Cluster Bombs

The BBC reports today that more than one hundred countries have agreed to back an international ban on the production, transfer, stockpiling and use of cluster munitions. The problems associated with these weapons - chiefly that unexploded "bomblets" remain on the battlefield and pose a danger to civilians long after the fighting ends - were put on full display after Israel's extensive use of cluster munitions during the 2006 Lebanon war.

The report notes that the U.S., China and Russia (among others) have refused to back the agreement, raising some question as to how effective it will actually be. Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch evidently believes that the treaty has some value, noting that a similar group of countries refused to sign the 1997 treaty banning land mines, but that the stigma created by the ban has established a strong norm against their use to which even non-signatory countries have adhered.

This is actually a very interesting test case that political scientists would do well to watch over the next decade or two. I recall from my undergraduate days that the debate over what effect, if any, behavioral norms have on international actors remains one of the principal controversies of the study of international relations. Whether or not a normative principal established by the world community, but rejected by a number of Great Powers, can nevertheless compel compliance is the kind of question that theorists love to ask but seldom get to test. The next time the U.S., Russia, China or Israel goes to war (and trust me, there will be a "next time" for at least some within that group), see how, if at all, they use cluster munitions. It would make for a great paper.

Military Procurement

Today, we find a member of the Bush Administration who is, at least at first blush, making some pretty good sense. The New York Times reports that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates "issued a clear warning to the military and its industrial partners on Tuesday that expensive, new conventional weapons must prove their value to current conflicts, marked by insurgency and terrorism, if they hope for a place in future budgets."

You probably can't hear it, but that's the hallelujah chorus singing in the background.

The article goes on to say that Gates's pronouncements "are certain to alarm advocates of the newest generations of high-tech and high-cost weapons programs, in particular the Army’s Future Combat Systems and the Air Force’s F-22 advanced warplane. Both have come under the scrutiny of Pentagon budget officers questioning whether either would be required for missions similar to the current operations in Iraq or Afghanistan." Alarmed, and rightfully so. If I were C.E.O. of a high-end defense contractor (or a congressman with one in my district), I'd certainly be making a few phone calls right now. Still, this is a welcome injection of sanity into the perennial debate over the United States' bloated defense budget.

Actually, to be honest, I'm a little bit conflicted about all of this. On the one hand, given the gargantuan government budget defecits that are driving down the American dollar and generally contributing to the erosion of America's global economic good standing, I'm glad to hear that the defense department is beginning to reorient its priorities away from half-trillion dollar boondoggles whose value has yet to be proven in the real world. On the other hand, while Iraq and Afghanistan will almost certainly remain the central focus of the American military over the next three to five years, I'd actually be in favor of reorienting American defense policy (and, concurrently, its global posture) away from such conflicts in the medium-to-long term. Invading countries, conducting large-scale occupation and counterinsurgency operations, and generally continuing to act like we've acted over the last decade is not in the best interest of the United States. Such heavy handed tactics are reminiscent of the nineteenth century, are seldom worth their material and political cost, and given the increasing multipolarity of the international system, will likely be strategically un-feasible before too long anyhow.

I would generally be in favor of tailoring American military capabilities to operate best at the very highest and very lowest levels of power projection (and please understand that I am speaking as a layman, not as a soldier or highly-trained strategic analyst). In other words, I would be in favor of increasing the role of special forces, intelligence, and other flexible mechanisms to quickly and effectively strike at small terrorist groups that operate in numerous corners of the globe (without the burden of changing regimes and building countries from the ground up), as well as maintaining America's technological advantage to ensure our ability to fight major conventional conflicts on the sea and in the air. Large scale, long-term ground operations like we now see in Iraq and Afghanistan should be avoided.

In some senses, this vision would mean that high-end aircraft, new ships, and other expensive military hardware would remain important. I refer back, though, to my earlier praise of Richard Betts's Foreign Affairs piece on American defense expenditures, in which it is argued that we ought to continue aggressively funding research and development of cutting edge defense technologies, without taking on the burden of broadly equipping our military with such hardware until such time as the international situation truly demands it (disconcerting as China's recent military expansion is, we're a long ways away from a showdown with Beijing). As such, we don't need to order hundreds of the latest F-22 fighters. We do want to start designing the plane to replace them.

I suppose I should also mention, cliche though it is at this point, that the pushback from Congress against cuts in many current defense projects will likely be fierce. Here's hoping that Secretary Gates's pragmatism carries through to the next administration, and that enlightened leadership can slowly begin to steer the American military-industrial complex towards a defense posture that is better tailored to the World of the twenty-first century.

The Moral Complexity of Nationalism

Barnett Rubin at Informed Comment has a piece entitled Against Holocaust Denial, Against Naqba Denial that ought to be required reading for anyone who pays attention to 21st Century geopolitics. Though the principal focus of Rubin's post is the (extraordinarily well articulated) history of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, he manages to highlight the painful tension that underlies the very notion of nationalism everywhere, and provides powerful insight into who we all are as members of political communities.

To be sure, I don't accept everything implied by Rubin's analysis. In particular, I am more forgiving, even supportive, of the Zionist project than he. I do, though, take to heart the tragic contradiction at the bedrock of modern nationalism that his account illuminates; namely, that nationalism, taken to its logical conclusion, is both abhorrent to liberal morality and necessary to its exercise.

