That’s by Matt Yglesias (son of Rafael Yglesias) and the subtitle is How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats. Anyone who reads books on foreign policy should buy this book. Most of all it is a critique of recent practice and a defense of liberal internationalism. He calls for negotiating with Iran, not digging in deeper in Iraq, and more generally accepting multilateral frameworks for the use of American military power. I agree with the policy recommendations though I would package them differently. I view liberal internationalism as a kind of noble lie which will in any case be superseded by American exceptionalism, most of all because of differing European and American experiences in WWII and differing degrees of religiosity. Rightly or wrongly, Americans are more likely to see menaces abroad and of course America is the only country that can even try to do much about them. Of course we’ve shown we’re not up to the job, noting that Afghanistan (a just war, I might add, and do note it commanded international support for a while but that turned out not to matter) is probably going even worse than Iraq by standards of long-run viability. If our interventions are counterproductive then constraints on those interventions are beneficial and in that regard we can embrace internationalism for practical reasons.
But I can’t have a high opinion of internationalism per se, perhaps because I’ve spent too much time actually working in multilateral institutions. The incentive is to negotiate at the margin, and eke out a somewhat better deal for one’s nation and carry victories to diplomatic superiors back home, rather than to actually solve the international problem in cooperative fashion. If there is any good solution to be had, the large number of negotiating parties usually requires America to play von Stackelberg leader (remember Yugoslavia?), noting that our ability to do this has broken down for reasons that go beyond the failures of Bush. The EU now precommits to a greater role in global decisions and many more countries are wealthy and have global interests. Media spin means that no one wants to take too many sacrifices. I think once a Democrat assumes the Presidency it will become clear just how much the old order has broken down, probably forever. European diplomats were cynical in the first place and don’t forget that the Security Council still has two members whose influence is more or less pure poison. I can’t imagine what liberal internationalism means, for instance, when it comes to allocating the thawing bits of the Arctic and the associated oil wealth. What will happen if/when the Russians simply try to grab more than international conventions allow them?
Note, by the way, that Saddam and Chirac really were gift-giving friends; that’s not just a right-wing fantasy. At some level American voters understand much of this, albeit in excessively provincial terms, and they simply won’t, in the electoral sense, allow the Democrats to inhabit the old space of internationalism.
In game-theoretic terms I would say the key question is what is the "threat point" America adopts when it offers to join international coalitions. Whatever Matt’s answer might be (his book is not written in that sort of lingo) that is now the key question, noting that whatever threat point you specify you have to be willing to live with. One paradox is that the more internationalist your default threat point is, the less effective a country actually will be in leading an international coalition.
In short, I’m all for talk of liberal internationalism as long as we don’t take it too seriously on its own terms. My prediction is that, doctrinally, Matt will eventually end up somewhere else, even though his practical advice is very sound and very well articulated and doesn’t much need to be changed. I hereby sentence him to one full month spent working at the United Nations.
When John Bolton – a noted derider of the UN – is your *rep* to the UN, doesn’t that signal your unwillingness to work with others?
Rather than dismissing internationalism out of hand, we should be focusing on better strategies and coalition building. In case you haven’t noticed, America’s standing in the world ain’t what it used to be.
I worry about who might come to our defense should that time ever come.
Brittney Spears, Leonard?
Tyler,
Remember that you are in the USA, not Guantanamo Bay. The prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments applies.
More broadly, are not your categories a bit dated? Look at the way we negotiate as compared to ten years ago. We pay a good deal more respect to China, to India and even to Russia and the EU than we did then. American dominance of the world is just beginning to seep away, and no one 21st century power is likely to dominate in the way the USA has done. The prime US interest is in building up more of an international legal order to protect us in the threats and strains of a world which we cannot isolate ourselves from and cannot dominate. That is not classical liberal internationalism. For the foreseeable future, any workable and useful international legal order is likley to protect a good many repulsive things. But what matters to us is that it is likely to protect us.
I just wish that we had a better foundation to build on than the UN. Since we haven’t, we had better do what we can to stabilise and strengthen that foundation.
