On Monday I blogged that Operation Iraqi Freedom didn't affect the international system all that much. What about the second image, however? Ten years after Operation Iraqi Freedom, are there lasting effects on American foreign policy?  

The answer here seems to be "yes." Intriguingly enough, the people making this argument the loudest are neoconservatives. William Kristol argued that "war weariness" was affecting American foreign policy decision-making:  

Now we’re weary again. And there are many politicians all too willing to seek power and popularity by encouraging weariness rather than point out its perils. Foremost among those politicians is our current president. It’s hard to blame the American people for some degree of war weariness when their president downplays threats and is eager to shirk international responsibilities.

[Note to Kristol: When you or anyone else inside the Beltway says "war weariness," to the rest of the country it means either "prudence" or "a healthy distrust of the claims of Beltway advocates for the use of force."] 

Here's the thing: Deep down, the American people are pretty realist. The legacy of Operation Iraqi Freedom is that this realist consensus has cemented itself further in the American psyche. The American public has an aversion to using force unless the national interest is at stake, and a deep aversion to using force to do things like promote democracy or human rights. The current GOP civil war on the use of force demonstrates the extent to which this sentiment has become a bipartisan phenomenon. Indeed, if the GOP doesn't alter its rhetoric on the use of force, it will continue to bleed support from young voters.

Public opinion does not always form a powerful constraint on American foreign policy, but one of the biggest legacies of Iraq is that public attitudes about the use of force have imposed serious constraints on the United States. Sure, an administration can use force as in Libya, but now it needs multilateral support and a light footprint in order to avoid a public backlash. The curel irony of this for neoconservatives is that as secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld wanted a light footprint in the Iraq invasion, reflecting his own faith in the revolution in military affairs. By going in too light, however, Rumsfeld tarnished the RMA and the notion of using ground troops in anything but an overwhelming capacity. 

Last year I closed out an essay in Policy Review with the following: 

[T]he long, draining conflicts of Afghanistan and Iraq have taken their toll on public attitudes about U.S. leadership in the world, as well as the use of force. In 2009 Pew found isolationist sentiments had reached an all-time high in the United States. A January 2012 pipa poll found that Americans strongly prefer cutting defense spending compared to either Medicare or Social Security. According to a January 2012 Pew survey, "Defending against terrorism and strengthening the military are given less priority today than over the course of the past decade." Seventy-eight percent of respondents to a December 2011 cnn poll approved of the Obama administration’s decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq. The growth of unrest in that country since the U.S. withdrawal has done nothing to alter public attitudes on the matter — which is why Republican challengers to Obama have been rather reticent to talk about it. By the beginning of 2012, majorities opposed the war in Afghanistan and favored a withdrawal of U.S. forces as soon as possible. On Iran, Americans strongly prefer economic and diplomatic action to military statecraft even as tensions escalate in the Persian Gulf.

As Libya demonstrated, presidents still have some latitude when choosing to use force. The political risks for presidents to invest political capital into foreign affairs have clearly increased, however. Unless foreign interventions yield immediate, tangible results, Americans will view them as distracting from problems at home. If far-flung military interventions bog down, public support will evaporate. This will make any president regardless of ideology more risk-averse about projecting military power and persisting with it should difficulties arise. For strategic culture, this means a reversion back to the days of the Powell Doctrine and a continued appreciation for economic coercion.

It took a generation and the end of the Cold War for the lessons of Vietnam to fade away. I'd wager that it will take at least a generation for the legacy effects of the Iraq War. 

Indeed, in American history, the war that Operation Iraqi Freedom reminds me of isn't Vietnam -- it's the War of 1812. That was another war of choice that was launched in no small part because of War Hawks in the halls of Congress. It went disastrously for the United States save the Battle of New Orleans, which allowed politicians to put a gloss of victory on an otherwise calamitous conflict. The long-term political effects on some of the War Hawks were pretty severe however (see:  John C. Calhoun). 

Operation Iraqi Freedom's effects on the international system were minor at best. The effects on American foreign policy, however, are significant and will be with us for some time to come. 

Justin Logan has blogged a response to my post from yesterday.  He's also done the courtesy of uploading the paper from which both his recent post and his 2009 post emanate. 

Now Logan makes some compelling points to rebut me, such as:

It’s worth noting that a disproportionate number of academics writing about grand strategy are realists, so that’s coloring the ideological content of what the academics are producing. Drezner has complained about realist victimhood before, but grand strategy is an elite sport, and even headmits that “America’s foreign policy elites are more hostile to realpolitik – though even here, things can be exaggerated.” Drezner then points to Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft as bearers of the realist flag, but even if you would lump Kissinger and Scowcroft in with Posen and Walt (I wouldn’t), both men are in their late 80s. There is no realist faction in the FPC, if by “realist” we mean “person whose views on strategy comport with leading academic realists.”

Think about members of the FPC who work on strategy and scholars in the academy who do so. Is a potential strategy debate between, say, a Democrat like Anne-Marie Slaughter and a Republican like Robert Kagan very interesting? I don’t think so. It’s fought between the seven and nine-yard lines at the primacy end of the field. Then consider a debate between, say,Barry Posen or John Mearsheimer, on the one hand, and Kagan or Slaughter on the other. Pass the popcorn.

Now, ordinarily, this would get my intellectual juices flowing and I'd start trying arguing that Logan is conflating IR theorists with realists a bit or whatnot.

The thing is, this was my actual view (as opposed to my worldview) for much of today:

You know, with this kind of view, it doesn't take much to realize that the problems of a few international relations wonks doesn't amount to a hill of sand in this world. 

So I'm conceding this round to Logan.  Excellent points, and nicely done!!  I'll read the paper when I'm back in a cold climate. 

[So, basically, any author of an MS you refereed this week should be feeling pretty good right about now!!--ed.  Pretty much, yeah.]

