". . . we cannot become involved in every problem we really care about."
Bill Clinton
It has now been a decade since the astounding events of 1989-1991: mass protest in Eastern Europe that was not met by Soviet tanks, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, Moscow's agreement to radical arms reduction treaties and the withdrawal of its troops from former satellites' soil, and finally the collapse of the Soviet Union itself. Events that none of us thought we would see in our lifetimes unfolded before our eyes and we found ourselves in a new world. It is a world without a peer competitor to the United States and without a hegemonic threat, a world that therefore offers a much broader range of choice for American national security strategy than we have been used to for most of this century.
For some time in the early 1990s we had trouble disenthralling ourselves from the dogmas of the past, to use Abraham Lincoln's formulation, trouble learning to think anew and act anew. Now we have become almost comfortable with our new situation, and yet, curiously, much about American strategy remains unchanged. We are still funding the usual range of policy tools (though at lower levels), still heavily engaged in world politics and economics from a position of leadership, still maintaining (even expanding) our Cold War alliance system, still containing states with whose policies we disagree. Perhaps we have decided that the world is not as new as it first appeared, or perhaps we have not yet disenthralled ourselves, not fully grasped the range of choice available, not really understood the magnitude of change the times demand.
If this course has been successful, it has given you a set of tools that will help you make the choices required of 21st century American statecraft in a systematic and rational fashion. This final Block of Course 5601 asks you to apply those tools to the future, to think ahead to what American national security strategy ought to look like during this transmillenial era. To help in that effort we will first look in Topic 15 at Bush and Clinton as Post-Cold War Presidents, since these are the only two administrations that have had to deal with the new era. Topic 16 then moves into the present to explore the range of Alternative Strategies for the Future that are now being discussed in the private foreign affairs community, a spectrum running from strategies of restraint and neo-isolationism through those proposing the complete commercialization of American statecraft to strategies advocating a muscular hegemony on the part of the world's last remaining superpower. Finally, the course closes in Topic 17 with a workshop in which you are asked to try Doing Strategy, to apply the strategic logic learned in this course to a contemporary problem in American statecraft. Here you will be asked to reason your way to a course of action that is based on a sure grasp of American interests, a clear view of the threats and opportunities emerging from the international and domestic environment, a sense of the relative and absolute power available to the United States, knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the various instruments of statecraft, and a sufficient grasp of the sweep of American strategy to maintain your overall priorities while setting achievable objectives for the issue at hand. It is, in short, just the sort of role you will likely find yourself playing in the future of American statecraft.
Block E Objectives
- Assess alternative approaches to current and future U.S. national security strategy.
- Determine what the shape of transmillennial U.S. national security strategy should be.
TOPIC 15: BUSH AND CLINTON AS POST-COLD WAR PRESIDENTS
"By God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all."
George Bush
"In this new era, our first foreign policy priority and our first domestic priority are one and the same: reviving our economy."
Bill Clinton
As we learned in Topic 13, George Kennan argued in the late 1940s that a patient and vigilant containment of the Soviet Union would, in time, lead to "the breakup or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power." When the Soviet Union did collapse in the late 1980s it rearranged the structure of international relations just as surely as had the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I. A new U.S. strategy was obviously needed, yet very little thinking had been done during the Cold War about what a post-Cold War strategy would encompass.
Faced with this situation, President George Bush and his senior advisers --all products of the Cold War-- found it difficult to conceive of a world without a Soviet Union to contain. Full of confidence and foreign policy experience, Bush skillfully utilized the instruments left over from the Cold War to manage the liberation of Eastern Europe and German reunification within NATO, and he masterfully wielded U.S. military and diplomatic power to roll back Iraqi aggression in the Gulf War. But many critics contended that this president lacked the vision to fill in the blanks of his "New World Order" and thus to give a sense of purpose to post-Cold War American statecraft. Within a year, the euphoria surrounding his success in the Gulf had vanished, and what many had confidently predicted would be a strong two-term presidency ended after four years. The reading by Michael Mandelbaum assigned below offers a basically positive portrait of Bush's stewardship, written as the Gulf Crisis was still in progress, while the after action report on the 1992 election by Tom Omestad tries to describe why this president's foreign policy successes did not carry him to victory.
