Obama and the World: New Directions in US Foreign Policy [2 ed.] 2013049222, 9780415715225, 9780415715232, 9781315879789

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Obama and the World

This significantly revised, updated, and extended second edition of New Directions in US Foreign Policy retains the strongest aspects of its original structure but adds a comprehensive account of the latest theoretical perspectives, the key actors and issues, and new policy directions. Offering a detailed and systematic outline of the field, this text: • • • •

Explains how international relations theories such as realism, liberalism, and constructivism can help us to interpret US foreign policy under President Obama Examines the key influential actors shaping foreign policy, from political parties and think tanks to religious groups and public opinion Explores the most important new policy directions under the Obama administration from the Arab Spring and the rise of China to African policy and multilateralism Supplies succinct presentation of relevant case material, and provides recommendations for further reading and web sources for pursuing future research.

Written by a distinguished line-up of contributors actively engaged in original research on the topics covered, and featuring twelve brand new chapters, this text provides a unique platform for rigorous debate over the contentious issues that surround US foreign policy. This wide-ranging text is essential reading for all students and scholars of US foreign policy. Inderjeet Parmar is Professor of International Politics, City University London, UK. Linda B. Miller is an Adjunct Professor of International Studies at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University and Professor of Political Science Emerita at Wellesley College, USA. Mark Ledwidge is Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and American Studies, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK.

Routledge Studies in US Foreign Policy Edited by Inderjeet Parmar, City University London and John Dumbrell, University of Durham

This series sets out to publish high quality works by leading and emerging scholars critically engaging with United States Foreign Policy. The series welcomes a variety of approaches to the subject and draws on scholarship from international relations, security studies, international political economy, foreign policy analysis and contemporary international history. Subjects covered include the role of administrations and institutions, the media, think tanks, ideologues and intellectuals, elites, transnational corporations, public opinion, and pressure groups in shaping foreign policy, US relations with individual nations, with global regions and global institutions and America’s evolving strategic and military policies. The series aims to provide a range of books – from individual research monographs and edited collections to textbooks and supplemental reading for scholars, researchers, policy analysts, and students. United States Foreign Policy and National Identity in the 21st Century Edited by Kenneth Christie New Directions in US Foreign Policy Edited by Inderjeet Parmar, Linda B. Miller and Mark Ledwidge America’s ‘Special Relationships’ Foreign and domestic aspects of the politics of alliance Edited by John Dumbrell and Axel R Schäfer US Foreign Policy in Context National ideology from the founders to the Bush Doctrine Adam Quinn The United States and NATO since 9/11 The transatlantic alliance renewed Ellen Hallams Soft Power and US Foreign Policy Theoretical, historical and contemporary perspectives Edited by Inderjeet Parmar and Michael Cox

The US Public and American Foreign Policy Edited by Andrew Johnstone and Helen Laville American Foreign Policy and Postwar Reconstruction Comparing Japan and Iraq Jeff Bridoux Neoconservatism and American Foreign Policy A critical analysis Danny Cooper US Policy Towards Cuba Since the Cold War Jessica F. Gibbs Constructing US Foreign Policy The curious case of Cuba David Bernell Race and US Foreign Policy The African-American foreign affairs network Mark Ledwidge Gender Ideologies and Military Labor Markets in the US Saskia Stachowitsch Prevention, Pre-Emption and the Nuclear Option From Bush to Obama Aiden Warren Corporate Power and Globalization in US Foreign Policy Edited by Ronald W. Cox West Africa and the US War on Terror Edited by George Klay Kieh, Jr and Kelechi Kalu Constructing America’s Freedom Agenda for the Middle East Oz Hassan The Origins of the US War on Terror Lebanon, Libya and American intervention in the Middle East Mattia Toaldo US Foreign Policy and the Rogue State Doctrine Alex Miles

US Foreign Policy and Democracy Promotion From Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama Edited by Michael Cox, Timothy J. Lynch and Nicolas Bouchet Local Interests and American Foreign Policy Why international interventions fail Karl Sandstrom The Obama Administration’s Nuclear Weapon Strategy The promises of Prague Aiden James Warren Obama’s Foreign Policy Ending the War on Terror Michelle Bentley and Jack Holland United States-Africa Security Relations Terrorism, regional security and national interests Edited by Kelechi A. Kalu and George Klay Kieh, Jr. Obama and the World New directions in US foreign policy, 2nd edition. Edited by Inderjeet Parmar, Linda B. Miller and Mark Ledwidge The United States, Iraq and the Kurds Mohammed Shareef Weapons of Mass Destruction and US Foreign Policy The strategic use of a concept Michelle Bentley American Images of China Identity, power, policy Oliver Turner North Korea–US Relations under Kim Jong Il Ramon Pacheco Pardo

Obama and the World New directions in US foreign policy Second edition

Edited by Inderjeet Parmar, Linda B. Miller, and Mark Ledwidge

First published 2009 as New Directions in US Foreign Policy Second edition published 2014 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2009, 2014 Inderjeet Parmar, Linda B. Miller, and Mark Ledwidge, selection and editorial matter; contributors, their contributions. The right of Inderjeet Parmar, Linda B. Miller, and Mark Ledwidge to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Obama and the world : new directions in US foreign policy / edited by Inderjeet Parmar, Linda B. Miller and Mark Ledwidge. – Second edition. pages cm. – (Routledge studies in US foreign policy) Includes bibliographical references and index. Earlier edition published under title: New directions in US foreign policy. 1. United States–Foreign relations–2009- 2. Obama, Barack. I. Parmar, Inderjeet, editor, author. II. Miller, Linda B., editor, author. III. Ledwidge, Mark, editor, author. IV. Title: New directions in US foreign policy. E907.O214 2014 327.73009’051–dc23 2013049222 ISBN: 978-0-415-71522-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-71523-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-87978-9 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Deer Park Productions

Contents

List of figures List of tables List of contributors Introduction

xi xii xiii xix

PART 1

Theories

1

1

3

Realism and US foreign policy ADAM QUINN

2

Constructivism, US foreign policy, and counterterrorism

15

RICHARD JACKSON AND MATT MCDONALD

3

Neoconservatism in the age of Obama

29

ROBERT SINGH

4

Obama, liberalism, and US foreign policy

41

TIMOTHY J. LYNCH

5

Marxism and US foreign policy

53

DOUG STOKES AND DAVID MAHER

6

Barack Obama: cosmopolitanism, identity politics, and the decline of Euro-centrism

67

MARK LEDWIDGE

7

Hegemonic transition and US foreign policy NICK KITCHEN

80

viii Contents PART 2

Non-state actors

93

8

95

Parties, polarization, and US foreign policy STEVEN HURST

9

Changing minds, changing course: Obama, think tanks, and American foreign policy

107

DONALD E. ABELSON

10 Conservative evangelicals, the Tea Party, and US foreign policy

120

LEE MARSDEN

11 American foreign policy during the Obama administration: insights from the public

133

JAMES M. MCCORMICK

12 Corporate elite networks and US foreign policy: the revolving door and the open door under Obama

149

BASTIAAN VAN APELDOORN AND NANÁ DE GRAAFF

PART 3

New problems, paradigms, and policies

163

13 The Obama administration’s policy toward Africa

165

GEORGE KLAY KIEH, JR

14 The offensive turn: US intelligence and the ‘war on terror’

185

TREVOR MCCRISKEN AND MARK PHYTHIAN

15 Transatlantic relations and US foreign policy

197

DAVID HASTINGS DUNN AND BENJAMIN ZALA

16 The US ‘pivot’ to the Asia Pacific

219

OLIVER TURNER

17 The United States and the Arab spring: now and then in the Middle East

231

LINDA B. MILLER

18 Obama, Wikileaks, and American power INDERJEET PARMAR

243

Contents 19 The United States and the UN: return to the fold?

ix 258

CRAIG N. MURPHY

PART 4

A view from practitioners

273

20 American power, patterns of rise and decline

275

KETAN PATEL AND CHRISTIAN HANSMEYER

21 Presidents’ agenda: the decisions that will shape US–China relations

289

KETAN PATEL AND CHRISTIAN HANSMEYER

Afterword: Securing freedom: Obama, the NSA, and US foreign policy

303

ANDREW HAMMOND AND RICHARD J. ALDRICH

Index

315

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Figures

12.1 Corporate affiliations of Obama’s key grand-strategy makers (per sector) 20.1 Top three countries by economic dominance (% share of global economic power) 20.2 The British Empire, 1902, on the death of Queen Victoria, empire at maximum extent 20.3 Development of US power, 1875–2100, as measured by % share of global GDP: economic forecast model 20.4 Development of US power, 1875–2100, as measured by % share of global GDP: political forecast model 20.5 Development of US power, 1875–2100, as measured by % share of global GDP: political forecast model (alternative) 21.1 Bilateral trade and tariffs 21.2 WTO anti-dumping measures by country, 1995–2009 21.3 Currency and capital account 21.4 China’s US dollar reserves 21.5 FDI and protectionism 21.6 Overtaking America: US–China GDP growth forecast 21.7 Asia-Pacific and the pivot 21.8 Taiwan 21.9 Central Asia 21.10 Natural resource competition 21.11 Prosperity 21.12 Reform

155 276 281 282 283 284 290 291 291 291 291 294 295 295 296 297 298 299

Tables

11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7 11.8 11.9 12.1 13.1 13.2 13.3 21.1

Two questions on the foreign policy orientation of the public by party and ideology (%) Support for use of American troops in different international situations by party and ideology (%) Public support for willingness to ‘meet and talk’ with leaders from five different adversaries by party and ideology (%) Public support for various measures to combat international terrorism by party and ideology (%) Public support for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan for three different options by party and ideology (%) Public support for differing policy action toward North Korea by party and ideology (%) Public support for various actions against Iran by party and ideology (%) Public support for American actions against Syria by party and ideology (%) Public view of the pivot toward Asia and the relative importance of three regions by party and ideology (%) Number of corporate linkers and corporate affiliations per administration US development aid to Africa, 2009–12 (US$ billions) The United States’ trade with Africa, 2009–12 (US$ billions) US foreign direct investments in Africa, 2009–12 (US$ billions) Leaders’ respective political systems and the nature of their roles and responsibilities

138 138 139 140 140 141 141 142 143 153 172 173 174 290

Contributors

Donald Abelson is Professor, Department of Political Science, Director of the Canada–US Institute, and Director, Centre for American Studies, at The University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada where he teaches in the fields of American politics and US foreign policy. He is the author of several books including, Do Think Tanks Matter? Assessing the Impact of Public Policy Institutes, which has been translated into both Arabic (Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research) and Simplified Chinese (Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences), A Capitol Idea: Think Tanks and US Foreign Policy, and American Think Tanks and their Role in US Foreign Policy. His work has also appeared in over three dozen edited collections and academic journals, including: Global Society, Presidential Studies Quarterly, The Canadian Review of American Studies, The Canadian Journal of Political Science, and Canadian Public Administration. He is currently writing a book that examines the think-tank landscape in Canada and assesses the impact a select group of institutes have had in shaping the discourse around key policy issues. In addition to his research and teaching interests, Dr Abelson has served as a consultant for several governmental and nongovernmental organizations in North America, Europe, and the Middle East. He is also a regular commentator on various national and international media outlets where he discusses the think-tank phenomenon as well as current developments in American politics and Canada–US relations. Richard J. Aldrich is Professor of International Security at the University of Warwick. He is the author of The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (2001) and GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency (2010). Since 2008, he has been leading a team project funded by the AHRC entitled: “Landscapes of Secrecy: The Central Intelligence Agency and the Contested Record of US Foreign Policy”. He currently serves on the Cabinet Office Consultative Group on Intelligence and Security Records, the UK Information Assurance Advisory Council and the UK Ministry of Defence Academic Advisory Forum. Bastiaan van Apeldoorn is Reader in International Relations in the Department of Political Science at the VU University Amsterdam, and Chair of the Amsterdam Research Centre for International Political Economy (ARCIPE). He studied political science at the University of Amsterdam, obtained his PhD in the social and political sciences from the European University Institute in Florence, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. His research centres around the relationship between state power and social power within the European and global political economy and within contemporary geopolitics. His current research – with Naná de Graaff – focuses on the

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Contributors

nexus between state and capital in US grand strategy-making, in particular analysing how the ties of US foreign policy officials to America’s corporate elite are shaping America’s post-Cold War grand strategy. Bastiaan van Apeldoorn has published in journals like New Political Economy, Journal of International Relations and Development, Critical Sociology, European Journal of International Relations, and Globalizations. His recent books are Contradiction and Limits of Neoliberal European Governance (co-editor, Palgrave, 2009); Neoliberalism in Crisis? (co-editor, Palgrave, 2012); The State–Capital Nexus in the Global Crisis (co-editor, Routledge, 2013); American Grand Strategy and Corporate Elite Networks (with Naná de Graaff, Routledge, forthcoming). Dr David Hastings Dunn is Reader in International Politics and Head of Department in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. His main research interests are US foreign policy, security studies, and diplomacy. He is currently working on an ESRC/DSTL project on drone warfare He is also Chairman of the West Midlands Military Education Committee. He is the author of over sixty book chapters and journal articles on contemporary international politics. In 2010 his article ‘Assessing the debate, assessing the damage: transatlantic relations after Bush’ was awarded the UK’s Political Studies Association’s ‘Best Article in British Journal of Politics and International Relations in 2009’ prize. He is also a former holder of a NATO Fellowship and a Fulbright Fellowship, spent as a Guest Scholar at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. Naná de Graaff is a Lecturer in International Relations at the Department of Political Science at the VU University in Amsterdam and Vice Chair of the Amsterdam Research Centre for International Political Economy (ARCIPE). She received her master’s degree in international relations at the VU University, and completed her PhD research about the geopolitical economy of oil, the rising inÀuence of state-owned oil companies from the Global South, and shifts in global governance of energy, at the VU University in 2013. Alongside her PhD she has been developing a research project on corporate elite networks and US post-Cold War foreign policy together with Bastiaan van Apeldoorn. Her main research interests are within international relations and international political economy, the geopolitical economy of energy, US foreign policy, corporate elite networks, and social network analysis. Recent publications have appeared in European Journal of International Relations, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Global Networks, and Globalizations. Recent books are The State– Capital Nexus in the Global Crisis (co-editor, Routledge, 2013) and American Grand Strategy and Corporate Elite Networks (with Bastiaan van Apeldoorn, Routledge, forthcoming). Andrew Hammond is an Early Career Research Fellow/United Nations Academic Impact Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick. He was formerly an Oral History Research Fellow at the same institution. He is currently reworking his ESRC funded (1+3, Open Competition) doctoral dissertation, Struggles for Freedom: Afghanistan and US Foreign Policy, 1979–2009, for publication. It inquired into the cultural production of US national identity by comparing and contrasting discourses of freedom employed during the Cold War and the Global War on Terror. It was based upon extensive archival work and elite interviews/oral histories, much of this conducted while an AHRC/ESRC British Research Council Fellow at the Library of Congress in 2011. He is fascinated by ‘the American experiment’ – with research interests that range across US history and US foreign and security policy – and believes that of¿ces such as the presidency and intelligence services such as NSA and CIA offer especially fruitful lenses through which to consider it.

Contributors

xv

Christian Hansmeyer is a Senior Member of the Greater Paci¿c Capital Chinese Of¿ce. He is involved in the ¿rm’s investment activities and plays a leading role in the ¿rm’s research activities. Previously, he was at Goldman Sachs. Steven Hurst is Reader in Politics at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK. His work focuses mainly on US foreign policy in the Middle East and his most recent book is The United States and Iraq since 1979 (Edinburgh University Press, 2009). He is currently engaged on a new project on the history of US policy towards the Iranian nuclear programme. Richard Jackson is Professor of Peace Studies and Deputy Director at the National Centre for Peace and ConÀict Studies (NCPACS), University of Otago, New Zealand. He is the editor-in-chief of the journal, Critical Studies on Terrorism. His recent books include: Contemporary Debates on Terrorism (Routledge, 2012, co-edited with Samuel Justin Sinclair); Terrorism: A Critical Introduction (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2011, co-authored with Marie Breen Smyth, Jeroen Gunning, and Lee Jarvis); Contemporary State Terrorism: Theory and Cases (Routledge, 2010, co-edited with Eamon Murphy and Scott Poynting); and Critical Terrorism Studies: A New Research Agenda (Routledge, 2009, co-edited with Marie Breen Smyth and Jeroen Gunning). George Klay Kieh, Jr is Professor of Political Science at the University of West Georgia. He has served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of West Georgia, Dean of International Affairs and Professor of Political Science and African and African American Studies at Grand Valley State University, Michigan, and Chair of the Department of Political Science and Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Morehouse College, Georgia. His research interests are in the areas of security studies, American foreign policy, the state, democratization and democracy, development studies, political economy, and regional and global institutions. His recent books are Liberia’s State Failure, Collapse, and Reconstitution (2012) and West Africa and the US War on Terror (co-edited). Nicholas Kitchen is Research Officer in global power and the Gulf at the London School of Economics, where he serves as Editor-in-Chief of LSE IDEAS and as Deputy Head of the LSE IDEAS United States International Affairs Program. His book, Strategy in US Foreign Policy, will be published by Routledge in 2014. Mark Ledwidge, Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and American Studies, has been appointed Vacation Visiting Research Fellow at the prestigious Rothermere American Institute (RAI), University of Oxford. Dr Ledwidge is also a founding member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Network on the Presidency of Barack Obama. His research focuses on the relationship and impact of African-Americans on US foreign policy. It provides a unique insight into the effect race and ethnicity have had upon US foreign policy, as well as highlighting how race has been relatively excluded from mainstream theories in international relations. He is also lead editor on the forthcoming title Barack Obama and the Myth of a Post-Racial America along with Kevern Verney and Inderjeet Parmar (Routledge, 2013). Timothy J. Lynch is Associate Professor and Director of the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He is the author of Turf War: The Clinton

xvi

Contributors

Administration and Northern Ireland (Ashgate, 2004) and co-author of After Bush: The Case for Continuity in American Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 2008). He is the Editor-inChief of the new Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History (2013) and author of the forthcoming Cambridge Essential History of post-Cold War US Foreign Policy. David Maher recently graduated from the University of Kent, Canterbury, with a PhD in international conflict analysis. His research focuses on the links between neoliberalism, globalization, and political violence. David’s work also investigates the political economy of US foreign policy. He is the co-founder of the Latin American Research Cluster at the University of Kent and his current research analyses neoliberalism in the context of civil war violence. Lee Marsden is Professor in International Relations and Head of the Department of Political, Social, and International Studies at the University of East Anglia, UK. He is the Editor of the Ashgate series on Religion and International Security and author of Doing Political Science and International Relations: Theories in Action (with Heather Savigny) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); For God’s Sake: The Christian Right and US Foreign Policy (Zed Books, 2008); Lessons from Russia: Clinton and US Democracy Promotion (Ashgate, 2005). He is editor of the Ashgate Research Companion on Religion and Conflict Resolution (Ashgate, 2012). He is currently completing a monograph for Polity Press on religion and security. James M. McCormick is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Iowa State University. He received his BA from Aquinas College in 1968, his MA from Michigan State University in 1969, and his PhD from Michigan State University in 1973. He is a former American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow (Office of Congressman Lee Hamilton). McCormick has authored or edited twelve books, including the sixth edition of American Foreign Policy and Process (Cengage/Wadsworth, 2014) and the sixth edition of The Domestic Sources of American Foreign Policy: Insights and Evidence (Rowman & Littlefield, 2012). He has published more than seventy book chapters and articles in such journals as World Politics, American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics, International Studies Quarterly, and Legislative Studies Quarterly. He was a recipient of the Iowa State University Foundation Award for Outstanding Research at Mid-Career in 1990, a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award to New Zealand in 1993, the Fulbright-SyCip Distinguished Lecturer Award to the Philippines in 2003, the Iowa State University College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Award for Outstanding Achievement in Departmental Leadership in 2004, and Iowa State University Foundation International Service Award in 2010. He was co-editor of International Studies Quarterly for five years and is currently on the editorial boards of Foreign Policy Analysis, Human Rights Review, and Global Governance. In 2011, he received the Quincy Wright Distinguished Scholar Award from the International Studies Association, Midwest. Trevor McCrisken is Associate Professor, US Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. With research interests in US foreign policy and US politics and culture, he is currently focusing on President Barack Obama’s attempts to redefine US foreign policy, his use of rhetoric, and its impact on counter-terrorism policy. His latest publication is ‘Obama’s drone war’ in the journal Survival (April/May 2013). He has also recently published two articles in the journal International Affairs (‘Ten years on: Obama’s

Contributors

xvii

war on terrorism in rhetoric and practice’ and ‘Justifying sacrifice: Barack Obama and the selling and ending of the war in Afghanistan’). Dr Matt McDonald is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Queensland, Australia. He researches on critical theoretical approaches to security, the relationship between security and environmental change, and Australian foreign and security policy. He is the author of Security, the Environment and Emancipation (Routledge 2012), and co-author (with Anthony Burke and Katrina Lee-Koo) of the forthcoming book Ethics and Global Security (Routledge 2014). Linda B. Miller is Professor of Political Science, Emerita, at Wellesley College, USA. An international relations specialist, she also taught at Barnard, Harvard, and Brown and held research appointments at Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, and Brown, where she is currently Adjunct Professor (Research) at the Watson Institute. From 1999 to 2002, she was also Editor of the International Studies Review. Craig N. Murphy teaches at Wellesley College and co-directs the Center on Governance and Sustainability at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is Past-President of the International Studies Association, Past-Chair of the Academic Council on the UN System, and co-founded the council’s journal, Global Governance. His books include UNDP: A Better Way? (Cambridge 2006), The International Organization for Standardization, with JoAnne Yates (Routledge 2009), and Rising Powers and the Future of Global Governance (Routledge 2013), edited with Kevin Gray. Inderjeet Parmar currently teaches in the Department of International Politics at City University London; from 1991 to 2012, he taught at the University of Manchester. His latest book, Foundations of the American Century: Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power was published in 2012 by Columbia University Press. He is Past-President and Chair of the British International Studies Association and Chair of the Obama Research Network. He is currently a Visiting Research Scholar, Princeton University. Ketan Patel is the CEO and co-founder of Greater Pacific Capital, an investing institution focused on the rising economies of India and China and their link to the major international economies. He was formerly the Head of the Strategic Group of Goldman Sachs and a Partner at KPMG. He is the author of The Master Strategist (Random House 2005). Mark Phythian is Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester, specializing in the fields of intelligence and security. His most recent publications include the edited volume Understanding the Intelligence Cycle (Routledge 2013) and, with Peter Gill, a revised and expanded second edition of Intelligence in an Insecure World (Polity 2012). Adam Quinn is Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the Department of Political Science and International Studies (POLSIS) and the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation, and Security (ICCS) at the University of Birmingham. His research interests focus on US foreign policy, current and historical, and realist approaches to international relations. Relevant publications include US Foreign Policy in Context (Routledge 2010), ‘The art of declining politely: Obama’s prudent presidency and the waning of American power’, International Affairs, 87 (4), 2011, and ‘Kenneth Waltz, Adam Smith, and the limits of

xviii Contributors science’, International Politics, 50 (2), 2013. He was convenor of the US Foreign Policy group of the British International Studies Association 2008–12, and convened the US Foreign Policy Section of the General Conference of the European Consortium on Political Research (ECPR) in 2009 and 2011. Robert S. Singh is Professor of Politics at Birkbeck, University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, an Honorary Fellow of the Foreign Policy Association and a member of the Westlaw Round Table Group, the European Convention on Liberal Democracy, and the Academic Council of the Henry Jackson Society. His research interests are in the politics of US foreign policy though he has also written extensively on domestic US politics. Among other publications, he is co-editor of The Bush Doctrine and the War on Terrorism (Routledge 2006), co-author – with Timothy J. Lynch – of After Bush: The Case for Continuity in American Foreign Policy (Cambridge University Press 2008), and the author of Barack Obama’s Post-American Foreign Policy: The Limits of Engagement (Bloomsbury 2012). Doug Stokes is Professor in International Relations at the University of Exeter, UK. Oliver Turner is a Hallsworth Fellow in Political Economy at the University of Manchester. He is the author of American Images of China: Identity, Power, Policy (Routledge 2014). Benjamin Zala is Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester. He was previously the Director of the Sustainable Security Programme at the Oxford Research Group and has worked at Chatham House and the La Trobe University Centre for Dialogue. He holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham where he has also taught international relations and diplomatic history. His research focuses on approaches to world order in international relations theory, foreign policy analysis, and global security issues. He has published on nuclear deterrence, great power politics, and non-traditional security issues including in journals such as Cooperation and Conflict, The RUSI Journal, and the Nonproliferation Review.

Introduction Obama – promise, performance, prospects Inderjeet Parmar, Linda B. Miller, and Mark Ledwidge This significantly revised, updated, and extended second edition of New Directions in US Foreign Policy – a textbook-with-a-difference – retains the strongest aspects of its original structure but adds new dimensions to reflect the issues raised by and dealt with in the administration of President Barack Obama, the United States’ first African-American chief executive. Encouraged by the very positive feedback received from reviewers and users of this book, we have retained the volume’s argumentative, research-based character – to bring to life the theories and politics of US foreign policy through direct engagement with the latest events and processes – cutting-edge research coupled with the most controversial foreign and national security issues in American policy as it impacts the world and its own state and nation. It is clear that there is controversy on practically all aspects of the presidency of Barack Obama and the changes that were promised or implied during the election campaign of 2008 and what has successfully been delivered in concrete terms by the time of writing: on Iraq, Afghanistan, the global ‘war on terror’; on US relationships with international institutions like the UN; climate change; nuclear weapons and WMD proliferation; Guantanamo; extraordinary rendition; on Israel–Palestine; and so on. In addition, the Obama administration has had to cope with renewed claims that it has too willingly presided over American ‘decline’ in a post-American world while other powers – like China, India, Brazil – ‘rise’ to challenge its ‘hegemony’. The role of Europe also appears to require renegotiation and re-interrogation as Obama shifts/pivots/rebalances America’s gaze to what many claim is the new fulcrum of global politics and economics – Asia. But, as John Bolton famously noted, ‘great powers don’t pivot’; they ‘rebalance’. On the other hand, new controversies and issues have arisen that have challenged the Obama administration: the ‘Wikileaks’ saga; democratic mass uprisings against the status quo across the Arab world, including key US allies like Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen; regime change through warfare in Libya with strong Anglo–French participation; the increasing use of drone and cyber-warfare; and so on. Fundamental to assessing the achievements of the Obama administration are the concepts of ‘continuity’ and ‘change’, closely allied to the notions of ‘structure’, ‘agency’, and ‘contingency’. Arguments have raged across academia, media and electorates, and peoples around the world on the character and extent of ‘change’ delivered by the Obama administration since 2008 and on the prospects for the second term (2012–16). The chapters of this book deal squarely with this question. But change is a slippery concept – it ranges from fundamental shifts in goals and means all the way to relatively minor shifts in tone and style, with goals and even means remaining unchanged. It is the latter that most informed

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observers of US power suggest has actually occurred – President Obama has changed the ‘mood music’ of global politics by a range of rhetorical and stylistic devices that have improved America’s standing in many parts of the world. Yet, it may be argued that Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, had already signalled the changes Obama presided over and conveyed more convincingly. Yet, alongside the soaring rhetoric of change and the greater sobriety in style, for which he was controversially awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 – a little like an Oscar to a director in the hope that he might make a great movie in the future – President Obama ramped up the war in Afghanistan, increased and extended the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) in the war on terror (aka ‘overseas contingency operations’), increased the military budget by 2011 by over $200 billion, and played a decisive military role in coercive regime change in Libya. Indeed, with the killing of Osama bin Laden, head of Al Qaeda and mastermind of the terror attacks of 9/11, and the more aggressive posture towards China and Iran, President Obama gave his Republican opponent in 2012, Governor Mitt Romney, nowhere to go. Unusually for a Democrat, Obama went on the political offensive on national security and won. The key issue is: what choices did President Obama actually have? Could he have acted otherwise? Were not his inherited legacies – two wars going badly, a global financialeconomic crisis, increasing unemployment at home, America’s moral authority questioned even among its allies – a straitjacket he was forced to wear? Add to those legacies the fact of an enduring foreign policy ‘establishment’ slow to shift from its ‘path dependencies’ – how could a relatively young chief executive with no governing experience, no military service, no significant knowledge of economic and financial matters, be expected to deliver ‘change’? On the other side, we could ask whether anything President Obama did could ever meet the level of popular expectation – domestically and internationally – that had built up by November 2008? Finally, we could also ask questions about President Obama’s ability as a leader: was he not too professorial, a ditherer, and not a ‘gut’ leader, unlike George W. Bush? Yet, surely it makes a difference who is in the White House? Despite legacies and crises, a new face, new fresh energy, new ideas, and someone not implicated or responsible for inherited crises and problems, can make a difference. Indeed, one could turn the matter on its head and ask why Obama failed to take advantage of the very crises that he inherited to forge an entirely new foreign policy and national security strategy? Constructivists, Gramscians, pluralists, realists, and many other kinds of theorists argue that crises are the crucible for redefining understandings of American power and forging radical shifts in policy and strategy. Indeed, during the presidential campaign of 2008, candidate Obama mobilized and channelled national and global discontent with the Bush administrations’ aggressive, unilateralist and militaristic strategies and image. Why then did he fail to convert such deep yearnings for change into anything genuinely meaningful including, for example, closing the Guantanamo Bay detention and torture facility? Could it be that President Obama did exercise agency in failing to convert inherited crises (contingency) because he fundamentally believes in the idea behind the Bush doctrine – America as the ‘exceptional’ nation, destined to lead, to exercise global responsibility, and the entire military, corporate, and federal edifice (a military-industrial complex?) that has underpinned it since the 1950s and 1960s – but merely disagrees with the ‘mix’ of means by which his predecessor chose to implement it? Doesn’t the main difference between the Bush and Obama administrations lie in the mix of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ power – i.e., ‘smart’ power – the latter has chosen to exercise?

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Those are major questions that go to the heart of controversies about leadership in general and President Obama’s leadership in particular. Many of them, directly or indirectly, are explored in this new completely revised, updated, and extended edition of New Directions in US Foreign Policy. However, we aim in this book to go further than this too. We aim to bring to life differing, rival approaches to American power and foreign policy and national security strategy. We do not confine ourselves to the Washington, DC, ‘beltway’ spectrum of debate but opt for ‘full spectrum’ analysis – from Marxism to elitism to realism to neoconservatism, and beyond. Why so much ‘theory’? The first thing on this matter is that the way we introduce and explore theory in this book differs markedly from others in this field: our contributors are not discussing theory per se but in relation to the Obama administration, its Republican predecessor, and future prospects. That is, theory and history and contemporary politics are inextricably intertwined in this volume, doing what, in our view, theory does best – help clarify and foreground certain aspects that it considers fundamental to explaining what happened and why. But theory does much more than this. Contrary to popular student opinion, theory is not society’s way of torturing the young. Theory suggests new questions to ask about whatever we are trying to understand and explain. Viewing the same phenomenon from a variety of theoretical perspectives allows multiple approaches to a problem or issue or presidency, highlighting different kinds of evidence that inform understanding. Hence, we ask what does, inter alia, realism or liberalism or Marxism or hegemonic transition theory, have to say about Obama’s foreign policy and national security concepts? We also ask, however (pursuing the idea of continuity and change) where are the neoconservatives now? Have they regrouped in new think tanks and advocacy groups? How did they advise Obama’s Republican opponent Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential elections? Where is Obama’s think-tank brains’ trust? Which think tanks had the ‘ear’ of the Obama White House? What has happened to democracy promotion and the ‘freedom agenda’ during Obama’s tenure? Did the Obama administration show greater respect for the United Nations and other international organizations than did his predecessor in the White House? Is Obama’s a radically different concept of US power or is it fundamentally similar to that of the George W. Bush administrations’? What is the verdict on the Obama administration’s approaches to the world, and their impacts on the really big questions today? To what extent, if any, has Obama restored America’s image and reputation in the world? Has anti-Americanism really declined? How does the world perceive the United States as a result of Obama, hailed by Zbigniew Brzezinski as ‘the new face of American power’ at a time of crisis? We go farther still. It was noted at a recent meeting of US foreign policy experts focused on the Obama presidency that one could sit through such discussions for days on end and not hear mention of the word ‘race’. To those meetings, we could add the ‘race’ silence of US foreign policy textbooks, not to mention volumes of IR textbooks. Yet, does ‘race’ not matter in US power and foreign policy? Or does ‘race’ like other domestic matters, stop at ‘the water’s edge’? This book begs to differ and asks: how has Obama’s racial minority status affected the conduct and concepts of US foreign policy as demographic change augurs a ‘minority-majority’ population in America in the next few decades and global power tilts towards emerging, non-European, powers like India and China? Does it matter that Obama’s political opponents and others have questioned his loyalty to America, contended that he’s not American-born, that he’s an Arab or Muslim? Has not Obama, as Zbigniew Brzezinski argued, literally changed the face of American power, a face rather different from that portrayed on US dollar bills? And has that changed face not had a significant impact in

xxii Introduction Africa and Asia on America’s image and standing? Or going even deeper than this: surely, it is not Obama’s minority status that’s brought ‘race’ to the forefront as a fact of US power and foreign policy, but the fact that the latter have been dominated by a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment since the founding of the republic and even more so since 1941? These are big issues that are dealt with systematically in this volume – theoretically and empirically – by scholars conducting state-of-the-art research, making this volume a key resource for students and scholars who want a succinct, concise but incisive analysis that is as controversial and argumentative as its subject matter: the foreign and national security policies of, what is still – but for how long (?) – the world’s lone superpower. This edition has, among others, three entirely new chapters in the theory section (neoconservatism’s regrouping, cosmopolitanism, and hegemonic transition theory), three entirely new chapters on (Obama’s) think tanks, the Tea Party’s role, and on Obama and Africa; and six entirely new chapters (including on Wikileaks, the Arab Spring, militarization of intelligence, the global financial crisis and US power, corporate elites and US power, and the prospects for Sino–US relations in the wake of political change in both countries). In total, twelve entirely new chapters. The remaining chapters have been thoroughly updated with new evidence and cases that examine change and continuity in US foreign policy from Bush to Obama, and finish with remarks on future policy prospects in light of the results of the 2012 presidential election. We hope you find this volume interesting, challenging, stimulating, and useful. Inderjeet Parmar, Linda B. Miller, and Mark Ledwidge

Part 1

Theories

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Realism and US foreign policy Adam Quinn

Neither realism nor US foreign policy is a one-dimensional enterprise the content or purpose of which can be easily captured in a single set of uncontroversial propositions. That being the case, the relation between the two is apt to manifest higher levels of complexity than one might expect at first blush. Under the broad heading of ‘realism’, there exists a degree of diversity that is perhaps underappreciated when it comes to such important questions as the sustainability of a unipolar order, the optimal foreign policy course for a state in any given circumstances, or even the question of whether an individual state’s motives and decisions are truly susceptible to theoretical understanding. And as regards US foreign policy: fundamental disputes regarding its motivation, direction, and purpose are as old as the nation itself, and thick strands of literature in both history and political science have arisen apropos of the quest for a definitive interpretation (Quinn 2010: 10–30). A deal of this scope for diversity in interpretation will be apparent from the array of differing analyses contained within this volume. Thus, in seeking to provide a summary of what realism might have to tell us about contemporary US policy, or vice versa, one faces two not-insignificant challenges: first, bringing to the task an understanding of realism that does that school of thought justice in terms of representativeness and acknowledgement of diversity; and second, formulating a similarly fair and balanced characterization of present US policy to which to apply it. This chapter will seek to address these necessary tasks in that order: first, clarifying what it might mean to take a realist approach to assessing anything in international relations, and then holding the present policy of the United States under President Obama up to examination through that lens. It concludes with the assessment that the Obama administration appears to represent an accommodation-oriented approach to managing a shift against the United States both in terms of the international distribution of power and its domestic capacity to harness resources for national security purposes. Whether the Obama administration is selfconsciously ‘realist’ in its policy is a matter for debate, as will be explained below, but the conclusion here is that its policies broadly and on the whole accord with the broad practical and normative thrust of realism, at least in its defensive forms, and in so doing stand in something of a contrast to those of his immediate predecessor.

What is a realist approach? A focus on power, limits, and restraint Structural realisms One strand of realist thought is the structural, or neo-realist, which places primary emphasis on the relative capabilities of states and the international distribution of power. A particular

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interest in the United States is only natural for structural realists, since as the most powerful single state in the international system, any conceptual approach making power and its distribution central to its concerns must concern itself as a matter of priority with America’s world role. The structural approach originates, at least in the eyes of most histories of the discipline, from the seminal work of Kenneth Waltz ([1979] 2010). In his theoretical model, Waltz posits a system of states struggling to preserve autonomy in an inescapably nonhierarchical international space. The imperatives imposed by this context are for states to tend towards self-interested realpolitik-style behaviour rather than the kinds of deep cooperation typically aspired to by liberal theorists, and to engage in tactical alliances to balance against the emergence of any prospective hegemonic power. The essential logic of this structural approach has since been developed and elaborated upon, with some sub-theoretical variations posited, by numerous subsequent realist thinkers. The most notable is Mearsheimer (2001), whose conception of realism embraces much of Waltz’s model, but also argues that states are more prone to excesses of ambition when it comes to the accumulation of power, and as a result have a tendency towards overreaching themselves, triggering conflict in the process. At the level of generalization-seeking IR theory, the primary fissure of debate within structural realism thus lies between Mearsheimer’s ‘offensive’ posture and the more ‘defensive’ realism of the Waltzian school which believes states might more often be satisfied with sub-hegemonic levels of power on their own part so long as what power they have is sufficient to protect their autonomy against hegemonic domination by any other. There is also debate to be had over the extent to which hard capabilities merit near-exclusive focus, as many take Waltz to imply, or whether the perception of aggressive intent, i.e. threat, constitutes a decisive factor in giving rise to conflict on the basis of any given distribution of capabilities (Walt 1985). When it comes to assessing the present-day United States, the chief relevance of a structural realist perspective lies in its treatment of hegemonic power and the question of its sustainability. Realist thought, e.g. Gilpin (1987), can accommodate the view that if a state should obtain a concentration of power and capabilities outstripping all rivals, it may be able to establish a stable order constructed around its own preferences. Given its overwhelming superiority after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the post-Cold War United States seems to qualify readily as a hegemonic power, and the world order to qualify as ‘unipolar’, in realist terms. The most pressing question at present is, then, whether this state of affairs is capable of being sustained into the indefinite future thanks to the vast starting advantage provided by the present US lead across measures of power (Brooks and Wohlforth 2008) or whether the project of sustaining hegemonic power, not just regionally but across all regions of the globe, represents a bold aspiration likely to unravel with some imminence (Layne 2012). From the former perspective the United States represents something of a success story in realist terms, broadly victorious – in spite of some missteps – in its efforts to entrench itself as a sort of systemic overseer, its primacy beyond realistic challenge in the foreseeable future. From the second, it will soon represent the latest in a long line of cautionary tales illustrating the truth that the quest for global hegemony results in overextension and the stimulation of countervailing forces. Classical and neoclassical realisms The other major strand of realism, not necessarily entirely distinct in terms of scholarly personnel but distinguishable in terms of intellectual content, concerns itself primarily not just with the question of how the United States is situated within the distribution of power but

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also with the way it reacts to those circumstances in its policy choices. This brand of realism is sometimes termed ‘classical’ in order to distinguish it from structural frameworks of the Waltz/ Mearsheimer kind. Classical realist analysis contains elements of both the descriptive and the normative. This is a necessary combination, since any approach which advances conclusions as to the wisdom and morality of policy can only do so on the basis of some working theory as to the way states’ actions come about and the consequences they are likely to bring. Realist analysis of this sort regarding US foreign policy has almost invariably been more critical than complimentary. George Kennan (1984) famously scorned the American tendency to adopt ‘legalistic-moralistic’ approaches to international problems and failure to appreciate the primacy of national interests in determining state policy. Hans Morgenthau ([1951] 1982) and Henry Kissinger (1995) both lamented the dominance of the Wilsonian mindset in US political culture, under which policymakers reflexively seek solutions to conflict premised on liberal transformation of others’ perception of their own interests and/or of the international system itself. Far better, they argued, to embrace the need for unsentimental pursuit of national interest, acknowledging the international space as one in which the United States is in contest with other nations pursuing contrary but equivalently legitimate interests. This is also an argument that this author has made at length elsewhere (Quinn 2010). Reinhold Niebuhr ([1952] 2008), meanwhile, adopted the most explicitly normative and moralistic stance, offering a critique highlighting the United States’ lack of insight into its own hubris. In claiming special insight into the direction of History and seeking superhuman levels of control over the management of global ‘progress’ towards universal embrace of some idealized version of America’s own values and practices, the United States was all too often the author of its own failure. In a grim irony, according to Niebuhr, the very things that made the United States a somewhat admirable power – its attachment to liberal values and strong sense of national purpose – were the flip side of the same coin as its vices, i.e. its tendency towards unreflective arrogance and overreach. The thing all these analyses have in common is a conviction that American policymakers have historically had a weakness for the pursuit of outlandish objectives centred on the universal adoption of the American worldview, at the expense of a more focused pursuit of national interests defined in a more restrained way. While there may be something admirable in the determined idealism required to pursue liberal ideals, realists argue, there is also moral legitimacy, even virtue, to be found via the insight that defining one’s own interests, and one’s own conception of the good, is ambition enough for any nation. Rather than professing to possess unique insight into the true interests of others, and insisting upon righteous transformation of the international order or conversion of adversaries to the American worldview, far better to take the humbler path of seeking merely to defend the core security needs of the US homeland and way of life. To entertain visions of spreading some American design for life to all lands, to project on to the rest of the world an imagined desire to emulate American norms, or to indulge in fantasies of the unalloyed power that would be required for the US to command foreign nations in the approved direction of History: these are the sorts of projects against which the realist sensibility revolts. In more recent years, the case for such an interpretation has been made by inheritors of the tradition (Lieven and Hulsman 2007; Bacevich 2009). It is perhaps important to note that this clash between realists and liberal worldviews is not quite the same thing as the often-invoked divide between values and interests as priorities for American policy, signal though that also is in standard taxonomies of US thought. Even administrations that articulate what a realist would consider outlandish ideological objectives, such as the George W. Bush administration and its professed ambition to ‘end tyranny’ (Bush 2005), will often take the trouble to argue that their strategy marries both

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values and interests since the attainment of their objectives would be to America’s advantage (Rice 2005). The question, from a realist perspective, is not simply whether an administration uses the word ‘interests’ when it articulates its strategy; they always do. It is whether it defines those interests in a way that is restrained. A realistic policy is one that is focused on the defence of core American security concerns and the protection of American society from radical disruption arising from events overseas. Realists are not inclined to see this as requiring or mandating the constitutional transformation of other societies, or the fundamentals of the international order. This moderation of objectives stems in no small part from realism’s acute mindfulness of the limits of the possible when it comes to what American power can achieve beyond its own borders, and for this reason regards transformational objectives with a sceptical eye. In recent decades, there has also been an effort to interweave three strands: the structural realist model’s belief in the primacy of the international distribution of power; the classical emphasis on the internal qualities of nation states; and the trend in the academy towards placing observations about international behaviour in the framework and language of progressive social scientific research (Kitchen 2010, 2012; Quinn 2013). The resulting body of scholarship has become known, thanks to Gideon Rose (1998), as neoclassical realism. Much might be said regarding this trend which need not be noted here, but with regard to the study of US policy specifically, the neoclassical school has made at least two significant contributions. The first is Fareed Zakaria’s demonstration that the United States’ rise to the status of global power was thanks not merely to the accumulation of the resources needed to weigh more heavily in the global scales, but also to the ability of the state to mobilize and harness those resources for the purposes of foreign and security policy. Only once placed under the command of government can national wealth be turned to international power. The second is Colin Dueck’s argument that the political culture of the United States has served as a variable mediating the conversion of its growing material capabilities into magnified global policy ambitions. Essentially, it was the historically embedded reluctance of American leaders to adopt in any straightforward sense the political sensibilities of realist power-politics that led them to become the ‘reluctant crusaders’ for liberal transformation bemoaned by realists in the latter half of the 20th century, since crusading liberalism provided an alternative means of pursuing the international engagement made unavoidable by expanded American power. A similar argument, minus the terminology of variables, has been made by this author elsewhere (Quinn 2010): the reason liberal universalism became so central to American ideology in the 20th century was that it was the only ideological and rhetorical bridge available to move the American polity from so-called ‘isolationist’ principles to internationalist thinking, since an explicitly realist balance-of-power approach was considered politically taboo. In summary, there is more than one simple ‘realism’ in play in international relations, and hence in order to provide an audit of current American policy in light of realism one needs to be more specific as to which types or elements of realism one has in mind. Nevertheless, from what has gone before it is possible to discern some questions which would be on any realist’s mind in assessing the Obama administration’s efforts: how is the international distribution of power changing, and with what consequences for American freedom of action? Is the Obama administration steering a course which reflects an accurate understanding of this trend, or one which runs contrary to it? Has the administration been restrained in its conception of American objectives and sought to match the scale of its strategic plans to the likely available resources? Has its approach to the world reflected the realist emphasis on moderation and restraint in the setting of objectives, or has it reflected the American tendency

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towards pursuing sweeping goals of a transformative nature? Have national interests, defined in a limited way, come to the fore, or has Obama continued his predecessor’s practice of pursuing adventurous interventions abroad justified by reference to American interests defined in broad liberal terms? It is to these questions, therefore, that we now turn.

The Obama administration: ‘You’re realistic enough, Barack…’ Shrinking resources, harder choices: a structural context of growing constraint When it comes to the international distribution of power – the central factor in any structural realist analysis – there is little disagreement that the relative superiority of the United States will be narrowing over the coming years. There is debate as to the extent of that narrowing, and the pace at which it will occur (Brooks and Wohlforth 2008; Layne 2012). There are multiple caveats that need to be placed on any prediction that certain rising powers will continue to accumulate wealth and enhanced military capability without difficulty. And there is apparently irresolvable disagreement over whether the word ‘decline’ is the appropriate term with which to describe the shift in America’s relative capability (Quinn 2011). Nevertheless, even with all of the above being taken into account, there is something approaching consensus as to the direction of travel: barring an unforeseen event of great magnitude, over the next 20–30 years American superiority will be lessening not growing. This is reflected in the United States’ own intelligence projections, which for some years now have explicitly anticipated the transition from a unipolar world order to one in which several major powers coexist (NIC 2008, 2012). This projected waning of American power is the result of a pincer movement between two forces: on one hand, there is the expanding capacity of some other powers, most notably China, to invest in developing military capability (Quinn 2012). On the other, perhaps even more important from the perspective of studying US policy, there is the apparently declining ability, or declining willingness, of the American state to harness resources for devotion to national security (Quinn 2011, 2013). These factors provide the context in which policy as made by the Obama administration must be understood: this is an administration making its choices in light of tightening structural restraints upon its assertion of power. This author has outlined the case for the existence of tightening structural constraint at length elsewhere (Quinn 2013), and need not reprise the full case here in what is intended to be a broader survey of the realist perspective on US policy. Some key points are worth restating, however. The first is that the US government is today making policy in a context of fiscal weakness, with implications for national security. The precise figures change frequently with changes in tax and spending plans, of which there have been several as a result of the running budgetary crisis-diplomacy in which Congress and the president have engaged since 2010, and also with changes in growth and revenue projections. Some central facts remain painfully apparent, however. The first is that in the short term the United States has been running annual deficits in excess of $1 trillion dollars for several years, which have only been marginally lessened by increases in revenue agreed at the beginning of 2013 (CBO 2010). Though some have forcefully made the case that it is misguided to attempt to bring the budget into balance in the short term and that the problems posed by short-term federal budget deficit are overstated (Krugman), the prevailing political sentiment has been to accept the need for at least some cuts in discretionary spending in the short term, and as

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the largest item in the discretionary federal budget defence has been asked to bear its share of cuts. During Robert Gates’s tenure as Secretary of Defense, a four-year cuts plan totalling $78 billion was announced, followed by a presidential instruction to his successor, Leon Panetta, to identify a further $450–500 billion in cuts over 12 years (Quinn 2011b). In addition to these already significant reductions, a wildcard potentially portending even more severe austerity had been the so-called ‘sequester’: a programme of deep cuts stemming from an eleventh-hour deal between the president and Congressional Republicans in 2011 to approve the raising of the ‘debt ceiling’ on federal government borrowing. These cuts were intended to represent such a blunt and savage instrument that their actual implementation in practice would never be contemplated, and defence spending was included in their scope in order to incentivize Republican representatives to reach a compromise deal on deficit reduction with the president before they could take effect. As of the time of writing, however, it appears plausible that Congressional deadlock would result in the actual implementation of this cuts programme, meaning a further $46 billion of chaotically non-targeted cuts for defence in the first year and the same to follow annually for a decade. Leon Panetta has characterized this, should it unfold, as a ‘disaster for national defense’ (Lyle 2012). Setting aside the acute pain caused to the defence budget by the political priority accorded to short-and medium-term federal deficit reduction, however, there is also a longer-term picture that bodes ill for those who would wish to see defence spending preserved at levels capable of maintaining America’s international standing. Over the long run, the federal budget contains substantial commitments to ‘entitlement’ spending, i.e. healthcare and pensions, which cannot be met by present revenue projections. In the absence of some unexpected new source of government income, therefore, all areas currently provided for by federal spending will come under increasing pressure, with unwelcome direct choices forced upon lawmakers between the priorities of ‘social’ spending and defence spending. Some analysts have suggested that the primary problem for financing continuation of America’s grand strategy of hegemonic worldwide presence is not a mismatch between the nation’s goals and overall resources, but merely a failure of political competence: if only Congress could regain the requisite political will and coherence, it would be possible to fund America’s commitments quite affordably. This assessment seems, however, to ignore the political reality of increasingly uncomfortable choices between domestic and foreign policy priorities in the years to come. It may well be true, as a matter of pure hypothesis, that federal government could cohere around a plan to significantly reduce future healthcare and social security entitlements and divert some of the resources thus liberated to shoring up the defence budget and other areas of national security spending. And it may, further, be true that, should it choose to take this course, the resources do exist, in an absolute sense, to sustain present US overseas commitments, or even increased commitments of the sort that would be entailed by facing down competition from a rising peer competitor. For realization, however, these hypotheses are premised upon supposing the plausibility of political leaders delivering severely diminished domestic benefits to the population while increasing national security expenditure. For many, including this author, that seems a gulf of prognosticatory credibility too great to traverse. All of this means that the Obama administration holds office at a time of increasing resource pressure, and with it a growing imperative towards strategic choice. This stands in stark contrast to its predecessor, the Bush administration. Over the course of his terms in office, Bush was able to double the size of the defence budget, while also undertaking two expensive overseas expeditionary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In response to perceived threats at home and abroad after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, his administration could substantially increase the size of the national security apparatus and steer substantial

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new resources towards counterterrorism and counterinsurgency without the need to diminish the level of funding allocated for other activities. It was an era of budgetary expansion, in which new priorities could apparently be added alongside old ones without the need to compromise the funding of pre-existing activities. Whether the funds added to national security expenditure were spent wisely by the Bush administration, or targeted at worthy priorities, is certainly a matter for debate, though it need not detain us here. The key point for our purposes here is simply that the Obama administration has been obliged to oversee America’s shift from this period of expansion to one of contraction, and with it the dawning era of budgetary choice. The United States remains a wealthy country, of course, and it is possible for its leaders to identify new priorities and resource them: a ‘pivot’ to Asia, for example, or the according of a new importance to cyber-security. This will increasingly require real choices, however, as escalations in investment in some areas render other activities by implication not affordable, at least not simultaneously. The United States may be able to enhance its capabilities in the Asian theatre, or it may wage expansive and intensive counterinsurgency campaigns in the Greater Middle East. In all likelihood it cannot realistically do both. A structural realist perspective tells us that states must work within the constraints which face them, and respond to the imperatives provided by their place in the distribution of power, or they will be thwarted, perhaps painfully, by reality once their unrealistic aspirations butt up against it. If the United States is to be considered fortunate, therefore, what it needs is a government willing to accept the new limits to which reality compels it to adjust. It needs an administration willing to plan for the likely diminishment of its own fiscal capacity at the same time that other major powers may be growing in capability. A wise administration under such circumstances needs to avoid undertaking costly new commitments in areas of peripheral strategic value, and steer resources and attention to core priorities. The Obama administration would seem to be passing this test. It has tackled the issue of shrinking defence spending directly, making at least some effort to think strategically about how to implement cuts so as to retain those capabilities of greater importance to defending its interests over coming decades. It has terminated the American presence in Iraq and commenced the process of ending US combat operations in Afghanistan, while keeping commitments to prospectively similar new ventures such as Libya or Syria strictly limited. Perhaps most importantly for the long run, it has made a vocal priority of reorienting US focus towards Asia (Lieberthal 2011), which all agree will be the theatre of primary strategic importance for the next generation. Taking all of this into account, the Obama administration ought to receive a favourable grade when evaluated on a structural realist scorecard, in as much as any structuralist is ever in the business of evaluating the merits of individual state foreign policies. Some caveats to any unqualified praise of Obama’s restraint and realism are required – certainly one might question the sense of priority demonstrated by certain major commitments made – as when the president appeared to be backed by his generals into agreeing to escalate US commitments in Afghanistan even when he had his doubts about the mission (Woodward 2010). And of course it is the view of structural realists such as Waltz that the wisdom or otherwise of decisions can ultimately be judged only by the unfolding of consequences over time, which makes it difficult to issue a grade to any administration while it is still living history. Nevertheless, it is broadly true that showing awareness of the constraints within which one is operating and showing due circumspection and prioritization in making decisions accordingly qualifies as a better approach to policy than not, from a realist perspective. By that criterion, the present administration does well, and far better than its predecessor, which in a variety of policy areas appeared to consistently overestimate the extent of its capacity to override the apparent limits of reality through force of political will alone.

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Obama through the classical lens: liberal ends, restrained pursuit Perhaps contrary to reputation in some quarters, realists are not primarily concerned with the question of motive when it comes to foreign policy, and certainly do not give great weight to the motives policymakers themselves may consciously articulate. It is a given from a realist standpoint that statesmen may pursue, or claim to pursue, a diverse array of ultimate objectives, and subscribe to a wide range of different ideologies as the underpinnings for those objectives. Some may seek the spread of liberal norms, others collectivist ideals, others may simply hunger for glory or treasure. Other than a universally shared instinct to seek survival and the baseline of autonomy and power required to assure it, there is no universal template for state motivation within realism, and the idea that an American leader might aspire to advance liberal ends is not automatically anathema from a realist perspective any more than would be any other ideological objective. While realist thinkers are as likely as any other humans to sympathize most with leaders that explicitly share their own ideas, it is not a requirement for a policy’s being basically sound from a realist perspective that the leaders pursuing it should identify with a self-consciously realist worldview, i.e. one based on the moral equivalence of states’ interests and the primacy of the balance of power over other determinants of international events. Those are features of the international environment whose causal force pertains regardless of statesmen’s thoughts about them. What matters more when it comes to evaluating the quality of a particular national strategy is that whatever goals a government has should be pursued in a manner tempered by appreciation for the limits of what even the determined exercise of national power can achieve. A nation may perfectly legitimately seek to achieve things whose worth derives from a liberal worldview, such as wider respect for human rights, higher levels of international institutional cooperation, or a lessening of global violence. But, realists caution, it should refrain from millennial fantasies of world-transformation, according to which the fundamentals of conflicting national interest will somehow melt away upon the dawning of some visionary endpoint of History. It is one thing – and perfectly legitimate – to subscribe to the values and practices of liberal government oneself, or to advocate their spread. It is quite another matter to premise one’s national policy on the idea that the urgent conversion of others to liberal norms in their domestic affairs should be the central principle of one’s national security policy. Similarly, the exercise of military power within others’ borders in a judicious intervention may, in certain contexts, be an entirely sensible means of advancing one’s own national interest or guarding against gathering threats. What is key is that such interventions should not be carried out without regard for a sense of proportion between the costs incurred and the speculative benefits to be attained, nor should one indulge naive fantasies to the effect that harmonious cooperation on the basis of a perceived community of interest is the default stance of participants in intra-national conflicts, and that they simply require the arrival of a well-intentioned intervening outsider to restore them to this state of affairs. In his foreign policy leadership, Barack Obama has explicitly sought to maintain a connection with the American liberal tradition, which has for generations habitually sought to make the case that America’s values and interests intertwine, in the sense that the extent to which liberal values prevail in the world is of material relevance to the security and prosperity of the United States. Under this worldview, respect for basic liberal values such as democracy and civil rights domestically is thought likely to manifest itself internationally at least to some extent in the form of subscription to liberal attitudes towards cooperation and conflict-management. The implication of this is that the United States should find special purpose in fostering close collaborative relations with those allies whose values broadly

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match its own, and should in turn place such alliances in the service of defending liberal norms abroad. As president, Obama made this case most prominently in his address to the British Houses of Parliament at Westminster in 2011 (Obama 2011b). In appealing to an assumed collective idea of ‘who we are’ – with the implication that this required action to avert humanitarian disaster arising from political conflict – while making the case for intervention in Libya, the president was likewise playing to this liberal understanding of America’s identity and foreign policy tradition (Obama 2011a). At the same time, Obama has been careful to distinguish himself from his predecessor, who used the language of democracy and its promotion as a means of justifying costly ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (Bush 2005). While Obama did commit to a temporary escalation in American troop numbers in Afghanistan in 2011–12, even his announcement of that commitment served as the occasion for an explicit disavowal of US commitment to Iraq-style nation-building, and the escalation was wedded to a plan for ultimate withdrawal so imminent and determined that one might reasonably question whether the initial troop surge was intended to serve only as political cover for ultimate withdrawal (Obama 2009). Certainly the most detailed account of the Afghanistan troop-level-increase decision provides a portrait of a president with little appetite for costly nation-building interventions, obliged to factor in such ambitions primarily because of pressure from his military commanders (Woodward 2010). In the main other overseas intervention to which he committed, in Libya, President Obama once again spelled out in no uncertain terms his rejection of Bush’s Iraq precedent of expensive invasion and occupation as a template for any future American action (Obama 2011a). Instead, what emerged was an approach to foreign intervention predicated on primary role local actors as ground force, limited US commitment to post-conflict reconstruction, and – crucially – insistence that significant leadership responsibility be assumed by allies – the approach which would become known by the unfortunate slogan of ‘leading from behind’ (Lizza 2011). The administration’s refusal to intervene directly in the civil war in Syria since 2011, when faced with an insurmountable Russian obstacle to a collective international intervention under United Nations auspices, similarly reflects an unwillingness to bear the costs – financial, diplomatic, and political – of large-scale interventions abroad on the Bush-era model. Similarly, in handling perhaps the diciest flashpoint in his international security agenda – the standoff with Iran regarding its apparent pursuit of nuclear weapons technology – the Obama administration has been palpably keen to resist any pressure towards pre-emptive military action, or any escalatory step which might result in a war that the administration regards as an absolute last resort, perhaps even to be avoided at all costs. This aversion to costly intervention, and keenness to defer any possible new conflict in the Middle East, wins double approval from a realist standpoint, since it reflects not only a prudent reluctance to commit to open-ended ventures of potentially sizeable cost, but also awareness of the reduced margin for waste and error that the United States possesses in an era of relative decline (Quinn 2011a: 815–21). A particularly cautious realist might question the necessity of Obama’s intervention in Libya, but can surely be pleased by the relatively limited risks taken and costs incurred in its implementation. The president’s reluctance to have it serve as the first of many interventions also stands to his credit from this perspective. So does his desire, in a time of limited resources, to cast a sceptical eye on the wisdom of expensive interventionism overseas when a good case can be made for turning attention to ‘nationbuilding here at home’ of the sort essential to preserving the foundations of American power into the future (Obama 2011a). To continue to maximize its power and status in the future

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the United States desperately needs to repair its economic infrastructure and its domestic political coherence. Overseas interventions do little to further either of those ends. To the extent that, from a realist perspective, active foreign policy – as opposed to the husbanding of resources and quest for domestic renewal – constitutes a priority for the United States, the project of greatest importance is rebalancing national attention and expenditure away from questionable interventionism in the Islamic world and towards the shifting balance between major powers, most especially in the Asian theatre. This requires two things: minimizing avoidable escalation of tension or confrontation, even – or perhaps especially – when presented with ample provocation; and beginning the process of diverting resources from one area to the other. In the first area, the Obama administration’s policy would seem to have been exemplary. On a number of occasions during the Obama years, China, whose hard-liners sometimes appear to have arrived prematurely at the stage of thinking of themselves as the beneficiaries of a major shift in the global balance, has taken steps that almost seemed to invite an abrasive reassertion of American power (Quinn 2011a: 815–17). On each occasion the Obama administration has steered clear of this temptation. Meanwhile, it has made the first tentative steps towards buttressing its strategic counterbalancing capabilities in Asia (Lieberthal). In the case of the other instance of ‘great power’ relations in his portfolio, relations with Russia, Obama began with an explicit effort at ‘reset’ of relations after a period of tension during the last Bush years, and has maintained a posture of determined flexibility and reasonableness in spite of abrasive rhetoric from once-again president Vladimir Putin, and a clear opportunity to indulge in renewed confrontation after the outbreak of protests against fixed elections in 2012. The result has been broad stability across the relationship as a whole, and some notable success in the priority area of nuclear weapons negotiations (‘New START’), where in fact Obama found himself subject to populist broadsides from the Republican opposition due to public exposure of his desire to be ‘flexible’ in his dealings with Russia (Reuters 2012).

Conclusion The nature of both realism and Barack Obama’s foreign policy strategy are open to significant contestation, meaning that any effort to measure the two against one another offers plenty of opportunity for dispute. That caveat notwithstanding, it is this author’s conclusion that this administration can legitimately claim to be in tune with the mainstream of both the structural and classical strands of realism. From a structural perspective, the Obama era appears to be one profoundly shaped by the context of decline in America’s relative power. Fortunately, the Obama administration appears to be possessed of the necessary insight into and mature acceptance of the growing constraints that will shape US policy into the future. From a classical realist perspective, the Obama administration is far from perfect, being apparently determined to maintain a major role for the ideology of liberal universalism in its public rhetoric and reasoning, and making at least one decision, in the form of the Afghan troop-number escalation, that might be seen as running against the resource-husbanding entanglement avoidance that realism would seem to mandate under present conditions. Nevertheless, it has rowed back considerably from the ideologically liberal and militaristic excesses of its predecessor administration, has made a strategic decision to redirect attention and resources to the new priority theatre of Asia, and has studiously avoided any avoidable confrontation with major powers outside the Western orbit, such as China or Russia. Given his explicit commitment to liberal norms, as most signally advertised in his 2011 address at

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Westminster, it would probably be going too far to say that President Obama is himself an unqualified realist. Whatever the president’s own normative commitments may be, however, his administration’s actions have been such as to perform well on any realist scorecard.

Suggested follow-up Stephen Walt blog: http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/. Drezner, Daniel W. (2008) ‘The realist tradition in American public opinion’, Perspectives on Politics, 6 (1): 51–70 (available online at http://www.danieldrezner.com/research/realist_tradition.pdf). Quinn, A. (2011a) ‘The art of declining politely: Obama’s prudent presidency and the waning of American power’, International Affairs, 87 (4): 803–24. Bonicelli, Peter (2012) ‘Obama the realist’, Foreign Policy, 10 December (available online at http:// shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/12/10/obama_the_realist).

Bibliography Altman, R.C. and Haass, R.N. (2010) ‘American profligacy and American power: the consequences of fiscal irresponsibility’, Foreign Affairs, 89 (6): 25–34. Bacevich, A. (2009) The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, New York, NY: Henry Holt. Brooks, S.G. and Wohlforth, W.C. (2008) World Out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bush, George W. (2005) Second Inaugural Address, 20 January (available online at http://georgewbushwhitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050120-1.html). Congressional Budget Office (2010) ‘The long-term budget outlook’, 30 June (available online at http://www.cbo.gov/publication/215460) (accessed 13 February 2013). Dueck, C. (2006) Reluctant Crusaders: Power, Culture and Change in American Grand Strategy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gilpin, R. (1987) The Political Economy of International Relations, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kennan, G.F. (1984) American Diplomacy (expanded edition), Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Kissinger, H. (1995) Diplomacy, New York, NY: Touchstone. Kitchen, N. (2010) ‘Systemic pressures and domestic ideas: a neoclassical realist model of grand strategy formation’, Review of International Studies, 36 (1): 117–43. Kitchen, N. (2012) ‘Ideas of power and the power of ideas: systematising neoclassical realist theory’, in A. Toje and B. Kunz (eds) Neoclassical Realism in European Politics: Bringing Power Back, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Krugman, P. (2012) ‘Nobody understands debt’, New York Times, 1 January (available online at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/opinion/krugman-nobody-understands-debt.html?_r=0) (accessed 13 February 2013). Layne, Christopher (2012) ‘US decline’, in M. Cox and D. Stokes (eds) US Foreign Policy (2nd edn), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lieberthal, K. (2011) ‘The American pivot to Asia’, Foreign Policy, 21 December (available online at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/12/21/the_american_pivot_to_asia?wp_login_redirect=0) (accessed 13 February 2013). Lieven, A. and Hulsman, J. (2007) Ethical Realism, New York, NY: Pantheon. Lizza, R. (2011) ‘The consequentialist’, New Yorker, 2 May. Lyle, A. (2012) ‘Panetta describes strategy, warns against sequestration’, American Forces Press Service, 6 August (available online at http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=117418) (accessed 13 February 2013).

