Realism: a Distillation

By Michael F. Duggan

The foreign affairs Blob is back. In spite of appearances, it never really went away, and the past four years were not a significant deviation from the foreign policy course of the previous three decades.

In light of the return of a more overt interventionist foreign policy, I am posting this outline of aphorisms or tenets on what moderate realism means in a foreign policy context. I put this sequence together a decade or more ago as a part of a much longer list of foreign policy prescriptions. Many of these ideas also find expression in various articles of mine. This is a short, partial list, and I may add to it from time to time.

Never underestimate the imperfection of the world and its complexity.
History has a will of its own and its course cannot be guided, reigned-in, or shaped by simple rationalistic, ideological, theistic, or utopian programs. A great leader (e.g. FDR) may for a time guide a nation via a general program, if that nation is willing. Programs may not be successfully imposed from the outside, unless a nation is willing to accept it.
Even when a leader or a nation is acting altruistically, power is the underlying currency and subtext of human interactions.
Power must always be tempered.
Policy and governing are about the wielding of power, even when policies, governance, and laws are altruistic, egalitarian, and generous. There is no contradiction in this observation.
Although policy is fundamentally about vital interests, in diplomacy, personal relationships and connections are everything in terms of making it work. A real diplomat can and should ameliorate and minimize—ideally eliminate—personal animosities and grievances that may interfere with policy and relations.
In matters of diplomacy, never cause the other side to lose face in public.
In spite of appearances and proximate causes, never underestimate contempt, hatred, and revenge as the real causes of war. Consult history and apply empathy in order to understand these things. To better understand human nature, also study sociobiology.
The foreign policy of a nation should be concerned with implementing or forwarding long-term, enlightened national interests.
A nation’s foreign policy should be rational, moderate, and non-ideological. It should not be based on morality.
It is not in a nation’s interest to act abroad in an immoderate way, even in furtherance of the highest motives.
A nation should recognize and respect the legitimate interests of other nations.
Do not dismiss the national security claims of other nations, even when they run contrary to the security concerns of your own country. These are points that require focused attention and diplomatic maturity.
When a nation puts moral, ideological, or theoretical considerations above considerations of vital interest, it puts its own long term prospects in jeopardy.
Historically speaking, moderate realism has produced better moral results than policies specifically designed toward moral or ideological ends. Measured, moderate or progressive realism (but not realpolitik) are preferable to fashions and bubbles like Neoconservatism, Neoliberalism, and economic globalization.
Realism is a range of outlooks. It can be circumspect, high-minded, moderate, progressive, sensible, vision-based, and non-ideological—its defining characteristic—or it can be cynical, mean, ill-considered, intolerant, reactive, short-sighted, and unbalanced (e.g. “crackpot realism,” realpolitik, etc,). One can imagine a scale with these as poles and innumerable degrees or shades between them.
If a nation is a force for good in the world (i.e. a regular provider of relief programs generally not subsumed under foreign affairs), then when it helps itself, it also helps the world.
A nation that cannot lead by moral example has no business telling other nations how to run their domestic affairs.
Leading by example is a better basis for instruction than preaching, brow-beating, threats, sanctions, invasions, and occupations.
Sometimes the realistic thing to do and the “moral” thing to do overlap or are identical (e.g. the Marshall Plan, the Peace Corps, etc.).
In every geopolitical situation, history cannot be discounted. History may or may not be destiny in every case, but you ignore it at your peril.
A broad and deep understanding of history is a better basis for policies and decision-making than economic theories and ideology. There are no guarantees of success in approaching policy, but a diplomat or policy planner with historical understanding is better off than those without it.
An intimate understanding of a region is a better basis than formal education (i.e. an insightful person who has lived among the people of a region has a more nuanced understanding than an expert with a Ph.D. in policy or area studies with no intimate understanding).
As with most other areas of human endeavor, in policy, there is nothing more dangerous than a true believer. More comprehensively, the most dangerous people are those who feel too much or too little (or not at all). The next strata are the sycophants and enablers, and the opportunists of the chaos they sow.
Power, interests, and irrationality are the underlying currencies of human interaction, and are drivers of conflict. Altruism is another basis for human behavior, but it is not predominant.
Diplomacy should avoid the language of arrogance and stridency, moralism and self-righteousness.
Never underestimate the importance of the personal in foreign affairs. Snubs of national leaders in public have set back relations between countries by years. That said, George Kennan believed that “governments should deal with other governments as such, and should avoid unnecessary involvement, particularly personal involvement with their leaders.” (NYRB, 8/12/99)
The purpose of negotiation is not to dominate, but rather for both sides to achieve their respective goals as nearly as possible.