Allow me to explain. The story Rubin tells, of genocide, migration and ethnic cleansing, of a catastrophic chain reaction of misery from Spain to Russia to Jerusalem to Tehran, lies at the heart of the modern world. The creation - still in progress - of the political communities in which we all reside has necessarily involved the disruption of that same community for others. The nations of Western Europe were midwifed by the oppression and expulsion of national minorities and the forcible suppression of local culture. Through a complex interplay of private enterprise and state policy, Provence, Bretagne and Languedoc became France, Piemonte, Sicilia and Napoli became Italy, and dozens of tiny duchies, principalities and bishoprics east of the Rhine became Germany. As old continental and colonial empires - which had been ethno-linguistic melting pots, composed with no thought to nationalist logic - faded, even more dramatic events preceded the formation - again, still in progress in many places - of modern nation-states. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire set off nationalist powder kegs across the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Within a few decades, the hellish tides of the Second World War swept across the continent, leading to history's greatest genocide, as well as to unprecedented population movements as Soviet troops cleared conqured territories of ethnic Germans. Meanwhile, the great European colonial Empires gave way to the resistance of nascent national movements worldwide, and in the wake of their retreat left a state system grafted onto polygot mosaics of ethno-linguistic and religious communities. As in Europe, this often led to conflict to resolve the tension of states and political communities that were alien to each other. Millions of refugees flowed back and forth across the borders of India and Pakistan, fleeing the violence and chaos that accompanied partition. Jewish and Arab inhabitents of British Palestine violently tore their land asunder, bringing one of the modern world's most intractable conflicts into full flower. Sectarian divisions flared up in new states across Asia, Africa and the Middle East as people sought harmony between the bounds of geography and those of identity.

I won't belabor the point further. Suffice to say that the conflict in Israel and Palestine is but one example (albiet a very instructive one) of the fundamental conflict of liberal nationalism. With its notions of individual freedom, liberalism does not sit well with a conception of political identity that, to quote Benedict Anderson, is "both limited and sovereign" in the sense that nations can by definition never be universalized (we cannot imagine a scenario in which the whole world is French) and must find political expression in a sovereign community. Nationalism necessarily includes some, excludes others, and thus limits the freedom of all.

On the other hand, from a practical perspective, a liberal society requires that its members have a basic level of affinity with one another, a kind of loose bond of political kinship that can serve as glue for the social contract. Since the industrial revolution, nationalism has proven to be by far the strongest adhesive. Jerry Muller's recent Foreign Affairs piece Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism should be required reading for anyone interested in a brief exposition of nationalism's enduring vitality. Even one of the founding lights of the modern study of Nationalism, Benedict Anderson, the British socialist who famously labeled nations "imagined communities" was spurred to write not out of a belief that progressive ideologies like socialism would trump nationalist feeling, but out of puzzlement at nationalism's enduring power even within (what was at the time) the communist world. The fact is that nationalism is a uniquely effective social glue, perhaps a necessary one if the freedoms promised by liberal champions are ever to be exercised.

Coming back to Rubin's piece, the question becomes what is to be done going forward. Europe presents both a compelling and unsettling model to follow. On the one hand, European populations seem to be slowly-but-surely recasting their political community based on shared value affinity and history that goes well beyond their own national groups. On the other hand, as Muller argues, that transformation may only be possible in an environment where the separatist nationalist project - the desire to give every nation a state and every state a nation - has largely succeeded. It should rightly bother us that this success rests on some of the greatest atrocities - murder, ethnic cleansing and conquest - in the history of mankind. Need the route to the transcendence of our more parochial national attachments be paved in misery and soaked in blood?


I answer with a qualified "no." Even if the kinds of actions that were once employed to bring about ethno-nationalist unity weren't as ethically problematic as they are in this day and age, the major movements of global population that emigration has brought about in recent years make the creation of nationally homogeneous societies impossible today. One needs only to look at the problem Japan is having with an aging populace to see that state policies of ethnic stasis create as many problems as they prevent. Still, this only further illuminates the need for ethnic polities to be honest about the contradictions of their own pasts, and to recognize the necessity of carving out space - within and without state borders - for nationalist aspirations to operate. Sometimes this will happen through the devolution of power and the recognition of group rights, problematic as this can be for true liberals. Other times this will mean a re-fashioning of a dominant national identity to include the history and ideals of those formerly confined to "otherness." This is something that, on balance, the United States does exceptionally well, and with enlightened leadership is something that we can help other societies to achieve.

Nationalism in the 21st century needn't be the immiserating, bloody mess that it was during the 20th. That will only be avoided, though, if we are honest about our collective history, honest about the tensions that exist within our own ideals, and honest about the fact that neither is going away any time soon.

On J Street

The invaluable weekly "News from the Front" roundup of news on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over at Foreign Policy Watch has directed me to a pair of op-eds in the Jerusalem Post relating to the new lobbying organization J Street. J Street aims to provide a more progressive counterweight to AIPAC and other hard-line pro Israel lobby groups, describing itself as the "political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement." It is dedicated to the notion that the United States can best help Israel by working aggressively towards negotiating a peace deal with Palestine, rather than by reflexively supporting some of the Israeli government's less constructive policies.

The first op-ed, by Isi Leibler, blasts J Street as essentially an anti-Israel group in disguise. The second, by Andrew Silow-Carroll, takes a somewhat more nuanced view, noting that all would benefit if mainstream U.S. politicians didn't have to obsessively pander to the right wing. Both pieces are worth reading, but I must say the first one made my head hurt a bit. In arguing that the Israeli government already bows compulsively to U.S. pressure (a pretty misguided notion if you ask me - often as not it seems to be the other way around), Leibler asserts:

...the Olmert government has lost the confidence of its people precisely because of unilateral concessions which undermine Israel's security and embolden terrorists. His government is an amen chorus which capitulates to every demand imposed on it by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. It has provided weapons to the Palestinians which will almost certainly once again be redirected against Israel; it has released and granted amnesty to terrorists; and despite bitter opposition from the IDF, it has closed checkpoints and acceded to demands compromising security which have already resulted in Israeli casualties.

I suppose, in the strictest sense, Leibler is right (though I'm frankly pretty tired of policy being made based on a desire not to "embolden" one's enemies; once people are at the point where they're willing to blow themselves up in the middle of nightclubs, motivation becomes a pretty academic issue). The Olmert government has indeed made some concessions in recent months, opening a few border crossings, closing a few checkpoints etc. Anyone being honest, though, would acknowledge that Israel has consistently refused to make concessions on the one issue that really matters: settlements. As I have said before, Israelis need to decide - soon - whether they are truly willing to mortgage the future of their nation to the minority of hard-liners who view Israel's occupation of the West Bank as a religious calling. As Mr. Silow-Carroll points out, Prime Minister Olmert understands full well the implications of such a course. He is quoted as saying that:

"If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights [among Palestinians of the occupied territories], then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished."