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Mearsheimer, J.J. (2001) The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co. Morgenthau, H.J. ([1951] 1982) In Defense of the National Interest: A Critical Examination of American Foreign Policy, New York, NY: University Press of America. National Intelligence Council (2008) ‘Global trends 2025: a transformed world’ (available online at http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_2025/2025_Global_Trends_Final_Report.pdf) (accessed 13 February 2013). National Intelligence Council (2012) ‘Global trends 2030: alternative worlds’ (available online at http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/GlobalTrends_2030.pdf) (accessed 13 February 2013). Niebuhr, R. ([1952] 2008) The Irony of American History, Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press. Obama, B. (2009) ‘Remarks by the President in address to the nation on the way forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan’, White House, 1 December (available online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/ the-press-office/remarks-president-address-nation-way-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan ) (accessed 13 February 2013). Obama, B. (2011a) ‘Remarks by the President in address to the nation on Libya’, 28 March (available online at http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1570)(accessed 13 February 2013). Obama, B. (2011b) ‘Remarks by the President to Parliament in London, United Kingdom’, White House, May (available online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/25/remarkspresident-parliament-london-united-kingdom) (accessed 13 February 2013). Obama, B. (2011c) ‘Remarks by the President on the way forward in Afghanistan’, 22 June (available online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/06/22/remarks-president-way-forwardafghanistan) (accessed 13 February 2013). Pincus, W. (2012) ‘CBO says military health-care costs could soar’, Washington Post, 16 July (available online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cbo-says-military-healthcare-costs-could-soar/2012/07/16/gJQAFLVQpW_story.html) (accessed 13 February 2013). Quinn, A. (2010) US Foreign Policy in Context: National Ideology from the Founders to the Bush Doctrine, New York, NY: Routledge. Quinn, A. (2011a) ‘The art of declining politely: Obama’s prudent presidency and the waning of American power’, International Affairs, 87 (4): 803–24. Quinn, A. (2011b) ‘Hard power in hard times: relative military power in an era of budgetary constraint’, in LSE IDEAS Report, The United States after Unipolarity, December (available online at http://www2.lse.ac.uk/IDEAS/publications/reports/pdf/SR009/quinn.pdf) (accessed 13 February 2013). Quinn, A. (2013a) ‘Kenneth Waltz, Adam Smith and the limits of science: hard choices for neoclassical realism’, International Politics, 50 (2). Quinn, A. (2013b) ‘Obama and systemic constraint’, in M. Bentley and J. Holland (eds), Obama’s Foreign Policy: Ending the War on Terror, London: Routledge. Reuters (2012) ‘Obama tells Russia’s Medvedev more flexibility after election’ (available online at http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/26/us-nuclear-summit-obama-medvedevidUSBRE82P0JI20120326) (accessed 13 February 2013). Rice, C. (2005) ‘The promise of democratic peace: why promoting freedom is the only realistic path to security’, Washington Post, 11 December: B07. Rose, G. (1998) ‘Neoclassical realism and theories of foreign policy’, World Politics, 51 (1): 144–72. Walt, S.M. (1985) ‘Alliance formation and the balance of world power’, International Security, 9. Waltz, K.N. ([1979] 2010) Theory of International Politics, Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. Waltz, K.N. (2008) Realism and International Politics, New York, NY: Routledge. Woodward, Bob (2010) Obama’s Wars, London: Simon & Schuster. Zakaria, F. (1998) From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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Constructivism, US foreign policy, and counterterrorism Richard Jackson and Matt McDonald

The launch of a global ‘War on Terror’ in 2001 by the George W. Bush administration was a historic moment in US foreign policy which was to have profound and lasting consequences both internationally and domestically. To date, the ‘War on Terror’ and successive counterterrorism efforts have entailed two major wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, significant military operations in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Georgia, and elsewhere, a global intelligence and rendition programme, the expansion of US military bases to new regions, increased military assistance to new and old client regimes, an extensive international public diplomacy programme, the articulation of new national security doctrines and priorities, and a major domestic reorganization of and increased investment in the military, domestic security agencies, policing, the legal system, and numerous other agencies – among a great many other important developments. Furthermore, despite widespread expectations to the contrary, the election of Barak Obama in 2008 to the presidency has not yet resulted in any significant changes to the overall structures and practices of US counterterrorism, domestically or internationally (Jackson 2014, 2011; McCrisken 2011). A decade later, it is no exaggeration to suggest that the so-called ‘War on Terror’ is in many ways comparable to the Cold War in terms of expenditure, institutionalization in government, and continuing impact on numerous aspects of US foreign policy, external relations, and domestic politics. And yet, understanding or explaining these developments is not a straightforward task. It is not obvious that attacks by a small group of dissidents aggrieved by the US military presence in the Arabian Peninsula, as devastating as they were, should have generated such an expansive and far-reaching response from the world’s only superpower, or that the response should have involved all of the specific elements we have thus far witnessed or be so resistant to change. In the first place, as on-going contestations over the meaning and significance of the Pearl Harbor attack (Rosenberg 2005) or the Kennedy assassination clearly demonstrate, acts of political violence do not necessarily ‘speak for themselves’; they have to be narrated and interpreted in meaningful ways within a particular social, cultural, and historical context. The attacks on New York and Washington were potentially open to a number of different interpretations, only one of which was as an ‘act of war’ necessitating a military response. The choice to launch a potentially unlimited and durable global war that would encompass subsequent administrations is all the more puzzling given the relatively limited extent of the terrorist threat to human life (certainly compared to climate change, disease, or poverty for example), and the ultimately foreseeable consequences of specific actions such as intervention in Iraq, the Guantanamo Bay detentions, extraordinary rendition, torture, the drone killing programme, and so on. Despite more than a decade of effort and some limited successes, including the death of Osama bin Laden, it is nonetheless far from clear that the elimination or even significant reduction of the terrorist threat has yet been achieved.

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A key puzzle, therefore, lies in understanding why military-oriented counterterrorism or ‘War on Terror’ was chosen over other foreign policy or counterterrorism frameworks by key foreign policy decision-makers, why it took the form that it did, and why it has continued largely unchanged into the Obama administration. Traditional accounts of international relations and security (most notably realism) would provide at best a partial and at worst a misleading account of the US government’s foreign policy choices and practices in this context, emphasizing as they do the central role of material distributions of power, the rational calculation of the national interest,1 and the presence of existential security threats. In this chapter, we argue that a constructivist perspective provides a productive and informative analytical lens through which to understand how the ‘War on Terror’ and militarybased counterterrorism emerged as the dominant US foreign policy discourse after the events of 11 September 2001, taking on the particular form/s that it did, and why it has continued under Obama. We suggest that a focus on ideational factors characteristic of a constructivist approach to international relations – narrative, framing, identity, norms, contestation, and negotiation, among others – provides particularly important insights into the emergence, institutionalization, and durability of US counterterrorism since 2001. The chapter begins with a necessarily brief overview of constructivism, outlining its origins, variants, shared assumptions, and ontology. The second section examines the application of constructivist insights to US foreign policy in the period of the ‘War on Terror’ since 9/11, focusing in particular on the inter-subjective social construction of the ‘War on Terror’ itself and some of the ways in which it has evolved into a durable social and political structure. In the conclusion, we reflect on the utility of the constructivist approach for understanding US foreign policy.

Constructivism Constructivism is a broad social theory rather than a substantive theory of international politics. In essence, constructivists working in international relations are concerned with the (social) constitution of world politics. Based on the view that world politics is a social realm characterized by a dynamic and mutually constitutive relationship between agents (principally states) and structures (principally the nature of the international system or society), constructivists are concerned with the processes through which the world has come to be as it is: the dynamics of interaction between actors, the meanings that actors give their actions, and the frameworks and patterns of interaction between those actors. In this process they are concerned with offering a more sociological account of global politics in which ideational factors (norms, rules, identities, and forms of representation) play a central role. As such, they offer the possibility of a more holistic, multidimensional understanding of political processes, dynamics, and actions. Constructivism has emerged relatively recently as a distinct approach to international relations, linked to a series of academic and practical developments. While building on insights in disciplines such as sociology, early constructivist authors such as Alexander Wendt (1987), Nicholas Onuf (1989), and Friedrich Kratochwil (1989) drew also upon the more radical critiques aimed at orthodox approaches to international relations by theorists working within the critical theoretical and post-structural traditions, such as Richard Ashley (1984) and R.B.J. Walker (1988). In the process, they were more readily accepted within mainstream academic circles than these radical alternatives, at least in part because they were perceived as less alien and threatening to the canon of international relations.2 The ‘constructivist turn’ in international relations was given further impetus by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, occurring as it did without any

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significant shift in the distribution of capabilities in the international system and largely through domestic political transformation enabled by strategic actors (see Fierke 1997). This seriously undermined the explanatory power of traditional approaches which had failed to predict, and had no real basis for understanding, such revolutionary transformations in the international system (Kratochwil 1993). In this way, international change provided a catalyst for theoretical change. It is important to reiterate here that despite occupying a prominent theoretical position in international relations thought today, constructivism’s entry to the discipline was relatively recent, certainly in comparison to more established variants of international relations thought associated with realism and liberalism. Since its emergence, constructivism has developed in a number of different directions, depending upon the specific theoretical traditions drawn upon, the central focus of the research, and the main methodological approaches employed by the researcher. As a consequence of these fault-lines, there is now an increasing variety of labels for constructivist scholarship, including: critical, conventional, modernist, postmodern, thick, thin, narrative, strong, systemic, and holistic – among others (Adler 1997: 335–6; Barnett 2005: 258). Perhaps the most important distinction is the broad division between conventional and critical approaches (see Hopf 1998: 181–5). Conventional constructivists tend to employ the epistemology of traditional approaches and focus on examining relationships of causality in asking ‘why’ questions (Katzenstein 1996; Wendt 1999), while critical approaches are closer in approach and scope to more radical theoretical alternatives and examine relationships of constitution through asking ‘how possible’ questions (Doty 1993; Barnett 1999). In approaching international participation in the ‘War on Terror’, for example, a conventional approach might focus on examining why different states were active participants or not (see Katzenstein 2002), while a critical approach might focus on how political actors within different states were able to render possible their preferred responses through strategic forms of representation to national audiences (see Jackson and McDonald 2008). The role of identity is central to both, although in conventional accounts it is usually viewed as relatively sedimented (to the point of compelling state action), while in the latter identity is the focal point of competition over action: attempts to justify or contest particular policy preferences. Despite this distinction, however, constructivists share a number of core assumptions about international relations. First, constructivists view the world (and reality generally) as socially constructed. Rooted in sociological theory, this notion has a number of related elements, including the claim that the perceptions, identities, and interests of individuals and groups are socially and culturally constructed, rather than existing outside of or prior to society. Related to this, constructivists point to the existence of social facts which are dependent on human agreement. The existence of social facts draws attention to the intersubjective nature of reality: even apparently natural institutions, actors, and norms (such as states, anarchy, and sovereignty) are the products of processes of social construction between different actors, and only ever appear natural or inevitable because they are presented and accepted as such. Critically, recognizing the inter-subjective and socially constructed nature of reality – produced through processes of negotiation and contestation – allows us to recognize possibilities for (even structural) change. Second, constructivists hold that agents and structures in world politics are mutually constitutive (Wendt 1987). That is, agents constitute structures through their beliefs, actions, and interactions, while structures constitute agents by helping to shape their identities and interests. Such a conception is particularly important in bringing human agency back into international political analysis, a contrasting position to the structural determinism of approaches such as neo-realism.

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Third, constructivists view ideational factors – representation, identities, beliefs, perceptions, and norms – as central to the dynamics and processes of world politics. As the world is socially constructed between actors, forms and processes of communication become crucial. Constructivists suggest – following post-structuralists – that it is only through representation that we are able to give meaning to material ‘reality’ and to events like acts of political violence. In the process of representing, narrating, or framing reality, actors go about constituting that reality as well as contesting and potentially marginalizing alternative accounts and enabling particular forms of policy or actions (Laffey and Weldes 1997; Weldes et al. 1999; Hansen 2000). For critical constructivists what is crucial is the extent to which policy can be defined or justified in such a way as to resonate with a domestic constituency, through ‘hailing’ core identity narratives or providing compelling historical parallels for action (Weldes 1996; Holland 2013). This is particularly applicable to the question of how particular forms and frameworks of policy – such as the ‘War on Terror – become possible. The central role of representation is clearly applicable to the role of norms: standards of legitimate behaviour in an international society. For constructivists these norms are central to world politics, constituting that society as well as conditioning the interests and realms of possible action for states within it. As Michael Barnett (2005: 255) has argued, the norm of sovereignty not only regulates state interactions but also makes possible the very idea of the sovereign state and helps to construct its interests. While norms can become sedimented and serve to define the limits of feasible political action, they are also susceptible to change, not least through the strategic action of ‘norm entrepreneurs’ (Keck and Sikkink 1998) or norm revisionists. As will be noted, attempts under the Bush administration to revise norms of pre-emptive self-defence and torture within the ‘War on Terror’ should be viewed in this context. Constructivist research has to date examined a range of subjects relevant to the broader understanding of foreign policy, including, among others: national security and the decision to use force (Katzenstein 1996; Williams 1998); the construction of national security threats (Weldes 1996; Howard 2004); national security cultures (Gusterson 1998); military doctrine and military strategy (Johnson 1995; Kier 1997); US counter-insurgency policy (Doty 1993); and culture and war (Mertus 1999; Alkopher 2005). There are also a growing number of constructivist analyses of the ‘War on Terror’ and US counterterrorism since the Bush administration which we draw upon in this chapter (see for example, Katzenstein 2003; Murphy 2003; Croft 2006; Cramer 2007; Krebs and Lobasz 2007; Thrall 2007; McKrisken 2011, 2012; Jackson 2005, 2011, 2014).

Constructivism and US counterterrorism The above account of constructivism suggests a range of possible avenues for exploring US foreign policy in the context of its counterterrorism approach from 2001 to the present. The following discussion is therefore necessarily brief and selective. Its main aim is to provide a window into how constructivist analyses might illuminate key dimensions and dynamics of US foreign policy on counterterrorism. We focus here on a number of key concepts associated with constructivism, namely: norms; identity and narratives; and change. Norms Constructivists pay significant attention to norms and normative frameworks in their accounts of world politics generally and the interests and actions of states specifically.

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Norms can be defined as shared expectations about appropriate or legitimate behaviour by actors with a particular identity. For constructivists these socially constructed expectations can constitute the interests – and constrain the room to move – of even the most powerful actors in the international system: states. While realists dismiss the disciplining effect of norms – suggesting either their total irrelevance or their role exclusively as a source of justification for action (Krasner 1999) – constructivists point to the ways in which actors have adjusted their actions to adhere to norms associated with colonialism (Crawford 2003a) and the use of nuclear weapons (Tannenwald 2007). For theorists working in this tradition, norms (like other ideational factors) can come to be incorporated into a state’s conception of its national interests (Finnemore 1996). Such accounts of the disciplining effects of norms might intuitively seem to have little purchase in accounting for US foreign policy, particularly in the early days of the ‘War on Terror’ declared immediately after 9/11, given the extent of US power and the invocation of an exceptionalist rhetoric that suggested America alone would decide upon the legitimacy and limits of its actions in seeking to protect its citizens from terrorism. Yet even here a constructivist account of norms has some explanatory power. Indeed, for many the failure to recognize the importance of international perceptions of the legitimacy of the ‘War on Terror’ was central to the problems encountered in Iraq, for example (Nye 2004; Reus-Smit 2004). And even as it employed an exceptionalist rhetoric, the United States nonetheless attempted to locate its actions in international normative frameworks, in some cases attempting to redefine existing norms so as to justify its own behaviour.3 Later, the Obama administration similarly engaged with international normative frameworks as it sought to reaffirm its commitment to the anti-torture norm, while at the same time continuing attempts to revise international norms on the targeted killing of terrorist suspects through drone strikes. In other words, over the entire period since 9/11, the United States has frequently acted as a ‘norm revisionist’ in a number of different areas related to counterterrorism. Despite unease over the conduct of the war in recent years, the invasion of Afghanistan was widely accepted internationally as a form of self-defence, unlike the invasion of Iraq. In the case of Iraq, the United States acted as a norm revisionist through its re-statement of the legal-normative claim of imminent threat, with Bush declaring that we need to ‘deal with those threats before they become imminent’ (in Kaufman 2005: 23, emphasis added). This was a central legal-normative claim for intervention linked rhetorically to suggested links between Saddam Hussein and terrorists and to his alleged WMD programme. And while in the UN Security Council and elsewhere this justification failed to convince a host of other states, the Australian Prime Minister and Japanese Defence Minister both subsequently elaborated their own definitions of preventive war in the context of concerns about the threat of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism in Southeast Asia and North Korea’s WMD programme respectively (McDonald 2007a). Later, Obama withdrew US forces from Iraq largely citing tactical rather than normative reasons. However, at the same time, he expanded the dronetargeted killing programme in Afghanistan and Pakistan, once again justifying it to domestic and international audiences in terms resonant of the imminent threat argument. Obama argued that terrorist suspects, including US citizens, who posed an imminent threat to US citizens or military personnel because they may be plotting future attacks could be legitimately placed on a ‘kill list’ or terminated in military operations on foreign soil, as was the case for Osama bin Laden (Pious 2011; Rohde 2012). For constructivists, such developments need to be viewed in the context of (even partial) changes in the normative context allowed by the US justification of preventive war, or, in Obama’s case, preventive assassination of terrorist suspects.

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Norms surrounding torture – the intentional infliction of ‘severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental’ particularly on prisoners and detainees (UNHCR)4 – became an important focal point of criticism, given revelations of coercive interrogation and humiliation of detainees at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib in Iraq in 2004. A significant component of the government’s response at the time was that while the US government sought to distance itself from the actions of its military personnel, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argued that ‘what has been charged [in Abu Ghraib] thus far is abuse, which I believe is technically different from torture’ (in Blumenthal 2004). This followed an earlier memorandum prepared for Bush’s legal counsel Alberto Gonzales which suggested narrowing the definition of torture to include only those ‘extreme acts’ entailing physical pain ‘equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious injury’ (Erskine and O’Driscoll 2007). In other words, one of the key ways in which the Bush administration attempted to revise the anti-torture norm was through a redefinition of the meaning of ‘torture’. Interestingly, Obama made a number of normative arguments about upholding American (and universal) values when he announced an end to the Bush-era torture policy. However, critics have argued that Obama’s subsequent actions in relation to so-called ‘enhanced interrogation’ have functioned to maintain secrecy regarding specific cases, provide loopholes (Murray 2011: 86), especially in relation to the CIA, and shield previous and present officials from investigation and prosecution for abuses (Forsythe 2011; Pious 2011). While some might suggest that attempts to redefine norms of preventive war, targeted killing, and torture constitute little more than an instrumental attempt to justify preferred actions, constructivists would rightly suggest that these attempts are nevertheless important for several reasons. First, such attempts can serve to redefine the normative context of world politics, particularly if undertaken by a state with the material and social power of the United States. The invocation of US definitions of preventive war or targeted killing elsewhere (in Australia and Japan, for example) suggests at least a partial shift in the parameters of what constitutes appropriate behaviour regarding the use of force, reminding us that as social constructions, norms are liable to change. The spread of drone technology and the expansion of the targeted killing programme by the Obama administration may induce further normative change in the way terrorist suspects can be dealt with internationally. Second, in locating actions within (again even altered) norms and rules of international society, the United States potentially strengthens this international society and its constituent components through positioning them as legitimate standards of appropriate behaviour. This can also serve to provide a basis for critique, particularly if the government is seen to be falling short of standards it set for itself (Krebs and Lobasz 2007). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, constructivists would suggest that the failure to convince international audiences of the legitimacy of these redefinitions and military-based forms of counterterrorism more broadly is not simply a speed-bump on the road to the realization of the national interest. Rather, the failure to act in such a way as to be seen as a legitimate actor carrying out a legitimate set of practices is central to the failings in Iraq and the steady erosion of (increasingly required) international support for US counterterrorism efforts generally (Reus-Smit 2004). It is here that constructivists would retort to realists’ suggestion that they ignore the role of power in international politics by suggesting that theirs is a fuller, more realistic, and more convincing account of power that takes account of the central role of normative and social power and the central importance of international legitimacy (Barnett and Finnemore 2004; Barnett and Duvall 2007). Even states as powerful as the United States are restricted and conditioned by the normative context in which they make decisions.

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Identity and narrative As noted, constructivists view identity as central to the dynamics and practices of global politics. For constructivists, we cannot know ‘what we want’ unless we know ‘who we are’, a notion articulated by President Obama in 2008. Put another way, the way in which the core values of a particular political community are defined at a given moment will underpin the (foreign policy) goals of that community and potentially also the way in which it will go about attempting to realize or advance them.5 This view stands in opposition to traditional assumptions of national interests determined by the structure of the international system and actions determined by varying levels of material capacity. The notion of mutual constitution is particularly important for constructivist views of identity, not least as it applies to security policy and practice. Some (more conventional) constructivists tend to focus on the role of sedimented discourses of identity almost compelling actors to engage in particular types of action (see Katzenstein 1996), while other (more critical) constructivists tend to focus on the role of strategic actors in enabling policy through instrumentally locating that policy in particular narratives of identity and marginalizing others (Barnett 1999). However, as more sophisticated variants of these approaches argue (see Fierke 1998; McSweeney 1999; Williams 2007), any sharp distinction between agents (political leaders, for example) and structures (discourses of identity, for example) is imperfect. The reality is of course that some identity narratives might be more powerful and resonant than others, providing both an immediate limit to alternative stories of a group’s core values and militating against the emergence of a strategic actor not already implicated by such narratives or discourses.6 But even in these contexts there are possibilities for variation, both in terms of the possibilities for privileging alternative narratives or linking the same narrative to different policy priorities and action – as Obama has arguably shown in relation to his predecessor (see Jackson 2014). In the case of US counterterrorism since 2001, the key agents constructing the global counterterrorism campaign – the Bush administration and its allies – did not have complete and unfettered freedom in its construction. Relatively sedimented and powerful historical and identity discourses certainly predisposed key political actors, media, and the broader populace to particular interpretations of September 11, and particular political responses to it (Jackson 2011). In an immediate sense, analyses inspired by post-structuralist approaches to the role of discourse suggest a common pattern in the elaboration of discourses of threat over the course of the twentieth century. The positioning of terrorism as a fundamental and existential threat to America’s core values (principally of freedom and democracy) certainly had powerful historical precedent, as analyses of the Cold War (Campbell 1992) and Ronald Reagan’s first ‘war on terrorism’ (Jackson 2006) suggest. Importantly, Cramer (2007) suggests that over time such designations and responses to threat helped established a militarized political culture that in turn might be linked to the nature of the response to the threat of terrorism. And the sedimentation of freedom and democracy as core American values can also be viewed as a powerful narrative of identity, linked to the notion of the United States as the ‘Chosen Nation’ or ‘light on the hill’ (Hughes 2003). The power of these stories of identity and history certainly predisposed the Bush administration to a particular type of response to the September 11 attacks, and they have continued to influence Obama’s practices of counterterrorism since then (see McKrisken 2012; Jackson 2014). Notwithstanding the power of these understandings, most constructivist analysts would suggest that there remained room for choice and strategic action in both advancing particular understandings of identity or history, and in linking them to counterterrorism. Narratives

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are central in this regard, understood here as particular stories about who we are that are linked – through framing – to particular policy action (see Barnett 1999). For constructivists, myths, historical parallels, symbols, and ideas can be deployed instrumentally by elites as a kind of ‘symbolic technology’ (Laffey and Weldes 1997) to enable action and the actors who undertake them. The initial political choice to represent the counterterrorism campaign as a ‘war’ and September 11 as an ‘act of war’; to link the event itself to Pearl Harbor and the threat posed to that of communists or Nazis; to invoke the language of ‘good’ and ‘evil’; to define intervention in Iraq and elsewhere as consistent with the goals of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’; and to link the narrative of the ‘Chosen Nation’ to the administration’s broader position on multilateralism, among a range of other identity narratives (on these points, see Jackson 2005, 2011) must be recognized as just that: a choice. These were choices arguably defined in such a way as to speak to a particular set of audiences and marginalize alternative accounts of US identity and foreign policy (see Cramer 2007; Krebs and Lobasz 2007). They were certainly neither inevitable nor rooted in rational assessment or investigation, a point applicable also to assessments of the extent of the terror threat (Kaufmann 2004). It is important to reiterate here, as constructivists argue, that foreign and security policy is a site of inter-subjective contestation and negotiation about the nature of a particular political community’s core values, the threats to those values, and the means that might be employed to advance or preserve those values. This contestation and negotiation takes place in the context of significant power discrepancies and a constraining set of socio-cultural norms and structures, but is ultimately one in which a range of actors seek to develop accounts of political action that resonate with who a particular political community considers itself to be. In this sense identity is central to interests and to the dynamics of world politics, and recognizing its role gives us a richer understanding of US foreign policy, particularly as it relates to counterterrorism in the post-September 11 era. Change The above account of the relationship between identity, narratives, and resonance suggests an almost permanent state of instability in global politics and in the levels of legitimacy the United States might enjoy in its prosecution of international counterterrorism, for example. If contestation and negotiation are relatively permanent features of the processes through which foreign policy is constructed, then constantly shifting policies and practices might be expected in response to interpretations of new events and dynamics. But constructivists are generally eager to point out that such an image of flux and instability potentially overstates the case for possibilities for change. In the context of US counterterrorism, the constant reiteration of its central principles and the institutionalization of practices tied to it mean that counterterrorism has become a powerful discourse and set of material interests, providing a lens through which a range of policy is viewed across all sectors of society (see Jackson 2011, 2014). It is significant to note here that presidential candidate Obama opposed the occupation of Iraq, suggesting that the amount of resources committed to the invasion and long-term occupation of Iraq served to undermine the real goals of fighting Al Qaeda. After his election, he subsequently followed through on his promise to withdraw US troops from Iraq. However, such an approach does not fundamentally contest the overall thrust of US counterterrorism (Jackson 2014); rather, it reinforces its position of dominance by using it as a standard against which foreign policy is judged and a lens through which foreign policy generally is viewed. The dominance of this discourse, and its continuation under Obama, has

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become possible through its institutionalization within and constant reiteration across American society and government. In the first instance, the core narratives, assumptions, and approaches of counterterrorism discourse have been institutionalized in, among other things: government departments like the Department of Homeland Security; legislation such as the PATRIOT Acts; security doctrines, action plans, strategic plans, surveillance, and reporting programmes; reorganization and reforms to the security services, policing, the military, the justice system, immigration, banking regulations; political debate and speech-making; lobby groups and think tanks; and many other related activities and actors. Importantly, the discourse has also been institutionalized in counter-terrorism activities and programmes at the international level in the UN, EU, OSCE, and NATO, suggesting a normative spread of the ‘War on Terror’ paradigm beyond the United States. A range of analysts also point to the ways in which counterterrorism and its central assumptions are consistently communicated through government, the media, academia, and in popular culture and have become a part of contemporary American life (see, for example, Silberstein 2002; Croft 2006; Jackson 2011, 2014). These analysts point to the role of a range of actors in promulgating elements of the War on Terror discourse, from public bodies’ information campaigns (e.g. FEMA’s Are You Ready? booklet) to retailers’ marketing of terror-related products (e.g. the sale of home WMD decontamination kits) and representations of the ‘ubiquitous’ terror threat in media and popular culture (see Croft 2006). Across American politics and society, counterterrorism has become a living discourse which creates a shared understanding of the new ‘reality’, and which creates a ‘grid of intelligibility’ through which to interpret events and make decisions. This shared understanding also provides a cultural resource which political elites can draw upon when trying to legitimize or ‘sell’ new policies and programmes. But while constructivists have acknowledged that foreign policy discourses can become sedimented or dominant, the focus on negotiation and contestation enables some recognition of the possibility for change. Certainly, and as noted, constructivists have long argued that normative change is possible through strategic actors acting as norm entrepreneurs or revisionists, altering the normative structure of international society over a period of time. Constructivists have suggested that even structural change in global politics and the most important dynamics of global interaction are possible through effective strategic action. Karin Fierke (1997), for example, argued in her analysis of the end of the Cold War that Gorbachev was able to act as a crucial agent of change through acting ‘as if’ another set of rules for the Cold War game (associated with a zero-sum security logic, suspicion, and militarism) were in place. More specifically, a range of contemporary analyses of US counterterrorism have pointed to possibilities for change through successful contestation in the form of the failure of political leaders to meet words with deeds. Drawing on critical theoretical insights of immanent critique, these approaches suggest that the fissures, inconsistencies, and tensions in counterterrorism discourse and justifications for policy provide resources for realizing change (Fierke 2007: 167–85; Krebs and Lobasz 2007; McDonald 2007b; McDonald and Jackson 2008). While a number of analyses suggest that Obama is not a committed change agent in relation to counterterrorism (see McKrisken 2011, 2012; Jackson 2014), the second term of his presidency provides new opportunities for contestation and changes in some of the dominant narratives related to counterterrorism. At the least, Obama’s rearticulation of America’s commitment to ‘freedom and democracy’ has been criticized on the basis of the erosion of civil liberties through anti-terror legislation; the willingness of the US administration to diplomatically support allies despite their human rights abuses; and the rising civilian death-tolls

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in those countries being ‘liberated’ through militarized intervention, particularly in relation to Obama’s targeted killing programme. And of course a range of critics (and increasingly, branches of government) have suggested that the means employed by US counterterrorism are counterproductive. Here, critics suggest that military responses like drone warfare are likely to breed alienation, marginalization, and resentment that provide fertile ground for terrorists; that they are likely to make participant states targets of terrorism; and even that they undermine real security through diverting significant resources that might be spent on other ‘security’ programmes, from intelligence-gathering to healthcare or responses to environmental disasters (on these points, see McDonald 2007b; McDonald and Jackson 2008). These criticisms constitute potentially promising avenues for successful contestation even of a discourse as sedimented and institutionalized as US counterterrorism discourse. And while the tools of immanent critique are more readily associated with critical theory than constructivism, constructivism’s focus on the role of contestation and negotiation align themselves well with the specific suggestions for (emancipatory) change found in critical theory. Constructivists suggest that large-scale public discourses such as the ‘War on Terror’ or the Cold War discourse before it are never entirely stable or hegemonic. Rather, they are inherently unstable, contradictory, vulnerable to destabilization, and prone to contestation; and in order to persist they must be continuously reproduced socially and forcefully defended by their supporters. Change is not always easy (Jackson 2014), but constructivists are right to acknowledge its possibility and identify processes through which it might be realized.

Conclusion As noted at the outset of this chapter, constructivism is less a theory of international relations than a broader social theory that informs how we might approach the study of world politics. Indeed, this point has been noted by critics, who suggest that the breadth of constructivism is such that it militates against discrete forms of political analysis. Anything, for critics, might be explained or understood through constructivist analysis, although little predicted (Booth 2007: 153). At times, especially on questions of normative commitments and epistemology, the gap between conventional and more critical variants of constructivism appears large indeed. Critics from more radical perspectives suggest that (conventional) constructivist approaches give too much ground to traditional approaches on questions of epistemology and have problematic assumptions of the possibility for strategic action by political agents (Zehfuss 2002), while more traditional analysts suggest that the focus on ideational approaches risks downplaying the central role of material factors and hard power in the dynamics of world politics (Mearsheimer 1995). It is beyond the scope of this chapter to engage with these criticisms systematically, although some raise important questions about future directions in constructivist research. Constructivist approaches are certainly strong in theory on the question of the mutual constitution of agents and structures, but their analyses at times suggest either independent instrumental actors dissociated from society or ‘cultural dupes’ compelled to adhere to preexisting identity discourses. Similarly, while constructivists have responded convincingly to the suggestion that they ignore material factors (pointing out that it is through the ideational that the material is given meaning) the overwhelming focus of analysis on incremental progressive normative change (regarding slavery, colonization, environmental change, human rights, and so on) does little to dispel the myth that constructivists are unable to account systematically for power politics. The increasing prevalence of constructivist analyses in international relations literature suggests it will become more rather than less prominent as

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a framework for the study of world politics in the foreseeable future. In this context, the nature of responses to criticisms or tensions in the theory could feasibly have implications for the broader study of international politics: the gaps and silences of the field and the central axes of debate between scholars. We have argued here that constructivism provides a powerful lens through which to understand US foreign policy, particularly as it relates to the continuities of counterterrorism over the past decade or more. In drawing attention to the mutual constitution of structures and agents; the inter-subjective social construction of world politics; and the role of ideational factors such as norms, identity, and narratives, constructivism is able to offer rich insights into US foreign policy in the ‘War on Terror’ era, particularly in illuminating the core question of how it became possible. And while helping us understand the constitution of the present, constructivism also has an often overlooked capacity to provide a framework for understanding and imagining change.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the ESRC (RES 000-222-2126) which provided funding for some of the original research in this chapter. Our thanks also go to Cian O’Driscoll for his insightful comments on an earlier draft of the original chapter in the first edition of this book.

Notes 1 Indeed this is suggested by prominent realists’ criticism of intervention in Iraq as an abdication of national responsibility. See Mearsheimer and Walt (2003). 2 See Adler (1997). This is especially true of Alexander Wendt (1999), who sought to position his work as a middle ground between positivist and post-positivist approaches through employing an epistemology consistent with the former and an ontology of the latter. 3 This point echoes Quentin Skinner’s argument that even those determined to work outside existing norms must engage with the existing normative context in order to do so, a point captured in his oft-quoted observation that revolutionaries ‘are obliged to march backwards into battle’. See Tully (1988). We thank Cian O’Driscoll for drawing this to our attention. 4 The full definition of torture under art. 1 of the 1984 Convention against Torture is available here: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/h_cat39.htm. 5 For an application of this insight to US foreign policy in the ‘War on Terror’, see for example, Neta Crawford (2003b). 6 On the latter, Michael Williams (2007: 25–31) employs Bourdieu’s conception of habitus in examining the security–identity relationship to suggest the importance of recognizing that even strategically-minded political actors do not stand outside a community in deploying narratives to enable preferred outcomes, but are a product of (or at least implicated in) the social and cultural context in which they act.

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Jackson, Richard (2014) ‘Bush, Obama, Bush, Obama, Bush, Obama…: the War on Terror as a durable social structure’, in Michelle Bentley and Jack Holland (eds), Obama’s Foreign Policy: Ending the War on Terror, Abingdon: Routledge. Johnson, Alastair (1995) Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Katzenstein, Peter J. (ed.) (1996) The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Katzenstein, Peter J. (2003) ‘Same war – different views: Germany, Japan and counter-terrorism’, International Organization, 57 (4): 731–60. Kaufmann, Chaim (2004) ‘Threat inflation and the failure of the marketplace of ideas’, International Security, 29 (1): 5–48. Keck, Margaret E. and Katherine Sikkink (1998) Activists Beyond Borders, Ithaca, NY: Columbia University Press. Kier, Elizabeth (1997) Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine between the Wars, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Krasner, Stephen (1999) Sovereignty: Organised Hypocrisy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP. Kratochwil, Friedrich (1989) Rules, Norms, and Decisions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kratochwil, Friedrich (1993) ‘The embarrassment of changes: neo-realism as the science of realpolitik without politics’, Review of International Studies, 19 (1): 63–80. Krebs, Ronald and Jennifer Lobasz (2007) ‘Fixing the meaning of 9/11: hegemony, coercion, and the road to war in Iraq’, Security Studies, 16 (3): 409–51. Laffey, Mark and Jutta Weldes (1997) ‘Beyond belief: ideas and symbolic technologies in the study of international relations’, European Journal of International Relations, 3 (2): 193–237. McCrisken, Trevor (2011) ‘Ten years on: Obama’s war on terrorism in rhetoric and practice’, International Affairs, 87 (4): 781–801. McCrisken, Trevor (2012) ‘Justifying sacrifice: Barack Obama and the selling and ending of the war in Afghanistan’, International Affairs, 88 (5): 993–1007. McDonald, Matt (2007a) ‘US hegemony, the “War on Terror” and the Asia-Pacific’, in Anthony Burke and Matt McDonald (eds), Critical Security in the Asia-Pacific, Manchester: Manchester University Press. McDonald, Matt (2007b) ‘Emancipation and critical terrorism studies’, European Political Science, 6 (3): 252–9. McDonald, Matt and Richard Jackson (2008) ‘Selling war: the coalition of the willing and the “War on Terror”’, paper presented at the International Studies Association Convention, San Francisco, 26–29 March. McSweeny, Bill (1999) Security, Identity, Interests, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mearsheimer, John J. (1995) ‘The false promise of international institutions’, International Security, 19 (3): 5–49. Mearsheimer, John J. and Stephen Walt (2003) ‘An unnecessary war’, Foreign Policy, 134 (Jan–Feb): 50–9. Mertus, Julie (1999) Kosovo: How Myths and Truths Started a War, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Murphy, J. (2003) ‘“Our mission and our moment”: George W. Bush and September 11’, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, 6 (4): 607–32. Murray, Nancy (2011) ‘Obama and the global War on Terror’, Race and Class, 53 (2): 84–93. Nye, Joseph Jr (2004) Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, New York, NY: Public Affairs. Onuf, Nicholas (1989) A World of our Making: Rules and Rule in Social Theory and International Relations, Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. Pious, Richard (2011) ‘Prerogative power in the Obama Administration: continuity and change in the war on terrorism’, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 41 (2): 263–90.

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3

Neoconservatism in the age of Obama Robert Singh

Introduction Barack Obama’s election to the US presidency in 2008, and his re-election for a second term in 2012, appeared to confirm fully the demise of neoconservatism as an influence on US foreign policy. After the decisive defeat of the Republicans in the 2006 mid-term elections and the demise of the Project for a New American Century in the same year, Obama’s initial victory in 2008 had rested in part upon his status as the ‘un-Bush’ and a clear commitment to restoring greater humility, legitimacy, legalism, and realism to America’s international role. In subsequently defeating Mitt Romney in 2012, Obama not only triumphed against a Republican candidate who was apparently committed to re-embracing a more aggressive approach to foreign affairs but he also became the first Democratic candidate since John F. Kennedy to exploit a clear electoral advantage on questions of foreign policy and national security. Departing Iraq after a ten-year occupation, winding down America’s longest ever war in Afghanistan, killing Osama Bin Laden, and toppling Colonel Qaddafi together proved that neither Republicans in general nor neoconservatives in particular enjoyed a monopoly on national security ‘strength’. But such an interpretation, while widely-held, is too simplistic, ignoring the continued resilience of neoconservatism as a public philosophy and of neoconservatives as a powerful, if very much a minority, presence within the US political and intellectual class. Declarations of the demise of neoconservatism, if anything, are now as comfortingly regular and familiar as they are reliably premature. In 1995, for example, John Judis (1995) described neoconservatism as having become an ‘anachronism’ with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. One of the founding fathers of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, declared in his 1995 book, Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea, that the neocon ‘impulse’ had been absorbed within ‘a larger, more comprehensive conservatism’, while the following year another leading neoconservative intellectual, Norman Podhoretz, pronounced that ‘neoconservatism is dead’. After what appeared its high – and to its critics, catastrophic – watermark of policy influence in the first George W. Bush administration, the leading liberal internationalist scholar, G. John Ikenberry, likewise confidently claimed the ‘end of the neoconservative moment’ in 2004. In this chapter, the argument is advanced that neoconservatism is instead very much alive and, if not exactly well, in reasonably robust health. This is the result of three distinct but related factors. First, as an approach to foreign affairs – the domestic focus of the first generation of neocons having mostly lapsed – neoconservatism continues to offer a distinctive, conceptually coherent, but highly controversial set of principles and policy prescriptions that has adapted to changing domestic circumstances and international conditions.

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Indeed, one of the more notable developments over recent years has been the growth of serious scholarly studies of neoconservatism and the appearance of an important academic debate as to exactly what key principles inform neoconservatism, the challenges it poses international relations theory, and whether and how neoconservatives have proven ascendant within the Republican Party. Second, international developments since 2009, and the Obama administration’s responses to them, have both offered opportunities to neoconservatives to strongly critique the president’s foreign policy but also demonstrated surprising elements of policy continuity with Obama’s predecessor in the White House, in effect endorsing some of the more controversial neocon tenets while simultaneously limiting the purchase of some of their own critique. Third, the network of neoconservative individuals and institutions has remained vibrant and resilient within Washington, DC. As the course of the 2012 Republican Party primaries and the Romney campaign illustrated, traditional realists and libertarians – while still present in the ranks of the GOP and on Capitol Hill – have been effectively marginalized by a neoconservative strand that has proven tenacious in its ability to exert influence on Republican foreign policy ideas and within the broader conservative movement.

Taking neoconservatism seriously Although neoconservatism has been an influential presence in American political thought since the 1960s, only recently has academic study of neoconservatism caught up with the phenomenon (see Stelzer 2005; Heilbrunn 2008; Rapport 2008; Rathbun 2008; HomolarRiechmann 2009; Ryan 2010; Vaisse 2010; Drolet 2011). While such attention has had minimal popular impact – unfortunately, ‘neocon’ remains in essence a pejorative synonym for ‘war monger’/‘far rightist’ in popular parlance and the press on both sides of the Atlantic – it nonetheless represents an important and interesting development. Although the questions of what neoconservatism is, how it differs from traditional conservatism, and who counts as a neoconservative, all remain contested – not least since IR theorists, political scientists, and historians tend to emphasize different aspects and some erstwhile neocons reject the label – two aspects of this debate merit particular emphasis. First, recent scholarship on neoconservatism has provided interesting and important insights into the thinking of neoconservatives, such that a genuine debate now exists among academics and public intellectuals as to the key ideas and principles informing the persuasion (neoconservatism never having been a ‘movement’). In particular, since the evolution of neoconservatism has now left it principally concerned with foreign policy, academic divisions tend to centre on the relationship between neoconservatism, realism, liberalism, and American nationalism, and the degree to which neoconservatives genuinely believe in idealism and, especially, the American ‘export’ of democracy. In arguably the most comprehensive, dispassionate, and balanced analysis of neoconservatism, Justin Vaisse (2010) identifies three generations of neoconservatives, with five key guiding tenets to the persuasion in its contemporary, ‘third-generation’ guise today: • • •

the need for the US to play an active world role to assert and defend an American-led world order to ensure peace and security; the importance of political regime type to external behaviour (and hence the desirability of democracy promotion and the dangers posed by authoritarian regimes); the essentially ‘benevolent’ nature of US empire or hegemony for international order and peace;

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the freedom of the US to act unilaterally, the desirability of multilateralism notwithstanding; and the need for massive US military resources and the political will to use them (Vaisse 2010: 232–6).

While neoconservatism is thus conventionally viewed as an emphatically right-wing doctrine, as Michael Williams (2005: 327) observes, it ‘is neither totally hostile toward, nor opposed to, the liberal tradition as a whole. On the contrary, neoconservatism emerges out of a clearly identifiable liberal tradition and an engagement with its dilemmas.’ Or, as Vaisse puts it, while it ‘looks more like a branch of conservatism than a branch of liberalism, at any rate on domestic issues’, foreign policy is different: The neoconservatives’ Wilsonianism, their moralism, their penchant for upsetting the status quo, and their defense, for foreign policy reasons, of a strong state with a powerful military – all these are traits that neoconservatives share more with liberals than conservatives. After all, as a philosophy, the default position of conservatism in foreign policy tends to be isolationist (as the Republican party was until the 1940s), or, when isolationism is no longer tenable, it tends to be realist and prudent, not to say cynical, rather than interventionist (2010: 278). By contrast, several scholars dispute this analysis strongly. Drolet (2011), for example, views such an interpretation as ‘naïve’, arguing instead that while neocons are indeed ‘moralising supporters of a strong and expansionist militaristic state’, neoconservatism is in fact inimical to liberalism, which is ‘about self-determination, collective security, institutions, international law, and the transformation of the international state of anarchy into a global constitutional order of human rights’ (2011: 207). Neoconservatism instead owes its provenance to a particular disturbing type of realpolitik, a Straussian belief in the utility of the ‘noble lie’ and a Nietzschean ‘will to power’. Ryan (2010), similarly, argues against the idealistic elements of neoconservatives, claiming that maintenance of a unipolar world, rather than democracy promotion, was the guiding tenet for neoconservatives during the 1990s and since. Teasing out the complex arguments and subtle distinctions underlying this debate is beyond the scope of this chapter. But two broad points are worth making. First, a fair reading of contemporary neoconservative thinking – certainly since the 1990s – reveals it to be especially preoccupied with the indispensability of American power and the geostrategic primacy of the United States. To castigate neocons for blindly promoting the blanket export of democracy (invariably ‘at the point of a gun’) is as misplaced as, at the other extreme, suggesting that democracy promotion and human rights represent mere fig-leaves barely covering a fundamentally sinister agenda of American imperialism. As such, as Lynch (2011: 347) argues, there exists ‘sufficient history to suggest that neoconservatism, rather than a recent aberration, actually represents a consensus position within US national security policy and embodies much of the American foreign policy tradition…’ And as even those critics such as Ryan inadvertently note, actually reading neoconservative writings suggests that democracy promotion is a part of neoconservative thinking, but that its support is selective, contingent, and willing to be directed to non-military and patient means: a ‘democratic realism’, in Charles Krauthammer’s (2004) formulation, not a ‘democratic globalism’. Second, perhaps the most persuasive conclusion about the competing interpretations of neoconservatism is that drawn by Vaisse, when he identifies third-generation neoconservatism

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as ‘an avatar of American nationalism, as the expression of underlying nationalism that has been present since the country was born, a reincarnation of Wilsonianism in a new, more martial form’ (2010: 278). That is, neoconservatism marries the idealistic, Wilsonian strand of national ideology with a Jacksonian willingness to maintain and extend a balance of power that favours political and economic freedom. The two strands are, for neoconservatives, inextricably interlinked, separating them from both liberals placing undue faith in international law and institutions over the calculus of power, and from realists placing insufficient faith in the centrality of values as well as interests. Such an interpretation helps to explain the convergence of neoconservatives with other conservatives (nationalists, realists, and ‘theo-cons’), as well as the longevity of the neoconservative persuasion. For, somewhat ironically – given the scholarly rivalry over its appropriate political location – the second striking feature of the contemporary academic debate concerns the general consensus that neoconservatism is likely to remain an important and influential force on US foreign policy. As Williams (2005: 329) argued, neoconservatism ‘possesses a powerful political logic and a rhetorical strategy – it is unlikely simply to fade away’. Similarly, Jacob Heilbraunn (2008: 280) concluded a highly hostile and tendentious analysis by warning that, while liberal critics ‘persist in acting as though neoconservatism were a phenomenon that has run its course’, ‘Prophets are not easily dissuaded from their crusade’ and neocons would plausibly ‘regroup, reassess, and retrench’. In a more balanced assessment, as Vaisse (2010: 269–70) put it: Neocons can continue to boast a vibrant intellectual network, a capacity to influence the public debate, a clear vision of America’s role in the world – and this vision is grounded in an increasingly large historiography of their own. To influence American foreign policy again, all they need is the alignment of a mobilized and interventionist public opinion and a sympathetic administration, as in 1980–1985 and 2001–2005. Given the cyclical character of American foreign policy, such a moment will probably present itself again in the next decades. That consensus appears to have been at least partially vindicated by developments since 2009.

Obama, Romney, and the neoconservatives While many of the left had hoped, and many of the right feared, that an Obama administration would represent a decisive rejection of the foreign policies of George W. Bush, the president’s record demonstrated a surprising and substantial amount of continuity with that of his unloved predecessor. In particular, on matters of national security, even as his administration stressed the virtues of ‘engagement’, Obama continued – and in some cases substantially expanded – the more aggressive and forward-leaning aspects of the Bush years (Singh 2012). Even sympathetic observers, who described Obama as a ‘progressive pragmatist’ on international affairs, nonetheless conceded that ‘the continuity from George W. Bush has been most evident in regard to war fighting on the one hand and democracy promotion in the Middle East on the other’ (Indyk et al. 2012: 259). Although substantial dissensus surrounds Obama’s foreign policy, both in terms of how best to categorize the president and in terms of its effectiveness in securing America’s national interests, few observers dispute that the national security strategy that the administration has pursued has been assertive in its employment of hard power. The American

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diplomatic historian, Walter Russell Mead (2011a), even went so far as to argue provocatively that, ‘in general President Obama succeeds where he adopts or modifies the policies of the Bush administration. Where (as on Israel) he has tried to deviate, his troubles begin’: The most irritating argument anyone could make in American politics is that President Obama, precisely because he seems so liberal, so vacillating, so nice, is a more effective neo-conservative than President Bush. As is often the case, the argument is so irritating partly because it is so true… President Obama is pushing a democracy agenda in the Middle East that is as aggressive as President Bush’s; he adopts regime change by violence if necessary as a core component of his regional approach and, to put it mildly, he is not afraid to bomb. But where President Bush’s tough guy posture (‘Bring ‘em on!’) alienated opinion abroad and among liberals at home, President Obama’s reluctant warrior stance makes it easier for others to work with him. Indeed, in a briefing with reporters prior to his 2012 State of the Union message, Obama even expressed effusive praise for an essay by perhaps the most prominent and prolific neoconservative, the historian Robert Kagan, in The New Republic – ‘Not fade away: the myth of American decline’, drawn from his 2012 book, The World America Made – that was, ironically, partly intended as a critique of Obama and a standard neoconservative reassertion of the need for ‘constant’ American global leadership and commitment. (Kagan [2010] had argued previously that Obama had overturned half a century of national security doctrines by accepting that America’s decline, economically and militarily, was inevitable.) Much as had previously occurred with Bill Clinton in the 1990s, neoconservatives faced two sets of principal domestic opponents: the Democratic occupant of the White House and his allies on Capitol Hill, and the realists, paleo-conservatives, and libertarians within the Republican Party. Such a dual front created particular problems on issues of military intervention. For example, just as neoconservatives had divided over Clinton’s interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo (with some, such as Charles Krauthammer, opposing them), so they were divided over Obama’s support for action against Libya in 2011, intervention in Syria, and support for the ‘Arab Awakening’. While Obama’s own response was hardly consistent in these cases, and certainly appeared more ad hoc and reactive than strategic, the same basic questions caused his critics major problems. Should the United States support the overthrow of traditional authoritarian allies such as Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, even if the consequence was the coming to power of more hostile groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and a deterioration in the regional context for Israel’s security? Should Washington encourage democratic reform if this empowered a virulently anti-American ‘Arab street’? Should the United States intervene in Syria to overthrow Assad and support popular self-government, or eschew yet another Middle Eastern military campaign at the cost of subsequent deep popular resentment? While not entirely unified on the answers to the questions, neoconservative criticism of Obama has tended to coalesce and focus on three aspects of his approach: first, that he was retreating from important areas of strategic commitment, and doing so too rapidly, embracing a ‘pivot’ to Asia when both relations with Europe and America’s presence in the Middle East remained vital, and determining deadlines for withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan on the basis of his domestic political needs rather than ‘conditions on the ground’; second, that he was insufficiently assertive towards America’s antagonists – most notably, Russia, China, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela – and insufficiently solicitous of its allies (especially the United Kingdom and Israel, the latter of which Obama did not even visit until March 2013); and

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thirdly, that Obama’s focus on ‘nation-building at home’ was weakening America’s ability to lead globally, undermining the military strength and preparedness of the United States, and emboldening its enemies. In failing to tackle America’s $16 trillion debt and annual budget deficits in excess of $1 trillion, in agreeing to cuts to the defence budget, and being willing to allow ‘sequestration’ to go forward – imposing further reductions on the Pentagon – the president was gutting America’s military pre-eminence at precisely the wrong moment. That Defence Secretary Leon Panetta had to cancel the deployment of an aircraft carrier, the USS Truman, in February 2013, due to insufficient funding, was a vivid illustration of such dangers. Much of this neoconservative critique was anticipated and appropriated by the Romney campaign against Obama in 2011–12. Indeed, with the exceptions of the brief campaign of the moderate internationalist Jon Huntsman, and the neo-isolationist Ron Paul, all of the candidates for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination articulated strongly hawkish views congenial to neoconservatives. Mann and Ornstein (2012) argue that the current era of ‘asymmetric polarization’ in the United States has been primarily driven by a Republican Party that has drifted much further to the right than the Democrats have to the left, with the former now an ‘insurgent outlier – ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; un-persuaded by conventional understandings of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition’ (2012: xiv). But while they focused on domestic matters, foreign policy too has seen a sharp shift to a more hawkish stance. As the endorsement of Obama by Colin Powell in both 2008 and 2012 suggested, even Republican realists – RINOs, or ‘Republicans In Name Only’ to their conservative critics – have increasingly migrated to the Democratic Party. In his 2008 bid for the GOP presidential nomination, Romney’s foreign policy credentials had been weak and he was criticized by John McCain, Rudi Giuliani, and others for insufficient conservatism (the bulk of neoconservatives aligned with McCain and Giuliani rather than Romney). By 2012, as on other issues, the former Massachusetts governor had apparently shifted to a much more hawkish stance, describing Russia as America’s ‘number one geopolitical foe’, calling for the return of ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques and the doubling of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility’s detainees, criticizing Obama for an ‘apology tour’ and insufficient expression of American exceptionalism, pledging increased support for Israel and the use of military force against Iran if its nuclear aspirations advanced further. Reviewing his speeches and statements on foreign affairs, Andrew Sullivan (2012) described Romney as ‘clearly much more neoconservative than Bush’, an impression reinforced by the team of foreign policy advisers he assembled, which included Robert Kagan, Dan Senor, Eric Edelman, John Bolton, and Eliot Cohen. Berman (2012) was one of several observers who characterized the team as a ‘neocon war cabinet’ that was more rightist than that of George W. Bush. Mehdi Hasan (2012) similarly declared the Romney campaign to be ‘basically, Neocon Central’ – noting that of the 24 ‘special advisers’ on foreign policy listed on the official Romney campaign’s website, ‘17 of the 24 advisers worked as senior officials in the Bush/Cheney administration’ and none of the 24 ‘disowns or regrets the Iraq invasion; few speak of Palestinians as anything other than terrorists; almost all of them want to increase spending on the US military and they share a Manichaean view of a world in which America is the sole superpower’. Aside from the perennial problem of definition here – where critics lump together neoconservatives and conservative nationalists, an important distinction where the latter tend to be far more numerous than the former – a less feverish and more accurate assessment

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suggests that Romney’s advisers represented a broad balance between neoconservatives, traditional strong defence conservatives, and realists. Nonetheless, while it remains true that the balance was probably tilted against realists – in nominating Robert Zoellick as the head of his provisional transition team, Romney encountered significant internal party criticism, for example – inferring too much from the cast of campaign advisers is unwise. As David Milne (2012: 946) rightly argued, ‘little in his resume suggests that Romney is a neoconservative in the making. Romney is pursuing a bellicose strategy vis-à-vis Obama’s alleged passivity because he believes it will resonate with voters – not because it comes from within’. Romney’s knowledge of, interest in, and genuine positions on foreign policy were also notoriously opaque. On Iran, for example, his statements equivocated between denying the Islamic Republic a nuclear ‘capability’ and a ‘weapon’, while his prescriptions oscillated between military action and, as he put it in an 8 October 2012 speech to the Virginia Military Institute, ‘new sanctions’. Perhaps most notably, in the third presidential debate, Romney sketched out virtually no substantive differences with President Obama and instead sought regularly to shift the debate to domestic issues, finally recognizing that out-hawking Obama was not only very difficult but also, politically, highly risky and electorally unappealing. Exactly who would have made it to the key positions in a Romney national security team necessarily remains a matter of speculation. Similarly, whether or not neoconservatism represented, as Berman (2012: 17) contended, ‘an ideology of convenience’ for Romney to gain the party’s nomination remains unclear. Gideon Rachman (2012) probably had the assessment correct when he argued that, ‘My guess is that his inner core, if he has one, would incline him to a coldly pragmatic foreign policy rather close to that of Mr Obama. Mr Romney is an establishment man and his campaign does not suggest he is driven by unbending principle.’ While Milne (2012: 949) exaggerated when he claimed that ‘if Romney does win the election in November, neo-conservatives are likely to find his administration as unwelcoming as Wilsonians have found Obama’s’ – neocons would certainly have gained positions in the foreign policy and national security decision-making apparatus – he was right to note that Obama and Romney were both pragmatic, results-driven, and wary of ideological straitjackets. Even so, this raises one final question worth examination: why has a notably small and loose network of neoconservatives remained such an influential force in the Republican Party and the broader conservative movement after the neoconservative brand appeared to have become politically toxic, having been apparently discredited by the Iraq War and with neocons articulating positions on international affairs that seem out of sync with majority American public opinion? Three related explanations perhaps provide the optimal answer. First – and in spite of its ‘un-naming’ – as the continuation of the war on terror under Obama suggests, key elements of the neoconservative analysis of hard security threats and the necessary policy responses have won and maintained much broader political support than just the neocon ‘cabal’. The legitimacy of preventive military action (albeit not on the scale of the Iraq invasion), the vast expansion of the drone programme and extra-judicial assassinations, the maintenance of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, the continued use of rendition and surveillance, and the use of cyber and covert warfare against the Iranian nuclear programme under Obama together – at least implicitly – validated several neocon prescriptions. Moreover, the success of the ‘surge’ policy in Iraq, and its extension in 2009– 11 to Afghanistan, allowed neoconservatives to claim that they, rather than realists and libertarian anti-interventionists who (like Obama) had opposed the surge in 2007, were the ultimate authors of ‘success’ in the two theatres. However implausible that appears to their

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critics, as Lynch (2011: 349) argued, liberal interventionists and neoconservatives have long been de facto relatives in the same broad foreign policy family and the ‘implicit co-optation of a neoconservative agenda by Barack Obama further reduces the range of opposition strategies. Assertions that the GOP will remain the party of national security may rely increasingly on nostalgia.’ In that sense, the very success of hawkish approaches has undermined the distinctiveness of the neocon international agenda. Second, the balance of foreign policy influence in the Republican Party has arguably shifted further in the neoconservatives’ direction since the end of the Bush years, at least when they can link forces with conservative nationalists. As Vaisse (2010: 266) observes, neoconservatives have ‘won the battle against their archenemies, the realists, for the soul of the Republican party’ (though his claim that they also exercise ‘dominance in the Washington foreign policy community’ is a stretch too far). In part, this is a function of the decline of traditional realists in the Henry Kissinger, George H.W. Bush, James Baker, and Brent Scowcroft moulds, either through them drifting to the Democrats or departing the political scene. But neocons have also renewed themselves with younger acolytes while realists have largely failed to reproduce younger generations of Republican cohorts. As the GOP has steadily lost support in the Northeast and West of the United States, and as the activism of groups such as the Tea Party have helped to defeat moderate and realist Republican incumbents (such as Senator Richard Lugar [R-Ind], defeated in a primary election in 2012), so the ranks of self-declared realists in Congress have been depleted. Moreover, as service on the Foreign Relations Committee has become less attractive to many aspirant and ambitious Senators, so the ranks of those active in and knowledgeable on foreign affairs have become fewer. As the opposition to the nomination of former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as Defence Secretary in Obama’s second term, testified – the Senate Armed Services Committee approved his nomination on 12 January by a straight party line vote, 14–11, with all eleven GOP Senators voting against – the contemporary Republican Party on Capitol Hill maintains a decidedly hawkish position. While many critics bemoan this shift – according to one account (Kabaservice 2012: 385), ‘The Bush years demonstrated anew that conservatives were skilled at politics but deficient at governing, and that a Republican Party without moderates was like a heavily muscled body without a head’ – this was not merely an elite phenomenon. Beyond presidential and congressional politics, there exists a broader partisan divide over foreign policy. As Vaisse (2010: 267) notes, ‘basic political attitudes within the Republican party seem to have aligned, if not with the neocons per se, at least with a hawkish and interventionist version of foreign policy, while Democrats and independents seem to have remained firmly in the realist camp’. Surveys by the Pew Research Center, Gallup, and others now reliably demonstrate Democrats preferring diplomacy over force, multilateral action over unilateral, and the importance of the United Nations. Republicans tend to veer in a more hawkish, interventionist, and unilateral direction. Third, the multiple nodes of the neocon network remain active, interconnected and together constitute a powerful presence within the Beltway. As Heilbraunn (2008: 279) observed, ‘The sheer scale of the neoconservative network, which includes the AEI, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Weekly Standard, the Committee on the Present Danger, and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, means that it has become part of the Washington establishment’. Indeed, one should now add to these groups others: the Foreign Policy Initiative, in effect the successor to PNAC, founded by Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan in 2009, whose mission statement echoes that of its controversial predecessor (‘The challenges we face require 21st century strategies and tactics based on a renewed commitment to

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American leadership’, entailing continued engagement, support for democratic allies, the spread of political and economic freedom, and a ‘strong military with the defense budget needed to ensure that America is ready to confront the threats of the 21st century’); the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post; a congenial environment and an outlet for figures such as Kristol, Steven Hayes, Charles Krauthammer, and others at the Fox News channel; and other think tanks that, while not strictly neocon in orientation, have some overlapping issue agendas and policy positions, such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, and, in Europe, the Henry Jackson Society and the European Convention on Liberal Democracy. Indeed, the breadth of links is perhaps most eloquently demonstrated by Robert Kagan’s presence as a senior fellow at one of the leading centre-left think tanks, the Brookings Institution, rather than the AEI. The ability of neoconservatives not only to gain a public hearing for their views, but also to forge links with other conservatives and even some liberal internationalists, continues to amplify their political clout – and their intellectual contribution to the framework of mainstream American foreign policy – considerably beyond what it would otherwise be.

Conclusion Looking forward, the short to medium-term prospects for neoconservatism appear mixed. On the one hand, as argued above, the institutionalization of the neocons in Washington makes them a permanent and influential presence in the Republican Party, in debates over US foreign policy, and as part of the wider conservative movement. It may be going too far to argue, as Heilbraunn (2008: 278) has, that it ‘will take an insurgency inside the GOP to dislodge the neoconservatives’ but, in terms of access, expertise, and the ability to reach a wider public, neocons have proven remarkably adept and effective political operators. Moreover, given the on-going changes in the international system and the continuing global and regional challenges to US interests, values, and power from state and non-state threats alike, neoconservative prescriptions on the necessity of US leadership, the legitimacy of unilateral action, and the desirability of a strong defence and robust military appear likely to endure rather than disappear. As disappointed progressives have discovered since 2009, even a Democratic president reluctant to wage war sometimes cannot escape the combination of serious security threats, a limited menu of effective policy responses to them, inadequate institutions such as the United Nations Security Council, poorly resourced NATO allies, and the occasional necessity of deploying unilateral US military force. But neoconservatives face three major medium-term challenges of consequence, ones that together raise substantial doubts as to whether, in Vaisse’s terminology, ‘the alignment of a mobilised and interventionist public opinion and a sympathetic administration’ is likely to arise again in the 2010s or thereafter. First, as Obama’s 2012 victory graphically attested, the changing demographics of the American electorate pose significant hurdles to a Republican regaining the White House – even if the distribution of the GOP vote reliably helps its prospects for majorities in Congress. While it remains too soon to conclude that the ‘emerging Democratic majority’ has finally arrived, if the GOP proves unable to win a presidential election in 2016, neoconservatives will again be denied policymaking positions in the next administration. And while influence in Congress and the wider Washington community is not insignificant, genuine foreign policy heft depends critically on a strong presence in the councils of the executive branch’s decision-making apparatus. A Romney victory in 2012 would not have been, and a Republican presidential win in 2016 would not be, a sufficient guarantor of a revived and

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extensive neoconservative influence on US foreign policy – but, at minimum, it represents a necessary condition. Even then, if a Republican president is sworn into office in January 2017, it may plausibly be a popular centrist figure – a Chris Christie or a Jeb Bush – unlikely to emerge from the neocon ranks of the party. Second, American public opinion currently remains deeply hostile to many of the more militaristic, interventionist, and imperialistic aspects of the neoconservative agenda. Ironically, at least in part, this actually vindicates neoconservative warnings – articulated in the 1990s under Clinton and again against Obama since 2009 – that a failure by the president to articulate a compelling foreign policy vision would erode public support for a vigorous US leadership role in the world. After the polarizing Bush years and the Great Recession, there were unmistakeable signs of the American public becoming increasingly insular, war fatigued, and resistant to the US role of ‘world policeman’. Obama’s presidency, in focusing so relentlessly on domestic affairs, eschewing an emphasis on the US global leadership role, and embracing a strategy of ‘leading from behind’ has arguably compounded not just an understandable war-weariness but also a less propitious neo-isolationist tendency favouring strategic withdrawal and opposed to interventionism. Although this has yet to represent a seismic tectonic shift away from internationalism – and it is worth recalling that only five years after the Vietnam War’s end, Americans elected Ronald Reagan to the White House – it does pose severe difficulties for neoconservatives seeking greater, not less, international engagement, intervention, and ‘forward leaning’ leadership from Washington. Third, but related, the internal politics of the Republican Party remain markedly fluid, fractious, and volatile. Colin Dueck, the foremost analyst of the GOP and foreign policy, rightly argues that while important fissures exist between conservative realists, hawks, nationalists, and anti-interventionists, the default position of the contemporary party is Jacksonian (2010, 2012). The key story of the party, its internal differences notwithstanding, is how an isolationist GOP shifted steadily but inexorably after the 1940s to being strongly interventionist and, in relation to the Pentagon, strongly in favour of ‘big government’. While the anti-interventionist Ron Paul drew enthusiastic and young Republican voters to his cause in 2008 and 2012, and while paleo-conservatives such as Pat Buchanan and faithbased interventionists such as Mike Huckabee remain active, neoconservatives tend to be able to cross paths with most other dominant tendencies in the party, amplifying their relatively meagre numbers and substantially increasing their audience and influence. As Mead (2011b) contends, even within the populist, anti-establishment Tea Party movement – whose principal foreign policy concern is preserving American sovereignty – the Palinite wing is currently stronger than the Paulite one. But this may yet change as the tensions between competing factions, and between competing policy priorities, grow. In a speech to the Heritage Foundation on 6 February 2013 that caused major waves within the party – and probably represented his opening salvo in a bid for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination – Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), son of Ron, sought to challenge directly what he saw as an unfortunate and stifling bipartisan orthodoxy over foreign policy, citing the wisdom of George Kennan and calling for a ‘return to a true conservative foreign policy’. Rejecting the labels of both neoconservative and isolationist, Paul instead claimed the mantle of ‘realism’ and cautioned about the limits of American power. Robert Merry (2013), editor of the self-consciously realist publication The National Interest, declared the speech ‘seminal’ for both the party and, potentially, the nation: This is consequential in itself, given the sway of the neocon philosophy over GOP thinking since the early days of George W. Bush and the paucity of enthusiasm for

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realist convictions. When such a prominent Republican senator embraces the realist label, it presents just a hint of a possibility that a foreign-policy debate actually could emerge in a Republican Party long frozen in the tundra of neocon thinking. As Robert Kagan (2013) trenchantly noted in response, however, exactly how Paul justified his supposed dissenting credentials was rather opaque: Paul sounds conventional. He calls himself a ‘realist,’ but unlike many realists, he sees the overriding threat to America as ‘radical Islam,’ which he describes as a ‘relentless force’ of ‘unlimited zeal,’ ‘supported by radicalized nations such as Iran’ and with which the United States is indeed at ‘war’ and will be for a long time. Unlike critics during the Cold War, who argued that anti-communist ‘paranoia’ produced a selfdestructive foreign policy, Paul embraces the dominant ‘paranoia’ of the post-9/11 era. He may have a realist’s contempt for the supposed ignorance of the average American, who, he claims, is ‘more concerned with who is winning “Dancing With the Stars”.’ But he nevertheless shares the average American’s view that radical Islam is today what Soviet Communism was during the Cold War – ‘an ideology with worldwide reach’ that must, like communism, be met by ‘counterforce at a series of constantly shifting worldwide points’. Paul’s strategy may yet prove politically and electorally savvy, as a means to straddle those competing forces within the party’s conservative coalition: fiscal conservatives preoccupied with cutting the deficit and debt; hawks committed to a robust Pentagon; anti-interventionists still haunted by Bush’s wars; and nationalists who continue to believe in American primacy but at a reduced cost in blood and treasure alike. But, as Kagan’s commentary implicitly suggested, there already exists a party that is sceptical of foreign military entanglements, mindful of limited resources, and more inclined towards realism, diplomacy, and soft power than militarism. Ironically, as a nascent neocon critique might argue, in imitating the Obama record, it is actually the Paul approach that is likely to cast US foreign policy more firmly in the conformity of a bipartisan straitjacket. As such, the Paul strategy of ‘Democratic Party lite’ is unlikely to be congenial to either Republican elected officials or the GOP rank and file. And neoconservatives are likely to be in the forefront of making that ‘clear and present danger’ readily apparent for several years to come, even if their exercise of power continues to proves an elusive quest.

