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    Globalist Paper > Global Diplomacy
    Diplomacy and Empire (Part I)

    By Chas W. Freeman | Tuesday, February 27, 2007

    For much of the 20th century, the United States led the world not only economically and militarily, but also through the soft power of its ideals. As Chas Freeman writes in the first of three parts, the decision the United States made after September 11 to rule the world by force of arms has caused it to squander the prestige and goodwill it earned during the previous century — when it led by its arguments and the force of its example.

    In 1941, as the United States sat out the wars then raging in both the Atlantic and Pacific, Henry Luce penned a famous attack on isolationism in Life Magazine. "We Americans are unhappy," he began. "We are not happy about America. We are not happy about ourselves in relation to America. We are nervous or gloomy or apathetic."

    Luce argued that the destiny of the United States demanded that "the most powerful and vital nation in the world" step up to the international stage and assume the position of global leader. "The 20th Century must be to a significant degree an American Century," he declared.

    End of an era

    And so it proved to be, as the United States led the world to victory over fascism, created a new world order mimicking the rule of law and

    Failing to welcome the world's peoples to our shores is not simply to lose the economic benefits of their presence here. We give aid and comfort to our enemies.

    parliamentary institutions internationally, altered the human condition with a dazzling array of new technologies, fostered global opening and reform, contained and outlasted communism and saw the apparent triumph of democratic ideals over their alternatives.

    But that 20th Century came to an end in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the Cold War — and the emergence of the United States as a great power without a peer.

    There followed a dozen intercalary years of narcissistic confusion. We Americans celebrated our unrivaled military power and proclaimed ourselves "the indispensable nation," but failed to define a coherent vision of a post-Cold War order — or an inspiring role for the United States within it.

    Awakening to reality

    These essential tasks were deferred to the 21st century, which — in American eyes — finally began in late 2001, with the shock and awe of 9/11. Then, in the panic and rage of that moment, we made the choices about our world role we had earlier declined to make.

    Since 9/11, we Americans have chosen to stake our domestic tranquility and the preservation of our liberties on our ability under our commander-in-chief to rule the world by force of arms — rather than to lead, as we had in the past, by the force of our example or our arguments.

    Reverting to old ways

    And we appear to have decided that it is necessary to destroy our

    The common view in the United States that diplomacy halts when war begins is worse than wrong. It is catastrophically misguided. Diplomacy and war are not alternatives. They are essential partners.

    constitutional practices and civil liberties in order to save them. This is a trade-off we had resolutely refused to make during our far more perilous half-century confrontation with Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union.

    The ultimate effects on our republic of our own slide away from long-standing constitutional norms remain a matter of speculation. But clearly, our departure from our previous dedication to the principles of comity and the rule of law has made us once again unhappy about ourselves in relation to America and the world.

    It has also cost us the esteem that once led foreigners to look up to us and to wish to emulate and follow us. Our ability to recover from the damage we have done to ourselves and our leadership is further impeded by the extent to which we now cower behind barricades at home and in our embassies abroad.

    A hostile welcome

    The current wave of anti-foreign and anti-Islamic sentiment in the United States also compounds the problem. A recent poll of foreign travelers showed that two-thirds considered the United States the most disagreeably unwelcoming country to visit. There is surely no security to be found in surly discourtesy.

    By failing to welcome the world's peoples to our shores is not simply to lose the economic benefits of their presence here. It also greatly diminishes both the vigor of our universities and the extent of our influence abroad. To lose the favor of a generation of students is to forfeit the goodwill of their children and grandchildren as well.

    Alienating friends

    And to fail to show respect to allies and friends is not simply to diminish our influence but to predispose

    We appear to have decided that it is necessary to destroy our constitutional practices and civil liberties in order to save them. This is a trade-off we had resolutely refused to make during our far more perilous half-century confrontation with Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union.

    growing numbers abroad to disapprove or even oppose anything we advocate. By all this, we give aid and comfort to our enemies and undercut the efficacy in dispute resolution and problem solving of measures short of war.

