By Daniel Clausen and Max Nurnus
The thinking of the American intellectual makes clear the virtues of the not-so-grand strategy.
A common refrain from both pundits and foreign policy analysts has been to ask: Where has U.S. grand strategy gone? There has been no shortage of commentary arguing that the United States, and in particular the Obama administration, lacks a grand strategy, and that one is desperately needed if the U.S. is to restore its power and purpose. In various articles, critics have charged the administration with having no guiding design for its foreign policy, allowing power vacuums to form in various regions, and responding sluggishly to international turmoil. In the midst of these criticisms, the Obama administration has released a National Security Strategy that outlines what various commenters have labeled “Strategic Patience.” The document is available here (PDF) and has been comprehensively analyzed by the Brookings Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, and other observers.
The National Security Strategy (published irregularly in 2002, 2006, 2010, 2015) is a consensus document written through an interagency process led by the White House. For this reason, they are typically what Richard Rumelt has dubbed “a dog’s dinner of goals” rather than a true strategy that outlines strengths and how they can be applied to opportunities. Still, the documents usually allow the public to glean the essence of how an administration sees the strategic environment and what approaches it thinks will work.
In past National Security Strategies, most notoriously the 2002 one that outlined what has since been called “The Bush Doctrine,” one could spot philosophical linkages to International Relations theory and the social sciences. Most prominent of these was the linkage to democratic peace theory, and thereby the notion that the promotion of democracy abroad would result in a more peaceful international environment since democracies do not go to war with one another. As Piki Ish-Shalom argued in 2008, this theory “lies at the heart of the Bush Doctrine’s emphasis on democracy promotion.” It has featured prominently in American foreign policy since the years of Woodrow Wilson and can be traced back to thinkers such as Alexis de Tocqueville in the 19th and Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. As the latter wrote in 1795, the first prerequisite for permanent peace is that “The civil constitution of every state should be republican.”
In contrast to the Bush administration’s approach, the Obama administration is conspicuous in its reluctance, its selectiveness, and “Strategic Patience.” The president’s foreword to the 2015 National Security Strategy illustrates this when he speaks of that fact that “our resources and influence are not infinite” and that America must rely on “strategic patience and persistence.” Elsewhere, Obama showcased a similar attitude, for example in his recent VOX interview where he warned of the temptation to see quick fixes for complex problems. His agenda was one of humility: “You make things a little bit better rather than a little bit worse.” Other members of his administration have joined this rhetoric, such as National Security Advisor Susan Rice who recently spoke out against the prevalent alarmism in the U.S. against threats from abroad, none of which are of an existential nature. With an eye on the contrast to the Bush administration, and on the interpretation of these attitudes by critics as reluctance and sluggishness, it is fruitful to ask what underpins this approach.
Read the full story at The Diplomat