References Berman, Ari (2012) ‘Mitt Romney’s neocon war cabinet’, The Nation, 21 May: 11–17. Drolet, Jean-Francois (2011) American Neoconservatism: The Politics and Culture of a Reactionary Idealism. Dueck, Colin (2010) Hard Line: The Republican Party and US Foreign Policy Since WWII, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Dueck, Colin (2012) ‘Jacksonian Republicans’ (available online at http://americanreviewmag.com/ stories/Jacksonian-Republicans). Hasan, Mehdi (2012) ‘The zombie neocons have risen from the dead and found a new Dubbya’, New Statesman, 2–8 November: 38. Heilbrunn, Jacob (2008) They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons. New York: Doubleday. Homolar-Riechmann, Alexandra (2009) ‘The moral purpose of US power: neoconservatism in the age of Obama’, Contemporary Politics, 15 (2): 179–96.

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Ikenberry, John (2004) ‘The end of the neo-conservative moment’, Survival, 46 (1): 7–22. Indyk, Martin S., Kenneth G. Lieberthal, and Michael O’Hanlon (2012) Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Judis, John (1995) ‘Trotskyism to anachronism: the neoconservative revolution’, Foreign Affairs, 74 (4): 123–9. Kabaservice, Geoffrey (2012) Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party, New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Kagan, Robert (2010) ‘Obama’s year one: contra’, World Affairs, January/February. Kagan, Robert (2012) The World America Made, New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf. Kagan, Robert (2013) ‘Rand Paul’s conventional stance on foreign policy’, Washington Post, 8 February. Krauthammer, Charles (2004) Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World, Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. Lynch, Timothy J. (2011) ‘The McBama national security consensus and Republican foreign policy after the 2008 election’, in Joel D. Aberbach and Gillian Peele (eds), Crisis of Conservatism? The Republican Party, the Conservative Movement, and American Politics after Bush, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 335–56. Mann, Thomas E. and Norman J. Ornstein (2012) It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism, New York, NY: Basic Books. Mead, Walter Russell (2011a) ‘W gets a third term in the Middle East’, 22 August (available online at http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/08/22/w-gets-a-third-term-in-the-middle-east/). Mead, Walter Russell. (2011b) ‘The Tea Party and American foreign policy: what populism means for globalism’, Foreign Affairs, 90 (2): 28–44. Merry, Robert W. (2013) ‘Rand Paul’s seminal speech’, 8 February (available online at http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/rand-pauls-seminal-speech-8077). Milne, David (2012) ‘Pragmatism or what? The future of US foreign policy’, International Affairs, 88 (5): 935–51. Rachman, Gideon (2012) ‘If you liked George W. Bush, you’ll love Romney’, The Financial Times, 31 July: 11. Rapport, Aaron (2008) ‘Unexpected affinities? Neoconservatism’s place in IR theory’, Security Studies, 17: 257–93. Rathbun, Brian (2008) ‘Does one right make a realist? Conservatism, neoconservatism, and isolationism in the foreign policy ideology of American elites’, Political Science Quarterly, 123 (2): 271–99. Ryan, Maria (2010) Neoconservatism and the New American Century, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Singh, Robert (2012) Barack Obama’s Post-American Foreign Policy: The Limits of Engagement, London: Bloomsbury. Stelzer, Irwin (ed.) (2005) Neoconservatism. London: Atlantic Books. Sullivan, Andrew (2012) ‘Calling for war in a nation sick of it’, The Sunday Times News Review, 27 May: 4. Vaisse, Justin (2010) Neoconservatism: The Biography of Movement, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Williams, Michael (2005) ‘What is the national interest? The neoconservative challenge in IR theory’, European Journal of International Relations, 11 (3): 307–37.

4

Obama, liberalism, and US foreign policy Timothy J. Lynch

Introduction The inauguration of Barack Obama in 2009 presaged a rebirth of liberalism as the philosophical and theoretical foundation of American foreign policy. It was widely predicted that Obama would be the ‘unBush’ president, recalibrating US global power to reflect its limits. His liberal foreign policy would replace a neoconservative unilateralism with a readiness to work through international institutions. Transposing his Chicago experience to a world stage, Obama would be the global community organizer-in-chief. The argument of this chapter is that such hopes were largely misplaced. Obama has in style and tone effected a liberal foreign policy; his substantial emphasis in practice, however, has borrowed freely across paradigms, paying very little attention to the intricacies and demands of any, producing a highly pragmatic and often more typically realist approach to the world than a liberal one. Indeed, the foreign policy Obama has delivered more resembles a third Bush term than a revolution away from the Texan. ‘Liberal’ and ‘liberalism’ are inherently flexible, even slippery, labels. Many students connect ‘liberal’ to simple notions of progress, of fairness and equality, of deference to the United Nations, and of foreign policies, American and otherwise, that promote expansively global, as opposed to narrowly national, interests. Liberalism embraces many of these normative concerns. Liberals believe that states can and should change their policies to make ‘progress’ across a range of issues possible; increasingly liberalism is taken as synonymous with progressivism. In contrast, realists are sceptical that shifts in diplomacy and a foreign policy of rational enlightenment can change the underlying structure of international relations or the nature of the humans navigating it. Obama has deployed a variety of mechanisms in the pursuit of a liberal world order, often straining the boundaries of what liberals find acceptable. He has pursued liberal ends but sometimes by reliably realist means. He has made war abroad in the name of humanitarianism but has imposed supposedly realistic limits to such actions – toppling Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi but refusing to intervene in the far worse – in terms of duration, intensity, and civilian deaths – Syrian war. Obama’s foreign policy liberalism is a complicated one. I have argued elsewhere that Obama’s liberalism was unlikely to initiate a revolution in American foreign policy (see Lynch and Singh 2008; Lynch 2010). Rather, he would continue with the central themes that have framed America’s approach to the world since the eighteenth century. As such, he was more likely to resemble his predecessor than repudiate him. Obama’s liberalism was not transformative but a set of reactions, adapting itself to reality rather than reshaping it. As his presidency enters its twilight, we can assess how far Obama’s liberalism has made any difference to international relations.

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Defining Obama’s liberalism There are at least two ways in which we might measure the liberalism of Obama’s foreign policy. The first lays stress on what I will refer to as his ideological liberalism, whose antecedents are in his political character and personal history. As a man of the left, Obama has necessarily adapted his core liberalism to his foreign policy agenda and vice versa. He has stressed the inherent value of cooperative engagement with America’s opponents, such as Iran. He has treated seriously the role played by international institutions, such as the United Nations. He has done this not primarily for their utility (the UN is not appreciably more useful as an instrument than it was under George W. Bush) but because the United Nations is seen as a value in and of itself, and, therefore, worthy of deference. Despite a reputation for pragmatism, Obama came to office as the most liberal Democrat senator in the 112th Congress. He secured an almost perfect ‘liberal voting score’ during his years as the junior senator from Illinois, 2005–8, moving further ‘left’ year-on-year (see http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/). Oppositional texts have exaggerated Obama’s leftism (see Corsi 2008; D’Souza 2010; Limbaugh 2012) but these should not obscure an important feature of his political maturation. Obama has resided comfortably on the leftwing side of Democratic politics since the early 1980s (see Remnick 2011; Alterman and Mattson 2012; Merry 2013). We do not have to bias agency over structure to acknowledge that his personal–political orientation was likely to influence how he dealt with the world as president. The second way in which Obama’s foreign policy liberalism can be assessed lies in his articulation of a liberal theory of international relations. Unlike his ideological liberalism, his theoretical liberalism operates less consciously. Liberal IR theory, unlike political or partisan liberalism, is concerned not with ideology or the quest for the good life, as such. Rather, it privileges a set of assumptions about the way international relations function. As Jack Snyder observes, ‘Liberalism has such a powerful presence that the entire US political spectrum, from neoconservatives to human rights advocates, assumes it as largely selfevident’ (Synder 2004: 56). The definition of ‘liberal’ in this respect is an expansive one. Neoconservatives and Marxists are ‘liberal’ IR theorists. They argue that a state’s character, ideology, and internal structure have a direct bearing on the foreign policy it will pursue. ‘Foreign policy is a phase of domestic policy,’ argued Charles Beard, ‘an inescapable phase’ (in Waltz 1959: 80). It follows that if a state’s character can be changed – through democracy promotion or communist revolution, for example – its external posture will change too. Liberal IR theorists believe that institutions matter – hence liberal institutionalism. Such entities can mitigate – through reasoned discourse and rational social structuring – the harsher aspects of the human condition. If properly constituted, institutions like the United Nations and the European Union can alter the national interest calculations of states. Frederick Engels and Leon Trotsky argued something similar (see Waltz 1959: 125). If international organizations reflected the interests of the working class, national interests would be irrelevant and thus war redundant. If all states could be democratic, as some neoconservatives advocate, peace would become perpetual. Of course, these political persuasions differ markedly but they share a common belief that state character determines the prevalence of war or peace in international relations. Liberal IR theory has many variations and subsets. These include institutionalists (Keohane and Nye 2001; Dai 2007), internationalists (Reus-Smit 2004; Smith 2007), sociologists (Mann 2003, 2004; Linklater 2007), cosmopolitans (Held 2005; Kaldor 2004), cultural and

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critical theorists (Rengger and Thirkell-White 2007; Lebow 2008), and theorists of republican liberalism (Doyle 1997). But nearly all its proponents share a belief that progress – toward peace, equality, freedom, global cooling – is possible if only the world could be organized better. Despite the diversity of their theories, ‘liberals have shared the view that institutions and rules established between states facilitate and reinforce cooperation and collective problem solving’ (Ikenberry 2011: 63). Realists dismiss such claims as largely illusory. Positioning Obama’s foreign policy within this enormous body of literature invites more debate than it closes down. His particular skill as president was to appear an empty vessel into which each supporter would pour his own liquor. Obama’s liberalism is a case in point. Scholars of his foreign policy divide on its essential character. The broadly sympathetic accounting offered in Indyk et al. (2012) avoids explicit mention of liberalism, ideological or theoretical. ‘Once he became president,’ they note, ‘Obama dispensed with ideology and partisanship and became simply pragmatic’ (2012: 75). His drawdown of troops in Iraq, for example, conformed much more to military advice than to the expectations of his Democratic base or to the models of democratic peace theorists. Much of the literature on Obama’s foreign policy necessarily seeks comparison and contrast with that of George W. Bush. Distinguishing between Obama’s liberalism and Bush’s supposed neoconservatism is no easy task, just as monotheoretical ascriptions of his predecessor’s foreign policy obscure more than they reveal (see Harvey 2010; Lynch 2010). There are at least two schools of thought on Obama’s foreign policy. The first finds continuity, both good and bad, with Bush. The central case study is the counter-terrorism of both men. Obama has not been squeamish in the extra-judicial targeting of terrorists. He has killed many more of them by drone strike than did Bush (see Klaidman 2012). Obama has actually delivered, writes David Sanger, ‘a modified version of Bush’s pre-emption doctrine’ (Sanger 2012: 252). Like Bush, he used military force to topple an Arab autocracy (in Libya) and surged troops into Afghanistan. The second approach finds a rupture with Bush. In his diplomacy toward China, for example, according to Jeffrey Bader, Obama succeeded because he saw not an ‘inevitable adversary, but rather a strategic partner in resolving critical global issues’ (Bader 2012: 69). Thus, Obama’s foreign policy worked because it embraced the liberal assumption of peace through engagement. Others have explicitly questioned the limits of this engagement strategy (see Singh 2012, for example) but have not queried its primacy in Obama’s diplomacy – only its utility.

Three levels of analysis Do either of the foregoing types help us define Obama’s foreign policy liberalism? Obama, according to Indyk et al., has been a liberal hawk, ‘a president who ordered US Special Operations Forces to violate unilaterally Pakistani airspace to kill Osama bin Laden and who had American drones attack other extremists at five to ten times the rate of the Bush administration’ (2012: 265). But, according to James Lindsay, Obama has largely failed because he assumed that the rest of the world shared his liberal assumptions. Obama’s fetish for consultation ‘could not guarantee consensus. Governments could and did disagree over which issues constituted threats or opportunities… The result too often was inaction or gridlock’ (Lindsay 2011: 779). If Obama’s liberalism was resisted on Capitol Hill, it was similarly a complicating factor in his foreign policy. Obama’s liberalism is in the eye of the beholder. It is both the substantial cause of his success and of his failure; it renders him farsighted and naïve; it commits him to war and

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to its avoidance. Because such binary attributions are unsatisfactory, in what follows I interrogate Obama’s foreign policy liberalism at three levels of analysis: in his rhetoric, in his war-making, and in his personnel. At each level, the liberal content of his foreign policy can be measured. At each, the schizophrenia of liberalism as a guide to foreign policy is apparent. Obama’s rhetoric Barack Obama’s liberalism is coded rather than explicit. In his presidential public speaking, Obama rarely uses the term ‘liberal’ or ‘liberalism’. This reflects the delegitimation of ‘liberal’ within American political discourse (where ‘progressive’ in the preferred term). Obama’s foreign policy liberalism resides in how he codes and illustrates certain key assumptions. The most obvious example of this is ‘engagement’. While the word itself appears irregularly, its import is clear: Obama, unlike Bush, wished to realize American interests through a process of strategic engagement. Its most famous articulation was in his first inaugural: ‘To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist’ (Obama 2009b). The extending of hands was not limited to rogue states but applied to Europe, China, and Russia as well. Each, under an Obama presidency, could expect a more collaborative style of diplomacy. The assumption underlying this cosmopolitan shift was that Bush had dealt in crudities. Obama would dispense with notions of ‘new’ and ‘old’ Europe. He would treat Beijing as a strategic partner and ‘reset’ relations with Moscow. Whether or not such rhetoric realized its objectives is less important that what the attempt reveals about Obama’s underlying assumptions. Obama clearly favoured a concept of liberal foreign policy that saw soft – cajoling, persuasive – power as a key tool. Since George W. Bush did so much to discredit the utility of its hard power counterpart and with the treatises of Joseph Nye (2004, 2011), soft power has become ‘one of the most influential academic ideas of the twenty-first century’ (Parmar 2013: 292). Obama’s first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, sought to refine it into ‘smart power’. Rather than rely on a fuzzy niceness, Clinton’s version was far more realist in its frame of reference. Smart power did not prioritize democracy, let alone freedom, in the manner George Bush had done. Instead, the Obama administration would privilege ‘diplomacy, development, and defense’ – ‘the three elements’ of US power, according to Clinton (2009). Each ‘D’ meant to reinforce the complementarity of liberalism and realism. America could have security (the object of realist statecraft) but only if it were to practise better public diplomacy and fund overseas development appropriately (both liberal preferences). Clinton used the word ‘development’ thirty-nine times in her Senate confirmation hearing in 2009. However, while there is evidence of a liberalism defined as engagement so there is evidence of a more hawkish liberalism in Obama administration rhetoric. This was not simply a result of Obama’s militarism in Afghanistan and Libya, and the need to justify it, but of his conscious embrace of a harder, more realistic, conception of US power enunciated before he escalated the US military presence in these theatres. His Nobel Prize speech, ironically, was the most obvious opportunity Obama took to posit the realities of being a liberal leader in an often illiberal world: I know there’s nothing weak – nothing passive – nothing naïve – in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King. But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation,

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I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people (Obama 2009c). In words that would have invited progressive scorn had his predecessor used them, Obama told his audience to: make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism – it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason. This was not a new-found reality for the president. As a candidate, Obama’s belief in the efficacy of American military power was as apparent as his cosmopolitanism. In 2008, he reminded a large German audience that it was NATO and the United States that had won the cold war and provided the basis for German reunification; the United Nations got no mention (Obama 2008). If we attribute Obama’s liberalism to a faith in international institutions it is a circumscribed faith. Multilateralism is not proportionate to morality. Rather, Obama has been prepared to increase or decrease the number of partners contingent on how far US interests are advanced thereby. His Libya intervention, as we will see, presented a clear case of embracing some nations – Britain and France – and rejecting the entreaties of others – Germany and Russia – not unlike the pattern of alliance formation preceding the Iraq war of 2003. Both wars led to regime change unsanctioned by the UN Security Council. Those identifying a decisive rhetorical shift from Bush to Obama highlight the latter’s more muted eulogies to US power. Where Bush interposed ‘freedom’ into his foreign policy after 9/11, Obama asserted a more realist approach. He famously decried American exceptionalism – ‘I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism’ (Obama 2009a) – and used ‘democracy’ far less in his speeches The character of regimes – a key determinant of their external behaviour, according to liberal IR theory – was to matter less in how Washington dealt with them. Obama assumed the mantle of George H.W. Bush – a realist president whose foreign policy was supposedly cognizant of the limits of US power. It was Bush Sr who stood aside while Saddam Hussein destroyed the opponents Bush himself had encouraged to rise up (after the 1991 Gulf War). As of the time of writing, Syria’s president Bashar al Assad has relied on a similar reticence on Obama’s part as he seeks to put down a domestic insurrection. Similarly, Obama’s national security rhetoric has veered in a more realist than liberal direction. His definition of the threat facing the United States and the tools he claims necessary to fight it bear a strong resemblance to those claimed by George W. Bush. The following are illustrative of the similarities between both men, and none represents a rebirth of liberalism – ideological or theoretical – within US foreign policy (see Jackson 2011). The endnotes indicate their author: We must always reserve the right to strike unilaterally at terrorists wherever they may exist.1 Today, the dangers extend beyond states alone to transnational security threats that respect no borders. These are threats that arise from any part of the globe and spread anywhere, including to our own shores – dangers like… terrorism.2

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Timothy J. Lynch … the challenges of a new and dangerous world. Today’s dangers are different, though no less grave. The power to destroy life on a catastrophic scale now risks falling into the hands of terrorists.3 Let me repeat: I am not going to release individuals who endanger the American people. Al Qaeda terrorists and their affiliates are at war with the United States, and those that we capture – like other prisoners of war – must be prevented from attacking us again… we must hold individuals to keep them from carrying out an act of war.4

For a man routinely lauded for this rhetoric, in contrast with the poor syntax of his predecessor, Obama has defined risk and justified executive power in essentially identical terms. Identifying where Bush stops and Obama starts in the following is not straightforward: We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense. These terrorists are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the twentieth century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way to where it ends: in history’s unmarked grave of discarded lies. And for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that, ‘our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.’ Bush’s words stop at ‘discarded lies’ (from his 20 September 2001 address to Congress); Obama’s conclude the paragraph (from his 2009 inaugural address). Stylistically, Bush and Obama are different; substantively, they are the same. Obama’s wars Our second level of analysis is the wars Obama has fought or been complicit in the fighting. We might not at first think of war-making as a good test of liberal credentials. And yet the historical record affords us far more examples of Democratic war-making – and thus of various forms of liberal militarism – than of Republican–conservative ones. The great Democrat presidents of the twentieth century were all war leaders: Woodrow Wilson in World War I, Franklin Roosevelt in World War II, Harry Truman in Korea, Kennedy and Johnson in Vietnam. Bill Clinton, if not great, was certainly a profligate warrior: in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq (attacking the last on at least four occasions). American liberalism as a political ideology has been tested in foreign war far more routinely than American conservatism or realism. How do we measure Obama’s liberalism against this record? Consistent with the argument of this chapter, what we see in Obama’s war-making is a blending of liberal and realist approaches. Obama does not – and never has – decried war, per se. He is not a pacifist. But since 2009 he has waged war cognizant of the limits – moral and logistical – of US power. In the war on terror, despite abandoning that title, Obama has pursued a strategy consistent with his predecessor’s. Indeed, Klaidman (2012) and Sanger (2012) each acknowledged Obama’s more targeted and cost-effective belligerence in comparison with the large-scale wars of George W. Bush – which Obama is in the process of concluding. After a period of prolonged deliberation (see Woodward 2010) Obama increased (or ‘surged’) US troops in Afghanistan, taking the total deployed from 18,000 in 2005 (under Bush), to 57,000 in 2009,

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to 95,000 in 2010. (The impending withdrawal through 2014 will likely leave a residual force of some several thousand. Obama withdrew all US troops from Iraq at the end of 2011.) The central battles of Bush’s war on terror were thus concluded by his successor. By deescalating, Obama was adhering as much to a realist prescription as to a liberal one. Most realists were opposed to the Iraq intervention in 2003 and repeatedly called for an end to the Afghan occupation after the Taliban revealed a determination to fight it. It seems Obama’s actions in both wars met a realist test, to forsake what was unachievable, rather than a liberal one, to guarantee a democratic character to the regimes US troops would leave behind. Obama’s realism echoed that of George H.W. Bush who had resisted long-term occupation of Muslim lands. Obama’s foreign policy also replicates some of the central concerns of Dwight Eisenhower. In 1953, Ike inherited a controversial war in Korea (as Obama did in Iraq in 2009). Thereafter, the new president sought to limit further large-scale military actions, successfully avoiding war over Hungary and Egypt in 1956 and Vietnam after 1954. When war came in South East Asia, it was fought by Democratic presidents (Kennedy and then Johnson) for far more liberal than realist reasons. The Ike–Obama analogy holds if we construe’s Obama’s military minimalism (withdrawing from wars, targeting individual terrorists rather than the socio-political systems that produce them) as an effort to temper the liberal underpinnings of American interventionism. However, Obama’s wars might alternatively be construed as the next in a series of liberal campaigns by US presidents with the aim of altering or abolishing the regimes holding sway over Muslim populations. The long war with Iraq (1990–2011) intended to change the character of Arab government. In 1986, Reagan attempted regime change in Libya, which Obama was ultimately successful in achieving. This does not have to be accepted as the central motive of US post-cold war involvement in the Middle East – economic and strategic reasons undoubtedly played a part. But every president from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama has attempted to change the character of the regimes under which significant numbers of Muslims live. From the covert war against the USSR in Afghanistan and liberation of Kuwait, to wars on Serbia and interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, American foreign policy has succeeded in overthrowing a number of problematic regimes that were suppressing Islamic interests. Thus far, as of the time of writing, Obama has baulked at extending this inclination into the Syrian battlefield. But the pressure for him to do so remains a liberal one. Realists consistently counsel caution – John McCain is a notable exception – whereas many liberals advocate war for humanitarian reasons. The war against Gaddafi was framed in similar terms: realists against (including Obama’s secretary of defence), liberals for (including his first and second secretaries of state). Obama justified his support of an ostensibly British and French intervention on the basis not of Gaddafi’s threat to US safety but to ‘our interests and values’. The mechanism was to be multilateral, declared Obama, ‘to mobilize the international community for collective action’ (Obama 2011). The Libyan intervention was a just war in a liberal sense. It was a war not for American security but for American values. Stephen Carter argues that this is as attractive (because value-based) as it is troubling (because therefore more violent): [Obama’s] assertions of executive authority to prosecute warfare seem to me significantly broader than those of his predecessor… President Bush, to take a single example, never claimed the power to target American citizens for assassination. President Obama has. He has also expanded the battlefield, both geographically and technologically, and is prosecuting America’s wars with a stunning ferocity (Carter 2011: preface).

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George W. Bush’s military interventionism was at least tempered by a professed humility – a signature theme of his campaign in 2000. When the United States invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, his administration deployed too few rather than too many troops. Obama, in Stephen Carter’s conception, has no such handicap. He believes, as Bush never did, in the power of politics and of government. Obama has a clear sense of what constitutes a just war. His foreign policy liberalism is of the expansive and violent kind, and thus in the tradition of FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ rather than of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter. Obama’s personnel How far does Obama’s foreign policy team represent a liberal ascendancy? His first term secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, had the 16th most liberal voting record in the Senate in 2007. His second term secretary of state, John Kerry, was the ‘most liberal’ senator in 2003 and fifth most liberal in 2012 (see http://votesmart.org/interest-group/1868/rating/4778?of=rating#. USB1rqUtQpk and Clinton et al., 2004). The appointment, in succession, of two powerful Democratic senators to the State Department suggest a liberal hegemony at the heart of Obama’s foreign policy. However, our experience of the George W. Bush administration suggests a certain caution about finding one label to capture an entire administration’s approach. Notions of a liberal seizure of control are as problematic as of a neoconservative one under Bush. The more appropriate question is what kind of liberalism informs the Obama administration’s strategy? John Kerry resides on the hawkish side of the spectrum. Despite equivocations over an American military role in Syria, he has been a consistent advocate of US force: in Bosnia in 1995, Kosovo in 1999, and Iraq in 2003. In 2011, he argued for war on Gaddafi’s Libya before Obama came round to this position. Although Kerry first came to national prominence as an opponent of the Vietnam war, his subsequent diplomacy displays a preference for liberal military interventionism of the sort which led to the South East Asian quagmire (see Halberstam 1969). And Hillary Clinton during this period was a Barry Goldwater Republican – the candidate who wanted to escalate the war in Vietnam more than his Democrat opponent. Caricatures of the Obama administration as the preserve of pusillanimous internationalists miss the flexible adherence to international law which has been basic to much of its statecraft. Obama has deferred to alliances – such as Britain and France over Syria – but less so to international law. His initial foreign policy team contained key George W. Bush administration realists, such as Robert Gates as secretary of defence, or Bush-appointed officials, such as John Brennan as CIA director and David Petraeus as commander of US forces in Afghanistan. Obama’s foreign policy has subsequently been far more diffuse and diverse than ideologically doctrinaire. American liberalism has produced highly various foreign policy forms. Vice President Joe Biden, a traditional left-wing Democrat on social issues, has been a consistent advocate of armed intervention abroad. He was key to demonizing Serbia in 1999 before President Clinton attacked it. As chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he helped ensure public support for the 2003 Iraq war. American liberalism since 9/11 accounts for both a pacifistic Stop the War coalition but also key proponents of the US wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and possibly Syria. While the legacy of George McGovern is strong on the leftwing of the Democratic Party, its leaders in the White House and Congress reveal a liberal hawkishness that McGovern eschewed. Al Gore, seconded only by his 2000 running mate Joe Lieberman, was throughout the 1990s the most consistent and vociferous advocate of military action against Saddam Hussein. In 1998, they and Bill Clinton guaranteed passage

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of the Iraq Liberation Act which made regime change official government policy – fulfilled by George W. Bush. Clinton and Gore attacked Serbia in 1999 without a UN resolution, flouting international law in a manner repeated by Bush in 2003. In several respects, therefore, it is an operating assumption of liberal IR theory which implicitly informs the diplomacy of several key Obama personnel. State character explains foreign policy and can alter the national interest calculations of states. Change that character, as in Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya and interests change too. This assumption is in contradistinction to realist IR theory which tends to see interests as relatively fixed; a state, irrespective of its form of government, will have perennial interests. Russian foreign policy, for example, was changed but not transformed by the end of the Soviet Union. Socialist or post-socialist, Moscow has seen its near-abroad in broadly consistent terms: as an arena that should be as immune to US penetration – under the guise of NATO for example – as possible. Tony Smith has argued that the greater culprit for the botched interventionism of the Bush years is American liberalism. It was liberal theorists who depicted the world as ripe for United States-led democracy promotion (see Smith 2007, 2013). Has Obama confirmed this argument? In some respects, yes. Obama did not denude his cabinet of liberal hawks. Instead, he adapted American liberalism to the realities of contemporary counterterrorism. He retained key Bush personnel and greatly increased reliance on drones to negate terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan where Bush had tried regime change. Obama routinely decided whom to target for extra-judicial assassination in this theatre. His authority to do so was justified by the expansive grant of presidential power given to President Bush by Congress after 9/11. The New York Times referred to this as ‘Obama’s turn in Bush’s bind’ (Baker 2013) – a bind invoking much less liberal censure than when Bush was commander-in-chief. As Stephen Carter (2011) has observed, ‘On matters of national security, at least, the Oval Office evidently changes the outlook of its occupant far more than the occupant changes the outlook of the Oval Office’.

Conclusion: a liberal second term? Defining Obama’s foreign policy liberalism is not straightforward. As argued in this chapter, he is a liberal more like Ronald Reagan than like George McGovern. Obama made the connection between state character and external behaviour but, like Reagan, used a minimalist strategy to change the character of states. Reagan did not make war with the Mujahedeen against Moscow. Instead, he pursued a counter-intervention using anti-Soviet forces as a proxy. Obama did not make war on Gadaffi so much as aid and abet (‘from behind’) those willing to do so. He avoided full-scale war and in doing so presented himself as a foreign policy realist. But he nevertheless intervened, betraying liberal impulses. Obama’s foreign policy is thus a hybrid of competing and sometimes complementary approaches. It does not rise to the level of a doctrine but it does illustrate key parts of several prior doctrines. His foreign policy liberalism is a blending of Reagan’s policing approach with Clinton’s interventionism. Reagan chose to police Soviet adventurism rather than face it in the field. He showed a remarkable capacity to engage with the Kremlin after its expansionist ardour dissipated. Bill Clinton, in contrast, was a serial interventionist – deploying ‘military forces eighty-four times in eight years’, by one historian’s count (Herring 2008: 936). And yet both presidents were highly attuned to the nexus of state character and external action. This liberal assumption guided their foreign policies. It guides Barack Obama’s in similar fashion. There are three important constraints checking Obama’s foreign policy liberalism. The first is an international one. There was an assumption at the beginning of Obama’s second

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term that the president, unshackled from the constrictions of presidential electoral politics, could revert to type. He could become more expansively ‘progressive’ and create a legacy of liberal internationalism and institutionalism. Republicans feared this, Democrats hoped for it – both expected it. And yet these hopes and fears seem to have been misplaced. Obama has been no more able to render the international community useful to the cause of counterterrorism and democracy promotion than was his predecessor. The Syrian civil war, like the Iraq civil war after 2003, revealed a United Nations unable and unwilling to halt the violence. Russia and China remain bastions of negation. Iran and North Korea have continued to defy international law. The second constraint is historical. History suggests that presidents become more pragmatic and less ideological in their second term. Reagan, Clinton, and George W. Bush – Obama’s immediate two-term predecessors – each developed highly pragmatic second-term foreign policies. Reagan went from cold warrior to champion of cooperative engagement with the Soviet Union. Clinton abandoned ‘foreign policy as social work’ (Mandelbaum 1996) and instead focused on achievable objectives. Bush moved from a freedom agenda to a narrower, corrective realism. We might also include in this list the one-term Jimmy Carter. His ambitious, inchoate, human rights emphasis in his first two years in office gave way to a renewed arms race with Moscow in the last two. In each case, a hopeful initial phase gave way to a more realistic and pragmatic later one. Obama may well be able to bend this tradition but he is unlikely to defy it. The third constraint is institutional. Obama must make his foreign policy in the face of concerted domestic opposition. Unless the 2014 midterms return significant Democrat majorities – and historical precedent suggests this is highly unlikely – Obama will be obliged to craft a foreign policy legacy in partnership with a majority of legislators willing his failure. A liberal unchained is far less likely to make headway than a pragmatic president prepared to compromise with his conservative opponents. He is thus likely to become less rather than more liberal in his approach. The irony, of course, is that this state of affairs is what liberalism as a theory of international relations reasons is basic to foreign policymaking. Realism dismisses the connection between domestic politics and foreign policy; states tend to adopt similar survival strategies regardless of their internal character. Liberalism, however, argues that the surest guide to external action is internal design and function. Democracies view the world differently from dictatorships and construct their foreign policies accordingly. Liberal relativism, on the other hand, tends to relegate difference and promote conceptions of moral equivalency; there are no good and bad states, just different ones. Barack Obama is in some sense trapped within this liberal dichotomy. If he can be said to be advancing a theory of international relations, it is one which prizes the character of American power – limited government, freedom of speech and of trade. But Obama is also the product of 1960s ‘Great Society’ liberalism which sought to ground US foreign policy in a cultural relativism; if American society is no better than that of its opponents, war on its behalf is both unjust and unnecessary – why fight? The United Nations, as the great forum for the equality of nations, is morally better equipped to take the lead in conflict resolution. America should take a backseat. In Libya, Obama acted according to a liberal theory of international relations – determining that Gaddafi led a malign regime that deserved overthrow. In Syria, Obama deferred to international egalitarianism and refused to override UN resistance to western military intervention. The sustainability of this schizophrenia at the heart of his foreign policy remains an open question.

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Notes 1 2 3 4

Obama, 20 November 2006. Obama, 16 July 2008. Obama, 15 July 2008. Obama, 21 May 2009.

Suggested further reading Ikenberry, G.J. (2011) Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Indyk, M.S., K.G. Lieberthal, and M.E. O’Hanlon (2012) Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Lynch, T.J. (2012) ‘Obama and Third Bush Term: toward a typology of Obama studies’, International Affairs, 88 5 (September): 1101–11. Sanger, D.E. (2012) Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, New York, NY: Crown. Singh, R. (2012) Barack Obama’s Post-American Foreign Policy: The Limits of Engagement, London and New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic.

References Alterman, K. and E. Mattson (2012) The Cause: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama, New York, NY: Viking. Bader Jeffrey, A. (2012) Obama and China’s Rise: An Insider’s Account of America’s Asia Strategy, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Baker, Peter (2013) ‘Obama’s turn in Bush’s bind’, New York Times, 9 February. Carter, Stephen L. (2011) The Violence of Peace: America’s Wars in the Age of Obama, New York: Beast Books. Clinton, Hillary (2009) Senate confirmation hearing, 13 January. Clinton, Joshua D., Simon Jackman, and Doug Rivers (2004) ‘“The most liberal senator”? analyzing and interpreting congressional roll calls’, PS: Political Science and Politics, (October): 805–11. Corsi, J.R. (2008) The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, New York, NY: Threshold Editions. Cox, M.E., Lynch, T.J., and Bouchet, N. (eds) (2013) US Presidents and Democracy Promotion, Routledge Studies in US Foreign Policy, London: Routledge. D’Souza, Dinesh (2010) The Roots of Obama’s Rage, Washington, DC: Regnery. Dai, X. (2007) International Institutions and National Policies, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Doyle, M. (1997) Ways of War and Peace, New York, NY: W.W. Norton. Halberstam, David (1969) The Best and the Brightest, New York, NY: Random House. Harvey, Frank P. (2010) Explaining the Iraq War: Counterfactual Theory, Logic and Evidence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Held, D. (2005) ‘The principles of cosmopolitan order’, in G. Brock and H. Brighouse (eds), The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 10–32. Herring, G.C. (2008) From Colony to Superpower: US Foreign Relations Since 1776. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ikenberry, G.J. (2011) Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Indyk, Martin S., Kenneth G. Lieberthal, and Michael E. O’Hanlon (2012) Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Jackson, Richard (2011) ‘Culture, identity and hegemony: continuity and (the lack of) change in US counterterrorism policy from Bush to Obama’, International Politics, 48 (2/3) (March/May): 390–411.

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Kaldor, M. (2004) ‘American power: from “compellance” to cosmopolitanism?’, in D. Held and M. Koenig-Archibugi (eds), American Power in the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge: Polity Press, 181–213. Keohane, R.O. and Nye, J.S. (2001) Power and Interdependence (3rd edn), New York, NY: Longman (1st edn 1977). Klaidman, Daniel (2012) Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency, New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin. Lebow, R.N. (2008) A Cultural Theory of International Relations, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Limbaugh, David (2012) The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama’s War on the Republic, Washington, DC: Regnery. Lindsay, James M. (2011) ‘George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and the future of US global leadership’, International Affairs, 87 (4): 765–79. Linklater, A. (2007) ‘Towards a sociology of global morals’, Review of International Studies, 33: 135–50. Lynch, T.J. (2010) ‘Did George W. Bush pursue a neoconservative foreign policy?’ in Morgan and Davies (eds), Assessing George W. Bush’s Legacy: The Right Man?, Evolving Presidency Series, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Lynch, T.J. and R.S. Singh (2008) After Bush: The Case for Continuity in American Foreign Policy, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Mandelbaum, M. (1996) ‘Foreign policy as social work’, Foreign Affairs, 74 (1). Mann, James (2012) The Obamians: The Struggle inside the White House to Redefine American Power, New York, NY: Viking. Mann, M. (2003) Incoherent Empire, London: Verso. Mann, M. (2004) ‘The first failed empire of the twenty-first century’, in D. Held and M. KoenigArchibugi (eds), American Power in the Twenty-First Century, Cambridge: Polity Press, 52–82. Merry, Robert W. (2013) ‘The myth of a moderate Obama’, National Interest, May–June. Nye Jr, Joseph S. (2004) Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, New York, NY: PublicAffairs. Nye Jr, Joseph S. (2011) The Future of Power, New York, NY: PublicAffairs. Obama, Barack (2008) Speech, Berlin, Germany, 24 July. Obama, Barack (2009a) Remarks at NATO Summit, Strasbourg, France, 4 April. Obama, Barack (2009b) First inaugural address, 20 January. Obama, Barack (2009c) Nobel Prize speech, Oslo, Norway, 10 December. Obama, Barack (2011) Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on Libya, Washington DC, 28 March. Obama, Barack (2013) Second inaugural address, 21 January. Parmar, Inderjeet (2013) ‘Soft power, Concept of’, in T.J. Lynch (ed.), The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 292–3. Remnick, D. (2011) The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, New York, NY: Vintage. Rengger, N.J. and Thirkell-White, T.B. (2007) Critical International Theory after 25 Years, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reus-Smit, C. (2004) American Power and World Order, Cambridge: Polity Press. Sanger, David E. (2012) Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, New York, NY: Crown. Singh, Robert (2012) Barack Obama’s Post-American Foreign Policy: The Limits of Engagement, London and New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic. Smith, T. (2007) A Pact with the Devil: Washington’s Bid for World Supremacy and the Betrayal of the American Promise, New York, NY, and London: Routledge. Smith, T. (2013) ‘Democracy promotion from Wilson to Obama’, in M.E.Cox, T.J. Lynch and N. Bouchet (eds) US Presidents and Democracy Promotion, Routledge Studies in US Foreign Policy. London: Routledge. Snyder, J. (2004) ‘One world, rival theories’, Foreign Policy, (November/December): 53–62. Waltz, K. (1959/2001) Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis, New York, NY: Colombia University Press. Woodward, Bob (2010) Obama’s Wars, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

5

Marxism and US foreign policy Doug Stokes and David Maher

Introduction During the previous decade, with the terrorist attacks on 9/11 coupled with the increased militarization of US foreign policy and the invasions and occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq, analysts and students of IR (international relations) have increasingly sought to employ critical IR theories that can interrogate not just the dominant discourses and social constructions of the discipline, but also the political and economic aspects of the social world itself. At the same time, neoliberal globalization increasingly exacerbated concentrations of global wealth, with the richest 2 per cent of the world’s people owning more than half of global household wealth. The bottom half of three billion people own barely 1 per cent. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has shown that by the time you finish reading this sentence, a child will have died of hunger (a child dies every 5 seconds).1 They conclude that twenty four billion dollars are needed to save five million children from starvation every year and yet the US-led war and occupation in Iraq has cost in excess of three trillion dollars, which is a ‘conservative’ estimate according to Joseph Stiglitz, former Chief Economist of the World Bank (Stiglitz and Bilmes 2008, 2010).2 This alone gives a clear indication of social priorities. Moving from a global to a national scale, wealth and power are still deeply concentrated, with US households in the top 20 per cent of the income distribution earning more than 80 per cent of the nation’s wealth. According to Marxist theorists, these concentrations of wealth and power are an inevitable result of capitalism, an economic system in which a minority own and control the means of production and the great majority are forced to sell their labor power in order to survive. The purpose of this chapter is not to provide a ‘Marxism 101’ introduction to Marxist theory per se. This has been done in numerous books. Rather, this chapter seeks to show how Marxism is being used to understand the role of the United States within global politics and the international political economy. As the key capitalist power within the global economy, the American state has been crucial in underwriting and supporting the expansion of capitalism as a mode of production across the globe throughout the post-war period. This support has ranged from economic reforms that have sought to maintain an ‘open-door’ global economy conducive for global business interests to strategic interventions to overthrow governments that are or have been considered hostile to either capitalist social relations or US political hegemony within the post-war order. Today, America’s power and the way it is used have become a crucial concern of IR, with a ‘long war’ declared against nebulous enemies and potential hegemonic transition to China in a more multipolar world. This concern with the exercise of American power is best illustrated with the return of the concept of ‘American Empire’ across a broad range of theoretical and political sentiment.

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Crucially, the world that we have described above did not form itself, but was in fact created through human actions and choices, as well as wider structural processes of historical transformation. As students of IR and US foreign policy we must thus ask: how did we arrive at a point in human history whereby the richest people on the planet, who often in turn come from the richest families, earn more in an hour than the poorest people earn in a lifetime? What can Marxism tell us about current trends in world politics and, as the world’s dominant state, how can we analyze the role that US foreign policy has played in the construction and defense of global capitalism?

Imperialism Traditional Marxist approaches to US power are rooted within competing theories of imperialism. Imperialism itself can be defined as the policy process of extending a nation’s authority through territorial acquisition (for example, the British Empire) or by the establishment of economic and political dominance over other nations and it can and often does take two forms. The first is a more formal type of imperialism that involves overt conquest, territorial control, direct military rule, and so on. The second type is a more informal form of imperialism that often involves more indirect means of control through, for example, economic dominance through the imposition of ‘free trade’ regimes whereby trade arrangements are imposed on weaker countries by the imperial powers where they are strong (and thus guaranteeing economic preponderance) while ignoring these principles in areas where they are weak. A contemporary example would be the use of tariff barriers by rich nations to support domestic markets such as farming, while insisting on ‘free trade’ regimes for the poorer nations. In this way, surplus extraction occurs through a global market mechanism with no necessary need to use more formal types of imperialism such as military conquest.3 In both types of imperialism, then, the ends remain the same: the extraction of surplus value, profits, and raw materials from subordinate regions, while the means may differ. Importantly, within the Marxist tradition, imperialism is intimately bound up with the historical internationalization of capitalism as a mode of production across the globe. That is, as capitalism as a mode of economic organization has historically extended beyond the rich and powerful nations, powerful states imposed their economic interests on other noncapitalist regions and thereby incorporated them within the capitalist global economy that they effectively controlled. One only has to briefly examine the history of European colonialism to see uneven development and the legacy of this process, not least of which are continued post-imperial conflicts rooted in the arbitrary ‘stitching’ of cultures, tribes, and faiths together. However, while there are agreements within Marxism about these common features of imperialism, there are quite strong divergences over the motivations for imperial expansion, what imperialism means for the international system in terms of war and peace, and, more importantly for this chapter, the role that the state and interstate relations play within contemporary forms of global imperialism. The two key differences are heavily rooted in the early Marxist debates between two contending theories of imperialism. The first is Lenin’s inter-imperial rivalry thesis (IIR) that posits the inevitability of rivalry and conflict within international politics as a result of the expansion of rival imperialisms. The second is Kautsky’s ultra-imperialism thesis (UI) that posits the possibility of peaceful cooperation between imperial powers. We now outline these different theories and how they feed in to contemporary Marxist debates on US foreign policy.

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Lenin: inter-imperial rivalry Turning to Lenin’s IIR thesis, he argued that the processes of political and military domination of the world by the great powers were a logical outcome of the steady internationalization of those same states’ economic interests. That is, as capitalism developed, those states that had the lead in this process, namely the European great powers, had also expanded their economic interests abroad to encompass other territories and countries. Given the tight integration between the state and business elites, it was logical that the military power of the state would be used to defend its economic interests as well. For Lenin’s thesis, the most important part of this process was less the fact of overseas capitalist expansion than what this meant for interstate relations between the capitalist powers. For Lenin, as these states (and their political alliances) expanded their imperial interests abroad, an inevitable rivalry would increase as they jockeyed for power and raw materials throughout the world. As Lenin makes clear, businesses and capital will naturally seek to expand beyond the home state’s borders as they grow larger and this process is driven by the fact that capital needs productive outlets in overseas markets and tends towards monopolization (smaller firms get swallowed up by bigger firms) while national markets are not big enough to soak up the products produced. Overseas markets also provide new outlets for goods as well. However, as powerful nations carve up the globe in their economic and political interests, there is the ever present threat of interstate war as states’ interests collide. As such, according to the IIR theory, there is zero-sum logic to the internationalization of capitalism whereby processes of imperial expansion always threaten war as imperialist powers’ interests are threatened by other great powers jockeying for political and economic hegemony. In many ways, Lenin’s IIR thesis is similar to realist analyses of IR, except that realists tend not to unpack how the ‘national interest’ is derived and of course in the Marxist case, rivalry is rooted within the expansive logic of capitalism, not the logic of anarchy. In applying the IIR thesis to present-day US foreign policy, the thesis received a massive fillip with the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, with many commentators using the concept to understand the motivations of the US war drive in the Middle East. After all, here is a region that has long been subject to Western imperialism and possesses an abundance of one of the most important raw resources in the world: oil. Foster (2003: 13) captures this argument well when he argues that ‘intercapitalist rivalry remains the hub of the imperialist wheel… In the present period of global hegemonic imperialism the United States is geared above all to expanding its imperial power to whatever extent possible and subordinating the rest of the capitalist world to its interests.’ By extension, contemporary US imperialism is seen as the result of the unified interest of the predominant sectors of US business, which need to ensure and manipulate export markets for both goods and capital. Accordingly, business interests are thus seen as essentially controlling the American state with military competition between competing powers an extension of international economic competition, which is in itself driven by the expansionist nature of capitalism. As we have seen above, then, inherent in the IIR thesis, as well as more recent analyses of American foreign policy is often an instrumentalist theory of the state. Simply stated, instrumentalist accounts argue that the state is a mere ‘instrument’ in the hands of national elites. As Miliband, one of the chief proponents of state instrumentalism, argued, ‘the ruling class of a capitalist society is that class which owns and controls the means of production and which is able, by virtue of the economic power thus conferred upon it, to use the state as its

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instrument for the domination of society’ (1969: 23). This theorization of the American state (and by extension, US foreign policy) tends to reduce American decision-making down to the economic interests of the American capitalist class, with the American state’s primary function one of ensuring the necessary conditions for profit maximization for US corporations throughout the globe. Inherent within this theory of the American state is an economic reductionism whereby the political and strategic logics of US statecraft are subordinated to the economic interests of American capital with the state the central organizational conduit of this process. The projection of American power is thus seen as little more than the extension of an iron fist for corporate interests (we will critique this position later in the chapter).

Kautsky: ultra-imperialism and the liberal post-war order Counterposed to Lenin’s stark portrait of interstate relations stand the ideas of Lenin’s contemporary Karl Kautsky, who coined a rival theory of imperialism termed ‘ultra-imperialism’. Unlike Lenin, Kautsky posited the potentiality for the powerful capitalist nations to develop common interests in exploiting the globe and for their respective capitalists to prefer collaboration and spheres of influence rather than the costly and often deeply destabilizing phenomenon of war. Rather than reading interstate relations and the internationalization of capitalism as a zero-sum game, Kautsky instead argued that businesses and states will instead prefer to fashion forms of co-operation and coordination between themselves. That is, states can cooperate within a common framework and, crudely put, agree to carve up the globe between them. This form of coordination and collaboration can be seen in the operation of US foreign policy in the post-war period when the United States emerged as the key hegemonic power within the global economy. How did the United States emerge as the key power within the capitalist global economy? The US role as the lead state within world capitalism became increasingly clear with the decline of Britain, the custodian of global free trade prior to the end of the Second World War. US power in the post-war period was underwritten by its unrivalled military, political, and economic power. At the end of the war, for example, the United States had almost half of the world’s manufacturing capacity, the majority of its food supply, and nearly all of its capital reserves. In this new role, post-war US foreign policy was formulated around a dual strategy: the maintenance and defense of an economically liberal international system conducive for business expansion coupled with a global geo-strategy of containing social forces considered inimical to capitalist social relations. Importantly, in this endeavor the American state acted not just in its own interests but also in the interests of other core powers that relied upon the American state to contain the spread of world communism, to rollback third-world nationalism, and to underwrite the institutions and enforce the rules of the liberal international order. This liberal order was concretized through the American-dominated Bretton Woods institutions that helped fashion the postwar order, the internationalization of American capital and business models (primarily through American foreign direct investment), and US dominance of the strategic frameworks of other core powers, for example NATO for Europe and the Japan–US security pact. US hegemony was thus positive-sum, and the post-war order was a form of ultra-imperialism, in so far as US power benefited other core capitalist powers and provided a coordination mechanism where common interests were represented by the US state. Importantly, this positive-sum generic reproductive function for global capitalism has formed a key component of American power and has undergirded its hegemony in the post-war international system. In a sense, then, American power has played a system-maintaining role that has

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benefited a number of core states as well as America itself, and US foreign policy in the postwar system has acted to expand and defend capitalism throughout the globe while attempting to (largely successfully) pacify geo-political rivalries between the great powers through providing sets of collective security and economic goods for the capitalist system as a whole. As such, we can describe the post-war order that the United States was instrumental in creating as a form of ultra-imperialism.

US Cold War policy US foreign policy during the Cold War era thus sought a number of key objectives. First, it sought to build up and integrate a revitalized Western Europe and Japan-centered East Asia under its hegemony. Although this process benefited these regions, this was not a multilateral order as many liberal theorists claim, but was in fact what could be called a ‘conditional multilateralism’ insofar as multilateral forms of order were acceptable to US planners as long as it suited Washington’s interests. Importantly, US hegemony relied upon consent as well as force, and its forms of highly successful economic success based on innovative Fordist-type industrialization methods provided attractive models for other capitalist states keen to recover from the devastation of the Second World War. In this way, the American state emerged as the key power within the capitalist global economy, a hegemony that it continues to enjoy today. Second, the American state sought to play a system-maintaining role whereby US power was used to defend the liberal international order against threats from anti-systemic movements and it thus benefited other core capitalist states and allowed them to both prosper economically through the buildup of economic interdependence but also strategically as US power was used to both prevent Soviet expansion within Western Europe, but also to police the developing world. This policing function was driven by a desire to not only contain Soviet inspired insurgencies but also forms of independent nationalism that threatened crucial raw resources (for example, oil) or that posed symbolic threats to US global hegemony by challenging the US-led global system. To this end, the United States sought to install and support authoritarian forms of rule as developing world democracies were often seen as potentially dangerous as there always existed the threat that these democracies may prove to be too responsive to majoritarian interests that invariably favored wealth redistribution given the often extreme concentrations of wealth found in the developing world. The antidemocratic nature of US policy in the developing world ran throughout the Cold War period as the various US-backed anti-democracy coups in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Indonesia (1965), Chile (1973), and Nicaragua (1984) amply illustrate. In short, the ends were used to justify the means. The human cost of this support was enormous with all but two hundred thousand of the twenty million people that died in wars between 1945 and 1990 dying in the Third World. Furthermore, US interventions during the Cold War were frequently justified with anticommunist rhetoric but they often extended far beyond real or imagined Soviet-aligned communists to encompass a wide range of progressive social forces that sought social change in their often highly class-stratified societies. In a profound sense, then, US foreign policy during the Cold War was often closely aligned with a wide range of reactionary and antiprogressive regimes that by the nature of the United States’ global interests formed a containment mechanism for the prevention of social change in the developing world. Crucially, Marxist scholars seek to broaden the understanding of Cold War US foreign policy from a simple narrative of Soviet containment by also incorporating the economic

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interests of the United States as a key capitalist power, as well as the strategic and political logics of US statecraft. US foreign policy is thus embedded within wider structures that are not exhausted by a realist logic of strategy or a liberal strategy of what we might call a ‘muted idealism’ during the Cold War. We now turn to develop the ways in which contemporary Marxist theorists have taken these theories of imperialism and applied them to US foreign policy after 9/11. In particular, we are interested in examining the work of the ‘Global Capitalist’ school.

Globalization and post-Cold War US foreign policy The concept of globalization has come to increased prominence, especially after the end of the Cold War when the capitalist world was freed from the constraints placed upon it by the existence of the Soviet Union. The global economy became truly integrated under Western hegemony, with neoliberal shock therapy applied throughout the third world and also the former Soviet Union, a hitherto tightly closed sector of the global economy. Capital literally ‘went global’ and the barriers to the circulation of international finance were torn down with a wave of privatizations and neoliberal reforms. Alongside the emergence of an increasingly globally integrated economy, there emerged a broad range of academic sociological and political works that analyzed these trends under globalization. In particular, there has emerged a key body of work known under the broad rubric of global capitalist approaches. These new approaches argued that accompanying the rise of an increasingly globally integrated economy, new global state and class structures were also forming. This new form of global empire increasingly bypassed or transformed state structures. Perhaps the best known of these approaches was the surprise bestseller Empire by Hardt and Negri. However, the most cogent work within Marxism has been developed by William Robinson who examines transnational trends under globalization and the ways in which the transnationalization of capital is impacting upon forms of contemporary US foreign policy. For Robinson, the new global economy has allowed an increasingly transnationally based capital to reorganize production relations that supersede national economies and national states with national systems of production becoming fragmented and integrated into a new global configuration. Robinson contends that we are witnessing the increased transnationalization of the state as capital becomes increasingly transnationalized. Transnationally orientated states provide the national infrastructure that is necessary for economic activity, adopt policies that assure internal economic stability, and maintain social order through both coercive and consensual means. In short, transformed nation states adopt and implement neoliberal reform which is the primary policy modality of capitalist globalization which in turn integrates them as circuits within the transnational circulation of capital. The transnational state (TNS) thus encompasses both the transformed and transnationally orientated neoliberal nation-states and supranational economic and political forums such as the IMF, World Bank, and WTO. While these forums do not, as yet, have any centralized institutional form reminiscent of a formal state, they nonetheless provide a coordinating mechanism necessary for global capital accumulation. Concomitant to the rise of this TNS is the emergence of a new global class: the transnational capitalist class (TCC). This new global class is directly related to the changes in the global organization of production and the rise of a nascent TNS. Importantly, this reconfiguration of global class relations changes the dynamics of competition between nation-states with the potential for inter-imperialist rivalry and war shifting from competing nation-states to new global oligarchies competing within a transnational environment (Robinson 2004).

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Robinson’s portrait of contemporary globalization has very clear implications for the analysis of contemporary imperialism and US foreign policy, insofar as traditional analyses tend to foreground the nationally bounded nature of the imperial project (as we saw above). However, Robinson argues that to analyze the United States as an imperialist power misses a crucial nuance in contemporary capitalist globalization. That is, rather than competing nation-states, or even competing blocs (for example East Asian versus European capital), the age of transnational capital now means that there is a diffusion of capitalist interests so that one can no longer territorialize interests within a bounded nation-state. For example, investors from the United States have billions of dollars invested in Asia; economic dynamism in this region, thus argues Robinson (2004: 131), ‘benefits those investors as much as it benefits local elites’. He therefore rejects outright a theory of world order as characterized by the potential for inter-imperial rivalry between competing capitalist states. Importantly, this does not mean that leading capitalist states are no longer central to the maintenance of global capitalism, and Robinson contends that the US state continues to be the global hegemonic capitalist state. However, and this is the crucial point, for Robinson the US state now acts as the central agent of transnational capital, rather than a nationally grounded US ruling class, with US military preponderance acting not to secure American hegemony vis-à-vis potential geopolitical rivals, but for the interests of transnational capital as a whole. Robinson is unequivocal about this, and he argues that US military conquest does not result in the creation of exclusive zones for the conquerors exploitation… but the colonization and recolonization of the vanquished for the new global capitalism and its agents… the US military apparatus is the ministry of war in the cabinet of an increasingly globally integrated ruling class (2004: 140). In relation to US intervention in oil-rich regions, this transnational, positive-sum organizational role played by the American state is most clear. Rather than interpreting US intervention in, for example, Iraq as a case of US imperialism using its military might to exclude oil corporations from competing nations (for example, France or Russia) it is far more accurate to view US intervention as part of the generic role that the US state has long performed in ‘stabilizing’ market-orientated political economies throughout the Middle East (ME) for the generic interests of global capitalism as a whole. That is, by underwriting transnationallyorientated political economies in the ME, the United States has deliberately guaranteed security of oil supply to world markets. As such, US intervention in these regions (of which the Iraq invasion is a paradigmatic example) has benefited other core capitalist states as much as it has the United States. The destination of oil from the Persian Gulf illustrates this point most clearly: although the United States enjoys strategic primacy in the ME, it only draws ten per cent of its total oil supplies from the region. The remainder is shipped primarily to Japan, Europe, and increasingly China. IIR theorists who analyze the intervention in Iraq in stark terms thus presume that other capitalist states do not have an equally important interest in the US working to guarantee both regional political economies open to capital penetration and state structures able to discipline social forces (be they nationalist, Islamist, or explicitly anti-capitalist) that may threaten the security of oil supplies to world markets. In sum, Robinson builds upon Kautsky’s argument by saying that we have thus entered an era of decentered and deterritorialized transnational Empire that escapes the territorialized logic of earlier imperialisms and the geopolitical competition inherent within

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inter-imperial rivalry theories. Needless to say, his conclusions also have major ramifications for the analysis of US foreign policy and American intervention within the global economy. We now turn to consider some problems with the ‘global capitalist’ approach and its application to US foreign policy.

The dual logic of US foreign policy Along with other ‘global capitalist’ theorists, Robinson provides a much-needed corrective to the overly statist and instrumentalist accounts of traditional historical materialist analyses of US empire. The more economically reductionist Marxism has always been weak on the development of the liberal order in the post-war system and on the role that geo-politics and strategy have played in US foreign policy (while realist and liberal approaches to US foreign policy have in turn been weak on the political economy of US foreign policy or have ignored the often destructive and destabilizing role that Western economic intervention has played). However, while his work serves as a useful corrective to these approaches, we wish to argue that Robinson also fails to capture the full logic of contemporary US foreign policy, and in particular underplays the role that the United States performs in securing interests for the US state as the lead actor within the globalized capitalist environment. When arguing that the United States intervenes in order to pursue a transnational capitalist agenda on behalf of the TCC, Robinson fails to take full account of the overwhelming preponderance that territorialized US capital has within the global market system. This nationalized dominance of the global economy is most clearly seen in the geographical location of key members of the so-called TCC. For example, in 2011 the United States headquartered 133 of the world’s 500 largest businesses. The second largest was Japan with 68, followed by China with 61.4 In the same year, the United States was the largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI) with $227 billion of inward FDI. This figure is almost double the amount of inward FDI in China, which, with $124 billion, is the second highest recipient of FDI. In terms of FDI outflows, the United States is also the largest source of FDI. In 2011, the United States reached a record high of $397 billion of outward FDI, more than triple the amount when compared to Japan, the next highest with $114 billion.5 Of the world’s richest members of the so-called TCC, the majority are American, with eleven of the world’s twenty richest people holding US citizenship, followed by two with French citizenship. More significantly, the interests of American capital are secured throughout the structures and institutions of transnational capitalism, primarily by ensuring that the preponderance of US market power can be exercised in the absence of any significant restraints. As just one example, US foreign policy has been instrumental in implementing neoliberalism throughout Latin America, both through its multilateral agreements with states in the region, and its domination of the international institutions that are implementing neoliberal reforms. The Free Trade of the Americas Act (FTAA) built upon the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) passed by the US Congress, Canada, and Mexico in 1993. NAFTA sought to integrate the economies of North America, Canada, and Mexico into a single trading bloc, to dismantle trade barriers, to privatize state-owned industries, and to loosen the restrictions on the movement of capital. Like NAFTA, the FTAA seeks to link the economies of all the Latin American nations (with the exception of Cuba) into a single trade bloc. The FTAA is based on a corporate-led model of development that will accelerate post-Cold War neoliberal reforms of national economies throughout Latin America, and at first glance can be viewed as a classic case of the United States acting according to Robinson’s logic (i.e., to affect a transnational outcome beneficial to the TCC).

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However, the FTAA contains a number of provisions that have strengthened the power of specifically American capital, due to the removal of all barriers restraining the sheer preponderance of US market power within the transnational system (informal imperialism). At the time of its implementation in 2000, the gross domestic product (GDP) of North, Central, and South America was $11,000 billion. However, the United States’ share of this GDP was 75.7 per cent, with Brazil, which was the next largest, at 6.7 per cent, Canada’s was 5.3 per cent while Mexico’s was 3.9 per cent. The other thirty-one nations constituted only 8.4 per cent. Per capita GDP in the United States was $30,600 in 2000 while the lowest, Haiti, stood with just $460.6 The FTAA and other neoliberal variants will serve to deepen the already overwhelming power of US capital by dismantling national trade barriers to allow easier penetration by US capital and US-subsidized exports, the increase in the privatization (and consequent foreign ownership) of state-owned industries, and the more rigorous enforcement of the intellectual property rights of (mainly) US corporations (Katz 2002). What we have, then, is, subject to resistances, the US state acting to secure a transnational outcome which will benefit a number of capitals and the transnationally orientated elites of the respective nations. But due to both the US preponderance of market power and capital internationalization, this will primarily benefit US corporations and capitalists. This dynamic is brought home most clearly within another context: the US Congress’s ratification of the WTO treaty. The WTO is one of the key institutions of global economic governance and is seen by the global capitalist theorists as one of the principal institutional forms for the emergent TNS. However, s. 301 of the United States’ trade act allows the US Congress to unilaterally reject WTO provisions that may threaten key US industries or economic interests. As Gowan has argued, the United States has participated in international economic regimes when it suits its economic interests but US acceptance of WTO jurisdiction is ‘conditional upon the WTO’s being “fair” to US interests. And all who follow international trade policy know that the word “fair” in this context means serving and defending US economic interests’ (Gowan 2004: 477). Washington thus reserves the right to reject the very free-trade regimes prevailing within the global economy if these regimes threaten key economic interests. This form of rules-based rejectionism runs counter to the transnationalized theories examined above. If we extend this argument to US military capacity, it is inaccurate to view the US military apparatus primarily as ‘the ministry of war in the cabinet of an increasingly globally integrated ruling class’. Instead, continued US global military hegemony, whereby it is the dominant military power within capitalist globalization (for example, see Barack Obama’s quote below), helps to determine the nature and structures of contemporary globalization, including the interactions between different capitals, so as to reinforce US primacy vis-à-vis potential rivals. If we take US intervention in the Middle East for example, given the often fragile social basis of a number of the regimes in the region, US power insulates them from both external and internal forms of opposition that further entrenches the importance of US strategic primacy for the prevailing global oil order. Thus, not only have core powers come to rely on US strategic primacy to police the internal conditions necessary to maintain conditions conducive for capitalist social relations, and through which their energy needs are met, but the American state also gets to set the agenda as to what constitutes the ‘threat’ as well as the responses. This threat definition–brigading–pacification equation thus places the United States at the heart of strategic policing for the global economy, consolidates the reliance of others on its power projection capacity as well as allowing the American state to ‘brigade’ core powers through mediating the relations between these threats (be they state threats such as a rising China or anti-systemic threats such as Al Qaeda-type terrorists) and states reliant on US primacy.

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Importantly, this is not a reversion to the instrumentalist accounts of inter-imperial rivalry theorists that we examined above, whereby the US state acts solely to benefit concrete national capitalist interests. Indeed, such theorizations overlook what Nicos Poulantzas called the ‘relative autonomy’ of the state. By this, Poulantzas meant that the state enjoys a degree of autonomy from the sectoral interests of its capitalist class, as the state’s primary function is to reproduce the necessary conditions for the long-term functioning of a given society. Given the global interests of the American state that we have sketched above, the structural requirements of the capitalist system as a whole are not necessarily synonymous with the interests of sections of the American capitalist class. The state’s structural role is thus one of long-term political management which could well be compromised by catering too strongly to the interests of a particular sector of capital (for example, oil transnationals). As such, Poulantzas’ theory of the relative autonomy of the state serves as a useful corrective to overly instrumentalist accounts that denude the state of any political autonomy free from the immediate requirements of the economic interests of capital (Poulantzas 1978). It also serves as a corrective to analysts that frequently paint a straw-man Marxism that is economically reductionist. We need to internationalize this notion when examining the American state and this ‘relative autonomy’ is especially clear given that it has acted as the key hegemonic state within world capitalism throughout the post-war period, and as such has served to underwrite and police the liberal international order within which it enjoys primacy. In so doing, it has developed specific capacities to act for global capitalism as a whole (and not just for American capitalism), and has served both national and transnational interests. This ‘dual logic’ of US foreign policy has seen Washington playing a systems-maintaining role, which has been widely accepted because the US state has not just been pursuing its own interests at the expense of all its rivals (Lenin’s IIR) but has also helped maintain the conditions for the expansion of capital as a system (Kautsky’s ultra-imperialism).

Marxist IR theory and the presidency of Barack Obama: highlighting continuity in US foreign policy The election of the United States’ first African-American president sparked a flurry of opinion that a significant shift in the country’s foreign policy was upon us. In contrast to George W. Bush’s more bellicose and unilateral approach to international relations, Obama spoke about greater global cooperation to meet the United States’ challenges and presented his presidential candidacy on a peaceful platform underpinned by diplomacy. This included advocating the cessation of US military involvement in Iraq and his willingness to open dialogue with Iran to address the country’s nuclear program (Obama 2007). There has not, however, been a reality of change in US foreign policy since Obama took office: on the contrary, there is striking continuity. A case in point is the United States’ continued military engagement across the globe. While Obama has withdrawn the United States’ military from Iraq (excluding troops remaining as part of the massive US Embassy in Baghdad), he has nonetheless intensified the United States’ military campaigns in Afghanistan and, importantly, Pakistan, conflating these zones into a single theatre of operations (termed ‘Af-Pak’). Another notable development is the United States’ increased use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, more commonly known as drones), most pertinently in Pakistan and Yemen. During Obama’s first year in office, US drones killed more people than during the entire presidency of George W. Bush. In 2010 alone, there were 111 drone strikes in Pakistan, compared to nine strikes between 2004 and 2007 (see Lynch 2012).

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Further scrutiny reveals other militaristic aspects of Obama’s presidency. For example, despite appearing to take a back-seat, the United States has been at the forefront of NATO’s military intervention in Libya, which began in early April 2011. By May 5, 2011, the United States had committed 8507 military personnel, 153 aircraft, flown 2000 sorties, expended 228 cruise missiles, and dropped 455 bombs. This involvement was markedly higher than the next active coalition force, the UK, which, by May 5, 2011, had committed 1300 personnel, 28 aircraft, flown 1300 sorties, expended 18 cruise missiles, and dropped 140 bombs.7 Global military involvement thus continues to be a central tenet of US foreign policy. As the president correctly stated during his successful campaign for a second presidential term: ‘Our military spending has gone up every single year that I’ve been in office’, adding that ‘we spend more on our military than the next 10 countries combined’.8 There are other continuities which can be elucidated between the Bush and Obama presidencies. For example, despite Obama’s declared desire to close down the controversial detention center at Guantánamo Bay, it hitherto remains open. And despite earlier indications that diplomacy was central to US policy toward Tehran, under Obama’s presidency the United States has instead successfully implemented a series of tough economic sanctions against Iran. In this light, the ‘dovish’ Obama appears distinctly more ‘hawkish’ than his credentials had previously suggested. It is important to understand, however, that these continuities extend beyond the Bush–Obama paradigm. For instance, the long tradition in US foreign policy of supporting the overthrow of democratically elected, left-wing governments – which, as noted above, are often deemed inimical to US political and economic interests – is also being upheld by the Obama administration. Despite initial comments opposing a military coup in 2009 which deposed Honduras’ leftist, democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, Obama has refused to suspend US financial assistance to the Honduran military and police. In fact, rather than oppose the coup, Obama increased requested military aid to Honduras in 2012.9 With clear historical parallels, since the coup Honduras’ security forces have been responsible for a surge in human rights violations, directed against opponents of the coup, journalists, small farmers, and other citizens. Furthermore, despite the global economic crisis, Obama has not significantly recalibrated the United States’ neoliberal economic model. As noted above, this model, pushed by the USA both at home and abroad, is the preferred economic system of business elites, the main benefactors of neoliberal economics. One explanation for the persistence of neoliberal economics is that the Obama administration and business elites have maintained close and influential links. This observation is made clear when one considers how Obama has funded his presidential election campaigns. As Ali (2010: 32) points out, during the 2008 campaign, Obama not only raised much more money than his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, but the majority of Obama’s campaign funds were realized through large corporate donations. ‘The donors’, writes Ali (2010: 32), included some of Wall Street’s finest, investing in their futures: Goldman Sachs ($994,795), Microsoft ($833,617), UBS AG ($543,219), Lehman Brothers, in 2007 ($318,467), and JP Morgan Chase ($695,132). There were also substantial donations from Time-Warner, IBM, Morgan Stanley, General Electric, Exxon, Google; three topdrawer law firms coughed up $15.8 million. In light of the above developments, the hope for a discernible change in US foreign policy under Obama’s presidency has thus atrophied, however sincere one believes the president’s

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desire for change to be. Indeed, Obama’s time in office aptly illustrates the structural confines of a well-entrenched political system, including the ambivalence of public opinion, opposition in the US Congress to meaningful change, and a powerful and influential system of corporate lobbying. The constraints of the international political system further compound the restrictions faced by president Obama. The argument we conclude with, then, is that the continuity of US foreign policy after the election of Barack Obama, a US president widely presumed to be progressive in his outlook, has further highlighted the utility of critical IR theories in understanding US foreign policy.