Without equality between parties, there can be no justice in negotiations, only dictation and charity (see: Thucydides, Hume).
Great national leaders set a sensible course and then bring the electorate around to this perspective. This is what Roosevelt did during the run-up to the Second World War. Lesser leaders determine which way public opinion is leaning and then get out in front of it. The most pernicious presidents choose a bad path and then get others to follow.
The greatest American presidents have been generous at home and tough but cautious abroad. This suggests that morality is a partial basis for domestic policy but not foreign affairs.
Presidents and other officials making public statements about foreign policy should avoid manipulative euphemisms, especially when they are transparent and reveal cynicism. “Private military/security contractors,” for example, are likely seen by people in a war zone as mercenaries (the way Americans see “Hessians” from our War of Independence). Inaccurate or grossly overstated comparisons of other national leaders to Hitler should be avoided. Such comparisons drive wrong-headed policies (the subtext being that Hitler cannon be allowed to remain in power).
As George Kennan often suggested, United States foreign policy should be insulated from domestic politics, domestic and foreign lobbying efforts, and parochial considerations. Kennan suggested an independent State Department perhaps along the lines of the Judicial Branch or the Federal Reserve. This is because every four to eight years, U.S. foreign policy risks ideological swings (although this has not been the case since the perspective of Washington Consensus—The Blob—took hold after the Cold War). To further this idea, the U.S. should develop, articulate, and implement a singular long-term policy vision. It should define the interests for which it will fight. In order to be sustainable, it should probably be the vision of a robust regional world power, and not “the world’s sole remaining superpower.”
Policy planners must try to see the United States the way others see it and without illusions.
The death of the Westphalian paradigm has been greatly exaggerated. The nation state is still the basis for the prevailing world order.
As George Kennan and other realists have noted, powerful and non-powerful nations should be afforded the same diplomatic respect.
The problem with the Great Game is the game itself: it is a rotten, egotistical, and ultimately self-destructive contest. This is even truer today at the dawn of the Crises of the Environment. The United States should therefore willingly relinquish its status of predominance—leave the Great Game insofar as possible—as a matter of mature, measured policy. Simply put, the role of superpower is intrinsically undesirable, and the Great Game is a set of infantile distractions that the world can no longer afford. It begs rational understanding why military, foreign, or economic policymakers would want to sustain hegemonic status, given its significant liabilities and diminishing returns. The most powerful nation on earth will always be regarded as a force of oppression if it exerts its power abroad. A nation’s military should reflect its size and resources, rather than pride, ambition, and the realities of the past.
The desirability of the consolidation of the U.S. to a more manageable and sustainable status of a regional world power is self-evident and based on the singular fact that the United States occupies the best real estate on the planet; it is large enough to be self-sustaining and has peaceful neighbors. It is thus exempt from the endless local contests of the World Island. If Afro-Eurasia is the World Island (see: Halford MacKinder, Alfred W. McCoy), the Americas are the “other” islands.
The United States should not involve itself in regions that do not want it’s help, and do not need it, or where its very presence is a destabilizing factor.
Hostile ideologies that cannot be defeated outright should be contained. Islamism, like Marxism, and Puritanism are examples of revolutionary eschatology. It is nearly impossible to sustain revolutionary fervor over time, and sometimes leaving a holistic ideology alone is the best way to defeat it. Without external fuel, they will burn themselves out within a few generations. They may periodically wax and wan, but they can be waited-out without engagement.
As much as possible, the United States should disengage from the Middle East.
In the Middle East, Americans will always be seen as outsiders, meddlesome interlopers, occupiers, and infidels. As long as we are in the region, there is nothing we can do to change these perceptions, and the more we try, the more obvious they become. The more we try to change these perceptions the more cynical we appear.
In the Middle East, as elsewhere, what people say is unimportant relative to what they do. Always watch what people do and take their public statements with a fair degree of skepticism.
When the Untied States plays the role of the even-handed referee, and then favors one side over another, it does not fool anybody.
Unless it falls victim to a major internal crisis, China will be the regional hegemon of the Far East. U.S. naval dominance in the South China Sea makes about as much geographical sense as Chinese dominance in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s dominance will be undermined by the crises of the environment.
As long as there are large powerful nations, there will be spheres of interests in which their interests trump that of outsiders.
Denying the existence of spheres of influence is the geopolitical equivalent of denying the existence of gravity around planets and stars in astrophysics. As with gravity, you ignore the existence of spheres of influence at your own risk.
Consistency is to high of a standard to expect of people.