In the run-up to his confirmation hearings, both BuzzFeed's Ruby Cramer and the Washington Free Beacon have stories about secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel's days as a professor at Georgetown. At first glance, the spin on these stories seems to be at odds with each other. Here's Cramer: 

Those who knew him at Georgetown remember Professor Hagel, whose confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee begins early Thursday morning, as resolute in his own views on foreign policy, and dedicated to his classroom at a level unusual for most lawmakers who take on stints as visiting professors....

Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, retired from the Senate in 2008 after serving two consecutive terms. He landed the Georgetown gig in February of 2009, and started work on crafting one course for grad students in the fall, and another for undergrads in the spring. Hagel chose geopolitical relationships as his focus, and with the help of his teaching assistant, wrote a syllabus aimed at examining the 21st century as a period of transition that is "shifting geopolitical centers of gravity and is recasting geopolitical influences as the world experiences an unprecedented diffusion," as stated in the syllabus for Hagel's first-ever course in the fall of 2009.

Shockingly, the Free Beacon interprets matters a bit differently:

As a professor at Georgetown University, secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel taught a foreign policy course based primarily on anti-Israel materials and far left manifestos that castigate America’s role in the world, according to a copy of Hagel’s 2012 course syllabus....

Constructed on the premise that America’s global supremacy is waning, Hagel’s seminar featured writings that criticize America’s standing in the world, advocate in favor of shuttering American military bases, and refer to Israel as guilty of war crimes.

If the poor defenseless reader were to try to  synthesize these two articles on their own, they might come away convinced that Hagel was like Robin Williams' character in Dead Poets Society, if Williams' character was also a secret, anti-Semitic communist spy. 

Fortunately, as a trained professor, I'm capable of scanning Hagel's syllabi, and the description of the syllabi, and render my own judgment.  And I confess that, after looking at them, I have a few more qualms about Hagel than I did before. 

These qualms are not due to the Free Beacon's story, which doesn't have an author appellation, which is just as well, since whomever wrote it has no f**king clue who makes what arguments in international relations. Among the "anti-Israel and far left manifestos" that the Free Beacon identifies is the following:

Other books featured on Hagel’s reading list, such as G. John Ikenberry’s Liberal Leviathan, argue that America’s influence is waning.

“Even if a return to multipolarity is a distant and slowly emerging future possibility, calculations about the relative decline of American power reintroduce the importance of making investments today for later decades when the United States is less preeminent,” wrote Ikenberry, a Princeton professor, in his 2012 book.

Let's take a brief pause here to allow the folks with some actual international relations knowledge a hearty chuckle. Because anyone who's read anything by John Ikenberry quickly learns two things: 1) he's about as centrist as one can get; and 2) he's quite upbeat about America's future (as a close reading of that quote would suggest). So we can safely ignore the Free Beacon's efforts to spin people like Ikenberry and Zbigniew Brzezinski as anti-Israel or far left.

There's also the rather obvious point that, as a general rule, professors will assign readings they disagree with.  It's that whole, "give students competing perspectives on thorny issues so they can have an informed debate" kind of deal. As mysterious as this might sound to the Free Beacon, let me assure them that assigning provocative readings is a pretty common pedagogical tool.

On the other hand, a quick perusal of Hagel's syllabi reveals a far deeper concern:  Hagel is addicted to ... hackery. The Friedmans make too many appearances in these syllabi, for example. He assigned Tom Friedman's The World Is Flat, which is pretty bad. He also assigned George Friedman's The Next 100 Years, which is far, far worse (don't take my word for it, take Philip Tetlock's). He also assigned liberal portions of Parag Khanna's work, which is unfortunate.

Now I'm not above assigning the occasional hack piece in a class to let my students chew up and spit out. That's actually a useful pedagogical exercise. Hagel, however, seems to think that the hack stuff is actually quite good -- at least that's what he told C-SPAN. For a graduate seminar at Georgetown, the chaff-to-wheat ratio is disturbingly high. 

Besides the hack addiction, is there anything else to be gleaned from Hagel's syllabi? If there is a theme that runs through Hagel's syllabus choices, it's a pretty realpolitik one. Writers like George Friedman and Robert D. Kaplan don't really care about human institutions as much as geopolitics. He also assigned some interesting work by Joseph Parent & Paul McDonald, as well as Micah Zenko & Michael Cohen, on strategic restraint and threat inflation, respectively. That's what should terrify neoconservatives -- not the bogus anti-Israel charges. 

Still, after reading his syllabi, I must acknowledge that Hagel picked up one academic trait very quickly: just like us lifelong profs, Hagel learned to assign his own book. Well played, Professor Hagel. Well played.

The New Republic has relaunched in style, featuring a spiffy new website and a sitdown interview with President Barack Obama.  Alas, much of the interview was about internal GOP politics.  Only the last question was about foreign policy, but Obama provided an interesting answer.  In TNR owner Chris Hughes queried about how he morally copes with the ongoing violence in Syria without substantive U.S. intervention.  Here's his response in full: 

Every morning, I have what's called the PDB—presidential daily briefing—and our intelligence and national security teams come in here and they essentially brief me on the events of the previous day. And very rarely is there good news. And a big chunk of my day is occupied by news of war, terrorism, ethnic clashes, violence done to innocents. And what I have to constantly wrestle with is where and when can the United States intervene or act in ways that advance our national interest, advance our security, and speak to our highest ideals and sense of common humanity.

And as I wrestle with those decisions, I am more mindful probably than most of not only our incredible strengths and capabilities, but also our limitations. In a situation like Syria, I have to ask, can we make a difference in that situation? Would a military intervention have an impact? How would it affect our ability to support troops who are still in Afghanistan? What would be the aftermath of our involvement on the ground? Could it trigger even worse violence or the use of chemical weapons? What offers the best prospect of a stable post-Assad regime? And how do I weigh tens of thousands who've been killed in Syria versus the tens of thousands who are currently being killed in the Congo?