    There has been little room for diplomacy in the coercive and militaristic approach we have recently applied to our foreign relations. Much of the world now sees us as its greatest bully, not its greatest hope. Self-righteous lawlessness by the world's most powerful nation inspires illegality and amorality on the part of the less powerful as well.

    The result of aggressive unilateralism has been to separate us from our allies, to alienate us from our friends, to embolden our detractors, to create irresistible opportunities for our adversaries and competitors, to inflate the ranks of our enemies — and to resurrect the notion at the expense of international law and order that might makes right.

    Relying on the armed forces

    Thus, the neglect of both common courtesy and diplomacy fosters violent opposition to our global preeminence in the form of terrorism, nuclear proliferation and war.

    With the numbers of our enemies mounting, it is fortunate that our military power remains without match. The United States' armed forces are the most competent and lethal in history. And so they are likely to remain for decades to come.

    Standing alone

    Our humbling on the battlegrounds of the Middle East does not reflect military inadequacy. It is rather the result of the absence of strategy and its political handmaiden, diplomacy.

    Self-righteous lawlessness by the world's most powerful nation inspires illegality and amorality on the part of the less powerful as well.


    We are learning the hard way that old allies will not aid us and new allies will not stick with us if we ignore their interests, deride their advice, impugn their motives and denigrate their capabilities. Friends will not walk with us into either danger or opportunity if we injure their interests and brush aside their objections to our doing so.

    Those with whom we have professed friendship in the past cannot sustain their receptivity to our counsel if we demand that they adopt secular norms of the European Enlightenment that we no longer exemplify, while loudly disparaging their religious beliefs and traditions. Diplomacy-free foreign policy does not work any better than strategy-free warfare.

    A result of bad policy

    When war is not the extension of policy, but the entrenchment of policy failure by other means, it easily degenerates into mindless belligerence and death without meaning. Appealing as explosions and the havoc of war may be to those who have experienced them only vicariously, rather than in person, military success is not measured in battle damage but in political results. These must be secured by diplomacy.

    The common view in the United States that diplomacy halts when war begins is thus worse than wrong. It is catastrophically misguided. Diplomacy and war are not alternatives. They are essential partners. Diplomacy unbacked by force can be ineffectual, but force unassisted by diplomacy is almost invariably unproductive.

    Preparing the diplomats

    There is a reason that diplomacy precedes war and that the use of force is a last resort. If diplomacy fails to produce results, war can sometimes lay a basis for diplomats to achieve them.

    U.S. diplomats deserve to be treated as something more than the clean-up squad in fancy dress.

    When force fails to attain its intended results, diplomacy and other measures short of war can seldom accomplish them.

    We properly demand that our soldiers prepare for the worst. As they do so, the leaders of the United States should work to ensure that the worst does not happen. They must build and sustain international relationships and approaches that can solve problems without loss of life — and pave the way for a better future.

    If we must go to war, the brave men and women who engage in combat on our behalf have the right to expect that their leaders will direct diplomats to consolidate the victories they achieve, mitigate the defeats they suffer, and contrive a better peace to follow their fighting.

    Honoring the soldiers

    Our military personnel deserve, in short, to be treated as something more than the disposable instruments of unilateral belligerence. And U.S. diplomats deserve to be treated as something more than the clean-up squad in fancy dress.

    Every death or crippling of an American on the battlefields of the Middle East is a poignant reminder that, in the absence of diplomacy, the sacrifices of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines, however heroic, can neither yield victory nor sustain hegemony for the United States.

    Neglect of diplomacy

    A diplomatic strategy is needed to give our military operations persuasive political purposes,

    When war is not the extension of policy, but the entrenchment of policy failure by other means, it easily degenerates into mindless belligerence and death without meaning.

    to aggregate the power of allies to our cause, to transform our battlefield successes into peace — and to reconcile the defeated to their humiliation.

    Sadly, our neglect of these tasks, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, has served to demonstrate the limits of our military power, not its deterrent value. This is, however, far from the greatest irony of our current predicaments.