Tyler does raise an interesting comparison with Afghanistan and Iraq. Unilateral action in Iraq has been a debacle. But once we started sharing the burden in Iraq with the international community Afghanistan regressed and became a mess as well. Bottom line, it *IS* in the international community’s interest to castigate the US for overreaching, imperialism, etc., but it’s not in their interest to actually help with American endeavors they support.
Why should the US care about getting the international community’s support when all that comes with it is some half-assed support that can be pulled back at any point?
I do think the US needs to work with, rather than against the international current, but let’s not be idealistic about the UN and the IC; the US isn’t spurning the extended helping hand of the world. The world wants the US to provide public goods at the lowest cost possible to the rest of the world, and it wants to tell the US what public goods should come first.
The US needs to challenge these countries to give as much as they gab.
The world wants the US to provide public goods at the lowest cost possible to the rest of the world, and it wants to tell the US what public goods should come first. The US needs to challenge these countries to give as much as they gab.
How about instead we just stop providing these “public goods” (which has got to be the best euphemism yet for firing missiles from jets and shooting a billion rounds of ammo)? Wouldn’t that be a lot easier? Maybe the “international community” doesn’t feel particularly threatened by events in Afghanistan or Iraq – maybe NATO is only in Afghanistan at all because of U.S. pressure. Maybe it’s time we try something new – if Britain or France or Germany gets down on their hands and knees and begs us to fire some missiles somewhere, we think it over real hard and let them come up with the proper incentive. Otherwise, we keep our soldiers home and our hardware stowed away until a real enemy shows up.
IMO, the idea of benign military intervention is absurd on its face. If politicians really believed in all the things they claim to believe in, they’d at least try and get some sort of democratic approval for their actions. When was the last time they polled the people of a nation they were thinking about invading or sanctioning? They don’t of course, because they have no incentive to. They have all the power and all the guns. Foreigners can’t vote, so they don’t need nearly as much in the way of propaganda campaigns in order to initiate violence as they do with domestic policies.
“No taxation without representation” has a nice ring to it, but I think it takes a back seat to “no bombing and starving without representation”.
Of course I meant $750 billion trade deficit.
Grant: “No taxation without representation” has a nice ring to it, but I think it takes a back seat to “no bombing and starving without representation”.
That would be an improvement, but do you act when you have 51% approval? Two-thirds? What if the approval is all from one tribe or group (like, say Shias) and not from another (maybe Sunnis)? Much easier to just get out of that game altogether.
Now regarding the liberal options being proposed, I would say that Chamberlain, Daladier, and all the other wise man that let WW2 happen the way it did should have sealed the debate. But apparently people don’t really know their history.
Ah channeling Krathhammer and Bill O’Reilly, not a great strategy if you want to be convincing. In the wake of the bloodbath of WWI it was absolutely rational to try to avoid war. Of course all the wars and other horrors of history that were avoided can’t be cited to make a case for moderation since they did not occur! The case for Munich is made all the stronger by the horror of the 5 years that followed. It would take a perverse mind to argue that trying to avoid the destruction of Europe and the death on millions was irrational or that delaying the conflict by months marginally increased the lethalness and destructiveness of the conflict to the point where that added destruction outweighed the slaughter that could be safely predicted at Munich. Lay the blame where it belongs, on Hitler, not Chamberlain.
Meter,
Ah, so you don’t want us to get involved at all. South Korea is a dump compared to the North right? Another revolutionary idea that worked beautifully in WW2.
Leonard,
Don’t get me wrong: the biggest problem in Europe was Hitler. Chamberlain and his comrades were just part of the problem, but an important part for that matter. Had they been more aggressive (especially after Anschluss) we could have had a much less bloody conflict. This is not a speculation about time as much as pure common sense when talking about military strategy and momentum.
It is true that some conflicts can be avoided with diplomacy and you can’t really say that the US doesn’t try this tactic currently. We could have been using more of those little nuclear devices around North Korea and Iran, but so far we haven’t.
And if you want to be minimally honest about Iraq, you can also say that the main problem there was Saddam and not the US. After all, if he really wanted to he could have avoided the war.