In other words, Israel simply cannot continue to occupy the West Bank and remain a democratic and Jewish state. That Mr. Olmert evidently lacks the political muscle to act on this realization is regrettable, but does nothing to diminish its prescience.

I am not so naive to think that a final peace deal in the Levant would be based exactly on the 1967 "Green Line." More than half a million settlers live in the West Bank. Some will almost surely have to stay there. The problem, though, is that settlements have been built so as to carve up the territory in such a way that it could never constitute a viable state. No sovereign people can be expected to navigate a maze of foreign military checkpoints in order to move around in their own territory. George Kennan once said that power makes a mockery of sovereignty. Such a situation would be more than a mockery; it would be a farce.

Finally, it is worth noting that, over the last decade, the political situation in Israel and Palestine has deteriorated dramatically. The Palestinians are weak and divided, with half their people under military occupation and beholden to a semi-functioning government of questionable legitimacy, and the other half trapped in an impoverished, crowded battle zone, beholden to a government that is not even recognized or dealt with by the rest of the world. The Israelis, meanwhile, are stuck in political deadlock with the far right slowly creating "facts on the ground" that increase the difficulty of a final deal with each passing day.

In this environment, an American lobby that pushes for both sides to make real concessions and come to a lasting peace strikes me as long overdue.

Ahmadinejad in India

The New York Times reports that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is currently on a high-profile visit to India. Though no major new breakthroughs in Indian-Iranian relations (which are fairly good, and based on real mutual strategic interests) are expected, the visit gives the Indian government a chance to show its independence from the United States by dealing with a leader openly loathed by Washington. I'm sure some people in this town are wringing their hands at the visit, but frankly, I think in the long run, it's a net positive for the U.S. It allows the Indian government to deflect criticism that it is Washington's pawn without having to make concrete strategic moves that would damage America's position in South Asia. It might even help get our stalled nuclear deal back on track, which I continue to support, albiet cautiously.

More to the point, India will never be an American client state, nor, probably, a steadfast ally in the Western European mold; however, solid relations with India are both achievable and desirable for Washington, if only because the state has cultivated links with so many other important international actors (Iran, Russia, China, Japan) that will require a delicate hand in the coming decades. Engaging India as a strategic partner in managing such relationships - both the good and the bad - makes imminent practical sense. America's relationship with Iran is going to have to change, either for better or worse, over the next decade. Overall I think it's a good thing that a potential American partner on Persia's doorstep keep relations open with Tehran.

Taiwan

The New York Times reports that a number of factors, including the heavy cracktown on Tebetian dissent by the Chinese government, have made upcoming elections in Taiwan unexpectedly close. The Nationalist party, which still favors some type of reunification with the mainland, was on course to win by a substantial margin, but the recent actions of the Chinese government seem to have given the voters some pause. Taiwan strikes me as an area in which the United States should be more heavily engaged. Our policy of strategic ambiguity in the China-Taiwan dispute has kept things relatively quiet over the last several decades, but as China's power grows along with Taiwanese sentiment for independence, it would behoove the United States to facilitate negotiations for some kind of permanent status agreement between the two countries (or "political entities" if you prefer) before we find the issue forced, and we are caught between the options of abandoning an ally and risking major war.

Parag Khanna

Sorry for the absurdly long absence. I've got a few posts in the works and I promise I'll be back into form soon. For those of you in the D.C. area, I highly recommend you come to the Politics & Prose bookstore this evening for a 7:00 talk by Parag Khanna, author of the new book The Second World. I'm in the process of reading it and it's an absolute tour de force.

The Modern Slave Trade

If anyone is looking for some happy, uplifting news to perk them up in time for the weekend, I'd suggest checking out E Benjamin Skinner's article in Foreign Policy (subscription required) titled "A World Enslaved," based on four years of research into the modern slave trade. This is an issue that has finally gained some popular currency in recent years, but I imagine that even well-informed people would be shocked by the scale of modern slavery. I certainly was. Here are just a few gems from Skinner's piece:

There are now more slaves on the planet than at any time in human history...

Standing in New York City, you are five hours away from being able to negotiate the sale, in broad daylight, of a healthy boy or girl... for 50 bucks...

In South Asia, which has the highest concentration of slaves on the planet, nearly 10 million languish in bondage...

300,000 children are in domestic bondage in Haiti...

In a Bucharest brothel... I was offered a mentally handicapped suicidal girl in exchange for a used car. But for every one woman or child enslaved in commercial sex, there are at least 15 men, women, and children enslaved in other fields, such as domestic work or agricultural labor...

You really have to read the article to get the full effect. The section in which Skinner negotiates the purchase of a 12 year old girl in Haiti, complete with adoption papers so that she can be taken back stateside, is particularly charming. I'm still digesting this, and I plan on picking up Skinner's forthcoming book, but to say the least this is an issue about which world governments need to get far more serious. India, evidently, is one of the principal centers of global slavery. I continue to be a huge proponent of improving American relations with India, but if we're going to berate the Chinese government for locking up journalists, we might at least mention to the Indians that cleaning up their act with regard to slavery would pay diplomatic dividends.

The (theoretical) ban on the global slave trade was supposed to have been one of the lasting achievements of the nineteenth century. We're well overdue in making that achievement mean something to millions in bondage around the world.

Delicious Irony

I just finished reading Jerry Muller's "Us and Them: The Enduring Power of Ethnic Nationalism" in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs. It's a solid article, and I'll be posting a critique before too long, but I couldn't help but chuckle as I read the concluding paragraphs, which summed up why Muller thinks that parochial ethnic nationalism will remain a powerful force in contemporary politics. On the opposite page sat an advertisement for the Center for Global Affairs at NYU with the headline; "As a global citizen, to whom do I pledge allegiance?" Who ever said social scientists don't have a sense of humor?

Biden on "This Week"

Check out Joe Biden on Stephanopoulos's show this morning. I really hope this guy gets some kind of posting in the next administration. He's one of the best we've got when it comes to an intelligent foreign policy.

Interview with Richard Haass

Check out the McKinsey Quarterly's interview with Richard Haass on the interaction of global business and global politics. Definitely worth the marginally annoying registration process.