If George Bush was forced to improvise a post-Cold War strategy after he came to office, Bill Clinton entered the White House fully aware that the Cold War had ended. Lacking foreign policy experience and emphasizing the domestic agenda to a degree unseen in American politics for almost sixty years, Clinton's priorities were in many ways a mirror image of his predecessor's. On the one hand, Clinton championed economic issues in ways unknown since the 1920s. In fact, to the extent that there was an integrating theme of Clinton's first term, it was surely that of economic welfare and security, seen in the president's stress on NAFTA, GATT, APEC, penetrating the Japanese domestic market, competitiveness, budget deficit reduction, support for the information highway, health care, welfare reform, and worker retraining. On the other hand, idealistic concerns (like human rights in China) and interventions for humanitarian reasons or democracy promotion (in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo) led the administration into uncharted and politically dangerous waters. At the same time, Clinton essentially continued his predecessor's approaches to the Middle East peace process, the twin containment of Iran and Iraq, engagement of China and support for Boris Yeltsin. In the readings below Tom Omestad treats Clinton's first term policy in his review of issues in the 1996 campaign, Larry Kaplan offers a critique of the commercial focus Clinton's statecraft displays, Secretary of State Albright describes the challenges the administration's foreign policy faces, and Bart Gellman describes how Clinton went to war in Kosovo, arguably his most fateful foreign policy decision. Finally, the last chapter of the Reilly booklet contrasts the views of the American public and their leaders on the Clinton presidency as they were captured at the end of 1998.
Topic Objectives
- Evaluate George Bush as our first post-Cold War president.
- Analyze the similarities and differences of Bush's and Clinton's approaches to the post-Cold War world.
- Assess the appropriateness of the Clinton administration's national security strategy for the future.
Questions for Discussion
- What was the Bush national security strategy? Did it have a coherent set of assumptions about the environment, a clear view of national interests and objectives, a realistic appreciation of available resources, and a rational plan linking resources and objectives? Or was the strategy a reactive one, responding to problems on an individual basis, as they arose, and independent of each other?
- What do you think President Bush meant by a "new world order"?
- In light of Bush's realist inclinations, were you surprised by his decision to intervene in Somalia? How do you explain it? Would he have done so if he had won the 1992 election?
- Will George Bush be remembered as America's last Cold War or first post-Cold War president?
- Can economic security form the basis for a U.S. national security strategy? Should U.S. business interests or human rights receive higher U.S. foreign policy priority?
- What criteria should be used to determine in what circumstances the United States should employ military force in the post-Cold War world? Do the Clinton interventions in Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo set a pattern American statecraft should follow in the next century?
- How would you evaluate Clinton's Russia and China policies? Do they relate at all to the theme of economic security? Is there a Russian or Chinese "threat" looming?
- How would you evaluate the Clinton policy towards Iraq? Is it the best one can expect given the restraints the United States faces, or are their alternatives that would likely be more successful?
Required Readings
* Michael Mandelbaum, "The Bush Foreign Policy," Foreign Affairs: America and the World 1990/91 70 (No. 1, 1991): 5-22. (Reprint)
* Thomas Omestad, "Why Bush Lost," Foreign Policy 89 (Winter 1992-93): 70-81. (Reprint)
* Thomas Omestad, "Foreign Policy and Campaign '96," Foreign Policy 105 (Winter 1996-97): 37-54. (Reprint)
* Lawrence F. Kaplan, "Dollar Diplomacy Returns," Commentary 105 (February 1998): 52-54. (Reprint)
* Madeleine K. Albright, "The Testing of American Foreign Policy," Foreign Affairs 77 (November-December 1998): 50-64. (Reprint)
* Barton Gellman, "The Path to Crisis: How the United States and Its Allies Went to War," Washington Post (April 18, 1999): A1, A30-31. (Reprint)
* John E. Reilly, ed., Chapter 6, "Measuring Success," in American Public Opinion and U.S. Foreign Policy 1999 (Chicago, IL: Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, 1999), pp. 35-40. (Student Issue)
Supplemental Readings
* Michael R. Beschloss and Strobe Talbott, At the Highest Levels: The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War. Boston: Little, Brown, 1993.
* Sidney Blumenthal, Pledging Allegiance: The Last Campaign of the Cold War. New York: HarperCollins, 1990.
* Douglas Brinkley, "Democratic Enlargement: The Clinton Doctrine," Foreign Policy 106 (Spring 1997): 111-127.
* David P. Calleo, "A New Era of Overstretch? American Policy in Europe and Asia," World Policy Journal (Spring 1988): 11-25.
* Terry L. Deibel, "Bush Foreign Policy: Mastery and Inaction," Foreign Policy 84 (Fall 1991): 3-23.
* Carolyn McGiffert Ekedahl and Melvin A. Goodman, The Wars of Eduard Shevardnadze. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.
* Richard Haass, "Fatal Distraction: Bill Clinton's Foreign Policy," Foreign Policy 108 (Fall 1997): 112-122.
* Richard A. Melanson, American Foreign Policy Since the Vietnam War. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996.
