3. We don't run the world. Reinhold Niebuhr said it best: America can't manage history. Part of the reason the trope of American decline has so much resonance today is that we have idealized our past role and power in the world. At best, the United States has had moments when it found a way to project its military, political, and economic power effectively: 1945-1950 in postwar Europe, the early 1970s détente with the Soviets and the opening to China, and the tail end of Ronald Reagan's and George H.W. Bush's administrations. But the notion that we are an effective hegemon in the Middle East has never been the case. That region is littered with the remains of great powers who thought wrongly that they could impose their will on small tribes. What makes us believe we can build nations there and mediate historic conflicts we scarcely understand?
The Arab Awakening caught the United States by surprise, washed away many of its allies and adversaries, and dramatically reduced its political space to maneuver. America can play an indispensable role at times if it has a good deal of buy-in from the locals and a sound strategy. Think Jimmy Carter at Camp David with Israel's Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat, or Bush 41 in the first Gulf War. But these successes are rare, the exception rather than the rule, and they may be rarer still in the future.
4. We ignore the past at our own peril. During the course of nearly 25 years in government, I can count on one hand the number of times I drew on history to argue for or against an issue. And I'm a trained historian. History doesn't repeat, Mark Twain observed; it rhymes. We need to look for those past rhythmic patterns as we assess liability, opportunity, and risk in the present. Forget the specific lessons of history; study it because it's a guard against the transgressions that can get great powers and their presidents into real trouble.
The United States occupied Japan for seven years between 1945 and 1952; not a single American was killed in a hostile action by the Japanese during that period. What do you suppose we were thinking when we invaded Iraq with insufficient forces and a woeful misunderstanding of the country's history, politics, and sectarian landscape? We weren't, and that's the point. Understanding why Carter succeeded at the Camp David summit in 1978 might have spared Clinton his failure at his own summit. (We in fact did our due diligence on this one, but chose to ignore those lessons and rely on our hopes over others' experience -- with predictable results.) Indeed, the notion that the world begins anew with each administration -- without much reference to the past -- is a serious flaw in the way any new administration fashions its policies.
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Each week, Reality Check will look at a salient issue in U.S. foreign policy with a view to asking some of the tough questions and sorting through how the United States might find a better balance in its policies. Next week we'll take a look at Syria and the week after at Iran, both poster children for the new kinds of challenges and traps that America faces without many good options.
I admit to a certain bias here. I am not a declinist; America is still the most consequential country on Earth. And I still believe in American greatness, though perhaps these days with a somewhat smaller G. America is not a potted plant that lacks the will or capacity to act in ways that can make the world a better place. At the same time, my days of trying to fix things have made me a bit wiser and more respectful when it comes to the need for rigorous and disciplined thinking before we throw ourselves into or at a challenge. We live in a cruel and unforgiving world, much of which is no longer as easily amenable to the application of conventional military and diplomatic power as it once was. Nor are the domestic sources of that power in the healthiest condition.
Think about it: We have only recently come out of one of the two longest wars in U.S. history. And victory in Iraq and Afghanistan (if we can even speak in such terms) seems to be measured more not by whether we can win, but by whether we can ever fully leave, and what we will leave behind if we do.
If there were a shorthand way of summoning up my view of America's role in the world today, I'd borrow a phrase from Jack Kennedy, who once described himself as an "idealist without illusion." The United States has the capacity to do much good in the world, and it must never abandon that goal. But as we seek to change things, we must keep our eyes wide open. These days, when America contemplates projecting its power abroad, it must ask and answer at least three questions: Should we do it? Can we do it? And what will it cost in relation to what we hope to achieve? The answers will never be precise, and the process always messy. But if asked and answered honestly with depth and discipline, we'll stand a better chance. None of this guarantees success, but it might go a long way in helping us reduce the odds of failure.
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