GET REAL...The real story is simpler: the Bush doctrine has collapsed, and the administration has consequently embraced realism, American foreign policy's perennial hangover cure.
kathleen
years all three pillars of the supposedly revolutionary Bush doctrine -
pre-emption, regime change, and a clear division between those "with
us" and "against us"- came crashing down."
============================
The New York Times
August 18, 2005
Get Real
By GIDEON ROSE
SEVEN months into George W. Bush's second term, it is clear that
whatever his expansive second Inaugural Address may have promised,
American foreign policy has taken a decidedly pragmatic turn. In
practice, the Bush administration has recently begun to pursue
interests rather than ideals and conciliation rather than
confrontation.
First-term foreign policy hardliners like John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz,
and Douglas Feith have moved to jobs outside of Washington or left the
administration entirely. The State Department has regained the ear of
the White House and won support for repairing relations with Europe and
negotiating with Iran and North Korea. And the Pentagon, overextended
and trapped in a grueling counterinsurgency, has taken to rehashing
Kerry campaign rhetoric about the limited utility of military force,
lowered its expectations in Iraq and sent up trial balloons about
withdrawal. The only people not to have gotten the memorandum, it
seems, are the president and vice president, who feebly insist that the
"war on terror" remains a useful concept and that everything in Iraq is
going just fine.
What explains the shift? Administration supporters either deny it has
occurred or argue that it constitutes only a slight change in tactics,
appropriate to a world already improved by the administration's earlier
pugnacity. Journalists and administration critics, meanwhile, generally
attribute it to haphazard changes in politics or personnel, such as
declining poll numbers or the brilliant performance of Condoleezza Rice
as Secretary of State.
The real story is simpler: the Bush doctrine has collapsed, and the
administration has consequently embraced realism, American foreign
policy's perennial hangover cure.
For more than half a century, overenthusiastic idealists of one variety
or another have gotten themselves and the country into trouble abroad
and had to be bailed out by prudent successors brought in to clean up
the mess. When the crisis passes, however, the realists' message about
the need to act carefully in a fallen world ends up clashing with
Americans' loftier impulses. The result is a tedious cycle that plays
itself out again and again.
By 1952, the Truman administration had gotten the nation trapped in a
seemingly endless conflict in a strange place halfway around the globe.
Dwight Eisenhower, who rode to the White House on a platform of cutting
the country's losses, worked to balance budgets, end the Korean War and
keep out of further military trouble. His realism worked as policy, but
it did not offer the rhetorical and ideological red meat the American
public craves. That left Vice President Richard Nixon open to his
opponent's charges, in the 1960 election, that the administration had
displayed cramped vision and a lack of vigor.
The victorious John F. Kennedy and his successor Lyndon Johnson set
about paying any price and bearing any burden for their ideals. Eight
years later, confronted with another endless war, Americans decided it
was time for some old-fashioned realism again.
As president, Nixon inherited not only the mess in Vietnam but also
hostile relationships with two major nuclear-armed powers. Trying to
bring American resources and commitments into balance with each other
and with the global realities of power, he and Henry Kissinger, his
consigliere, extricated the United States from Vietnam, forged a new
relationship with the Soviet Union and started a rapprochement with
China.
For this among other things, they were vilified as cold-blooded amoral
schemers out of touch with American principles and values, and were
promptly succeeded by a left-wing idealist (Jimmy Carter) and then a
right-wing one (Ronald Reagan). Both regimes denounced Nixon and
Kissinger's realism, dedicated themselves to moralism in foreign policy
and had more than their share of foreign policy failures. (Reagan got
lucky in the end, but was able to capitalize on the luck only by
embracing Mikhail Gorbachev against the advice of his own more
ideological aides.)
George H. W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft then offered an updated and
nonpathological version of the Nixon-Kissinger approach and presided
over the end of the Cold War, the reunification of Germany, the
peaceful collapse of the Soviet Union, and the reversal of the
occupation of Kuwait. Their reward? To be hounded from office after one
term and derided as cold-blooded amoralists. They, too, were succeeded
by a left-wing idealist (Bill Clinton) and then a right-wing one
(George W. Bush), who once again loudly dedicated themselves to
moralism in foreign policy and had more than their share of failures.
