The American Renaissance:
The Return of Realism in American Foreign Policy and Its Impact on the Global Alliance
September 2007
Ryan Henderson
rch0910@gmail.com
The ultimate
blunder of a policy-maker is to discredit or ignore the primacy of historical
precedent in the study and application of international relations theory.?While the uniqueness of a situation demands
an individual approach, on the whole “grand strategy?must and always should be
conducted within the context of former actions, events, and ultimately
results.?History has shown that
supra-national peace, even at the height of a great power, is only relative and
finite.?Even during the romanticized Pax Romana, the classic hegemon was
constantly engaged in wars in order to uphold and fortify its perceived
security.?Considering this period, the
famous historian Edward Gibbon once judged that if any man were to “fix the
period in the history of the world in which…the human race was most prosperous?
that he would “without hesitation?choose the climax of the long peace during
the reign of Marcus Aurelius.?However, in less than three centuries the
once majestic Rome,
ripe with corruption and turmoil, would be overwhelmingly consumed by the
inferior “barbarian?tribes from the north.?
Unfortunately, the structural limitations existent within the Roman
socio-political system over-encumbered the empire and doomed it to an
inevitable collapse.?Rome simply couldn’t adapt to the changing
world that it had so laboriously constructed.?
What it needed was a paradigm shift in its foreign policy, however, as
noted; it was unable because of foundational architectural flaws in its
government.?
The United States,
the modern world’s version of a global hegemon, is experiencing a similar
problem.?Historically, the American
government has been capable of dealing with structural shifts in the
international system, an issue that will be focused on later.?The real danger lies with the fact that the United States
is simply too small, economically and demographically, to retain its position
as the global hegemon.?The idea of a
marginalized America
is hard to accept to the present generation of political leaders.?Few would disagree that the 20th
century truly was the American century, however, despite its prowess; the US was
simply incapable of becoming a true global hegemon.?Due to internal constraints, it was unable to
fill the void opened after the collapse of the Soviet
Union.?In the wake of this
failure, the most alarming issue has been the nationalist efforts by
“non-integrated?states to retain and even hedge their own political
independence.?These states have chosen to ignore pressure
from the West to adapt and alter their modes of administration towards a more
liberal, western ideal.?Unfortunately,
the West, in particular its leader the United States, has been unable or
unwilling to apply force behind its demands.?
That option is quickly becoming unapproachable.?International economic interdependence has
significantly raised the cost of any action.?
Furthermore, the quagmire in Iraq
has eroded, and nearly destroyed, the capability of the United States
to act in a forceful manner in other regions.?
In essence, the West is suffering from over-expansion
and democracy will be the first victim.
If the United States
wishes to maintain its primacy in the international community then it must
accept its limitations and pursue a new form of foreign policy.?What this entails is a paradigm shift in the
perception of America’s
geopolitical position.?It must accept that
it is not, nor is it capable of becoming the global hegemon that the
neoconservative movement believes possible.?
Furthermore, it must alter its foreign policy towards a more realist
approach.?The belief in American
Exceptionalism can no longer serve as inspiration for political governance. While
the American people have always tended towards liberalism in there worldview,
i.e. the concept of Manifest Destiny; the US government historically executed
its foreign policy from a realist viewpoint.?In the wake of the transforming international
system, the United States
must return to its foundational mode of governance and realize its
limitations.?It is simply too small to
balance a power like China.?If constitutional liberalism is to survive,
then America must undertake these fundamental changes in order to form a Grand
Alliance with the realistic capability of balancing this emerging totalitarian
great power.
The
Awkward Peace
The end of the
Cold War signified an abrupt change in the normalcy of the international
system.?This bilateral arrangement had
lasted over 50 years and defined a generation of policymakers.?For the first time in history, two halves of
a separated world underwent a bizarre and unforeseen period of awkward
rapprochement.?While many heralded it a
triumph for Western-style liberalism, the decentralization of warfare
throughout the 1990’s revealed that an end to history was only skin-deep.?States of the former first world, with America
at its helm, enjoyed an unprecedented level of economic integration, social
mobilization, and relative peace and stability.?
However, this satisfaction was hardly universal.?While the West enjoyed the spoils of an
arduous victory, civil strife and gross human rights violations erupted in its
own backyard.?From a present perspective, the conflict in
the Balkans serves merely as a prelude to a subsequent decade marked by
mounting civilizational clashes.?