On War and Insurrection

Most of the world’s problems are not amenable to military solutions.
War must always be the policy choice of last resort.
In spite of the rational and quasi-rational reasons for war, conflict is a part of the human condition. Its ultimate causes are irrationality and the aggressive pursuit of perceived interests.
War is the manifestation of the behavior of an intrinsically aggressive animal.
In proximate terms, war is the result of policy failure. Bad leaders precipitate crises; good leaders resolve them.
War is generally an indicator of one or more of the following: failed policy, bad leadership, an interventionist foreign policy, or a system that inhibits or precludes more effective policies. The United States has labored under all of these for some or all of the past 60 years.
The stated reasons for war and policy are often not the real ones, and are never the only ones. As George Kennan has observed, the misstating of reasons is to make war and policy more palatable for public consumption and something that puts democracies at a serious disadvantage.
As von Clausewitz famously observes, war an policy are incarnations of the same overarching enterprise of power and interest that also includes economics (finance, trade, etc.), and the law.
War and policy can be defined in terms of the other: war is the achieving of policy goals via hostile means; policy and diplomacy is the achieving of goals—is war— via civil means.
War and bad policy are like a disease, a syndrome: once initiated it must run its course.
Before waging armed conflict, policy planners should be able to answer two questions in the affirmative: 1). Can the U.S. do anything (i.e. is the problem amenable to a military solution?)? 2). Should the U.S. intervene (i.e. is this a necessary war from a perspective of vital national interests?)?
In conflicts between the insane and the insane or the insane and the idiotic, it is best not to take sides.
In war, the goal must be specific, well-defined, and achievable. Both the goal and the means of achieving it must be integrated and realistic.
A common mistake: the purpose of war should not be to kill as many people as possible, but to achieve a goal with as little destruction as possible.
Asymmetrical wars should be avoided at all costs, especially wars against guerillas.
Never engage in fighting a foreign insurrection unless national survival is at stake. It is difficult to imagine such a scenario.
You cannot “save” people who do not want to be “saved.”
Invasions and occupations tend to destabilize regions they were intended to save or stabilize.
Civil Wars are by their very nature among the most bitter and destructive. The best an outside nation can do is to help contain a civil war (especially one with vicious ethnic factors, such as the Balkans wars of the 1990s) is to contain the conflict to prevent it from becoming a regional war and to aid in negotiations.
The United States should never involve itself in a conflict that is likely to degenerate into a guerilla war unless: 1). Doing so is of such overwhelming national importance, that not fighting it will be significantly worse than fighting it even with the chance of defeat. 2). The insurrection is unpopular with a large majority of the people of a nation (as with Malaysia in the 1950s and Bolivia in the 1960s). Insurrections on islands or peninsulas or other geographical features where supplies can be cut off, are sometimes vulnerable counterinsurgency measures. If these criteria are not met then the only alternative in fighting such wars is to kill everyone in the nation in which the insurgency is occurring. This is obviously not how a great republic should act and would run contrary to goals of “saving” the nation (a stated purpose for U.S. involvement in both Vietnam and Iraq).
If a plurality or majority of the people in a nation support an insurrection, there is no way to reasonably defeat it (unless the nation can be easily divided along ethnic-geographical lines).
If a guerilla flees into a crowd, and no one in the crowd turns him over, then they either support him, are afraid of him, or both. This is a most ominous sign. Likewise, if a soldier does not know whether to kill a person or help him, then the counterinsurgency (COIN) policy is hopeless.
Budgets should never be allowed to drive policy. Exaggerating the danger of “adversaries” should not be allowed to drive policy or budgets.
If you are a liberal, what are the chances of a conservative talking you into being a conservative? If you are a conservative, what are the chances of a liberal talking you into being a liberal? The chances of you talking a Sunni or Shiite into adopting the worldview of an outsider is even less likely by an order of magnitude.
Another mistaken lesson: transformational warfare is not more or less successful against popular guerillas than older conventional warfare doctrines. Just as the United States did not scrap its conventional forces after the War in Vietnam, it should not abandon all of the ideas of transformational warfare.