* Stanley A. Renshon, ed., The Clinton Presidency: Campaigning, Governing, and the Psychology of Leadership. Boulder: Westview Press, 1995.
* Frank Smyth, "A New Game: The Clinton Administration on Africa," World Policy Journal 15 (Summer 1998): 82-92.
* Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, "A Precarious Balance: Clinton and China," Current History 97 (September 1998): 243-249.
* Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, The Imperial Temptation: The New World Order and America's Purpose. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1992.
* Richard H. Ullman, "A Late Recovery," Foreign Policy 101 (Winter 1995-96): 75-80.
* Robert Worth, "Clinton's Warriors: The Interventionists," World Policy Journal (Spring 1998): 43-48.
TOPIC 16: ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES FOR THE FUTURE
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Where one thinks American national security strategy should go in the future is a question requiring the integration of one's of values, perceptions, judgment, and strategic vision. Few would disagree with the proposition that implementation of a successful strategy requires many years if not decades. The strategic realignment of China, the search for peace in the Middle East, the struggle to survive and win the Cold War-- all of the genuine successes of U.S. statecraft have been decades-long efforts of several presidents. And yet future administrations must remain free not only to reflect the changing temper of the electorate but also to evolve, to learn from their own strategic mistakes and those of their predecessors and to adapt to the changing strategic environment.
Never has the need for creative strategic thinking been more evident than now, in the transmillenial years, when few of the old assumptions seem viable. Domestically, the volatility and fragmentation which plagued public opinion since the Vietnam years seems over, but a consensus like that which sustained containment in its early years remains to be built. Internationally, while there presently seems to be no "clear and present danger" to American security, continuing ethnic conflicts, rogue states like North Korea and Iraq, the faltering of market reforms in Russia, the emergence of China as a great power, and a host of transnational issues have made the world an uncertain place at best.
The primary objective of this course has been to learn how to think strategically at the national level. We have analyzed the concepts and the relationships that come together in strategic logic, surveyed the instruments of statecraft, and learned how presidents and their colleagues dealt with the challenges of several different historical eras. In this topic we will explore and assess a range of alternative strategies that the United States might pursue as we move into the next century. First Barry Posen and Andrew Ross survey five model strategies that cover the spectrum of usual debate on the subject. Then Jeffrey Garten argues that the business of America should be business, while Joseph Joffe describes how the United States maintains its geopolitical supremacy, arguing that it should continue to do so. Finally, Eugene Golz and his colleagues offer a serious, well-reasoned argument for the opposite, a kind of neo-isolationist policy of restraint. Perhaps more than any other reading in the course, this one will test your capacity for dispassionate strategic analysis.
Topic Objectives
- Identify and critically evaluate the range of strategic alternatives available to the United States to address future national security challenges.
- Begin to formulate your own preferred national security strategy.
Questions for Discussion
- What are the principal issues or points that define the differences among the various foreign policy strategies that are a part of the contemporary debate? Do the proponents of particular strategies disagree over the appropriate ends of our foreign policy, the choice of means, or both?
- How do these various proposals differ from our current national security strategy? Which do you believe is fundamentally more sound? What aspects of our current national security strategy would you change?
- What should be America's foreign policy priorities over the next decade? What should be the primary thrust of future U.S. national security strategy: globalism, regionalism, or neo-isolationism?
- To what extent should U.S. foreign policy rest upon unilateral versus multilateral approaches to policy?
- Is there today any overriding threat to American national interests? Are there opportunities to advance American interests in the international arena that you believe are currently being neglected?
- How should our national security strategy address transnational dangers such as terrorism or environmental threats?
- How much "strategy" will the American public support? What are the domestic limits to engagement abroad?
Required Readings
* Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross, "Competing U.S. Grand Strategies," Chapter 5 in Robert J. Leiber, ed., Eagle Adrift (New York: Longman, 1997), pp. 100-134. (Reprint)
* Jeffrey E. Garten, "Business and Foreign Policy," Foreign Affairs 76 (May/June 1997): 67-79. (Reprint)
* Joseph Joffe, "How America Does It," Foreign Affairs 76 September/October 1997): 13-27. (Reprint)
* Eugene Gholz, Daryl G. Press, and Harvey M. Sapolsky, "Come Home, America: The Strategy of Restraint in the Face of Temptation," International Security 22 (Spring 1997): 5-48. (Reprint)
Supplemental Readings
* David M. Abshire, "U.S. Global Policy: Toward an Agile Strategy," Washington Quarterly 19 (Spring 1996): 41-61.
* Zbigniew Brzezinski, "A Geostrategy for Eurasia," Foreign Affairs 76 (September/October 1997): 50-64.