Those are not simple questions. And you process them as best you can. You make the decisions you think balance all these equities, and you hope that, at the end of your presidency, you can look back and say, I made more right calls than not and that I saved lives where I could, and that America, as best it could in a difficult, dangerous world, was, net, a force for good. (emphasis added)

I hear a lot of loose talk about what Barack Obama's foreign policy is really like, but I'd argue that the bolded sections pretty much encapsulate his foreign policy preferences.  For him, national interest and security trumps liberal values every day of the week and twice on Sundays. 

[But that's a false dichotomy!!--ed.  You've been listening to too many Jon Favreau speeches. The easy foreign policy calls are when values and interests line up.  It's when they conflict that we get a better sense of what's vital and what's... less important.]  Obama looks at Syria and sees a grisly situation where the status quo doesn't hurt American interests -- in fact, it's a mild net positive.  Given that situation, Obama's incentive to intervene is pretty low.

Does this mean Obama is amoral or un-American?  Hardly.  That answer suggests two things.  First. liberal values do matter to Obama -- they just don't matter as much as other things.  Second, to be fair, contra academic realism, there is a set of ethical values that are attached to realpolitik, and I think they inform Obama's decision-making as well.  It seems pretty clear that Obama's first foreign policy instinct after advancing the national interest is the foreign policy equivalent of the Hippocratic oath:  first, do no harm.  If you think about it, the one liberal deviation from Obama's foreign policy is the Libya intervention, where he explicitly authorized the use of force for a mission that he acknowledged was not in the core national interest.  It worked, but we've seen/seeing the second-order effects in Benghazi and across Northern Africa. 

I'm bemused by neoconservatives who simutaneously pillory the Obama administration for the Benghazi screw-up, yet call for greater efforts to "do something" in Syria.  What happened in Benghazi, and Algeria, and Mali are the direct follow-ons from the last time the U.S. ramped up its efforts in a non-strategic situation.  If anything, it seems clear that Obama has learned from that lesson -- as well as the Afghanistan "surge" -- and determined that the utility of military intervention is more limited and the costs are even greater than he imagined in 2008.  Furthermore, as the Congo comment suggests, he's also conscious that if one really wants to apply liberal ethical criteria to the use of Amertican force, then Syria is not at the top of the queue. 

Barack Obama neither an appeaser nor a liberal internationalist.  He's someone who has a clear set of foreign policy preferences and an increasing risk aversion to the use of force as a tool of regime change.  That's not unethical -- it's just based on a set of ethical principles that might be somewhat alien to America's very, very liberal foreign policy community. 

Am I missing anything?

The moment U.S. armed forces are deployed somewhere, that place moves to the top of the pundit queue.  As a result, the bylaws of the International Brotherhood of Foreign Policy Pundits mandates that I blog something about Mali of a higher quality than my glib post from last month.  So here goes. 

In a refreshing change of pace from to Previous Armed Forces Deployments that will Go Unamed, the New York Times is already voicing questions about the purpose of this mission.  Indeed, Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt litter their front-pager with some "first principle" questions to U.S. foreign policy principals: 

The administration has embraced a targeted killing strategy elsewhere, notably in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, after top White House, Pentagon and C.I.A. officials determined that militants in those countries were bent on attacking the United States.

Asked if fighters from Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb posed such an imminent threat, Gen. Carter F. Ham, the top American commander in Africa, said, “Probably not.” But, he said in an interview, “they subscribe to Al Qaeda’s ideology” and have said that their intent is to attack Westerners in Europe and, “if they could, back to the United States.”

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta made it clear on Wednesday that he considered the group a serious danger. “This is an Al Qaeda operation,” he told reporters while traveling in Italy, “and it is for that reason that we have always been concerned about their presence in Mali, because they would use it as a base of operations to do exactly what happened in Algeria.”....

[W]hat remained an open question, at least until last Friday, was whether the militant threat in Mali was serious enough to justify military intervention. Now, the context of that debate has changed.

General Ham put the matter succinctly in the interview, which took place last Friday, just hours after he learned about the French incursion into Mali.

“The real question,” he said as he raced off to a secure teleconference with senior Obama administration officials, “is now what?”  (emphasis added)

Now, admirably, the Financial Times' Xan Rice does explain rather concisely what France's aims are in Mali:  

France has three aims in Mali: to stop the Islamist insurgents’ advance on the capital; to help the government regain control of the north of the country; and to leave the country with a stable government.

But the strength of the well-trained Islamist militant forces points to a protracted intervention in the country where rebels maintain control of two towns in the centre of Mali, while Jean-Yves Le Drian, French defence minister, this week acknowledged the campaign was “very difficult”.  (emphasis added)

Now, the tricky part of all this for the U.S. government is that while the first goal seems easy enough to achieve, the second seems much harder.  And, most important, the United States has been trying to accomplish the third goal for the past decade -- and it turns out we kind of suck at it: 

In 2005, PSI was replaced by the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP), a partnership of State, Defense and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) meant to focus on improving individual country and regional capabilities in northwest Africa.

According to a Government Accountability Office study, Mali got roughly $37 million in TSCTP funds from 2005 through 2008. More than half went to Defense projects. But GAO reported that there were bureaucratic differences over the programs and funding problems. “USAID received funds for its TSCTP activities in Mali in 2005 and 2007, but not in 2006,” for example. “Because it received no funds for 2006, the mission suspended a peace-building program in northern Mali,” the area with the greatest threat.

So the initial reporting suggests that the U.S. is about to blunder into another far-flung overseas operation in no small part caused by prior U.S. f**k-ups with no end in sight and a hostile population on the ground.  Right? 

Not so fast.  Contrary to the claims of some militant anti-interventionists, the U.S. counter-terrorism policy didn't cause the problems in Mali.  And, indeed, based on this survey of Northern Mali villagers conducted by some kick-ass political scientists early last year, it would seem that the locals would welcome further U.S. involvement, particularly on the humanitarian side of the equation:

The majority of our respondents were in favor of military intervention: 78% said it was worth the fight, 9% wanted to peacefully separate, and 23% were undecided (July). When asked how the northern crisis should be resolved, 50% of our respondents mentioned negotiations, while 60% cited military intervention as important to restore territorial integrity (May). Most respondents who felt that military intervention was necessary preferred exclusively domestic involvement by the Malian military (43% of respondents).  Of those citing the need for foreign intervention, the US was the most popular of the potential allies (23% of respondents favored US intervention), followed by France (18%) and then ECOWAS (15%).  In light of changing public opinion in Bamako it is possible that if asked today, villagers would be more pro-foreign intervention and pro-French....

