To pursue
primacy for its own sake seems
an odd way to reassure other nations. Anne-Marie
Slaughter
8 Steve Walt has been right about many things over the
past few years. To begin with, he and John Mearsheimer took the
lead in arguing that Saddam Hussein did not need to be overthrown.
They wrote articles, op-eds, and open letters signed by many other
political scientists pointing out that Hussein could be deterred,
even if he had nuclear weapons; that a policy of vigilant
containment would work, both now and in the event that Saddam
acquired a nuclear arsenal. They made the case that Saddam
was not a reckless suicidal maniac, but rather a rational calculator
seeking to maintain his own power and that of his nation in a
tough neighborhood. The absence of any weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq strongly supports the claim that in fact he had been deterred;
that he was sadistic and brutal, but not dangerous.
In September
2003 Walt wrote an op-ed in the Financial Times arguing that
President Bush should demand the resignations of Condoleezza Rice,
Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz for landing his administration
into such disastrous trouble in Iraq. Walt saw the situation as
hopeless, not only in terms of any grand project of transforming the
Middle East, but also in basic security termsa diagnosis and
analysis that again seems more prescient by the day. As he concluded,
The cruel fact is that the US simply does not have attractive
options at this point. When you make a big mistake, bad choices are
usually all that remain. Finally, Walt is absolutely right on
the importance of the United States providing sufficient reassurance
about its intentions to other powers in the international system to
reduce the need they feel to create a counterbalance. International
legitimacy is the currency of reassurance; international
institutions, as Walt understands, play a vital role in assuring that
legitimacy. As John Ikenberry has argued in his book After Victory,
the entire American post-WWII strategy was to reassure its European
and Asian allies that it would neither dominate nor abandon them by
deliberately enmeshing itself in a set of regional and global
institutions and that it would accept certain constraints on how it
exercised its power. Yet with
all this acuity and strategic
perspective, Walts analysis is riddled with contradictions. First,
why should the United States seek primacy? Walt accepts this starting
point of the Bush national-security strategy, but after decades and
indeed centuries of seeking only to amass enough power to provide for
security at home and to promote American interests abroad, suddenly
to declare that the United States is determined to pursue primacy for
its own saketo have no peer rivalseems an odd way to
reassure other nations of our intentions. Moreover, we are suddenly
defining our goals in terms of power itself rather than the purposes
to which it can be put. Small wonder that other nations find it hard
to believe us when we assure them that we seek democracy rather than
oil. Second, Walts
prescriptions regarding American policy
toward Israel focus on the importance of international legitimacy but
completely ignore the necessity of domestic legitimacy. He argues,
and I agree, that American foreign-policy goals with regard to
combating terrorism, nuclear proliferation, political oppression, and
economic stagnation in the Arab Muslim world all depend on progress
in resolving the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. In a nutshell, the
United States has no legitimacy with the vast majority of Muslims as
long as it is visibly seen to be supporting the occupation and
oppression of the Palestinians. Walts solution is for the United
States to pressure Israel into offering the Palestinians a viable
state, and if the Israeli government refuses, or if it tries to
impose an unjust solution unilaterally, then the United States
should end its economic and military support. Consistent with the
strategy of offshore balancing, the United States would pursue its
own self-interest rather than adhere to a blind allegiance to an
uncooperative ally. Walt
cant be serious. No American
politician could possibly implement such a strategy. Indeed, here is
one issue on which it is hard to find a finger widths of
difference between Hillary Clinton and Karl Rove. And why should the
Bush administration change course? As this article goes to press, the
EU is reaching out to Israel through various channels, and top policy
thinkers in Europe, Israel, and the United States are floating
scenarios for ways that Israel can move closer to NATO, as a partner
and even an eventual member. EgyptianIsraeli relations are warming
up; the Israelis are working with a coalition of European and
international funders to try to ensure the viability of the Gaza
economy once Israel pulls out; the Israeli government is
reconsidering the route of the wall; and maps are circulating in
Israel that envisage a three-way trade of territory among Egypt,
Israel, and Jordan for a final two-state solution. Equally
important, it is Sharons domestic legitimacy that offers a glimmer
of hope between the Israelis and the Palestinians at the moment.
Denounced by many members of his own party, Sharon is holding on to
power only by virtue of the votes of Labor. Many Labor supporters
argue that only Sharon has the domestic credibility to do what has to
be done in terms of dismantling settlements and creating a domestic
consensus for a viable Palestinian state. Thus in both the United
States and Israel, prescriptions for how to create international
legitimacy are irrelevant without first taking into account the
requirements for domestic legitimacy. Walts blind spot regarding
domestic politics is inherent in the entire conceptual framework of
offshore balancing. Walts analysis of American interests is sound
and indeed often compelling, as is his diagnosis of the many ills
currently afflicting American foreign policy. But Walt writes, as
realists will, of a world still divided into two discrete and
mutually exclusive spheres: international and domestic. States are
the principal actors in the international sphere, interacting with
one another as largely autonomous entities. It is a world in which
international security is state security, and the balance of power,
as Walt assumes, is the principal lever for assuring state
security. Unfortunately,
21st-century problems simply refuse to be
confined to this blueprint. Consider the basic premise of the UN High
Level Commission on Threats, Challenges, and Change, appointed by
Kofi Annan to identify the principal threats to global security in
the 21st century and to offer recommendations for how the UN can best
meet those threats. Their principal conclusion is that international
security comprises both state security and human security. Human
security, in turn, is a function above all of the quality and
capacity of domestic governments across the globe.
International-security problems are irretrievably intertwined with
domestic political, economic, and social problems. The United
States cannot address these problems by pulling back, holding itself
apart, mobilizing only when necessary to balance a particular power
configuration. Playing hard to get and attracting individuals
worldwide with our reinvigorated soft power is going to do very
little to strengthen the legitimacy, effectiveness, and integrity of
domestic governments. We need an affirmative strategy of how to build
domestic-governance capacityhealth systems, law enforcement,
economic and financial regulation, and education.
Our erstwhile allies and the international
institutions that Walt would rightly have us work with are working
hard to develop and implement such a strategy. But here Walt falls
short. Search his essay in vain even for a mention of AIDS, governance,
or development. At best, offshore balancing is only a partial
national-security strategy. At worst, it is a prescription for
a world that no longer exists. <
Anne-Marie
Slaughter is the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of
Public and International Affairs at Princeton
University and the
author of, most recently, A New World Order.
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Originally published in the February/March 2005 issue of Boston Review |