* Robert S. Chase, Emily B. Hill, and Paul Kennedy, "Pivotal States and U.S. Strategy," Foreign Affairs 75 (Jan-Feb 1996): 33-51.
* Terry L. Deibel, "Strategies Before Containment: Patterns for the Future," International Security 16 (Spring 1992): 79-108.
* Hugh De Santis, "Mutualism: An American Strategy for the Next Century," World Policy Journal 15 (Winter 1998-99): 41-52.
* Doug Larry Diamond, "Why the United States Must Remain Engaged," Orbis 40 (Summer 1996), pp. 405-13.
* Josef Joffe, "'Bismarck' or 'Britain'? Toward an American Grand Strategy after Bipolarity," International Security 19 (Spring 1995): 94-117.
* Robert Kagan, "The Benevolent Empire," Foreign Policy 111 (Summer 1998): 24-35.
* Zalmay Khalizad, "Losing the Moment? The United States After the Cold War," Washington Quarterly 18 (Spring 1995): 87-107.
* Charles Krauthammer, "The Unipolar Moment," Foreign Affairs: America and the World 1990/91 70 (1990-1991): 23-33.
* Charles A. Kupchan, "After Pax Americana: Benign Power, Regional Integration, and the Sources of a Stable Multipolarity," International Security 23 (Fall 1998): 40-79.
* Christopher Layne, "From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing: America's Future Grand Strategy," International Security 22 (Summer 1997): 86-124; "Rethinking American Grand Strategy: Hegemony or Balance of Power in the Twenty-First Century? World Policy Journal 15 (Summer 1998): 8-28.
* Michael Mastanduno, "Preserving the Unipolar Moment: Realist Theories and U.S. Grand Strategy After the Cold War," International Security 22 (Spring 1997): 49-88.
* Charles William Maynes, "Bottom-Up Foreign Policy," Foreign Policy 104 (Fall 1996): 35-53; "The Perils of (and for) an Imperial America," Foreign Policy 111 (Summer 1998): 36-48; "Squandering Triumph," Foreign Affairs 78 (January/February 1999): 15-22.
* Alexander Nacht, "U.S. Foreign Policy Strategies," The Washington Quarterly 18 (Summer 1995): 195-210.
* Bruce Russett and Allan C. Stam, "Courting Disaster: An Expanded NATO vs. Russia and China," Political Science Quarterly 113 (Fall 1998): 361-382.
* Mark Sheetz, Michael Mastanduno, "Debating the Unipolar Moment," International Security 22 (Winter 1997/98): 168-174.
* Garry Willis, "Bully of the Free World," Foreign Affairs 78 (March/April 1999): 50-59.
* Fareed Zakaria, "Our Hollow Hegemony," New York Times Magazine (November 1, 1998): 44-45, 47, 74, 80.
TOPIC 17: DOING STRATEGY: A WORKSHOP
" . . . it is happening with [affairs of state] Seminar as with those hectic fevers, as doctors say, which at their beginning are easy to cure but difficult to recognize, but in the course of time . . . become easy to recognize and difficult to cure."
Niccolo Machiavelli
Course 5601 is over, and this, in a sense, is the final exam. There are no new readings for this seminar except those you may be handed in class, and nothing to study other than the strategic logic that forms the basis for this course. A few days ago, in Topic 14, you had the opportunity to examine what one administration did in a past national security crisis and to apply strategic logic to its actions after the fact in an effort to explain its strategy. Our purpose today is to see whether, under the guidance of faculty leaders, seminars can do a strategic analysis of a problem in current American national security strategy. All seminars will not do the same problem, but each problem done will be assigned to several seminars so that we can compare the results. For this is a test for us, as well as you: to tell whether the substance of the course "took," and whether your understanding of how to think strategically has been well enough internalized to be operational.
As you examine the problem before you, think of the discussions you have had around the table in earlier seminars. Draw on the insight that may have popped into your head during a late-night reading period when you'd rather have been in bed. Think about what American national interests underlie the crisis, and look for the opportunities to advance those interests that circumstances may hide as well as for the seriousness of the threats. Assess the power of the United States to affect outcomes, and consider which instruments of state power will give us the most influence and what the costs and risks of using them will be. As you elaborate proposed courses of action, don't neglect the home environment, drawing on your sense of what the people and their representatives will support and how they can be led. And don't set objectives or mate instruments to them without carefully considering how your actions will fit with the other elements of American statecraft, how they will affect the rest of our national security strategy.
There are other crucial questions, of course, but by now you will be able to pose them to yourself. Good luck, and here's hoping your brain hurts.
Topic Objectives
- Learn what you learned in Course 5601.
- Discover whether it is useful for the analysis of a real-world problem in national security strategy.
 |
 |