The idealism
emanating from the “peace dividend?of the early 1990’s led the US government
to pursue policies of absolute gain to the international community.?Unfortunately, this spirit allowed
non-democratic regimes to equate themselves with Western democracies in terms
of international trade.?The most evident
example is China’s
membership in the World Trade Organization.?In doing so, the West willingly eroded its
moral leverage over non-democratic regimes, in other words, a term especially
relevant to the Clinton Administration; it weakened its ability to use “soft
power?to coerce other nations.?More importantly, by accepting China as a
worthy and equal member of the international community, it surrendered it
ability to apply “hard power?pressure to force the totalitarian nation to
democratize.?Economic sanctions, high
tariffs, and trade restriction that could have been very effective in the
mid-1990s?are no longer feasible.?
Economic interdependence means that any negative impact on the Chinese
economy would have dreadful ripple effects for the economies of the endorsing
states as well.?
?As
China
continues to develop and emerge as a world leader, the influence of the West
and its values will further diminish.?Rather
shortly it will begin to lose its military advantage and be forced to cooperate
with the totalitarian capitalist regime as an equal and integral part of the
world.?Unlike communism, this form of
political economy has proven to be very adept at governance and modernization.?In fact, it is in this menace that
constitutional liberalism faces its gravest threat.?The liberal approach has failed to guarantee the
democratization of China,
a change is needed.
The
Case for Realism
While history is
filled with optimistic anecdotes proclaiming residual peace, the tragedy of September 11 demonstrated that harmony
is in actuality highly relative and conclusively finite.?The fall of the Soviet Union was supposed to
indicate the emergence of a “new world order? much akin to the mission of the
United Nations to “save succeeding
generation from the scourge of war?a style='mso-footnote-id:ftn10'
href="#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" title="">,
itself an idea reminiscent of the failed League of Nations after the First
World War.?The concept of a statutory
peace between states dates back at least to the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Nevertheless, this principle has on no account
been realized and in today’s “flattening world? the time period for relative
peace seems to be diminishing.?Remember that while it took Europe
roughly two decades to attempt a “second suicide? the two great victors of
World War II were at each other’s throats before the close of the decade.
The presupposed
peace following the Soviet dissolution was abruptly spoiled by an immediate
military invasion in the same year (Gulf War I), a major terrorist incident two
years later (World Trade Center
I), and a series of humanitarian actions both in Africa and Europe throughout
the remainder of the decade (Somalia,
Balkans). Whereas
the militancy of the 1990’s supersedes prior proportions, it pales in
comparison to the belligerence of the new millennium, in which the U.S. has
conducted both a multilateral and unilateral invasion of two nations in
response to 9/11.?War is an inevitable
aspect of interstate interaction, even in a state representative of Kant’s Tripod of Peace.
History has shown that despite the public optimism, a resolute peace has never
been achieved, and that the survival of a state can never be fully
guaranteed. For that reason, the most
rational and consistent approach a policy maker can follow is from a realist
perspective.
Superficially,
the world of the 21st century is remarkably different than the one
that Thucydides observed in ancient Greece.?He could not have foreseen nor in any manner
predicted the technological advancements that allow for transcontinental travel
and communication.?Nor could he have
envisioned the rise of multi-national corporations and international
non-governmental organizations that have brought together a seemingly unbounded
world.?However, despite all the glamour
of these new actors and advancement, the philosopher would likely remark that
the fundamental structure of the world has changed little in the proceeding
millennia.
The past century
proved to be the “bloodiest era in history?with somewhere between ?67 million
and 188 million people?killed as a result of controlled hostility.?The most problematic factor is that these
atrocities still occurred in spite of an abundance of historical precedents,
advanced technologies which eased the human condition, and the existence of
peaceful international organizations. A substantial fraction of this devastation
can be attributed to supposed “peaceful?and “modernized?nations which have
practiced a duplicitous approach towards foreign policy.
These figures demonstrate that despite the perceived complexity of
international relations, the foundational elements of realism remain valid and
functional even in today’s multifaceted world.?
The precise reason why realism has persisted as the dominant and most
applicable form of international theory is because it continues to be
exceptionally relative in long term analysis.?
In other words, realism best explains the ultimate outcome of interstate
interaction.
America’s Realist Foundations
Throughout its
history, the United States
has exhibited a seemingly prescient ability to advance and maintain its own
interests without encumbering or jeopardizing its global status.?Almost
intuitively, and with apparent ease, it has persuaded others to fight its wars,
adopt its methods, and follow its lead.?
