Leadership In Today's Times Posted by David Shorr

Heather is right to note the substantial attention given to foreign policy in President Obama's inaugural address. With two pieces in the New York Times' coverage as fodder, I want to focus on the "ready to lead once more" idea.

Even if the president did not use the word indispensible (as Heather points out), John Burns' piece on international reaction to the address highlights wariness over possible presumptuous hubris redux, as well as crucial differences in style of leadership:

Some abroad bridled and some were reassured by the recurring foreign policy motif of Mr. Obama's address -- his resolve that the United States, as it rebuilds at home, will not give up its long-established role as leader of the free world...

The tone of Mr. Obama's address, especially his emphasis on greater cooperation and his vow to combat poverty, climate change, and nuclear threats, scarcely presaged a new era of American bullying.

David Sanger addresses the issue even more directly, saying that the inaugural "seemed to call to end an age of overconsumption and the presumption that America had a right to lead the world, a right that he reminded, 'must be earned.'" The key point being that leadership is consensual, based on the support of others. A leader without followers, the old saw goes, is merely a guy out taking a walk. In other words, the purpose of international cooperation is to build common cause and collective action on shared problems.

Which leaves the question of the US as a dispensable superpower. Is this kinder, gentler leadership nothing more than Washington continuing to foist itself on the rest of the world -- this time with the medicine administered with a spoonful of consultation to make it go down more easily? Is American leadership needed or even constructive? I'm fond of quoting Richard Haass' aphorism on American power that "the United States does not need the world's permission to act, but it does need the world's support to succeed." But I believe there is also a corollary that the world often needs American leadership -- not always, to be sure, but often -- to act effectively.

America's peculiar combination power and ideals does have distinctive features that are important for the world community's commonweal. For one thing, that combination makes the United States the backbone of the international rules of the game -- the member of the international community that takes enforcement most seriously. There are important debates to be had about how the US can be less hypocritical and more realistic about constraining the behavior of other nations. I'm more impatient, though, with arguments that international norms such as the NPT or UN Charter are fundamentally illegitimate, thereby shredding what's left of our (admittedly tattered) global social contract. 

Comments

[Don Bacon]

Let's see if I've got this. The United States "will not give up its long-established role as the leader of the free world" and is “ready to lead once more."

Apparently the US used to lead the free world and then didn't for awhile but it will again. It's very confusing. Perhaps if we were given some examples of the free world being led by the US in the recent past? And some sign of desire from the free world that they want to be led again?

As for the latter, I haven't observed any loud outcries from the likes of Merkel, Sarkozy and Brown, or others, that they want to be led anywhere. In fact:

* Merkel said she hoped that in the new era there would be agreement that "no single country can solve the problems of the world."

* Sarkozy was upbeat, but it looks more like a joint effort than a call for US leadership. "We are eager for him to get to work so that with him we can change the world."

* Brown didn't call for US leadership either. "I can assure the whole House we will maintain and strengthen our special relationship between our two countries."

* In Iraq government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Tuesday that Baghdad welcomes Obama's commitment to withdraw responsibly from Iraq, but the al-Maliki government is hoping that major decisions will be made bilaterally, with Iraqi input all along the way.

* In Afghanistan Karzai said "We will not accept civilian casualties on our soil as a consequence of the fight against terrorism. We cannot tolerate it," and Karzai has sent NATO headquarters a draft agreement that would give Afghanistan more control over future NATO deployments in the country -- including the positioning of some U.S. troops.

[Dan Kervick]

I wonder how much really hangs on this debate about leadership. What is it's cash value? Are we really talking about differences about policy choices, or are we just talking about differences over the self-image Americans like to project to themselves when they discuss themselves among themselves? It's not as though the United States can be a leader just by willing it or declaring it.

While I remain reasonably confident and optimistic about the things Obama has planned for the domestic realm, and generally approve of his appointments, his appointments in the foreign policy area have mostly been a serious disappointment to me - George Mitchell is one exception - and I am now quite worried that Obama is poised to make some very bad foreign policy choices. He really hasn't signaled so far that he has been able to break away in any substantial way from the inertial tendencies of the last two decades of US foreign policy. He appears to have convinced himself that if he just undoes some of the excesses of the Bush administration, he can turn back the clock and recapture some perpetual glory days of the world he grew up in. I wonder if he truly grasps the dynamic changes that are occurring in the world system. It looks instead like he just wants to do the same things his predecessors were doing, but with more competence. In my view, that would constitute a serious misreading of global trends.