You’re missing the point if you think the only public goods the US has provided is military intervention. In addition, personally I would like to see the US military more in places like the Sudan and less in Iraq, but of course, African genocides will never prompt our dear international friends to provide the “proper incentive” for us to intervene. Is that just? Not judging from my western morality. Is that smart? I would argue no, as I think it is in the developed world’s long-term interest to stabilize failed states… but, of course, the international community will not provide the “proper incentive” to provide significant aid (not necessarily military intervention, could be providing expertise and resources to progressive regional actors).
But Europe and the rest of the developed world isn’t really concerned with those poor people who are dying all over the world, even in American conflict zones. Let’s be real; these countries are more afraid of immigration than Americans and oppress anyone who dares to live in their country who looks or worships differently (here’s looking at you Germany, France….)
Let’s be realistic here. I don’t think the US is perfect, and it certainly needs to do a 180 from the past seven years; but the international community is a mess, and there’s no reason to trust it’s judgment.
“But Europe and the rest of the developed world isn’t really concerned with those poor people who are dying all over the world, even in American conflict zones. Let’s be real; these countries are more afraid of immigration than Americans and oppress anyone who dares to live in their country who looks or worships differently (here’s looking at you Germany, France….)
Let’s be realistic here. I don’t think the US is perfect, and it certainly needs to do a 180 from the past seven years; but the international community is a mess, and there’s no reason to trust it’s judgment.”
I would agree with all of that. So let’s change the landscape.
Step one is governmental leadership which will resist the urge to stick America’s unilateral nose in everyone else’s business and which will at least give the appearance of an interest in international coalition-building.
The best defense is a good defense.
Tyler,
This post sounds very interesting, so perhaps someday you will translate it for us into something approaching English?
For example,
- “requires America to play von Stackelberg leader”
- “Note, by the way, that Saddam and Chirac really were gift-giving friends”
- “threat point”
If you are not up to explaining this jargon to the uninitiated, can you at least provide links to webpages giving some hint of what these terms mean?
Steve, “von Stackelgerg leader” is helpfully explained by this Wikipedia entry: There are some further constraints upon the sustaining of a Stackelberg equilibrium. The leader must know ex ante that the follower observes his action. The follower must have no means of committing to a future non-Stackelberg follower action and the leader must know this…in a Stackelberg game one player moves before the other player, which can provide either a first-mover advantage or a first-mover disadvantage, depending on the specific assumptions that are made in the game.
I think the game they’re talking about is golf. When I play golf, I usually force the other player into taking a “Stackelberg leader” role by consistently hitting behind him and losing holes. Note also that the other player knows I’m observing him, and the leader knows that there’s no chance I can commit to a non-Stackelberg follower action (i.e., outdrive him).
Publius, why should Germans be forced to share their country with Turks? Don’t Turks have their own country? Germans have willing to let Turks work for them (for their the mutual benefit of each of course), but when Germans find the benefits not so attractive, your saying they have no right to change their minds? Germans are forever bound to lifetime employment but to be granted the lifestyle of the average German citizen as opposed to one befitting the Turks actual productivity?
And yes I agree it would be nice if the French weren’t so pompous and “Che-celbrating”, but it is their country and they have the right to be as arrogant as they wish to be within their own borders. The “moors” within their borders happen to be rather underperforming (as moors tend to be), and hence undeserving of the lifestyle the productive Gauls have made for themselves. It’s too bad the French are so spineless that they can’t control the troublesome Arabs in their midst. Here in the U.S., I’m pretty sure we really wouldn’t put up with that crap too much. Can you imagine if Mexicans tried to pull of what the Africans did in France? Of course we’re lucky that Mexicans don’t go in for that sort of thing – not yet at least.
If you noticed, the context of my statement dealt with the fact the members of the international community have no moral ground to stand on themselves. They claim to be righteous and just denizens of mankind, but they are as bigoted and selfish as anyone.
I don’t understand what you’re saying here. I believe bigotry and selfishness are pervasive, and agree that members of the international community are phonies. But I don’t think that the international community has a problem with the U.S. as being bigoted and selfish – I think they just object to us being so aggressive.
One more time to get rid of the “rogue” italics. Sorry.
