Advocates of US “global leadership” sometimes admit that Washington has overstretched itself, pursued unwise policies, failed to achieve its foreign policy goals, and violated its publicly recognized political principles. However, they see such actions as deplorable deviations and believe that the United States will learn from these (rare) mistakes and act more wisely in the future. Ten years ago, for example, political scientists Stephen Brooks, John Ikenberry, and William Wohlforth admitted that the Iraq war was a mistake, but insisted that their popular policy of “deep engagement” was still the right option for US grand strategy. In their view, all the United States had to do to maintain a friendly world order was to maintain its existing commitments and not invade Iraq again. As former US President Barack Obama liked to say, we just need to stop doing “nonsense”.
George Packer’s recent defense of US Atlantic power is the latest version of this well-worn argument. Packer begins his essay with a blatantly false comparison, arguing that Americans “go overboard with our foreign crusades, and then we go overboard with our restrictions, never stopping in between where a normal country would try to strike a fine balance.” But the country , which still has more than 700 military installations worldwide; air battle groups in most of the world’s oceans; formal alliances with dozens of countries; and currently waging a proxy war against Russia, an economic war against China, counter-terrorist operations in Africa, along with unfettered efforts to weaken and one day topple the governments of Iran, Cuba, North Korea, etc., can hardly be accused of excessive “retrenchment.” Packer’s idea of that “fine balance”—a foreign policy that’s not too hot, not too cold, but just right—would still force the United States to pursue ambitious goals in nearly every corner of the globe.
Unfortunately, Packer and other advocates of US primacy underestimate how difficult it is for a powerful liberal country like the US to curb its foreign policy ambitions. I like the liberal values of the United States as much as anyone, but the combination of liberal values and enormous power makes it almost inevitable that the United States will try to do too much, not too little. If Packer is in favor of a fine balance, he should be more concerned with channeling the interventionist impulse and less with those who try to curb it.
Advocates of US “global leadership” sometimes admit that Washington has overstretched itself, pursued unwise policies, failed to achieve its foreign policy goals, and violated its publicly recognized political principles. However, they see such actions as deplorable deviations and believe that the United States will learn from these (rare) mistakes and act more wisely in the future. Ten years ago, for example, political scientists Stephen Brooks, John Ikenberry, and William Wohlforth admitted that the Iraq war was a mistake, but insisted that their popular policy of “deep engagement” was still the right option for US grand strategy. In their view, all the United States had to do to maintain a benign world order was to maintain its existing commitments and not invade Iraq again. As former US President Barack Obama liked to say, we just need to stop doing “nonsense”.
George Packer’s recent defense of US Atlantic power is the latest version of this well-worn argument. Packer begins his essay with a blatantly false comparison, arguing that Americans “overdo our foreign crusades, and then we overdo our restrictions, never stopping in between where a normal country would try to strike a fine balance.” But a country that still has more than 700 military installations around the world; air battle groups in most of the world’s oceans; formal alliances with dozens of countries; and currently waging a proxy war against Russia, an economic war against China, counter-terrorist operations in Africa, along with unfettered efforts to weaken and one day topple the governments of Iran, Cuba, North Korea, etc., can hardly be accused of excessive “retrenchment.” Packer’s idea of that “fine balance”—a foreign policy that’s not too hot, not too cold, but just right—would still force the United States to pursue ambitious goals in nearly every corner of the globe.
Unfortunately, Packer and other advocates of US primacy underestimate how difficult it is for a powerful liberal country like the US to curb its foreign policy ambitions. I like the liberal values of the United States as much as anyone, but the combination of liberal values and enormous power makes it almost inevitable that the United States will try to do too much, not too little. If Packer is in favor of a fine balance, he should be more concerned with channeling the interventionist impulse and less with those who try to curb it.
Why is it so difficult for the United States to act with restraint? The first problem is liberalism itself. Liberalism begins with the claim that all people have certain natural rights (eg, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”). For liberals, the main political challenge is to create political institutions that are strong enough to protect us from each other, but not so strong or uncontrolled that they deprive us of those rights. However imperfectly, liberal states achieve this balance by sharing political power; holding leaders accountable through elections; establishment of the rule of law; protection of freedom of thought, speech and association; and emphasizing norms of tolerance. For true liberals, then, the only legitimate governments are those that possess these qualities and use them to protect the natural rights of every citizen.