Conclusion In conclusion, this chapter has highlighted contending theories of imperialism which is the primary concept utilized by Marxism to analyze the global economy and interstate relations. We have attempted to draw out the salient points in relation to US foreign policy. Throughout the post-war order and up to the present day there are of course numerous debates among US foreign policy elites as to the precise strategies that should be pursued. However, there seems to be very little divergence over the objectives of US foreign policy: the continuation of American political, military, and economic hegemony which has (so far) been fairly beneficial to all core capitalist states. We are thus at a strange place in the world, whereby we have a dual logic at work in US foreign policy: on the one hand, it must manage its own national interests while correlating these with the interests of its subordinate, but nonetheless potential rivals. This in turn places the United States in a bind in many ways. As new security threats emerge and economic competition intensifies so does the temptation to use its primacy to pursue a more narrow or unilateral order. This in turn threatens the very order that the United States was instrumental in creating and that has served its own interests well. However, if it chooses to work within the rules-based order there is the ever present threat that others may attempt to constrain American power, or what Kagan has termed a Gulliver complex whereby the sleeping giant is constrained by a thousand multilateral strings (Kagan 2003). At present, many analysts are analyzing the United States as an Empire in decline and it does seem that the quagmire in Iraq, whereby a ragtag insurgency effectively blunted the multi-billion dollar US military machine, and the ongoing problems in the Anglo-Saxon hyper-liberal financial markets do point to the decline of American power. Is the United States in decline? Many critical theorists celebrate a potential hegemonic transition to China. Whether this is in fact desirable is outside the purview of this chapter. However, if US decline is inevitable, what would a post-American world look like: what comes after America?

Notes 1 United Nations, ‘Press conference by United Nations Special Rapporteur on right to food’, 26 October 2007 (available online at http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2007/071026_Ziegler. doc.htm). 2 In 2010, Stiglitz and Blimes further argued that this three trillion dollar price tag is likely to be an underestimation (available online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/ 2010/09/03/AR2010090302200.html). 3 For the classic article on this distinction, see Gallagher, J. and Robinson, R. (1953) ‘The imperialism of free trade’, The Economic History Review, VI (1) (available online at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/ acad/intrel/ipe/gallagher.htm).

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4 Data available from CNN Money (available online at http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/ global500/2011/index.html). 5 UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2012, p. 4, pp. 169–70. 6 Le Monde Diplomatique, April 2001. 7 Data available from the Guardian (available online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/ datablog/2011/may/22/nato-libya-data-journalism-operations-country#data). 8 Obama, quoted in The Huffington Post (2012) (available online at http://www.huffingtonpost. com/2012/10/23/military-spending-obama-romney_n_2006266.html). 9 See, for example, the Guardian (available online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/ cifamerica/2012/mar/22/democrats-press-obama-us-complicity-honduras).

Further reading Blum, W. (1986) Killing Hope. US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II, Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press. Brewer, A. (1991) Marxist Theories of Imperialism: A Critical Survey, London: Routledge. Domhoff, William G. (2001) Who Rules America?: Power and Politics in the Year 2000, New York, NY: Mayfield. Gowan, P. (1999) The Global Gamble: Washington’s Bid for World Dominance, London: Verso. Harvey, D. (2003) The New Imperialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Herman, E. and Chomsky, N. (1988) Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, New York, NY: Verso Press. Kolko, G. (2006) The Age of War: The United States Confronts the World, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Panitch, L. and Gindin, S. (2003) Global Capitalism and American Empire, London: Merlin Press. Rupert, M. and Smith, H. (eds) (2002) Historical Materialism and Globalization, London: Routledge. Stokes, D. and Cox, M. (eds) (2012) US Foreign Policy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Websites http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/. The National Security Archive provides a great deal of declassified documentation relating to US foreign and security policy, and its role throughout the world. http://www.democracynow.org/. Democracy Now! is a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. Pioneering the largest public media collaboration in the United States. http://www.hrw.org/; http://www.amnesty.org. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are at the forefront of documenting the end results of various states’ security policies. Their reports can provide excellent empirical material for research purposes. http://monthlyreview.org/. The Monthly Review has a good selection of critical analyses from a Marxist perspective. http://www.zmag.org/ZNET.htm. ZNet has a good selection of critical approaches.

References Ali, T. (2010) The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad, London: Verso. Foster, J. (2003) ‘The new age of imperialism’, Monthly Review, 55: 3. Gallagher, J. and Robinson, R. (1953) ‘The imperialism of free trade’, The Economic History Review, VI (1) (available online at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/ipe/gallagher.htm). Gowan, P. (2004) ‘Contemporary intra-core relations and world systems theory’, Journal of World System Research, X (2) (available online at http://jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol10/number2/pdf/ jwsr-v10n2gs-gowan.pdf). Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2000) Empire, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Kagan, R. (2003) Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, New York, NY: Knopf. Katz, C. (2002) ‘Free Trade Area of the Americas. NAFTA marches south’, NACLA: Report on the Americas, 4 (February): 27–31. Lenin, V.I. (n.d.) ‘Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism’ (available online at http://www. wutsamada.com/msu/IAH206/imperialism.html). Lynch, T.J. (2012) ‘Obama and the third Bush term: towards a typology of Obama studies’, International Affairs, 88: 5. Miliband, R. (1969) The State in Capitalist Society, New York, NY: Basic Books. Obama, B. (2007) ‘Renewing American leadership’, Foreign Affairs, 86: 4. Poulantzas, N. (1978) Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, New York, NY: Schocken Books. Robinson, R. (2004) A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World, Maryland, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Schmitz, D. (1999) Thank God They’re On Our Side. The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships, 1921–1965, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Stiglitz, J. and Blimes, L. (2008) The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, New York, NY: W.W. Norton. Stiglitz, J. and Blimes, L. (2010) Washington Post, September 3 (available online at http://www. washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302200.html). United Nations (2007) ‘Press conference by United Nations Special Rapporteur on right to food’, 26 October 2007 (available online at http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2007/071026_Ziegler. doc.htm). United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (2012) World Investment Report: Towards a New Generation of Investment Policies 2012, New York, NY, and Geneva: United Nations.

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Barack Obama Cosmopolitanism, identity politics, and the decline of Euro-centrism Mark Ledwidge

The election of President Obama, his first term, and his subsequent re-election have facilitated immense in-depth, emotive, and immense speculation regarding the implied and actual meaning and the importance of the Obama presidency. Three central strands of the Obama story seem to stand out as key factors in the numerous discussions. One, the notion that Obama’s elections represented a decisive break from America’s racialized past and was representative of demographic changes that could change the face of American politics; two, whether Obama’s personal identity has or has not had a definitive impact on the substance or character on US politics which, given the suggestion that Obama was or would be the new face of American power, is particularly interesting; and three, that the first African-American president’s identity profile would provide the soft power appeal that President Bush and his predecessors did not have. The importance of Obama has been viewed through the prism of his (initial) unique global status, the rise of non-white nations, and the relative decline of America and Western Europe. The aims of this chapter revolve around a critical assessment of the Obama administration which is designed to incorporate an analysis that accounts for the internal and external dynamics of American politics in a manner that demonstrates how the domestic reconfiguration of the American population has triggered the relative or assumed reconfiguration of American power. The chapter argues that political challenges from below have provided the required leverage to pry open the political establishment and to allow for the entry of nonWASPs, women, and a new class of ethnic Americans. Despite the frequent celebrations in regard to the apparent ‘changes’, this chapter will use the Obama presidency as a means to interrogate and/or contest the degree of change in relation to the character of the political establishment. While the chapter will obviously draw some conclusions it recognizes that the broader trends within American politics are subject to challenge and that the emergence of Obama does not indicate a changing of the guard (politically) or irrevocable changes to it. The chapter addresses five specific points as follows. The first issue explores the structural impediments that hamper presidents in promoting significant and lasting change in regard to US foreign policy; the second examines Samuel Huntington’s thesis regarding the ‘challenges to America’s national identity’ in order to define the limits and boundaries of the cosmopolitan politics of the 21st century in light of the presidency of Obama; the third delves into the importance of identity politics and its impact on US foreign policy; the fourth issue concerns the relative rise of China, the Asia pivot, and the spectre of a new non-white world order; and the fifth is predicated on America and Europe’s relative decline and notions of the end of the Anglo-sphere. Overall the chapter suggests that Obama’s foreign policy has arguably lacked the historic break from the policies of G. Bush Jr. However, critics of Obama have utilized a skewed logic to explain why. The answer to the conundrum may ultimately

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lie in the peculiarities of the American political system and America’s identity politics as opposed to the alleged duplicity of Obama.

Change we can believe in Commentaries on the 2008 election are replete with the idea that the candidacy of Obama and Hillary Clinton represented a turning point in history, i.e. that an African-American man and a white female could be the next president of the United States. Furthermore the liberal agendas associated with Clinton and Obama stood as if not polar opposites then distinct from the hardnosed and hawkish policies exemplified by the stalwarts of the Bush years such as Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Condoleezza Rice. By 2008 the early triumphs of the Bush years that had been fuelled by the Bush administration’s strident response to September 11 which precipitated the War on Terror, the war in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq had been replaced by disillusion and criticism as the Bush administration had arguably quenched its thirst for oil and revenge by crushing the armies of Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately for the Bush administration it failed to produce any evidence that could link the events of September 11 with Iraq, in addition to failing to bring to justice Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind of the terrorist attacks on America. The catalogue of mis-steps including allegations of torture, Abu Graib, Guantanamo Bay, rendition and the consolidation of presidential power, imperial overstretch, unilateralism, and American militarism left US foreign policy in tatters, while the expense of America’s imperial or defensive ventures and questionable economic policies led to financial collapse via the banking crisis and the loss of international standing (Scott-Smith 2012). Indeed some critics pointed to the underpinnings of what could be construed as a clash of civilizations, in which Bush and Blair’s personal beliefs allowed Islamists to define the struggle in religious terms, analogous of the crusades. In brief the political arrogance of the neo-cons led to criticism from Europe and the Islamic world which contravened the idea that American foreign policy was generally both benign and justified. As the Bush presidency faltered under the weight of domestic and international scorn, America witnessed the emergence of Obama as an alleged non-establishment candidate. Obama’s unique identity profile, his overt opposition to the war on Iraq, and his pleasant, non-confrontational, and measured campaign style seemed to promise something new; after winning a gruelling and controversial standoff with Hillary Clinton Obama’s campaign juggernaut was more than prepared to beat John McCain and Sarah Palin. Of course while many have highlighted Obama’s nonestablishment roots the sources of his financial contributions indicate that his support base could not be described as non-establishment (Hodge 2010). Obama’s campaign was expertly handled by David Axelrod. The campaign went out of its way to emphasize that Obama’s presidency would be based on both ‘Hope’ and ‘Change’ that Americans could believe in. Despite the negative commentaries from reactionaries on the right, Obama was able to address any doubts that he was anything but measured or mainstream in regards to foreign affairs (Scott-Smith 2012) as he pledged to defend Israel, picked Biden as his vice president, and Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state, both of whom were firmly grounded in the politics of the Washington establishment. By the time of his inauguration on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 when Obama became the 44th President the drama had reached a fever pitch; the progressive left waited in anticipation of sweeping changes while the right held its breath. Although it is commonplace to blame the inadequacies or actions of an administration on the president, one should consider whether the design of the American state apparatus is still fit for purpose in regard to 21st century politics. Therefore prior to discussing the character of Obama’s appointments it is imperative

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that we recognize that, according to Hugh Heclo, ‘new presidents have the ability to reorganize the… presidential office to their personal desires – but only at a superficial level’ (Pfiffner et al. 2011: 203). Given the evolutionary expansion of the executive branch, especially since America’s global ascendency after 1945, it is difficult to ignore the institutional factors that weigh on presidential actions in domestic or foreign affairs. Pfiffner et al. remind us that while presidents do try to infuse their ‘administration with… [their]… own personality. There are, nevertheless, deep structural continuities in the modern presidency’ (2011: 208). This is important as it points to the agency versus structure debate which in this case suggests that the possibility for sea changes between the Bush and Obama administration were compounded by the ideological rigidity of the War on Terror paradigm and the impracticality of attempting a speedy reversal of Bush’s policies. One could argue that political scientists grossly underestimate how the separation of powers combined with the size, scope, and the relative political neutrality of civil servants in the executive branch hamper a new president’s ability to promote the lasting changes that generally only accompany major historic events like Pearl Harbor and 9/11. After eight years of Bush and the spectre of the War on Terror irrespective of Obama’s rhetoric the changes were likely to be limited, and somewhat superficial.

Transition and personnel Before assessing whether Obama had any real intention of changing US foreign policy in a major way his transition team and his appointments provide major clues in regard to his approach to the presidency and US foreign policy. In the first instance an unseasoned politician like Obama is more likely to seek assistance from experienced staffers whose very experience would require that they had bought into the realities of Washington logic. Consequently Obama chose a mixture of lobbyists such as John Podesta (Hodge 2010: 4) and Washington insiders apparently averse to change: The transition team included John O. Brennan, who was the CEO of a military contracting company and the former chief of staff to the CIA director George Tenet. Even though Brennan was… associat[ed] with Bush’s torture program, Obama had planned to appoint him as CIA director. Minor uproar eventually forced him to choose Leon Panetta, Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff (Hodge 2010: 50). Whether it was Rahm Emanuel as his White House chief of staff or Timothy F. Geithner as treasury secretary and Lawrence Summers as ‘director of the White House National Economic Council’ (Pfiffner 2011: 316), Obama was flexing and highlighting his establishment credentials. Simply put, Obama, the so-called non-establishment candidate, had called on members of the establishment to help define his policies. Irrespective of the infatuation and personal admiration that intellectuals on the left have or had for Obama one must consider if he actually intended to change US foreign policy. Inderjeet Parmar has constructed a well-considered argument that suggests that Obama may not have necessarily intended to undertake any real changes (Ledwidge et al. 2013). Parmar points to the appointments in the first term as indicating the essentially conservative approach adopted by President Obama. Parmar (2011) maintains that Obama: appointed leading militarists close to the Bush administration and his Republican opponent in 2008, John McCain. Obama retained as secretary of defense, Robert Gates, and appointed a close ally of McCain’s as national security adviser, General James Jones.

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Mark Ledwidge In addition, he appointed pro-war Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Joseph Biden, as secretary of state and vice president, respectively. Admiral Michael Mullen was retained from Bush as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence. Obama appointed a large number of officials from the Clinton presidency, including Jim Steinberg, Susan Rice, Richard Holbrooke, and Dennis Ross. If McCain was billed as Bush mark II, Obama’s administration could fairly be labelled a hybrid Bush-Clinton third term.

The thrust of the Parmar thesis may suggest that Obama is largely at fault for failing to live up to his campaign promises. However, while generally agreeing with Parmar I would add that it would have been hard for any new president to reformulate American foreign policy after 2008. Indeed the polarizing but in some ways prophetic text written by Lynch and Singh, After Bush: The Case for Continuity in American Foreign Policy, clearly suggested that change would not be on the agenda in regard to the post-Bush foreign policy. In brief the fragmentation and conservative bent of the American political system, the durability of the War on Terror doctrine which has remained intact despite outward changes, oil, and America’s addiction to it, have and will stifle even the desire for radical changes; while the continued support of Israel as a beacon and bastion of democracy and an indispensable ally is all part of a national security logic that appears to be ingrained within the ideological contours of America’s political establishment. Given the above and the fact that, as Singh points out, even American liberalism is ‘philosophically conservative’ (Singh 2012: 8), as well as Singh and Lynch’s controversial after-Bush thesis (Singh 2012; Singh et al.) one is tempted to explain Obama’s actions as evidence of the inherent rigidity of a modern militarized national security state that has ‘between 700 and 1000 military bases all over the globe’ (Scott-Smith 2012: 37) and is geared towards conserving American predominance beyond the life span of a particular administration.

The economic crisis One could also argue that Obama’s foreign policy agenda was hijacked by his recognition that the US economy could not be allowed to go into free-fall. Thankfully, unlike the Bush administration, Obama’s administration recognized that the ‘US economy required immediate and sustained attention’ (Indyk et al. 2012: 7). While critics are quick to berate Obama for not producing major transformative policy changes, he was saddled with ‘deficits… [that]… exceeded $1 trillion in 2009, 2010, and 2011… [which]… Warren Buffett described… as… an economic Pearl Harbour’ (Indyk et al. 2012: 7). The Obama administration realized that the domestic recession triggered by the Bush administration was a domestic and foreign policy issue that necessitated collective action from the G-8 countries and ‘China, India and Brazil’ (Indyk et al. 2012: 8). Hence the grandiose plans that Obama enthusiasts expected were judged less important than repairing the domestic and global economy. While Singh highlights Obama’s claims of success in regard to neutralizing Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, withdrawing troops from Iraq and aiding in the removal of Qaddafi (Singh 2012: 3), he goes beyond his continuity thesis and argues ‘Obama has maintained, refined and, in some cases, aggressively expanded the central features of the post-911 Bush foreign policies’ (Singh 2012: 18). Indeed one is patently aware that Obama has increased the use of drones (Ledwidge et al. 2013) in a manner that would seem at odds with the pre-presidential Barack Obama.

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Cosmopolitanism and change If one is hesitant to proclaim evidence of lasting changes in the substance of US foreign policy, two successful presidential campaigns reflect deep-seated changes in regard to racial attitudes and demographics (Ledwidge et al. 2013). The numbers of Euro-Americans who voted for Obama and the support he received from African-Americans, Latinos, and other ethnic groups speak to the sweeping changes occurring in American politics (Dewey 2010). The decline of the Euro-American population and the relative rise of non-whites have facilitated major demographic changes within the political context of the United States. Ultimately the election of Obama stems from the ground-breaking events of the 1960s’ civil rights struggle and the associated immigration reforms (Ledwidge et al. 2013), the overt and narrow religious and racialized nationalism espoused by the neo-cons, and the architects of both the War on Terror and the Bush administration’s foreign policy. For some the election and subsequent re-election of Barack Obama represents a profound restructuring of the American polity. While said changes obviously relate to the replacement of the previous administration, the notion of change was associated with undermining the narrow racialized and ethnocentric identity profile of the political establishment. My own work among others has detailed the existence of a racial worldview that has permeated US politics and its foreign policy from its very inception and arguably still does. Parmar is correct in his assertion that US foreign policy has an under-appreciated and largely unacknowledged racial dimension, and not principally due to the stewardship of President Obama. Its racialised character is, and has long been, evident in the racial characteristics of the overwhelming majority of members of the US foreign policy establishment, and even more so in their shared mindsets (Ledwidge et al. 2013). This should be obvious as ‘through the centuries Americans have… defined the substance of their identity in terms of race, ethnicity, ideology and culture’ (Huntington 2004: XV), the core argument being that a WASP power elite has presided over US politics in a manner that has given preference to the views, policies, and values of the WASP power class, and subtly supported white hegemony within the global context which amounted to a predisposition to favour the interests of so-called white nations vis-à-vis the interests of the non-white world (Parmar et al. 2009). Vucetic has made a significant contribution to the debate by clearly highlighting the racial and ethno-centric behaviour of a culturally specific Anglo-sphere that drew inspiration from the racialized Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic worldview which the architects of US foreign policy have historically embraced (Vucetic 2011). In a sense, justified or not, the War on Terror could be viewed as facilitating a modern form of economic and political penetration into the non-white world accompanied by a religious and racialized imperialism and/or a response to the perceived challenges posed by non-Western nations. Certainly Huntington has identified ‘multiculturalism and diversity, the spread of Spanish as the second American language and the Hispanization trends in American society, the assertion of group identities based on race, ethnicity, and gender’ (Huntington 2004: XVI) as a domestic problem, while simultaneously bemoaning how the new immigrants in America are altering US foreign policy in order to defend the interests of their original homelands (Huntington 2004: 285). He goes on to say that in light of interest group politics in the United States ‘foreign governments have greatly increased their efforts

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to affect American policies’ (Huntington 2004: 286). Ultimately the power dynamics both in and outside America appear to be changing. The diversification of US politics associated with the rise of Obama, and which followed in the wake of the pivotal inclusion of Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell in the Bush administration, reflects the evolution of the American political establishment in regard to the inclusion of women, African-Americans, and non-WASPs. Given the fact that EuroAmericans will no longer be a majority in the United States and Huntington’s claims that ‘non-whites have very different attitudes from those of the elites’ (Huntington 2004: 314) which are still overwhelmingly white, Huntington’s comments suggest the possibility for profound changes in US foreign policy. According to Huntington, America can embrace three models of identity which will both inform and shape their domestic and foreign policy. The first of these is cosmopolitan which exemplifies a multicultural and linguistic pluralism which is open to diverse worldviews (Huntington 2004: 363) and which would naturally compete for dominance. Hence America could be reshaped via the politics of the diaspora and global forces. Huntington also acknowledges the existence of an imperial alternative, which maintains that at the dawn of the 21st century ‘conservatives accepted and endorsed the idea of an American empire and the use of American power to reshape the world’ (Huntington 2004: 364). The imperial model favours democracy promotion and the idea of embedding America’s core values into the global context and thereby reshaping the world in line with American mores and US interests. The aforementioned models both seek to eliminate the differences between America and the global community. Finally the Nationalist approach is predicated on the belief in American exceptionalism and the preservation of Christianity and America’s ‘Anglo-protestant culture’ (Huntington 2004: 365). While critics have accused Huntington of endorsing a reactionary agenda that flirts with neo-racism and cultural and religious imperialism, his discussions presaged both the prejudices and political tensions surrounding the presidency of Obama, which some Americans such as the Tea-party, the Birthers, and racial conservatives see as an assault on America’s racial, cultural, and political identity.

Obama, soft power, and American identity Nonetheless the election of Obama in 2008 was in reality a soft power coup as it seemed to promise relief from the considerable damage caused by eight years of the Bush administration. Simply put, while Bush and the neo-cons were associated with religious, political, and cultural imperialism, the (then) fresh-faced Obama was not. Obama’s unique identity and his Muslim and African heritage pointed to the possibility of a new America and an enlightened approach to US foreign policy. Obama’s familiarity with anti-colonial politics and life outside the West was clearly a selling point for the cosmopolitan contingent both inside and outside America (Ledwidge 2011). It was evident that Obama, the new face of American power, had a global significance that could help to restore America’s image both at home and abroad (Scott-Smith 2012). The fact that America’s major cities are becoming microcosms of the global community means that Obama’s cosmopolitan identity is important within America. The fact that Obama was named the first global president (Ledwidge 2011) demonstrated his ability to gain the admiration of the global audience in Europe (and beyond), which is witnessing the increased diversification of its population, including people from the developing world. The larger and more important question is why Obama’s rich and diverse background has not delivered the type of changes that both liberals and conservatives expected. While his

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early speeches in Cairo and Ghana signified a ground-breaking departure from the traditional approach to the non-white world, it is hard in 2013 to discern any significant changes in the Obama administration’s foreign policy in the so-called Middle East and Africa. Despite Obama’s familiarity with the anti-colonial struggles in the developing world and his admiration of anti-colonialists like Malcolm X (Ledwidge 2011), his foreign policy is decidedly similar to the policies of this recent predecessors. Indeed, as early as 2009 Obama went on record to tell ‘African leaders it is time to stop blaming colonialism and “Western oppression” for the continent’s manifold problems’.1 In fact Obama’s actions in Libya which effectively amounted to regime change reflect a long tradition of what some might see as Europe’s neo-colonial thrust to maintain control over vital resources and direct the behaviour of its former colonies with the assistance of America. To be fair to Obama one would imagine that his identity also brings a particular type of pressure that requires him to avoid accusations of favouring the non-white world; certainly within the domestic context Obama has sought to distance himself from any overt efforts to address the plight of African-American and the other non-white constituencies (Ledwidge et al. 2013) which provided him with substantial votes. Of course critics will doubtlessly argue that foreign affairs are far more complex than the domestic context. Nevertheless it is hard to imagine that Obama’s inclusion within the exclusive circles of an ethno-centric and ideologically conservative power elite precludes him from taking any actions that depart from established norms. Alternatively, our desire to indict Obama for his alleged personal failings disregards a number of significant issues. One, the executive branch of the United States is a vast organizational structure which functions within the context of a political system that was designed to blunt or constrain presidential power; two, despite Bush’s expansion of presidential power along unitary lines and Obama’s continuation, the ‘reports of massive National Security Agency surveillance programs that gather phone numbers and Internet activity’2 are problematic, especially for a president whose racial identity has provoked unprecedented allegations that he is not even an American or that he is a closet Muslim; the idea that Obama is now worse than Bush might be accurate in some cases but it could also correspond to racial conventions in America which include subtle reminders that the non-white person has been granted entry and a temporary membership as long as they maintain the status quo; third, Obama the politician is both a centrist and a pragmatist whose implied radicalism is generally a fiction or was a means to win the plaudits with holders of countercultural views in the non-white world and America’s liberal establishment. Fourth, it has been suggested that Obama is a fully paid member of the political establishment who is committed to protecting the interests of the power elite and its corporate sponsors. In short Obama is an accomplished politician, not a revolutionary or a reformer. Fifth, the question remains, had Obama pursued an alternative international agenda would he have even been voted in for a historic second term? Yet despite his perceived failings Obama’s relationship to China and the developing world could have benefitted from his own insight and his keen intellect.

Obama, the developing world, and China The emergence or re-emergence of China in the 21st century reflects a trend which includes the political ascent of non-western countries like India and her counterparts in Asia which in itself challenges the fact that ‘for over two centuries the West… first in the form of Europe and subsequently the United States, Canada, Western Europe’ (Jacques 2012: 20) – i.e. the Anglo-sphere – has being the predominant civilizational power within the global context.

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The country that encapsulates that threat is China. As early as 2007 Goldman Sachs suggested that the Chinese economy will be almost the same size as the US economy by 2025, with the Indian economy the fourth largest after Japan. By 2050, they project that the largest economy in the world will be China… with the Indian economy… a close third, almost on a par with the US. These three will be followed by Brazil, Mexico, Russia and Indonesia (Jacques 2012: 5). Essentially the current global power dynamics suggest that the superordinate power of the Anglo-sphere, and American power in particular are no longer guaranteed. The fact that America has lost its AAA credit rating and China owns a substantial part of America’s debt (Singh 2012: 140) has called into question America’s financial competence and her hegemonic status. In addition to America’s relative economic decline in relation to China, the modernization and expansion of China’s military, which is still dwarfed by America’s military might (Gross 2013: 151), still represents a major political challenge; especially since Obama has initiated major cuts to the Pentagon’s defence budget and military analysts suggest a war, nuclear or not, would be disastrous for both countries. Given the decline of the US economy it is clear that America will not be able to sustain its current levels of military expenditure. It is within this context that Obama’s pragmatic politics and his personal identity could have been utilized strategically to defend American interests. However, rather than adopting innovative transformative or bold measures in regard to the American political system, China, and the developing world, Obama has opted to play it safe. The Obama administration’s reset towards Asia was obviously derived from the fact that America needs to maintain or assert its power in Asia. Given the distinct identity profile of the 44th president and the support he had enjoyed within the global context, the cosmopolitan credentials of Obama afforded the United States the opportunity to utilize his persona to re-orientate US foreign policy. It is here that foreign policy analysts and the US foreign policy establishment have failed to recognize that Obama’s non-white identity could have been used as an instrument of soft power in the developing world legitimately. In a genuine sense Obama’s background and his writing allowed him to project a more nuanced and culturally informed approach to foreign affairs, which could have built on the logic of mutual and shared interests as opposed to the conventional approach which has overwhelmingly pushed American interests with little regard for the welfare of other countries. Indeed it is hard not to acknowledge that America’s actions in the developing world have been far more imperial than its actions in Europe or within the Anglo-sphere. Unfortunately the Obama administration has adopted the conventional approach to foreign affairs which is undergirded by deep-rooted assumptions about the sanctity and superiority of American and presidential power. Despite the fact that the Anglo-sphere was constructed on the foundations of racial imperialism and the ethnic cleansing that accompanied European colonialism in the Americas and worldwide, it is assumed that the ethno-centric, racial, and imperialist basis of the Anglo-sphere has no bearing on the liberal internationalism associated with the current global configuration. That is, scholars take it for granted that the professional politicians from Ivy League backgrounds who formulate US foreign policy have rejected centuries of implied or actual discrimination (or been) forced to change due to challenges (from below) in favour of a rationalist approach that has transcended the overt or covert bigoted beliefs that helped organize and maintain the political, economic, racial, and cultural parameters of inequality characteristic of the Anglo-sphere for centuries.

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In accordance with the failure to examine and research the racial and imperial basis of Western and American power, political scientists, IR scholars, and scholars of US foreign policy seem to imply by their neglect that international affairs are not impacted by ethnic and racial models of power. Likewise, it is seldom mentioned that the traditional worldview of the American foreign policy establishment has not engendered or supported actions that have seemed too deferential towards any nations, but especially non-white nations, while the coded neo-racism of the 21st century avoids the simplistic stereotypes of the past – ‘to what extent, these “new”…. [or refined]… racialised discourses, practices, and habits are brought to bear on the foreign policy elites in the English-speaking world is a question that requires theoretical refinement and further research’ (Vucetic 2011: 132) – especially in relation to the intense scrutiny of Obama. It is improbable that the polarization that is occurring in Europe and American around race, religion, ethnicity, and identity is not expressed in some form within the global context. The silences around these controversial issues related to a mobilization of bias, or to contemporary scholarship’s failure to see the importance of these issues. Take for example the overreactions to the allegation that Obama bowed to the Japanese emperor3 in 2009 and Mitt Romney’s criticism on December 7, 2011 that Obama has a habit of ‘“bowing” to foreign leaders’4 – i.e. ‘the Saudi King, Emperor of Japan, and Chinese President Hu Jintao’.5 A more sophisticated reading of Obama’s actions was his realization, especially in regard to China, that it was ‘a major power… [which should be]… treated with the appropriate respect’ (Indyk et al. 2012: 32). What Romney and American traditionalists miss is that Obama understands the strategic importance of America assuming a more humble approach due to its obvious weakness and in order to win more allies. Here Romney and many mainstream Americans fail to understand that granting non-Western cultures the respect that the West withheld for centuries helps to strengthen the notions of mutual respect. The implication is that Obama’s bowing to other heads of states has denigrated his office. While this seems rather trivial it also reflects issues of both perceived and actual power. The fact that all three of these men are non-white and presumably head nations with an inferior status to the United States speaks to the assumption that American presidents bow to no one; and perhaps betrays a sneaking suspicion that a white president would never flout the established protocols regarding the projection of American power. In a way the idea that Obama is soft on China alludes to his perceived political weakness, but it might also speak to coded tensions that exist within the WASP or white power elite and the mainstream establishment in regard to the internal and external encroachment of powerful elites, whose cultural, religious, racial, and ethnic identities derive from the WASP powerbrokers that have steered international relations since the rise and predominance of the West. The aforementioned observation is significant as Jacques indicates that ‘We are so used to the world being Western, even American, that we have little idea what it would be like if it was not. The West, moreover, has a strong vested interest in the world being cast in its image, because this brings multifarious benefits’ (Jacques 2012: 12). One is, of course, struck by the use of ‘we’ and ‘American’ in the quotation, as in the past perceptions of American identity did not reflect the broad ethnic or racial parameters of today: ‘indeed, the European colonisation of North America was… an inherently imperial project, displacing and irrevocably changing the lives of the continent’s indigenous peoples, as well as enslaving Africans’ (Harris 2013: 118). In brief, in general being an American has meant being white. It is interesting that during the 19th and 20th centuries, European and American discourses on status and power were or, have been, replete with recoded notions of the yellow peril and racial and religious wars, but despite evidence to the contrary both internationally

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and within the domestic sphere, racial issues were routinely avoided or subjected to only surface analysis. Having attended a number of presentations on the rise of China it would be easy to assume that the rise of China and other developing nations fails to elicit any overt or covert anxieties or acknowledgement of differences, be they racial or otherwise, or that the racial concerns evident in Europe and America’s domestic context do not leak into international or foreign affairs. Kevin Rudd is quite explicit in his recognition of the identity politics surrounding the rise of China as he says: ‘If China becomes the largest economy, as some predict, it will be the first time since George III that a non-English-speaking, non-Western, nondemocratic country has led the global economy’ (note he must mean in the modern context) (Foreign Affairs 2013: 9). Rudd outlines issues in regard to culture, language, and democracy which all correspond to key facets of the Anglo-sphere and arguably democratic peace theory (Vucetic 2011); the elephant, or unacknowledged aspect of the 21st century Anglo-Saxonism alluded to by Rudd is, arguably, the undercurrent or residue of race, which is difficult to disentangle from the concept of the Anglo-sphere. While Obama has invested more time and resources in the Pacific, and attempted to redefine America’s relationship to China, America’s decline and the desire of its political establishment to project and protect the illusion of American predominance have resulted in Obama meeting with little real success. Unfortunately and predictably according to Singh ‘Obama’s policy towards Asia-Pacific has been “fundamentally similar” to that of George Bush’ (Singh 2012: 161). In part the paucity of the ‘change’ mantra is demonstrated in Obama’s inability or desire to promote lasting change in regard to Asia, because great powers struggle to admit their declining capacity, and for good reason, as once their relative weakness is readily perceived it can often lead to additional losses in terms of both power and prestige.

American power and Europe One casualty of America’s imperial overreach, or its slow but inevitable decline, is its once unassailable relationship with Europe. While America’s early history and the Monroe Doctrine reflect a tense and schizophrenic relationship with Europe, many authors suggest its post-1945 emergence established a special relationship with Western Europe. Arguably American presidents helped bolster and maintain European power prior to, during, and after the Cold War and beyond to the extent that America fought to preserve facets of European imperialism. In short, according to Harris, ‘Non-European states and non-state actors have long been differentiated (de jure and de facto) from their European counterparts due to the pervasiveness of imperialism and colonialism in international law and world politics’ (Harris 2013: 715). In brief it would not be an exaggeration to see the protection and projection of the Anglosphere as a specific strand of cultural and political Euro-centrism. In particular Peter Harris indicates that the traditional discourse on the special relationship between Britain and America downplays its Euro-centric foundations (Harris 2013) and fails to foreground a ‘rich history of imperialism, colonialism, and racial supremacy’ (Harris 2013: 711). Given that history it is ironic that the tenure of Obama has witnessed an accelerated decline in that relationship (Scott-Smith 2012). As numerous commentaries have observed America is poised to mount a slow retreat from Europe and the European Union due to the strains that its global presence has placed on its economy. While the language of prudence and encouraging Europe to police its own affairs has been adopted, the Obama administration has clearly sounded the

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retreat. Nonetheless the aforementioned changes have arisen from the economic and political crisis that is eroding both Europe’s and America’s power. Consequently the shift towards Asia corresponds to the idea that Asia is the new or emerging centre of global power. The extent of the maturity and willpower of Europe and the European Union to accept its former colonies as equals, or in the case of China, a potential hegemon in a new global order is an intriguing question. Although the ascendance of Asia is obvious, the longevity of its growth is not, and Europe and America have demonstrated their ability to beat back and stifle challenges from rising powers. However, the central theme of this chapter has been both the impact and meaning of the presidency of Barack Obama on this issue.

Conclusion Irrespective of the bold and premature claims of 2008 and beyond, Obama’s election represents an interruption as opposed to a definitive break with the realities of America’s racialized past. It is clear that his election has led to profound psychological and symbolic changes in consciousness both within the domestic confines of the United States and beyond. For people of colour, within the global context, their desire for a more tolerant and egalitarian brand of US foreign policy has not materialized. Obama has not attempted to address the economic imbalances resulting from colonial or neo-colonial economic policies that have defined the inequalities characteristic of the relationship between the North and South. In Africa, a region that saw Obama as a powerful representative of an African diaspora that could help restore the fortunes of the continent, Obama has done little beyond ensuring America’s military presence in Africa (Kalu and Kieh 2013) via Africom even in the face of China’s alleged scramble for African resources. America has failed to counter or check its rival. Therefore while China makes innovative deals and transfers technology to African states America has authored no significant rejoinder. In the Muslim world Obama’s Muslim heritage has little meaning to Muslims who saw him expand Bush’s wars, fail to close Guantanamo Bay, or provide lasting reassurances that the War on Terror was actually over both in word and deed. Yes, the bulk of American troops may withdraw or have withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan, but Obama’s continued and frequent use of drones on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan remains a cause for concern. Alternatively, Israel is also not content with the performance of Obama. And if Singh is right Obama’s actions in China are not definitively different from the actions of the previous president. Yet one is tempted to retreat from all of the criticisms of Obama – after all, can one man alone realistically attain the lofty goals fastened to his presidency? If Obama has failed then we the public and especially scholars must bear some responsibility for encouraging an individualistic and person-centred analysis of the American polity that underestimates both the fragmentation of American politics and the conservative pull of an American military corporate machine that favours military power and unilateralism over diplomacy and the adherence to the rulings of international institutions. If it is true that Obama’s increasing use of domestic surveillance is problematic, it also true that we seem to assume that executive power is the exclusive preserve of the president, in an executive branch that ‘employs more than 4 million Americans’ and a ‘cabinet… [and] advisory body made up of the heads of the 15 executive departments’.6 Given the size of the federal bureaucracy it is illogical to refer to the policy of any president without accounting for the multifaceted interests that constrain, reframe, and impact presidential policies. That is, American politics and American foreign policy are subjected to many external and internal pressures which transcend the aims and objectives of a single president. For

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Obama the mere expectation of change has become a huge burden, which is confirmed by recent poll data: ‘The drop in Obama’s support is fuelled by a dramatic 17-point decline over the past month among people under 30, who, along with black Americans, had been the most loyal part of the Obama coalition.’ Note ‘the public’s view of the Obama administration’s handling of civil liberties is beginning to eerily resemble what the public thought about Bush: Forty-three percent in a new CNN/ORC poll say the administration has gone too far in restricting some civil liberties in order to fight terrorism’.7 In the final analysis Barack Obama’s personal identity could not in itself change the nature and substance of US foreign policy. Why? Because Obama does not appear to have the will or courage to surrender his popularity among the power elite by asserting or acting on the view of the world that his pre-presidential writing revealed. To be fair, few people enjoy questioning the logic of powerful groups due to the unpleasant consequences, so in this one can sympathize with Obama. However, the real problem is that the political establishment is trapped within a blinkered and inaccurate perception of the world and America, which is reinforced by the power to manipulate other actors to correspond to the establishment’s worldview. In brief, Obama’s success has come at a high price; his education, his wealth, and his power have placed him in the midst of a Washington-centric East Coast power elite whose thinking and actions prioritize the interests of the rich and powerful. Hence the countercultural views of many of the voters from Obama’s core demographics have little or no bearing on a president whose existence on the margins of the establishment allowed him to express alternative perspectives only until such time as he assumed the presidential mantle. Overall it should not be surprising that Obama has not fulfilled, or even attempted to fulfil, the domestic and foreign affairs goals that are contrary to the interests of key pressure groups such as the corporate, power elite, and government officials who help to construct and execute US foreign policy – the allure or the seduction of, and the seduction by, power tends to encourage individuals to redefine their political beliefs.

Notes 1 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/5778804/Barack-Obama-tellsAfrica-to-stop-blaming-colonialism-for-problems.html. 2 http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2013/06/17/obama-cnn-poll-approval-ratings/2430149/. 3 http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gVGYMxyEpqIynr98qF-CA9ptFp6w. 4 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obama-bowing-to-foreign-dictators–andhis-golf-game/2011/12/08/gIQAvANkfO_blog.html. 5 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obama-bowing-to-foreign-dictators–andhis-golf-game/2011/12/08/gIQAvANkfO_blog.html. 6 http://www.whitehouse.gov/our-government/executive-branch. 7 http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2013/06/17/obama-cnn-poll-approval-ratings/2430149/.

References Ali, T. (2010) The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad, London: Verso. Clayton, D.M. (2010) The Presidential Campaign of Barack Obama: A Critical Analysis of a Racially Transcendent Strategy, New York, NY: Routledge. Council of Foreign Affairs (2010) China on the World Stage, New York, NY: Foreign Affairs. Gross, D. (2013) The China Fallacy: How the US can Benefit from China’s Rise and Avoid Another Cold War, London: Bloomsbury Academic. Harris, H. (2013) ‘Decolonising the special relationship: Diego Garcia, the Chagossians, and AngloAmerican relations’, Review of International Studies, 39 (3): 707–29.

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Huntington, S.P. (2004) Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Indyk, M.S., Lieberthal, K.G., and O’Hanlon, M. (2012) Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Jacques, M. (2012) When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order, London: Penguin Books. Kalu, K. and Kieh, G. (eds) (2013) United States–Africa Security Relations Terrorism, Regional Security and National Interests, Routledge Studies in US Foreign Policy, London: Routledge. Ledwidge, M. (2011a) ‘American power and the racial dimensions of US foreign policy’, International Politics, 48 (2/3): 308–25. Ledwidge, M. (2011b) Race and US Foreign Policy: The African-American Foreign Affairs Network, London: Routledge. Ledwidge, M., Miller, L.B., and Parmar, I. (eds) (2009) New Directions in US Foreign Policy, New York, NY: Routledge. Ledwidge, M., Parmar, I., and Verney, K. (eds) (2013) Barack Obama and the Myth of a Post-Racial America, Routledge Series on Identity Politics, London: Routledge. Lynch, T.J. and Singh, R.S. (2008) After Bush: The Case for Continuity in American Foreign Policy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roger, H.D. (2010) The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism, New York, NY: HarperCollins. Rudd, K. (2013) ‘Beyond the pivot: a new road map for US–Chinese relations’, Foreign Affairs, 92 (2): 9–15. Scott-Smith, G. (ed.) (2012) Obama, US Politics, and Transatlantic Relations: Change or Continuity?, European Policy. Singh, R. (2012) Barack Obama’s Post-American Foreign Policy: The Limits of Engagement, London: Bloomsbury Academic. Vucetic, S. (2011) The Anglosphere: A Genealogy of a Racialized Identity in International Relations, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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Hegemonic transition and US foreign policy Nick Kitchen

Introduction No state, even one with such claims to be exceptional as the United States, exists in a vacuum. The contours of world politics are constantly shifting, and how states understand and adapt to those changes is central to their success. Today, the most marked change taking place in the international system is the shift in location of the weight of global economic activity. The transatlantic ‘West’, dominated by the United States and Europe, is having its dominance of the global economy eroded, by the rise of China in particular in the East. At the same time, a host of other emerging economic powers across the regions of the world are representative of the diffusion of wealth away from the established nations of the ‘North’, to the hitherto less-developed world. If money is ‘power at its most liquid’, as the aphorist Mason Cooley had it, then the world’s shifting centre of economic gravity represents a decline in the relative power of the United States. This change in the balance of power leads many to conclude that American hegemony cannot endure, that the rise of great power competitors will lead to some kind of hegemonic transition. For the most bearish, America’s ‘failed empire’ (Mann 2004) will give way to an ‘Asian Century’ (Mahbubani 2008) when ‘China rules the world’(Jacques 2009) and the Washington Consensus is replaced by Beijing’s state capitalism (Halper 2010). Other, more circumspect, authors point to a ‘post-American world’ (Zakaria 2008) in which American unipolarity, that curious temporary condition that could not last (Layne 2012), gives way to a ‘G-zero’ international order (Bremmer 2012) in which emerging powers play an increasing significant role (Wilson and Purushothaman 2003). After all, as Barry Buzan astutely pointed out, it is difficult to be a leader without followers (Buzan 2008). This chapter takes issue with both the substance and theoretical basis of such accounts. It proceeds by surveying the theoretical underpinnings of accounts of international change to argue that American hegemony has a particularly broad-based character, and that no other nation approaches the United States’ capacity for such comprehensive international leadership. Indeed, at least as much as the rise of states such as China, it is how the United States understands and responds to shifts in the international system that will be crucial to the character and success of American hegemony in the future.

Cycles of self-doubt Contemporary accounts of American decline are joining a long history of commentary dating back as far as the rise to global prominence of American power itself. American vitality in the post-war years, presaged by Henry Luce’s proclamation of an ‘American

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Century’ in 1941, expressed itself in an optimism that was surely bound to fade, as it surely did, replaced by self-doubt engendered by domestic civil strife, the Vietnam War, and the international political economy of the 1970s. That Reagan could pronounce ‘morning in America’ seemed only to confirm that the nation had somehow lost its way, a drift derived from political malaise, economic sickness, or moral torpor depending on one’s point of view. The return of the decline thesis in the late 1980s was the result of more counter-intuitive intervention in America’s political discourse. Paul Kennedy’s The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers hit bookstores at the height of the boom, on the back of five years of strong growth and in the same year that Oliver Stone’s Wall Street brought the extravagance of the heights of American capitalism to the silver screen. A softly-spoken British academic bearing a wealth of quantitative data had a simple and devastating argument: that like all great powers before it, America’s commitments would exceed its economic capacity to pay for them, and indebtedness would signal inevitable decline. The Reagan buildup and the booming stock market were a sign not of strength but of weakness, fuelled as they had been by massive and growing government budget deficits. Of course, it was the Soviet Union, rather than the United States, that most immediately and starkly demonstrated Kennedy’s thesis that the economic capacity to fund military capabilities determined whether nations rose or fell. By the end of the 1990s the United States had returned to budget surplus, and boasted a level of international dominance that was not only historically unprecedented, but which constituted an international system that was unambiguously unipolar. Even Kennedy rowed back a little. A decade later the self-doubt that characterized the Carter years had returned, and with very similar sources. Once again it is Kennedy’s central variables – foreign commitments and economic capacity – that dominate the contemporary decline debate. For Vietnam and oil shocks in the 1970s, read Iraq and the financial crisis in the 2010s; but this time, some suggested, was different, the most recent bout of American declinism was for real.

This time it’s real That the United States’ difficulties in Iraq form the first pillar of the declinist position now represents the received wisdom. Yet such an outcome was not preordained. In many ways, America’s capacity to militarily overthrow a government in the face of widespread international opprobrium was an unequivocal display of the extent of American dominance. Nonetheless, some saw at the time of the Iraq invasion not the extent of American superiority but the danger of imperial overstretch. What few predicted was that insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan would find an American political and military leadership so woefully unprepared. Haunted by the spectre of Indochina, Donald Rumsfeld refused to allow the word insurgency to be uttered in the Pentagon. The consequences for American leadership go beyond even the over 8000 dead and 150,000 wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Operations in the ‘war on terror’ since 2001 have cost between $2.3 trillion and $2.6 trillion, and estimates suggest the final total bill of American commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan will be somewhere between $3.7 trillion and $4.4 trillion. But more significant than the cost in blood and treasure – the United States, after all, did not face domestic dissent as it had during the Vietnam War, and military spending remained at an eminently manageable level, below 5 per cent of GDP, throughout the period – were the consequences for others’ perceptions of American military might: the greatest military the world have ever seen was not omnipotent. Indeed, it was vulnerable.

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Moreover, diplomatic controversy surrounding the United States’ prosecution of its post9/11 foreign policy has strained at the bonds of friendship for the United States’ historic supporters, with the policies of the War on Terror fundamentally undermining the normative authority of the United States. While some on the American right saw in the fraying of the transatlantic consensus over Iraq a fruitless howling at the moon of American power, more liberal voices had already pointed to the rising economic and political influence of the increasingly integrated polity of the European Union, and begun the process of working out how the United States could most effectively manage a coming transition to a multipolar world. The coherence of the developed ‘West’ that made American leadership almost automatic was fragmenting. That fragmentation had already begun to emerge in transatlantic approaches to economic management at the end of the Clinton administration, but the financial crisis of 2008 dealt a body blow to the basic principles of ‘Washington Consensus’ neoliberal finance capitalism, one celebrated by authors on the left who felt vindicated in their previous critiques of the bases of American hegemony. Foreign policymakers, too, took the opportunity to twist the knife in the wounds of American exceptionalism, as Washington, repudiating its longstanding deification of market forces, resorted to bailouts and part-nationalizations of not just the banks, but insurance companies and the auto industry. ‘Now that the free market has failed’, He Yafei, China’s Vice Foreign Minister, asked, summing up the crisis of American economic authority, ‘what do you think is the proper role for the state in the economy?’ (Bremmer 2010). The financial crisis therefore struck at the most basic ideological underpinnings of the American model of development, and revealed the hubris of Wall Street’s ‘masters of the universe’. Yet alongside these blows to American prestige and authority, the direct economic consequences of the financial crisis added fuel to the declinists’ fires. Deficits were nothing new for Americans, having balanced the budget on only four occasions since 1977. But it was the scale of budget deficits run up through the course of the Bush years, when a defence budget increasing at a faster rate than at any time since the early 1980s was combined with tax cuts in an economy that few believed was on the ‘backwards sloping’ section of the Laffer curve, that caused alarm. In 2006, even with the additional expenditures for Iraq, Afghanistan, and Hurricane Katrina, the federal budget would have been in balance had the Bush tax cuts not been enacted. Instead, the US posted a $248 billion deficit. The government bailouts enacted to address the financial crisis and the recession that followed saw the United States post annual deficits averaging over $1.3 trillion, with one longerterm analysis describing the post-2020 fiscal outlook as ‘downright apocalyptic’. As the Federal Reserve engaged in a series of bouts of quantitative easing the ratings agencies downgraded US debt, and China, the United States’ biggest creditor, openly called into question the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. Meanwhile, in Washington, Republicans in Congress after the 2010 mid-terms started to drive a politics of debt that would impose cuts on the US government, and commentators began to question the costs of American primacy and argue that such hegemony was unsustainable and would not be sustained.

Power transition America’s current military and economic woes are occurring in a particular international context, in which emerging economies have driven global growth over the past two decades. China averaged GDP growth rates of over 10 per cent through the 1990s and 2000s, and has lost just a percentage point from those levels since 2008. Concomitantly, countries such as

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Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia have contributed to sustained growth in East Asia and the Pacific of around 8.5 per cent per annum since 1991. India grew by 5.6 per cent in the 1990s, and over 7.5 per cent in the 2000s. These emerging economies contrast with the performance of established economies. Most marked is Japan, which has extended its ‘lost decade’ of the 1990s into the 2000s and the post-financial crisis years, averaging 0.9 per cent growth since 1991. The Euro area economy too had achieved only 2 per cent annual growth in the two decades before the financial crisis, and has shrunk since 2008. And of course the United States, despite relatively impressive developed economy growth of 3.4 per cent in the 1990s, averaged only 2 per cent growth 2000–8, and an anaemic 0.4 per cent since.1 All this emerging economy growth, it is claimed, is translating into increasing national political power. The most clear causal logic here is that economic growth buys military power. The United States cut its military spending slightly during the 1990s, before embarking on a major buildup after 9/11 which saw defence expenditures rise by 50 per cent. Yet its core allies failed to share the burden, with the UK spending increasing just 5 per cent from 1991 to 2011, and France cutting military spending by 12 per cent in the same period. At the same time, states more ambivalent to US priorities such Turkey and Brazil increased spending by 30 per cent and 125 per cent respectively. China’s military expenditures rose from less than $19 billion in 1991 to $129 billion in 2011, an increase of 585 per cent. The United States remains the world’s preeminent military spender, accounting for 40 per cent of the global total. But the trend is clear: China’s buildup means it now accounts for 7.5 per cent of all military expenditure, and it is far from stretching itself to do so, with defence spending accounting for just over 2 per cent of GDP (compared with the United States’ 4.8 per cent).2 This kind of characterization of power shifts, where a rising power meets a declining hegemon, is of course a familiar one, at the heart of Kennedy’s thesis and of all material theories of international change, which might be collectively termed power transition theory. Developed by A.F.K. Organski in the 1950s, power transition theory posits a hierarchical international system, in which a dominant power maintains preponderance over subordinate states. Power derives from material capabilities, which Kennedy reduces to the economic means to purchase military assets. Organski’s original conception was rather more sophisticated, emphasizing that the nature of the developmental sequence, as well as the sophistication of a state’s political system and its ability to extract and use the resources at its disposal, was crucial to an understanding of a state’s power. Elements of Organiski’s developmental conception have been recently revived in the current debate about power shifts, with arguments seeking to refute the sustainability of China’s model of state capitalism by emphasizing that states’ political institutions determine their economic success. Such rejoinders aside, power transition’s basic analysis is that the global hierarchy reflects the relative size and levels of development of states, expressed in material terms. Within a given order, dissatisfied states regard the system as misaligned with their interests and seek to change the norms and rules of the established system. While most dissatisfied states are small powers, and more powerful states tend to be more satisfied with the status quo, occasionally a fast-growing great power may emerge as a challenger to the dominant power. Power transition theory’s analysis suggests that as a dissatisfied challenger approaches in effect parity with the dominant state there is a high possibility of great power war. And in contrast to later neorealist theories that adopted the intractability of the security dilemma, rising powers are not necessarily dissatisfied, and so power transition may take place peacefully. But the central message is about power: states achieve dominance through the developmental acquisition of material capabilities. If current trends of declining American power and rising Chinese capabilities continue, a power transition will inevitably

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take place; the challenge for the United States in the coming years is therefore to artfully manage that transition.

Hegemonic transition Power transition theory, however, says little about the mechanism of leadership in the international system. How does a dominant state exercise its power, and turn its capabilities into hegemony over the system? The most generally accepted realist account of hegemony, hegemonic stability theory, shows how the dominant power in the system uses its power to preserve international order, a public good for satisfied states, and extracts from other states contributions in order to pay for it, a relationship that is essentially coercive. Robert Gilpin’s classic formulation of a hegemonic structure therefore mirrors that found in power transition theory, by emphasizing preponderance over material resources as the source of a single powerful state’s dominance and control over lesser states in the system. This reliance on material dominance as the source of hegemony corresponds with the neorealist turn in realist thought, and is at odds with earlier classical realist scholarship, which emphasized both the role of ideas and the ways in which influence, accrued through concessions, sustains legitimacy for international order. Carr’s Conditions of the Peace, for example, articulates a sophisticated, normative understanding of hegemony similar to Gramsci (Carr 1942). The latter argued that supremacy is maintained by rulers by cultivating the belief that the inequality of power is legitimate, so that hegemony becomes the organization of consent through political and ideological leadership rather than domination by force. Following Gramsci, Robert Cox argued that hegemony represents ‘a structure of values and understandings about the nature of order that permeates a whole system of states and non-state entities [which] appear to most actors as the natural order’. Dominance per se is not sufficient; hegemony is only brought about when the dominant social strata of other states acquiesce to a set of ideas and ways of thinking (Cox and Sinclair 1996: 151). In this understanding, hegemony is the prevailing system of accepted ideas, rules, norms, and constraints within which states operate – it is the zeitgeist of the international system that binds together ideas and material conditions. Central to the hegemonic approaches of Carr, Gramsci, and Cox are ideas about capital and the modes of production, followed by ideas about forms of states and world orders. Such normative notions of hegemony underpin liberal systemic and institutionalist approaches to power transition which emphasize the co-optive and socializing effect the prevailing order has on rising powers. Hegemonic transition therefore emphasizes that states are bound to the international order of the leading power, rather than simply being the objects of material dominance. Hegemons may therefore actively seek to involve states in the operation of the prevailing order, generating a sense of international society that is less associated with the exercise of power per se than with a pattern of international order that is broadly acceptable and legitimate. In this sense that great powers are not simply wielders of capabilities, but bearers of broader ideas of (mutual) progress. The successful construction of hegemony is therefore less about simply the accretion of material power, as power transition theory suggests, but more about the successful articulation of purpose, a moral quality of leadership with which others can find common cause, and through which dominance is legitimated and accepted. In turn, this emphasis on how a hegemon constructs a sense of legitimate moral leadership suggests a focus less on what the hegemon does with the power it has, but more

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on how the rest of international society perceives that power. Hegemony is in the eyes of the beholder. Ideas of hegemonic transition therefore differ from power transition in that they add a layer of qualitative and subjective content in answer to the question of ‘who rules?’ Some of this subjective content of hegemony is captured in Joseph Nye’s response to Kennedy, which was to emphasize the cooptive nature of America’s ‘soft power’. But reducing hegemony to ‘hard power plus soft power’ – particularly given the productive, inextricably entwined relationship that scholars (and increasingly, states)3 perceive between the two – offers only a slightly richer understanding of international change than power transition. To provide a more complete account of hegemonic transition, it may be useful to move beyond structural theories of the relations that exist between states, and to theorize more carefully the environment in which those features form.

Systemic transition Theories about state power are structural in that they focus on the arrangement of states in the international system. Structure – whether hierarchy, as power transition theory assumes, or balance, as most neorealist theories posit – is an emergent property of the international generated by the interaction and arrangement of states. Yet such theories persistently conflate the structure of the system with the system itself. Yet there are significant elements of the system which constitute the context within which structure is formed and which are separate from structure, and these elements are not fixed. Power transition theory’s logic of structural change is developmental; it rests essentially on the changing capacities of states as they industrialize; limited conceptions of hegemonic transition are similarly reliant on successful national development to provide the ‘model’ that generates legitimacy or soft power. Yet Organksi was well aware that how power was derived in his theory was only applicable to the international system that was contemporary to his writings. Thus while the differentiated pace and extent of industrialization was key to understanding shifts in power in the 19th and 20th century, that had not always been the case in the past, and was unlikely to continue to be the case indefinitely into the future. Organski’s successors in the power transition literature, and most of the literature that seeks to add a qualitative element to notions of hegemony, have failed to engage with the possibility that the logics of the international system within which transitions take place may themselves have shifted. We might define such systemic features as those factors that apply to all states and collectively constitute the international environment within which relations between states take place. ‘Anarchy’ is the usual response of IR theorists when asked to describe such a feature, but it is worth considering whether the anarchy of the 17th century is really the same as the anarchy of the 20th century or the 21st, when technology, norms, and organizations, on which the interaction of states depend, have changed so radically. Theories of transition that base their analysis on the simple assumption of the unchanging anarchic foundation of international relations are therefore compelled to attribute structural change to evolutions in the capacities of states rather than shifts in the very basis of international politics. How and why states rise, and the nature of the challenge they pose to the prevailing order, is determined by features and capacities that are systemic, as well as those that are internal to the state. For example, communication, transportation, and information capabilities are often more system- than state-based, and changes in those technologies or their availability will rewrite the rules of interaction for all states, at the same time transforming the system

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itself. For example, the innovation of steam power in the nineteenth century swiftly spread throughout the system, driving the industrial revolution in economic production, and making wind-powered navies redundant. But this new technology relatively empowered states in different ways, in particular benefitting those that had accessible reserves of coal (the UK) far more than those that did not (China). In a similar way, new and evolving norms and institutions at the system level confer changing incentives and obligations on states and alter the environment in which they interact to produce structure. Ironically, this much was recognized by Joshua Cooper Ramo, the author who coined the term ‘The Beijing Consensus’ (the title being later appropriated by Stephen Halper for the purposes of a slightly different argument). China’s rise, he argued, revealed the ‘new math’ of international politics, in which measuring power based on the ‘tired rules’ of aircraft carriers or per-capita GDP ‘leads to devastating mis-measurement’ (Ramo 2004: 2). China had recognized that strategic competition would now take place in a ‘new battleplace’, ‘spiced by globalization’. In this new post-Cold War international system, Beijing’s currency reserves could do more damage to the United States than the equivalent spending on military capabilities. The emergence of regional multilateralism as a systemic norm provided an institutional forum that could be used to make it more difficult for extra-regional hegemons to dominate. The diffusion of technological knowledge has enabled states to deny far more powerful adversaries their military advantage using relatively cheap ‘obscurants’ such as radar blocking and cyber-attacks. Moreover, under globalization conditions, these asymmetric assets are no longer the preserve of militaries. The ‘new battlespace’ is dominated by civilian actors, and command of the commons may be denied by the operations of myriad private individuals from computer programmers to journalists to financial speculators (Ramo 2004: 43–54). Indeed, it is the dynamics of globalization that are increasingly changing the systemic environment in which the strategies of states produce structure, and which create universal constraints and incentives for state behaviour. The magnitude and velocity of flows of capital, goods, and ideas takes place increasingly outside of the control of governments. Where power transition theorists and the work of scholars like Paul Kennedy based their models on the notion of national control over extractive resources, in a globalized economy the factors of production – human, financial, and technological – that underpin national economies are increasingly rarely located within or under the control of nation states. While the global economy relies on the framework of states, 53 of the 100 largest economies on earth are corporations that carry no flag and operate complex global supply chains. Even the manufacture of military equipment is globalized, reflected in recent (though apparently unfounded) concerns about Chinese hardware ‘backdoors’ in silicon chips manufactured for the American military. Moreover, the logic of globalization alters the dynamics and nature of threat and what it means to succeed, by exposing states to challenges that are fundamentally shared. Threats to states are far more prevalent than threats from states, whether from international terrorism or banking crises. Hegemonic war has been rendered obsolete by interdependence and nuclear weapons; interstate armed conflict of any kind is increasingly rare. Indeed, as interstate warfare becomes increasingly redundant as a form of international interaction, it may be that the possession and use of the military instruments of power is actually counterproductive: the near unanimous opposition in Pakistan to US drone strikes has made it far more difficult for the United States to work with Pakistan on issues of counterterrorism, something which the Obama administration is only belatedly realizing.

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The salience of such challenges reflects the fact that rather than worrying about security threats emanating from other states, states are increasingly concerned about the stability of international order, and risks to the efficient functioning of global economic flows. Thus energy security, intra-state and terrorist violence, immigration, climate change, and societal pressures for political reform become more relevant than threats to state sovereignty from foreign enemies. Even Pakistan now perceives threats from internal militants to be more serious than the threat from India, despite regular incidents along the border. The result of this relegation of interstate conflict is that established states have been largely freed from the realist security dilemma, and have created a complex system of networked governance that orders and regulates their relations and enables such shared challenges to be collaboratively addressed. Across the world, growing middle classes within societies increasingly look like each other, and share strikingly similar values, so that what people want from their states may be fundamentally converging. At the same time, the ability of states to engage in the kind of diplomacy that characterized the nineteenth century has all but disappeared. Global communications are mediated through state-based infrastructures, but by 2025, the majority of the world’s population will have gone from having no access to unfiltered information to having unfettered access to all the information the world has ever produced. This information and communications revolution is allowing individuals and small groups to exercise immense issue-based power, and providing the information signposters such as search engines and social media platforms with immense structuring power. The result is that states and institutions will find it progressively harder to control political narratives and to put their power down. Such changes cumulatively speak of a shift in the system within which states’ interactions take place, and which create new pressures that impact upon the nature of that interaction. At the same time, these systemic shifts change what it means to succeed, and the calculus of who is up and who is down in terms of international political power and influence. Thus Charles Kupchan points out that any transition occurring today will do so: in the era of nuclear weapons, economic globalisation, and revolutionary changes in information technology – all variables affecting the consequences of systemic change for international order and stability… the coming transition in polarity will take place through different pathways than previously. (Kupchan et al. 2001: 6–7) In considering the question of hegemonic transition then, it is important to consider that while hegemonic states can and do mould and create norms and constraints that operate at the systemic level, systemic change may also occur exogenously of the actions or designs of states. The question of leadership then becomes the extent to which exogenous systemic change tends to favour any particular state, to ask whether some states are more suited to tread the modern world’s pathways to hegemonic leadership. For the United States, that question can be put another way: if the system is changing, on what basis can the hegemon sustain its position?