And the World Keeps Spinning 'Round

Sometimes, you leave for a long weekend to hit the slopes in New Hampshire and not much happens. Other times, you come back to find dictators resigning, others losing elections, countries gaining independence and the Navy trying to prevent the sky from falling (and/or test antisatellite weaponry). I should go skiing more often.

Frankly, I'm still digesting most of this. I know as a blogger/person with an over-inflated sense of self-importance I should be spouting off opinions and prognostications, but this is all moving pretty fast. Here's hoping those with some real power are doing a better job keeping up. More to come.

Look Who's Talking

I admit it. I'm a bad political junkie. I didn't watch the Democratic debate last night, even though the field has now been winnowed to two people, and it was billed as the epic final confrontation before "Tsunami Tuesday" next week (I love the hyperbolic names that bored CNN producers come up with for these things). I had hockey tickets. So it goes.

I did, however, make a point of reading the transcript when I got home, and to be frank I was pretty impressed by the amount of substantive discussion that went on. Granted, now that the number of people on stage is more manageable, the candidates don't have to talk about their positions and proposals in less time than Jeopardy contestants get to buzz in with an answer, but still, good show by both Sens. Clinton and Obama.

I've said on numerous occasions that I won't make this blog about the U.S. election, so I promise I'm going somewhere with this. One of the principal places that Clinton and Obama have differed on foreign policy is on the question of negotiating with regimes that the U.S. doesn't like. Obama has said that he would be willing to meet, without preconditions, with the leadership of countries like Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Syria etc. Clinton, along with many of her backers, has called that stance naive, saying that such meetings would lead to propaganda victories for unfriendly regimes without necessarily benefiting the United States. Obama in turn has accused Clinton of continuing the failed policies of the Bush administration, albiet with some minor tweaks. And so on ad infinitum. I address this issue, though, because to me it seems to indicate not just a tactical difference in how the two leaders would conduct foreign policy, nor simply a shallow attempt to advance their own respective campaign narratives ("experience" versus "change"), but rather to reflect a genuine difference in perception of the geostrategic position of the United States.



First, let me clear the debate of some straw-man arguments. I assume (and it is an assumption) that when Obama says he would be willing to meet with unfriendly regimes "without preconditions," he is not so naive as to literally mean that there would be no diplomatic preparations in advance of such a summit. Obviously, without some agreement as to the issues on the table and the basic goals to be aimed for, a meeting with Chavez or Ahmadinejad would be useless and perhaps counterproductive. I assume that when Obama mentions "preconditions" he is referencing the common position taken by the Bush administration that unfriendly regimes must evince significant changes in behavior (like halting uranium enrichment) before the United States will deign to grant them an audience. This is the strategy he rejects and (as best I can tell) Clinton embraces. To suggest that President Obama would simply get on a plane, land in Tehran, call up Ahmadinejad and ask to sit down for a cup of coffee - as some have implied - is absurd, and isn't worthy of serious discussion.

The real question that needs to be answered before deciding which one of these strategies is appropriate is straightforward: how much power does the United States have relative to other actors in the international system? I have attempted to address this question before, and the answer is complex but vital. If, as the neoconservative worldview would have it, the United States posesses an enduring, historically unprecedented concentration of power, then the Bush/Clinton strategy makes perfect sense. If the world is truly unipolar, then to be cut off diplomatically and economically from the United States is to be left out in the cold. To be cut off from Washington is functionally the same as being cut off from everywhere else.

If, however, the world is (or is fast becoming) functionally multipolar, the strategy breaks down. In such a situation, while a relationship with Washington may bring many benefits, it is far from essential. There are other power centers to which countries can look for diplomatic, military and economic support. During the Cold War, U.S. leaders understood this reality, and so made a greater effort to woo foreign capitals, always concerned that the Soviets would make a better offer.


I doubt that it will surprise any regular readers that I take to the latter viewpoint. Perhaps, in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, when Russia was imploding, China and India were still emerging from their long sleep, and Europe could not yet be referred to as a singular entity, a strategy based on a unipolar world made some sense. These days, though, it is misguided. Indeed, the situation now is even more complex than it was during the Cold War, as relationships are no longer dependent on ideology, and need not firmly place a country into a single "camp." Iran, one of Washington's principal bogeymen of late, has managed to forge economic and political relationships with authoritarian regimes like China and Russia, democratic ones like India and the E.U., and a host of other "second world" states, giving it all the political advantage it needs. Certainly, patching up the relationship with the United States would be desirable for many in Tehran, but they understand that they needn't prostrate themselves before Washington in order to do it. They're getting along fine without us.

In such an environment, the notion that just the opportunity to negotiate with the United States should be incentive enough to alter regime behavior does not withstand scrutiny. The U.S. is extremely powerful, and will remain so for the forseeable future, but it is not omnipotent, and cannot conduct diplomacy as though it is. The simple act of negotiating with a regime does not confer upon it our approval. It does, however, acknowledge the fact that Washington cannot will that regime out of existence. That's the reality. It's time we recognized it.

And Now in the Realm of the Obvious...

A new report from Human Rights Watch accuses Western nations of turning a blind eye to "sham" democracies that they find economically and strategically useful. In other news, the Earth is round and revolves around the Sun.

At least we're forcing them to make a pretense of democracy now. I suppose, in a somewhat disheartening way, that counts as progress.

Goodbye to Hegemony, Hello to...?

For those who didn't catch it, be sure to check out Parag Khanna's piece in Sunday's New York Times Magazine entitled "Waving Goodbye to Hegemony." In it, Khanna joins the now crowded pack of international relations scholars trying to work out what the international system of the twenty first century (Friedman's "post-post-Cold War era") is going to look like. Fukuyama famously launched the neoconservative vision of a U.S./liberal-dominated "end of history" that now looks increasingly defunct, Huntington proposed his "clash of civilizations," and various other thinkers have offered realist and liberal internationalist perspectives as well. I'm certainly leaving some out, but you get the idea.