Now maybe he has a "secret plan" that he is waiting to spring on us later, after addressing the economic crisis. Maybe this is just a transitional, holding pattern team. But he surely isn't communicating any aspect of that more innovative plan with the conventional and unimaginative old guard thinkers that he has appointed to head his foreign policy apparatus. There doesn't seem to be a single really interesting or innovative figure in the bunch, although I'll accept that James Jones is a mysterious X factor that no one seems to know a lot about. And some of the appointees, like Michael McFaul, are positively frightening.

For a very bright guy, and for such a young and energetic figure, you would think he would have found some folks who weren't so traditional and, well, boring. Where are the people who are going to shake things up, pose hard intellectual conceptual challenges to strategic prejudices and dogmas, and unsettle the debate? Maybe I'm wrong, but my sense is that we are living through an epochal cusp in world histroy, but Obama is betting on business as usual.

[David Shorr]

Dan knows DA too well to expect any trash talk about personnel decisions. We never denied being members of the establishment (even had some fun playing off the idea of 'VSPs'), so many of these people are friends or at least members of the same community of policy wonks.

Now, that said, I'm happy to provide a scorecard of substantive issues to watch:

1. Detainee treatment. No room for half-a-loaf bargaining. There may be some things that VSPs have to treat as 'serious,' but a national security court is not one of them. Rule of law means you have to trust your regular processes, rather than concocting new ones out of expedience.

2. Nuclear cuts. First of all, killing off the programs to develop new weapons, like dead. Second, talks with the Russians to reduce to 1,000 warheads. What would make it really impressive? 1,000 TOTAL warheads, not deployed warheads. That would require significant new verification provisions and would really mean something.

3. New global financial architecture and trade deal. Not sure what they'd look like, but it's a place to look for a less selfish, politically greedy American policy. (More on the overall value of such a thing below.)

4. Global warming. Truly no idea yet how they'll go at this, but it's a clear test of a new direction.

6. Direct engagement with Iran. Duh.

7. Sudan. Taking a much tougher line, perhaps a forceful one, like a no-fly zone.

8. Significant growth in the US foreign service, including the USAID foreign service. And on a fairly quick timeline. OK, this one's a pet issue, but one that gets a lot of attention.

Caveat: the above represents my finely tuned instincts rather than any inside dope. In fact, I myself am concerned that, in the nuclear weapons area, they'll go for 1,000 deployed warheads and cop out on 1,000 TOTAL.

As to whether the what-kind-of-leader question is merely vague generalities, this loops us right back to the does-grand-strategy-matter debate we had last summer. Rather than recap, I'll add a few thoughts. US foreign policy needs and impulses can be classed into three categories: strategic national self-interests (e.g. energy supply), alliances and alignments (a little help for our friends), and tending to the greater good. At least 70-75% of my writing in the last few years has focused on the various reasons for the last of these three. One of the most overarching is a belief that an aggregate increase in global peace, prosperity, and freedom redounds to the United States' benefit -- a belief shared by 70-75% of Americans (a popular opinino that has itself been subject of numerous earlier posts).

[Don Bacon]

Shorr's happily provided "substantive issues", with my comments:

* Detainee treatment. Detainees at Gitmo are a red herring. There are a couple hundred detainees at Gitmo and tens of thousands overseas that nobody aver mentions.

* Nuclear: No change.

* Trade: No change.

* Global warming: Maybe

* Shorr skips #5 and gives Iran a "duh" (???)

* Iran: No change. Obama is still claiming, against all evidence, that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. He lies, like Bush on Iraq, so people will die.

* Sudan: Perhaps, as Shorr indicates, something minor.

* Foreign service: Now a Pentagon function

On a blog dedicated to US foreign policy Shorr, while mentioning some minor issues, somehow neglected to include in his scorecard some really substantive issues:

* Palestine: THE major substantive issue where the blind US support of Israel aggression causes Muslim hatred of the US (along with Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan)

* Iraq: It looks like tens of thousands of US troops there for eternity -- think Korea and Germany -- and the Iraqis don't like it

* Afghanistan: A mighty military surge, against the wishes of the Afghan president and against the advice of all qualified Afghan-watchers

* Somalia: The US client Christian Ethiopa has abandoned the country, allowing the Muslims to retake it, which will no doubt occasion a US military response

There are others, such as pervasive Pentagon corruption involving revolving-door civilians and pandering military officers seeking cushy retirement sinecures, and billions of dollars of useless corporate welfare contracts, but that's a start.

In other words Democracy Arsenal lives on in its usual avoidance of the real issues.

[David Shorr]

Not presented as a ranking or a comprehensive agenda, so nice try with the avoidance-of-real-issues swipe. (Oh, and sorry for losinng count.) The claim was that the Obama administration won't have the juice for any bold or meaningful moves to signal real change in foreign policy. I'm happy to be judged on the terms in which that list was offered, a scorecard of possible moves that could constitute meaningful change. According to Don's tally sheet, nothing short of a total reinvention is worth the bother.