We asked villagers the open-ended question: what policy area would you prioritize if you were President of Mali? Most individuals prioritized human development issues (health, education, water, agricultural support) both before and after the rebellion. In the January baseline survey, 51% of respondents cited development issues, while 9% mentioned peace and security. After the villagers found themselves on the border of rebel-controlled territory, 67% cited development issues and 14% peace and security (July). Regardless of the level of political stability, the vast majority of respondents would focus on basic human development needs.

Foreign policy pundits are just like the rest of the monkey-brain population -- we like to put things in clear conceptual boxes -- particularly when we lack specific knowledge of the particulars, as is the case with Mali.  It will be easy, in the coming days, to put Mali into the "Afghanistan" box (bad) or the "Libya" box (good or bad depending on your partisan affiliation) or what have you.  Given that France and the West African countries are willing to shoulder the primary military burden of this engagement, however, it would seem that the U.S. could ramp up some humanitartian assistance for the affected areas.  That doesn't mean that hard questions should not be asked about the scope and purpose of the U.S. mission in the Sahel.  It does mean that those questions might have some surprising answers, however. 

What do you think? 

This week, there's been a rash of articles on the state of GOP foreign policy thinking, as well as some interesting and constructive responses to my Foreign Affairs essay on the same subject.  I will try to respond to some of these over the weekend -- but first I think it would be useful to talk more precisely about the claimed benefits of military power. 

One of the points I made in my essay was that Republicans need to take economic statecraft more seriously, but to be fair, this holds for the foreign policy community more generally.  The relationship between military power and economic influence is often talked about in general terms, with a lot of casual assertions getting tossed around.  But I think a lot of these assertions are wrong. 

For example, prominent American foreign policy commentators often trump the benefits of America's overseas military presence.  Danielle Pletka gets at this in her Foreign Policy essay when she says, "Americans have benefited tremendously from their involvement abroad," though she stays in generalities.  To talk specifically, how exactly does the U.S. gain economically from its outsized military footprint? 

Fortunately, we do have an attempt at an answer.  In the latest Foreign Affairs, Stephen Brooks, John Ikenberry, and William Wohlforth argue strongly in favor of "deep engagement."  They proffer a number of reasons why the U.S. benefits from current grand strategy -- but one of the more intriguing ones is that the U.S. receives direct economic benefits from its security arrangements: 

A global role also lets the United States structure the world economy in ways that serve its particular economic interests. During the Cold War, Washington used its overseas security commitments to get allies to embrace the economic policies it preferred -- convincing West Germany in the 1960s, for example, to take costly steps to support the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency. U.S. defense agreements work the same way today. For example, when negotiating the 2011 free-trade agreement with South Korea [KORUS], U.S. officials took advantage of Seoul's desire to use the agreement as a means of tightening its security relations with Washington. As one diplomat explained to us privately, "We asked for changes in labor and environment clauses, in auto clauses, and the Koreans took it all." Why? Because they feared a failed agreement would be "a setback to the political and security relationship."

Now, this gets specific!!  According to this paragraph, reliance on U.S. security means that Washington can obtain better economic terms.  Sounds great!! 

Except that I don't think it's true. 

With respect to West Germany, it's certainly true that Washington was able to get Berlin to accommodate to U.S. preferences -- but only for a few years.  The Bretton Woods system ended in 1971 because the Germans finally said "Nein!!" to U.S. inflation.  So the economic benefit wasn't that great. 

The South Korea case is more intriguing, because it's present-day and there's a real, live policymaker quote there.  If a U.S. administration official asserts that the security relationship mattered, then it mattered, right? 

Well.... no.  We need to compare KORUS with something equivalent to provide a frame of reference.  If security really mattered that much, then the Korea-United States free trade agreement should contain terms that are appreciably more favorable to the United States than those contained in, say, the Korea-European Union free trade agreement, which was negotiated at the same time.  This is a great test.  After all, the U.S. is the most important security partner for South Korea, whereas the only thing the European Union could offer to Seoul was its large market.  So if Brooks, Ikenberry and Wohlforth are correct, the U.S. should have bargained for much better terms than the E.U.  Right?

A Korean analysis of the two agreements, however, do not reveal that result: 

[T]he United States has more favorable treatment in meat and vegetable products and transportation, while the EU has better treatment in processed foods, chemicals, and machinery. The large difference in outcomes in animal and animal products between the KORUS FTA and the Korea-EU FTA can be ascribed to the the reflection of greater sensitivity of the Korean market in this sector in the Korea-EU FTA compared with the KORUS FTA. Therefore the EU received a less favorable tariff reduction schedule than the United States in this area. This is true in the areas of raw hides, skins, leather, and furs, and transportation.

We have the opposite case, however, in the foodstuff sector: the many differences in Korean tariff liberalization schedules in the U.S. and European FTAs could be a result of the reflection of the EU positions, which preferred earlier tariff eliminations on many items in the Korea-EU FTA. This is also true in the manufacturing sectors such as hemicals and allied industries, plastics and rubber, textiles, and machinery and electrical products.

In (slightly) plainer English, the U.S. got better terms on the export sectors it cared about more, and the E.U. got better terms on the export sectors it cared about more.  Both agreements are comprehensive in scope and contain roughly similar terms across most other sectors.  Indeed, both the Congressional Research Service and U.S. Trade Representative's office acknowledge the basic similaritry between the deals, as well as the areas where the Europeans did better.  So, in other words, America's ongoing security relationship with South Korea did not lead to any asymmetric economic gains. 