Responding to change: US grand strategy under Obama We are presented, then, with three models of international change: power transition, hegemonic transition, and systemic transition. The first two relate to the structure of the system: one

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where American leadership is based on material dominance; the other where leadership derives from the United States’ ability to organize consent. The third model describes how change that is exogenous to either the units or structure can alter the conditions under which they operate. Systemic transition may therefore alter the content of material dominance (under power transition) or the general conditions of acquiescence (under hegemonic transition). Much of the literature on emerging powers and American leadership, particularly that coming out of the United States itself, is driven by the assumptions of power transition theory and neorealist understandings of power, system, and structure. These accounts remain rooted in a Cold War understanding of the nature of international politics, and of what it takes to be a successful international actor, wedded to Kennedy’s world where naval power is preeminent, and where GDP buys military assets which in turn generate political power. This political power may not literally involve gunboat diplomacy, but it does give the United States the structural wherewithal to exert bilateral pressure and maintain its embedded and disproportionate advantage in multilateral forums. Even where soft power or structural power arguments are made in mitigation of a purely material approach, they tend to serve as caveats or qualifications to the core logic of power as resources rather than as seeking to deny it. Indeed, the key liberal arguments rebutting American decline rest on the idea that the liberal order in which the United States invested its immediate post-war preponderance is one with which rising powers are basically satisfied. This type of thinking about the means to success in world politics permeates thinking surrounding the potential grand strategic responses to international change. The Obama administration’s strategic assessment, and its foreign policy ‘rebalancing’ that has resulted, is a case in point. The administration essentially diagnosed two core problems of American hegemony: a resource base limited by economic malaise and a lack of legitimacy stemming from the Bush administration’s rhetoric and certain policies. So while the 2010 National Security Strategy paid lip-service to systemic change – speaking of a ‘fluidity within the international system’ created by the ‘unprecedented’ acceleration of the ‘free flow of information, people, goods and services’ – its central analysis is that in order to achieve its stated aim of renewing American leadership, the United States needs to rebuild its capacities. These capacities are conceived primarily in terms of economic strength, with Obama explicitly seeking to repudiate the Bush years – and differentiate his approach from his 2012 opponent – by focusing on ‘making sure that we’re doing nation building here at home’. The administration also understood that American hegemony had been undermined by the perception of hard unilateralism, leading to a need to renew the diplomatic capacities necessary to manufacture legitimacy and organize consent. Thus the administration’s early fascination with ‘smart power’ strategies that sought to be sensitive to particular contexts and perceptions. The administration’s first steps in foreign policy sought to repudiate the legacy of the previous administration. Symbolic ‘resets’ across the spectrum of American foreign relations were a deliberate signal to the world that Obama was the very opposite of his predecessor. A central focus was the (admittedly, futile4) attempt to change views of the US in the Middle East, with Obama’s speech in Cairo, the administration’s hostility towards Israeli settlements, and the initial outreach to Iran all made with an eye on perceptions of the United States in the Muslim world. Substantive changes in this regard have included the repudiation of torture; the single-minded emphasis on drawing down American commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the reluctance to showcase the use of American military power in Libya and Syria. More generally, the administration’s tilt towards multilateralism,

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including chairing a meeting of the UN Security Council and paying some of its outstanding dues to the organization, sought to address the concerns of Western allies and demonstrate that not only was Obama a new leader, but that he sought a new type of leadership. Yet there was little novel in the administration’s geographical ‘rebalancing’ of American foreign policy by means of its ‘Pivot to Asia’. Here was a classic power analysis. Since world economic growth is likely to be concentrated in East and South East Asia over the coming decades, America’s future, according to Kurt Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, ‘will be dominated utterly and fundamentally by developments in Asia’ (Lizza 2011). With reviving the US economy central both to the material basis of American hegemony and the administration’s domestic electoral prospects, from as early as the transition period in late-2008, when the Bush administration allowed the Obama team exceptional levels of access and input in dealing with the crisis, the administration sought above all else to coordinate its response to the crisis with China. The necessity of such coordination led to calls from the President of the World Bank and the Democratic Party’s strategic grandee for a ‘G2’ to exercise economic leadership. The financial crisis thus served to emphasize the importance of geoeconomics, and the centrality of the Chinese economy and the Asian region more generally, to global growth and the American economy. As the crisis subsided, the Obama administration moved to promote US trade, investment, and technology across Asia. This economic dimension of the pivot saw the United States re-engage substantively with ASEAN, successfully negotiate a free trade agreement with South Korea, and to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a trade and investment platform based around ‘WTO plus’ standards in areas such as intellectual property, environmental protection, and labour rights. The TPP therefore represented not merely an offer to regional states, but a challenge to China’s trade priorities. A structural response to China’s rising capacity has also been evident in the military security realm, as China’s military buildup was viewed as requiring an American response in kind. The United States has therefore moved to reassure regional allies of the United States’ security guarantees and to deter any Chinese bid for regional dominance. China’s growing strategic assertiveness within its own region, particularly over South China Sea issues in 2010, reinforced the thinking behind the pivot. Regional states, each with their own particular historic, cultural, or geographic reasons to be wary of China’s rise, have to a large extent welcomed the United States return to the region as a security hedge against Chinese aspirations. The security dimension of the pivot has attracted perhaps more attention than the shifts in American deployments warrant. Just 2500 marines are being rotated to Darwin, Australia, and the bulk of the United States’ rebalancing is little more than a reinforcement of mil-mil cooperation with a number of South East Asian partners, including South Korea and the Philippines. Still, what the pivot signals is as significant as what it actually does. Few expect the United States to actually have to use the countermeasures it is currently developing in response to China’s Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2AD) strategy, or to have to fully operationalize the Pentagon’s new ‘Air-Sea Battle’ strategic concept, designed to strengthen extended deterrence in the region. But that the United States has signalled its determination to remain the regional hegemon has great meaning in capitals across the Asia Pacific. Perhaps most importantly, the Obama administration is seeking to turn its regional allies in Asia into active security providers, with the most significant implications for the future role of Japan. In this sense the security and economic aspects of the pivot reflect a deeper geopolitical purpose: to not only rebalance the United States’ geographic focus, but also to

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redefine the terms of America’s international leadership, to deny that the United States can and should act as the sole guarantor of international prosperity and security. Behind the rhetoric of a complex and interconnected world where global problems need global solutions is a more prosaic concern about the overextension of American power. In the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), and the NSS, the administration emphasized the role of allies in burden-sharing, and of requiring more of regional partners. China’s rise has generated incentives for a number of Asian states to respond to that need, but in Europe American hegemony remains assumed rather than actively solicited. Secretary Gates, speaking at NATO, expressed his exasperation in warning of the dangers of a ‘two-tier alliance’ between those ‘willing and able to pay the price and bear the burdens of alliance commitments, and those who enjoy the benefits of NATO membership… but don’t want to share the risks and the costs’ (Gates 2011). The nature of the intervention in Libya – characterized, rather impolitically, by an administration official as ‘leading from behind’ – is intended as an admittedly imperfect model for future operations, with the United States playing a secondary role as regional allies take the lead. In this sense, the United States is seeking to divest itself of some of its hegemonic commitments and to transfer particular duties to partners and allies, while retaining overall management of the terms of those responsibilities, and a veto over their fulfilment. Whether this reconceptualization of American hegemony can be made to pass is uncertain, since it will require allies to contribute to rather than bandwagon on American leadership, and it is far from clear that they will be prepared to do so. Indeed, they make prefer to seek new forms of leadership. Among these shifts in American strategy lies a broader continuity: the Obama administration is seeking to restore American hegemony rather than renew it. American leadership remains fundamentally orientated around a structural understanding of the world based around interstate arrangements, alliance structures, and on military and economic capabilities, with little more than rhetorical nod towards notions of broader legitimacy. Such a conception served the United States well throughout the Cold War, and arguably continues to do so, as Southeast Asian states’ general preference for America’s ‘pivot’ over China’s ‘peaceful rise’ makes clear. A restored American hegemony thus seeks to trade on America’s structural advantages and offer a capacity for leadership in both material and ideological terms that no emerging power can hope to match. Buttressing this material structuring of international politics is the reality that American hegemony consists of more than simply the capabilities and reach of the US military, the character and scope of American diplomacy, or the structural assets of the dollar’s reserve currency status. American hegemony also resides in the United States’ dominance of global higher education, in Los Angeles’ movies and pop music, in Silicon Valley’s tech companies, and in Wall Street’s hedge funds. And it resides, for all the failures of Washington’s neoliberal economic policies, in the global perception that the United States remains a land of opportunity, a belief reflected in America’s longstanding status as the world’s top migrant destination. Yet despite the United States’ broad base of hegemonic assets, questions remain surrounding the continued applicability of any elite-driven, diplomatic, geoeconomic, and militarystrategic model of hegemony in a world in which the dominance of states is increasingly unclear. Many of the more durable indicators of American hegemony are essentially privatized, existing in the aggregated decisions of individuals rather than being in the command of the US government. Indeed, worldwide, individuals’ willingness to defer to governments and large organizations has been in decline since the 1960s, a trend that is accelerating with

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increasing access to free and open information. While American nuclear and conventional security guarantees continue to provide the backbone of US hegemony in Asia, the credibility of those guarantees may increasingly be called into question by the ongoing normative repudiation of interstate war as a legitimate tool of statecraft. Thus whether the US government can continue to command followership in a world of transnational capital, global communications, and the decreasing utility of military power remains an open question. What is clear is that no other single state offers a model of leadership that can command the kind of broad-based, sub-, supra-, and trans-state legitimacy that would be required to organize consent in such a world. What is no longer obvious is that the United States itself can offer such a model.

Notes 1 All data from the World Bank, annual percentage growth rate of GDP at market prices. 2 All data from SIPRI Military Expenditures Database, at constant 2010 prices and exchange rates. 3 China, for example, has explicitly sought to enhance its soft power, including through the setting up of 353 Confucius Institutes in 104 countries, to, in Hu Jintao’s words, ‘enhance culture as part of the soft power of our country’ (Roasa 2012). 4 Although Obama’s favourability ratings in the Middle East received a small ‘bounce’ after the Cairo speech, in general Muslim perceptions of the United States have not improved significantly from where they were under George W. Bush and earlier. Obama’s ‘targeted killing’ of terrorist suspects has become a particular bone of contention.

Further reading Ian Clarke, Hegemony in International Society (Oxford University Press, 2011).

References Bremmer, I. (2010) The End of the Free Market : Who Wins the War between States and Corporations?, New York, NY: Portfolio. Bremmer, I. (2012) Every Nation for Itself : Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World, New York, NY: Portfolio/Penguin. Buzan, B. (2008) ‘A leader without followers? The United States in world politics after Bush,’ International Politics, 45: 554–70. Carr, E.H. (1942) Conditions of the Peace. London: Macmillan. Cox, R.W. and Sinclair, T.J. (1996) Approaches to World Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gates, R.M. (2011) ‘The security and defense agenda (future of NATO),’ speech to NATO in Brussels, Belgium. Halper, S.A. (2010) The Beijing Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian Model will Dominate the Twenty-First Century, New York, NY: Basic Books. Jacques, M. (2009) When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order, New York, NY: Penguin Press. Kupchan, C., Davidson, J., and Sucharov, M. (2001) Power in Transition: The Peaceful Change of International Order, Tokyo and New York, NY: United Nations University Press. Layne, C. (2012) ‘This time it’s real: the end of unipolarity and the Pax Americana,’ International Studies Quarterly, 56: 203–13. Lizza, R. (2011) ‘The consequentialist: how the Arab spring remade Obama’s foreign policy,’ The New Yorker.

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Mahbubani, K. (2008) ‘Welcome to the Asian century,’ Current History, 107: 195–200. Mann, M. (2004) ‘The first failed empire of the 21st century,’ Review of International Studies, 30 (4): 631–53. Ramo, J.C. (2004) The Beijing Consensus, The Foreign Policy Centre. Roasa, D. (2012) ‘China’s soft power surge,’ Foreign Policy, November 18 (available online at http:// www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/18/chinas_soft_power_surge). Wilson, D. and Purushothaman, R. (2003) Dreaming with Brics: The Path to 2050, New York, NY: Goldman Sachs. Zakaria, F. (2008) The Post-American World, New York, NY: W.W. Norton.

Part 2

Non-state actors

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Parties, polarization, and US foreign policy Steven Hurst

For a long time, political scientists did not regard foreign policy and national security as issues where parties and partisan differences had any significant impact. A survey of the contents pages of leading texts on the making of US foreign policy would reveal no chapter on ‘Parties and foreign policy’. Nor was this absence due to an oversight, being rather a logical response to the fact that, since 1945, foreign policy had been characterized, by and large, by bipartisan consensus. That consensus in turn led to the marginalization of the institution – Congress – in which American political parties are at their most powerful, with both parties opting to defer to the presidency in the implementation of the policy on which they were agreed. Today the above characterization no longer holds. Foreign policy has become an arena of partisan conflict almost as intense as that which marks domestic policy and congressional deference to presidential leadership in foreign affairs the exception rather than the norm. This chapter begins by explaining how this change came about, first outlining the bipartisan ‘Cold War consensus’ and then examining its collapse as partisan polarization accelerated from the early 1970s onwards. It demonstrates how the parties have become increasingly divided in their foreign policy preferences and how this has led to a collapse in bipartisan support for presidents in Congress. The second half of the chapter then explores the implications of polarization for the making and content of US foreign policy and its effects on the foreign policy of Barack Obama.

The Cold War consensus The discounting of parties and partisanship as significant factors in the making of US foreign policy stems from the emergence of the ‘Cold War consensus’ after 1945. In the first half of the twentieth century bipartisanship in foreign policy had been the exception rather than the rule but this situation was transformed after the Second World War (Kupchan and Trubowitz 2007: 12): ‘For two decades, spanning the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations… whatever differences divided the American public on foreign policy issues rarely fell along a cleavage defined by partisan loyalties’(Holsti 1996: 133). And what was true of the public was also true of elected politicians. Studies showed that differences between Republican and Democratic elites on foreign policy were small, and much smaller, than those on domestic policy (McClosky et al. 1960). A comparison of the two parties’ presidential platforms from 1944 to 1964 found that 47 per cent of the foreign policy planks were essentially the same and only six per cent in conflict. On defence policy the analysis concluded that 73 per cent of the two parties’ commitments were the same (Pomper 1965: 194). Bipartisanship was facilitated by the fact that both parties were broad, internally contradictory, and overlapping coalitions. Both parties were divided into two halves which

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disagreed on many important issues; the Democrats made up of Northern liberals and conservative Southerners and the Republicans of conservative Westerners and a North-Eastern liberal wing. With large numbers (often a majority) of members being ‘overlapping’ (i.e. Northern Republicans who were more liberal than the most conservative Democrat and Southern Democrats who were more conservative than the most liberal Republican) crossparty coalitions were as common as votes which saw Congress divide along party lines (Voteview.com 2012a). The philosophy that the bipartisan cross-party coalitions lined up behind was ‘liberal internationalism’. This represented a compromise between two different approaches to international engagement, one based on more cooperative/consensual elements (support for international institutions, foreign assistance, and free trade) and the other based on more coercive means (defence spending, military superiority, and the use of force) (Kupchan and Trubowitz 2007; Busby and Morton 2012). The nature of the compromise involved can be understood in terms of Eugene Wittkopf’s typology of attitudes toward US foreign policy. Wittkopf (1986, 1990) observed that Americans differed not just terms of whether the United States should engage internationally (internationalism or isolationism) but also in terms of how it should engage: cooperative internationalists emphasized consensual forms of international engagement such as treaties, international organizations, and foreign aid while militant internationalists put their primary emphasis on coercive means, including the use of force. Using this distinction, Wittkopf produced a fourfold typology of foreign policy views: • • • •

Accommodationists: prefer consensual approaches to international engagement and dislike coercive measures. Internationalists: are prepared to employ both coercive and consensual means. Isolationists: are opposed to international engagement except in economic forms. Hardliners: prefer coercive measures and oppose consensual approaches.

The key to the Cold War consensus was that a majority of members of both parties were either internationalists or accommodationists and that the two groups were in agreement in enough areas of policy (non-coercive instruments, multilateral means, foreign assistance, free trade, and international institutions) to forge a durable coalition and one that represented a solid majority among both the public and political elites (Busby and Morton 2012: 110). Hardliners (the right-wing of the Republican Party), isolationists (an ever-shrinking minority on both right and left), and accommodationists who weren’t prepared to compromise on their opposition to coercive means (the left-wing of the Democratic Party) were marginalized. Between 1945 and the early 1970s, therefore, bipartisan consensus and cooperation became the norm in the making of US foreign policy. Meernik (1993) found bipartisan support for the position of the president on nearly 62 per cent of foreign policy votes between 1947 and 19721 while McCormick and Wittkopf (1990) found that the average level of bipartisan support for pre-Vietnam presidents (Truman to Kennedy) was 52 per cent in the House and 58 per cent in the Senate. Marshall and Prins (2002) found bipartisan agreement with the president’s position on 56 per cent of foreign and defence policy votes between 1953 and 1972.

The collapse of the Cold War consensus From the early 1970s onwards the bipartisan consensus that governed US foreign policy making has steadily, and by now more or less completely, eroded. Various factors have been

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cited to explain this development, including the divisive effects of the Vietnam War, the changing foreign policy issue agenda, and the end of the unifying effect of the Cold War, but the primary cause, and the one whose development parallels the collapse of consensus on foreign policy most closely, is partisan polarization. The American political parties have been polarizing since the early 1970s; Democrats have become more liberal and Republicans more conservative and this polarization has occurred both among party elites and among ordinary voters (Fleisher and Bond 2004; McCarty et al. 2006; Theriault 2008; Levendusky 2009; Abramowitz 2010; Jacobson 2010). There is some disagreement about the causes of polarization but two mutually reinforcing processes are generally held to be responsible, the first of which is the partisan realignment of the south. The Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s led increasing numbers of southern white conservatives to transfer their political allegiance to the Republican Party while the newly enfranchised African-Americans gave their votes to the Democrats. As a consequence, the Republican Party gained a new conservative, southern, white electorate while the remaining Democratic electorate in the South became more liberal (Black and Black 1987; Carmines and Stimson 1989; Jacobson 2000). The influx of southern white conservatives drove the Republican party to the right, with a new South-West conservative alliance marginalizing the previously dominant North-Eastern liberal wing. The increasing conservatism of the Republican Party then drove liberal Republican voters towards the Democrats, cementing the demise of liberal Republicanism. The Democrats, meanwhile, gained two new groups of liberal voters (Southern African-Americans and former liberal Republicans) while losing Southern white conservatives (Rae 1989; Trubowitz 1998; Stonecash et al. 2002; Jacobson 2004). In place of the internally divided and ideologically diffuse and overlapping parties of the 1950s and 1960s, therefore, there emerged two increasingly unified, ideologically homogenous, and polarized parties. The increasing ideological homogeneity of the two parties in turn facilitated changes in party strategy and party leadership behaviour that have reinforced the process of partisan polarization. With increasingly homogenous constituencies, members of each party have become readier to cede power to leaderships to drive through a legislative agenda which serves the interests of that constituency. The result is the development of ‘conditional party government’ in Congress, wherein party leaderships control the legislative agenda, a large majority of members of both parties vote as cohesive blocs on the vast majority of votes, and the minority of liberal/moderate Republicans and conservative/moderate Democrats are placed under great pressure to vote with the majority of their party, further increasing polarization (Aldrich and Rohde 2000). Partisan polarization can be measured in different ways, but all demonstrate the same thing: using the ideological distance between the parties as a measure, by early 2012 Congress was more polarized than at any time since the early 20th century. If we look instead at the number of ‘overlapping’ members of Congress we find that this group, a majority in most Cold War congresses, no longer existed in the 112th Congress (2011–13) (Voteview.com 2012a). Polarization can also be measured by the ‘partisan gap’ in approval ratings of presidential performance (i.e. the difference between the percentage of Democrats and Republicans who approve of the president’s policy). Using that measure we find that the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama are the most polarizing on record with the seven most polarized years of all coming since 2000 (Newman and Siegle 2010; Gallup 2012). In foreign policy terms, polarization can be seen in the increasing divide between the policy positions and preferences of the two parties at both a popular and an elite level and in

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the decline in bipartisan support for presidential policy positions in Congressional voting. Shapiro and Bloch-Elkon (2005) found that between 1998 and 2004 there was growing partisan divergence among elites on 27 per cent of questions asked in the Chicago Council on Global Affairs regular survey and convergence on only ten per cent. They also found greater partisan divergence than convergence among the public, though not to the same extent. These findings are confirmed by other analyses which indicate that partisan divergence on foreign policy questions has increased markedly since the early 1990s (Nincic 2008; Busby and Morton 2012: 128–9). In terms of actual policy positions and preferences, this process of partisan divergence and polarization manifests itself in the form of a hollowing out of support for liberal internationalism as Democrats move toward a more purely accommodationist position and Republicans increasingly fall into the hardline camp. This is indicated by the increasingly large gaps between Republican and Democratic attitudes toward coercive and consensual foreign policy instruments. Both Pew and Gallup regularly ask questions relating to the utility of military power or diplomacy to secure peace and these reveal an increasing gap between Republicans’ greater inclination toward the former and Democrats’ preference for the latter (Nincic and Datta 2007: 242–4). In the 2004 Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey a mere 24 per cent of Democratic elites agreed that ‘maintaining superior military power’ was a very important foreign policy goal in comparison to 76 per cent of Republicans (Shapiro and Bloch-Elkon 2005: Figure 1). When it comes to international institutions there is an equally large divide: the 2010 Chicago Council survey found that while 62 per cent of Democrats agreed that the United States should make decisions within the United Nations even if this sometimes meant going along with policies that are not America’s first choice, only 35 per cent of Republicans agreed (Chicago Council on Global Affairs 2010). At a more general level, while support among Democrats for consensual or ‘soft power’ instruments of foreign policy has been rising steadily, that of Republicans has been heading in the opposite direction. There are also some very big divides on specific policy issues including participation in the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the need to take action to deal with climate change. While the divisions between ordinary Democrats and Republicans are not as deep as those between the elites, they are nevertheless substantial and growing (Shapiro and Bloch-Elkon 2005; Busby and Morton 2012). The growing partisan divide over foreign policy indicated by the survey data is replicated in the party platforms. In place of the agreement found in platforms during the 1950s and 1960s there is now very little overlap indeed. A comparison of the 2012 party platforms shows that: •

•

•

The first sentence of the Republican platform was ‘we are the party of peace through strength’ followed by a condemnation of President Obama for weakening the US military and a pledge to increase defence spending. In contrast, defence spending was the last item in the Democratic platform and emphasis was placed on the need to continue cutting budgets and the fact that the use of force should be a last resort. The Republican platform described Russia and China as strategic ‘competitors’ while the Democratic platform emphasized the need for increased cooperation with those countries. The Republican platform emphasized that the United States must reserve the right to act unilaterally while the Democratic platform stressed that the main threats facing the country could only be dealt with successfully through multilateral action.

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The Republican platform had nothing but criticism for the United Nations while the Democrats, though calling for reform, stressed its importance to the success of American foreign policy. Under the heading of ‘human rights’ the only right mentioned in the Republican platform was religious freedom. The Democrats emphasized women’s rights and gay rights. The Democratic platform had sections on the need to combat HIV/Aids and infectious diseases, the threat posed by climate change, and the need to respond to humanitarian crises, none of which subjects appeared in the Republican platform (Democratic Party 2012; Republican Party 2012).

Finally, and as one would expect, the growing partisan divide over foreign policy is reflected in patterns of voting in Congress. Many scholars have examined these patterns and, without exception, they have found that bipartisan support for presidential foreign policy initiatives went into decline from the early 1970s onwards. McCormick and Wittkopf’s (1990) analysis showed a drop in the average level of bipartisan support from 52 per cent in the House and 58 per cent in the Senate for pre-Vietnam presidents (Truman to Kennedy) to 32 per cent and 50 per cent respectively for post-Vietnam presidents (Johnson to Reagan). More recent studies have replicated this result and demonstrated that the decline in bipartisanship has continued. Looking at votes up to the end of 1998, Marshall and Prins (2002: 204) found a steady decline in bipartisan support in the House with the low point being reached in Clinton’s second term when he received bipartisan support on just 10.8 per cent of foreign policy votes At the same time, the proportion of times when a majority of the opposition party voted against the president (partisan opposition) rose steadily, reaching over 50 per cent during the Carter presidency and remaining there. Bringing the analysis into the twenty-first century, we find that after a brief moment of partisan unity in the aftermath of 9/11, the George W. Bush administration saw the divide grow ever wider. In 2005–6 Bush had 25 per cent bipartisan support and the partisan gaps of 48 per cent in the House and 32 per cent in the Senate were the worst since Vietnam (McCormick 2010: 487–8).

Implications for American foreign policy It is clear that partisan polarization has become a feature of US foreign policy – and that the Cold War prescription that politics should ‘stop at the water’s edge’ no longer holds. What is less clear, however, is what the concrete implications of this are for the making of US foreign policy, though two possible consequences of partisan polarization have been suggested: •

•

American foreign policy will become characterized less by continuity and more by deep swings between accommodationist and hardline policies as Democrats and Republicans alternate in power (Kupchan and Trubowitz 2007; Nincic and Datta 2007). Increased resistance to presidential foreign policy initiatives from the partisan opposition in Congress will mean that presidential dominance of foreign policy will decline (Fleisher et al. 2000).

However, an examination of the last two administrations, governing under conditions of extreme partisan polarization, suggests that the reality is rather more complicated than this. While the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration certainly seemed to confirm

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the impact of polarization in its systematic rejection of the consensual dimension of foreign policy in favour of hardline instruments (Daalder and Lindsay 2003; Halper and Clarke 2004) the presidency of Barack Obama has not seen the swing back toward accommodationist policies that the polarization hypothesis implies should have occurred; one observer going so far as to state that ‘Obama’s moves to distance the United States from the unilateralism of the Bush years have so far amounted to little more than a ripple’ (Skidmore 2012: 44). The picture is similarly contradictory when it comes to presidential dominance of foreign policy. While Obama has frequently struggled to assert his policy preferences, George W. Bush had success rates on foreign policy votes in Congress that were comparable to those of presidents of the 1950s and 1960s and much better than those of his recent predecessors (McCormick 2010: 286, 289). What this evidence suggests is that the impact of partisan polarization on US foreign policy-making is far from straightforward and that it is qualified by the impact of intervening variables, some of which serve to minimize the effects of polarization and some of which enhance them. The remainder of this chapter will seek to identify the main intervening variables and their effects in order to draw some more precise conclusions about the impact of partisan polarization on US foreign policy. Party differences The simplest explanation for Obama’s failure to reverse his predecessor’s foreign policy is that he did not want to do so and that his failure to conform to the dominant preferences of his party reflects the fact that he does not wholly share those preferences. This view certainly accords with that of many Democrats disillusioned by Obama’s first term in office and it is confirmed by Voteview.com’s (2012d) analysis of post-war presidents up to and including Obama which finds that Democratic presidents, unlike the party as a whole, have not become consistently more liberal and that Obama is actually more centrist than Bill Clinton. Significantly, however, the same is not true of Republican presidents, where there is a clear trend toward increased conservatism. What is thus indicated is that partisan polarization has had a differential impact on the Democratic and Republican Parties, with the latter having become more homogenously conservative than Democrats are liberal. Polling data confirm this; in 2012 68 per cent of Republicans defined themselves as conservatives, whereas only 38 per cent of Democrats defined themselves as liberals, with the same number defining themselves as moderates and 20 per cent saying they were conservatives (Pew 2012). The Republican Party in Congress is similarly more unified and more uniformly conservative than the Democratic Party is liberal (Voteview 2012b, 2012c). The implication of this is that Democratic presidents are likely to come from a wider range of points along the ideological spectrum than their Republican counterparts and that the relative diversity of their party will give them greater freedom of manoeuvre among policy positions than the latter. This fact was clearly demonstrated by the passage of trade agreements with Colombia, Peru, and South Korea in 2011. Having been blocked by Congressional Democrats during the presidency of George W. Bush because of their lack of labour and environmental protections, their passage was secured by Obama’s exploitation of the ideological diversity within his party. He reopened negotiations in order to incorporate provisions on labour rights and the environment that were sufficient to appease conservative and centrist Democrats and then secured passage of the revised agreements by appealing to Republicans to support what remained, fundamentally, agreements which reduced barriers to trade (Applebaum and Steinhauer 2011). Obama’s decision to support a ‘surge’ of US

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troops in Afghanistan and his use of drone strikes in that country and inside Pakistan are other examples where Obama was out of line with the preferences of a significant part of his party. The fact that we have not seen a dramatic shift in US foreign policy under Obama is thus partially explained by the difference between the two parties. The homogenous conservatism of the contemporary Republican Party minimizes the ideological autonomy of presidents from that party. The relative ideological diversity of the Democrats, in contrast, means that Democrat presidents are more likely to be centrist and that they will have more flexibility in terms of the policy position they can take without alienating their own party. Divided government Nevertheless, while Barack Obama does not share all of his party’s dominant preferences he does share most of them. It is not therefore plausible to explain his failure to conform to them simply as matter of choice. In part at least, they were not enacted because he was prevented from enacting them by the effects of a second intervening variable; divided government.2 Divided government’s effect on the degree of variance in US foreign policy is in turn a product of its impact on the balance of power in executive–legislative relations. George W. Bush’s previously noted high success rates in Congress coincided with a period of unified Republican government, reflecting the fact that partisanship has now become so strong that ‘members of the majority party [in Congress]… act as field lieutenants in the president’s army rather than as members of an independent branch of government’ (Ornstein and Mann 2006). Once the Democrats took back Congress in November 2006 his legislative success rates fell off a cliff. Obama’s presidency has conformed to the same pattern. With a unified Democratic Congress he achieved the highest legislative success rate of any president since Congressional Quarterly began measuring (Binder 2010). Since the Republicans took control of the House in November 2010, however, he has found congressional support extremely hard to come by. In terms of a presidential dominance of foreign policy, therefore, partisan polarization alone does not explain outcomes but partisan polarization plus divided government is a better predictor. Presidents at the head of unified governments are actually empowered by polarization while those facing divided government find polarization further exacerbating the difficulties confronting minority presidents. That in turn explains why Obama was prevented from implementing policies more in line with the preferences of Democratic activists, as an analysis of changes in the US foreign affairs budget during his first term demonstrates. On coming to office Obama promised to repair relations with the United Nations and place greater emphasis on diplomacy and other tools of ‘soft power’, in line with the accommodationist preferences of his party. In his fiscal year (FY) 2010 budget Obama accordingly asked for and managed to secure a $6 billion increase in funding for the Department of State and international affairs programmes (US Office of Management and Budget 2010). Following Republican gains in the fall 2010 Congressional elections, however, Obama’s efforts to increase the foreign affairs budget hit a brick wall. The final versions of the FY 2011 and FY 2012 budgets cut $6.5 billion and $6 billion respectively from Obama’s requests, proportionately by far the biggest cuts made in either budget.3 Republican control of the House in the 112th Congress thus put an end to Obama’s efforts to increase funding for the consensual tools of foreign policy (US Office of Management and Budget 2012, 2013). Even when the opposition party does not control a chamber of Congress, the American political system’s characteristic of empowering minorities can frustrate presidential

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objectives, a fact demonstrated by the fact that in his first term Obama secured ratification of only nine treaties (compared to the 163 ratified in George W. Bush’s two terms). Faced with unremitting opposition from the Republican right to any alleged surrender of American sovereignty, he decided not to submit for ratification a number of treaties which the United States has signed, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, the Kyoto Convention on Climate Change, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. His wisdom in not doing so was confirmed by the fate of two treaties he did submit for ratification: the Law of the Sea Treaty did not even get out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee while the UN Convention on the Rights of the Disabled Person made it to the floor of the Senate only to be killed off by the votes of thirty-eight Republican senators.4 Obama’s, and most Democrats’, desire to reassert the importance of multilateralism was thus stymied by Republican opposition. The impact of divided government thus qualifies the effects of partisan polarization: unified government enhances presidential power, contradicting the hypothesis that polarization weakens presidents but making deeper swings in the direction of foreign policy more likely. Divided government reverses that pattern, minimizing swings in policy direction but doing so by weakening the president vis-à-vis Congress. High v. low policy The impact of polarization is further qualified, and complicated, by a final variable, namely the type of policy involved. It has long been accepted that presidents have enjoyed a greater degree of dominance in areas of high policy (diplomacy, defence, and, above all, the use of force) than they have in those areas generally regarded as low policy (trade, aid, appropriations). This advantage reflects both inherent institutional advantages and differing degrees of congressional interest in the two types of issue. The addition of partisan polarization to the mix appears to exacerbate that divide. Thus, when it comes to the use of force, partisan polarization appears to have had little impact on presidential dominance of policy-making. While we find that opposition parties in Congress have become much less supportive of presidential uses of force, that opposition has generally been ineffectual. Republicans in Congress opposed the deployment of US forces to implement the Dayton Accords, but President Clinton deployed them anyway. The bombing of Kosovo in 1999 led to a blizzard of Republican efforts to restrict Clinton’s actions, none of which ultimately came to anything. When the Democrats gained control of Congress after the 2006 elections they, in turn, sought to restrict George W. Bush’s war powers, with equally little effect. In 2007 the Democrats introduced legislation to repeal the Iraq Resolution of 2002 but it failed to pass. They then made various efforts to cut off funding for Iraq and to set a date for withdrawal, but only one measure passed and it was vetoed by Bush (McCormick 2010: 323–4). Significantly, and as the above examples indicate, the irrelevance of partisan polarization to the executive–legislative balance of power in relation to the use of force holds good regardless of whether government is united or divided, a fact confirmed by the Obama administration’s conduct in relation to the bombing of Libya in 2011. Having worked carefully to secure a UN Security Council Resolution (1973) and the support of the Arab League, the administration simply informed Congress that military operations had commenced without making any effort to seek that body’s authorization, claiming that the operations did not amount to ‘war’ or even, when the ninety-day period that the War Powers Resolution allows presidents to act unilaterally ran out, to ‘hostilities’ (Fisher 2012). So high-handed and

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contemptuous was the administration’s behaviour that it angered even members of its own party, but the House and Senate Republicans were nevertheless incapable of exploiting that fact to mount any effective opposition to Obama’s actions. When it comes to ‘low’ policy, however, the picture is quite different. Marshall and Prins (2002: 207) compared presidential success rates in Congress on trade and economic issues and other foreign policy issues between 1953 and 1998. Their results showed that pre-1974 presidents were successful on 77.4 per cent of trade and economic issues and on 80.7 per cent of votes on other foreign policy issues. The figures for post-1974 presidents were 38.7 per cent and 59.6 per cent respectively. While there was thus an overall reduction in success rates in line with the increase in partisan polarization, the decline was much more marked in the area of trade and economics (50 per cent) than in relation to other foreign policy issues (25 per cent). The impact of this increased opposition to presidents in low policy areas is illustrated by the history of Presidential Fast-Track Authority (FTA). FTA was created by Congress in 1974 to give the president the power to negotiate trade treaties which Congress then had to vote on without amendments or use of the filibuster. FTA was renewed in 1980 and again in 1988 but, as partisan polarization increased markedly in the 1990s, the opposition of the Republican majority in Congress led to it lapsing. George W. Bush was able to use his leadership of a unified government to have FTA restored in 2002 but after the Democrats regained control of Congress in 2006 FTA was not renewed. During the 2002–6 period of unified government Bush negotiated, and Congress approved, eleven bilateral agreements and regional trade pacts. Once the Democrats took control of Congress, however, Bush was no longer able to ignore their concerns. In order to secure passage of agreements signed but not yet ratified he was forced to rewrite them to strengthen labour and environmental regulations, and even after doing that, agreements with Panama, Colombia, and South Korea were blocked in Congress (Chorev 2009). Partisan polarization has thus exacerbated the pre-existing divide between high and low policy. Executive dominance in relation to matters of war and peace has been unaffected by deepening polarization whereas presidential weakness in relation to low policy has increased.

Conclusion Partisan polarization over US foreign policy is a reality. The two main parties have drifted apart in their policy preferences, bipartisan support for presidential foreign policy initiatives is now the exception rather than the norm, and presidents lose a higher proportion of congressional votes on foreign policy issues than they did during the period of the Cold War consensus. However, the overall effect of polarization is qualified by a number of intervening variables to produce a complex set of effects: the divided government variable exaggerates the effects of polarization. It makes a majority president more akin to a British prime minister leading a unified party government than to Richard Neustadt’s relatively weak figure engaged in constant negotiation with a competing institution. Minority presidents facing divided government, in contrast, find that partisan polarization has only added to their difficulties, though only in the area of low policy. When it comes to the use of force, neither divided government nor partisan polarization appears to have undermined presidents’ ability to dominate policy. Differences between the two parties are also an important intervening variable. The relatively greater ideological extremism and homogeneity of the Republican Party means that, as was seen in the administration of George W. Bush, the effects of polarization are translated

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into foreign policy actions. The greater ideological diversity of the Democrats, in contrast, allows presidents of that party a significantly greater degree of ideological leeway, as Barack Obama has demonstrated. Overall, therefore, rather than simply causing the content of US foreign policy to swing between extremes and the president to lose dominance of the policy-making process, partisan polarization has mixed effects. It has the greatest impact on the content of US foreign policy under a unified Republican government (with policy swinging toward hardline positions) and on the policy-making process in low policy areas under divided government (when presidents find it increasingly difficult to secure support for their preferred policy from Congress). In contrast, polarization’s impact on the policy-making process is minimal in areas of high policy (where presidential dominance remains unaffected) and its impact on the content of policy is limited by the greater ideological diversity of the Democratic Party (which gives Democrat presidents greater autonomy).

Notes 1 Bipartisan is defined here and in most such statistical analyses as support from a majority of both parties. 2 Divided government is defined as a situation in which the presidency is held by a representative of one party and one or both chambers of Congress by a different party. 3 The FY 2011 budget should have been passed in 2010, when Obama was still a majority president, but delays meant that it was not signed into law until April 2011. 4 Treaties require ratification by a two-thirds vote of the Senate.

References Abramowitz, Alan I. (2010) The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Aldrich, J.H. and David W. Rohde (2000) ‘The consequences of party organization in the House: the role of majority and minority parties in conditional party government’, in R. Fleisher and J.R. Bond (eds) Polarized Politics: Congress and the President in a Partisan Era, Washington, DC: CQ Press: 31–72. Applebaum, Binyamin and Jennifer Steinhauer (2011) ‘Congress ends 5-year standoff on trade deals in rare accord’, The New York Times, 12 October (available online at http://www.nytimes. com/2011/10/13/business/trade-bills-near-final-chapter.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) (accessed 19 December 2012). Binder, Sarah A. (2010) ‘President Obama’s partisan support in Congress’, Brookings: Upfront, 13 January (available online at http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2010/01/13-obamacongress-binder) (accessed 10 October 2012). Black, Earle and Merle Black (1987) Politics and Society in the South, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Busby, Joshua W. and Jonathan Morton (2012) ‘Republican elites and foreign policy attitudes’, Political Science Quarterly, 127 (1): 105–42. Carmines, Edward G. and Stimson, James A. (1989) Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Chicago Council on Global Affairs (2010) ‘Constrained internationalism: adapting to new realities: results of a 2010 national survey of public opinion’, September (available online at http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/UserFiles/File/POS_Topline%20Reports/POS%202010/ Global%20Views%202010.pdf) (accessed 12 December 2012). Chorev, Nitsan (2009) ‘International trade policy under George W. Bush’, in Andrew Wroe and Jon Herbert (eds) Assessing the George W. Bush Presidency: A Tale of Two Terms, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 129–48.

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Daalder, Ivo H. and James M. Lindsay (2003) America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Democratic Party (2012) ‘Moving America forward: 2012 Democratic Party platform’ (available online at http://assets.dstatic.org/dnc-platform/2012-National-Platform.pdf) (accessed 10 November 2012). Fisher, Louis (2012) ‘Military operations in Libya. No war? No hostilities?’, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 42 (1): 176–89. Fleisher, Richard and John R. Bond (eds) (2000) Polarized Politics: Congress and the President in a Partisan Era, Washington, DC: CQ Press. Fleisher, Richard, Jon R. Bond, Glen S. Krutz, and Stephen Hanna (2000) ‘The demise of the two presidencies’, American Politics Quarterly, 28 (1): 3–25. Gallup (2012) ‘Obama ratings historically polarized’, 27 January (available online at http://www. gallup.com/poll/152222/obama-ratings-historically-polarized.aspx) (accessed 14 December 2012). Halper, Stefan and Jonathan Clarke (2004) America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holsti, Ole R. (1996) Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Jacobson, Gary C. (2000) ‘Party polarization in national politics: the electoral connection’, in Richard Fleisher and John R. Bond (eds) Polarized Politics: Congress and the President in a Partisan Era, Washington, DC: CQ Press: 9–30. Jacobson, Gary C. (2010) A Divider, Not a Uniter: George W. Bush and the American People, New York, NY: Pearson Longman. Kupchan, Charles A. and Peter L. Trubowitz (2007) ‘Dead center: the demise of liberal internationalism’, International Security, 32 (2): 7–44. Levendusky, Matthew (2009) The Partisan Sort: How Liberals Became Democrats and Conservatives Became Republicans, Chicago. IL: University of Chicago Press. Marshall, Bryan C. and Brandon C. Prins (2002) ‘The pendulum of congressional power: agenda change, partisanship and the demise of the post-World War Two foreign policy consensus’, Congress and the Presidency, 29 (2): 195–212. Mayhew, David (1991) Divided we Govern, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. McCarty, Nolan, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal (2006) Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. McClosky, Herbert, Paul J. Hoffman, and Rosemary O’Hara (1960) ‘Issue conflict and consensus among party leaders and followers’, American Political Science Review, 14 (June): 408–27. McCormick, James M. (2010) American Foreign Policy and Process (5th edn), Boston, MA: Wadsworth. Meernik, James (1993) ‘Presidential support in Congress: conflict and consensus on foreign and defense policy’, Journal of Politics, 55 (3): 569–87. Newman, Brian and Emerson Siegle (2010) ‘The polarized presidency: depth and breadth of public partisanship’, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 40 (2): 342–63. Nincic, Miroslav (2008) ‘External affairs and the electoral connection’, in Eugene R. Wittkopf and James M. McCormick (eds), The Domestic Sources of American Foreign Policy (5th edn), Rowman & Littlefield: 125–40. Nincic, Miroslav and Monti Naryan Datta (2007) ‘Of paradise, power and pachyderms’, Political Science Quarterly, 122 (2): 239–56. Ornstein, Norman J. and Mann, Thomas E. (2006) ‘When Congress checks out’, Foreign Affairs, 85 (6): 67–82. Pew Research Center (2012) ‘Partisan polarization surges in Bush, Obama years trends in American values: 1987–2012’, 4 June (available online at http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/04/partisanpolarization-surges-in-bush-obama-years/) (accessed 25 October 2012). Pomper, Gerald (1965) Elections in America: Control and Influence in Democratic Politics, New York, NY: Dodd, Mead & Co.

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Republican Party (2012) ‘Republican platform: we believe in America’ (available online at http:// www.gop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/2012GOPPlatform.pdf) (accessed 12 November 2012). Shapiro, Robert and Yaeli Bloch-Elkon (2005) ‘Partisan conflict, public opinion, and US foreign policy’, paper presented at the Inequality and Social Policy Seminar, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 12 December (available online at http://www. hks.harvard.edu/inequality/Seminar/Papers/Shapiro05.pdf) (accessed 25 October 2012). Skidmore, David (2012) ‘The Obama presidency and US foreign policy: where’s the multilateralism?’, International Studies Perspectives, 13 (1): 43–64. Theriault, Sean M. (2008) Party Polarization in Congress, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. US Office of Management and Budget (2010) ‘Budget of the United States Government, fiscal year 2011, Department of State and other international programs’ (available online at http://www.gpo. gov/fdsys/pkg/BUDGET-2011-BUD/pdf/BUDGET-2011-BUD-17.pdf) (accessed 20 December 2012). US Office of Management and Budget (2012) ‘Budget of the United States Government, fiscal year 2012, Department of State and other international programs’ (available online at http://www.gpo. gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=BUDGET-2012-BUD) (accessed 20 December 2012). US Office of Management and Budget (2013) ‘Budget of the United States Government, fiscal year 2013, Department of State and other international programs’ (available online at http://www.gpo. gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=BUDGET-2013-BUD (accessed 20 December 2012). Voteview.com (2012a) ‘An update on political polarization (through 2011)’, 30 January (available online at http://voteview.com/blog/?p=284) (accessed 12 December 2012). Voteview.com (2012b) ‘The 113th Senate’, 8 November (available online at http://voteview.com/ blog/?p=602) (accessed 18 December 2012). Voteview.com (2012c) ‘The 113th House’, 13 November (available online at http://voteview.com/ blog/?p=609) (accessed 18 December 2012). Voteview.com (2012d) ‘An update on political polarization (through 2011) – Part III: the presidential square wave’, 3 February (available online at http://voteview.com/blog/?p=317) (accessed 12 December 2012). Wittkopf, Eugene R. (1986) ‘On the foreign policy beliefs of the American people: a critique and some evidence’, International Studies Quarterly, 30: 425–45. Wittkopf, Eugene R. (1990) Faces of Internationalism: Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

9

Changing minds, changing course Obama, think tanks, and American foreign policy Donald E. Abelson

Introduction On 6 December 2012, a month after President Obama was re-elected to a second term, Jim DeMint, the junior Republican Senator from South Carolina, announced that he would resign his seat to become president of the Heritage Foundation. In explaining his decision to assume the presidency of Washington’s leading conservative think tank, a position held by Edwin Feulner for close to four decades, DeMint noted that at Heritage he would have ‘a vehicle to popularize conservative ideas in a way that connects with a broader public’ (Henninger 2012). DeMint’s observation that think tanks were presumably better positioned and equipped than the US Congress to connect with the American public is both revealing, and in some respects, troubling. But regardless of his motivations in leaving the US Senate, and the potential advantages of bolstering Heritage’s already strong foothold in the conservative movement, DeMint’s move to Heritage confirms what political pundits and scholars who study think tanks have long believed (McGann 2007; Abelson 2006, 2009; Medvetz 2012): think tanks have become highly visible, politically savvy, and active participants in the marketplace of ideas. When DeMint was elected to the Senate in 2004, his assessment of the potentially important contribution think tanks can make to shaping public opinion and public policy was shared by several of his colleagues, including Barack Obama. Indeed, when Senator Obama decided to make a run for the presidency, he relied on several policy experts from think tanks to inform and educate him about key domestic and foreign policy issues. Once in office, Obama’s connection with leading think tanks inside the Beltway remained intact. As President Obama began to unveil a new vision for America, one which he hoped would ‘bend the arc of history toward greater justice’ (Indyk et al. 2012: vii), he turned to the Brookings Institution, the Center for American Progress, the Center for a New American Security, and a handful of other think tanks for guidance. President Obama’s relationship to the Washington think-tank community did not wither when he embarked on his long journey for re-election. In the weeks and months leading up to his 2012 election victory, the presence of many seasoned think-tank experts inside the Obama campaign could be felt. Still, the extent to which think tanks have influenced President Obama’s foreign policy is a question that remains unanswered. Although it may be reasonable to conclude that Obama’s national security team, along with several policy experts from prominent US think tanks, have helped mold his vision of world affairs, it is also conceivable that the 2009 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize tapped into his experiences as a community organizer, constitutional law professor, and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to guide his thinking about foreign policy.

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The purpose of this chapter is not to speculate on the many influences that might have shaped Barack Obama’s understanding and management of world affairs, nor is it to provide a detailed assessment of the president’s foreign policy successes and setbacks during his first term in office. Several recent books, including Indyk et al.’s (2012) Bending History, do just that. Moreover, historians and political scientists will be better positioned in years to come to evaluate what President Obama was or was not able to achieve during a time of heightened political and economic unrest. Rather, the purpose here is to contribute to our understanding of the role of think tanks in American foreign policy by highlighting the ties that have been established between Barack Obama and a select group of organizations engaged in policy analysis. Scholars need not decipher millions of lines of encrypted code to reveal President Obama’s plan to promote America’s foreign policy goals. As Indyk et al. point out (2012: 2), Obama’s plan for overhauling America’s role in the world has at times been ill-conceived, but to his credit, the process he has put in place to translate his vision into reality has remained transparent. For the authors, Obama’s approach to foreign policy is not ideologically driven (Gerson 2008), nor is it rooted in a particular theoretical paradigm. Elements of his overall strategy may resonate with proponents of realism and idealism, but in the final analysis, Obama’s efforts to guide America through the turbulent world of international politics is guided by pragmatism (Gerson 2008: 6). Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama made it clear that the dangerous and ill-conceived course President Bush had set for the United States during the eight years he was in office had to change. For the 44th president, America could restore its image with world leaders and safeguard its interests beyond its shores without compromising vital national security interests. The United States could also work with its continental neighbors to strengthen its northern and southern border without jeopardizing important trade relations. But, as Obama observed (Gerson 2008: 6–8), for the United States to develop a more enlightened and balanced foreign policy, America needed to rethink how to manage its relationship both with its allies and adversaries. This required careful planning, thoughtful deliberation, and input from a wide range of people representing a broad spectrum of views. Unlike his predecessor who stifled policy discussions by keeping all but a handful of close advisors at bay (Mann 2004; Abelson, 2006, 2009), President Obama has encouraged policy experts both within his administration and those residing at think tanks and at universities to share their ideas about how America could successfully combat terrorism, eradicate Iran’s potential nuclear threat, manage its relationship with Russia and China, and find a solution to the long-standing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. By doing so, he has enabled these organizations to become more directly involved in shaping key policy decisions. In short, rather than being relegated to the sidelines to watch the foreign policy-making process unfold, several think tanks have been able to participate in a meaningful dialogue with the Obama administration. In the first section of this chapter, a brief overview of the relationship between several recent presidents and a select group of think tanks will be provided. The purpose of doing this is to help lay the foundation for a more detailed and probing analysis of the many channels on which think tanks rely to gain access to the policy-making process. Following this, a closer examination of the ties that have been established between think tanks and the Obama administration will be offered. Finally, we will discuss some of the key challenges and opportunities scholars face in their efforts to assess the influence of think tanks on American foreign policy. What we will discover is that to achieve influence, think tanks need to present the right ideas to the right people at the right time. For a handful of think tanks that were inspired to help the Obama administration develop a new strategy for American foreign policy, they could not

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have found a more receptive audience. By virtue of President Obama’s willingness to change course, think tanks have been provided with multiple opportunities to change minds.

Think tanks and presidential candidates: from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush To launch a successful presidential bid, candidates not only require a sufficient cash flow, but a steady stream of policy ideas they can share with the American public. Despite being bombarded by information and advice from multiple sources, it is clear that since the early 1970s, several presidential candidates have turned to think tanks for expertise on a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues. In the section below, we will highlight the strong ties that were established between various presidential candidates and leading American think tanks. As early as 1971, Jimmy Carter, a relatively unknown one-term Governor of Georgia, became preoccupied with gaining national exposure. And through some of his close personal advisors, such as former Secretary of State Dean Rusk, he met a number of individuals who were in a position to broaden his base of political support. Among these most influential contacts were David Rockefeller, chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank, and Hedley Donovan, editor-in-chief of Time magazine (Abelson 1996: 7). Carter’s southern disposition and Kennedy-style approach to state politics must have impressed Rockefeller, for when the latter decided to establish the Trilateral Commission in 1973, Carter was invited to become a member (Abelson 1996: 8). Carter’s growing dependence during the 1976 presidential campaign on an elite group of Trilateral advisors, including Zbigniew Brzezinski and Cyrus Vance, convinced some observers that ‘Carter’s entire foreign policy, much of his election strategy, and at least some of his domestic policy [came] directly from the Commission and its leading members’ (Abelson 1996: 9). Jimmy Carter depended heavily on several Trilateral Commissioners to fill key posts in his administration, but his search for policy advice did not end there. The President-elect also received advice from scholars at other think tanks, including the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). At Carter’s invitation, at least fifty-four members of the CFR joined his administration. Carter finally turned to the Brookings Institution to complete his ‘brain trust’, a term often employed to describe the small group of experts who advised President Franklin Roosevelt. Following his election victory, Carter also invited several Brookings scholars to join his staff (Abelson 1996: 10). With the support and advice of over one hundred policy analysts from three of America’s most prestigious think tanks, Carter rose from relative obscurity to occupy the Oval Office. Although several factors contributed to his election victory, the vital role think tanks played during his campaign cannot be overlooked. While Carter depended on several prestigious think tanks in the Northeast to gain national exposure, his successor turned to other policy research institutions, including the Hoover Institution in his home state of California to transform his set of conservative beliefs into a winning election platform. Ronald Reagan occasionally solicited the advice of policy analysts from prominent think tanks and universities during his tenure as Governor of California, but it was not until he launched his bid for the presidency in 1980 that he began to surround himself with some of the nation’s most respected conservative policy intellectuals. For Martin Anderson, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a key member of Reagan’s inner circle, the most effective way to communicate his candidate’s political agenda was to attract the support of some of the nation’s leading intellectuals. Anderson and Richard Allen, who would later become Reagan’s first National Security Advisor, assembled

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an impressive roster of dozens of domestic and foreign policy experts to advise Governor Reagan. Many of the participants were recruited from leading think tanks, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution, Rand, the Committee on the Present Danger, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Heritage Foundation. The considerable involvement of think tanks in the 1980 Reagan campaign has been well documented (Abelson 1996, 2009). Not only did policy experts from several think tanks help shape Reagan’s domestic and foreign policy platform, but many of these individuals were rewarded with high-level appointments in his administration. Moreover, several leading conservative think tanks, including the Heritage Foundation, played a critically important role in promoting Reagan’s political agenda throughout his two terms in office. In both domestic and foreign policy, think tanks left an indelible mark on key policy developments, most notably on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Interestingly enough, despite the important contribution of several think tanks during the Reagan years, their presence, particularly in the Executive branch, began to diminish when George H.W. Bush assumed the presidency in 1989 (Berke 1988; Abelson and Carberry 1997). Unlike Reagan, Bush did not invite dozens of academics from think tanks to participate in his 1988 or 1992 presidential campaigns, nor did he rely heavily on them to fill high-level positions in his administration (Abelson and Carberry 1997). On the contrary, Bush made a concerted effort to insulate himself from think tanks which had established and maintained close ties to his predecessor. As Annelise Anderson, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and former advisor to Vice-President Bush, points out, President Bush wanted to climb out of Reagan’s shadow and [therefore] distanced himself from most Republican experts attached to Reagan. He also treated neo-conservatives much like President Carter did. They both discounted their importance as intellectuals… In doing so, they excluded a lot of intellectual firepower, people like Jeane Kirkpatrick, Norman Podhoretz and Irving Kristol who had inspired and invigorated the Reagan administration (Abelson 2009: 141). The visibility and prominence of think tanks in Washington appeared to fade temporarily during the Bush years; however, when Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton announced his bid for the presidency in 1991, they once again began to attract considerable attention. As Clinton’s campaign gained momentum, journalists started to closely monitor the individuals and organizations who were advising him. What they discovered was that Clinton, like Carter and Reagan, had established close ties to a handful of think tanks. In the winter of 1991, few Democrats on Capitol Hill or, for that matter, throughout the United States could have predicted that the Republicans’ decade-long reign in the White House would soon come to an end. Enjoying unprecedented popularity in the polls, largely as a result of the overwhelming support for the US-led coalition to ‘liberate Kuwait’, President Bush appeared destined to win a second term in office. As a former Washington insider and long-time resident at a think tank confidently remarked at the time, ‘Jesus Christ could run on the Democratic ticket and he still wouldn’t beat George Bush’ (Abelson 2009: 142). Nonetheless, as the growing frustration and concern of American voters over worsening economic conditions overshadowed their initial enthusiasm for Operation Desert Storm, Bush’s political future no longer seemed assured. In fact, in the ensuing months, it became apparent that unless he could convince the US public that an economic recovery plan for America constituted an integral part of his vision for a ‘New World Order’, the Oval Office would soon have a new occupant.

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For Clinton, the five-term Governor of Arkansas, there was little question as to which think tanks and policy advisors he would turn to for advice – scholars from the Washingtonbased Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and its policy arm, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), were high on his list. But unlike Carter and Reagan, Clinton appeared to spend little time developing ties to the think-tank community. Nonetheless, he understood what he was looking for, and latched on to an organization he had come to know. Governor Clinton understood, as did many prominent figures in his party, that the Democratic party had to reinvent itself if it stood any chance of rebounding from Walter Mondale’s humiliating defeat in the 1984 election. Throughout his association with the DLC, which included a brief stint as its Chairman from 1990 to 1991, Clinton, along with approximately 3,000 other members, invested considerable time and energy to move the Democratic Party from the left to the center of the political spectrum, the principal mandate of the DLC. In 1989, in an attempt to broaden the Democratic Party’s base of political support by appealing to disillusioned voters, particularly in the southern and western regions of the United States, Clinton participated in the creation of PPI to convince Democrats that they too could successfully compete in the marketplace of ideas. His efforts paid off. By the 1992 election, PPI was prepared to spread its message across the country, and, fortunately for the institute, it found the right messenger. According to Joel Achenbach, ‘After creating the DLC, their next move was to create an idea arm, the PPI… The solution was to come up with new ideas, and find someone to embody them – which happened when Clinton became chairman of the DLC and then carried the group’s agenda into the presidential campaign’ (Abelson 2009: 143). Clinton did far more than just carry some of PPI’s policy ideas into the campaign. Once in office, he tried to transform several of the institute’s suggestions into concrete public policies, often with the assistance of a handful of staff from the DLC and PPI who joined his administration. Several administration policies, including reforming America’s healthcare system, linking student aid to national service, helping communities cope more effectively with crime, demanding that welfare recipients perform a variety of community services, and injecting an entrepreneurial spirit into the federal government, were among the many program initiatives that bear a striking resemblance to the recommendations made by various contributors to PPI’s study, Mandate for Change (Abelson 2009). Some of these ideas had been advocated by other individuals and organizations, but few institutions in the 1992 campaign offered a more comprehensive guide to reforming government than PPI. The involvement of think tanks in the campaigns that propelled Carter, Reagan, and Clinton into office reveals one of the most visible channels on which think tanks rely to shape the policy direction of incoming administrations. It also demonstrates how candidates can benefit from the considerable policy expertise available at some of America’s leading policy institutes and the potential rewards these organizations can reap by being so closely linked to a winning campaign. This may explain why George W. Bush, a newcomer to federal politics, enlisted the support of policy experts from several think tanks to inform and educate him about a wide range of policy issues. A US Congressman, former director of the CIA, Ambassador to the United Nations, Vice-President and President of the US, George H.W. Bush was the consummate Washington insider. By contrast, his first son, George W. Bush, had little first-hand experience with the types of issues he would confront as president. As with Carter, Reagan, and Clinton before they entered the Oval Office, George W. Bush possessed a limited understanding of foreign affairs. In an attempt to allay concerns about his ability to lead the world’s remaining superpower and to promote America’s economic interests in the 21st century, Bush’s closest

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advisors assembled a team of over 100 policy experts, many from the Hoover Institution, to advise him on economic, foreign, and defense policy (Abelson 2009: 144). The foreign policy and defense policy teams assembled for Bush read, James Kitfield observed, ‘like a Who’s Who of the Reagan and Bush foreign policy establishments’ (Abelson 2009: 145). Heading the foreign policy brain trust were Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State, former Secretary of State George Shultz, and Vice-President Richard Cheney, a former Secretary of Defense. Other prominent defense and foreign policy analysts included former Pentagon and State Department official Paul Wolfowitz; Dean of the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Richard Perle, former assistant defense secretary and director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Commission on Future Defenses; and Robert Zoellick, former president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and US Trade Representative. Several of these experts would come to be referred to as ‘the Vulcans’ (Mann 2004) – a small, but closely knit group of former high-level policy-makers comprising Bush’s inner circle. From most accounts, the ‘Vulcans’ had a significant impact on Bush’s thinking about a host of foreign policy issues, such as his decision to wage war in Afghanistan and Iraq. But it is also clear that a small cohort of think tanks, including the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and the American Enterprise Institute, left an indelible mark on Bush’s foreign policy adventures in the post-9/11 era (Abelson 2007). As several scholars have pointed out (Abelson 2007), while Bush might have administered the most ‘closed system’ for discussing foreign policy initiatives of any modern president, it is difficult to ignore the impact some think tanks had on promoting and justifying America’s War on Terror. For the handful of policy experts invited to share their expertise with the president, the insights they offered may indeed have had a lasting impact. However, for many other scholars residing at defense and foreign policy think tanks, their access to the White House was severely limited. During Bush’s second term, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley informed the president that his administration’s management and coordination of foreign policy had, in many respects, alienated the thinktank community (Abelson 2011: 19). But despite the National Security Council’s efforts to extend an olive branch to several think tanks, it was too late for Bush to repair the damage. Like many other constituencies in Washington and around the country, think tanks were waiting for a new administration and Congress with whom to exchange ideas. Unlike in many parliamentary democracies such as Canada and Great Britain where the electoral cycle is more unpredictable, in the United States, think tanks have the luxury of preparing for a presidential election every four years. As this section has revealed, for decades, policy experts from think tanks have relished the opportunity to offer advice and expertise to a host of presidential candidates. Indeed, there are few opportunities for think tanks to contribute more directly to the development of public policy than to assemble a menu of options for candidates to sample along the campaign trail. Barack Obama, like many of his predecessors, had an appetite for new policy ideas, particularly for those that would allow the United States to strengthen its position at home and abroad. And as we will discover below, think tanks were only too willing to provide the aspiring presidential candidate with a steady stream of ideas that would allow him to change America’s course.

Hope, change, and advice: Obama and foreign policy think tanks When Senator Obama announced his intention to seek the 2008 Democratic nomination for president on February 10, 2007, he understood what foreign policy challenges he would

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confront if elected. Speaking before thousands of people crammed into Springfield, Illinois’ Town Square, he indicated that one of his priorities would be to bring US combat troops home from Iraq. But the democratic presidential candidate also understood that ending an unpopular war would not, in and of itself, repair or restore America’s position on the world stage. Before the United States could realize its potential at home and abroad, Obama required a far more comprehensive foreign policy plan – one that would address global challenges to America’s economic, political, and security interests. To do this, he reached out to a small, but well-connected core of international affairs experts, many of whom he had come to know when he served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As early as May 2007, journalists in the United States began to track whom Obama was turning to for foreign policy advice. Initially, his cadre of foreign policy experts included Mark Lippert, a former staff member on the Senate Appropriations Committee Foreign Operations Subcommittee; Gregory Craig, director of policy and planning at the State Department under Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; Anthony Lake, former National Security Advisor; and Susan Rice, assistant secretary of state for African affairs during the Clinton administration (Sweet 2007; Garekar 2008). It did not take long for pundits to identify the number of people in the Obama camp who had worked in the Clinton administration, nor did it take long for other Democratic and Republican presidential candidates competing for their party’s nomination to develop their own stable of experts. By the Fall of 2007, comprehensive lists of foreign and defense policy advisors who had gravitated to various Democratic and Republican campaigns appeared in major US newspapers. In an article appropriately entitled, ‘The War Over the Wonks’ (Washington Post 2007; Bumiller 2008a), dozens of policy experts and their ties to the Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Giuliani, Romney, and McCain campaigns were duly noted. Some of these advisors had worked in government, taught at universities (Nye 2009), or consulted for the private sector. But overwhelmingly, these experts were recruited from leading American think tanks. These individuals brought different experiences to the campaign, but what they shared in common was a desire to associate themselves with a candidate who shared their convictions, and possessed the ability to engage the public in important conversations about America’s role in world affairs. It was not just about finding a messenger to communicate ideas they had developed and crafted over years. They needed the right messenger and for many of them, it was Barack Obama. The group of policy advisors who had lent their names and offered their expertise to the Obama campaign included: former Ambassador Jeffrey Bader (Brookings Institution); Zbigniew Brzezinski (Center for Strategic and International Studies); Ivo H. Daalder (Brookings Institution); Richard Danzig (Center for Strategic and International Studies and later the Center for a New American Security); Philip Gordon (Brookings Institution); Lawrence Korb (Center for American Progress); Denis McDonough (Center for American Progress); Bruce Riedel (Brookings Institution); and Dennis Ross (Washington Institute for Near East Policy). Not surprisingly, Republican candidates turned to more conservative think tanks for advice. Policy experts from the Heritage Foundation, Hoover Institution, American Enterprise Institute, and the Hudson Institution were well represented. The policy experts who had agreed to participate in the Obama campaign in the weeks and months leading up to and during the presidential primaries were not simply looking to pad their resumes. Many had already established impressive credentials at think tanks and in previous government positions. They were there to inform, advise, and educate a candidate who could conceivably become the next president of the United States. They were also there to exchange ideas with a candidate who was committed to changing the nature and direction

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of US foreign policy. The information experts communicated to Senator Obama took different forms, ranging from policy briefs and papers, to one or two sentences that could be used in a stump speech or in a more formal address. They covered topics ranging from counterterrorism, and how to deter Iran from acquiring a nuclear capability, to expanding trade in the Pacific Rim. There were few topics that were off limits. What Obama hoped to achieve by developing a network of policy experts was not only a wealth of knowledge, but a group of talented people who were prepared to defend their policy recommendations. He wasn’t looking for consensus. What mattered more to Obama was engaging in difficult conversations with leading foreign policy experts who were prepared to outline the costs and benefits of moving the United States in a different direction. After all, the senator – a former law professor – was known for his willingness to encourage a lively exchange of views. By surrounding himself with people who were capable of providing thoughtful and penetrating insights about how the United States could navigate its way through troubled waters, the candidate felt he could make some headway. Obama’s thirst for more knowledge and advice about the complex world of international affairs only increased when he finally captured enough delegates on June 4, 2008 to secure his party’s nomination for president. After defeating Senator Hillary Clinton in the hotly contested Democratic primaries, Obama’s foreign policy team went into full swing. In mid-July 2008, New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller noted that 300 foreign policy advisors ‘divided into 20 teams based on regions and issues’ constituted what amounted to a ‘mini State Department’ for Senator Obama. A 13-member ‘senior working group’ was also established as part of the senator’s foreign policy bureaucracy. According to Bumiller, ‘Every day around 8 a.m., foreign policy aides at Senator Barack Obama’s Chicago campaign headquarters sent him two e-mails; a briefing on major world developments… and a set of questions accompanied by suggested answers’ (Bumiller 2008b). This process was overseen by Susan Rice and other members of the core foreign policy group, including Lippert and Craig. As Bumiller noted, the foreign policy ‘infrastructure funnels hundreds of email messages and reams of position papers and talking points each day to members of the core group, who in turn seek advice or make requests for more information to team members down the line’. She added that ‘advisers often say they are unclear about what happens to all the policy paragraphs they churn out on request’, but recognize the constant pressure to brief Senator Obama. The hundreds of advisors assembled to help shape Obama’s vision of America’s role in the world clearly paid off. Despite facing Senator John McCain, a far more seasoned and knowledgeable expert on foreign affairs, Senator Obama was more than capable of holding his own in debates over foreign and defense policy. While several factors may explain Obama’s historic win in the 2008 presidential election, presenting himself to the American public as a viable leader in international affairs may very well have had an impact. If Obama’s competence on important global issues was indeed a factor in his election victory, think tanks deserve much of the credit. President-elect Obama did not have to be reminded of the important contribution dozens of policy experts from think tanks had made throughout his campaign. Within 72 hours of giving his victory speech in Chicago’s Grant Park, the Obama campaign announced that John D. Podesta, former chief of staff to President Clinton and President of the Center for American Progress (CAP), would co-chair the transition team along with Valerie Jarrett and Pete Rouse (Washington Post 2008). Founded in 1993 as a counterweight to the Heritage Foundation, CAP currently has over 300 employees and a budget in excess of $25 million. Well known for his progressive views on domestic and foreign policy, Podesta also played

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an important role in helping to launch the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) in 2007, a think tank co-founded by Kurt Campbell and Michèle Flournoy. Both Campbell and Flournoy had previously held positions with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) (Crowley 2008; Savage 2008; Mann 2012). As part of their strategy to develop an effective transition for the incoming Obama administration, Podesta and his cochairs established several groups that would be responsible for meeting with outgoing officials in the Bush administration to identify key domestic and foreign policy issues that would have to be addressed. According to Shailagh Murray and Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post, ‘135 people divided into 10 groups, along with a list of other advisers… will work until mid-December preparing reports to guide the White House, Cabinet members and other senior officials’ (2008). Several prominent think-tank staffers emerged as key figures in the Obama transition. But in the area of foreign policy, no think tank generated as much notoriety and media interest as the Center for a New American Security. According to Yochi Dreazen of The Wall Street Journal, the CNAS, ‘a small think tank with generally middle-of-the-road policy views, is rapidly emerging as a top farm team for the incoming Obama administration’ (2008). CNAS co-founders Kurt Campbell and Michèle Flournoy (Ackerman 2008; Pincus 2008) along with Susan Rice, Richard Danzig, Wendy Sherman, and James Steinberg, members of the CNAS board of advisors, were singled out as leading contenders for senior positions in the Pentagon and the State Department. Other than Danzig, former Secretary of the Navy under President Clinton, the remaining four members of the CNAS board of advisors would serve in the Obama administration: Susan Rice as US Representative to the United Nations; Michèle Flournoy as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; Kurt Campbell as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; Wendy Sherman as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs; and James Steinberg as US Deputy Secretary of State. As this section has revealed, from the time Barack Obama won his Senate seat in 2004, he understood, and gained an appreciation for, the contribution think tanks could make to shaping public policy in the United States. He also understood, as did many of his colleagues in the Senate, that President Bush’s efforts to advance US security interests in the post-9/11 era were not paying off. After involving the United States in two wars, spending trillions of dollars, and sacrificing thousands of lives, Obama argued that a different way of thinking about America’s role in the world was required. To assist him in developing a new strategy for the United States, he enlisted the support of dozens of policy experts from leading think tanks. Scholars from think tanks shared their expertise with Senator Obama during the 2008 presidential primaries and in the general election, participated on his transition, and served in the first term of his administration. Many of these experts also contributed their time to helping President Obama secure a second term in office. In the four years since Obama was elected president, a new foreign policy posture has taken root. Without compromising America’s commitment to combatting global terror, President Obama has managed, among other things, to remove troops from Iraq, impose a deadline for withdrawing US personnel from Afghanistan, orchestrate the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden, reset America’s relationship with Russia, and mend fences with several world leaders. Although there have been several mistakes made along the way, the Obama administration has embraced a far more pragmatic and less ideological approach to managing America’s international relations. But who or what has influenced the direction of foreign policy since President George W. Bush left the Oval Office? It would be tempting to attribute this new dawn in American foreign policy to President Obama, but the reality is that a multitude of individuals and interests attempt to shape both

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the policy-making environment and actual policy decisions. How then, in a chapter devoted to studying the role of think tanks in influencing US foreign policy, can we possibly determine the nature and extent of their contribution? In the final section, we will highlight some of the major methodological obstacles that continue to plague scholars as they try to assess the influence of think tanks on policy development.