Mr. Clinton came to office decrying his predecessor's callous aloofness
from Balkan conflicts and his coddling of "the butchers of Beijing." He
was quickly forced to change his tune and spent much of his two terms
marking time while dithering over just how American power could and
should be used abroad.
The younger Mr. Bush talked a realist game on the campaign trail but
morphed into the grandest of all visionaries after the attacks of Sept.
11. Following a quick success in Afghanistan, however, over the next
few years all three pillars of the supposedly revolutionary Bush
doctrine - pre-emption, regime change, and a clear division between
those "with us" and "against us"- came crashing down.
What the administration meant by pre-emption was really preventive war,
a concept whose poor reputation has been reinforced by the failure to
find unconventional weapons in Iraq together with the costly and
bungled occupation. Regime change was based on the idea that problems
abroad stem from the nature of certain foreign governments and can be
fully solved only by replacing them with better ones. Today, as during
the Cold War, it remains a worthwhile goal unmatched by a practical
strategy for achieving it. And as for dividing the world between
friends and foes, the Bush team-like all its predecessors-has found
itself stuck dealing primarily with inconvenient cases in the middle,
from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to China and France.
Seen in proper perspective, in other words, the Bush administration's
signature efforts represent not some durable, world-historical shift in
America's approach to foreign policy but merely one more failed
idealistic attempt to escape the difficult trade-offs and unpleasant
compromises that international politics inevitably demand - even from
the strongest power since Rome. Just as they have so many times before,
the realists have come in after an election to offer some adult
supervision and tidy up the joint. This time it's simply happened under
the nose of a victorious incumbent rather than his opponent (which may
account for the failure to change the rhetoric along with the policy).
BEING fully American rather than devotees of classic European
realpolitik, the realists-today represented most prominently by Ms.
Rice and her team at the State Department-offer not different goals but
a calmer and more measured path toward the same ones. They still
believe in American power and the global spread of liberal democratic
capitalism. But they seek legitimate authority rather than mere
material dominance, favor cost-benefit analyses rather than ideological
litmus tests, and prize good results over good intentions.
So what can we expect next? A spell of calm without dramatic visionary
campaigns or new wars, along with an effort to gradually wind down the
current conflict while leaving Iraq reasonably stable but hardly a
liberal democracy. This is likely to play well - until domestic carping
over the realists' supposedly limited vision starts the wheel of
American foreign policy turning once again.
Gideon Rose is the managing editor of Foreign Affairs.
* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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stupendo...@yahoo.com
kathleen wrote:
> "Following a quick success in Afghanistan, however, over the next few
> years all three pillars of the supposedly revolutionary Bush doctrine -
> pre-emption, regime change, and a clear division between those "with
> us" and "against us"- came crashing down."
lol
Talk about rewriting history!
I love the part about how President Reagan "got lucky".
The current talk about Bush's policies remind me of the leftist claims
that Reagan's policies were all failures in 1986. No, saying something
over and over again doesn't make it magically come true!
Stupendous Man
http://www.presidentreagan.info/ <-- President Reagan Information Page
http://www.presidentreagan.info/discussion/ <-- Reality Hammer blog
kathleen
We can discuss these matters more
clearly 10 years from now, if we
survive the nuclear winter, which
meant we survived the blasts.
I am sure this will be a healthy conversation.
We can say,
"Oh, Wasn't George W. Bush *so* *right*
to piss off China, India, Iran, Russia, and all
of Asia and Europe because look how much funner
life is. I really enjoy having to kill my neighbor
for a stick of wood so I can be warm one more night.
'Glad to leave the past behind. All that technology
and creature comfort. What a bore.
And good thing your kids finally died off, huh? They
were such a drag to have around, with all of their
radiation burns and related complaints.
This really was an efficient way to deal with
the energy crisis. Just blow everything up.
Bush was *SO* *RIGHT* ABOUT THOSE TERRORISTS!!!!
And *another* thing, We don't have to read the
so-called wisdom from all these hoity-toity pundits.
Who *needs* em....
Yep, good thing them liberal-faggot days are over.
THEY wanted to treat the world's problems with
their faggotty words of *diplomacy.*
Heh.
Yep.
Them days are over.
The one good thing you kin say about them days
was the satellite pictures of when Russia nuked
Saudi Arabia. Pretty cool. BOOOM!!!! and then
them earthquakes and the fires that went on for
two years. That was great. Well worth electing
a war president."