Now, this is not to say that there are no economic benefits to America's forward military presence.  There are other arguments out there, and they should also be evaluated.  My point here is simply to cast a skeptical eye on claims that America's overseas military presence pays for itself in the form of geopolitical favoritism.  Because I don't think that's true.   

Pop quiz:  which administration has been more enthusiastic about joining international treaties, George W. Bush or Barack Obama? 

The Obama administration has been slow to submit new treaties to the Senate, and only nine have been approved so far. In contrast, the George W. Bush administration secured Senate approval of 163 treaties over eight years. These included not only bilateral treaties but also multilateral agreements on many important subjects, including human rights, atmospheric and marine environmental protection, the laws of war and arms control.

That paragraph comes from John Bellinger III, Bush 43's former State Department legal adviser.  Now, one obvious pushback to this is that Obama has had to deal with a sovereigntist caucus in the Senate that is even more rabid than it was under Bush.  Bellinger acknowledges the obvious, but then goes on to argue that fault also lies with the Obama administration: 

 It isn’t enough to blame Republican opposition to international agreements, which certainly has risen among the party’s senators in recent years. That trend only makes it more important that President Obama work harder to gain Senate support for treaties in his second term....

President Obama must devote more energy to securing Senate approval for pending treaties, both by using the presidency’s bully pulpit to explain the benefits and by directing administration officials to pay more attention to the concerns of individual senators. Despite increasing Republican hostility toward treaties, the president should still be able to persuade between 12 and 15 pragmatic Republican senators to support treaties that give concrete rights to Americans and American businesses or that promote important American interests.

The president should begin with the Law of the Sea Convention, which enjoys strong support from all branches of the United States military and from the American business community. He almost certainly could have gained Senate approval of this important treaty during his first three years in office but inexplicably waited until the maelstrom of the 2012 election year to push for it.

Over at the Monkey Cage, Erik Voeten looks at the political science of this and concludes that Bellinger has a valid point.  The reason that Obama has been lethargic on treaties?  The opportunity cost of the effort: 

The idea that it is indeed hard work to pass treaties is supported by a recent working paper by Judith Kelley and Jon Pevehouse. Passing a treaty isn’t a simple matter of tallying the votes. The Senate’s agree and consent process takes away legislative time and political capital that could be used for other, perhaps more valuable, legislation. This opportunity cost theory yields some interesting and counterintuitive hypotheses. Presidents should become less likely to advance treaties when their approval ratings are high and when their party controls the Senate because that is the time when they can pass more valuable legislation on domestic issues. Kelley and Pevehouse find strong support for these patterns in their analysis with data from 1967-2008.

I suspect that Bellinger is correct that the Obama Administration could have persuaded a few Republicans to switch sides on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities if it had expended more time and capital on the treaty. This is not just about Republican opposition but also about priorities in the Obama Administration, which have, rightly or wrongly, been more on the domestic side.

One could argue that this logic also applies to Obama's cabinet selection process on foreign affairs.  With Susan Rice, Chuck Hagel and John Kerry, the White House strategy appears to be, "hey, let's float the name, see if anyone gets upset, and see if the nominee can push back effectively before bothering to actually nominate the person." 

Now from a pure logic of politics, this strategy makes some sense on some foreign policy matters.  As embarrassing as it was that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities did not get ratified by the Senate, it doesn't change much.  There is no effect on domestic law and the U.S. takes a marginal hit on the global stage.  Even on cabinet appointments, one could be truly bloodless and argue that Susan Rice's Value Over Replacement-Level Policy Principal wasn't that high.  The fiscal cliff negotiations matter a lot more. 

Still, politics is art as well as science, and there's something just a little bit chickens**t about the Obama White House's tactics.  Politics isn't only about winning -- sometimes it's just about making the effort.  And the truth of the matter is that when it comes to dealing with Congress, this administration hasn't made the effort.  By my recollection, during its entire first term, the only international relations piece of legislation that got the full court Obama White House press was the New START treaty with Russia.  Now given what was going on with the economy, one could argue that the administration had the right set of priorities.  But one way to help jumpstart the global economy would be a series of potentially significant foreign economic policy moves -- including the ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention, by the way.  And I'd feel safer about my bet with Phil Levy if I knew that the Obama administration was willing to get some skin in the game when it came to foreign policy and Congress. 

Letting peple like Susan Rice or Chuck Hagel twist in the political wind is, well, cruel.  So I hope that in its second term, the White House cares enough about foreign policy to actually engage Congress rather than throw up their hands and say, "crazy Republicans, what can you do?"  Actually, President Obama, you could do one whole hell of a lot if you made an effort. 

So, after yesterday, there appears to be a little more clarity about who's gonna be doing what on Barack Obama's second term foreign policy team.  If the latest reports can be trusted: 

1)  Susan Rice took herself out of the running for Secretary of State, but it looks like she'll be staying on as U.N. Ambassador, with a potential move to National Security Advisor at some point in the second term.

2)  John Kerry is now the frontrunner to be Secretary of State

3)  Chuck Hagel is now the frontrunner to be Secretary of Defense

4)  Tom Donilon is staying on as National Security Advisor

5)  CIA will go to either acting ditector Michael Morrell or deputy NSC advisor John Brennan.

My thoughts on these developments: 

A)  As someone with very little inside-the-Beltway knowledge, the Susan Rice denouement still raises more questions than it answers.  In particular:  i) Why was Benghazi such a big deal when she had zero operational authority and in no way lied when she appeared on the Sunday talk shows in September; ii) What the hell did she do to alienate Susan Collins (which appears to have been the pivotal moment)? iii) Why didn't the Obama White House offer up a full-throated defense of Rice or tell her to shut the hell up?  Why the squishy, tepid support? iv) What was it about Rice that prompted so much bipartisan backbiting? 

B)  The changing norms of the Senate suggest the disturbing possibility that the only cabinet nominees who can sail through are.... former Senators.  This is bad, bad, bad, bad, and bad for foreign policy.  Cabinet officers are administrators and managers.  Most senators haven't managed anything bigger than a legislative office.  This isn't to say that all of them will do a bad job... but cofidence is not high.  Narrowing the candidate pool like this harms the national interest.