In asking (and answering) the questions that such theorists address, they are actually addressing three distinct issues. First, where will power be concentrated in the world of the twenty first century? Second, how will that power be operationalized? Third (for Americans), how ought the United States respond to the situation? All three questions are exceedingly important, because they lead in very different directions. If you are a neoconservative, for example, you believe that power will be disproportionally concentrated in the political and economic institutions of the United States, and operationalized primarily through leveraging America's unassailable advantages in economic and military strength. Thus, as the only entity with enough power to maintain global stability, the United States has both a moral responsibility and national imperative to maintain, by force if necessary, military and economic hegemony. If you take to Huntington's argument, on the other hand, power will begin to concentrate at the center of a number of socio-cultural blocs (civilizations), and will be most easily operationalized by leveraging the common cultural and philosophical mindsets within those blocs. Thus, the United States (and other countries) ought to align its political, economic and military intsitutions with those of societies with which it shares common cultural and historical bonds (basically, Canada and Europe). I could go on, but this is a blog, not a book, and you get the point.

Khanna's vision is somewhat more complex. First off, he asserts that any notion of U.S. hegemony was ephemeral in the first place and is now definitively over. The idea that America will bestride the world as a modern colossus, unequaled and unchecked, is being disproven daily both by America's clumsy ineptitude at running its purported Empire and by the meteoric rise of new powers like China and India. I have no argument with him so far. I wish very much that the post Cold War United States had taken a position of real global leadership, rather than acting as an over-reluctant sherrif during the 1990s and then as an over-eager bully during the Bush years, but it didn't, problems festered, other powers began to counter-balance U.S. strength, and here we are.

Khanna next proposes that the twenty first century power centers will be the societies of the United States, the E.U., and China, which will exercise considerable control over their own regional blocs while competing for resources, markets and influence in the regional blocs of others. To grossly oversimplify, he's proposing a tripolar world rather like that envisioned by Orwell in 1984, albiet with marginally different political geography and (hopefully) less outright military conflict. He sees many of the secondary powers (countries like India, Russia and Brazil) as the "swing states" of this new system, offering their resources and markets to whichever superpowers make the best offer, without entangling themselves in enduring, Cold War style alliances. The system he describes is fluid, dynamic, and one to which the United States needs desperately to readjust by strengthening its diplomatic corps, re-tooling its economy, and maintaining a flexible global posture.

Khanna's analysis has much that is quite valuable. Certainly his rejection of American hegemonic pretensions is right on, and his emphasis on soft power, economic strength and strategic flexibility is extraordinarily important. His point that even superpower control over independent-minded regional blocs will be flimsy at best should be given serious attention.

That said, the tripolar world he describes strikes me as a bit of a stretch. As Matt Dupuis at Foreign Policy Watch points out, he barely even mentions India, even though it may well emerge as a political and economic center of gravity comparable to that of China, and I don't recall seeing the word "Japan" anywhere in the article. Also, while his assertion that Russia's independent influence will decline precipitously due to its collapsing population rings true to my ears, his tongue-in-cheek dismissal of the country as "the Sino-Finnish border" seems a bit premature. I actually think his analysis of the E.U. as a coherently-operating political entity is right on, because future means of operationalizing power - through economic prowess operating in an open system rather than mercentalist domination enforced at the barrel of a gun - won't require completely centralized political structures in order to work. Still, the relative gradations of power that will be wielded by numerous international actors in the coming century make the notion of a "big three" group of superpowers seem like a pretty artificial distinction.

I see the world of the twenty first century as being genuinely multipolar, with the U.S. playing (for a time) a role similar to that of nineteenth century Great Britain: as the most powerful state in a group of other quite powerful states. Europe, Japan, China, Russia, India, perhaps Brazil, and eventually others all deserve a seat at the table, and policymakers shouldn't exclude them because of preconceptions of who counts as a "true" superpower. Still, Khanna's vision is important (I can't wait for the book), and deserves serious scrutiny and debate. He successfully melds cultural, economic, military and political factors into a coherent view of the coming geopolitical structure, and though I think his views could be tweaked, they are doubtless very important.

Realism, the Commentariat, and Variety in Political Thought

Eugene Gholz at Across the Aisle has posted a worthwhile critique of an excellent article at Salon.com by Stephen Walt, in which Walt bemoans the lack of realists in the popular foreign policy commentariat. Starting with the recent hiring of William Kristol at the Times, Walt laments that, in the popular press, there is little analytical variation regarding the United States' appropriate global role. He sees columnists and others basically split between liberal internationalists and neoconservatives, both of whom support the notion of the United States as a transformative global leader, ready to project (and at times enforce) its will and values upon the Globe. Walt (and Gholz) argue that the differences between these groups are peripheral: they advocate different policies because they disagree on priorities and means, not because their worldviews are fundamentally at odds. Walt argues that realists need to have a greater voice in public discourse, and that if the Times really wants to hire someone with a fresh voice, it should look to proponents of the realist school.

I'm not a realist (frankly I'm not really sure that I'd call myself an anything at this point), but I'm basically in agreement with Walt. I take issue with Gholz's assertion that there aren't any good candidates because most realists exist in academia. Where else should good public intellectuals come from? Paul Krugman's an academic. Teaches at Princeton. He doesn't seem to have a problem banging out a couple of columns every week. More to the point, though, I agree that public discourse - again, in the popular press, not just in Greek-letter academia - would benefit from the realist perspective. While, during my time as an undergraduate, realism was often presented as the most violent, bellicose way of looking at international relations due to its emphasis on balance-of-power politics, I have come to appreciate the humility with which realists approach the international system. The kind of transformational, almost messianic fervor with which neoconservatives often approach foreign policy questions could stand to be tempered a bit.

I don't agree with everything Walt and his ideological colleagues say. In particular, I tend to think that spreading Democracy (intelligently) is a major strategic interest of the United States, not a dangerous pie-in-the-sky diversion. I also think Walt overemphasizes the similarities between the neoconservative and liberal internationalist worldviews. Still, a perspective like his would be interesting and beneficial to get on a more regular basis. Maybe he can submit his resume to the Salzburgers when Kristol's tenure is up next year.