This review is almost self-caricature, reminiscent of this: http://stillangryblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/tyler-cowen-reviews-matter.html.
You really think Afghanistan shows how international support is irrelevant? I would say it is an example of:
1) What happens to your first project when you get distracted and decide to go chase other rainbows.
2) How you can lose international support when you subsequently decide to go invade a country because you’re too obsessed with your own dogma to review the actual facts.
Nice snipe at France (I’m always up for that), but what about the pictures of Rumsfeld with Saddam? In the real world of international relations, friends change daily, because “friend† rarely has any personal meaning. Except perhaps Bush and Putin†¦ yuck†¦
Angus, re: Afghanistan, bottom line whenever and where ever the US passed the baton to an ally, they subsequently saw major regressions.
But hey, if Afghanistan isn’t your cup of tea, you can see utter failure of international operations in the various peace-keeping blunders, where each country shows its back bone by seeking every avenue to keep it’s boys as far away from any possible sort of violence (“Don’t worry guys, we’ll cover the Monte Carlo sector, but if things worsen, we’re out of there. Oh, and we’re going to send 15% less soldiers. Oh, and they’re going to be the worst of our soldiers.”).
But not to get caught up in this sort of back-and-forth (and it is so easy)… My point is that there are worthy causes for military intervention and not-worthy causes. The US is more aggressive (though this comes and goes with the temperament of our executive), and more willing to intervene, period, be it right or wrong. The international community is less likely to intervene.
In my opinion, the problem of US military intervention has been the “where” (Iraq) and the “how” (early Iraq blunders), not the number of interventions. For each of the US’ “mistakes” I am sure I could find a country with lightly-armed genocidal gangs that could be disarmed by a limited enagement of peacekeepers with guns; oh yes, and a few hundred thousand lives might be saved.
So I would disagree with your (and the international community’s) assessment that the US is too aggressive. Worthy criticisms might be that the US hasn’t learned enough from it’s mistakes, doesn’t do enough due diligence with regards to prospective enemies, makes poor judgments, etc.
Why won’t the IC criticize the US in this language? Because then the IC would have to admit that even in the scenario where there was a good reason to intervene, they wouldn’t, because they really don’t give a…
And wow, Ziel, that is quite an ugly characterization of France and Germany. Let’s see, the Germans needed the Turks, invited them into their country, and now confine their grandchildren to the ghettos (while really hoping they can figure out a way to send them back). The French just prevent Arabs within their borders from getting into good schools or working, while proclaiming LIBERTY and EQUALITY — call me crazy, but it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
It is similar to when the US was condescending to the European old world while preserving slavery. The US still has its race relation problems, as all countries with heterogenous populations do, but at least we recognize it as a problem. In many of these European countries, the different race is the problem. It’s a disturbing trend that has accompanied a dramatic rise in neo nazis.
Should we really be taking foreign policy advice from countries that resemble Lou Dobbs???
Leonard writes:
“The case for Munich is made all the stronger by the horror of the 5 years that followed. It would take a perverse mind to argue that trying to avoid the destruction of Europe and the death on millions was irrational or that delaying the conflict by months marginally increased the lethalness and destructiveness of the conflict to the point where that added destruction outweighed the slaughter that could be safely predicted at Munich. Lay the blame where it belongs, on Hitler, not Chamberlain.”
Neville Chamberlain has been greatly maligned by history (he was actually a very capable domestic politician). But the real reason for his actions was his realisation that Britain and the other non-Nazi powers were not – yet – strong enough to resist Hitler’s aggression. But the lesson of Munich is that you can only buy so much time; Hitler went ahead and invaded Poland, proving the Churchillian diagnosis.
When people use Chamberlain as a term of abuse, they mean an overly-trusting faith in the basic rationality of an adversary. I am afraid that with the Hitlers of this world, that faith is baseless.
MIEK writes that Afghanistan was “going fine” up until the invasion. Oh really? So the activities of the Taliban until the invasion started were just a figment of our imagination?
I hear and understand all the arguments against the war; the trouble is, that the anti-war folk make such extraordinary claims as to how fine and unthreatening various groups were and and are. No wonder the anti-war folk are seen sometimes as in denial.
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