"But Steve and Hadley, I take it, would withdraw from Europe and Asia, end our support for the free trading system on the seas and the air, and perhaps even reduce our footprint in the Americas. Instead, focus on protecting the borders, and always be ready for war, but do nothing to seek it out. For them, America’s exceptional regime requires a policy that focuses primarily on protecting the natural rights of Americans at home and watching the corrupt powers of Asia and Europe fight it out between themselves."
I have not read this into anything Steve has said and I find this to be a straw man at best. You had me up until that point.
This may be pedantry, but the US did not start the Spanish American War in order to take the Philippines. Other than that, I tend to agree with Prof. Yoo.
As to the whether a state's regime type dictates the type of foreign policy it conducts, I would think that would be a given though perhaps “dictate” is too strong term; perhaps a better term would be “strongly influences.” While it may border on a cliché, the fact that a an international system of liberal democracies would function differently than say a system of Third Reichs should be informative
If a basic equation of a nation's ability to project power and influence is “mass x will” then the policy maker's ability to negotiate the international system will depend on his ability to mobilize domestic constituencies to generate both factors. An authoritarian backwater like North Korea may have little mass, but plenty of will while it appears we have plenty of mass but little will.
To illustrate the point, I will turn to two historical example that John's cites but at the same time misinterprets – our interactions with Germany and Japan prior to WW II.
John questions Hadley's assertion that we intervened in WW II based on regime type and then cites our late entry even after the character of Japan and Germany were recognized. I believe that is a misinterpretation of the historical record. In the case of Germany, FDR recognized as a threat several years before our entry into WW II and took certain steps to assist Britain as well as prepare our military: Lend Lease, destroyers for bases, and the Louisiana Maneuvers being key examples.
In regard to China, that country occupied a strong place in the American imagination and it was ultimately the imposition of an embargo on oil and other raw materials in retaliation for Japanese aggression which caused the Japanese to strike Peal Harbor.
In both cases, FDR was constrained in taking more active steps by the nature of the American regime, a liberal democracy with a strong isolationist streak. While FDR played his limited hand well, as a policy maker he was constrained by that lack of will in his ability to mobilize sufficient mass to achieve power, that is until we are attacked at Pearl Harbor
In our present time from Ukraine to the Red Sea our adversaries calibrate their plans based on the observations from our prior military misadventures that our regime will not be able to generate the type of tenacity based on domestic support necessary to defeat them. We may have the clocks, but they will have the time.
As to the issue of “prior intervention” based on 19th Century westward expansion from the Atlantic seaboard, that process was already well underway early in that time frame. Note that initially Jefferson approached the French to purchase New Orleans in order to secure proper access for our internal waterways – the Mississippi and Ohio. The fact that Napoleon was willing to sell the whole territory was quite the surprise and it was this stroke of luck that gave westward expansion its primary drive As to the Mexican-American War, I would point to the contemporary debate of the time where much of Northern opinion saw it as a cruel war of aggression fought on the behalf of slaveowners.
To the issue implicit both in the tittle of John's piece “How to Run the World” and his surmising that both Steve and Hadley's would have us withdraw into some version of a “Festung America”, leaving the world behind. Codevilla, whose book on John Quincy Adams I'm assuming is our guiding light here, is quite specific that “America First” means that our foreign policy serves our interests.
As Codevilla acknowledges, catchphrases such as “our strength as a nation is linked to the strength of our alliances” and “binding ourselves to international rules enhances our security” rest on certain assumptions and circumstances.
In fact those alliances and institutions rest on assumptions and circumstances which are badly outdated. NATO was conceived in a world 75 years ago where Europe was flat on its back and the Red Army was west of Berlin; now Europe has an economy 10x the size of Russia and the Russian Army has been pushed 1,000 miles to the east. The current rules-based order is based on the post-Cold War conceit of the end of History, that we can just “buy the world of Coke” because we all want to grow rich together; therefore we can do frivolous things such as disperse our manufacturing base across our enemies and use our military and foreign policy to ensure we can raise the Pride flag in Kabul and use USAID grants to fund LGBT employment opportunities in Serbia (mind our own business indeed)
In fact to John's excellent point that “A realist approach concerned first and foremost with the nation’s security requires the United States to worry about foreign rivals, and to stop them before they can reach our shores” seems to acknowledge that a realist policy is needed and that if we are to stop foreign rivals from reaching our shore (alas they are largely here) we need to update our policies.
For too long “America First” has been misused as an epithet by many of the same people who enjoy the using the terms “far right” and “misinformation” I think VP Vance's excellent speech last month in Munich provides not only the proper formulation for the term but provides a broad outline for the new American policy, one that both Codevilla and Adams would recognize and applaud
1) American foreign policy first and foremost serves the interests of the American people that it gains its legitimacy from.
2) We will engage in alliances that further those interests; alliances serve our interests not the other way around
3) We will help those who help themselves.
A good model of this is in the Indo-Pacific where we have excellent alliances with serious partners that further our interests. Europe? Not so much. While I find it encouraging that rhetorically Germany, France, UK and the rest say they want to do their share given their current economic and political realities, that their professions of faith are as sincere as they were three years when they said the same things when Russia invaded Ukraine. Fool me once...
To paraphrase Bismarck's remark re: the Balkans we are approaching the point where Europe isn't worth the bones of a single US Marine. I hope not, but to John's profession of a realist foreign policy we must take the world as it is and not as we wish it to be
Thank you for the great debate among Steve, John, and Hadley (I hope he will be on the podcast again soon)
"But Steve and Hadley, I take it, would withdraw from Europe and Asia, end our support for the free trading system on the seas and the air, and perhaps even reduce our footprint in the Americas. Instead, focus on protecting the borders, and always be ready for war, but do nothing to seek it out. For them, America’s exceptional regime requires a policy that focuses primarily on protecting the natural rights of Americans at home and watching the corrupt powers of Asia and Europe fight it out between themselves."