    In the competition with other nations for influence, the United States’ comparative advantages have been, and remain, our unmatched military capabilities, our economy and our leading role in scientific and technological innovation.

    Too much technology

    We spend much, much more on our military — about 5.7% of our economy, or $720 billion at present — than the rest of the world's other 192 nations combined. With less than one-twentieth of the world's population, we account for more than a fourth of its economic activity.

    Almost two-thirds of central bank reserves are held in our currency which, much to our advantage, has dominated international financial markets for 60 years. The openness of our society to new people and ideas has made our country the greatest crucible of global technological innovation.

    Ellie


  2. #2
    Globalist Paper > Global Diplomacy
    Diplomacy and Empire (Part II)

    By Chas W. Freeman | Wednesday, February 28, 2007

    By many accounts, the aggressive pose adopted by the United States after 9/11 has given rise to significant international blowback. As Chas Freeman writes in the second of three parts, this is particularly evident with respect to U.S. economic policy — with the end result being the possible loss of U.S. economic preeminence.

    The moral argument put forward by both left and right-wing proponents of aggressive American unilateralism is that, as a nation with these unexampled elements of power and uniquely admired virtues, the United States has the duty both to lead the world and to remake it in our image.

    But our recent confusion of command and control with leadership — and conflation of autocratic dictation with consultation — have stimulated ever greater resistance internationally. Thus the aggressive unilateralism by which we have sought to consolidate our domination of world affairs has very effectively undermined both our dominion over them and our capacity to lead.

    Falling short of expectations

    The most obvious example of this has been our inability, despite the absolute military superiority we enjoy, to impose our will on terrorists with global reach, on the several battlegrounds of the Middle East, or on Iran or North Korea. But in many respects,

    Despite all the lurid domestic rhetoric about it and the real pain it can inflict, terrorism poses no existential threat to our country — except, of course, to the extent we betray American values in the name of preserving them.

    these illustrations of the impotence of military power are far from the most worrisome examples of policy backfire.

    After all, despite all the lurid domestic rhetoric about it and the real pain it can inflict, terrorism poses no existential threat to our country — except, of course, to the extent we betray American values in the name of preserving them. The more worrisome examples are the mounting effects of unrelentingly coercive foreign policies on our political credibility, economic standing and competitiveness.

    As distaste has succeeded esteem for us in the international community, we have become ever more isolated. Our ability to rally others behind our causes has withered. We have responded by abandoning the effort to lead.

    Known for the wrong things

    We are now known internationally more for our recalcitrance than for our vision. We have sought to exempt ourselves from the jurisdiction of international law. We have suspended our efforts to lead the world to further liberalization of trade and investment through the Doha Round. We no longer participate in the UN body charged with the global promotion of human rights.

    We decline to discuss global climate change, nuclear disarmament or the avoidance of arms races in outer space. If we have proposals for a world more congenial to the values we espouse, we no longer articulate them. The world is a much less promising place for our silence and absence.

    A late improvement

    Our recent record in the Middle East alone includes the six-year suspension of efforts to broker

    The value of our currency has come to depend on central bankers continuing to play a reverse game of chicken, in which they nervously hang onto dollars while watching each other to make sure that no one can bail out.

    peace between Israelis and Palestinians — and a seeming shift from the pursuit of al-Qaeda to the suppression of Islamism in Afghanistan.

    Although we seem belatedly to be improving, we have become notorious for delusory or self-serving assertions masquerading as intelligence assessments. Our disregard for treaties abroad and the rule of law at home is leading to the indictment of our operatives abroad by our closest allies.

    Our scofflaw behavior thus undercuts transnational cooperation against terrorists. The bloody consequences of our occupation of Iraq for its inhabitants are too well-known to require mention.

    Supporting the wrong causes

    We continue to provide military support and political cover for Israeli operations entailing intermittent massacres of civilian populations in Lebanon and Gaza. We sit on our hands while wringing them over parallel outrages in Darfur. We are indifferent to the views of our friends and refuse to speak with our enemies.

    Taken together, these acts of omission and commission have devastated American standing and influence — not just in the Middle East, but more widely. There are examples of such policy backfires to be found in every region.

