There is a term for such a nuanced policy: "double-track engagement," an expression used by George Shultz, secretary of state during Reagan's second term, who pursued national interests while at the same time helping to pry open such autocratic Cold War allies as Chile and the Philippines. And since Obama, unlike Reagan, puts real store by the United Nations and other multilateral institutions, he is in fact practicing a yet more nuanced "triple-track engagement" -- with states, with peoples, and with international bodies. The United States has rejoined the Human Rights Council, paid up its U.N. dues, and promoted the G-20 over the G-8.
It became clear enough, after 75 minutes, that engagement is not one thing, or two things. It's three or four things. It's "multifaceted and complex." It's complicated because the world is complicated. Maybe that's why the Obama administration clings to its favorite word -- because complicated is hard to explain. Simple policies, like Bush's Freedom Agenda, afford immediate gratification -- and then deep disappointment down the road. Nuanced, many-things-at-once policies require patience and a tolerance for ambiguous victories. We now have abundant evidence that this is not a patient or tolerant moment. You have to wonder how long complicated can survive in the absence of big wins.
All of which leaves our senior officials increasingly defensive. "Does it take time to get a bureaucracy oriented around the idea of multitrack diplomacy?" asked SO #1. "All the habits of interaction are binary. So it does."
Sometimes, as in China or Egypt, engagement with the state seems to preclude engagement with the aspirations of citizens and you get, well, realism. Other times, folks like us just don't get it. Of course, we might feel less confused if the Obamans used some term other than "engagement" to cover virtually everything they do.
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