Assessing the influence of think tanks: challenges and opportunities As scholarly interest in the role of think tanks in the policy-making process has grown in recent years, more consideration has been given to the various ways in which their influence could be measured. Those who study think tanks acknowledge that assessing or measuring the influence of think tanks is inherently problematic. They realize that even the most basic questions about how to study policy influence give rise to a host of methodological concerns. Should policy influence be measured by tracking the number of times think tanks and/or their resident scholars are referred to or interviewed by the media? Would keeping a close watch on the number of publications downloaded on their websites, the number of appearances their scholars make before legislative committees, and the number of publications produced in a given year provide a more accurate measurement of a think tank’s influence? Or, alternatively, should we simply record the number of think-tank staff appointed to highlevel positions in the government to confirm the extent of think-tank influence? Put simply, do some policy outputs, such as those identified above, provide a more accurate measurement of policy influence than others? Data on each of these outputs may reveal the amount of exposure think tanks and their staff generate. Still, they cannot confirm how much or little influence policy institutes have in shaping public opinion and/or the policy preferences and choices of policy-makers. Policy outputs are very different from policy outcomes – the actual decisions policy-makers carry out. Data on media citations, for instance, may tell us which institutes are effective at making the news. However, the frequency of media citations provides little insight into whether the comments made by scholars at think tanks have helped shape, reinforce, clarify, or change the minds of policy-makers and the public. Indeed, we cannot even be certain that policymakers or members of the attentive public are even familiar with what various think tanks have stated in what has become an over-saturated media. Similarly, when think tanks testify before legislative committees, we can rarely confirm if their statements made a difference in how policy-makers approached particular policy issues. Other policy outputs, such as the number of publications think tanks produce or how many of their staff receive high-level appointments, may tell scholars even less about the influence of think tanks in policy-making. In addition to considering how to measure policy influence, or if in fact it can be measured at all, scholars must overcome several other obstacles in evaluating the impact of think tanks. They must, for example, determine how to isolate the views of think tanks from dozens of other individuals and governmental and non-governmental organizations that actively seek to influence public policy. As the policy-making community becomes increasingly congested, tracing the origin of an idea to a particular individual or organization gives rise to its own set of problems. For some students of public policy, examining the various organizations and individuals who coalesce around particular policy issues offers a useful point of departure (Heclo 1978). By studying the interaction between policy-makers and representatives from non-governmental organizations in specific policy communities, some

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important insights can be drawn. In addition to identifying the organizations and individuals most actively involved in discussing a particular policy concern with government officials, scholars can, through interviews and surveys, determine which views generated the most attention. However, unless policy-makers acknowledge that their policy decisions were based primarily on recommendations from a particular individual or organization, something they are rarely inclined to do because it would minimize their own contribution, it is difficult to determine how much influence participants in the policy process have had. Since it is unlikely that these and other methodological obstacles will easily be overcome, it may be more appropriate to discuss the relevance of think tanks in the policy-making process than to speculate about how much policy influence they exercise. In other words, rather than trying to state categorically that, on the basis of a handful of indicators, some think tanks appeared to be more influential than others, scholars should determine if, when, and under what conditions think tanks can and have contributed to specific public policy discussions and to shaping the broader policy-making environment (Baumgartner and Leech 1998).

Conclusion Presidential campaigns provide policy experts at think tanks with a tremendous opportunity to share and exchange ideas with candidates competing for the nation’s highest office. Therefore, it should not be surprising that think-tank scholars were more than willing to serve on the campaigns that propelled Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush to power. During the primaries, general election, and in the transition period that followed, think tanks clearly made their presence felt. But for think tanks to participate, there must be candidates willing to solicit their expertise. As Abelson and Carberry (1997) concluded in their study which explained why some presidential candidates are more inclined to seek the advice of think tanks than others, two important factors were considered relevant – their status as a Washington insider or outsider and voters’ perceptions of their ideological conviction. Put simply, the authors argued that candidates with no federal government experience prior to running for office (Washington outsider), and a strong ideological bent, were more likely to rely on think tanks than those with government experience (Washington insider), and a weak ideological posture. As former state governors with strong ideological leanings, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush were the ideal candidates to reach out to think tanks during their campaigns. The model proposed by Abelson and Carberry would have predicted that Senator Obama would have had little use for think tanks. He was a Washington insider, and, according to National Election Studies data, was not considered a strong ideologue. However, as this chapter has revealed, Obama has, in many ways, gone against the grain. From the time he entered the Senate, he has enjoyed close and lasting ties to several leading think tanks. Unlike George W. Bush and other presidential candidates who often relied on think tanks more for ideological validation than for policy expertise, Obama recognized very early on in his political career how valuable these organizations could be in informing him about the complexities of important domestic and foreign policy issues. He was an educator who placed a premium on education. Obama’s pragmatic and more inclusive approach to policymaking, combined with his intellectual curiosity, created an environment where think tanks could flourish. While several other presidents have discouraged dissent among their advisors, Obama has welcomed it. This is why dozens of policy experts from think tanks were invited to contribute ideas during his campaign for the presidency in 2008 and in his bid for re-election in 2012.

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There is little doubt that the Brookings Institution, the Center for American Progress, the Center for a New American Security, and a handful of other think tanks have established several points of contact with President Obama and his administration. Indeed, several scholars from these institutions work in the Obama administration. But, for those who study think tanks, a lingering question remains. How much influence do these organizations wield? While there is no simple answer, a few key observations can be made. First, by participating in presidential campaigns, policy experts are able to provide information and ideas to candidates who, in turn, may draw upon their research findings in speeches, debates, and position papers. These ideas may go a long way in helping to shape the parameters of key policy discussions. Moreover, by relying on the print, broadcast, and social media, policy experts from think tanks can reinforce what candidates are proposing. In these and other ways, think tanks can and do have an impact. Nonetheless, when it comes to determining the various factors that may have influenced President Obama’s foreign policy decisions, it becomes more difficult to isolate the influence of think tanks. There are examples of times when think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution have left an indelible mark on policy decisions or on government legislation, but far more case studies are required before definitive conclusions about think-tank influence can be made (Abelson 2006). As students of international relations understand all too well, what takes place in the inner sanctum of power often remains cloaked in mystery. In what has become a more open and accessible foreign policy-making process, think tanks have had multiple opportunities to advocate for new directions in US foreign policy. For those who study these complex institutions, the challenge will be to determine the extent to which think tanks can take credit for policy decisions that have advanced American interests, as well as take the blame for those initiatives that have gone awry.

References Abelson, D.E. (1996) American Think Tanks and their Role in US Foreign Policy, London and New York, NY: Macmillan and St Martin’s Press. Abelson, D.E. (2006) A Capitol Idea: Think Tanks and US Foreign Policy, Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Abelson, D.E. (2009) Do Think Tanks Matter? Assessing the Impact of Public Policy Institutes (2nd edn), Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Abelson, D.E. (2011) ‘First impressions, second thoughts: reflections on the changing role of think tanks in US foreign policy’, in Critical Issues of Our Time (8), Centre for American Studies, The University of Western Ontario. Abelson, D.E. and C.M. Carberry (1997) ‘Policy experts in presidential campaigns: a model of think tank recruitment’, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 27 (4): 679–97. Ackerman, S. (2008) ‘Obama’s Pentagon-in-Waiting’, The Washington Independent, 10 November. Baumgartner, F. and B. Leech (1998) Basic Interests: The Importance of Groups in Politics and in Political Science, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Berke, R.L. (1988) ‘WashingtonTalk: think tanks; Bush and aides getting advice from all over’, The New York Times, 21 November. Bumiller, E. (2008a) ‘Research groups boom in Washington’, The New York Times, 30 January. Bumiller, E. (2008b) ‘Cast of 300 advises Obama on foreign policy’, The New York Times, 18 July. Crowley, M. (2008) ‘The shadow president’, The New Republic, 19 November. Dreazen, Y.J. (2008) ‘Obama dips into think tank for talent’, The Wall Street Journal, 17 November. Garekar, B. (2008) ‘The gurus: with foreign policy seen as a key campaign issue, Barack Obama and John McCain are seeking expert advice here’, The Straits Times (Singapore), 23 August.

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Gerson, M. (2008) ‘Closet centrist; in Obama’s cabinet, the audacity of moderation’, The Washington Post, 3 December. Heclo, H. (1978) ‘Issue networks and the executive establishment’, in A. King (ed.) The New American Political System, Washington, DC: The American Enterprise Institute. Henninger, D. (2012) ‘Sen. Jim DeMint to head Heritage Foundation’, The Wall Street Journal, 6 December. Indyk, M.S., K.G. Liberthal, and M.E. O’Hanlon (2012) Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Mann, J. (2004) Rise of the Vulcan: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet, New York, NY: Viking. Mann, J. (2012) The Abiemens: The Struggle inside the White House to Redefine American Power, New York, NY: Viking. McGann, J.G. (2007) Think Tanks and Policy Advice in the United States: Academics, Advisors and Advocates, London: Routledge. Medvetz, T. (2012) Think Tanks in the United States, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Murray, S. and C.D. Leonnig (2008) ‘Obama teams are scrutinizing federal agencies; smooth transition is goal’, The Washington Post, 3 December. Nye, J.S. (2009) ‘Scholars on the sidelines’, The Washington Post, 13 April. Pincus, W. (2008) ‘Experts’ report urges changes in national security system’, The Washington Post, 4 December. Savage, C. (2008) ‘Shepherd of a government in exile’, The New York Times, 7 November. Sweet, L. (2007) ‘Obama taps influential foreign policy experts’, The Chicago-Sun Times, 10 May. Washington Post (2007) ‘The war over the wonks’, 2 October. Washington Post (2008) ‘Transition team profiles’, 7 November.

Further reading Indyk, M.S., K.G. Liberthal, and M.E. O’Hanlon (2012) Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy, Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Mann, J. (2012) The Abiemens: The Struggle inside the White House to Redefine American Power, New York, NY: Viking. Medvetz, T. (2012) Think Tanks in the United States, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Schlozman, K.L., S. Verba, and H.E. Brady (2012) The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Troy, T. (2012) ‘Devaluing the think tank’, National Affairs, 10: 75–90.

Websites of select American think tanks The American Enterprise Institute: www.aei.org. The Brookings Institution: www.brook.edu. The Center for American Progress: www.americanprogress.org. The Center for a New American Security: www.cnas.org. Think Tank Watch: www.thinktankwatch.com.

10 Conservative evangelicals, the Tea Party, and US foreign policy Lee Marsden

The electoral triumphs of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 proved both decisive and divisive in a country that has remained polarized since the disputed elections of 2000. The re-election of a Democrat African-American president enjoying overwhelming support among nonwhite voters presents special challenges to a Republican Party that has become increasingly a party of the south, the flyover states, and white people. Although Barack Obama won the national vote by 51 per cent to 47 per cent, Mitt Romney carried the white vote by 59 per cent to 39 per cent, up from John McCain’s 55 per cent to 43 per cent in 2008 (Washington Post 2012). The second successive defeat of a Republican presidential candidate in a time of economic crisis has led to an inquest into the electability of future Republican administrations if the party is unable to reach out beyond its core support. This core support has become racially polarized and the party dominated by conservative groupings that have tremendous energy but little appeal beyond their own supporters. Most prominent among the conservative groups are conservative evangelicals and, since its inception in 2009, the Tea Party. Any Republican candidate for high office first has to negotiate these often interlinked groups. This is true in terms of both domestic and foreign policy. In this chapter we examine how conservative evangelicals and the Tea Party have sought to influence new directions specifically in US foreign policy. The chapter considers the importance of conservative evangelicals to the Republican Party before analysing how they seek to influence approaches to the Muslim world, and their role in advancing faithbased initiatives. The chapter then moves its focus to the role of the Tea Party and its internal divisions in promoting a Republican foreign policy strategy.

Conservative evangelicals When considering the role religion plays in US politics the first problem is always one of definition to determine exactly which group are being discussed. This process is complicated by different polling agencies and indeed academics defining the group under consideration. Evangelicals believe the Bible to be the word of God, believe in the virgin birth, that Jesus was sinless, was God incarnate, that his crucifixion was a substitutionary sacrifice to redeem mankind, or at least those who believe in him, and that he died, resurrected, ascended into heaven, and will return again. In believing these things a ‘true believer’ will ask Jesus to come into their life, die to their old life (be born again), and experience a personal relationship with Jesus which must then be shared by telling others this good news (evangelize). Evangelicals can consequently be of different ethnicity or political persuasions without affecting their appellation as ‘evangelicals’.

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The leading religious pollster and analyst Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life uses the term ‘white evangelical/born again’ and although this group would include socially progressive Democrat leaning ministers such as Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo the voting record indicates that this grouping overwhelming votes Republican in presidential elections. In 2004, 79 per cent of white evangelicals/born again supported their fellow evangelical George W. Bush. Four years later McCain received the backing of 73 per cent of this group and in 2012 the Mormon Mitt Romney won 79 per cent of their votes, compared to only 20 per cent for Obama (Pew Forum 2012b). White evangelicals/born again today make up 23 per cent of the total electorate, an increase of three per cent since 2000 (Pew Forum 2012a). More significantly, in terms of influencing the Republican Party, they make up 34 per cent of the party’s supporters. This group tend to be socially and fiscally conservative supporting traditional family values, abstinence programmes, school prayer, small government, Israel, and a strong US military while opposing abortion, same sex marriage, and the separation of church and state. The third of Republican supporters identifying as evangelical are supplemented by other groupings that share similar core beliefs and are known collectively as the Christian Right. These include white Catholic supporters who make up a further 20 per cent and Mormons, another three per cent to collectively represent 57 per cent of Republican Party supporters (Marsden 2008; Pew Forum 2012a). Clearly any prospective Republican candidate needs to take into account the policy positions of such a dominant group within the party if he or she wishes to be elected. In the 2012 elections Romney vied with other candidates in the primaries to appeal to this base of the Republican Party. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum came from the Catholic wing, Rick Perry and Michele Bachman from the evangelical wing, and Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman from the Church of Latter-day Saints; Ron Paul, a bornagain Christian, was the outlier representing a libertarian strand within the party which is examined later in the chapter. Having established the political importance of conservative evangelicals for the Republican Party we now turn our attention to the group’s foreign policy agenda and its influence in selected areas. A conservative evangelical is likely to consider him or herself patriotic, believe in a strong military, want the government to promote American values of capitalism, democracy, freedom, and human rights, and to defend religious freedom abroad. They are suspicious of big government and seek a greater role for religion in public life at home and overseas. Jim Guth has analysed polling data on religion and US foreign policy for many years and summarizes his findings about foreign policy preferences: One pervasive finding is that evangelical Protestants provide distinctive support for militant policies. Evangelicals are consistently more likely than average to be positive towards military spending, more likely to back unilateral and pre-emptive action, friendlier to Israel than to Palestinians, and more hostile toward Muslim nations. Only Latterday Saints even approach the same posture (Guth 2013: 174). Guth also suggests that ‘evangelicals… are less supportive of “cooperative” tenets than the general public’ (Guth 2013: 175). If Guth is right that evangelicals are more enthusiastic about militant interventions and are less cooperative than the overall population how does this translate into policy position and action? In the next section we examine conservative evangelical approaches towards relations with the Muslim world.

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Conservative evangelical approaches towards the Muslim world Conservative evangelicals saw the events of 9/11 through the prism of a spiritual battle. Islamic fundamentalism was seen as a real and existing threat to American values, including its Judeo-Christian heritage. There was a real sense among conservative evangelicals that the presence of a fellow evangelical in the White House was no mere coincidence. He declared a global War on Terror and imagined a Manichaean world with the forces of good and evil arrayed against each other. Conservative evangelicals were cheer leaders for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq seeing these as interlinked and part of Huntington’s clash of civilizations (Huntington 1993, 1996) despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. For evangelicals the war on terror presented new opportunities to demonstrate support for American values, defend the American way of life, project US power, and to evangelize in Muslim lands. For evangelicals the War on Terror represented, and still represents, a clash between the values of Judeo-Christianity and Islam. The Bush administration actively engaged with conservative evangelicals in weekly conference calls and visits to the White House to discuss domestic and foreign policy issues. Evangelicals supported Bush’s claim that the Iraq war was a just war, despite contrary opinions from Pope John Paul II and the leaders of the mainstream church denominations. Recruitment from evangelical communities to the US military tended to be at higher levels than other areas and support for the war in Iraq remained at its highest among this group. The view that the Afghan and Iraq wars were seen as spiritual as well as physical battles is evident in the number of evangelistic organizations which either sprang up or were revitalized by war in the Middle East determined to harvest souls in the 10/40 window (the area of North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia 10 degrees latitude to 40 degrees north). The Southern Baptist Convention had as many as 1000 missionaries in the 10/40 window. Meanwhile Samaritan’s Purse allocated $194 million to send missionaries to Iraq, and In Touch Ministries, Atlanta distributed the religious tract ‘A Christian’s Duty’ to thousands of US troops in Iraq (Kaplan 2005: 14–16). J.E. Adkins, who oversees the International Missions Center, estimated that up to half a million bibles in Arabic were distributed following Saddam Hussein’s defeat in 2003 (Joyce 2009). Other ministries have also distributed tens of thousands of Arabic bibles and hundreds of thousands of tracts in the native languages of countries occupied by US forces (Rodda 2010: 77–9). Military chaplains, expressly forbidden from proselytizing under General Order no. 1, have also distributed evangelical materials, including bibles in native languages to locals in Iraq and Afghanistan and allowed missionaries to accompany patrols (Public Record 2008; Weinstein 2008; Al Jazeera 2009; Rodda 2010: 74–5). US Marines in Fallujah handed out evangelistic coins to Iraqis in 2008 asking ‘where will you spend eternity?’ (Knight Rider 2008). US troops have also shown scant regard for local sensitivities, desecrating mosques by painting crosses on walls (Sharlet 2009). As a further indication of how evangelicals interpret the war in Iraq and Afghanistan as a spiritual battle, in 2010 arms manufacturer Trijicon supplied weapons for troops with bible verses set into the gun sights (Al Jazeera 2010; Jonsson 2010). The worldview of conservative evangelicals in relation to the role of the military in Muslim lands is best summarized by Colonel Jerry Boykin’s call for a new warrior code: A true warrior code assesses the enemy in moral, even religious terms. It answers the religious claims of the opposition and infuses its warrior with the confidence that those claims are false. America will need this kind of warrior code more than ever in the years

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to come. This is because her primary enemy in the world is a religious network of terrorists that comes armed with a theological set of assumptions, with an assessment of the world in religious terms. To defeat this network, the United States will have to answer at both a theological and a military level (Mansfield 2005: 157). Boykin, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, led the early hunt for bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, and as a serving officer preached in uniform about the United States being engaged in a spiritual battle. He now serves as Executive Vice President of the Family Research Council, the leading Christian right lobbying and advocacy group. Boykin speaks for and to a larger evangelical constituency. A survey of evangelical leaders in the autumn of 2002 suggested that there is little conception of shared values with Islam. The survey suggested that 77 per cent held an unfavourable view of Islam and 79 per cent did not consider that the two faiths prayed to the same God. Three quarters believed that Islam is opposed to religious freedom and pluralism/ democracy; 70 per cent considered that Islam was a religion of violence; 66 per cent that it was bent on world domination; while almost half considered that the war on terrorism was a war between the West and Islam. Some 97 per cent considered that it was important to evangelize Muslims overseas (Beliefnet 2003). Conservative evangelical approaches to the Muslim world have tended to be confrontational, seeing the religion as being in direct competition for souls with their version of Christianity and bent on destroying the American way of life. The peoples of the region are viewed as either souls to be rescued or protected from Islamism. The strategic interests of the United States from this perspective are served by advancing religious freedom, by which they mean allowing conversion from Islam by creating a free market in religious belief. Congressional approval of the International Religious Freedom Act in 1998, achieved at the behest of an alliance of neoconservatives, civil rights groups, and conservative evangelicals, commits the administration to both the monitoring and promotion of religious freedom internationally. Israel Support for Israel remains an essential component of any evangelical foreign policy, again seen through the prism of spiritual warfare rather than simply national interests. Christian Zionism is the defining feature of evangelical thinking in terms of foreign affairs. Israel must be supported primarily because conservative evangelicals see the Jewish people as God’s chosen people. Supporting Israel, through supplying arms, trade, intelligence, and vetoing critical resolutions in the UN Security Council is seen as blessing the Jewish people and therefore pleasing to God. Accordingly conservative evangelicals campaign for the Israelis to be the sole determinants of any peace settlement in the Middle East and oppose any pressure from US governments to trade land for peace or to halt settlements. The establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and the capture of the West Bank (historic Judea and Samaria) are seen as fulfilment of prophecy and an indication of the end times ushering in the return of Christ. Successive Republican and Democrat administrations may seek to exercise pragmatism in their Middle East strategy and pursue US national interests but such is the strength of an alliance of Christian Zionist, Zionist, and neoconservative lobbying on both houses of Congress and the White House that any efforts to play honest broker in any Middle East peace settlement is thwarted. In recent years, in order to become one of the main party

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candidates for president support for Israel has become seen as a benchmark of suitability for the position. Faced with such lobbying orchestrated principally by Christians United for Israel and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Bush and Obama have kowtowed to the lobby and variously retreated from taking action to prevent settlement building, supporting a Palestinian state capital in East Jerusalem, or criticizing Israeli actions in Ramallah in 2002, Southern Lebanon in 2006, and Gaza in 2008/9 and 2012. Since the rise of the religious right in the late 1970s there have been scarcely ten per cent of congressmen prepared to vote on any resolution criticizing Israel or defending Palestinians. The consequences of doing so are stark, voting score cards are maintained and those who show less than solidarity with Israel are punished with significant funding and support given to an alternative candidate at the next election. Consistent support for Israel is rewarded with the considerable resources of the pro-Israel lobby to secure re-election. This influence is undiminished whatever the political make-up of Congress, Senate, or the administration. Iran George Bush’s descriptor of Iran being part of an axis of evil which included Iraq and North Korea resonated with conservative evangelicals. The Iranian regime is seen as being ‘evil’ because of its opposition to US hegemony, Islamist character, hostility to Israel, and support for Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Evangelicals have been in the forefront of urging increasingly tougher sanctions against Iran as a response to its nuclear programme, which is seen specifically as an existential threat to Israel rather than the United States. John Hagee, founder of Christian United for Israel, has led calls for military action against Iran to destroy its nuclear facilities. Conservative evangelicals are overwhelmingly Republican supporters and clearly exercise greater influence over Republican administrations than Democrat ones but the separation of powers in the American political system means that no one party is entirely without political power providing it has control of at least one of the houses of Congress. The House holds the power of the purse strings and the Senate the ability to confirm or reject appointments, both houses are able to hold the executive to account through its committees, and any administration is only as effective as the ability of the president to get the legislature to approve and resource his or her policies. Reaching out to the Muslim world Obama has found the process of working with the legislature particularly difficult and this has been true even in the field of foreign policy, where traditionally there has been more prospect of bipartisan consensus. In his inaugural address he set about the task of replacing Bush’s toxic brand of intervention with a new policy of reaching out to the Muslim world by seeking ‘a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect’ (Obama 2009a). While the Bush administration viewed the war on terror through the prism of terrorism and counter-terrorism, the Obama administration suggested that they would embrace a strategy of engaging with religious actors. He established a religious advisory board, incorporating religious leaders from major faiths and maintained his predecessor’s enthusiasm for faithbased initiatives as a way to deliver assistance and services at home and abroad. Obama’s Cairo speech in June 2009 marked this new approach: I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon

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the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. … The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism – it is an important part of promoting peace (Obama 2009b). Obama continued Bush’s policy of coordinating policy towards the Muslim world from the National Security Council, including the appointment of a Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. He followed this up with a new Special Representative to Muslim Communities and tasked the White House Office of Faith Based Initiatives with improving interfaith cooperation. The State Department developed programmes designed to increase the religious literacy of Foreign Service officers and diplomats. Obama’s interfaith approach to dealing with issues with a religious dimension receives a mixed reception from evangelical actors. They are anxious to take advantage of new opportunities presented to deliver services and promote their own brand of religious belief yet wary of ecumenical approaches that present competing faiths as morally or theologically equivalent. For evangelicals there is no salvation for Muslims and although it may be possible to work with Muslims in achieving mutual goals where there is agreement such as abortion, same sex marriage, and stemcell research there must be awareness that they do not worship the same God. This is particularly evident in the significant contribution, under successive administrations, of evangelicals in delivering US overseas assistance.

Faith-based initiative programmes Within nine days of taking office, Bush established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI) designed to reward conservative evangelicals for their support by giving them and other faith groups the opportunity to deliver welfare programmes with federal funding. The FBCI was extended to US Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2003 and expanded faith-based initiatives to the area of foreign policy. Approximately a quarter of all USAID partners are faith-based and are able to draw upon close connections with indigenous religious actors and their established networks to deliver US assistance. The FBCI in USAID sought to distribute assistance through faith-based organizations and their local contacts because the local religious groups often had a record of accomplishment of distributing aid, had infrastructure in place, circumvented corrupt government officials, and were committed to caring for the assistance recipients on a longterm and on-going basis (see Marsden 2012). In the foreign policy field the close relationship established between faith-based providers and USAID has developed further since the Obama administration took office. The enthusiasm of successive administrations for faith-based initiatives is borne out by opinion poll data suggesting widespread support among the America public for such initiatives. The 2009 Annual Religion and Public Life Survey from Pew Forum suggests that approval for faith-based initiatives remained steady between 2000 and 2009 with approval ratings rising slightly from 67 to 69 per cent and opposition declining from 29 to 25 per cent. Over half the public interviewed were happy for religious charities; Catholic, protestant, and evangelical churches; and individual houses of worship and synagogues to be eligible for government funds. A majority opposed Mosques (52 per cent opposed, 39 per cent in favour) and groups that encourage religious conversion (63 per cent opposed, 28 per cent in favour)

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(Pew Forum 2009). Concern remains, however, for secular commentators because such initiatives challenge the first amendment of the US constitution establishing a separation of church and state. The interpretation of the establishment clause is contentious but in a foreign assistance context is generally understood to mean that government should not pay for the delivery of religious services or show discrimination in favour of any religion. Religious organizations can receive government money for service delivery but not for religious activities. This is clearly highly problematic in situations where evangelical organizations are praying for the sick, conducting worship services, and handing out evangelistic tracts while delivering government-funded assistance. The difficulties of differentiating between the individual activities tended initially to make USAID wary of lending in cases where their policy could be challenged as unconstitutional. Pressure from the administration relaxed the policy and scores of conferences were held to encourage faith-based organizations to apply for government contracts. There was unprecedented take-up by conservative evangelical organizations. The Obama administration determined to remove some of the anomalies and partisanship of Bush’s FBCI programme stating that: The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious group over another, or even religious groups over secular groups. It will simply be to work on behalf of our communities, and to do so without blurring the line that our founders wisely drew between church and state (Obama 2010). On 17 November 2010, Obama issued an executive order which endorsed these principles, explicitly requiring each agency administering or awarding Federal financial assistance to provide social services to make a referral to an alternative provider whenever a beneficiary objects to the religious character of the organization that provides services under the programme. Such a move did not exclude conservative evangelicals from delivering overseas assistance but ended a discriminatory policy that favoured such groupings under his predecessor. At the micro level of US foreign policy delivery, overseas assistance represents an opportunity to project soft power and contribute to state-building initiatives. Under Obama conservative evangelicals continue to bid for and receive government money to provide services overseas. While conservative evangelical organizations have contributed to US disaster relief in major natural disasters throughout the world where US assistance has been provided their greatest contribution has been in the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) from 2003. This initiative, which was arguably the Bush administration’s most significant foreign policy achievement, allocated $15 billion over five years to address the issue of HIV/ AIDS and malaria in five African countries. At the end of his tenure, Bush added $48 billion in additional funding over five years for HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis programmes in Africa and Caribbean countries which has been delivered by the Obama administration.

The Tea Party The Tea Party at first impression appeared to be a new movement of protest capable of transforming the American political landscape when it erupted on the scene in 2009. It was initially described as a rank-and-file protest group ‘comprising nonpartisan political neophytes who, hurt by the Great Recession, had been spurred into action out of concern over runaway government spending’ (Campbell and Putnam 2012: 38). For Campbell and Putnam this

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descriptor represents a triple myth. The Tea Party consists largely of partisan Republicans who have suffered no greater than the general population in terms of economic hardship. They were also politically active before the emergence of the Tea Party. The main difference between Tea Partiers and mainstream Republicans is their tendency to be more religious and while the leadership might promote smaller government the ‘rank and file is after a godlier government’ (Campbell and Putnam 2012: 38). The typical profile of a Tea Party participant will be male (55–60 per cent), white (80–90 per cent), and over 45 years old (70–75 per cent) (Williamson et al. 2011: 27). This is also the profile of those who voted nationally for Mitt Romney and John McCain against Obama. There is considerable overlap between conservative evangelicals and supporters of the Tea Party. The American Values Survey (2010) revealed that 81 per cent identified as Christian, while 47 per cent considered themselves part of the religious right or Christian conservative movement. Some 63 per cent believed that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases and only 18 per cent supported allowing same-sex marriage. Although there is overlap support for the Tea Party it is not synonymous with identification with the conservative Christian movement (read conservative evangelicals). Pew Forum revealed that 46 per cent of Tea Party supporters had not heard of or did not have an opinion about ‘the conservative Christian movement sometimes known as the religious right’ and only 42 per cent claimed to agree with them. From the perspective of the conservative Christian movement 69 per cent of those self-identified with the movement support the Tea party, while 27 per cent expressed no opinion (Pew Forum 2011). Supporters of the Tea Party represent the right wing of the Republican Party and are more likely than the overall party to favour smaller government, believe that government is always wasteful, want abortion to be illegal, and want to protect gun rights (Pew Forum 2011). Tea Party influence reached its peak in the 2010 midterm elections defeating a number of officially endorsed Republican candidates in Republican primaries and helping the party take the House. The Tea Party energized the Republican vote but also alienated independent and Democrat-leaning voters and they were unable to take the Senate, despite the economic crisis and unpopularity of the Obama administration at midterm. The Tea Party emerged as an important constituency with the Republican Party, one that each of the Republican primary candidates in the presidential primaries in 2012 had to recognize. Tea Party presidential candidates included Michele Bachman and Ron Paul, while Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich all appealed to the spirit of the Tea Party to gain support. While many conservative evangelicals, encouraged by the Family Research Council, sought to find any candidate other than Romney, who was regarded as suspect because of his liberal tenure as Governor of Massachusetts and his Mormon faith, the most credible Tea Party candidate libertarian Ron Paul was largely overlooked by them because of his position on foreign policy, to which we turn shortly. While over half the Republican Party primary electorate support the Tea Party they can only count on the support of quarter of the national electorate (Campbell and Putnam 2012: 39). This presents a real challenge when in order to win the primary nomination candidates need to adopt Tea Party policy but in doing so run the risk of alienating the three quarters of the electorate who do not support their policies. In 2012 Romney received the nomination on the basis of being the most likely Republican candidate to defeat Obama whereas the true Tea Party candidate Ron Paul was well beaten despite polling nearly two million votes.

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The Tea Party and foreign policy The Tea Party itself represents a coalition of conservative evangelicals, the religious right, and libertarians united at the domestic level by the demand for smaller government and lower taxes but divided on foreign policy. Walter Russell Mead divides traditional US foreign policy perspectives into four different strands which he calls Wilsonian, Hamiltonian, Jacksonian, and Jeffersonian reflecting the foreign policy stances of the four presidents. Wilsonians represent the liberal internationalist stream in favour of multilateralism and promoting US values abroad. Hamiltonian foreign policy is more concerned with maximizing US economic strength and developing markets through international organizations and federal cooperation with large corporations. Jacksonians are content to leave the rest of the world alone unless they are specifically threatened or attacked, for example Pearl Harbor or 9/11, whereupon they will respond with overwhelming force to destroy their enemies. Jeffersonians are wary of big government and large corporations and believe that foreign relations should avoid compromising democracy arguing that a business-led agenda ends up with the United States supporting dictators and undermining American values at home (Mead 2002). Mead suggests that the Tea Party disdains the idea of liberal internationalism but is divided between Jacksonians and Jeffersonians, represented by their chief proponents Sarah Palin and Ron Paul. This is reflected most notably in differing approaches to the War on Terror: … the Palinite wing of the Tea Party wants a vigorous, proactive approach to the problem of terrorism in the Middle east, one that rests on a close alliance between the United States and Israel. The Paulite wing would rather distance the United States’ profile in a part of the world from which little good can be expected (Mead 2011: 41). Rathburn argues that that Tea Party foreign policy is a reflection of their stance on domestic issues, which despises government assistance and promotes self-help. They oppose multilateralism and the idea of global solidarity in the same way as they oppose welfare and health reforms (Rathburn 2013; see also McCormick 2012). The two wings of the party espouse a militant aggressive foreign policy determined to impose its will on those opposed to US interests. The Palinite wing shares personnel and foreign policy views with the conservative evangelical movement within the Republican Party. The Paulite wing, however, represents a libertarian strand which extends beyond traditional Republican supporters, combining fiscal conservatism and small government at home with neo-isolationism abroad. Ron Paul, a veteran presidential candidate, has consistently espoused libertarian values which resonate with a good proportion of the Tea Party. Although unlike Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich he is a born-again Christian, conservative evangelicals do not embrace him as one of their own because of his criticism of Israel, opposition to the Iraq war and foreign interventions, which they enthusiastically endorse (see Brody 2012). Conservative evangelicals agreed with George Bush’s interpretation of the events of 9/11 as being an attack on American values of freedom and democracy. Libertarians were more likely to agree with Ron Paul’s analysis: The notion that terrorists attack us because of our freedom and prosperity, and not for our actions abroad, is grossly wrong. If the American people continue to accept the argument that we are threatened because of our freedoms, rather than because American

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troops are stationed in many places where they are deeply resented, our problems can only get worse. The point is of profound importance because the philosophy of foreign intervention must be challenged at its core if we truly are interested in peace and prosperity (Paul 2007: 362). Paul believes that the relationship between the military industrial complex and foreign policy decision-making leads to profiteering and corruption (Paul 2007: 364). In doing so he taps into a wellspring of antipathy to the ‘globalist orientation of the Republican Party establishment’ (Cox 2012: 193). Ron Paul advocates the withdrawal of US military bases around the world and receives support from libertarians who tend to be more independently minded and less loyal to the Republican Party than Tea Party conservatives (Kirby and McClintock Ekins 2010). Ron Paul’s foreign policy views were in stark contrast to all other candidates in the 2012 presidential race. Republican candidates, including eventual nominee Romney, sought to position themselves as more Jacksonian than Obama, in order to receive support from the conservative evangelical base, Tea Party conservatives, and independent voters. Ron Paul has shown remarkable consistency in his foreign policy positions over decades and with the advent of the Tea Party and a moribund economy raised the issue of US retrenchment and pivoting to America rather than the Asia Pacific. Ron Paul has been succeeded as champion of libertarianism by his son Rand Paul, elected as Senator for Kentucky in 2010. Rand Paul currently serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has advanced libertarian positions in opposition to a pre-emptive strike on Iran, ending up on the losing side of a non-binding Senate resolution to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons by 90 votes to one. He also led a thirteen-hour filibuster to delay the confirmation of CIA Director John Brennan in order to challenge the Obama administration’s use of drones – in particular the issue over whether Obama had the authority to kill US citizens on American soil if they were not engaged in combat. Paul was supported by Senators Mike Leigh, Ted Cruz, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell but opposed by foreign policy heavyweights John McCain and Lindsey Graham again representing a split between Jacksonian and Jeffersonian impulses within the Republican Party (Shear 2013; Stevenson and Parker 2013). As the Republican Party seeks to recover from the debacle of a second successive defeat in the presidential elections the debate over a conservative foreign policy has transformed from the Palinite/Paulite division into a Mario Rubio/Rand Paul one. Walter Russell Mead’s convenient designations of foreign policy positions has become more problematic as Rubio advocates deploying greater US support for anti-Assad forces in Syria, the possibility of military action against Iran, greater commitment to Libya, support for foreign assistance and the United Nations, and immigration reform – perhaps a combination of Wilsonianism and Jacksonianism. With an eye on electability Rubio stays closer to traditional Republican foreign policy positions advocated by John McCain and Mitt Romney (Stevenson 2013). Paul, aware that his father’s overt libertarianism deterred voters, has adopted a pragmatic libertarianism, which he describes as realism. He has urged restrictions on the president’s war powers, opposed US intervention in Syria, and pre-emptive war against Iran. He has also opposed foreign assistance to Egypt and Pakistan and other nations which are antithetical to US interests and values. He has backed away from criticism of Israel and declared that any attack on Israel should be seen as an attack on America and supported tighter sanctions on Iran (Stevenson 2013). Rand Paul in a key foreign policy address to the Heritage Foundation on 6 February 2013 called for Americans to embrace the legacy of George Kennan and reject the bipartisan consensus which has failed to question foreign policy objectives. He is calling for a foreign

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policy that recognizes constitutional constraints and would not go to war without a declaration by Congress, which was not evident in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Libya. On Syria he asks those advocating intervention and assistance to consider whether the rebels will ‘respect the rights of Christians, women, and other ethnic minorities?’ (Paul 2013). Rand Paul although heir to his father’s reputational legacy is positioning himself to appeal to more mainstream conservative traditions, while retaining libertarian credentials: I’d argue that a more restrained foreign policy is the true conservative foreign policy, as it includes two basic tenets of true conservatism: respect for the constitution, and fiscal discipline. I am convinced that what we need is a foreign policy that works within these two constraints, a foreign policy that works within the confines of the Constitution and the realities of our fiscal crisis. What would a foreign policy look like that tried to strike a balance? First, it would have less soldiers stationed overseas and less bases. Instead of large, limitless land wars in multiple theaters, we would target our enemy; strike with lethal force. We would not presume that we build nations nor would we presume that we have the resources to build nations… When we must intervene with force, we should attempt to intervene in cooperation with the host government (Paul 2013).

Conclusion Conservative evangelicals and the Tea Party have been significant actors in the Republican Party over the course of the twenty-first century. Since the late 1970s conservative evangelicals have established themselves as part of a larger Christian or religious right movement advancing social and fiscally conservative values at home and abroad. The movement now represents over half the membership of the party and has significant influence in terms of the appointment and nomination of electoral candidates at all levels of the US polity. Although George W. Bush is the only conservative evangelical to attain the highest office successive Republican candidates for the presidency have had to appeal to the movement for its support and propose policies which resonate with the core support. Conservative evangelicals were consulted on a regular basis throughout the Bush presidency and although access has been more difficult under the Obama administrations they have been able to retain some of their involvement in foreign policy implementation. In the two areas examined in this chapter conservative evangelicals continue to agitate for pro-Israel policies through Congress and press for actions against Israel’s enemies in Iran and Syria, and deliver US assistance overseas through faith-based initiative programmes. Conservative evangelicals are heavily involved at all levels of the US military responsible for much foreign policy delivery on the ground. A worldview which defines the War on Terror and actions in Muslim countries as spiritual warfare could have far greater impact than rhetorical flourishes from the commander-in-chief. The Tea Party while having considerable overlap in active participation with conservative evangelicals also has a large libertarian section of the movement. The movement has probably peaked in terms of its influence in the 2010 midterm elections and like the conservative Christian movement alienates independent voters and those likely to lean Democrat. In terms of foreign policy its influence under a Democrat administration is minimal and yet ideologically the libertarian position adopted by Ron and Rand Paul challenges the consensus between Democrats and the Republican Party establishment to present a radical policy to reduce America’s military footprint, nation building, and propensity to go to war.

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Would-be Republican leaders face a paradox in seeking the party’s presidential nomination because in order to win such a nomination accommodation must be sought with Tea Partiers and conservative evangelicals and yet in reaching such an accommodation the candidate becomes unelectable.

References Al Jazeera (2009) ‘US army “does not promote religion”’ (available online at http://english.aljazeera. net/news/asia/2009/05/2009542250178146.html) (accessed 6 May 2012). Al Jazeera (2010) ‘Bible codes on army Afghan guns’ (available online at http://english.aljazeera.net/ news/americas/2010/01/20101211239216652.html) (accessed 29 August 2012). American Values Survey (2010) September (available online at http://ebookbrowse.com/september2010-american-values-survey-pdf-d385890648) (accessed 1 May 2013). Beliefnet (2003) ‘Evangelical views of Islam’ (available online at http://www.beliefnet.com/News/ Politics/2003/04/Evangelical-Views-Of-Islam.aspx) (accessed 26 August 2012). Brody, D. (2012) The Teavangelists: The Inside Story of How the Evangelicals and the Tea Party are Taking Back America, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Campbell, D. and Putnam, R. (2012) ‘God and Caesar in America’, Foreign Affairs, 91 (2): 34–43. Cox, R. (2012) Corporate Power and Globalization in US Foreign Policy, Abingdon: Routledge. Guth, J. (2013) ‘Religion and public opinion on security: a comparative perspective’, in D. Hoover et al. (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Security: Theory and Practice, London and New York, NY: Routledge. Huntington, S. (1993) ‘The clash of civilizations?’, Foreign Affairs, 72 (3): 22–49. Huntington, S. (1996) The Clash of Civilizations: And the Remaking of World Order, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Jonsson, P. (2010) ‘Trijicon sights: how the “Jesus gun” misfired’, Christian Science Monitor (available online at http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2010/0122/Trijicon-sights-How-the-Jesusgun-misfired) (accessed 29 August 2012). Joyce, K. (2009) ‘Christian soldiers: the growing controversy over military chaplains using the armed forces to spread the word of God’, Newsweek (available online at http://www.newsweek.com/ id/202734) (accessed 5 February 2013). Kaplan, E. (2005) With God on their Side, New York, NY, and London: The New Press. Kirby, D. and McClintock Ekins, E. (2010) ‘Tea Party’s other half’ (available online at http://www. cato.org/publications/commentary/tea-partys-other-half?) (accessed 1 May 2013). Knight Rider (2008) ‘Iraqis; marines try to convert Muslims’ (available online at http://www.military. com/news/article/iraqis-marines-try-to-convert-muslims-html) (accessed 29 August 2012). Mansfield, S. (2005) The Faith of the American Soldier, New York, NY: Tarcher/Penguin. Marsden, L. (2008) For God’s Sake: The Christian Right and US Foreign Policy, London: Zed Books. Marsden, L. (2012) ‘Bush, Obama and a faith-based foreign policy’, International Affairs, 88 (5): 953–74. McCormick, J. (2012) The Domestic Sources of American Foreign Policy: Insights and Evidence, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Mead, W.R. (2002) Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World, London and New York, NY: Routledge. Mead, W.R. (2011) ‘The Tea Party and American foreign policy’, Foreign Affairs, 90 (2): 27–44. Obama, B. (2009a) ‘Inaugural address’, The White House, 20 January (available online at http://www. whitehouse.gov/search/site/inaugural%20address) (accessed 23 March 2013). Obama, B. (2009b) ‘President Obama’s speech in Cairo: a new beginning’, The White House, 4 June (available online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/search/site/Cairo%20speech) (accessed 23 March 2013). Obama, B. (2010) ‘Office of faith based and neighborhood partnerships’ (available online at http:// www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ofbnp/values) (accessed 4 May 2013).

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Paul, Rand (2013) ‘Speech on foreign policy to the Heritage Foundation’, 6 February (available online at http://www.policymic.com/articles/25024/rand-paul-speech-full-text-transcript-of-rand-paul-sheritage-foundation-speech) (accessed 5 May 2013). Paul, Ron (2007) A Foreign Policy of Freedom, Lake Jackson, TX: Foundation for Rational Economics and Education Inc. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2009) Annual Religion and Public Life Survey, Washington, DC: Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2011) ‘The Tea Party and religion’ (available online at http:// www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Tea-Party-and-Religion.aspx) (accessed 5 May 2013). Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2012a) ‘Religious groups and political party identification’, September (available online at http://features.pewforum.org/2012-political-party-identificationtrends-more-republicans-gop/slide10.php) (accessed 1 May 2013). Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2012b) ‘How the faithful voted: 2012 preliminary analysis’, 7 November (available online at http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/How-the-FaithfulVoted-2012-Preliminary-Exit-Poll-Analysis.aspx) (accessed 1 May 2013). Pew Research Center (2008) US Religious Landscape Survey, Washington, DC: The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Pew Research Center (2009) Mapping the Global Muslim Population, Washington, DC: The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Public Record (2008) ‘Proselytizing in the military likely to continue under Obama’ (available online at http://pubrecord.org/religion/835/proselytizing-in-the-military-likely-to-continue-under-obama) (accessed 17 February 2013). Rathburn, B. (2013) ‘Steeped in international affairs? The foreign policy views of the Tea Party’, Foreign Policy Analysis, 9 (1): 21–37. Rodda, C. (2010) ‘Against all enemies, foreign and domestic’, in J. Parco and D. Levy (eds), Attitudes Aren’t Free: Thinking Deeply about Diversity in the US Armed Forces, Maxwell Air Base, AL: Air University Press. Sharlet, J. (2009) ‘God killed Muhammed: the crusade for a Christian ministry’, Vanity Fair, May (available online at http://harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488) (accessed 14 March 2013). Shear, M. (2013) ‘Republicans are divided on proper role for US abroad’, The New York Times, 14 March. Stevenson, R. (2013) ‘Rubio and Paul embody conservative debate over foreign policy’, The New York Times, 25 January. Stevenson, R. and Parker, A. (2013) ‘A senator’s stand on drones scrambles partisan lines’, The New York Times, 7 March. Washington Post (2012) ‘Exit polls 2012: how the vote has shifted’, 6 November (available online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/special/politics/2012-exit-polls/table.html) (accessed 2 May 2013). Weinstein, M. (2008) ‘Evangelical Christian missionaries embedded with American combat troops in Afghanistan’, The American Muslim Organization (available online at http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/evangelical_christian_missionaries_embedded_with_ american_combat_troops_in_/) (accessed 7 February 2013). Williamson, V., Skocpol, T., and Coggin, J. (2011) ‘The Tea Party and the remaking of Republican conservatism’, Perspectives on Politics, 9 (1): 25–43.

11 American foreign policy during the Obama administration Insights from the public James M. McCormick

The role of the public in shaping American foreign policy elicits considerable debate among scholars and analysts about its importance and its impact. Indeed, two sharply different theoretical perspectives on this relationship have dominated academic and policy discussions over the past half century. One perspective assumes that the public is largely uninterested, ill-informed, and subject to presidential leadership. In the strongest variant of this view, the public does not so much shape foreign policy; instead, it is largely shaped by it. The policy implication of this approach is that public opinion has a very limited role in shaping American foreign policy, and that the public largely adopts a ‘follower’ mentality, mainly driven by the president and other key foreign policy officials. A second perspective starts from the premise that the public’s views are more structured and stable than suggested in the past. In this view, the public may not be fully conversant with all the details of foreign policy and may not have a sustained interest in foreign affairs, but their underlying attitudes and views are more consistent and predictive of policy positions than often contended. In the strongest variant of this view, the public can and do shape the general direction of policy, even if they do not affect every decision. The policy implication of this approach is that public opinion plays a sustaining role in shaping American foreign policy and that policymakers are constrained by the public’s view.1 In this chapter, I adopt the second perspective to address the possible linkage between public opinion and US foreign policy near the beginning of a second term of the Obama administration. First, the chapter begins by summarizing briefly these competing theoretical perspectives. Second, the research identifies several necessary and sufficient conditions required for the public to have an effect on foreign policy. Third, using some recent polling data, I summarize the public’s current general orientation to foreign policy and its position on key issues. Fourth, I outline the Obama administration’s foreign policy decision style and the likelihood that its style will facilitate a substantial role for the impact of public opinion on foreign policy choices.

Competing theoretical perspectives on public opinion and foreign policy A moodish public? Ole Holsti (1992, 2004) has aptly summarized the first perspective on the relationship between public opinion and the conduct of foreign policy through his careful assessment of the work of Walter Lippmann, Gabriel Almond, and Philip Converse. As Holsti (1992: 440–2) noted, Lippmann saw the public as not only uninterested and uninformed about

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foreign affairs, but as dangerous to effective foreign policymaking because they too often compelled policymakers to act in ways that were unwise through their seeming veto. Almond, by contrast, saw the public posing a somewhat different danger with ‘the instability of mass moods’ and ‘the cyclical fluctuations [of those moods] which stand in the way of policy stability’ (Almond 1950, quoted in Holsti 1992: 442). Converse’s research implied the same kind of concern about the mass public. He reported that there seemed to be no ‘constraint’ in the public’s beliefs. That is, the public’s views on domestic issues did not predict to positions on foreign policy issues, and there appeared to be no ideological structure in the public’s thinking on foreign affairs (Converse 1964; Holsti 1992: 443–4). Hence, the public appeared to move from one position to another on foreign policy in a way consistent with Almond’s moodish characterization. Indeed, empirical studies over the years have provided support for these views. Considerable evidence, for instance, points to the low levels of interest and knowledge of foreign policy among the American public during the time of Almond’s and Converse’s writing, and the quadrennial Chicago Council of Foreign Relations (now the Chicago Council on Global Affairs) surveys of the American public since the mid-1970s largely confirm this point. Furthermore, a recent Pew Center’s News IQ survey of national and international knowledge among the public (with about half of the questions on foreign affairs) found the average correct at 11.5 out of the 19 questions (about 60 per cent), with the public more successful on visual than verbal questions (Pew Research Center 2011). From this perspective, the public should not – either on normative or empirical grounds, or both – have an impact on American foreign policy. A structured and stable public? By the 1970s and 1980s, however, this first theoretical perspective was increasingly challenged through increased conceptual and empirical work on the public opinion – foreign policy linkage. Several major assumptions and assertions from the first perspective – the volatility of the public mood, its lack of structure, and its lack of policy influence – came under increasing scrutiny and were challenged by a new set of empirically-skilled analysts. Instead, they found that, even though the American public may be relatively uninformed about foreign policy issues and susceptible to presidential leadership from time to time, the public’s views are more structured, stable, and ‘rational’ than often assumed, and the public’s mood is more discernible and less changeable than previously suggested. Jon Hurwitz and Mark Peffley (1987) demonstrated how the mass publics were ‘cognitive misers’ on foreign policy questions. That is, the public used information shortcuts to arrive at political judgments, and in turn the public could rather consistently relate these attitudinal preferences to specific foreign policy issues. Paradoxically, then, the public can and do hold coherent views, though they may lack detailed knowledge about a wide array of foreign policy issues. In detailed analyses of public opinion surveys over a considerable length of time (from the 1930s to the 1980s), Robert Shapiro and Benjamin Page conclude that public opinion generally has changed slowly: ‘When it [public opinion] has changed, it has done so by responding in rational ways to international and domestic events’ (1988: 211). In this sense, public opinion does not tend to be ‘volatile or fluctuate wildly’, as Almond suggested. Instead, and as their later book title put it, there exists ‘the rational public’, both on domestic and international questions (Page and Shapiro 1992). Using another approach, Eugene Wittkopf (1990) demonstrated that the American public was divided into four underlying belief systems on foreign policy – what he labeled as those who were accommodationists,

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internationalists, hardliners, and isolationists – and that these belief systems were highly predictive of their positions on foreign policy issues and highly stable over time. In short, a similar message emerged from Wittkopf’s analyses: the public’s views are structured and consistent. In all, then, such consistency and structure are important prerequisites for policy influence. Other studies have sought to identify the source of the stability and structure in public attitudes on foreign policy. Importantly, Ole Holsti (2004: 231–2) has systematically reviewed an array of these studies on the predictors of foreign policy beliefs (age, gender, race, education, partisanship, and ideology). His principal conclusion is particularly instructive for us: ‘[T]he closely linked attributes of ideology and party identification consistently have been the most powerful correlates of attitudes on a wide range of foreign policy issues.’ Put differently, these two factors have consistently predicted the stability and coherence of public opinion on foreign policy issues over the past several decades in a variety of different studies. Indeed, Page and Bouton (2006), through a systematic analysis of a large number of foreign policy surveys, confirmed that this stability and structure have remained.

Identifying necessary and sufficient conditions for public impact While the evidence of foreign policy attitudinal structure among the public – and the centrality of ideology and partisanship as important contributors to this structure and stability – are necessary conditions for public opinion impacting policy outcomes, they are not sufficient ones. That is, the opinion of the public must have a way to enter the decision-making process and affect policy. Fortunately, there has also been some research to assess this linkage, but the conclusions over public’s policy effectiveness remain divided. In their five-decade analysis of the directional change in public opinion and public policy, Page and Shapiro (1983) found that policy followed opinion, both in domestic and foreign policy matters. On foreign policy issues specifically, they report that policy and opinion were consistent in 62 per cent of the cases examined. In a more recent study of the relationship between the views of the American public and the views of their leaders from 1974 to 2002, Page (and Jacob) with Bouton (2006) found what they describe as ‘the foreign policy disconnect’ between the public’s view and those of their leaders. That is, the views of foreign policy leaders in three policy domains – defense policy, economic policy, and diplomatic policy – were much different from the public’s views. From a fifth to a third of the time in these policy areas, a majority of the leaders surveyed took a position that was at odds with the majority of the public (2006: 213). With this disparity, they contend, it is difficult to argue that the public is getting the policy direction that it wants – or that policy is necessarily following opinion. While these two studies are not directly comparable – since one links opinion and policy and the other examines the congruence of policy positions – both studies fail to demonstrate how much effect public opinion has on policy. In this sense, we need to go beyond the aggregate analyses or a description of the current state of opinion between leaders and the public. Ole Holsti (2004: 65) identifies the central task as the development of ‘carefully crafted case studies’ in which the role of public opinion is evaluated in the decision process – whether the decision-makers perceive it, are affected by it (or not), and how it affects the decision chosen. Some work has been done along these lines, but the results paint a mixed picture about the public’s impact on policy choices. In his case analyses of American policy toward Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, toward Nicaragua in the 1980s, and toward the Gulf War and Bosnia in

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the 1990s, Richard Sobel (2001: 240) offers an upbeat conclusion about public opinion and policy: ‘Public opinion has constrained the US foreign policy decision-making process over the last generation.’ He acknowledges that the public’s effect is more in the realm of policy restraint (the elimination of some available policy options) than in setting the policy per se (the prescription of precise policy options). By contrast, Douglas Foyle (1999) offers a more cautionary conclusion about public opinion. In a series of cases spanning the Truman through Clinton years, he found that the public’s views are less effective in shaping policy. To the extent that the public’s views matter, however, their impact is importantly a function of the policymakers’ belief system and the particular policy context. When the policymaker is receptive to public input and when the decision setting allows the public to affect policy, opinion matters. In this way, Foyle nicely identifies the sufficient conditions for the public’s impact.

Current foreign policy issues and the structure of public opinion With this background on the role of public opinion and foreign policy, I now turn to assess the current state of public opinion – the public mood, if you will – on key foreign policy issues roughly during the 2012 presidential campaign. In particular, I am interested in discussing the public’s general orientation to foreign policy and cataloguing the public’s views on key foreign policy issues. I am also interested in assessing the degree of stability and structure in those views, especially along party and ideological lines, and whether the necessary conditions for public impact exist. I will then turn to assess the degree of receptivity by the Obama administration to the public’s impact on foreign policy, and the decision style of the White House that will affect this receptivity – and thus whether the sufficient conditions are also present. The public and its general orientation to foreign policy The public’s general orientation to foreign policy has remained markedly stable over the past decade, but the results from 2012 Chicago Council on Global Affairs suggest that the public mood along several dimensions may be beginning to change somewhat. First, although the American public remains committed to an international role for the United States with 61 per cent of the public supporting this view, this level is down substantially from the 71 per cent of a decade earlier. In fact, only two earlier surveys (in 1978 and 1982) had lower levels of commitment to ‘an active role in world affairs’ for the United States at 59 and 54 per cent, respectively, and only one survey (1998) matched this 61 per cent level in 23 surveys utilizing this question from 1947 to the present (Smeltz 2012: 8). Consistent with earlier results, however, the public does not support a unilateral role with these international involvements, and the public does not believe that the United States should serve as the world’s policeman. Indeed, the public now believes that the United States should adopt a more ‘selective engagement’ foreign policy approach, although it remains committed to a multilateral approach toward solving international problems. Second, the American public continues to embrace the view that the leading foreign policy goals for the United States should be ones that combine national security and economic security for the American people. Since 9/11, of course, the public recognizes the threat of international terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons (although the percent listing those items has dropped), and it remains equally concerned about protecting the jobs of American workers, reducing American dependence on oil supplies from abroad, and ‘maintaining superior military power worldwide’ (Smeltz 2012: 14). Third, the instruments of American

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foreign policy favored by the American public reflect both continuity and change from the recent past. The American public now calls for scaling back American bases abroad and favors selective cuts in the military. Further, the public now supports more limited use of force abroad (but it continues to favor multilateral approaches to the use of such force), and remains ‘broadly supportive of nonmilitary forms of international engagement and problem solving’ (Smeltz 2012: 20). What is important about this portrait of the public’s orientation to foreign policy is to understand both the degree of stability and change in this current mood. Neither the overall role that the United States should play, the key goals that it should pursue, nor the policy instruments that it should utilize have changed appreciably. Yet some adjustment is clearly taking place. In order to begin both to unravel this stability and change and to understand the magnitude of current differences on foreign policy within the American public, I now turn to explore the public’s foreign policy orientation by party and ideology as well as the public’s view on current foreign policy issues with these dimensions. These two dimensions were chosen because, as Ole Holsti reminded us a decade ago, these are the two crucial predictors of foreign policy attitudes and hence may assist us in assessing the degree of change taking place. More specifically, such analyses will allow us to address three important questions. First, we can begin to determine whether the incipient changes in the foreign policy mood is a reflection of the deepening divisions that have been evident on domestic policy, or whether the foreign policy orientation and issue positions have occurred more uniformly across party and ideology. Second, these analyses will allow us to make some judgments about the stability of the current mood and thus its potential for affecting American foreign policy. Third, these analyses will also provide an important window for us to assess whether the public’s mood is largely in sync or in opposition to the foreign policy positions of the Obama administration.

Assessing the stability in the current foreign policy mood In order to make the assessment of the current public mood and the public’s views on key issues more manageable, I selected several questions from the most recent (2012) Chicago Council on Global Affairs that tap this mood and that touch on the principal foreign policy issues today.2 I then proceeded to analyze the public’s responses on those questions by selfdescribed party affiliation (Republican, Democrat, or Independent) and by self-defined ideological position (liberal, moderate, or conservative).3 These analyses form the basis for the subsequent discussion. Partisan and ideological differences in foreign policy orientation Tables 11.1 and 11.2 summarize the results when we analyze three questions dealing with the foreign policy orientation of the public by party and ideology. Table 11.1 reports the partisan and ideological differences on the public attitudes toward the role of the United States in world affairs and whether the United States is being too much of a ‘global policeman’. On the first question, some differences exist. Sixty per cent of the Democrats and 56 per cent of the Independents are supportive of an active role for the United States, but these levels are somewhat less than the 70 per cent support among Republicans. Self-identified liberals and conservatives at 67 per cent are much more supportive of an active role than political moderates at 52 per cent. By contrast, the results for the second question in Table 11.1 reveal that there is generally strong agreement among the partisan and ideological

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Table 11.1 Two questions on the foreign policy orientation of the public by party and ideology1 (%)

US take an active part in world affairs2 US is playing the role of world policeman more than it should be3

Dem.

Rep.

Ind.

Lib.

Mod.

Cons.

60.0 79.9

69.5 77.6

56.1 77.1

67.0 76.8

51.8 83.0

66.9 75.2

Source: Smeltz 2012. Notes 1 The ideological variable has been recoded from a seven-point coding (extremely liberal, liberal, slightly liberal, moderate, slightly conservative, conservative, extremely conservative) to three categories from the survey. 2 The question used was as follows: ‘Do you think it will be best for the future of the country if we take an active part in world affairs or if we stay out of world affairs?’ The percentages are those who said the US should take an active part. 3 The question used was as follows: ‘Please select if you agree or disagree with the following statement: The US is playing the role of world policeman more than it should be.’ The percentages are those who agree with this statement.

groups that the United States plays more of a policeman role than it should. Political moderates especially feel that way at 83 per cent. Table 11.2 summarizes the partisan and ideological differences and similarities on the use of force for seven hypothetical situations. Although there are surely some differences – and slightly more often by party than ideology – what is important to note is that there are considerable similarities in position across many of these situations – whether dealing with issues concerning North Korea, Taiwan, or humanitarian crises. Even when there are differences by ideology or party, the divisions are generally quite narrow. Just barely a majority of Republicans are willing to use American troops with a North Korean invasion of South Korea, while the other groupings are opposed; slightly less than a majority of independents and conservatives are willing to support a peacekeeping force in the Middle East, even as the others give majority approval to such actions; and independents and liberals do not give Table 11.2 Support for use of American troops in different international situations by party and ideology1 (%)

If North Korea invaded South Korea2 If China invaded Taiwan As part of an international peacekeeping force to enforce a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians To stop a government from committing genocide and killing large numbers of its own people To ensure the oil supply To deal with humanitarian crises If Israel were attacked by its neighbors

Dem.

Rep.

Ind.

Lib.

Mod.

Cons.

39.5 25.9 55.0

50.6 35.1 51.1

37.7 22.3 45.2

41.6 28.6 54.6

37.8 22.5 52.0

46.7 32.0 46.1

77.7

71.1

62.5

77.6

68.7

66.7

51.9 70.7 43.8

58.7 64.0 63.7

48.2 63.7 43.4

42.7 75.7 41.3

58.6 66.5 42.0

54.3 58.8 61.8

Source: Smeltz 2012. Notes 1 The ideological variable has been recoded from a seven-point coding (extremely liberal, liberal, slightly liberal, moderate, slightly conservative, conservative, extremely conservative) to three categories from the survey. 2 The question used for each was as follows: ‘Would you favor or oppose the use of US troops?’ The percentages are for those who favor the use of US troops.

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majority support to using force to ensure America’s oil supply, but the other groupings would do so. Somewhat surprisingly, each of the partisan and ideological groupings provides strong support for the use of troops in addressing humanitarian crises. The biggest gap among the groupings occurs over coming to Israel’s aid if it were attacked by its neighbors: Republicans and conservatives show generally robust support for Israel, but only slightly more than 40 per cent is the norm for the other groups in these data. Tables 11.3 and 11.4 extend these initial analyses and examine public support for some diplomatic, economic, and military instruments of foreign policy that also comprise part of the current public mood. As shown in Table 11.3, across party and ideology, the public is largely supportive of meeting and talking with adversaries such as Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. Majority support appears less fully across the groupings for meeting and talking with the Taliban or with Hamas. In fact, only about 40 per cent of Republicans and conservatives favor such contacts. Table 11.4, however, largely shows much more support across parties and ideologies for several military measures to combat international terrorism as well as two economic and diplomatic actions. To be sure, some variations in levels of support are evident, but, in only one instance (the level of support among liberals for use of ground troops against terrorist training camps) does the support fall below 50 per cent. In sum, then, the partisan and ideological divisions on these questions dealing with foreign policy orientation and the use of particular foreign policy instruments are quite modest. In this sense, the partisan and ideological gaps often attributed to American domestic politics do not seem to have permeated the public’s orientation to the conduct of foreign policy. Instead, and to the extent that we are witnessing any change in foreign policy orientation, it appears to have occurred more systematically across groupings. In this sense, the foreign policy mood is quite consonant among the public. Finally, and importantly, the public’s foreign policy mood remains generally in sync with the direction of the Obama administration with some notable exceptions – public support for talking with Hamas and public support for using ground troops against terrorist training camps. Partisan and ideological differences on key foreign policy issues Does this public mood and support for the Obama approach also hold for actions on current key foreign policy issues? The next series of analyses seek to answer that question. Table 11.3 Public support for willingness to ‘meet and talk’ with leaders from five different adversaries by party and ideology1 (%)

Taliban2 Iran Hamas North Korea Cuba

Dem.

Rep.

Ind.

Lib.

Mod.

Cons.

52.6 73.8 58.0 74.8 76.7

36.4 58.2 40.4 62.7 68.0

50.8 67.3 53.6 69.2 76.7

55.8 76.1 61.1 77.4 82.2

49.9 68.1 54.9 71.0 72.8

40.1 60.4 42.5 62.2 68.1

Source: Smeltz 2012. Notes 1 The ideology variable has been recoded from a seven-point coding (extremely liberal, liberal, slightly liberal, moderate, slightly conservative, conservative, extremely conservative) to three categories from the survey. 2 The survey question used: ‘Do you think US leaders should or should not be meeting to talk with leaders of…’ The percentages are for those who said the US should be ready to meet and talk with these differing actors.

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Table 11.4 Public support for various measures to combat international terrorism by party and ideology1 (%)

US airstrike against terrorist training camps2 US ground troops against terrorist training camps Assassination of individual terrorist leaders Helping poor countries develop their economies Working through UN to strengthen intelligence law against terrorism

Dem.

Rep.

Ind.

Lib.

Mod.

Cons.

67.9 54.0

80.1 61.8

70.6 50.1

62.9 47.9

71.9 55.5

78.4 59.6

67.9 71.9

79.1 63.9

67.7 69.6

64.5 73.7

70.8 64.8

75.4 66.4

86.4

74.6

81.0

86.1

82.2

74.8

Source: Smeltz 2012. Notes 1 The ideology variable has been recoded from a seven-point coding in the survey (extremely liberal, liberal, slightly liberal, moderate, slightly conservative, conservative, extremely conservative) to the three categories reported here. 2 The question used was as follows: ‘In order to combat international terrorism, please indicate whether you favor or oppose each of the following measures…’ The percentages are for those who favor each of these measures.

In particular, Tables 11.5 to 11.8 assess the degree of ideological and partisan divisions over policy toward Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, and Syria among the American public. Among the three options for withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan (see Table 11.5), the preponderant plurality position of the public (albeit not a majority position) is to ‘bring all of its combat troops home as scheduled by 2014’. The only exception is that political independents slightly prefer removing combat troops before 2014. In general, though, the consistency of these results reveals support for the Obama administration’s current policy position. At the same time, these results point to something of a public barrier to the administration seeking to leave combat troops behind after 2014: Democrats, independents, liberals, and moderates provide 16 per cent or less support to this option, and Republicans and conservatives provide only 28 and 26 per cent, respectively, for this option. While the administration has indicated that no decision has been made on that aspect of the post-2014 Table 11.5 Public support for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan for three different options by party and ideology1 (%)

Withdraw all of its combat troops from Afghanistan before 2014 deadline2 Bring all of its combat troops home as scheduled by 2014 Leave some combat troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014

Dem.

