America: Beware of Friends and Enemies

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius reviews three books on American power in the international system, including former GG-consort John Ralston Saul’s book on globalization, which Ignatius regards as frivolous.

Not so frivolous is Harvard University’s Stephen Walt’s Taming American Power. Walt assess US power from a “realist”position and does so from the perspective of other countries. How should/do they respond to US hegemony? What tactics do they use to restrain it? In Ignatius’s account, he offers from common sense observations, but those that are worth noting:

As the list of countries that feel threatened by American power grows, Walt argues, the United States will increasingly face a “resistant” international system in which it will be harder to achieve U.S. goals. But even when countries are saying nice things about us, treating U.S. primacy as “less a threat than an opportunity,” Walt cautions that what they really see is an opportunity to manipulate the world’s only superpower into doing what they want. These states seek to tame American power by cozying up to it, flattering it, bending it to their purposes. The challenge is to separate the blandishments of our friends from America’s true interests.

In other words, various countries will use anti-Americanism to pursue various policy goals (usually for domestic consumption) and will explicitly pit themselves against US interests. Germany and France, as well as a slew of 3rd world countries, are in this camp. More dangerous according to Walt are the countries that toady up to the US in order to constrain it. Saudi Arabia comes to mind. But so does Great Britain, where Tony Blair’s explicit strategy in joining the US in Iraq was so he could restrain it and influence its power.

How should the US, surrounded as it is by its rivals and flatterers, respond? Ignatius continues relating Walt’s argument:

Walt says the United States could return to President Clinton’s approach of “selective engagement,” but he thinks that was also too forward-leaning — with too much engagement in places like the Balkans and Haiti and too little selectivity about where to intervene. Instead, he argues for what he calls “offshore balancing.” That’s an overly abstract term for an idea that’s actually fairly simple: Walt argues that the United States should basically mind its own business and deploy “its power abroad only when there are direct threats to vital U.S. interests.” This approach wouldn’t be isolationist, he insists, because America would remain engaged through international institutions such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and NATO. Standing offshore, American power would be less worrisome for the world, and as Walt puts it, would give us the coquette’s advantage of “playing hard to get.”

This strategy has its attractions. I think one of its best advantages is that it would force European countries to grow up when it comes to foreign policy. For too long France and Germany (not to mention Canada; but we’re restricting ourselves to real countries in this discussion) have had their security paid for by the US, to the detriment of their civic virtue. Offloading some security responsibilities onto them would help. But there are distinct disadvantages. Namely, what if those countries fumble the ball in the handoff? What if only the US has the power to extend power in a quick and determined manner? Should we count on the EU to make quick executive decisions to respond to security situations around the globe?

Moreover, how would a “coquettish” US foreign policy look to countries who have hitherto depended on the US (under Clinton) to enter a security situation with a few cruise missiles and then withdraw as soon as the media leaves? The worst aspect of Walt’s advice is that it isn’t realist. One of the things the Bush administration learned after 9/11 is that globalization means that someone can carry out attacks from a cave in Afghanistan, usually with the help of a host country.

This means that the world needs a power to pressure potential host countries in order to smoke out the cavemen. The pressure must be constant, and cannot be withdrawn or applied inconsistently (or seem to be applied inconsistently) as it was under Clinton. In many ways, Walt’s argument looks more like a recipe for disaster.

And I won’t even bother writing about John Ralston Saul’s idiocies.