But note: since these principles begin with the assertion that all men have equal rights, liberalism cannot be confined to a single country or even a subset of humanity and remain consistent with its own premises. No true liberal can declare that Americans, Danes, Australians, Spaniards or South Koreans are entitled to these rights, but people who happen to live in Belarus, Russia, Iran, China, Saudi Arabia, the West Bank and many other places are not . For this reason, liberal states are strongly inclined to what John Mearsheimer calls the “crusading impulse”—the desire to spread liberal principles as far as power allows. Incidentally, the same problem plagues other universalist ideologies, whether in the form of Marxism-Leninism or various religious movements that believe it is their duty to bring all people under the influence of a particular religion. When a country and its leaders truly believe that their ideals offer the only true formula for organizing and governing society, they will try to persuade or force others to accept them. This will at least ensure friction with those who hold a different view.
Second, it is difficult for the United States to act with restraint because it has tremendous power. As former U.S. Senator Richard B. Russell, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and not a dove, said in the 1960s, “If it’s easy for us to go anywhere and do anything, we’ll always go somewhere and do something.” problem arises almost anywhere in the world, the United States can always try to do something about it; weaker countries do not have the same latitude and therefore do not face the same temptations. New Zealand is a healthy liberal democracy with many admirable qualities, but no one expects them to Kiwis take the lead in dealing with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Iran’s nuclear program or China’s incursions into the South China Sea.
By contrast, anyone in the Oval Office has a wealth of options available to them whenever a problem or opportunity arises. The president can impose sanctions, order a blockade, threaten to use force (or use it directly), and any number of other actions, and almost always without seriously endangering the United States (at least in the short term). Under these circumstances, it will be extremely difficult to resist the temptation to act, especially when a chorus of critics is ready to denounce any act of restraint as a lapse of will, an act of appeasement, or a fatal blow to US credibility.
Third, because the United States has occupied the leading pinnacle of world power for more than 70 years, there are now powerful bureaucratic and corporate forces with a vested interest in maintaining its outsized global role. As former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in his 1961 farewell address, the emergence of a powerful “military-industrial complex” between World War II and the early Cold War was an important development that would permanently twist US foreign policy toward a more militarized and interventionist one. direction. This influence is particularly evident throughout the world of foreign policy think tanks, the vast majority of which are dedicated to promoting US engagement and defending a US-centric world order. The result, as Zack Beauchamp observed a few years ago, is that “the foreign policy debate in Washington is mostly between the center and the right. The question is usually how much force America should use, not whether it should be used at all.”
Fourth, as I mentioned earlier, the liberal United States is open to foreign influence in ways that many other countries are not. Foreign governments can hire lobbying firms to promote their case in Washington and especially on Capitol Hill, or in some cases they can rely on domestic groups to demand action on their behalf. They can make generous donations to think tanks that will promote their cause, and foreign leaders can publish op-eds and articles in influential American publications to influence elite and mass opinion. Such efforts will not always be successful, of course, but the net effect will be to encourage the US to do more, not less.
What’s more, the number of foreign voices whispering in America’s ear grows every time the United States adds a new ally, “partner,” or “special relationship.” We used to have 11 NATO allies trying to shape US policy towards Europe; now we have 29. Some of these countries contribute significant resources to the collective defense, while others are weak and vulnerable and are more properly viewed as protectorates than equal partners. Not surprisingly, these countries are among the loudest voices insisting that the United States must honor its commitments and protect them, warning that the credibility of the United States as a global power is at stake and any hope for a kinder world order depends on heeding their advice . According to our many clients, the more engaged the United States becomes, the more deeply engaged it must remain.
Make no mistake: I am not advocating ignoring the concerns of allies or dismissing their advice outright. Allied leaders often have smart things to say about contemporary world issues, and it’s easy to think of instances (Iraq, anyone?) where the United States would have been better off listening to French or German warnings rather than relying solely on its own opinion. But there can still be an unhealthy symbiosis between the interventionist impulse of much of the foreign policy “Blob” and the self-serving advice that countries hoping for US protection and assistance like to inject into foreign policy debates. Not surprisingly, the United States’ foreign partners usually want Uncle Sam to do more on their behalf and rarely recommend that the United States cut back.
Put these various elements together and you can see why it is so difficult for the United States to stop doing stupid things. Ideology, power, bureaucratic drive, and the desire of other countries to use US power for their own ends combine to create a strong inclination to do something and a concomitant inability to set clear priorities and stick to them when the temptation arises. To achieve the fine balance that Packer and others seem to want, more needs to be done to counteract this tendency rather than trying to defend or reinforce it.