Inflection Points and Strategic Solvency

I was preparing to summarize and comment on an excellently-argued piece by Richard Betts in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, but it would seem that Ilian Goldberg at Democracy Arsenal beat me to the punch with a great summary, so I'll try not to be overly redundant. The article argues that U.S. defense expenditures need to be "strategically solvent" and appropriately matched to reasonable and achievable international goals. He argues that the half-trillion plus dollars that we currently spend on defense is both much more than is necessary to provide basic security, and much less than is necessary to achieve global imperial dominance. Particularly in an environment of economically-burdensome public debt that grows by the minute, our current defense posture, Betts argues, makes little sense. Without going into too much detail (again, just read the article, or at least the excerpts, which I promise are worth your time), he advocates a reorientation of U.S. security policy towards increased special forces and intelligence to combat trans-national threats, coupled with the ability to mobilize superior conventional forces should we enter into the sort of environment that requires them. Thus, spending on military research and development is important, and should perhaps be increased, but the maintenance of a large army and navy in peacetime makes no sense in a post-Cold War world. The United States should maintain a technological edge over, for example, China, such that we could mobilize to defeat it if and when the threat it poses becomes real as opposed to theoretical, but we need not be perpetually and fully mobilized to fight at the drop of a hat.

The article brings to mind two related points that are worth considering. The first is related to an essay by Robert Kelly posted by Seth Weinberger at Security Dilemmas; namely, the conceptual tendency of U.S. leaders to 'state-ize' threats, and then deal with them as such. In other words, because the U.S. military has enjoyed considerable success defeating other states, we have a tendency to want to view new threats as state-like organizations that can be defeated with a vigorous application of military power (I would argue that Israeli leadership has suffered from the same conceptual problem since the end of the 1973 war). For a more light-hearted, but still intelligent treatment of the issue, take a look here. Instead of adapting our capabilities to relevant threats, we try to adapt relevant threats to our capabilities, with problematic results.

For example, recent proposals to add additional divisions to the army are being treated as practical, hard-headed responses to the array of security threats the United States now faces. I have yet to hear a convincing explanation, though, as to how another armored division will help combat shadowy, trans-national terrorist groups. These additions are likely to come too late to make a difference in Iraq or Afghanistan, so I fail to see what they will accomplish, unless (perish the thought) we intend on repeating the Iraq experience any time soon. Increasing the size of our military, though, is the historically standard hedge against emerging security threats, so it is the knee-jerk response of American leaders, whatever its objective merits. National security would be improved if decision makers could lift such cognitive blinders, and commit scarce resources in a more holistic and appropriate way.

Taking a wider view, Betts's article also raises the issue of America's geopolitical standing in the 21st Century. I have argued elsewhere that the United States is likely to see it's relative power decline precipitously over the next hundred years. Though America will almost certainly remain a major player in the global system, its position will likely be akin to that of 19th Century Great Britain - the most powerful state in a group of powerful states - and unlike the hegemony that it now enjoys. The transition to an international system of "asymmetric multi-polarity," though, will not go smoothly if the United States bucks against a sensible reorientation of its global posture to reflect the increasing political and economic power of nations like China, India and Japan.

Particularly in Asia, America will almost certainly have to accept a reduction in influence and military dominance, as the aforementioned states increasingly take control of their own back yards. The sensible way to do this would be for the United States to use its remaining influence to head off serious disputes and build up regional, multilateral institutions to manage economic development, trade and (increasingly) environmental policy. The foolish way would be to continue to claim regional military hegemony and to enforce American will through domineering bilateral relationships until the strategic, political and economic solvency of such an approach collapses, leaving a divided, tension-ridden region behind as we slink back across the Pacific.

Drawing on the work of political scientists such as A.F.K. Organski, who proposed what is known as Power Transition Theory, and Charles Doran, who introduced the notion of "inflection points" in nations' relative power, I would argue that there is at least some relationship between the relative trajectory of nations' power and the likelihood that they will come into conflict. As the events of recent years have demonstrated with painful clarity, there is a temptation for U.S. leaders to confuse U.S. predominance with omnipotence, and overreach the bounds of its long-term capabilities. Meanwhile, leaders of a state like China, the economic and political power of which is growing with astonishing speed, could overestimate their own power (particularly if some part of the U.S.-maintained political regime in Asia is dissatisfying to them) and spark conflict. As the dominant power in Asia, it is incumbent upon the United States to give China sufficient room to flex its muscles, while drawing boundaries around core interests (such as the security of South Korea and Japan) and creating an environment that gives China no incentive to foment international discord. Turning back to the question of defense spending, then, engaging in a de facto arms race with the Chinese in Asia is both economically unsustainable and strategically unwise.

Viewed in such a way, Betts' call for a bit of sanity in American military outlays is a breath of fresh air. He even has the political acumen to propose a slogan that U.S. politicians can use to launch the debate: "Half a trillion dollars is more than enough."

Indeed.

Cozying Up to a Nuclear India

I'm a very opinionated person. Question me on just about any topic, and chances are I'll enthusiastically give you my opinion. I'm self-aware enough to acknowledge that this trait extends to subjects about which I am reasonably well informed (politics), less well informed (economics) and completely ignorant (quantum physics). For this reason, I have been surprising myself of late in my inability, despite a decent amount of reflection, to form a strong opinion regarding the U.S. Government's latest proposed treaty with India.

US relations with India have always been complex. India's steadfast refusal during the Cold War to become overtly entangled in the US-Soviet conflict (and its tendency to lean in Moscow's direction on the occaisions that it did), along with US support for Pakistan, India's refusal to join the global non-proliferation regime, American opposition to the creation of Bangladesh, and New Delhi's perceived intransigence on a myriad of less pressing concerns kept bilateral relations cool for much of the last half-century. On the other hand, India has - with a notably short hiatus during the 1970s - maintained itself as a robust and well-functioning democracy in the post-independence era. For a large, desperately poor, poly-ethnic, poly-lingual, poly-religious post-colonial state, that is no small feat, and in the post-Cold War era it has borne fruit.