C)  If Chuck Hagel gets the nomination, it's gonna be one hell of a test of the Israel Lobby thesis.  Eli Lake and Stephen Walt don't agree on much, but they do agree that Hagel is not really viewed as a friend of Israel... or at least Israeli uber-hawks.  Hagel's overall foreign policy expertise/competence isn't a question, and as a former GOP senator it's going to be tough to make this a partisan issue.  So... this is really an ideal test of the power of the so-called Israel Lobby.  If AIPAC et al either don't oppose the nomination or oppose it and lose, that's a data point against Walt and Mearsheimer.  If they oppose it and Hagel is withdrawn/goes down, it would be tough to deny that the power of AIPAC wasn't the crucial factor.  As a social scientist, let me just say... pass the popcorn. 

D)  Actually, come to think of it, there is one other group that would likely oppose a Hagel nomination.  Democratic policy defense wonks won't be thrilled with Hagel -- because it means one of their own won't get the job.  If Hagel gets the nomination, then three of the last four Secretaries of Defense under a Democratic administration will have been Republicans.  At a time when Democrats are acquiring a foreign policy/national security advantage over the GOP, this is not the best signal of party competency on defense matters.  That said, a Hagel nomination would also be evidence that the GOP has pretty much shed all of the realists from its foreign policy team. 

E)  Hey, remember when the Secretary of the Treasury and the U.S. Trade Representative were significant foreign policy positions?  Good times.  Foreign economic policy got the short end of the foreign policy stick during Obama's first term -- it would be peachy if that changed.  Wouldn't it be awesome if these positions got some nominees with political juice and the ability to move an ambitious foreign economic policy agenda through the system? 

What do you think? 

Every five years or so the National Intelligence Council releases a Global Trends report about what the world will look like a generation from today.  The Global Trends 2030 report is now out, and if my Twitter feed and Thom Shanker's New York Times story are any indication, well, there's gonna be some freaking out inside the Beltway: 

A new intelligence assessment of global trends projects that China will outstrip the United States as the leading economic power before 2030, but that America will remain an indispensable world leader, bolstered in part by an era of energy independence....

“There will not be any hegemonic power,” the 166-page report states. “Power will shift to networks and coalitions in a multipolar world.”

It warns that at least 15 countries are “at high risk of state failure” by 2030, among them Afghanistan and Pakistan, but also Somalia, Burundi, Rwanda, Yemen and Uganda.

The study acknowledges that the future “is malleable,” and lists important “game-changers” that will most influence the global scene to 2030: a crisis-prone world economy, shortcomings in governance, conflicts within states and between them, the impact of new technologies and whether the United States can “work with new partners to reinvent the international system.”

The best-case situation for global security to 2030, according to the study, would be a growing political partnership between the United States and China. But it could take a crisis to bring Washington and Beijing together — something like a nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan resolved only by bold cooperation between the United States and China.

The worst-case situation envisions a stalling of economic globalization that would preclude any advancement of financial well-being around the world. That would be a likely outcome following an outbreak of a health pandemic that, even if short-lived, would result in closed borders and economic isolationism.

The chief author and manager of the project, Mathew Burrows, who is counselor for the National Intelligence Council, said the findings had been presented in advance in more than 20 nations to groups of academic experts, business leaders and government officials, including local intelligence officers.

As one of those academic experts, let me say three things.  First, the NIC puts a lot of effort into these reports, and they're important because they're consumed globally and not just nationally.  Not a lot of other countries have either official or unofficial institutions trying to do this kind of long-range analysis, so they devour the NIC reports just as much as Americans. 

Second, as Michael Horowitz and Philip Tetlock pointed out in Foreign Policy just a few short months ago, these NIC reports are hardly a perfect crystal ball: 

The reports almost inevitably fall into the trap of treating the conventional wisdom of the present as the blueprint for the future 15 to 20 years down the road. Many things the early reports get right, such as the continued integration of Western Europe, were already unfolding in 1997. Similarly, predicting that "some states will fail to meet the basic requirements that bind citizens to their government" or that information technology will have a large impact on politics was hardly going out on a limb.

Looking carefully at the first two Global Trends reports reveals how the reports have struggled to make accurate non-obvious predictions of big-picture trends....

The reports also engage in extensive hedging. For every prediction, there is a caveat. The reports lean heavily on words such as "could," "possibly," and "maybe." The lead-in to Global Trends 2025 uses "could" nine times in two pages, and the report as a whole uses the word a whopping 220 times. The report also uses "maybe" 36 times.  Global Trends 2020 uses "could" 110 times. Add all of the caveats and conditionals, and a harsh critic might conclude that these reports are saying no more than that there is a possibility that something could happen at some point -- and it might have a big effect.

Third, that prediction of the end to U.S. hegmony will be an interesting litmus test of the maturity of America's foreign policy community.  Sure, other institutions have made this kind of prediction about rising Chinese power, but it's different when a U.S. government body does it.  Despite the wide variance contained within these kind of predictions, it's gonna be easy for threat-mongers to screech at the headline statements. 

Furthermore, whenever the topic of waning American hegemony comes up in public discourse... well, the conversation doesn't go well.  Admitting a relative decline in American power is not something American's political and policy elites like to do -- see 2012 campaign, Mitt Romney. 

So pay close attention to who freaks out and who doesn't from the NIC report, and feel free to discount the future statements of those who choose to freak out today. 

One of this blog's minor keys over the years has been the creeping militarization of U.S. foreign policy. I don't mean this in the "all the U.S. does is bomb! Bomb!! BOMB!!!" way.  Rather, as the bulk of the U.S. international affairs budget has shifted towards the defense department, so has the operational control of American foreign policy. This extends to cabinet-level appointments, as ex-generals wind up occupying too many foreign policy principal positions. 