I have not read this into anything Steve has said and I find this to be a straw man at best. You had me up until that point.
If we had simply adopted "Don't be stupid" as the guide for our foreign policy, results would have been better.
This may be pedantry, but the US did not start the Spanish American War in order to take the Philippines. Other than that, I tend to agree with Prof. Yoo.
I will try and deal with John's points in turn.
As to the whether a state's regime type dictates the type of foreign policy it conducts, I would think that would be a given though perhaps “dictate” is too strong term; perhaps a better term would be “strongly influences.” While it may border on a cliché, the fact that a an international system of liberal democracies would function differently than say a system of Third Reichs should be informative
If a basic equation of a nation's ability to project power and influence is “mass x will” then the policy maker's ability to negotiate the international system will depend on his ability to mobilize domestic constituencies to generate both factors. An authoritarian backwater like North Korea may have little mass, but plenty of will while it appears we have plenty of mass but little will.
To illustrate the point, I will turn to two historical example that John's cites but at the same time misinterprets – our interactions with Germany and Japan prior to WW II.
John questions Hadley's assertion that we intervened in WW II based on regime type and then cites our late entry even after the character of Japan and Germany were recognized. I believe that is a misinterpretation of the historical record. In the case of Germany, FDR recognized as a threat several years before our entry into WW II and took certain steps to assist Britain as well as prepare our military: Lend Lease, destroyers for bases, and the Louisiana Maneuvers being key examples.
In regard to China, that country occupied a strong place in the American imagination and it was ultimately the imposition of an embargo on oil and other raw materials in retaliation for Japanese aggression which caused the Japanese to strike Peal Harbor.
In both cases, FDR was constrained in taking more active steps by the nature of the American regime, a liberal democracy with a strong isolationist streak. While FDR played his limited hand well, as a policy maker he was constrained by that lack of will in his ability to mobilize sufficient mass to achieve power, that is until we are attacked at Pearl Harbor
In our present time from Ukraine to the Red Sea our adversaries calibrate their plans based on the observations from our prior military misadventures that our regime will not be able to generate the type of tenacity based on domestic support necessary to defeat them. We may have the clocks, but they will have the time.
As to the issue of “prior intervention” based on 19th Century westward expansion from the Atlantic seaboard, that process was already well underway early in that time frame. Note that initially Jefferson approached the French to purchase New Orleans in order to secure proper access for our internal waterways – the Mississippi and Ohio. The fact that Napoleon was willing to sell the whole territory was quite the surprise and it was this stroke of luck that gave westward expansion its primary drive As to the Mexican-American War, I would point to the contemporary debate of the time where much of Northern opinion saw it as a cruel war of aggression fought on the behalf of slaveowners.
To the issue implicit both in the tittle of John's piece “How to Run the World” and his surmising that both Steve and Hadley's would have us withdraw into some version of a “Festung America”, leaving the world behind. Codevilla, whose book on John Quincy Adams I'm assuming is our guiding light here, is quite specific that “America First” means that our foreign policy serves our interests.
As Codevilla acknowledges, catchphrases such as “our strength as a nation is linked to the strength of our alliances” and “binding ourselves to international rules enhances our security” rest on certain assumptions and circumstances.
In fact those alliances and institutions rest on assumptions and circumstances which are badly outdated. NATO was conceived in a world 75 years ago where Europe was flat on its back and the Red Army was west of Berlin; now Europe has an economy 10x the size of Russia and the Russian Army has been pushed 1,000 miles to the east. The current rules-based order is based on the post-Cold War conceit of the end of History, that we can just “buy the world of Coke” because we all want to grow rich together; therefore we can do frivolous things such as disperse our manufacturing base across our enemies and use our military and foreign policy to ensure we can raise the Pride flag in Kabul and use USAID grants to fund LGBT employment opportunities in Serbia (mind our own business indeed)
In fact to John's excellent point that “A realist approach concerned first and foremost with the nation’s security requires the United States to worry about foreign rivals, and to stop them before they can reach our shores” seems to acknowledge that a realist policy is needed and that if we are to stop foreign rivals from reaching our shore (alas they are largely here) we need to update our policies.
For too long “America First” has been misused as an epithet by many of the same people who enjoy the using the terms “far right” and “misinformation” I think VP Vance's excellent speech last month in Munich provides not only the proper formulation for the term but provides a broad outline for the new American policy, one that both Codevilla and Adams would recognize and applaud
1) American foreign policy first and foremost serves the interests of the American people that it gains its legitimacy from.
2) We will engage in alliances that further those interests; alliances serve our interests not the other way around
3) We will help those who help themselves.
A good model of this is in the Indo-Pacific where we have excellent alliances with serious partners that further our interests. Europe? Not so much. While I find it encouraging that rhetorically Germany, France, UK and the rest say they want to do their share given their current economic and political realities, that their professions of faith are as sincere as they were three years when they said the same things when Russia invaded Ukraine. Fool me once...
To paraphrase Bismarck's remark re: the Balkans we are approaching the point where Europe isn't worth the bones of a single US Marine. I hope not, but to John's profession of a realist foreign policy we must take the world as it is and not as we wish it to be
Thank you for the great debate among Steve, John, and Hadley (I hope he will be on the podcast again soon)
It appears Steve and Lucretia were beat to the punch.