With the imperatives of Cold War alliances no longer driving American foreign policy, and ossified socialist ideology no longer guiding Indian economic policy, the stage was set during the 1990s for dramatically improved political and economic ties between the two countries. For a demonstration of how far reconciliation had come, one need look no further than America's slap-on-the-wrist response to Indian nuclear tests in 1998. Given America's erstwhile commitment to strict enforcement (with one notable exception in the Levant) of the non-proliferation regime, the fact that such tests did not evoke a stronger response from Washington indicated that the United States was willing to accept, and even welcome, India's ascent to great power status.

The controversy now surrounding the implementation (or not) of the United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act encompasses many of the basic strategic questions that the United States and India face as they seek to more clearly define their relationship in the 21st Century. The deal presents the United States tempting benefits coupled with some vexing strategic drawbacks.

For those arguing against the treaty, the most significant problem lies not at the deal's periphery, but at its very heart: to bring India into the official nuclear club without insisting that it halt the expansion of its weapons program undermines what little credibility remains in the global non-proliferation regime. The US has already allowed an Israel-sized hole to be carved out of the regime's fabric; to cut a similar space for India would send a message to the (unfortunately growing) number of countries which now covet nuclear weapons that "when it comes to nuclear proliferation, Washington's only real policy is to reward its friends and punish its enemies." I would actually take it further than the Times. The message it sends is that nuclear weapons are fine, as long as your country isn't Muslim. At a time when the US is desperately trying to put international pressure on Iran to give up its nuclear program, trying to head off weapons development in other areas around the Middle East, and trying to implement a tenuous rollback of North Korean nuclear stockpiles, such a message would be dangerous indeed.

Furthermore, a policy that legitimizes Indian nuclear arms would only make the United States more toxic to the public in Pakistan, a country that remains of high strategic importance. Given the critical nature of the Pakistani government support (whoever may be leading that government on a given day), a policy that elevates Pakistan's chief rival into the nuclear club uncontested, while treating Pakistani nuclear stocks with considerably more apprehension seems tailored to anger precisely the wrong people. In some ways, the instability of Musharaff gives the United States some wiggle room in this regard (to whom else can he turn?); but, it also raises the risk that if his government falls - an eventuality that looks more likely with each passing day - the one that replaces it will try to shore up legitimacy by adopting an anti-American posture.

Thus, it is clear that the proposed agreement carries with it considerable risk. In many other ways, though, the treaty makes sense. Even the skeptical Times editorial board acknowledges that "bringing India... in from the cold is not a bad idea." A populous democracy and budding economic powerhouse, India is precisely the kind of ally that the United States needs in the coming decades, particularly in Asia. India's non-Aligned legacy has left it in a diplomatically flexible position that the United States can leverage to constructively manage relationships with authoritarian capitalist powers like Russia and China, and even erstwhile adversaries like Iran. Xenia Dromandy, writing in the Washington Quarterly, notes that India has made it clear that it will not be a US pawn, and that there are some areas in which Indian and American interests will diverge, but that the two countries have broadly similar, and complementary international goals. Neither government is anxious to see Iran go nuclear. Both countries are threatened by global Islamic extremism. Both governments want to manage China's rise as a responsible international stakeholder and limit its disruptive influence. Both countries have considerable economic and political capital invested in globalization (and both must manage domestic backlashes against it). More than anything, both are democracies, and as such are capable of trusting each others' governments given half a reason to do so.

Despite all this, however, a positive Indo-American relationship is not assured. There are many in India who regard the United States as a bullying, imperialist power intent on reducing India to a suboordinate status. India must, of course, deal with its own considerable Muslim population, which by all accounts shares the loathing of Washington that now prevails in the rest of the Islamic world. Even the relatively light restrictions placed on India's nuclear program by this latest deal have generated a storm of protest from BJP nationalists who are incensed by what they view as an affront to Indian soveriegnty. Failing to shepherd this deal to final approval would be an unabashed insult to the vital center in India that seems eager to play a more engaged and constructive role in world affairs. Given the importance of strengthening the US-Indian alliance in the coming years, such an insult would carry grave strategic costs.

In the end, I give cautious support to this agreement's final approval. While I recognize the damage that the deal will do to what remains of the international non-proliferation regime, I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that those who seek to break out of its strictures will not be persuaded one way or another by a US-Indian nuclear agreement (though they may use it as ex-post-facto justification for their own ambitions). Americans should remember that they, along with the other four nuclear signatories to the NPT, have an obligation to continue reducing their own arsenals concurrent with the obligation of the rest of the global community to forgo their own weapons development. If the United States wants to make a gesture to hold up the NPT, it should start by reducing its own stocks. Overall, given the vital role that India must play in any successful 21st Century American strategy, and given the fact that India has proven to be a relatively responsible nuclear player over the past quarter-century, I believe that this deal's benefits outweigh its costs.

American Policy Towards Islamism

...the thoughtful observer of Russian-American relations will find no cause for complaint in the Kremlin's challenge to American society. He will rather experience a certain gratitude to a Providence which, by providing the American people with this implacable challenge, has made their entire security as a nation dependent on their pulling themselves together and accepting the responsibilities of moral and political leadership that history plainly intended them to bear.

-George Kennan, "The Sources of Soviet Conduct"

I take momentary pause from my larger foray into grand strategy in response to several interesting pieces I have read in recent weeks, all of which speak, however indirectly, to a reevaluation of American policy towards Islamist movements around the World. An op-ed by Nicholas Thompson advocates a revival in Kennan-esque strategic thinking as it relates to America's conflict with radical Islam. He argues that Kennan's thinking was often misinterpreted as advocating the kind of bellicose, military containment that subsequently prevailed during the Cold War era; in reality Kennan was supposedly advocating a purely political strategy in which the United States used persuasion and superior example to counter Soviet perfidity. I just re-read Kennan's original article, and I am not entirely convinced that his interpretation is correct (I fail to see how Kennan's advice that "Soviet pressure against the free institutions of the western world is something that can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points" does not imply at least some level of military action); but I see what he is driving at. American resources and political capital would be much better applied building schools in Muslim countries than providing high tech weapons to ostensibly friendly Muslim governments.