Last week, I speculated that the Petraeus scandal might cause a reassessment of trust in the military. To my pleasant surprise, this appears to be happening, but in a targeted and focused manner. That is to say, what's being questioned is the behavior, ethics and massive perks of the military's top brass. 

At the same time, perhaps it's beginning to dawn on some foreign policy commentators that America's diplomatic corps has been undervalued. The Wikleaks cables, for example, revealed U.S. diplomats to be extremely acute in their assessments of foreign counterparts. The death of Ambassador Chris Stevens has regrettably highlighted the risks that the diplomatic corps faces in some of their postings. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made economic statecraft a priority during her tenure at Foggy Bottom. As her speech in Singapore a few days ago suggested, the ball is rolling on quite a few significant agreements -- a point that has been raised here recently. 

So this could be a moment when U.S. diplomats can wrest just a wee bit of influence back from the generals.  Which is great -- unless one reads this Robert Worth story from yesterday's New York Times Magazine: 

[Ambassador Chris Stevens'] death was treated as a scandal, and it set off a political storm that seems likely to tie the hands of American diplomats around the world for some time to come. Congressmen and Washington pundits accused the administration of concealing the dangers Americans face abroad and of failing Stevens by providing inadequate security. Threats had been ignored, the critics said, seemingly unaware that a background noise of threats is constant at embassies across the greater Middle East. The death of an ambassador would not be seen as the occasional price of a noble but risky profession; someone had to be blamed.

Lost in all this partisan wrangling was the fact that American diplomacy has already undergone vast changes in the past few decades and is now so heavily encumbered by fortresslike embassies, body armor and motorcades that it is almost unrecognizable. In 1985 there were about 150 security officers in U.S. embassies abroad, and now there are about 900. That does not include the military officers and advisers, whose presence in many embassies — especially in the Middle East — can change the atmosphere. Security has gone from a marginal concern to the very heart of American interactions with other countries.

The barriers are there for a reason: Stevens’s death attests to that, as do those of Americans in Beirut, Baghdad and other violent places. But the reaction to the attack in Benghazi crystallized a sense among many diplomats that risks are less acceptable in Washington than they once were, that the mantra of “security” will only grow louder. As a result, some of the country’s most distinguished former ambassadors are now asking anew what diplomacy can achieve at such a remove.

“No one has sat back to say, ‘What are our objectives?’ ” said Prudence Bushnell, who was ambassador to Kenya when the Qaeda bombing took place there in 1998, killing more than 200 people and injuring 4,000. “The model has become, we will go to dangerous places and transform them, and we will do it from secure fortresses. And it doesn’t work.”

If U.S. diplomats have to do the bulk of their work behind fortresses, then pretty soon there will be no difference between their worldview and those of the four-star generals. The more a foreign policy official lives in a protective bubble, the less nimble they will be with rapidly shifting circumstances on the ground. And if there is any lesson from 21st century diplomacy, it's that things shift on the ground really fast. 

In a world of real-time diplomacy, a fundamental truth has to be acknowledged in Washington:  being a foreign service officer carries risks with it. While, all else equal, those risks should be minimized, the U.S. needs to live with some degree of risk rather than sacrifice the ability of its diplomats to interact and engage with counterparts and locals in foreign countries. 

Rather than the simple mantra of "never again" when reacting to the death of Ambassador Stevens, the life and mission he desired should be valorized a bit more. Stevens knew that the best way to advance U.S. interests in Libya was to be on the ground. Doing that from embassies that resemble Orwell's Ministry of Truth is a difficult task. 

There is a tradeoff between protecting U.S. officials overseas and promoting their ability to advance the national interest. I fear the pendulum has swung way too far towards the protection side, and Stevens' death will only exacerbate that shift. The cruel irony is that Stevens, of all people, would have abhorred that shift. Better that we openly acknowledge the risk that foreign service officers face in overseas postings, recognize the bravery and loyalty that their service entails, and let them do their f***king jobs. 

Am I missing anything? 

Following last night's presidential debate on foreign policy, I'd like to offer three quick apologies: 

1)  To those readers playing my debate drinking game -- sorry, you got pretty hammered, didn't you?  Sorry about that -- I forgot that the one thing conservatives love about the United Nations is the 2002 Arab Human Development Report.  When Romney name-checked that, a lot of bottles had to be downed.

2)  To those readers who read my quick take in the New York Times on Mitt Romney's pivot to moderation during last night's debate -- there's one crucial word missing.  When I said, "Romney’s sotto voce message was that he would be a hot-headed, trigger-happy cowboy – like the Last Republican President Who Shall Not Be Named."  I meant to say "Romney’s sotto voce message was that he would not be a hot-headed, trigger-happy cowboy – like the Last Republican President Who Shall Not Be Named."

3)  Finally, to those readers who watched the whole debate -- I'm sorry, there wasn't much of a foreign policy debate, was there?  Both candidates pivoted towards the economy frequently.  When they stayed on foreign policy, Mitt Romney kept agreeing with Barack Obama.  I nearly spit out my drink when Romney said the Afghanistan surge had "worked."  Methinks he must have read this post from last month. 

So -- to repeat -- I'm sorry. 

Here endeth my apology tour. 

Your humble blogger enjoyed his time in Mexico City.  He particularly enjoyed last night's dinner, at which the most delicious margaritas he had ever consumed were served.  It is possible that he should not have enjoyed that last of his many margaritas, however, because he is now extremely cranky and waiting to board his flight back to the United States.

I bring up the crankiness because it's possible I'm overreeacting to the announcded format and topics for Monday night's foreign policy debate.  Politico's Mike Allen -- via Dylan Byers -- relays the following: 

[H]ere are the topics for the October 22 debate, not necessarily to be brought up in this order:

* America’s role in the world
* Our longest war – Afghanistan and Pakistan
* Red Lines – Israel and Iran
* The Changing Middle East and the New Face of Terrorism – I
* The Changing Middle East and the New Face of Terrorism – II
* The Rise of China and Tomorrow’s World...