The foundations of this talent are rooted in America’s own colonial
mindset.?Over a century before it
emerged as the principal power, a juvenile US was already quite adept at realpolitik.?By playing the European powers off each
other, a young America
was freed from its colonial bondage, and then allowed to expand well beyond its
formal boundaries.?Experience under the
yoke of English rule had taught young patriots that “real
independence…{required a disconnection} from all European interest and European
politics??Early on, America had learned that the art of
balancing could ease the burden of national sovereignty.
In this same
period, the United States
was ruthlessly educated in the principle of humility.?Young and naive, it made a terrible
miscalculation that nearly smothered its growth and returned it to a state of
vassalage.?Its leaders, for the sake of
“reputation? ignorantly led their constituents “stumbling into an
unnecessary…badly managed war??Only by
the sheer ambition of a Corsican was America saved from being “little
more than a grimy republican thumbprint?span class=MsoFootnoteReference> .?The failures of this campaign have become
such an anathema that one of the most important dates in our history, August
24, 1814, passes each year with little remembrance.?It was on this fateful day that British
forces “marched into the newly established city of Washington, having routed its ragged
defenders, and proceeded to burn the Capitol and the White House.?a
style='mso-footnote-id:ftn21' href="#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21" title="">?So significant was this event that it
irrevocably changed the course of American destiny.?As Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis points
out, this occasion set a “pattern…that has persisted ever since: that for the
United States, safety comes from enlarging, rather than from contracting, its
sphere of responsibilities?a style='mso-footnote-id:ftn22' href="#_ftn22"
name="_ftnref22" title="">?In an instant, it taught the United States
the humility of foreign policy, that arrogance and ignorance could only lead to
failure and peace was always a better alternative to war.
A
New Approach
The realist approach
provides policy makers with a historical advantage in international relations
that when and if applied can and will
greatly benefit the state. ?/span>The liberal consensus
that has contaminated the American foreign
policy establishment is a recent phenomenon and
hopefully a brief one.?In order for the United States and the West
to secure its future it must institute a new approach towards international
relations, one based upon pragmatic interpretations on
global events. ?/span>Above all it is an
absolute necessity
that America
and Europe bind together,
improve relations, and
restore the cooperative
efforts that succeeded in defeating the authoritarian version of communism. ?/span>This approach begins in America, which
must accept that its global power is limited.?The quagmire in Iraq,
failures in Afghanistan,
disdainful global support and the emergence
of a rising China
have all succeeded in balancing American
arrogance.?The problem
of the 1990’s was that the United
States viewed itself and its institutions as
grand, capable instruments for global change.?
It became policy to institute a “new world order? a
modern version of a Kant’s
?/ins>democratic peace?/ins>.?Such foolhardiness has since caused millions
of deaths in Africa, Asia, and even Europe.?
The U.S.
should be mindful of the great successes it has achieved not as an independent
nation, but as the foremost member of a cooperative regime.?The task ahead is daunting and will require
the finest of statesman.?It will demand
a disproportionate amount of time, effort, and sacrifice upon the world’s preeminent
nation.?In its short history the
United States
has displayed an unequivocal willingness to better
the world and in return, the world has turned to it for leadership.?America is a land of idealist, it
always has been, and always will be.?If
it wishes to remain the preeminent power, then it must remember its lessons
that it learned in its youth: that all power is finite, unruly and must be
balanced and that a humble foreign policy will always lead to greater riches
than a pompous one.?Perhaps with the
advantage of historical precedents, we as Americans can avoid the same haughty
idealism that ultimately eroded the Pax
Romana and ended the “most prosperous?era of humanity.
List of Works
Cited
Barnett,
Thomas P.M. 2004. The Pentagon’s New Map. New York:
Berkley Books,
Ferguson, Niall. 2004. Colossus: The Rise and Fall of
the American Empire. New York:
Penguin Books
Ferguson, Niall. 2006. The War of the World: Twentieth
Century Conflcit and the Descent of the West. New York: Penguin Books
Friedman, Thomas L. 2005. The World is Flat: A
Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
Gaddis, John Lewis. 2004. Surprise, Security,
and the American Experience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Gaddis, John Lewis. 2005. The Cold War. New York: Penguin Press.
Gat,
Azar. 2007 The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers. New York: Foreign
Affairs
Pelanda,
Carlo. 2007. The Grand Alliance. Milan: FrancoAngeli
Halberstam,
David. 2001. War in a Time of Peace. New York: Scribner
Johnson, Chalmers. 2004. The Sorrows of Empire.
New York:
Metropolitan Books
Nye,
Joseph S. Jr., 2004. Soft Power. New
York: Public Affairs,
Walt, Stephen M. 2005. Taming American Power.New York: W.N. Norton and Company
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