay out of Bosnia as the main causes), but it certainly was not driven by any calculation of interests: the United States had none in Somalia. What was the outcome? Ambiguous, at best. We enabled the starving to get fed, inadvertently started a war, pulled out because public opinion didn't want to pay for that war (remember the 18 army rangers), and then let events take their course. I do not cite that episode as an argument never to intervene anywhere for humanitarian purposes. I cite it to make the point that the real world is a messy place filled with problems that are intractable. Good intentions -- assuming for a moment that such things exist in the realm of international politics -- only get you so far.
Now I need to go shovel the driveway.
Frenetic activity -- shoveling snow -- is never the best policy.
Let it alone; in due course it'll melt all by itself.
February 4, 2009 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
it'll melt
and then re-freeze...turning four inches of crunchy snow into a quarter inch sheet of deadly and impenetrable ice.
(And I speak as a guy who's first instinct is to adopt your stated policy)
February 4, 2009 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I take my instruction from the thirtieth president of the United States.
"Four-fifths of all our troubles would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still." Calvin Coolidge
February 4, 2009 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
The "benevolent exceptionalism" does maintain the central idea of the Bush National Security Strategy: The U.S. needs to protect and create a certain world order.
Perhaps intentions and the level of altruism aren't the problem so much as an unwillingness to build international institutions that the U.S. would have to comply with after they were created.
February 4, 2009 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I speak as an amateur.
Is the issue here not so much about the US acting benevolently, but rather about the US taking a much more long-term perspective about what its long-term interests are? The conflict is really between the US's short-term interests and its long-term interests.
Perhaps another comment is that a significant part of the US's long-term interest lies in achieving outcomes of a "public goods" nature. These outcomes (e.g., global security, sustainable environment) benefit everyone. There is no "zero sum game" where (say) China benefits only at the expense of the United States. To the extent there are gains that are in the nature of "private goods", the US should be able to rely on the talent of its people to compete with the rest of the world for a reasonable share of the pie. There seems no need for the US to resort to its military might to compete.
Just a few thoughts from an amateur observer.
February 5, 2009 4:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess what I'm saying is that the rest of the world does not expect the US to act benevolently. (In fact, some of us may prefer the US not to act "benevolently".) We only ask the US to think carefully about what its own (very) long-term interests are. If every country does the same, we can hopefully get along and make the world a better place at the same time.
February 5, 2009 5:21 AM | Reply | Permalink