[Don Bacon]

David,
This is a foreign policy blog and the topic is leadership -- "Leadership In Today's Times" -- in foreign policy, so comments which avoid major foreign policy challenges and instead focus on minor matters such as Gitmo, trade and global warming are not helpful. Nuclear weapons, the US foreign service and Sudan are better, but the major issues (listed above) you avoided in your "substantive issues" list.

How much "leadership" does it take to close down Gitmo and increase the foreign service? How can a new leadership style remove the stain of world condemnation that recent US activities have engendered? What should be the US role in the world?

[Dan Kervick]

David, what I hope we can keep our eye on is real policy change, where such changes are needed, rather than mere symbolic headline-grabbers that seem to scream “Change!” on the surface, but don’t really reflect significant underlying changes of course. I am concerned that in several areas we might be in store for wrongheaded continuities with Bush policy, but with the continuities cloaked by symbolic actions that send superficially agreeable messages and placate some Democratic constituencies, but don’t mean much in the long run.

We especially have to guard against the much-promised “engagement with Iran” becoming just such an exercise in empty symbolism. The reason I worry bout this prospect is that promises to engage Iran among the Democratic foreign policy establishment seem to exist side-by-side with calls to roll back Iran, contract it, undermine it, subvert it and diminish its power. Now, I don’t see how there can any serious process of engagement which consists in nothing but an invitation to Iran to participate diplomatically in the process of its own rollback and subversion.

What I would regard as an actual substantive change in US policy is a clear recognition that Iran is an important emerging power in the region, and that political realism requires that the US genuinely realign its relationships in the Middle East toward a broader balance of power, and shift away from its too-heavy reliance on Arab autocracies, many of whom might be living on borrowed time. My own admittedly fallible judgment is that Iran represents the future of that region more than do many of our traditional Arab allies. Iran is large and populous. It has better-developed foundations for durable republican and constitutional government, imperfect and limited though those republic arrangements might be. It is doing somewhat more to invest in its people, especially its women, and their economic future. Maybe I’m biased, but I think dynamic, developing countries like Iran are more interesting, durable and important to us over the long run than countries that wastefully and ostentatiously lavish their oil wealth on the construction of such things as indoor desert ski slopes and spectacular pleasure palaces for a tiny coterie of global fat cats.

I don’t want the Obama administration to engage in phony talks that are only designed to give US leaders an opportunity to gesture to the peace camp and say, “See? We talked” as they take us into some unnecessary future conflict. I want real engagement that aims to protect long-term US and global security and prosperity, and build a new and more productive relationship with a key emerging power. These sorts of shifts always require political boldness and courage, because they call on leaders to look out for the interests of the next generation, much of whose political power and influence are still only potential, and to say “no” to a lot of people who are established stakeholders in the current system, and have vested interests in preserving their prerogatives.

Iraq and Guantanamo are two other areas in which we have to be wary of being taken in by merely symbolic gestures. In Iraq, is Obama really breaking from Bush, or is he just planning a slightly accelerated timetable for doing the things Bush was going to do anyway, and for transitioning from the combat phase to the post-combat client state occupation phase?

Some changes of course are as painful as they are necessary, and the required clean break will be bound to shake things up and cause distress in some quarters. Obama likes consensus and cooperation. And I’m sure he loves his astronomical current popularity rating. But if there aren’t some instances where large blocs of US voters are screaming bloody murder over his decisions, then he isn’t doing his job.

[David Shorr]

I want to leap at this opportunity to agree with Dan. By dint of size, location, demography, and internal reform efforts, Iran has a legitimate claim as a regional power. The process should point toward other bases than a threatened nuclear arsenal for that regional power-dom.(I'm not buying Don's claim that Tehran's nuclear program is purely for peaceful purposes.) For a while, Saudi leaders were trying to stoke fears of growing Shia power; we should be looking for modes of coexistence and not just a fragile power balance.

[Zathras]

I have no trouble accepting climate change as a major issue. The vulnerability of the American economy to oil price spikes, too, for that matter.

However, there are ways to address it that promise results and ways that just make people at cocktail parties in Washington feel good. It's no more than fair to withhold judgement on an administration barely 48 hours old, but most of the people who have clamored for bold action against climate change have shrunk from ideas they know will be broadly unpopular, most of which have to do with raising the price of energy through taxation. You won't reduce the environmental impact of energy without reducing the use of energy, and you won't reduce the use of energy without raising the price of energy. When the administration and Congress are prepared to do that, we can talk about issues like climate change and the burden of oil imports on the American balance of trade. Until they are we might as well think of the climate change issue as a matter of, excuse the expression, mere atmospherics.

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