    Relying on foreigners

    Our ability to do business with others in our own currency has been a unique aspect of our global economic power.

    Our recent confusion of command and control with leadership — and conflation of autocratic dictation with consultation — have stimulated ever greater resistance internationally.

    But our budget, trade and balance of payments deficits have grown to levels at which some foreigners now have more dollars than they know what to do with.

    The value of our currency has come to depend on central bankers continuing to play a reverse game of chicken, in which they nervously hang onto dollars while watching each other to make sure that no one can bail out without the others' noticing and dumping the dollar too.

    No central bank wants to be the first to devalue its own and everyone else's dollar-denominated reserves. So every day, Arab, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian officials as well as assorted gnomes in the "Old Europe" lend our Treasury the $2.5 billion it needs to keep employment here up, interest rates down — and the U.S. economy growing.

    Inefficient managers

    Unlike central bankers, however, businesses and private investors are notoriously bad at "coordination games." They are not willing to wait for the dollar to approach collapse before getting out of it and into other currencies and places.

    As a result, there are now many more euros in circulation than dollars. The euro has displaced the U.S. dollar as the preeminent currency in international bond markets. In a few years, the Chinese yuan will clearly join it in this role. Hong Kong and London have overtaken New York in IPOs.

    What goes around comes around

    Over the past decade, we have adopted unilateral

    The mood of national paranoia and the concomitant growth of a secrecy-obsessed garrison state have made Osama Bin Laden the greatest creator of federal employment since FDR. They encourage would-be customers to buy un-American.

    sanctions against some 95 countries and territories. Most recently, we have worked hard to shut down banking in the occupied territories of Palestine, severely curtail it in Iran — and prevent the use of the dollar in Sudan's oil trade. The nobility of our motives in each case is not the issue.

    But if we assert the right to confiscate dollar-denominated wealth, and to do so without due process or legal recourse and remedy, it should not surprise us that people begin looking for ways to avoid the use of our currency.

    There is now an active search on the part of a growing number of foreign financial institutions for ways to avoid the dollar, bank-clearance procedures that touch New York — or transactions with U.S.-based financial institutions. Adding oil traders to the list of the dollar-averse increases the incentives for them to find alternatives to our currency.

    Moving away

    Our ill-considered abuse of our financial power may thus have put us on the path to losing it. The dollar accounts for much of our weight in global affairs. U.S. investors are now increasingly hedging the dollar and going heavily into non dollar-denominated foreign equities and debt.

    You would think that growing disquiet about America’s financial over-extension would impel our government to make a major effort to boost our exports to rapidly growing markets like China. Our exports are in fact growing.

    Not taking advantage of the situation

    But our government's present policy focus, judging from its hiring patterns,

    If we have proposals for a world more congenial to the values we espouse, we no longer articulate them. The world is a much less promising place for our silence and absence.

    is not export promotion — but an attempt to block exports of scientific knowledge and technology to China and other potential rivals.

    Export controllers want to require export licenses for foreign graduate students and researchers in our universities and to compel U.S. companies to conduct detailed due diligence on prospective foreign purchasers of their goods and services.

    These initiatives reflect the mood of national paranoia and the concomitant growth of a secrecy-obsessed garrison state that have made Osama Bin Laden the greatest creator of federal employment since FDR. They encourage would-be customers to buy un-American.

    Adding to the problems

    Along with unwelcoming U.S. visa and immigration policies, such export-suppressive measures are a small part of a much broader assault on the openness of our society.


    We are now known internationally more for our recalcitrance than for our vision.


    The increasing restriction of American intercourse with foreigners encourages the outsourcing not just of jobs but of innovation in science and technology, research and development, engineering and design services and industrial production.

    Xenophobic policies and practices have begun to erode the long-standing American scientific and technological superiority they were intended to protect. Like economic protectionism, intellectual protectionism, it turns out, weakens, not strengthens one — and makes one less rather than more competitive in the global marketplace.

    Part III of this feature will appear on The Globalist tomorrow.

    Ellie


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