On Democracy and Foreign Policy

There is a tendency, common among Americans, to confuse or conflate democracy with liberal values and rights. Democracy is a form of government; liberalism is a sensibility. One is structural, the other ideological. Although they go hand-in-hand in the nations of northwestern Europe and North America, where they originated, they are not synonyms.
Democracy embodies a self-evident legitimacy, but it is not a panacea against conflict. At times it is a driver of conflict and domestic violence.
Mutual economic success in a region has more to do with preventing war than does form of government.
Policymakers in the United States should never become seduced by their own secular holy words. The idea of “freedom” in an Islamic nation might mean the liberty to practice their religion and customs without outside interference. To a Russian, “freedom” might mean the chaos of the 1990s.
Governments should be judged on what they do and not on what they profess or on their structure. All else being equal, democratic form is preferable to authoritarian regimes or governments based on holistic ideology or tribalism. However, as many people (including George Kennan) have noted, a moderate and/or rational and stable despotic government may be preferable to a brutal, fanatical, or excessively corrupt republic.
Democracy and liberalism exist within a tradition of intellectual history. They are not fungible things to be cut out and laid down when and there they are needed, like carpet.
The advice of dissidents and expatriates with only an ethnic connection to a region must always be treated with skepticism. Always beware of easy toadies eager to serve for money.
The greatest mistake the U.S. took away from the end of the Cold War was that its own ideology was the correct one, the chosen one. If we had learned the true lesson, we would have emerged with a suspicion of ideologies, especially ones preaching an “end of history” narrative.
A binary, either/or choice between isolation and interventionist internationalism is a false one. Between these extremes is a wide and fruitful middle ground of limited internationalism. This middle ground should be the spectrum of where U.S. policy should reside.
An effective way to destroy a vigorous nation is to make it into an imperial power.
Most empires do not last for more than a century in good health (the Roman Empire lasted longer by invading rich neighbors).
An old saying: “When you Romanize the provinces (the world), you provincialize Rome.”
Economic globalization is imperialism in modern garb.
Areas that lend themselves to global and/or large-scale regional approaches include international law enforcement, military coalitions to enforce violations of territorial sovereignty, international health issues, and the global environment crises. Neo-liberal globalization has proved to be a world-historical debacle resulting in greater disparities both at home and abroad.