The format calls for six 15-minute time segments, each of which will focus on one of the topics listed above. The moderator will open each segment with a question.  Each candidate will have two minutes to respond.  Following the candidates’ responses, the moderator will use the balance of the 15-minute segment to facilitate a discussion on the topic.

So two-thirds of the debate will be about the Greater Middle East.  Two-thirds.  Schieffer has generously allowed that China and Tomorrowland the entire Pacific Rim should get fifteen minutes.  Here are the following areas and topics that apparently won't be discussed: 

1)  The eurozone crisis

2)  Latin America

3)  Russia

4)  Africa

5)  Foreign economic policy

6)  India

7)  North Korea

Now I get that some of these topics won't come up in a foreign policy debate that lasts only 90 minutes.  But I'm also thinking that maybe, just maybe, it would be a better foreign policy debate if they actually talked about, you know, SOMETHING OTHER THAN THE MIDDLE EAST!!!!!!

I'm not saying the Middle East isn't important -- we have lost blood and treasure there, some of it very recently.  But I simply do not believe that the region is so important that it should occupy 66.7% of a foreign policy debate.  

That could just be the hangover talking.  But I seriously doubt it. 

Am I mising anything?  No, scratch that -- what else is Schieffer missing in his misbegotten list of foreign policy topics? 

Your humble blogger was all set to pivot from the U.S. presidential campaign to the state of the global economy when he stumbled across Tom Friedman's column this AM. The headline -- "It's Not Just About Us" -- was beguiling. It suggested the limits of U.S. influence in the region -- a suggestion that is not terribly popular with American foreign policy columnists. The bottom of the first paragraph -- following the de rigeur denunciation of Romney's latest foreign policy speech -- also makes this point:

The worst message we can send right now to Middle Easterners is that their future is all bound up in what we do. It is not. The Arab-Muslim world has rarely been more complicated and more in need of radical new approaches by us -- and them.

Okay, so what's our radical approach to a region with countries hostile to Israel, worried about Iran, and vulnerable to takeover by extremists? Friedman elaborates:

How does the U.S. impact a region with so many cross-cutting conflicts and agendas? We start by making clear that the new Arab governments are free to choose any path they desire, but we will only support those who agree that the countries that thrive today: 1) educate their people up to the most modern standards; 2) empower their women; 3) embrace religious pluralism; 4) have multiple parties, regular elections, and a free press; 5) maintain their treaty commitments; and 6) control their violent extremists with security forces governed by the rule of law. That’s what we think is “the answer,” and our race to the top will fund schools and programs that advance those principles. (To their credit, Romney wants to move in this direction and Obama’s Agency for International Development is already doing so.)

Three things. First, if you're recommending a policy that both presidential candidates are also advocating, then there's nothing new. Second, there's a strong whiff of "it's all about us" by the time the column comes to the end.

Oh, and third: Saudi Arabia. Think about it.

This last point raises an extremely important issue. We're going to have a foreign policy debate in less than two weeks, and based on the news cycle the Middle East is going to dominate it. So it would be good, when either candidate evinces broad, sweeping policy pronouncements on the region, to at least acknowledge the inconsistencies.

So... might I suggest to Bob Schieffer that when he moderates the foreign policy debate, he keep the follow-up questions listed below in case of emergencies?

1) You argue that we should aid conditionality and other measures to require democratization, liberalization, and the promotion of human rights in the Middle East. How exactly would this policy apply to Saudi Arabia, the other Gulf sheikhdoms (including Bahrain, home of the Fifth Fleet), and Israel's role in the occupied territories?

2) Is it possible for the United States to tie itself closer to Israel while still maintaining its popularity with newly empowered Arab populations? If so, how?

3) Why do you believe that economic sanctions will not work against Iran but that aid conditionality will work against newly-democratizing Arab regimes?

The conventional wisdom was that Mitt Romney thrashed Barack Obama last night, and I'm part of that conventional wisdom today.  In essence, Obama's biggest problem was that he perfectly portrayed Romney's version of Obama -- nice guy, but overmatched by the circumstances.  I mean, not as overmatched as Jim Lehrer, but still...

By design, foreign policy did not get mentioned all that much during this debate -- though Spaniards might differ.  There was Mitt Romney's riff about not wanting to borrow from China, which was pretty stupid.  There was Barack Obama's discussion of sending jobs overseas, which was really stupid.  I'm unfortunately used to this level of IPE stupidity in presidential debates, so let's just skip over that unpleasantness.  Also, regretfully, both candidates agree with these sentiments, so depressingly there's nothing to debate about. 

Still, looking at the transcript, there was one teaser of disagreements to come that seems pretty big to me -- the difference between the two major party candidates on defense spending.  It's not quite as good as other teaser trailers -- but it is interesting. 

Here was Obama on Romney's five-point plan, a point that he made repeatedly:

I would just say this to the American people. If you believe that we can cut taxes by $5 trillion and add $2 trillion in additional spending that the military is not asking for, $7 trillion -- just to give you a sense, over 10 years, that’s more than our entire defense budget -- and you think that by closing loopholes and deductions for the well-to-do, somehow you will not end up picking up the tab, then Governor Romney’s plan may work for you....

I think it’s important for us to develop new sources of energy here in America, that we change our tax code to make sure that we’re helping small businesses and companies that are investing here in the United States, that we take some of the money that we’re saving as we wind down two wars to rebuild America and that we reduce our deficit in a balanced way that allows us to make these critical investments (emphasis added).

Now, here's Romney on the same question:

We have a responsibility to protect the lives and liberties of our people, and that means a military second to none. I do not believe in cutting our military. I believe in maintaining the strength of America’s military....

The president’s reelected you’ll see dramatic cuts to our military. The secretary of defense has said these would be even devastating.

I will not cut our commitment to our military. I will keep America strong.

Now there was zero discussion of what President Obama thinks the right amount of military spending should be -- but it seems clear that it's much smaller than what Romney wants. 

I hope this question comes up in the next two debates, because it really is a significant difference between the two candidates.