Rep.

Ind.

Lib.

Mod.

Cons.

40.9

24.8

44.1

42.3

39.2

31.9

47.2

46.1

38.9

47.3

45.2

40.6

11.3

27.5

16.2

9.5

14.9

26.2

Source: Smeltz 2012. Notes 1 The ideology variable has been recoded from a seven-point coding in the survey (extremely liberal, liberal, slightly liberal, moderate, slightly conservative, conservative, extremely conservative) to the three categories reported here. 2 The question used was as follows: ‘Currently the US is scheduled to withdraw combat forces from Afghanistan by 2014. Do you think that the US should…?’

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Table 11.6 Public support for differing policy action toward North Korea by party and ideology1 (%)

Continue diplomatic efforts to get North Korea to suspend its nuclear program2 Stop and search North Korean ships for nuclear materials or arms Air strikes against military targets and suspected nuclear sites in North Korea Send in US ground troops to take control of the country

Dem.

Rep.

Ind.

Lib.

Mod.

Cons.

85.1

84.2

84.2

88.0

81.0

82.3

60.5

65.9

57.9

55.5

61.5

64.1

32.7

46.9

33.0

29.7

36.1

43.3

14.8

18.0

12.2

14.1

15.8

15.5

Source: Smeltz 2012. Notes 1 The ideology variable has been recoded from a seven-point coding in the survey (extremely liberal, liberal, slightly liberal, moderate, slightly conservative, conservative, extremely conservative) to the three categories reported here. 2 The question used was as follows: ‘Please tell me whether you would support or oppose each of the following kinds of US action to pressure North Korea to stop building its nuclear weapons program.’ The percentages are those who support each option.

American military presence in Afghanistan, these results indicate that there is little appetite for that option among the public – at least when compared to the two other options on withdrawal from Afghanistan. On the issue of North Korea and nuclear weapons, the public, whatever their partisan or ideological stripe, is fully divided between supporting some diplomatic and sanctioning measures versus opposing a number of military actions by American forces. As Table 11.6 reports, Democrats, Republicans, and independents strongly support continued diplomatic Table 11.7 Public support for various actions against Iran by party and ideology1 (%)

US should proceed with a military strike on its own2 Allow Iran nuclear power if UN inspections granted permanent and full access3 US should side with Israel and against Iran in a war4

Dem.

Rep.

Ind.

Lib.

Mod.

Cons.

17.7

41.0

25.2

19.9

25.7

33.0

49.5

54.1

56.7

58.0

49.0

52.2

30.2

54.0

34.6

30.0

29.9

52.0

Source: Smeltz 2012. Notes 1 The ideology variable has been recoded from a seven-point coding in the survey (extremely liberal, liberal, slightly liberal, moderate, slightly conservative, conservative, extremely conservative) to the three categories reported here. 2 The question used was as follows: ‘Suppose Iran continues to enrich uranium, but the UN Security Council does not authorize a military strike. Do you think the US should or should not proceed with a military strike on its own?’ The percentages are for those who said that US should proceed with a strike. 3 The question used was as follows: ‘If Iran were to allow UN inspectors permanent and full access throughout Iran to make sure it is not developing nuclear weapons, do you think Iran should or should not be allowed to produce nuclear fuel for producing electricity?’ The percentages are for those who said that Iran should be allowed to produce nuclear fuel. 4 The question used was as follows: ‘Suppose Israel was to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran was to retaliate against Israel, and the two were to go to war. Do you think the US should or should not bring its military forces into the war on the side of Israel and against Iran?’ The percentages are those who think the US should side with Israel.

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Table 11.8 Public support for American actions against Syria by party and ideology1 (%)

Increase diplomatic and economic sanctions on Syria2 Enforce a no-fly zone over Syria Send arms and supplies to antigovernment groups in Syria Bombing Syrian air defenses Sending troops into Syria

Dem.

Rep.

Ind.

Lib.

Mod.

Cons.

62.3

70.4

60.2

66.4

58.7

65.9

56.7 25.6

64.2 30.5

56.0 25.8

60.0 28.6

55.8 25.8

59.7 26.8

20.2 14.8

27.0 14.0

20.7 11.2

21.7 13.1

22.5 14.3

22.6 13.5

Source: Smeltz 2012. Notes 1 The ideology variable has been recoded from a seven-point coding in the survey (extremely liberal, liberal, slightly liberal, moderate, slightly conservative, conservative, extremely conservative) to the three categories reported here. 2 The question used for those options was as follows: ‘Would you support or oppose the United States and its allies doing each of the following actions with respect to Syria?’ The percentages are for those who support each of these actions.

efforts to address North Korea’s nuclear program as do liberals, moderates, and conservatives. Equally strong majorities of the public, across the political spectrum, endorse stopping and searching North Korean vessels for nuclear materials, a position consistent with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1874 (2009) and a position supported by the Obama administration. Military measures of either air strikes against North Korea or sending US ground troops never receive majority support from the public. About a third or less of Democrats, independents, liberals, and moderates favor air strikes and Republicans and conservatives provide 43 to 47 per cent support. Less than 20 per cent of the public across the groupings support the use of American ground troops. In dealing with the nuclear threat posed by Iran (Table 11.7), though, the public is seemingly not divided as it is over actions toward North Korea. The only exception is over the question of whether to side with Israel if that nation should attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. Across parties and ideological groups, there is limited (and not majority) support for a military strike against Iran, although there is up to a 20 or more percentage point gap between Democrats (at 18 per cent) and liberals (at 20 per cent) as compared to Republicans (at 41 per cent) and conservatives (33 per cent). Among the various groups, most give majority support (or just slightly less) to allowing Iran to produce nuclear power if UN inspectors were granted full access to such facilities. This result is a policy position consistent with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a position that the Obama administration would likely support. The largest gulf by party and ideology is over whether to side with Israel if it would attack Iran. A majority of Republicans and conservative support doing so, but a third or less of the American public who identify themselves as Democrats, independents, liberals, or moderates do so. If such an attack were to come about, the Obama administration would thus likely face significant opposition from many of its domestic supporters if it were to side with Israel. Finally, Table 11.8 summarizes the levels of support for taking various actions against the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria. The American public, regardless of party or ideology, supports diplomatic and economic sanctions and a no-fly zone enforcement over Syria and opposes more direct and sustained military involvement such as aiding anti-government forces, bombing Syrian air defenses, and sending American troops into Syria. For the former

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two measures, majorities (and usually robust majorities) favor these actions. For the latter three measures, only about a fifth to a quarter of the public, across the political spectrum, favor arming anti-government forces in Syria or bombing Syrian air defenses. As with North Korea, support for sending American troops to Syria receives support from less than 15 per cent of the public, whether Democrats, Republicans, or independents and whether liberals, moderates, or conservatives. Public support and opposition to these various forms of actions against Syria are largely consistent with the Obama administration’s current policy, but American Secretary of State John Kerry has committed the United States to providing more aid to the Syrian opposition, including such ‘non-lethal’ assistance with armored vehicles and military training (Chu and McDonnell 2013; Mainville 2013). In short, and with the analysis for the public orientation, the public’s views are quite consistent across key issues. Once again, some differences are detectable as we have outlined, but the gulfs on foreign policy are markedly modest – with more consensus than dissensus being the norm. Future foreign policy direction and the public mood One important policy change that the Obama administration initiated during the last year of its first term was the ‘pivot’ of American policy toward Asia with a lessening of an emphasis on Europe and the Middle East. Has this action also met with public support across the political spectrum as have some of the other policy issues? Table 11.9 summarizes the degree of support for the policy initiative. As the results for the specific pivot question show, the public across the partisan and ideological groupings generally support this change in direction. Democrats and independents provide about equal levels of support at 57 per cent, but Republicans narrowly support this shift as well at 49 per cent. Liberals (at 65 per cent) are

Table 11.9 Public view of the pivot toward Asia and the relative importance of three regions by party and ideology1 (%)

Support for plans to pivot away from Middle East and Europe and more toward Asia2 Relative Importance of three regions3 Asia Europe Middle East

Dem.

Rep.

Ind.

Lib.

Mod.

Cons.

57.1

49.1

56.9

65.1

50.9

50.2

27.4 41.0 31.6

28.9 41.4 27.8

40.7 37.3 21.6

37.9 37.1 24.1

29.1 37.3 33.3

29.5 43.3 26.4

Source: Smeltz 2012. Notes 1 The ideology variable has been recoded from a seven-point coding (extremely liberal, liberal, slightly liberal, moderate, slightly conservative, conservative, extremely conservative) to three categories reported here. 2 The question used was as follows: ‘How do you feel about the US government’s plans to pivot our diplomatic and military resources away from the Middle East and Europe and more toward Asia?’ The question had four options, ‘I strongly support it’, ‘I somewhat support it’, ‘I somewhat oppose it’, ‘I strongly oppose it’. The responses were collapsed into support or oppose only. The percentages reported are for those who supported the pivot. 3 The question used was as follows: ‘In your view, which part of the world is more important to the US – Europe, Asia, or the Middle East?’

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especially supportive of this pivot, while moderates (51 per cent) and conservatives (50 per cent) barely endorse this shift. Yet, some caution also enters into this assessment as some disjuncture in support may emerge. That is, when the public was also asked to assess which part of the world is more important for the United States, the pivot toward Asia did not seem to be so fully embraced across parties and ideologies as with the specific pivot question. As Table 11.9 also shows, Democrats and Republicans and moderates and conservatives ranked Europe first among the three regions of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, as more important. Only for independents (41 per cent) and liberals (barely so at 38 per cent) was Asia ranked higher than the other two regions. In this sense, this new direction is not yet fully embraced by the public, and this may be one area where the public is not yet wholly in tune with the Obama administration’s policy.

The public’s views and its impact What is particularly striking about this brief review of the public’s general orientation to foreign policy and its views on specific issues is the degree of stability and structure, even in the face of the two wars, the Great Recession, and significant political divisions at home. To be sure, the public views are divided by partisan and ideological differences, but these are more modest than what we might expect, especially given the recent domestic policy clashes. In this sense, American public opinion on foreign policy continues to exhibit the necessary conditions for the public to have a policy effect. But are the sufficient conditions present for the public to have an effect? While there are no assured ways of assessing the likelihood that a mechanism for public access to policymakers and a degree of receptivity of the public’s views by decision-makers (and thus satisfying the sufficient conditions criterion) are fully met, we can provide some initial insights from the first term of the Obama administration, and then we use it to suggest the likelihood of the public’s impact on foreign policy in the years ahead. Presidential decision style President Obama’s decision style has been described as ‘White-House centric’ and that his administration has been characterized as the most centralized since the Nixon administration (Luce and Dombey 2010). On foreign policy, by this analysis, President Obama is his own major policymaker; he does not rely on a major foreign policy strategist to set his direction in global affairs. Furthermore, he often takes an extended period of time to make decisions. Witness, for example, the several months that he took to decide on the ‘surge strategy’ over Afghanistan (see Woodward 2010). In this sense, as Luce and Dombey (2010) say, ‘the buck [on foreign policy] not only stops with, but often floats for quite a long time around, Mr. Obama himself’. As a result, foreign policy making can sometimes be left on the back burner until the president turns to address it. Another analysis would largely accord with this assessment. The president generally surrounds himself with a small circle of advisors (e.g. Vice President Joe Biden, (now former) National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, and former counterterrorism advisor and now CIA Director John Brennan) in addressing foreign policy issues. These advisors are usually solely from the White House, without many individuals beyond that venue having an impact on policy formulation. Indeed, President Obama appeared to rely heavily during the first term on his deputy national security advisor, Denis McDonough, who now has been named his

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chief of staff for the second term. Further, McDonough reportedly ‘has played a central role in assembling Mr. Obama’s second-term national security team’ (Landler 2013). Yet a third analysis confirms the dominance of those in the White House in shaping foreign policy as well. A close Obama advisor is quoted in this way on the policy formulation question: ‘It is fair to say the conceptual framing of Obama’s foreign policy has taken place within the White House and not within the State Department’ (Glasser 2012: 80). Moreover, the role of the first Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was described by McDonough as an implementer, not a formulator, of policy: ‘She’s really the principal implementer’ (quoted in Glasser 2012: 80). In short, foreign policy formulation is primarily elsewhere than the State Department – and that is in the White House. If this characterization of the decision process for the first term is largely accurate, the decision process on foreign policy may be even more narrowly circumscribed and closed for the second term. The national security team for the second term – including the new Secretary of State John Kerry, the new Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, the new National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and newly-confirmed CIA Director John Brennan – seems especially a team of friends and long-time confidants – and hardly a team of opposing views. At the same time, virtually all observers agree that Obama listens to a wide array of views in making his decisions, and he is quite calculating in the choices that he makes. In this sense, he leaves some room for public input. Journalist Ryan Lizza (2012) illustrates this component of Obama’s decision style through his analysis of decision-making over Egypt and Libya at the height of the ‘Arab Spring’ in early 2011. As Lizza argues, Obama operates primarily as a foreign policy ‘consequentialist’ in which he selects ‘his response to every threat on its own merits’ (quoted in McCormick 2012: 330). Although Obama ultimately moved to a more idealist position for dealing with Egypt and Libya, his foreign policy position evolved in both instances from his initial realist impulse. In this sense, Obama is less driven by ideological views and more so by the ‘facts on the ground’ (McCormick 2012: 331). Still, with this seemingly closed decision process by the Obama administration and with a close-knit set of foreign policy advisers, public opinion may have a difficult time gaining access. In this sense, public opinion appears to have limited impact on the process. At the same time, the President’s apparent openness to differing views and the length of the decision time in making decisions – as well as his sensitivity to maintaining public approval – leave some avenue for public input. In short, the sufficient conditions required for the impact of public opinion may be partially, albeit only partially available, in the Obama administration’s foreign policymaking process. Structural and process factors and the public’s impact While the personal characteristics and decision style of the president will surely affect the role of public opinion in shaping foreign policy, other structural and process conditions will also impact whether the sufficient conditions criterion may be met. First, the salience of foreign policy issues has generally been on the increase in recent presidential elections with ten per cent or more voting on the basis of these issues (see Nincic 2012 on these recent trends). (This pattern, however, was not the case in 2012 when, in two different exit polls, only five or four per cent of the public identified foreign policy as the most important issue in their vote – see, for example, Fox News 2012; Von Kanel 2012.) Yet, presidents do take policy initiatives based upon their electoral successes, and some issues that are particularly salient to the public may thus drive those actions. For instance,

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the public’s views on the development of nuclear weapons by Iran, the degree of American support for Israel, or the perception of the public on the rise of China, for example, could reasonably have an overall effect in the wake of a successful election. Second, the magnitude of public opinion on particular foreign policy issues matters in driving public access to policymakers. Previous political research on foreign policy suggests that the public’s position on an issue must garner a 60 per cent or higher level of support before necessarily impacting policy. In particular, political scientist Thomas Graham (1994: 196) noted that ‘public opinion on a foreign policy issue must reach at least consensus levels (60 per cent or higher) before it begins to have a discernible effect on decision making’. Needless to say, some foreign policy issues have reached that level or nearly so, and thus they have the possibility to have an impact. Third, the distribution of power within the Congress also matters. With the House and Senate divided in control between Republicans and Democrats, the president would seemingly have some decision latitude. Yet, as the controversies over several recent issues (e.g., Benghazi, national security appointments, drone policy) demonstrate, Congress can still reduce or limit such latitude – or at least make the decision process more difficult if the public expresses any concern about such issues. Finally, even if an administration is not wholly responsive to the policy options sought by the public immediately, it will have its decision latitude considerably reduced in the foreign policy realm by the pull of public opinion and by the requirements of electoral politics in a democratic setting over time, especially as the salience of some foreign policy issues comes to the forefront of the policy agenda.

Conclusions In this chapter, we began by identifying the two principal theoretical perspectives for understanding the role of public opinion in affecting American foreign policy direction – one that sees the public’s views as uninformed and moodish, the other that sees the public’s views as structured and stable. Utilizing the second perspective, we identified the necessary and sufficient conditions for public opinion to have a foreign policy impact. In turn, we assessed whether the necessary and sufficient conditions are present in the current public mood. For the necessary conditions, we argued that the public’s general orientation toward foreign policy and its stances on key foreign policy issues are largely stable and are generally structured by the effects of party and ideology – and have been for some time. Furthermore, the public mood appears to be generally in accord with the views of the Obama administration. For the sufficient conditions, the receptivity to public opinion by leaders, and the degree of access to the policy process for the public, the analysis is more speculative, based upon the decision style of the Obama administration. In general, the closed foreign policy decision structure of the Obama administration reduces the prospect of the sufficient conditions being satisfied, although the wide range of views that the president seeks and the longer decision time may afford some public input. Yet the public’s input may be still be impeded or enhanced by other structural and process factors that are wholly imbedded within the American political system and also need to be addressed in considering the sufficient conditions for the role of public opinion. Still, what remains unclear and what remains unmeasured is the magnitude of the effect of public opinion even if the necessary and sufficient conditions for input are satisfied. In this sense, careful and detailed case studies of presidential foreign policymaking and the impact of public opinion remain an important prescription for more fully analyzing the Obama administration or any other.

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Notes 1 On these theoretical perspectives, see McCormick (2014: 507–33) from which I draw here and later in this chapter. 2 Thanks to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs for sharing the raw data with me and allowing me to analyze its dataset to obtain the results that I report in the tables. 3 The question was actually a seven-point scale asking the respondents to characterize their views as either extremely liberal, liberal, slightly liberal, moderate or middle of the road, slightly conservative, conservative, and extremely conservative. The results were recoded to a three-point scale of liberal, moderate, or conservative with the three liberal characterizations and the three conservative characterizations collapsed into either liberal or conservative.

References Almond, Gabriel A. (1950) The American People and Foreign Policy, New York, NY: Frederick A. Praeger. Bouton, Marshall M. and Benjamin I. Page (2002) Worldviews 2002: American Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, Chicago, IL: Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. Chu, Henry and Patrick J. McDonnell (2013) ‘Kerry pledges $60 million in aid to Syrian opposition forces’, Los Angeles Times, February 29 (available online at http://www.latimes.com/news/world/ worldnow/la-fg-wn-kerry-aide-to-syrian-opposition-forces-20130228,0,2455385.story) (accessed March 10, 2013). Converse, Philip E. (1964) ‘The nature of belief systems in mass public’, in David E. Apter (ed.), Ideology and Discontent, New York, NY: Free Press, 206–61. Fox News (2012) ‘Fox News exit polls’ (available online at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/ elections/2012-exit-poll) (accessed March 8, 2013). Foyle, Douglas C. (1999) Counting the Public In. Presidents, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy, New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Glasser, Susan B. (2012) ‘Head of state’, Foreign Policy, 194 (July/August): 75–84. Graham, Thomas (1994) ‘Public opinion and US foreign policy decision making’, in David A. Deese (ed.), The New Politics of American Foreign Policy, New York, NY: St Martin’s Press. Holsti, Ole R. (1992) ‘Public opinion and foreign policy: challenges to the Almond–Lippmann consensus’, International Studies Quarterly, 36 (December): 439–66. Holsti, Ole R. (2004) Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy (revised edn), Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Hurwitz, Jon and Mark Peffley (1987) ‘How are foreign policy attitudes structured? A hierarchical model’, American Political Science Review, 81 (December): 1099–120. Landler, Mark (2013) ‘Obama plans to name close aide on national security as Chief of Staff’, The New York Times, January 16 (available online at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/us/politics/obamaplans-to-name-national-security-deputy-as-chief-of-staff.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) (accessed March 3, 2013). Lizza, Ryan (2012) ‘Obama: the consequentialist’, in James M. McCormick (ed.), The Domestic Sources of American Foreign Policy: Insights and Evidence, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 429–47. Luce, Edward and Daniel Dombey (2010) ‘Waiting on a Sun King’, The Financial Times, March 31 (available online at at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/930b7012-3c5d-11df-b316-00144feabdc0. html#axzz2MxxiqIAD) (accessed March 4, 2013). Mainville, Michael (2013) ‘Kerry hints at greater US support for Syria opposition’, Yahoo! News, February 27 (available online at http://uk.news.yahoo.com/kerry-hints-greater-us-support-syriaopposition-183138503.html) (accessed February 27, 2013). McCormick, James M. (2012) ‘Part III: decision-makers and their policymaking positions’, in James. M. McCormick (ed.), The Domestic Sources of American Foreign Policy: Insights and Evidence (6th edn), Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 319–32.

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McCormick, James M. (2014) American Foreign Policy and Process (6th edn), Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. Nincic, Miroslav (2012) ‘External affairs and the electoral connection’, in James. M. McCormick (ed.), The Domestic Sources of American Foreign Policy (6th edn), Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 139–55. Page, Benjamin I. with Marshall M. Bouton (2006) The Foreign Policy Disconnect: What Americans Want from Our Leaders but Don’t Get, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Page, Benjamin and Robert Y. Shapiro (1983) ‘Effects of public opinion on policy’, American Political Science Review, 77 (March): 175–90. Page, Benjamin and Robert Y. Shapiro (1992) The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends on Americans’ Policy Preferences, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (2011) ‘What the public knows – in words and pictures’, November 7, (available online at http://pewresearch.org/pubs/2125/news-in-quiz-currentevents) (accessed July 13, 2012). Shapiro, Robert Y. and Benjamin I. Page (1988) ‘Foreign policy and the rational public’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 32 (June): 211–47. Smeltz, Dina (2012) Foreign Policy in the New Millennium: Results of the 2012 Chicago Council Survey of American Public Opinion and US Foreign Policy, Chicago, IL: Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Sobel, Richard (2001) The Impact of Public Opinion on US Foreign Policy: Constraining the Colossus, New York, NY: Oxford University Press. United Nations Security Council (2009) ‘Security Council, acting unanimously, condemns in strongest terms Democratic People’s Republic of Korea nuclear test, toughens sanctions’, Department of Public Information, News and Media Division, New York, June 12 (available online at http://www. un.org/News/Press/docs/2009/sc9679.doc.htm) (accessed March 10, 2013). Von Kanel, Joe (2012) ‘Exit polls: top issues for voters’, November 6 (available online at http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/11/06/exit-polls-top-issues-for-voters/comment-page-1/) (accessed March 8, 2013). Wittkopf, Eugene R. (1990) Faces of Internationalism: Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Woodward, Bob (2010) Obama’s Wars, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

12 Corporate elite networks and US foreign policy The revolving door and the open door under Obama Bastiaan van Apeldoorn and Naná de Graaff In the last presidential race the wealth of Republican candidate Mitt Romney, his previous career as private equity investor, and as his close connections to Wall Street and the world of big finance, drew much media attention. Of course, his image as an out-of-touch plutocrat was only strengthened by his own gaffes, most notoriously his remark at a private fundraising dinner that he did not care about the 47 per cent of the US population not paying federal income tax, and which (he alleged) would not vote for him anyway. The media fuss and political commotion that this created, in combination with Obama’s left-of-centre campaign rhetoric, reinforced the impression that an Obama win would be a victory of the common man against the corporate elite: of main street over Wall Street. The press, moreover, reported that while Wall Street and ultra-wealthy individuals were by far the biggest contributors to the Romney campaign, Obama’s campaign relied more on small donors (Confessore and McGinty 2012). More careful research, however, shows that in the last presidential elections in which more than a staggering US$ 2 billion was spent, ‘big money’ – large corporations as well as the super-rich often linked to these corporations – funded the largest part of both campaigns (Ferguson et al. 2012). Also when we look beyond the issue of campaign finance, it is simply wrong to suggest that whereas Romney was the candidate of big business Obama was not. Wall Street for instance had intimate links with the White House during the first term (see, e.g., Suskind 2011), and there is little reason to believe that this will be very different during the second term. More generally, research – some of which we will present in this chapter – shows that the Obama administration is not only closely connected to Wall Street but also to the corporate community more broadly. This, moreover, is a pattern typical of previous administrations as well. There is ample evidence suggesting that these close ties between government and large corporations have (had) considerable influence on government policy. Indeed, as Peter Gowan (2004: 3–4) argued, the United States is unique among advanced capitalist states inasmuch as it is ‘a business democracy – a state with universal suffrage, which celebrates and accepts the world view and values of only one class, the business class, and which gives the business class extraordinary sway over public policy formation’. Important in this context is the fact that the United States, while having among the highest rates of per capita income, is also a highly unequal society, more so than most other advanced capitalist countries, with for instance the top 1 per cent of households owning almost half of all financial wealth (Winters and Page 2009: 736). As is argued by a relatively neglected but important literature, economic inequality translates into political inequality, to the extent that the social class or elite that owns and controls America’s big business sees its interests and preferences prevail in important areas of public policy-making (Mills 2000 [1956]; Domhoff 1967; Ferguson 1995; Winters and Page 2009). Within this tradition however, little systematic

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attention has been paid to how corporate power, or the ‘business class’ shapes American foreign policy, while this has also drawn scant attention from foreign policy analysts studying the United States. In this chapter we will argue that what we identify as corporate elite power is in fact one important, but in the literature often overlooked, ‘domestic’ source of American foreign policy, whereby the corporate elite – acting through networks that knit the corporate community and the American state tightly together – can be regarded as an important non-state actor in US foreign policymaking. While corporate power over US foreign policy can manifest itself in different ways we will focus upon how US foreign policymakers themselves are closely tied to, indeed can be considered to be part of, the corporate elite, and how this tends to shape the worldview that underpins US foreign policy formation. This is especially the case, this chapter suggests, at what Layne (2006: 13) calls the ‘highest’ level of foreign policy, that of grand strategy, representing an overarching vision of the state’s critical interests and the best way to secure them. The remainder of this chapter is organized as follows. In the next section we will briefly elaborate the concept of corporate elite and how we can understand its relation to US foreign policy. We will then present some data on how the foreign policymakers of the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations all have been firmly embedded in corporate elite networks, both through previous positions on corporate boards and through corporate elitedominated think tanks and other so-called policy-planning bodies. The final section will argue, taking the Obama presidency as an example, that these corporate elite networks help to account for the continuity in American grand strategy in terms of a liberal foreign policy aimed at maintaining a global capitalist system and an ‘open door’ to (American) capital. A conclusion will briefly summarize our argument and point out some possible future directions in Obama’s foreign policy.

Corporate elites as a non-state actor in US foreign policy While the analysis of the role and nature of (corporate) elites in American politics generally can be situated within critical political economy approaches to US foreign policy (Van Apeldoorn and De Graaff 2012a, 2012b, forthcoming) this type of scholarship harks back to an older tradition of elite studies in American sociology. The seminal work here is that of C. Wright Mills more than half a century ago, in which the power structure of American society is seen as dominated by a power elite made up of those (mostly) men controlling the large corporations, the military as well as the state (Mills 1956). Later research has shown how the corporate community – made up of the chief executives and directors of large (multinational) corporations – as well as those governing important think tanks and other socalled policy planning bodies together with the owners of corporate wealth form the central component of this power elite (Domhoff 1967, 2009; see also Dye 1986). Scholars within this tradition of power structure research have traced the influence of this (corporate) power elite upon public policymaking through a variety of channels and mechanisms (for an overview, see Domhoff 2009: ch. 7). With regard to foreign policy, statistical research has in fact shown that US foreign policy corresponds most closely to the preferences of ‘internationally oriented business leaders’. From this it is concluded that business has by far the largest influence on foreign policymaking while mass public opinion accounts for only a small effect (Jacobs and Page 2005). An important question, however, is what causal mechanisms account for this correlation, that is, how this large influence of the business elite is exercised.

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We identify two key institutional channels through which corporate elites influence US (foreign) policymaking. First, a critical channel of influence for corporate elite power is the so-called policy planning network, i.e. the think tanks, research institutes, and (business) advocacy groups that contribute to and influence US (foreign) policymaking. Some of these bodies represent corporate interests directly, such as the US Business Roundtable, a large group of chief executive officers (CEOs) of America’s largest and most globally competitive companies and one of the most central organizations in the American policy-planning network (Burris 2008). The Business Roundtable plays a key role in advancing the long-term interests of this dominant section of American capital, for instance through promoting free trade or the liberalization of corporate finance (Cox 2012: 17–35). Other policy-planning bodies, however, do not directly represent big business and instead present themselves as non-partisan, neutral organizations not representing any particular interest but rather offering independent ‘expert advice’, while the reality in fact shows (as we will illustrate in the next section) that they are closely interlocked with the corporate community. Key foreign policy think tanks of the latter kind are for instance the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Brookings Institution, and the transnational Trilateral Commission. While the general importance of these elite policy networks is well recognized in the power research literature mentioned above (especially Domhoff 1967, 2009; Dye 1986), as well as from other perspectives (see Abelson 2006), there is also some work within neoMarxist and neo-Gramscian traditions that highlights the role of elite planning bodies with respect to US foreign policy (van der Pijl 1984; Gill 1991). A classical work here is the study by Shoup and Minter (2004 [1977]) of one of the oldest and most central foreign policy think tanks, the CFR, which they argued to be representing America’s financial oligarchy and in turn having played a determining role in setting American foreign policy from the 1930s onwards. A more subtle, Gramscian account is provided by Parmar (2004), who views the American state not so much as an instrument of the CFR or the American capitalist class but argues the state rather to be interwoven with corporate interests in a network of private and state elites cemented by a shared ideological commitment to American globalism (see also Parmar 2012). The second key channel through which corporate elite power is exercised and influences foreign policy is through the personal ties of foreign policymakers with the business world. This particular state–capital nexus goes back a long time. Indeed, as LaFeber (1994: 163) writes, this aspect of America’s political economy dates from the second half of the 19th century (post-Civil War), when ‘the political as well as economic system was coming under the control of the new corporate leaders. The officials who made foreign policy usually shared the views – and sometimes even the pocketbooks – of those who rule the business community’. This meshing of private and state elites has been enhanced by the ‘revolving door’, that is, the deep-seated practice in US politics to recruit cabinet members and other senior government officials directly from the corporate elite, who subsequently keep on moving back and forth between public service and the private sector throughout their careers. The biographies of many of those foreign policy officials (as we shall shortly show), beyond direct corporate affiliations, also display numerous connections with the policy-planning network, which indirectly links them to the corporate community that tends to dominate the key foreign policy think tanks. While the close personal interlocks between state officials and the corporate community have been recognized to some extent by revisionist historians of the Open Door school (Williams 2009 [1959/72]; LaFeber 1998 [1963], see further below), contemporary research, even among more critical approaches, has not paid much attention to this phenomenon and how it affects US foreign policy.

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Based on our own research on what we call American grand-strategy makers and the social networks in which they are embedded the next section will empirically illustrate the extent of this personal nexus between the state and the corporate elite for the last three administrations.

The corporate elite networks of the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations In our search for corporate elite power as a source of US foreign policymaking we take – as introduced above – what we call the grand-strategy makers themselves as a point of departure and track their career paths before and after service in the administration. Foreign policy after all is made not so much by an abstract state but by concrete individuals who operate in a particular social context that shapes their agency. Our argument is thus that what American foreign policymakers do when they seek to formulate and implement US grand strategy is shaped by the social power relations in which they are embedded and hence by their social background. In the American case particularly relevant here are the (previous) connections and social ties they may have had outside the state. Our data (for more extensive reporting and analysis, see Van Apeldoorn and de Graaff 2012a, 2012b, forthcoming) show that here in fact the corporate sector looms large, both in terms of the personal interlocks between key foreign policymakers and the corporate community, and through a policy-planning network that is closely connected to (partly) the same corporate elite networks. The corporate elite networks in which we thus find many of America’s grand-strategy makers to be embedded are in our view a critical element in forming their worldview and policy preferences, and it is in this way that these elite networks influence American foreign policy formation. On the basis of biographical data on 87 key cabinet-ranking officials (such as the Secretaries of State, Defence, the Treasury, and Commerce) as well as key White House staff and senior advisors of the president (such as the National Security Advisor) as well the presidents and vice-presidents themselves involved in the making of US grand strategy in the last three administrations (Clinton, Bush, and Obama in 1993, 2001, and 2009 respectively) we have conducted an extensive mapping of all their corporate and policy planning affiliations before and after entering government. We only included top-level positions within firms, i.e. executive, owner/partner, non-executive board, and advisory board positions and only formal membership of policy planning bodies, i.e. either as director, trustee, fellow, or similar roles. We subsequently employed social network analysis (SNA), which is a method unique in allowing for an analysis of relations between actors – for instance between grand-strategy makers and firms – instead of comparing the individual attributes of actors, and it helps to visualize these relations patterns between actors (for more on SNA, see, e.g., Scott and Carrington 2011). With regard to direct ties to the corporate elite, our findings – summarized in Table 12.1 – show that a very high percentage of our selected grand-strategy makers (have) had top-level corporate affiliations. Half of the selected grandstrategy makers of Clinton, and almost three quarters of both the Bush and Obama administrations, had top-level corporate affiliations prior to entering the respective administration. Furthermore, the large majority of those grand-strategy makers with corporate affiliations return to commanding positions within the private sector after leaving the administration (and often times again return to government years later, etc.). Many grand-strategy makers of the post-Cold War era are hence so-called ins-and-outers, moving back and forth between government and the corporate community through the earlier described ‘revolving door’. This indicates that they are thus not only closely linked to the corporate elite, but to a large extent can be considered as an integral part of this elite.

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Table 12.1 Number of corporate linkers and corporate affiliations per administration

Total Before After Revolving Door (before and after)

Clinton

Bush

Obama

22 (190) 15 (41) 20 (149) 13

27 (178) 22 (89) 21 (72) 15

22 (129) 22 (113) 7 (16) 7

Sources: Own data collection. Table taken from Van Apeldoorn and de Graaff 2012b: 599 Notes: the numbers refer to the number of grand-strategy makers in each administration (out of a total of 30) that held corporate affiliations either before or after serving in that administration or both (revolving door). The numbers in parentheses refer to the total number of affiliations held by these grand-strategy makers. Of course, because of the time element these numbers are considerably higher for Clinton, while for Obama the totals ‘After’ are as of yet low.

A different point of entry into this strong nexus between the state and the corporate world is to look at the companies that are linked to these grand-strategy makers. Do we find a dominance of particular sectors, is the White House ‘hi-jacked’ by for instance the defence industry or Wall Street? Can we find traces of a commonly made distinction in the literature between more nationally oriented capital and more transnationally oriented capital? It appears from our network analysis that in the case of all three administrations, connected corporations are from all major sectors and that there is a clear dominance of transnational capital, both through an overrepresentation of large transnational corporations and of firms – such as corporate law firms – providing services for these corporations. In order to illustrate this let us take a close look at the corporate ties of Obama’s grand-strategy makers. The corporate connections of Obama’s grand-strategy makers The network graph in Figure 12.1 shows the corporate affiliations of the grand-strategy makers of the Obama administration prior to their entrance into government, clustered per sector. We see first of all the substantial number (22 out of 30) of key grand-strategy makers in the first Obama administration that have had corporate affiliations. In particular special advisors such as e.g. Laura D’Andrea Tyson with as many as 18 corporate affiliations; Paul Volcker with 11 corporate affiliations, of which five are connected to the financial sector including directorships at the American Stock Exchange, Deutsche Bank Trust Corporation, and Prudential Insurance Company, a major US financial services firm; and Richard Holbrooke with 10 board memberships, among which is managing director at the by-now infamous Lehman Brothers and independent director at American International Group (AIG), as well as vice-chairman and director of the investment banking firm Credit Suisse First Boston, have had impressive corporate careers prior to their government advisory functions. But also Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had 10 corporate directorships prior to his appointment, including directorship of a Northrop Grumman subsidiary, and of large multinationals such as Science Applications International Corporation and TRW Automotive. Similarly, Leon Panetta had nine corporate affiliations before he became Director of the CIA, among which are directorships of the New York Stock Exchange, Zenith National Insurance Corporation, and IDT Telecom, as well as advisory board memberships of, for instance, oil giant BP America and PR firm Fleishman-Hillard which receives federal contracts adding up to millions of dollars. National Security Advisor James Jones had six prior corporate affiliations including directorships at Boeing, Honeywell International, and

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Chevron, as did Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, who – apart from being partner and counsel at several corporate law firms – was a board member of, for instance, Walmart, the largest retailer in the world. Gary Locke, Secretary of Commerce, also had six corporate affiliations, as did Ronald Kirk, US Trade representative, with directorships at, for instance, the major multinational retail chains Petsmart, Dean Foods, and Brinker International. What the network in Figure 12.1 also clearly shows is that in terms of sectoral composition the financial sector with 35 connected firms and the (corporate) law firms/consultancy sector, with a total of 22 affiliations, are most extensively represented. However, in spite of this relative dominance, there is a diversity of sectors, with all major industries represented. If the two best represented sectors (finance and law/consultancy) are taken together this still leaves around 50 per cent distributed among the remaining sectors. This indicates a broad social base in terms of the links between the grand-strategy making core of the Obama administration and US capital (similar results were found for the Clinton and Bush administrations; see Van Apeldoorn and De Graaff 2012a). It also indicates that it is not so much the direct and narrow corporate lobbying of one particular sector that takes place through these kind of personal interlocks, or a hi-jacking of the military industrial complex or oil industry – as is often asserted. Rather, it seems to be the case that US transnationally oriented capital in general is – and has been – directly connected to many key grand-strategy makers through a multitude of different ties. This also transpires from the fact that 35 per cent of the connected companies has (had) a Fortune 500 notation, and thus belong to America’s largest and most transnationally oriented firms. Moreover the firms in the law/consultancy sector, while not being F500 companies themselves, provide a majority of their services to American transnational corporations. Similar patterns have been observed for the Clinton and Bush administrations. In sum, these findings reveal much continuity, in terms of the high degree of connectedness to the corporate elite, the sectoral composition of these corporate affiliations, and of the overall transnational orientation of the capital thus represented. As indicated, our argument in this respect is that this close and particular nexus to the corporate community at large – and big transnationally oriented capital in particular – shapes the particular worldview of these policymakers and how they tend to construct the interests of the United States. We will now examine the close connection of our key grand-strategy makers to the so-called foreign policy planning network, that is, the second important channel through which corporate elite power shapes US foreign policy. These policy-planning networks are in turn, as we will illustrate, closely linked to the (same!) corporate elite networks that we have discussed above. The foreign policy-planning network Within the multitude of individual links (a total of 325) of the grand-strategy makers with policy-planning bodies before they assumed a government post, we identified a core network of connected think tanks and research institutes that were linked to multiple post-Cold War administrations through several people within each administration. In other words, we found an ‘inner circle’ (Useem 1984) of policy-planning bodies. The largest and most central think tank in this inner circle is, unsurprisingly, the aforementioned Council on Foreign Relations, which has been at the heart of the US foreign policy establishment since the 1920s. The CFR is closely connected to the corporate elite, and can be seen as a constant in shaping and propagating a liberal internationalist consensus forming the ideational underpinning of America’s globalist foreign policy. Another very central think tank, however, appeared to be

Financial

Technology

Axelrod - Senior Advisor

Media / Marketing

Locke - Secr of Commerce

Sutphen - Dept Chief of Staff

Rice - Ambassador to the UN

1 Because affiliations in the figure are clustered per sector, one tie (line) can represent several connections. For instance, Tyson has 7 corporate connections to the financial sector and 6 to the technology sector. The strength of the tie provides an indication of this: a thick tie means more corporate links to a particular sector

Note

Source: author’s own data collection

Key: circles = key grand-strategy makers; squares = sectors

Orszag - Dir of the OMB Law Firms / Consultancy

Podesta - Advisor to the President

Tyson - Presidents Economic Recovery Board

Wolin - Dept Secr of Treasury

Panetta - Dir of the CIA

Volcker - Presidents Economic Recovery Board

Geithner - Secr of Treasury

Lynn - Dept Secr of Defense

Holder - Attorney General

Jarrett - Senior Advisor

Figure 12.1 Corporate affiliations of Obama’s key grand-strategy makers (per sector)1

Emanuel - Chief of Staff

Clinton - Secr of State Other Consumer Goods &Services

Holbrooke - Spec Envoy for Afghanistan & Pakistan

Summers - Dir NEC

Danzig - Advisor to the President

Energy

Gates - Secr of Defense

Kirk - US Trade Representative

Transport / Construction / Manufacturing

Jones - National Security Advisor

Defence

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the Aspen Institute, founded in 1950, with an annual budget of nearly $70 million, and with perhaps the most extensive base of corporate sponsors. The Aspen Institute has played a critical role in advocating and diffusing the neoliberal ideology throughout the 80s and 90s yet, interestingly, most of the connections of our grand-strategy makers are with its subsidiary the Aspen Strategy Group, which is a group of national security experts focused on providing foreign policy and strategic military advice. Next to these more nationally established central institutions, we find the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission to be extensively linked to all three administrations. These have been described as key transnational planning bodies (e.g. Gill 1991; Richardson et al. 2011), with in recent decades a predominantly neoliberal outlook, that have been crucial platforms for the coordination of transnational corporate elite interests and the creation of international consent with the continuation of a US-dominated liberal world order based upon open markets and free flows of capital. That these policy-planning bodies further these ideas, which effectively promote (neo-) liberal globalization, can be accounted for by how they are closely interwoven with the corporate elite. First of all, a considerable share of the funding of these bodies comes from the corporate world (see Van Apeldoorn and De Graaff forthcoming). Although many of these organizations do not disclose detailed information on the sources of their corporate funding, it is possible to make some interesting observations on the basis of those policy-planning bodies in our identified ‘inner circle’ that do publish these kind of data (e.g. CFR, Aspen Institute, Atlantic Council of the United States, and RAND). We find, for instance, quite a few clusters of companies that provide funding to several of these organizations. Within those clusters we again observe a clear dominance of transnational capital: of the 49 corporations, 33 had a F500 or a global 500 notation. To give an illustration of the major corporate funders to these policy-planning bodies, we find present all the major oil companies (e.g. ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, BP, Shell); the largest defence companies (such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon); financial giants (such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, J&P Morgan Chase, UBS, Barclays); and also major US TNCs (such as Pepsi-Co, Coca-Cola Company, Time Warner, Google, Microsoft, AT&T, Pfizer Inc., Boeing, and News Corporation); and a selection of major corporate law firms (e.g. McKinsey & Company, Lazard Freres & Co.) that predominantly work for transnational capital. Together, these findings strongly indicate that the transnationally oriented corporate community at large has an interest in funding and thus influencing these policyplanning networks. Another way to gauge the corporate dimension of the policy-planning network is to map the corporate affiliations of the directors and trustees of these (policy planning) institutes. Looking only at current affiliations we found that nearly all the central policy-planning bodies had at least half of their boards composed of directors or trustees with simultaneous corporate interlocks. In the case of Aspen, CFR, Brookings, CSIS, and Bilderberg the share of directors or trustees with corporate membership even ranges around 70 per cent. Combined, more than half of the directors and trustees governing the policy-planning institutes that have been central to the last three post-Cold War administrations are thus closely affiliated with the corporate community through their simultaneous corporate board memberships. These directors connect to a total of 318 different companies. In other words, a substantial number of these directors are – as is the case for the grand-strategy makers – part of the corporate elite while directing the policy-planning process. In the next section we will see how the close nexus that we have highlighted here, between corporate elite networks, the post-Cold War grand-strategy makers, and the central

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policy-planning networks of those policymakers, is reflected in what can be called the Open Door grand strategy, with a particular focus on the Obama administration.

The corporate elite and the grand strategy of the Open Door under Obama The close personal ties that we have shown to exist between the US state and America’s corporate elite representing transnationally oriented capital help to explain an important continuity in US foreign policy. This continuity is, in our view, best understood in terms of what revisionist historian William Appleman Williams (2009 [1959]) called the ‘imperialism of the Open Door’ (see also LaFeber 1998 [1963]; Layne 2006; Van Apeldoorn and De Graaff forthcoming: ch. 2). Originally referring to the Open Door notes in which the United States in 1899 laid down its policy vis-à-vis China’s huge market, at the time coveted by all great powers, Williams, in his original reinterpretation of US diplomatic history, argued that the principles of the Open Door came to underpin much of America’s overall foreign policy strategy. The most general principle of the Open Door at the time was formulated by The New York Times (1899) as ‘that world trade should be free to all on equal terms’, calling this ‘the true mission that we have to carry out as a “world power”’. Beyond trade the Open Door also came to involve promoting global free investment, and hence became a general policy aimed at opening and keeping open markets around the globe, creating maximum access to US capital. The Open Door is thus about an informal imperialism based upon market power rather than formal control over territory. Rather than serving more narrow sectoral interests (such as the oil or defence industry) or those of individual firms, the Open Door policy has sought to serve the interests of American transnational capital and hence its corporate elite – although often formulated in terms of lofty liberal ideals of world prosperity and world peace, with (since Wilson) the added element of (liberal) democracy promotion. From the end of the 19th century the United States became the largest and most competitive economy, with its fast-growing firms turning into the world’s first multinational corporations, hungry for foreign markets and resources. What was the case then is still by and large – and in spite of the recent US-centred global crisis – the case today, that in a liberal world economy based on what in business parlance is called a ‘level playing-field’, American transnational capital tends to win out. But although in their endless search for new sources of profit American multinationals have throughout the 20th century been agents of a dynamic economic expansionism, it has been the American state that has been the key actor in enabling this expansionism through its foreign policy. And a key role is played here by foreign policymakers acting upon the belief that such an on-going global economic expansionism is critical to domestic prosperity as well as to national security (Williams 2009 [1959]). This belief was premised upon the deeply ingrained notion that American capitalism and its concept of a ‘free society’ could only survive within a global free market system, the making of which thus became a primary task of the American state (cf. Panitch and Gindin 2012). From its start, then, the Open Door has been a globalist foreign policy strategy in which global hegemony became a strategic requirement. As such, the Open Door has not just been about foreign economic policy – such as the promotion of free trade – but also about more traditional defence and security policies constituting an integral grand strategy. Indeed, America’s overwhelming military power since 1945 has been key to globalizing the Open Door policy in the second half of the 20th century, backing America’s economic and financial power and – through interventions or the threat thereof around the world – as an instrument to create the right political regimes and

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business climate for American investment (Bacevich 2002; Kinzer 2006; Layne 2006; Van Apeldoorn and De Graaff 2012b). The Open Door as America’s grand strategy became not only global in scope after World War II but was also institutionalized through different international regimes, such as Bretton Woods and international organizations like the International Monetary Fund. Here the United States, in its role as post-war hegemon, has come to act as both the creator and guarantor of a US-centred liberal capitalist world order based on free trade and open markets. In the contemporary period, and becoming an integral part of US foreign policy discourse for the first time under Bill Clinton, the Open Door has continued under the flag of globalization. With a particular neoliberal flavour added to it in terms of deepening markets and deregulating (global) finance, globalization equally has been a US-led project aimed at opening up all markets – including those of the former ‘Soviet empire’ – to US capital. It has thus been throughout the post-Cold War era that the Open Door in its modern guise of (neoliberal) globalization has continued to underpin US grand strategy. In the argument presented here the corporate elite networks in which America’s grand-strategy makers of the last three administrations have been embedded must be viewed as a key element in explaining this continuity. This also then applies to the strategy pursued by Barack Obama who, although elected on a call for change, in his foreign policy actually shows much continuity with many of his predecessors, including George W. Bush. The Open Door under Obama Already as a presidential candidate Obama called for a ‘renewal’ of American global leadership, adding that ‘[a] strong military is, more than anything, necessary to sustain peace’ (Obama 2007: 5). Peace here still means a Pax Americana, a global capitalist empire of which the United States acts as a guarantor and enforcer. As Obama’s National Security Strategy of 2010 unequivocally states: ‘there should be no doubt: the United States of America will continue to underwrite global security’ (White House 2010: 1). So the hegemonic ambition remains a global one: ‘to shape an international order that promotes a just peace’ with an ‘open international economic system’ defined as an ‘enduring’ American interest (White House 2010: 5, 7). The United States, ‘uniquely suited to seize’ the promise of globalization, and having in part produced it (White House 2010: 5) remains committed to ‘opening markets around the globe [that] will promote global competition… crucial to our prosperity’ (White House 2010: 32). The use of (military) force thus also under Obama remains a critical element of the Open Door strategy. After first having expanded and then started to wind down the war in Afghanistan, Obama now continues Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ (while avoiding the label) through the so-called drone wars – using unmanned remote-controlled war planes to kill suspected terrorists from Pakistan to Yemen and other places (Bureau of Investigative Journalism 2013) where the American Open Door empire needs to be policed and enemies of America’s liberal world order contained. If there is one important dimension of change in Obama’s foreign policy it might be the much discussed ‘Asia pivot’, or how the Obama administration has come to focus upon the Asia-Pacific region as it is seeking to unwind the (ground) wars in the wider Middle East. However, the turn to Asia must be seen not so much as a fundamental shift, but as a geographical refocusing entirely consistent with the principles and aims of the Open Door. Although not quite amounting to a containment strategy (as with the Soviet Union during the Cold War), the United States is not just seeing China as a partner within an ever globalizing

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world but also as a potential geopolitical adversary, since China may undermine US preeminence through its persistent attempt to, as the Department of Defense puts it, ‘counter our power projection capabilities’ (2012: 4). It is hence that the United States is beefing up its alliances with China’s neighbours and even seeking to intensify bonds with old enemies such as Vietnam; has opened a new military base in northern Australia; is shifting part of its naval power from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and has been intensifying the activities of its fleet in the strategic South China Sea (for an overview of Obama’s Asia strategy by a former top administration official, see Bader 2012). This new strategy must be seen not so much in terms of mere geopolitical rivalry in realist terms but as part and parcel of a continuing commitment to US global leadership serving the purpose of upholding a US-centred liberal world order maximizing the freedom of global and US capital – that is, maintaining the Open Door empire. As the Pentagon document called Sustaining US Leadership makes clear, the geographical rebalancing towards (East) Asia is necessary because ‘[t]he maintenance of peace, stability, the free flow of commerce and of United States influence in this dynamic region will depend in part on an underlying balance of military capability and presence’ (Department of Defense 2012: 2). Regarding the ‘free flow of commerce’ (to be backed up by US military power), a recent Council on Foreign Relations study highlights that a key economic interest of the United States and its corporate elite in the region for instance lies in keeping open the South China Sea, through which US$ 5.3 trillion of trade passes annually (Glaser 2012: 4). More generally, a key component of America’s global strategy – in Asia and beyond – is to keep open the so-called global commons – that is, the international seas, airspace, and outer space – and keep effective military command over them because, in the Pentagon’s own words, they allow ‘for the high-speed, high volume exchange of people, ideas, goods, information and capital… critical to the global economy’ (Department of Defense 2011: 9). Notwithstanding the important military dimension, promoting free trade and investment directly also remains an important plank of Obama’s Asia strategy, as testified for instance by the launching of the Trans-Pacific Partnership seeking to promote trade and investment between a number of American and Asian states. In sum, Obama’s grand strategy, both in general and with regard to Asia in particular, remains informed by a commitment to maintaining a global Open Door and to preserving – in the face of increasing challenges such as the rise of China, and its own relative decline arguably accelerated by the financial crisis – global hegemony as the basis of a liberal world order in which global capital in general and US capital in particular can continue to thrive. American grand strategy thus continues to be a strategy serving well the interests of America’s corporate elite, an elite to which we have seen the Obama administration is as well connected as that of its predecessors.

Conclusion This chapter has argued and documented how corporate elite power is – and has been – an important domestic source of US foreign policy. In terms of underlying grand strategy this policy has been marked by a strong continuity which we have argued can be understood in terms of an Open Door imperialism aimed at a global regime of free trade and investment, under the auspices of the United States. Although there is some variation with regard to the means with which this grand strategy has been implemented (before and after the Cold War) the overarching ends of this strategy have remained the same until the current Obama presidency. We have explained part of this particular nature of US foreign policy and its

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persistence by the intimate connections that we have found to exist between key US grandstrategy makers and America’s corporate elite. The key mechanisms that we have examined in this respect are the personal ties of grand-strategy makers to the corporate community – often characterized by a revolving door pattern in which they swap their corporate affiliation(s) for a position in government and vice versa – and the (foreign) policy-planning networks in which many of the grand-strategy makers are embedded, and which in turn are heavily sponsored by and personally interlocked with American big business, in particular large transnational corporations and Wall Street. Lastly, we have illustrated how Open Door imperialism has played out in the direction foreign policy has taken under Obama. In particular, how the refocus towards the Asia-Pacific region – i.e. the ‘Asia Pivot’ – can be seen as a signatory shift that is aimed at precisely a continuation of the Open Door – namely, to maintain US global leadership and keep the doors open for global and US capital, investment, and trade. As regards the future prospects for American grand strategy, while internal and external challenges are arguably mounting it is not likely to change course in any fundamental sense, whoever gets elected in 2016, at least as long as the extensive and solid elite networks between the American state and corporate capital remain in place and as long as the latter remains committed to the principles of the Open Door as the best way to secure its long-term interests. That is to say, unless the power structure of American society itself changes any radical change seems unlikely at best.

References Abelson, Donald E. (2006) A Capitol Idea: Think Tanks and US Foreign Policy, Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Bacevich, Andrew J. (2002) American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US Diplomacy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bader, Jeffrey A. (2012) Obama and China’s Rise. An Insider’s Account of America’s Asia Strategy, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Bureau of Investigative Journalism (2013) ‘Covert drone war’ (available online at http://www. thebureauinvestigates.com/category/projects/drones/) (accessed May 21, 2013). Burris, Val (2008) ‘The interlock structure of the policy-planning network and the right turn in US state policy’, Research in Political Sociology, 17, 3–42. Confessore, Nicholas and Jo Craven Mcginty (2012) ‘Obama and Romney raise $1 billion’, The New York Times, 25 October. Cox, Ronald W. (2012) ‘Corporate finance and US foreign policy’, in Ronald. W. Cox (ed.), Corporate Power and Globalization in US Foreign Policy, London and New York, NY: Routledge, 11–30. De Graaff, Naná and Bastiaan van Apeldoorn (2011) ‘Varieties of US post-Cold War imperialism: anatomy of a failed hegemonic project and the future of US geopolitics’, Critical Sociology, 37 (4): 403–27. Department of Defense (2011) The National Military Strategy of the United States of America 2011: Redefining America’s Military Leadership, Washington, DC: Department of Defense. Department of Defense (2012) Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense, Washington, DC: Department of Defense. Dye, Thomas R. (1986) Who’s Running America? The Conservative Years, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Ferguson, Thomas (1995) Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Ferguson, Thomas, Paul Jorgensen, and Jie Chen (2012) ‘Revealed: why the pundits are wrong about big money and the 2012 elections’, Alternet, December 20 (available online at http://www.alternet. org/news-amp-politics/revealed-why-pundits-are-wrong-about-big-money-and-2012-elections).

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Gill, Stephen (1991) American Hegemony and the Trilateral Commission, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Glaser, Bonnie S. (2013) ‘Armed clash in the South China Sea’, Contingency Planning Memorandum 14, New York, NY: Council on Foreign Relations. Jacobs, Lawrence R. and Benjamin. I. Page (2005) ‘Who influences US foreign policy?’, American Political Science Review, 99 (1): 107–23. LaFeber, Walter (1994) The American Age: United States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad 1750 to the Present (2nd edn), New York, NY, and London: W.W. Norton. LaFeber, Walter (1998 [1963]) The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860– 1898 – Thirty-Fifth Anniversary Edition, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Layne, Christopher (2006) The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940s to the Present, Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press. Medvetz, Thomas (2012) Think Tanks in America, Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Mills, C.W. (2000 [1956]) The Power Elite, Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press. New York Times (1899) ‘What is the “Open Door”?’ (editorial), January 26: 1 (available online at http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archivefree/pdf?res=950DE6DD1738E733A25755C2A9679C9468 9ED7CF). Parmar, Inderjeet S. (2004) Think Tanks and Power in Foreign Policy: A Comparative Study of the Role and Influence of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1939–1945, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Parmar, Inderjeet S. (2005) ‘Catalysing events, think tanks and American foreign policy shifts: a comparative analysis of the impacts of Pearl Harbor 1941 and 11 September 2001’, Government and Opposition, 40 (1): 1–25. Parmar, Inderjeet (2012) Foundations of the American Century: The Fort, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise of American Power, New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Richardson, Ian N., Andrew P. Kakabadse, and Nada K. Kakabadse (2011) Bilderbeg People: Elite Power and Consensus in World Affairs, London and New York, NY: Routledge. Scott, John and P.J. Carrington (eds) (2011) The Sage Handbook of Social Network Analysis, London: Sage. Shoup, Laurence H. and William Minter (2004 [1977]) Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and US Foreign Policy, Lincoln, NE: Authors Choice Press. Suskind, Ron (2011) Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President, New York, NY: HarperCollins. Useem, M. (1984) The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Business Political Activity in the US and the UK, New York, NY, and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Van Apeldoorn, Bastiaan and Naná De Graaff (2012a) ‘Corporate elite networks and US post-Cold War grand strategy from Clinton to Obama’, European Journal of International Relations. Van Apeldoorn, Bastiaan and Naná De Graaff (2012b) ‘The limits of Open Door imperialism and the US state–capital nexus’, Globalizations, 9 (4): 539–608. Van Apeldoorn, Bastiaan and Naná De Graaff (forthcoming) American Grand Strategy and Corporate Elite Networks, New York, NY, and London: Routledge. White House (2010) National Security Strategy, May, Washington, DC: The White House. Williams, William Appleman (2009 [1959/72]) The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, New York, NY: W.W. Norton. Winters, Jeffrey A. and Benjamin I. Page (2009) ‘Oligarchy in the United States?’, Perspectives on Politics, 7 (4): 731–51.

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Part 3

New problems, paradigms, and policies

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13 The Obama administration’s policy toward Africa George Klay Kieh, Jr

Introduction Historically, US policy toward Africa has been shaped by the centrality of the promotion of American interests – economic, political, and strategic.1 Accordingly, in spite of its prodemocracy and pro-development rhetoric, by and large, the praxis of US policy has not been concerned with the promotion of political freedoms and the material well-being of the African subalterns.2 In order to promote American interests in Africa, the various administrations, since the post-World War Two era, have cultivated patron–client relations with African regimes, including the authoritarian ones.3 In the case of the authoritarian African client regimes, by supporting them, the United States was acquiescent in the political repression and material deprivation these regimes visited on the subalterns in the affected countries. Consequently, the US anti-democracy and anti-development policy orientation engendered ill-will among various segments of the populations across the African Continent.4 Against this backdrop, the election of Barack Obama as the President of the United States in 2008 was greeted with a wave of ecstasy and optimism, especially among the subaltern classes in various African states. The collective hope was premised on the notion that given President Obama’s African ancestry, he would thus be committed to restructuring the asymmetrical and exploitative relationship between the United States and Africa. John Norris provides an excellent summation of the mass reactions of Africans to President Obama’s election in 2008 thus: Africa responded with joy when Barack Obama was elected. There was dancing in the streets of Liberia. Kenya declared his inauguration a public holiday. When Obama visited the continent in July 2009, far earlier in his term than the handful of other US Presidents that had actually traveled to Africa while in office, expectations only continued to rise… Many Africans (and many American African experts) assumed that, with a father born in Kenya, Obama’s approach to Africa would be transformative.5 In this vein, is the Obama administration pursuing a transformative policy toward Africa? In other words, is the Obama administration restructuring US policy toward Africa that would lead to the accruing of mutually rewarding benefits for both the United States and Africa (especially for ordinary Africans on the African side)? These twin questions will be addressed by using the Bush (‘Bush 43’) administration’s policy toward Africa as the baseline. This would facilitate the comparison between the Bush and Obama administrations’ policies toward Africa. In addition, the chapter will interrogate the ramifications of the Obama

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administration’s policy toward Africa for the United States and Africa, and suggest ways in which the policy can be rethought, so that it can be mutually beneficial.

Theoretical issues Literature review Cohen’s (2008) central argument is that Africa is important to US national interests primarily because the continent has an expanse of natural resources that are ‘at a premium in this time of commodity inflation’.6 Particularly, he argues that given China and India’s quest for Africa’s vast natural resources, the United States needs to reposition itself advantageously, so that it can have the edge in the resource competition. In order to do this, he made several major policy recommendations to the then new Obama administration. Oyewole (2009) posits that the Obama administration provides the United States with the opportunity to rethink its policy toward Africa, since, in the past, it has not utilized the full range of its financial, diplomatic, and developmental capacity to create an impact as it has the power to do.7 According to him, the new approach would need to go beyond paternalism and opportunism, as well as the traditional framework of aid, charity, and humanitarian assistance.8 Alternatively, he argues that the new approach must seek to produce mutually beneficial rewards for both sides. For the United States, it could reap benefits from the restructured relations in such areas as counterterrorism and alternative sources of oil. For Africa, it could benefit from trade and other economic interactions, and the combating of diseases such as HIV/AIDs and malaria. Copson (2007) situates the Bush administration’s policy within the broader crucible of American foreign policy toward Africa. The foundational pillar of US policy toward Africa, according to him, is that historically US policy toward Africa has been shaped by the realpolitik view. That is, the United States has been primarily interested in promoting its economic and strategic interests in Africa even at the expense of the majority of Africans. For example, the United States has paid minimal attention to human rights violations and corruption that have been committed by allied regimes.9 In the specific case of the Bush administration, it followed the realist orientation of US policy toward Africa with a neo-conservative twist: the primacy of military-security issues, especially counterterrorism. Similarly, Van de Walle (2009) posits that the Bush administration made some adjustments in US policy – increase in US foreign aid, the establishment of AFRICOM, etc. – without instituting a fundamental transformation. These adjustments, he argues, were driven by the imperatives of 9/11 that increased the strategic importance of Africa in terms of American national interests, especially counterterrorism. Overall, he asserts that the policy of the Bush administration was symptomatic of the broader deficiency that has plagued American policy toward Africa since the inception of the post-Cold War era: the difficulty of defining an overarching national interest that would justify the more proactive and interventionist policy.10 Specifically, he criticizes the Bush administration’s policy for lacking an overarching strategic vision, and effective inter-agency coordination. In the case of the Obama administration, he observes that it has not instituted a shift in US policy as well. Using President Obama’s speech to the Ghanaian Parliament in 2009 as a measure, he notes that the speech was more symbolic, because it did not raise new substantive issues. Moreover, he argues that, for example, US commercial and strategic considerations more often than not continue to contradict the rhetorical support for democracy.11 He makes several suggestions for restructuring the Obama administration’s policy toward Africa: 1) the need to develop an

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overall strategic framework; 2) the imperative of clarifying long-term goals; 3) the need to consolidate the various aid programs; 4) the need for organizational reform in the American foreign policy bureaucracy; and 5) the exigency of trying to help address Africa’s on-going conflicts in states such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Like Cohen (2008), Moss (2012) accentuates Africa’s increasing economic importance to the United States in terms of, for example, the opportunities for increased US trade, and markets for the sale of American goods and services. In addition, he notes that Africa is also critical to US national security interests because the continent is a base for some of the major national security threats such as terrorism (groups in Somalia and northern Mali) and narcotics trafficking. However, he argues that the Obama administration has failed to engage Africa meaningfully. As he asserts, ‘The president’s Kenyan heritage inspired increasingly high hopes for a robust Africa policy; but, his administration has failed to meet even the lowest of expectations. Even Obama’s most vocal supporters quietly admit that he has done much less with Africa than previous presidents have.’12 The study and the literature: issues arising The literature reviewed provides two competing frameworks of United States–Africa relations: realpolitik and ‘positive-sum’. The realpolitik framework treats Africa merely as an object of American foreign policy. That is, Africa is important to the United States because it can serve American economic, strategic, and political interests. Hence, the Obama administration should shape its policy toward Africa in ways that seek to maximize US interests. Clearly, the framework accords virtually no attention to the interests of African states. In fact, they are treated as virtually non-existent. Characteristically, this is the same framework that has served historically as the guide for US policy toward Africa. While its application has accrued tremendous benefits for the United States in economic, political, and strategic terms, it has correspondingly led to American complacency in supporting regimes that have asphyxiated democracy and visited enormous material deprivation on the masses of Africans. In several cases such as the DRC, Somalia, and Liberia, violent conflicts have ensued with their cataclysmic consequences in human and material terms. In addition, various segments of the African subaltern classes have developed ill-will toward the United States for supporting the authoritarian regimes that have been responsible for their plight. Thus, the realpolitik framework has proven over and over again to be myopic. This is because while it has maximized US interests in Africa in the short term, it has undermined them in the long term. So, by continuing on this path, the Obama administration would be jeopardizing American longterm interests on the African Continent. The ‘positive sum’ framework argues for rethinking US policy toward African states in ways that lead to the accruing of mutual benefits for all sides. This framework has greater policy utility than the realpolitik one, because it takes cognizance of the fact that the marginalization of the interests of African states undermines US interests in the long term. This is because the resulting adverse effects, especially the deterioration of their material conditions, would alienate ordinary Africans and make them develop hostility towards the United States. In turn, this would create instability, which would make it difficult for the United States to pursue its interests. This chapter uses the positive-sum framework as its analytical prism. The chapter is anchored on the premise that US policy toward Africa requires a paradigmatic shift. If the Obama administration fails to provide the leadership in instituting such a shift, in the long term US interests in Africa will continue to be undermined.