The second piece I found interesting was posted by Jeb at Foreign Policy Watch, detailing the emergence of a womens' rights movement within political Islam (Jeb struggles, as do the movement's advocates, with the term "feminism," as many of the movements' precepts clash with those of western feminist thought). This is significant because a key concern of many in the West, particularly western liberals, is that Islamist movements are inherently hostile to many of the basic human rights for which liberals have spent centuries fighting and for which they hope one day to gain universal recognition. To be sure, such movements are in their infancy, and I have little confidence that the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood would immediately adopt a progressive Islamic position on such issues the moment they took power; but the fact that such principles of human dignity are gaining political space within the broader Islamist movement demonstrates that Islamist thinking need not be inherently hostile to core progressive human values.

Finally, Shadi Hamid of the Project on Middle East Democracy has argued in several forums (here and here) that the United States needs to recognize that Islamism is the only viable reformist ideology in the Muslim world, and that vainly pushing for liberal reforms that lack popular constituencies while continuing to support corrupt but secular autocrats is a recipie for disaster. He suggests that the United States open dialogue with any Islamist movement that renounces violence and commits itself to political participation through the democratic process (this would include the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the AKP in Turkey, as well as non-violent movements in Morocco and Jordan, but exclude Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which have armed wings). He argues that democratic participation is likely to moderate some of their policy prescriptions that Americans find distasteful, such as curtailment of women's rights and opposition to Israel, while giving the population of the Middle East a constructive outlet for their political frustrations that will undercut support for truly radical and violent groups such as al-Qaeda and Hamas.

Tying this all together, I would argue that American Cold War Policy went most dangerously astray when U.S. leaders failed to look at local Communist and Socialist movements in a nuanced way, seeing agents of Moscow in what were actually nationalist movements that expressed their desire for self-determination and justice in the language of Marx. This logic led America to abandon all of her "moral and political leadership" in places like Vietnam and Iran, with devastating consequences. If the United States is serious about building a democratic Middle East, one with the institutions capable of undercutting the threat to global peace that Radical Islam represents, it will have to realize that not everyone invoking the name of Allah need be counted among its enemies. It will require the courage to abandon the false stability of corrupt autocrats and embrace the uncertainty of moderate Islamism. If that does not prove possible, I fear we shall continue to stumble about in moral, political and strategic darkness.

Goals

Plato would have been a terrible blogger. True, contemporary weblogs in many ways epitomize his style. They are dialogues with pulses, providing both contentions and space to refute them; yet, they are not conducive to the kind of reasoned, plodding, stuffy, rich, erudite, archaic and considered manner in which he and his classical contemporaries set out their arguments. This is not meant as a criticism of blogs (I am writing one, after all), but rather as a simple observation. Blogs are excellent places to hint at ideas, gain insight into others' thinking, test hypotheses and stab with but one eye open into the intellectual darkness. In that spirit, I initiate the first (somewhat shorter) follow up to my last post on grand strategy.

In that post, I identified three key questions that needed to be answered in developing a grand strategy for 21st century foreign policy. The first concerned goals. Somewhat shy of two years ago, I attended a foreign policy conference at West Point. The agenda for the various working groups was expansive, encompassing every inhabited inch of the Earth and every major international issue currently affecting its inhabitants. What I found most interesting about the gathering, though, was that the discussions all functioned under the premise that that United States constituted the indisputable epicenter of global politics and economics, and would continue to do so for the foreseeable future. American hegemony was not debated, it was assumed.

I recall finding this consensus both intriguing and somewhat troubling, as I do not imagine my nation's position of prominence to be so pervasive or secure. For one thing, though other factors certainly matter, for most of modern history a nation's power has been roughly commensurate with it's relative GDP, and the American share of global wealth has been declining steadily since the end of the Second World War. For another, the United States is doing a woefully pitiful job making the necessary investments in technology and intellectual capital that will be necessary to arrest that decline in the next century. More significantly, though, I am not particularly bothered by the notion that my country's moment as global hegemon may be peaking. The temptations of empire, from Cuba to the Philippines to Vietnam to Iraq, have frequently demanded economic, political and moral costs far beyond their worth. What does concern me, though, is the type of international order that will predominate in what Tom Friedman has called the post-post-Cold War World.

Various theories about the vicissitudes of inter-state relations posit that the most dangerous periods in an international system are those in which great powers' positions are changing. Status quo states used to playing a central role tend to jealously guard their position and overestimate their own capabilities, while revisionist ones charge ahead, drunk on the possibilities of the future. Absent careful management, these frictions have in the past exploded into conflict. In the macro-historical sense, one can interpret the two great wars of the 20th Century as the earthquakes that accompanied the tectonic shift of global influence away from Western Europe and into Asia and the New World. All this to say that it is imperative for U.S. leadership not to overestimate American capabilities, wasting economic resources, political capital and human lives in a futile quest to retain global hegemony. A unified Europe, a resurgent Russia, a more independent Japan, a newly-empowered India and, of course, a rising Chinese juggernaut will all be jockeying for influence in the coming decades.

Rather than try to keep a lid on such developments, American leaders should prepare to settle into a global regime of "asymmetric multipolarity," in which the United States occupies a place similar to 19th Century Great Britain: as the most powerful state in a group of powerful states. America can expect to remain quite influential, but the era in which the U.S. can simply impose its will on the World is fast coming to a close (the era was, mercifully for all involved, short). The principal goals of American foreign policy ought to center around making this asymetrically multipolar world a decent place to live and conduct statecraft. To my mind, this means; a) maintaining and extending the regime of international commerce that serves as the principal hedge against major military conflict, especially in the presence of durable authoritarian capitalist powers like Russia and China, while beginning to construct institutions of global economic justice that will make such linkages politically solvent; b) engaging in an aggressive (but non-military) campaign of democracy promotion to ensure constructive outlets for political greivances and undercut the appeal of radically disruptive ideologies (such as salafist Islam); c) taking a position of serious global leadership on the issue of global warming and sustainable energy production in order to head off the one global issue with the potential to bring the whole system crashing down.

My next question had to do with obstacles to those goals' achievement. That is for another post. So much for limiting my verbosity and length. I would be interested in any comments.