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An overview of US–Africa relations Historical development Contemporary US–Africa relations have their roots in the Cold War era. The relations were shaped and framed by the ubiquity of the rivalry between the United States and the USSR for global domination. As Peter Dumbuya observes, ‘US policy toward Africa during the Cold War was shaped by Washington’s broader strategy of “containing communism”’.13 The United States constructed the superpowers rivalry as an epic battle between the countries and forces of the so-called ‘free world’ led by the United States and those of the ‘Iron Curtain’ under the suzerainty of the Soviet Union.14 The explicit derivative was that the United States and its allies were committed to the noble ideals of, among others, supporting the cause of democratization around the world.15 As Thomas Cartother notes, ‘For generations, American leaders have emphasized the promotion of democracy abroad as a key element of [US’s] international role’.16 However, when US pro-democracy rhetoric is juxtaposed with policy praxis during this period, there is a clear and unambiguous disconnection between the two.17 As Carol Lancaster laments, ‘[The American value] of helping others achieve and protect their political rights [was] often compromised by the pursuit of other US interests such as protecting autocratic regimes from communist threats, obtaining access to military facilities, or garnering votes on key issues in the United Nations’.18 Several cases are instructive. For example, the United States connived with Belgium in orchestrating the overthrow and death of Patrice Lumumba, the democratically elected Prime Minister of the Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).19 Subsequently, the United States aided in Mobutu Sese Sekou’s rise to power as the new president of the country.20 Then with American economic, military, and political support, Mobutu established and operated an authoritarian and kleptocratic regime.21 The major resulting effect was the degeneration of Zaire (now the DRC) into a civil war, beginning in 1997. Since then, the country has remained unstable, as it has experienced various cycles of civil war. In Ghana, the United States was a major player in masterminding the overthrow of President Kwame Nkrumah by the military in 1966.22 Also, the United States was the principal supporter of the racist regime in South Africa.23 In addition, the United States provided the economic, political, and military oxygen that kept other authoritarian regimes on the continent well and alive – Mubarak (Egypt), arap Moi (Kenya), Barre (Somalia), and Doe (Liberia), among others. Interestingly, during the initial phase of the post-Cold War era, the United States, pressured by the new imperatives, abandoned several of its authoritarian client regimes: Barre (Somalia), Doe (Liberia), and Mobutu (Zaire, now DRC), as their respective countries were rocked by civil wars and their adverse consequences. Broadly, the United States cynically disengaged from Africa claiming that with the end of the Cold War, the continent, with few exceptions such as Egypt, was marginal to American national interests.24 Then, beginning with the Clinton administration, the United States attempted to craft a post-Cold War policy toward Africa. In spite of the end of the Cold War, the incipient new policy retained the perennial realist orientation that had framed American policy toward the region since the 1960s. Thus, the Clinton administration launched various initiatives that were ostensibly designed to promote American national interests. Two of the most notable were the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI) and the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). The former was professedly designed to help African states develop peacekeeping capabilities by training special units of the militaries of selected African states. By and large, the

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majority of the African states rejected the ACRI because it was designed without consultation, and it reflected the US’s desire to continue to use Africa for the promotion of its imperial project.25 The latter, AGOA, was supposedly designed to open US markets to selected exports from qualified African states.26 Overall, AGOA perpetuates the status of African states as export enclaves for the production of raw materials to help feed the industrial-manufacturing complexes of US and other core states with the ambit of the unjust ‘global division of labor’ and ‘system of unequal exchange’. The Bush era Background Africa was a marginal region on the US foreign policy agenda during the initial nine months of the first term of the Bush administration. That is, besides serving as an enclave for raw materials to help in the continual socioeconomic development of the United States, and a haven for profit-making by American multinational corporations, Africa was peripheral to American security interests, in light of the end of the Cold War. However, the September 2001 terrorist attacks against the American homeland catapulted Africa to a position of prominence on the US national security agenda. With the Bush administration’s declaration of a ‘War on Terror’, Africa became what Dean Minix and Vinton Prince called ‘a major frontier’ for the prosecution of the American counterterrorism policy and strategies.27 Several factors accounted for the shift. At the core was the global scope of the ‘War on Terror’. Given the expansive scope of the ‘War on Terror’, every region of the world had to be considered a major front. Also, given the fact that the ‘War on Terror’ focuses on fundamentalist Islamic groups, Africa became strategically important because of its appreciably large Muslim population in general, and the fact that the populations of several African states such as those in the northern portion of the continent, as well as others in the western region – Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Niger, among others – are predominantly Islamic.28 Another factor is that the African Continent has vast amounts of territories that are ungoverned, undergoverned, and ungovernable. The absence and the weaknesses of the governance architectures make them conducive as safe havens for terrorist groups that can virtually establish their fiefdoms in them without being challenged by the state.29 Another reason is the problem of state fragility. In the view of American policy-makers, Africa has several fragile, ‘failing’, and ‘failed’ states.30 And this makes them vulnerable to terrorist capture.31 In addition, several African states have porous borders that make them vulnerable to terrorist activities that could jeopardize American interests on the continent and elsewhere.32 Also, given Africa’s increased importance as a major supplier of oil to the United States, especially against the backdrop of the new deposits in the continent’s Gulf of Guinea region, Washington is concerned that terrorists could engage in various acts of sabotage that could disrupt the supply.33 The nature and dynamics of the policy The economic dimension of the Bush administration’s policy toward Africa revolved around several major issues: official development aid, foreign direct investment, trade, and socioeconomic development. In the area of development aid, in 2008, the total amount stood at $7.2 billion. The top four recipients were: Sudan ($848 million), Ethiopia ($811 million), Kenya ($455 million), and Egypt ($415 million).34 Interestingly, the basis for allocating aid to these countries was not because they were the least developed countries in Africa at that

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time. If the level of socioeconomic development was the determinant, then the top seven least developed countries on the continent at that time were Liberia, Burkina Faso, Mali, Central African Republic, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Niger.35 Instead, the aid allocation formula was based on each country’s strategic importance to the United States, especially in the area of the ‘War on Terror’. As for foreign direct investment, during the same period, the amount was $36.7 billion.36 In terms of trade relations, US exports stood at $28.4 billion, while its imports from Africa totaled $113.5 billion.37 US exports consisted of manufactured goods, such as machinery, while its imports from Africa were dominated by oil. On the socioeconomic development front, Africa was incorporated into the administration’s ‘Millennium Challenge Account’ (MCA), the pivot of its so-called pro-development program for developing countries. The thrust of the program is to provide US development aid in the form of grants to poor countries that adopt economic and political reforms.38 Specifically, MCA funds go to countries that enact market-oriented measures designed to open economies to competition, fight corruption, and encourage business dealings.39 Characteristically, the implementation of the MCA was shaped by US strategic and economic interests rather than by the need for socioeconomic development and democracy in Africa. For example, Burkina Faso and Tanzania, two semi-authoritarian regimes, benefitted from the MCA in contravention of the ‘political reforms plank’.40 The crux of the political dimension of the administration’s policy was ‘democracy promotion’, which President Bush made the frontier issue on the US global agenda, in his second inaugural address in 2005.41 However, the pro-democracy rhetoric that resonated in President Bush’s speech, as well as subsequent official pronouncements by US government officials, were contradicted by policy praxis. For example, the United States continued to support various authoritarian regimes across the continent – Mubarak (Egypt), Kigame (Rwanda), and Zenawi (Ethiopia), among others.42 Similarly, the Bush administration failed to criticize the results of the presidential elections in Egypt (2005), Uganda (2006), Kenya (2007), and Nigeria (2007), which the various international observers uniformly characterized as fraudulent.43 Instead, the administration accepted the results. For example, in the case of Egypt, the then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the election thus: ‘Egypt’s presidential election represents one step in the march towards full democracy that the Egyptian people desire and deserve. The process that culminated in the September 7 vote was characterized by freer debate, increased transparency, and improved access to the media.’44 However, Secretary of State Rice’s glowing assessment was not borne out by the facts. For example, as the International Republican Institute, a US government-sponsored outfit, reported, ‘[The presidential election was marked by the] limitation of the opportunity for genuine competition for the presidency, and there were significant irregularities and violations in contravention of the Egyptian electoral code’.45 In terms of the social dimension of its policy, tackling the HIV/AIDs pandemic was the linchpin. Under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDs Relief (PEPFAR), which was launched in 2003, as a global initiative, millions of people in Africa living with HIV/AIDs benefitted from the receipt of antiretroviral drugs.46 Again, although PEPFAR appeared humanitarian in orientation, the inclusion of Africa in the program was driven by a strategic rationale: the Bush administration was concerned that if HIV/AIDs were to ravage the populations of various African states, this would make them vulnerable to terrorist incursions. The military-security dimension of the policy, the core, had several key components: the provision of weapons and training, US access to strategic assets, the African Command (AFRICOM), and counterterrorism. The overarching purposes were to help build the military capacities of various African states, and to use various facilities in selected African

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states to wage the US’s ‘War on Terror’. In terms of the provision of arms and training, the Bush administration increased the amount of US arms deliveries to various African states and military training programs from Africa from $100 million in 2001, to approximately $800 million in 2008.47 Another major element is access to strategic assets in Africa. In this vein, in 2002, the United States established a base in Djibouti for the Combined Joint Task Force–Horn of Africa. Also, the United States has base access agreements with several African states, including Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Tunisia, Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Uganda, and Zambia.48 Under these agreements, the United States has access to local bases and other facilities to be used by American forces as transit bases or as forward operating bases for combat, surveillance, and other military operations.49 The African Military Command (AFRICOM) is a major feature of US military-security policy toward the African Continent. Established in 2007, AFRICOM, according to then President Bush ‘will strengthen [US] security cooperation with Africa and create new opportunities to bolster the capabilities of our partners in Africa’.50 Then, President Bush added, ‘Africa Command will enhance our efforts to bring peace and security to the people of Africa and promote our common goals of development, health, education, democracy, and economic growth in Africa’. This is strange, because military commands are not designed to promote socioeconomic development and democracy. So, this assertion was intended to mask the true objectives of AFRICOM. As Horace Campbell argues, ‘[AFRICOM represents] attempts to remilitarize Africa’.51 One of the major purposes is to ensure that US access to Africa’s oil is not threatened, especially since there is a ‘growing American reliance on African oil’.52 At the core of US military-security policy toward the region is counterterrorism. And this has several key elements. There are two major counterterrorism initiatives: the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative and the East African Counterterrorism Initiative. Under these initiatives, the US military develops the capabilities of troops from selected African states in counterterrorism. The ostensible purpose is to serve as ‘foot soldiers’ for the US’s ‘War on Terror’. Another dimension is the use of various African states, including Djibouti, Ethiopia, Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritania, Morocco, Somalia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe as participants in the implementation of the US extraordinary rendition program.53 Briefly, the program is designed to send accused terrorists to these African states where they are subjected to harsh interrogation tactics, including torture.54 Overall, the legacy of the Bush administration’s policy toward Africa is anchored on several major pillars. At the vortex is the development of an asymmetrical and paternalistic relationship with various African states, so that the latter can serve the national interests of the former. Specifically, the core American interest is the countering of terrorism. And this shaped and conditioned the economic, political, and military aspects of US policy toward Africa. In short, in spite of its democracy-promotion rhetoric, the Bush administration supported a pantheon of authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes such as Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Uganda that were pivotal to the pursuance of US national interests.

The Obama administration Background The contours of the Obama administration’s policy toward Africa were articulated in 2010 by Johnnie Carson, the Assistant Secretary of State, and in 2012 in the US Strategy toward Sub-Saharan Africa. In the case of the former, the major pillars of the policy areas follows:

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2. 3. 4. 5.

Strengthening African governments: This entails the strengthening of democratic institutions, and the protection of the democratic gains made in recent years in many African countries; Economic progress: The promotion and advancement of sustained economic development and growth; Health-related issues: Working with African governments to address health pandemics such as HIV/AIDs; Preventing and resolving conflicts: Working with African states and the international community to prevent, mitigate, and resolve conflicts and disputes; Transnational challenges: The deepening of cooperation with African states to address both old and new transnational challenges.55

The latter policy document is similar to the former: It identifies four major areas as the kernels of the administration’s policy: 1) the promotion of democracy; 2) spurring economic growth, trade, and investment; 3) the advancement of peace and security; and 4) the promotion of opportunity and development.56 Policy dimensions Economic US–Africa economic relations have several major dimensions: development aid, foreign direct investment, and trade. In the area of development aid, the amount has experienced modest increases since the Obama administration took office (see Table 13.1). In 2011, the top two recipients of US aid to Africa were Ethiopia ($0.7 billion) and Kenya ($0.7 billion).57 The criterion for the allocation of American development aid was not based on each African state’s level of socioeconomic development. Instead, it was driven by the ubiquity of American strategic interests. For example, Ethiopia and Kenya are pivotal to the pursuance of American strategic interests in the Horn of Africa. In the case of Ethiopia, it has served as the American gendarme in keeping a tap on various terrorist groups in Somalia. In fact, in 2006 with American support, Ethiopia invaded Somalia to dislodge the Islamic Courts Union, an amalgam of extremists, from power.58 In the area of trade, the Obama administration’s policy reflects the nature and dynamics of the global trading order. For example, under the unjust ‘division of labor’, African states provide raw materials such as oil to help promote the socioeconomic development of the United States, on the one hand, and are reliant on the United States for manufactured goods,

Table 13.1 US development aid to Africa, 2009–12 (US$ billions) Year

Amount

2009 2010 2011 2012

7.7 7.8 9.3 —

Source: compiled from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Development Aid at a Glance: Statistics by Region (Paris: OECD, 2011), p. 4; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, ‘Development aid to developing countries falls because of global recession,’ press release, April 4, 2012, p. 1.

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on the other. Similarly, within the context of the ‘system of unequal exchange’, African states are paid less for their raw materials compared to their paying of higher prices for US-manufactured goods. Table 13.2 shows the trade flow between the United States and Africa. Oil accounts for the ‘lion’s share’ of the increases in US imports from Africa, especially against the backdrop of the volatility of the Middle East, as well as the emergence of the Gulf of Guinea region of Africa as a major supplier of oil. As Table 13.3 shows, US foreign direct investments in Africa increased from $43.6 billion in 2009 to $57 billion in 2011. The substantial portions of the new investments were made in the booming African oil sector, especially in the Gulf of Guinea region. With the emergence of China as a major competitor for Africa’s oil, the United States, through its oil-based multinational corporations, is striving to establish a stranglehold on the oil sector of various African states, especially new entrants like Ghana and Liberia. Political The crux of the political dimension of the Obama administration’s policy toward Africa is democracy promotion. This was accentuated in President Obama’s speech to the Ghanaian Parliament on July 11, 2009. In his speech, President Obama asserted, ‘First, we support strong and sustainable democratic government… governments that respect the will of their people are more prosperous, more stable, and more successful than governments that do not’.59 Also, the democracy promotion rhetoric was reflected in Obama administration’s policy documents in 2009 and 2012. However, the policy rhetoric has not been matched with praxis. For example, the Obama administration has continued the policies of his predecessors, including the Bush one, in supporting various authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes on the continent. For example, during the mass uprising against the Mubarak regime in 2011, Vice President Joe Biden asserted, ‘Mubarak is not a tyrant’ in complete defiance of the overwhelming empirical evidence.60 In fact, the Obama administration maintained its support for the Mubarak regime, until it became clear that the autocracy was doomed. Similarly, Susan Rice, the US’s Ambassador to the United Nations, lavished praise on the late Meles Zenawi, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, who presided over an authoritarian regime that engaged in the commission of sundry violations of political human rights, including freedom of association and the press.61 In her eulogy, Ambassador Rice asserted, I suspect we all feel it deeply unfair to lose such a talented and vital leader so soon, when he still had so much more to give. Meles was a friend – both to my country and to me, personally… Meles was consistently reasoned in his judgment and thoughtfulness in his decisions.62 Table 13.2 The United States’ trade with Africa, 2009–12 (US$ billions) Year

Exports

Imports

2009 2010 2011 2012

24.3 23.3 32.8 30.2

62.4 85.0 93.0 63.0

Source: US Census Bureau, ‘Trade in goods with Africa,’ Foreign Trade (Washington, DC: US Census Bureau, 2012).

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Table 13.3 US foreign direct investments in Africa, 2009–12 (US$ billions) Year

Amount

2009 2010 2011 2012

43.6 53.5 57.0 —

Source: compiled from Vivian Jones and Brock Williams, US Trade and Investment Relations with Sub-Saharan Africa and the African Growth and Opportunity Act, CRS Report for Congress (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2012), p. 13.

But the record of Zenawi’s ‘rule of terror’ in Ethiopia contradicts Ambassador Rice’s praise of Zenawi’s leadership. For example, Human Rights Watch notes, The death in August 2012 of Ethiopia’s powerful Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, led to new leadership, but seems unlikely to result in tangible human rights reforms. Ethiopian authoritarianism continues to severely restrict freedom of expression, association and assembly. Thirty journalists and opposition members have been convicted under the country’s vague Anti-Terrorist Proclamation.63 Also, the Obama administration has accepted the results of various fraudulent elections (based on the uniform assessment of the domestic and international observers) on the continent, including the presidential ones in Uganda in 2010 and Rwanda in 2011, and the parliamentary one in Ethiopia in 2010, in violation of its commitment to help promote democracy in Africa.64 In addition, the Obama administration dispatched a group of US Special Forces advisors to Uganda to help the Museveni regime in its war with the Joseph Kony-led Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).65 Furthermore, the Obama administration has ‘rolled out the red carpet’ to welcome some of the continent’s autocrats, who have been invited to visit the United States. For example, in June 2011, President Obama enthusiastically welcomed President Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, who inherited the country’s presidency from his autocratic father Omar Bongo in a process akin to monarchical succession.66 Clearly, such actions on the part of President Obama undermined the substance of his speech to the Ghanaian Parliament, other speeches, the various pronouncements by officials of his government, and the various policy documents on democracy promotion in Africa that his administration has published. Military-security The Obama administration inherited a militarized African policy from the Bush administration.67 That is, as has been discussed, US policy toward Africa during the Bush administration was framed, shaped, and conditioned by US strategic interests, particularly counterterrorism. However, given the various pronouncements that President Obama made during the 2008 US presidential election campaign criticizing the Bush administration for the militarization of American foreign policy, the expectation was that there would be a shift. As Daniel Volman notes, When Barack Obama took office as President of the United States in January 2009, it was widely expected that he would dramatically change, or even reverse, the militarized

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and unilateral security policy that had been pursued by the George W. Bush administration toward Africa… It is clear that the Obama administration is following essentially the same policy that has guided US policy toward Africa for more than a decade. Indeed, the Obama administration is seeking to expand US military activities on the continent further.68 In the same vein, Gerald LeMelle argues, ‘The Obama administration has not only mirrored Bush’s approach, but has in fact enhanced it’.69 Importantly, the burgeoning increases in the major dimensions of US military-security aid to Africa reflect the fact that the Obama administration is furthering the militarization of American policy toward the continent. For example, arms sales to Africa through the foreign military financing program rose from $8.3 million in 2009 to $38 million in 2011.70 Similarly, during the same period, the amount for anti-terrorism assistance programs to Africa jumped to $24.4 million.71 The Obama administration has taken various steps to strengthen AFRICOM, and to expand its foothold on the continent. A major one is the doubling of funds for the military command.72 Another major step is the increasing role of AFRICOM in the implementation of the US counterterrorism strategy in Africa. One key area is AFRICOM’s provision of counterterrorism training for military units of selected African states, as well as the coordination of joint military exercises. In addition, efforts are underway to create a marine rapiddeployment force for AFRICOM, which could be used to intervene in Africa’s ‘hot spots’.73 As of 2013, the United States has established several major beachheads in Africa – Mali, Sudan, Algeria, Somalia, and more than two dozen other countries – to aid in the conduct of its drone-based warfare.74 Specifically, the expansion would entail the deployment of US soldiers and drones in as many as 35 countries across Africa.75 For example, in January 2013, the United States signed a security cooperation agreement with Niger, a country strategically located in the northwestern portion of the continent. Under the agreement, the United States will establish a drone base in the country for the ostensible purpose of increasing ‘surveillance missions on the local affiliate of Al Qaeda and other Islamist groups that American and other Western officials say pose a growing menace to the region’.76 Initially, unarmed surveillance drones will be used, and depending on the state of the threat, missile strikes could be conducted.77 But, as Sheldon Richman observes, The irony is that surveillance drones could become the reason the ‘threat worsens’, and could provide the pretext to use drones with Hellfire missiles – the same kind used over 400 times in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, killing hundreds of noncombatants. Moving from surveillance to lethal strikes would be a boost for jihadists.78 Given the fact that drone attacks have killed a lot of innocent civilians in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, the establishment of a drone base in Niger could alienate the local population.79 On the issue of extraordinary rendition, although the Obama administration has tried to distance itself from the Bush administration’s approach (transferring terrorist suspects to various African countries to face harsh interrogation measures, including torture), it has kept one major aspect of rendition: terrorist suspects will continue to be delivered to African and other states to be prosecuted under the various countries’ judicial systems.80 However, as Marian Wang argues, ‘The Obama White House has invoked the state secrets privilege to block evidence that could reveal details about past renditions under Bush’.81 This could mean that in spite of the Obama administration’s claim that it has ended extraordinary

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rendition in which some African states were used as so-called ‘Black sites’ for torturing terrorist suspects, the program could be continued. The veil of secrecy that the Obama administration has put in place could provide the cover under which it could continue the program, while publicly claiming that it has discontinued it. The Obama administration has also expanded US military intervention in the continent. For example, the United States supported Ethiopia in its second invasion of Somalia in 2011.82 The purpose was to attack terrorist groups, including those affiliated with Al Qaeda, as a central element of Ethiopia’s monitoring role in Somalia on behalf of the United States. During the same year, the United States aided the Kenyan Defense Forces’ invasion of Somalia in a bid to crush the Al-shabaab Islamic resistance movement, which has been labeled by the United States as a ‘terrorist organization’.83 In the case of Libya, the United States, along with its NATO allies, intervened directly in the country’s civil war. Subsequently, the intervention was pivotal to the ousting of the Gaddafi regime, and the establishment of one friendly to the United States. Using humanitarianism as a pretext, the United States and its NATO allies were able to intervene militarily in Libya’s civil war to dislodge a regime from power that they had been seeking the opportunity to depose for decades. Although the Gaddafi regime had established a rapprochement with the United States and the rest of the Western countries, including participating in the US’s extraordinary rendition program,84 the relationship was a tenuous and uneasy one based on continuing suspicion and mistrust. Social Health is the central plank of the social dimension of the Obama administration’s policy toward Africa. Accordingly, the administration has incorporated various African states into its Global Health Initiative. Basically, the initiative is designed to achieve significant health improvements and foster sustainable, effective, efficient, and country-led public health programs that deliver essential health care.85 The focus will be on diseases such as HIV/AIDs, malaria, tuberculosis, and neglected tropical diseases.

Continuity or change in US policy toward Africa? The major difference between the Obama administration’s policy toward Africa and the one of the Bush administration is in term of style. Two examples are illustrative. In contradistinction to the Bush administration, the Obama one does not use bellicose language in its policy pronouncements against adversarial regimes in Africa. For example, the Bush administration used harsh rhetoric in its initial dealings with the Gaddafi regime, as well as in its relations with the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. The other is that the Obama administration has dropped the use of the terms ‘War on Terror’ or ‘Global War on Terror’ (GWOT), although it has continued and expanded the ‘war’. In short, the essence of the Obama administration’s style is to present a superficial less threatening face of US policy toward Africa. In terms of substance, the African policies of the two administrations are quite similar. In fact, the Obama administration’s policy is the continuation and enhancement of the Bush one. Accordingly, there is policy continuity toward Africa. Several cases are noteworthy. Like the Bush administration, the Obama one uses the realpolitik model as the framework for both formulating and implementing its policy toward Africa. As has been discussed, under the framework, US policy toward Africa is unilateral: Africa’s role is to serve the economic, political, and strategic interests of the United States, even at the expense of the political and material well-being of Africans.

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Another similarity is that the Obama administration’s takes the unjust global order that provides the enabling environment for the marginalization and exploitation of Africa as a given. For example, the Obama administration is making efforts to perpetuate Africa’s peripheral status and exploitation in the unjust global trading system and its ‘international division of labor’ and ‘system of unequal exchange’. For example, the Obama administration has continued AGOA, which ensures that African states will continue to supply the United States with raw materials. Similarly, under the Obama administration’s policy, American foreign investments in Africa continue to provide US multinational corporations with the opportunity to exploit, plunder, and pillage the natural resources. The related point is that the allocation of US foreign aid to Africa continues to be determined by American strategic, economic, and political interests. Each African state’s allotment is based on the country’s importance to American interests. For example, Egypt continues to be the top recipient of US military aid on the continent, because of its strategic importance to the United States. Ethiopia and Kenya continue to be the top recipients of US development aid because of the former’s strategic importance, and the latter’s economic and strategic value to the United States. The Obama administration has also continued US rhetorical support for democratization in Africa. But in reality, the administration continues the practice of supporting various semi-authoritarian and authoritarian regimes on the continent in countries like Kenya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Uganda that are pivotal to US economic, political, and strategic interests in Africa. In short, under the Obama administration, US national interests continue to take priority over the promotion of democratization in Africa. Treading along the same path as the Bush administration, the Obama administration has made counterterrorism a major centerpiece of US policy toward Africa. One of the major resulting effects is the increased militarization of US–Africa relations, as evidenced by increased funding for counterterrorism activities, and the expansion of the US militarysecurity ambit on the African Continent (e.g. the establishment of drone bases). In some cases, the Obama administration has gone further than the Bush one in the militarization of US policy toward Africa. For example, the United States directly intervened in the Libyan civil war as part of a NATO force. Ultimately, the intervention led to the overthrow and death of President Gaddafi. US direct military intervention in a civil war in an African state is unprecedented in the annals of US–Africa relations. Also, American troops will be stationed in several Africa states (up to 35). Clearly, this will lead to increased US military involvement on the continent.

The ramifications of the policy For the United States The Obama administration’s policy toward Africa has several ramifications for the United States. The overarching one is that the realpolitik framework, which continues to serve as the compass for navigating policy, is myopic. This is because it continues to compromise US long-term interests in Africa for short-term ones. And this has adversely affected US interests in countries like Egypt and Tunisia, because the majority of the citizens blamed the United States for supporting their former repressive regimes. In short, the continual use of Africa by the Obama administration as an instrument of US policy and its attendant interests is not sustainable. Thus, it will continue to undermine American long-term interests on the continent.

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The continual support for semi-authoritarian and authoritarian regimes in Africa as the pivot of US policy toward Africa contradicts the Obama administration’s pro-democracy rhetoric, and undermines American credibility with the citizenry and civil society on the continent. For example, the citizens of the various African states with US-supported semiauthoritarian and authoritarian regimes will continue to blame the United States for providing the economic, political, and military oxygen that keeps these regimes in power. In turn, this could lead to the development of ill-will toward the United States. In this context, it would be very difficult for the United States to pursue its long-term interests. In addition, for adversarial regimes like Mugabe’s in Zimbabwe, the United States clearly lacks the moral authority and standing to lecture about democracy. US counterterrorism strategies and activities are undermined in various ways. By using semi-authoritarian and authoritarian regimes as the ‘foot soldiers’, the United States is undermining its own efforts. This is because the majority of the citizens of these African countries view these regimes as terroristic, as reflected in state–society relations. Therefore, these regimes have no credibility to be able to mobilize the critical domestic support that is required to deal with the scourge of terrorism in their respective states. In addition, the various terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, and El Shabaab will use these regimes as ‘poster boys’ for their respective recruitment campaigns. The preponderant reliance on the use of military force as the linchpin of the counterterrorism strategy would not result in addressing terrorism. This is because a military-centric approach ignores the centrality of the economic and political roots of terrorism. Clearly, any successful counterterrorism strategy in Africa must take cognizance of the root causes of terrorism on the continent, and seek to address them as integral parts of a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy. The use of drones as part of the counterterrorism strategy would do more harm than good. For example, as has been the case in countries like Somalia where the United States has used drones to attack and kill suspected terrorists, innocent civilians would be killed. And this will elicit angry reactions from the citizens of the various African states in which these drone attacks would be launched. Citizenry outrage could result in the erosion of the support that is critical for the implementation of counterterrorism strategies. Also, it could lead to some of the citizens developing sympathy for the terrorists. The stationing of American troops in various African states will generate resistance from critical segments of the various African states. This is because the action would be seen as part of US efforts to recolonize Africa, gain control over the continent’s natural resources, especially oil, and make the continent a battlefield in the fight between the United States and various terrorist groups, thereby endangering safety and security and creating instability, and a ploy to defend pro-US authoritarian regimes. For Africa In the case of Africa, there are several adverse ramifications. The core one is the continual use of the continent’s resources to help maintain the standard of living in the United States, while the majority of Africans continue to live perilously at the socioeconomic margins. That is, like its predecessors, the Obama administration has continued the practice of pressuring African states to place their natural resources, especially oil and minerals, at the disposal of the United States, even at the expense of the welfare of their citizens. The Obama administration’s support for semi-authoritarian and authoritarian regimes on the continent continues amid the struggle for democratization in countries like Ethiopia,

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Rwanda, and Uganda. This is because US economic, political, and military support has emboldened these regimes to remain repressive, and to resist the efforts at democratic change. In addition, the increasing US military presence on the continent could provide a security blanket for these regimes. Also, the Obama administration’s support for authoritarian regimes on the continent will contribute to instability, as are the cases in Egypt and Tunisia. US counterterrorism strategy is affecting Africa in various adverse ways. It has transformed various parts of the continent into battlefields for fighting US terrorist enemies like Al Qaeda. This would lead to African states that are the pivots in US counterterrorism strategy becoming targets for attacks by various terrorist organizations. In turn, this would lead to the death of innocent civilians, destruction, insecurity, and instability. The use of drones will also lead to the death of scores of innocent civilians (as so-called ‘collateral damage’). Another negative effect is that the various domestic anti-terrorism regimes that have been established in various African states like Nigeria at the behest of the United States are violating basic civil liberties such as due process. In addition, various authoritarian regimes like the one in Ethiopia are using their domestic anti-terrorism regime as a major instrument for further suffocating democracy. For example, journalists and opposition leaders who are critical of the regime, have been branded as terrorists, arrested, tried, and sentenced in a miscarriage of justice. Also, the increased importance of counterterrorism would lead African governments to divert resources from much needed domestic needs like education and health care. The prospects for the militarization of the resource competition between the United States and China on the continent are increasing. This could make Africa a battleground for possible direct military conflicts between the United States and China. In addition, the two countries could use their client regimes as proxies in violent conflicts that are designed to help ensure the advantage of their respective patrons in the resource competition. In the area of trade, the Obama administration’s policy continues to solidify Africa’s peripheral role in the ‘international division of labor’ as the producer of raw materials and the consumers of manufactured goods from the United States and other developed states. Central to this is the undermining of the continent’s efforts to industrialize, and consequently become more competitive. In terms of American foreign direct investment, the Obama administration’s policy continues the practice of providing the protective shield under which American multinational corporations continue to exploit Africa’s natural resources, and siphon off huge profits. For example, the Obama administration continues to pressure various African states to give preferential treatment to American businesses in the awarding of concessions, especially in the emerging new oil-endowed countries like Ghana. One of the major consequences is that the continent continues to be deprived of the financial resources needed to improve the material conditions of its citizens. US intervention in civil conflicts in the continent tends to undermine the important roles of the African Union (AU) and the various sub-regional organizations. For example, in the case of the Libyan administration, the Obama administration ignored and disregarded the approach of the AU to the resolution of the conflict. Instead, the United States pursued its goal of the removal of the Gaddafi regime by promoting division within the AU. For example, the Obama administration pressured various African states to support not the AU’s approach, but the American one. The continuation of this practice by the Obama administration would undermine the need for Africans to resolve their various civil conflicts through the leadership of the AU and the sub-regional organizations in ways that promote long-term and durable peace on the continent.

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Rethinking the Obama administration’s policy toward Africa Clearly, like its predecessors, the Obama administration’s policy toward Africa is not benefitting the continent, especially in terms of the promotion of human-centered democracy and development. Instead, as has been argued, it continues to benefit the United States at the expense of the political human rights and the material well-being of the majority of Africans. In this vein, the policy needs to be rethought and changed in several ways. First, the realpolitik framework that views Africa as a handmaid for the promotion of American economic, political, and strategic interests needs to be changed in ways that are mutually beneficial. In other words, while there is the recognition that the United States has interests, it is equally important that the Obama administration takes cognizance of the interests of African states. In short, it cannot continue to be a one-way street. Second, the Obama administration needs to take steps to demilitarize its policy toward Africa. This is because the security threats facing the United States from Africa cannot be successfully addressed by subordinating the critical needs of human-centered democracy and development on the continent. In other words, by ignoring the critical interests of the peoples of Africa in pursuance of American strategic interests, the Obama administration would be helping to sow the seeds of instability on the continent that would make it difficult for the United States to pursue its interests that do not harm the continent. Third, the allocation of US development aid to Africa needs to reflect the needs and levels of socioeconomic development of the various African states. In this vein, US development aid needs to be driven by the pressing need to help African states improve the welfare of their citizens. In so doing, the United States would be serving its long-term interests by engendering the appreciation of the African peoples. Fourth, the Obama administration needs to help provide the leadership to restructure the global trading system and its contours, so that African states can be treated fairly and justly. For example, African states need to receive fair prices for their exports, and to pay fair prices for manufactured goods. In addition, African states need to have a greater role in the decision-making process of global trade, including the setting of prices for raw materials and manufactured goods. Cumulatively, these steps would help African states to generate more revenues. One of the major benefits would be the reduced reliance of several African states on US development aid. Fifth, the Obama administration should promote a culture of corporate responsibility for American businesses that invest and operate in Africa. The code would include the fair treatment of African workers, the accruing of greater financial returns to African states (US pressure often leads to African states granting American businesses concessions that disproportionately accrue greater financial returns to the American businesses), and the protection of the environment. This would, among others, help African states to generate more revenues that can be used for human development, thereby reducing aid dependence on the United States. Sixth, the Obama administration needs to match its pro-democracy rhetoric with policy praxis. This would result in various benefits for the United States and the various African states. For the United States, it would lead to the generation of goodwill among Africans toward the United States, help build domestic support for the pursuance of the US interests that are not inimical to Africa, and enhance US moral standing. For African states, the policy shift would help establish democracy, and promote stability. Seventh, US counterterrorism strategy needs to shift from the primary reliance on the use of military means helping address the economic, political, and social root causes of terrorism,

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as part of a comprehensive approach. The current preponderant reliance on the use of military means as the axle that drives the counterterrorism strategy will not lead to the so-called defeat of terrorism. This is because no matter how expansive it makes the military means, the Obama administration will not be able to kill all of the terrorists that are operating in Africa against the interests of the United States. Hence, this will culminate in a vicious cycle that would lead to the deaths of scores of innocent Africans, destruction, and the use of a significant amount of money that could be used instead to help improve the material conditions of the African peoples. In this vein, the Obama administration would need to abandon the expansion of the drone program in Africa, as well as the stationing of American troops in various African states. The resources for these military programs could instead be used to help address the crises of socioeconomic development in Africa, as ways of minimizing the use of these maladies by terrorist organizations as instruments of recruitment and the broader mobilization of support. Eighth, the United States needs to respect the crucial roles of the AU and sub-regional organizations in the resolution of conflicts on the continent. This is because these organizations have greater stakes in these conflicts and understand them much better than the United States. The more useful role for the United States would be to work with the AU and subregional organizations on ways in which the United States can be supportive of their efforts.

Conclusion The high expectations that the Obama administration would have changed the direction of US policy toward Africa in ways that accrue mutual benefits have remained unfulfilled. Instead, the Obama administration has not only continual the policy of the Bush administration, but has expanded it in several areas to the detriment of Africa. This includes the continual use of the realist prism as the framework for the formulation and implementation of US policy toward Africa, the continual militarization of US–Africa relations through, among others, increased military assistance to selected African states and the expansion of the use of drones as part of the US counterterrorism strategy, the continual support for semiauthoritarian and authoritarian regimes, the securitization of development aid, the continual support of American businesses’ exploitation of Africa, and the cementing of the contours of the unjust and unfair global order, especially Africa’s marginal role. In short, like his Democratic and Republican predecessors, the substance of US policy toward Africa under the Obama administration has remained unchanged. As it began its second term of office (January 20, 2013), there were no indications that the Obama administration would change the substantive direction of US policy toward Africa for the benefit of the United States and African states. Instead, the Obama administration is setting into motion steps to continue the militarization of US–Africa relations, among others. The expansion of the use of drone as a major mainstay of its counterterrorism strategy in Africa is a major example. Ultimately, if the Obama administration continues on the same path as during its first term of office, it will contribute to the practice of sacrificing US longterm interests in Africa for short-term gains.

Notes 1

For an examination of the nature and dynamics of US–Africa relations since the post-independence era in Africa, see Letitia Lawson (2007) ‘US Africa policy since the Cold War’, Strategic Insights, 6 (1): 1.

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2 Ibid. 3 See George Klay Kieh, Jr (2007) ‘The United States and democratization in Africa’, in Abdul Karim Bangura et al. (eds), Stakes in Africa–US Relations, Lincoln, NE: iUniverse Press, 63–7. 4 Ibid. 5 John Norris (2012) ‘Does Obama have a strategy for Africa?’, Foreign Policy, June 19: 1. 6 Herman J. Cohen (2008) ‘US policy toward Africa: recommendations for the next US administration, 2009–2013’, American Policy Interests, 30: 315. 7 Dapo Oyewole (2009) ‘A new US policy approach toward Africa’, Yale Journal of International Affairs, 4 (1): 93. 8 Ibid., p. 96. 9 Raymond Copson (2007) The United States in Africa: Bush Policy and Beyond, London and New York, NY: Zed Books, 7. 10 Nicholas Van de Walle (2009) ‘US policy toward Africa: the Bush legacy and the Obama administration’, African Affairs, 109 (434): 1. 11 Ibid., p. 17. 12 Todd Moss (2012) ‘Missing in Africa: how Obama failed to engage an increasingly important continent’, Foreign Affairs, October 1 (available online at www.foreignaffairs.com/article) (accessed on January 4, 2013). 13 Peter Dumbuya (2007) ‘Historical overview of Africa-United States relations’, in Abdul Karim Bangura et al. (eds), Stakes in Africa–US Relations, Lincoln, NE: iUniverse Press, 12–13. 14 See George Klay Kieh, Jr (2007) ‘The United States and democratization in Africa’, in Abdul Karim Bangura et al. (eds), Stakes in Africa–US Relations, Lincoln, NE: iUniverse Press, 64. 15. Ibid. 16 Thomas Cartother (1999) Aiding Democracy Abroad, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 1. 17 Ibid. 18. Carol Lancaster (1993) United States and Africa in the Twenty-First Century, Washington, DC: Overseas Development Council, 49. 19 See Ludo De Witte (2003) The Assassination of Lumumba, New York, NY, and London: Verso. 20 Ibid.; see Sean Kelly (1993) America’s Tyrant, Washington, DC: American University Press. 21 Ibid. 22 See Black History (2011) ‘The CIA, Kwame Nkrumah, and the destruction of Ghana’, November 28: 1. 23 See George Klay Kieh, Jr (1988) ‘Beyond the façade of constructive engagement: a critical examination of United States policy toward South Africa’, Africa Quarterly, 26 (1): 1–15. 24 See George Klay Kieh, Jr (2007) ‘The United States and democratization in Africa’, in Abdul Karim Bangura et al. (eds), Stakes in Africa–US Relations, Lincoln, NE: iUniverse Press and Michael Clough (1992) ‘The United States and Africa: the policy of cynical disengagement’, Current History, 91 (565): 193–8. 25 See Human Rights Watch (2000) ‘Africa overview’, World Report 2000, New York, NY: Human Rights Watch. 26 See Pan-African News Wire (2011) ‘Clinton to advance US imperialist agenda for Africa’, June 7: 1. 27 Dean Minix and Vinton Prince (2012) ‘Sub-Saharan Africa as another front of the US global war on terror’, in George Klay Kieh, Jr and Kelechi Kalu (eds), West Africa and the US War on Terror, London: Routledge, 19. 28 See United States Department of State (2010) International Religious Freedom Report, Washington, DC: US State Department (available online at www.state/gldr/rls/irf/2007/90081.htm) (accessed December 8, 2012). 29 See George Klay Kieh, Jr and Kelechi Kalu (2012) ‘Introduction: the travails of the US war on terror’, in George Klay Kieh, Jr and Kelechi Kalu (eds), West Africa and the US War on Terror, London: Routledge, 11. 30 Ibid., p. 10. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid.

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34 See US Development Assistance Database (available online at www.usoda.eads.usaidallnet.gov) (accessed November 13, 2012). 35 See United Nations Development Program (2009) Human Development Report, New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 36 See US Census Bureau (2010) US Foreign Direct Investment Position Abroad on a HistoricalCost Basis by Selected Countries, 2000–2010, Washington, DC: US Census Bureau. 37 See US Census Bureau (2012) ‘Trade in goods with Africa’, Foreign Trade, Washington, DC: US Census Bureau. 38 See Esther Pan (2004) Foreign Aid: Millennium Challenges Account, Backgrounder, New York, NY: Council on Foreign Relations. 39 Ibid. 40 For details on the records of Burkina Faso and Tanzania in the area of political reforms, especially the promotion of political rights and civil liberties, see Freedom House (2012) Survey of World Freedom: Historical Comparative Data, 1972–2012, Washington, DC: Freedom House. 41 See President George W. Bush, Second Inaugural Address, January 20, 2005. 42 For a comprehensive report on the records of these regimes in such areas as political rights and civil liberties, see Freedom House (2012) Survey of World Freedom: Historical Comparative Data, 1972–2012, Washington, DC: Freedom House. 43 See The Economist (2007) ‘Nigeria’s elections: big men, big fraud and big trouble’, April 26: 1; Shashank Bengali (2008) ‘How Kenya’s election was rigged’, McClatchy Newspapers, January 31: 1; Stephen Zanes (2010) ‘Fraudulent Egyptian election’, Foreign Policy in Focus, December 7: 1. 44 See US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Statement on the Egyptian Presidential Election, Washington, DC, September 10, 2005. 45 International Republican Institute (2005) Final Report: 2005 Presidential Election Assessment in Egypt, August 15–September 9, 2005, Washington, DC: IRI, 1. 46 See Office of National AIDs Policy (2008) Presidential HIV/AIDs Initiatives, December 1, 2008, Washington, DC: The White House, 1. 47 See Daniel Volman, (2009) Obama, AFRICOM, and US Military Policy toward Africa, PAS Working Paper no. 14, Evanston, IL: Program of African, Northwestern University, 10. 48 Ibid., p. 3. 49 Ibid., p.2. 50 President George W. Bush, Speech Announcing the Creation of a Defense Unified Combatant Command for Africa, February 6, 2007. 51 Horace Campbell (2012) AFRICOM: Imperialism and Attempts to Remilitarize Africa, London: Pambazuka Press, 1. 52 Michael Klare and Daniel Volman (2006) ‘America, China and the scramble for Africa’s oil’, Review of African Political Economy, 33 (108): 297. 53 See Amrit Singh (2013) Globalizing Terror: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition, New York, NY: Open Society Foundations, 6. 54 Ibid. 55 Johnnie Carson, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, US–Africa Policy Under the Obama Administration: Remarks delivered at Harvard University’s Africa Focus Program, Washington, DC, April 5, 2010. 56 See The White House (2012) US Strategy toward Sub-Saharan Africa, Washington, DC: The White House. 57 See United States Agency for International Development, Foreign Assistance Database (available online at www.eads.usadallnet.gov) (accessed December 14, 2012). 58 See Armin Rosen (2012) ‘A modern dictator: why Ethiopia’s Zenawi mattered’, The Atlantic, August 21: 1. 59 US President Barack Obama, Speech to the Ghanaian Parliament, July 11, 2009. 60 Dan Murphy (2011) ‘Joe Biden says Egypt’s Mubarak no dictator, he shouldn’t step down’, The Christian Science Monitor, January 27. 61 For a comprehensive report on the horrendous human rights record of the Zenawi regime, see Freedom House (2012) Survey of World Freedom: Historical Comparative Data, 1972–2012, Washington, DC: Freedom House.

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62 Ambassador Susan Rice, US Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Remarks at the Funeral of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, September 2, 2012. 63 Human Rights Watch, Human Rights in Ethiopia (available online at www.hrw.org/africa/ ethiopia) (accessed December 14, 2012). 64 See European Union Election Observation Mission (2011) Uganda: Final Report of the General Elections 18 February 2011, Brussels: European Union; Daniel Howden (2010) ‘Meles claims election win in Ethiopia despite poll fraud claims’, Independent, May 24, 1; Rising Continent (2010) ‘Rwandan elections 2010 as predicted’, August 9: 1. 65 See Associated Press (2012) ‘Uganda gets help from US Special Forces in hunt for Joseph Kony’, April 29: 1. 66 See AfricaFocus Bulletin (2011) ‘US/Gabon: blind eye for corruption’, June 30: 1. 67 See Gerald Le Melle (2009) ‘Straight talk: revealing the real US–Africa policy’, Foreign Policy in Focus, July 6: 1. 68 Daniel Volman (2010) Obama Expands Military Involvement in Africa, ASRP Occasional Paper, Washington, DC: African Security Research Project, 1. 69 Gerald Le Melle (2009) ‘Straight talk: revealing the real US–Africa policy’, Foreign Policy in Focus, July 6: 1. 70 See Ted Dagne (2011) Africa: US Foreign Assistance Issues, CRS Report for Congress, Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 7; Daniel Volman (2010) Obama Expands Military Involvement in Africa, ASRP Occasional Paper, Washington, DC: African Security Research Project, 1. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid. 74 See Jon Queally (2012) ‘A retort to US military expansion in Africa: dismantle Africa’, Common Dreams, December 24: 1. 75 Ibid. 76 Eric Schmitt (2013) ‘US weighs base for spy drones in North Africa’, The New York Times, January 28. 77 Ibid. 78 Sheldon Richman (2013) ‘The ominous US presence in Northwest Africa,’ Empire’s Future of Freedom Foundation, January 31: 1. 79 Ibid. 80 See Marian Wang (2011) ‘Under Obama administration, renditions – and secrecy around them – continues’, Pro Publica: Journalism and the Public Interest, September 6: 1. 81 Ibid. 82 See Simon Allison (2011) ‘US-backed Ethiopia invades Somalia – again’, Daily Maverick, November 23: 1. 83 See Abayomi Azikwe (2012) ‘US militarism in Africa: humanitarian missions or imperialist aggression?’ Global Research, September 4: 3. 84 See Amrit Singh (2013) Globalizing Terror: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition, New York, NY: Open Society Foundations. 85 See United States Agency for International Development (2009) The United States Government Global Health Initiative, Strategy Document, Washington, DC: USAID, 3.

14 The offensive turn US intelligence and the ‘war on terror’ Trevor McCrisken and Mark Phythian

Introduction On a Monday evening in mid-May 2013, Ryan C. Fogle, the third secretary at the US embassy in Moscow, was arrested on a Moscow street wearing a blond wig held on to his head by a baseball cap. He was carrying a further wig (brown), three pairs of glasses, a compass, a street map of Moscow, US$130,000, a letter offering ‘up to $1 million a year for long-term cooperation’, and his US embassy identification card (Herszenhorn and Barry 2013). Fogle, Russia claimed, worked for the CIA, and was attempting to recruit a Federal Security Service (FSB) officer. Notwithstanding the amateur spycraft, it was an incident that evoked nostalgia for a seemingly lost world of spying, in which people were sent overseas by their governments to recruit locals with access to information in order to steal each other’s secrets in a global game whose rules were not published but were widely understood, and usually respected, by all participants. Prior to Fogle, the last US intelligence employee to be detained abroad was Raymond Davis. On 27 January 2011, Davis was caught up in traffic congestion in Lahore, Pakistan, in his rented white Honda Civic when two armed men pulled up alongside him on a motorcycle. Davis reached for his Glock semiautomatic pistol, shot dead one of the men then got out of his car and shot dead the second as he attempted to flee. He radioed the US consulate for assistance and shortly afterwards a Toyota Land Cruiser from the consulate struck and killed a Pakistani motorcyclist as it sped the wrong way down a one-way street in an attempt to extricate Davis from the scene before the Pakistani authorities intervened. Davis was a former Green Beret who had worked for private security company Blackwater in Pakistan, through which he had been contracted to the CIA, part of a covert group conducting surveillance of suspected militants in Pakistan’s main cities. By August 2010, he was contracted to the CIA as a free agent via a company named Hyperion Protective Services, LLC. Unlike Fogle and classic Cold War-era spies, Davis was not trying to steal state secrets. He was engaged in a manhunt for suspected militants who could be eliminated by armed drone or other means (Miller 2011; Scahill 2013: 403–29). Taken together, the two cases illustrate how far the CIA’s mission has shifted in the years since the 9/11 attacks to embrace a much more offensive role and the way in which intelligence, military, and private security agencies have combined in the offensive pursuit of militant suspects to the extent that they cannot be distinguished simply by reference to the roles they perform.

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Before 9/11 Historically, there have been regular periods of tension concerning the CIA’s covert role. However, the post-9/11 shift has been different from previous episodes in three distinct ways: in terms of duration, scope, and lethality. Of course, the CIA had been part of operations that involved killing before, most notably during the ‘Phoenix Program’ in Vietnam (Andrade 1990). But never before had it been so centrally involved in killing on the scale it has in the post-9/11 ‘war on terror’ targeted killing campaign, mostly using missile strikes from unmanned aerial vehicles known as drones. Earlier secret wars and assassination campaigns had been kept hidden from Congress, which had moved to reassert its authority when they were exposed, leading to the Church Committee investigations of the 1970s and the Iran-Contra hearings of the 1980s (for an overview, see Prados 2006). The involvement of a senior Guatemalan military officer who was also a CIA asset in the murders of an American innkeeper and a Guatemalan guerrilla married to an American lawyer, exposed in the 1990s despite the best efforts of the CIA, led to a further chilling of the covert action option (Weiner 2007: 458–60). The 9/11 Commission felt that the consequence of all this was that by the 1990s the CIA was ‘an organization capable of attracting extraordinarily motivated people but institutionally averse to risk, with its capacity for covert action atrophied’ (9/11 Commission 2004: 93). It found that during the 1990s ‘tension sometimes arose, as it did in the effort against al Qaeda, between policymakers who wanted the CIA to undertake more aggressive covert action and wary CIA leaders who counselled prudence and making sure that the legal basis and presidential authorization for their actions were undeniably clear’ (9/11 Commission 2004: 90). For some, such as CIA operations veteran Robert Baer, the institutional timidity of the 1990s contributed to the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks. As Baer wrote: ‘Running our own agents – our own foreign human sources – had become too messy. Agents sometimes misbehaved; they caused ugly diplomatic incidents. Worse, they didn’t fit America’s moral view of the way the world should run’ (Baer 2002: xvii). The 9/11 attacks and response of the Bush Administration transformed this approach. The CIA’s Operations Directorate was no longer seen as representing the problem, but was transformed overnight into a core part of the solution. More specifically, the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center (CTC) metamorphosed from a small unit widely viewed as being staffed by obsessives to the most important single part of the CIA, and one that expanded rapidly (Rodriguez, Jr with Harlow 2012: 75–7). As the Director of the CTC at the time of the 9/11 attacks, J. Cofer Black, put it: ‘The analogy would be the junkyard dog that had been chained to the ground was now going to be let go. And I just couldn’t wait’ (Scahill 2013: 21).

The offensive turn This renewed enthusiasm for action is clear from the briefing he gave to the CIA Jawbreaker team on 19 September 2001, just prior to its deployment to Afghanistan. ‘Gentlemen’, Black told them, I want to give you your marching orders, and I want to make them very clear. I have discussed this with the President and he is in full agreement… I don’t want bin Laden and his thugs captured, I want them dead… They must be killed. I want to see photos of their heads on pikes. I want bin Laden’s head shipped back in a box filled with dry ice. I want to be able to show bin Laden’s head to the President. I promised him I would do that (Schroen 2005: 40).

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All of this had been rendered permissible by the broadly-framed Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) Joint Resolution of 14 September 2001, which gave the President authority to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons. This initial congressional support would become more qualified as the thorny issues of extraordinary rendition, torture, and the legality of killing US citizens via armed drones arose and the ‘war on terror’ stretched into its second decade, in fact if not in name, with no end in sight. The Bush Administration’s 2002 National Security Strategy (NSS) provided the broad policy framework within which the CIA acted, one which rejected the assumptions of the prevailing Weinberger Doctrine (Weinberger 1990: 433–45) in favour of anticipatory intervention. It explained that the United States would ‘not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting pre-emptively against such terrorists’ (US Government 2002: 6). The central implication of this policy directive for the CIA, as set out by former CIA officer Charles Cogan, was that: intelligence operatives in the twenty-first century will become hunters not gatherers. They will not simply sit back and gather information that comes in, analyse it and then decide what to do about it. Rather they will have to go and hunt out intelligence that will enable them to track down or kill terrorists (Cogan 2004: 317). In effect, in Afghanistan the CIA was deployed in a paramilitary role, spearheading the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the other al Qaeda principals. It was the CIA, not the US military, which led the 2001 intervention in Afghanistan (Bernsten and Pezzullo 2005; Schroen 2005). Nevertheless, despite initially appearing to be more competitors than colleagues, the CIA came to work closely with the US military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). For its part, Pakistan’s military leadership felt pressured into accepting CIA operatives in its country, a fact which goes a long way to explaining the mutual distrust that came to characterize the US–Pakistan ‘war on terror’ relationship. However, it refused to countenance US Special Forces operations inside Pakistan. The US solution, ‘sheep-dipping’ US Navy SEALs so that they worked under CIA authority inside Pakistan, gave the CIA a dedicated military wing and heightened co-operation between the CIA and the military (Mazzetti 2013: 133). Given the demands placed on the CIA in Afghanistan and then Pakistan, exacerbated from 2003 by the demands it faced in Iraq, it found itself struggling to provide sufficient personnel for its ‘war on terror’ bases. Hence, it began to forge another set of relationships, with private sector security operatives, initially supplied by Blackwater (Scahill 2007). Progressively, their role expanded from a focus on base protection to more direct involvement in the al Qaeda manhunt, and even extended to loading missiles on to Predator drones. As the CIA became more militarized and worked more closely with JSOC and Blackwater employees became more centrally involved, it became increasingly difficult to tell them apart. Although deployed in a frontline role in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in one sense the CIA (and its contractors) continued to operate like a conventional intelligence organization,

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collecting and analysing information. The most valuable source of this information – in a context where the United States had no intelligence sources of its own and little faith in its new-found ‘war on terror’ partner, Pakistan’s pro-Taliban Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) – was captured militant suspects processed through the CIA’s detention and interrogation programme. Suspected Al Qaeda operatives would be captured and either interrogated in secret CIA prisons or their interrogation would be outsourced to states with a record of proficiency in such matters, as the CIA sought to locate the Al Qaeda leadership and, in particular, Osama bin Laden. As more suspects were rounded up, more secret prisons were required, and were built or established in Thailand, Romania, Poland, and Lithuania. The need to outsource interrogation also grew. However, both the detentions and interrogation methods used were illegal. The latter clearly involved torture, as understood in international law if not inside the Bush administration. As the International Committee of the Red Cross reported after finally being given access to fourteen ‘high value detainees’ who had passed through CIA secret prisons and were being held at the US detention facility at Guantánamo Bay: All of the fourteen were subjected to a process of ongoing transfers to places of detention in unknown locations and continuous solitary confinement and incommunicado detention throughout the entire period of their detention. The fourteen were placed outside the protection of the law during the time they spent in the CIA detention program. The totality of the circumstances in which they were held effectively amounted to an arbitrary deprivation of liberty and enforced disappearance, in contravention of international law… in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture (ICRC 2007: 26). An internal May 2004 report into the CIA’s detention and interrogation programme by the CIA Inspector General had already recognized this reality, in effect conceding that at times the interrogation process went beyond even the liberal definition of torture preferred by the Bush administration, and reporting on one individual who died at Asadabad Base in Afghanistan while being tortured by a CIA contractor. It warned that: The Agency faces potentially serious long-term political and legal challenges as a result of the CTC Detention and Interrogation Program, particularly its use of EITs [Enhanced Interrogation Techniques] and the inability of the US Government to decide what it will ultimately do with terrorists detained by the Agency (CIA Inspector General 2004: 105). The CTC risked becoming the problem once again rather than part of the solution. The Inspector General’s report held out the possibility of CIA officers and contractors being prosecuted in the future for their aggressive ‘war on terror’ roles. The passing of the Detainee Treatment Act by Congress at the end of 2005 heightened this possibility. Perhaps perversely, the lesson drawn was that capture and interrogation were now too risky. It was safer to simply kill suspects. Drone technology offered a means of doing this. The Obama administration would spend considerable time finessing a legal framework to support this shift.

The drone temptation Across his two terms as president, George W. Bush had overseen a total of 49 drone attacks in Pakistan. During his first year in the White House alone, Obama presided over a reported 52 targeted killings against suspected militants in Pakistan. This number more than doubled

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to 122 in 2010, fell back to 73 in 2011, and reached a further 48 drone attacks in Pakistan by the end of 2012.1 As well as intensifying drone use, the Obama administration also widened their use to target suspected terrorists in Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan, and also deployed them during the 2011 conflict in Libya. Their use against targets in Pakistan, however, has been the most prolific and has drawn the greatest attention. These attacks raise serious questions about the CIA’s central role, rather than that of the Pentagon which oversees the strikes elsewhere, thus increasing concerns over issues of legitimacy and accountability. While advances in drone technology can help explain the increased use of targeted killing under Obama, it also reflects a conscious shift in counter-terrorism policy. This increased reliance on targeted killings raises a range of questions relating to morality, legitimacy, accountability, and proportionality. Particularly given Obama’s emphasis on the need for the United States to combat terrorism in ways that are consistent with core American values and principles, how can remotely targeted lethal drone strikes be justified as legitimate policy? How accountable are the CIA officers responsible not only for the targeting information but also for carrying out the strikes themselves in Pakistan? What is the legality of the target lists and who authorizes them? Who makes the decision whether or not to strike a target and what is their accountability? Even if the programme can be regarded as legitimate, ultimately how successful is it proving in combating the activities of Al Qaeda and other militant groups? This section addresses these questions.2 For the first three years of Obama’s presidency, the practice of targeted killing and the use of drones were seldom acknowledged publicly. Despite media reports in the United States and internationally, and some limited discussion by officials, Obama did not officially admit to the drone campaign until the beginning of his fourth year in office. In an online Google+ interview on 30 January 2012, Obama was asked by a member of the public to justify the use of drone attacks against alleged terrorist targets. ‘For the most part,’ he admitted, ‘they have been precise, precision strikes against Al Qaeda and their affiliates.’ He contended that ‘This is a targeted, focused effort at people who are on a list of active terrorists who are trying to go in and harm Americans, hit American facilities, American bases’ (Obama 2012). This public admission led to a few more details about the targeted killing campaign being revealed, particularly about drone attacks in Yemen, but the CIA-led programme in Pakistan remained officially covert and classified (Traub 2012). Particularly instructive was a Justice Department White Paper leaked to the US media in February 2013. The document revealed the legal justifications made for placing suspects on the kill-or-capture list and authorizing the use of lethal force against them. It was written specifically to justify the targeting of Anwar Al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric based in Yemen involved in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), who was a also US citizen and so covered by the Fifth Amendment protection against deprivation of life without due process of law. Al-Awlaki had recruited Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the ‘Christmas Bomber’ who tried to destroy a Detroit-bound aircraft on 25 December 2009. He was killed in a drone attack in Yemen on 30 September 2011. The White Paper stated that if ‘capture is infeasible’, a US citizen who ‘has joined al-Qa’ida or its associated forces’ could be targeted by lethal force if they posed an ‘imminent threat of violent attack to the United States’. Such operations could be carried out either ‘with the consent of the host nation’s government’ or, consistent with the vision contained within the 2002 NSS, without that consent if the host nation ‘is unable or unwilling to suppress the threat posed by the individual targeted’ (US Department of Justice 2011). The timing of the drone attack against al-Awlaki was apparently constrained, however, by the White Paper’s insistence that any attack must be proportionate and discriminatory, particularly with regard to the risk to

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civilians. Initially located in a heavily populated village, the drone attack was delayed by a month until he was travelling by car in a remote location (Savage 2011). Officials have claimed consistently that measures of proportionality and discrimination are applied whenever a targeted killing is authorized. With regard to Pakistan it appeared, from the information available publicly before Obama admitted to the existence of the programme in early 2012, that the process of identifying targets and determining whether or not to strike with drones was made wholly within the CIA. Despite the assurances of administration officials that all drone killings were being conducted within strict legal guidelines, it was largely unknown exactly who had been involved in targeting decisions, what criteria were being applied, and whether discussions were considering the merits of capturing rather than killing the targeted individuals. In the months following Obama’s comments, further details were made public. These revealed that the formal process for selecting targets in Yemen and Somalia involved almost weekly video conferences including over 100 members of the national security bureaucracy led by the Pentagon officials responsible for the drone strikes in those countries. The participants in the video conference would sift through evidence relating to suspected terrorists in order to determine who posed a significant enough threat to be placed on the kill list. The nominations for the kill list would then be sent to the White House where Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, a post held by John O. Brennan until he became CIA Director in 2013, would provide a final recommendation on each name, with the president then giving ultimate approval. As Brennan related, Obama ‘wants to make sure that we go through a rigorous checklist: The infeasibility of capture, the certainty of the intelligence base, the imminence of the threat, all of these things’ (Becker and Shane 2012). Details of CIA-led operations in Pakistan remain less clear (Traub 2012). Here the CIA retains greater autonomy over drone killing decisions. As late as October 2012 it was reported that ‘the agency has standing permission to attack targets on an approved list in Pakistan without asking the White House’ (DeYoung 2012). While Obama signs off personally on every strike run by the Pentagon in Yemen and Somalia, reports suggest he only gives final authorization on ‘about a third of the total’ strikes carried out by the CIA in Pakistan that are deemed ‘complex and risky’, otherwise it appears that the agency retains a large degree of autonomy in two thirds of the targeted killings it carries out (Becker and Shane 2012). The secrecy surrounding the CIA programme does little to placate fears that once a target has been placed on the kill-or-capture list, the imperative of moving quickly to secure a kill overrides all other concerns and that the so-called ‘cubicle warriors’ themselves, who deploy the drones remotely from thousands of miles away, have considerable authority to act. John Brennan has argued that targeted killing by drone is highly ethical in that it minimizes risks on all levels; the operatives conducting the attacks are safely located thousands of miles from the target zone, while computer-guided targeting reduces the risk of adjacent buildings being damaged and civilians in the surrounding neighbourhood being killed or injured (Brennan 2012). However, this situation also gives rise to a ‘PlayStation mentality’, one which extends beyond the operators themselves and raises deeper questions about how ‘war’ is being conducted by a democratic society. The secretive and remote nature of this aspect of the ‘war on terror’ has hidden it from the US public and rendered it largely ‘unreal’, despite more details being released recently. The US public has received an increasingly sanitized, emotionally and physically detached, and technologically precise representation of American war-making since at least the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The current range of drone weapons follows a long line of increasingly remote weaponry that remove not only the

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military operators from the physical act of killing, but also distance the public from being confronted with the human costs of war. One consequence of the increased reliance on drones and targeted killing is that public awareness of what is happening in the ‘war on terror’ becomes so obscured that the political and moral implications of the attacks cease to be considered, as war holds out the prospect of becoming a costless exercise – at least in terms of US casualties. Obama administration officials also justify the continuation of drone attacks because they claim they are highly effective. Many observers, however, such as Jeffrey Addicott, a former legal adviser to US Army Special Operations Forces, are less convinced by the extent to which targeted killing is assisting counter-terrorism: ‘Are we creating more enemies than we’re killing or capturing by our activities? Unfortunately, I think the answer is yes. These families have 10 sons each. You kill one son and you create 9 more enemies. You’re not winning over the population’ (Entous 2010). As Jo Becker and Scott Shane put it: ‘Drones have replaced Guantanamo as the recruiting tool of choice for the militants’ (Becker and Shane 2012). Some high-level Al Qaeda leaders figures have been killed by drone attacks, but research by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann at the New America Foundation suggests that the impact of the drone campaign may not be as great as the reports of high-level operatives being killed might suggest. They estimate that by the end of 2010, ‘of the some 1,260 militants reported killed in [drone] strikes since 2004, only 36, or around 2 per cent, have been leaders of al Qaeda, the Taliban, or other militant groups’. The strike rate against confirmed militants has increased significantly from the Bush administration (55 per cent) to the Obama administration (approximately 80 per cent), but the majority of those killed ‘appear to be lower or midlevel militants’ rather than the key leadership targets on the US kill-or-capture list (Bergen and Tiedemann 2010). Administration officials argue that this high kill ratio, even of mid-level operatives, coupled with the death of Osama bin Laden, has had a significant impact on al Qaeda’s operational and organizational effectiveness in the Afghanistan–Pakistan border region. Indeed, with ‘safe havens’ heavily disrupted, lines of command under constant threat or being broken, and the frequency of attacks inhibiting the effective succession of new leadership, it is even being argued that the drone programme has broken al Qaeda’s back, with the core leadership described in April 2012 as ‘a shadow of its former self’. Indeed, John Brennan suggested that: Under intense pressure in the tribal regions of Pakistan, they have fewer places to train and groom the next generation of operatives. They’re struggling to attract new recruits. Morale is low, with intelligence indicating that some members are giving up and returning home, no doubt aware that this is a fight they will never win (Brennan 2012). Researchers at RAND and Stanford University, however, have argued that the effectiveness of the drone attacks ‘is more likely to lie in disrupting militant operations at the tactical level than as a silver bullet that will reverse the course of the war and singlehandedly defeat al Qaeda’ (Johnston and Sarbahi 2013). While in body count terms the practical effectiveness of the targeted killing programme can be regarded as relatively high, it remains a deeply problematic approach to counterterrorism. Although it may eradicate immediate threats, it also destroys the possibility of acquiring intelligence from the target who is killed. Despite this potential loss of vital intelligence, the increased reliance on targeted killing indicates that the Obama administration finds

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the option of eradicating terrorist threats by killing suspects a more attractive proposition than attempting to capture them alive, for the reasons outlined earlier. For Obama, the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay is emblematic of the problems that accompany capture. Despite pledging to close the facility once he became president, he has failed to do so, and it remains a practical and symbolic problem for his administration. Hence, while the official parlance suggests that a policy of ‘kill-or-capture’ is followed when terrorist suspects are identified, it appears that in most cases the prospects for capturing targets in Pakistan are deemed poor or to be potentially too costly in terms of personnel or collateral damage, and so the decision is taken to use lethal force in the form of a drone attack. This means that, in effect, the administration is operating a ‘kill-not-capture’ policy towards individuals on its terrorist suspect list. This is an accusation flatly denied by Brennan as being ‘absurd’. He argues that ‘whenever it is possible to capture a suspected terrorist, it is the unqualified preference of the Administration to take custody of that individual so we can obtain information that is vital to the safety and security of the American people’ (Brennan 2011). Despite such official protestations, the evidence suggests that the Obama administration is determined to eradicate as many members of al Qaeda as possible using targeted killings. The attacks are happening with such high frequency that there seem to be few qualms attached to the policy, especially with the completion of a legal framework legitimizing the attacks. This is a view shared by some members of Congress who claim that ‘the administration’s failure to forge a clear detention policy has created the impression… of a take-no-prisoners policy’ (Becker and Shane 2012).

Killing bin Laden The principal CIA–JSOC manhunt concluded on 2 May 2011 when Osama bin Laden was shot dead by US Navy SEALs, operating under CIA command, inside his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The killing of bin Laden, although the result of a ground operation rather than a drone attack, appears to add weight to the conclusion that the Obama administration’s preferred course of action is to kill rather than capture terrorist suspects. Following bin Laden’s death there was some debate over whether the orders given to the Navy SEALs team were to capture the Al Qaeda leader or simply to kill him regardless of whether or not he resisted arrest. Even in bin Laden’s case, there would have been a high chance of problematic debate over exactly what should be done with him in terms of detention, trial, and possible execution, all of which would have been costly both financially and in terms of political capital for the administration. Such complexities were made moot by killing rather than capturing him – an outcome which appears to have become the norm for dealing with suspected militants through the drone campaign of targeted killings.

Cyber-warfare Drones are not the only area where technological advances have facilitated a more offensive US intelligence role. In parallel, the Bush administration had also been developing its cyberwar capacity. In its latter phase the Bush administration, in cooperation with Israel, had been infiltrating a piece of destructive malware, the Stuxnet computer worm, inside Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment plant in a bid to stall its suspected nuclear weapons programme. This malware has been described as including ‘one component designed to send Iran’s centrifuges spinning out of control and another to record normal operations at the nuclear plant and then play them back so that everything would appear normal while the centrifuges were tearing themselves apart’ (MacAskill 2011). Reportedly, in a one-to-one meeting the outgoing

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President Bush urged Obama, at the time a critic of aspects of Bush administration ‘war on terror’ conduct, to maintain two programmes: drones and the covert cyber-offensive against Iran, codenamed Olympic Games (Sanger 2012: x). The destruction caused by the worm contributed to a decline in the number of centrifuges enriching uranium at Natanz. An IAEA inspection team estimated this number fell from a peak of 4,920 machines in May 2009 to 3,772 in August 2010 (Markoff and Sanger 2010). At the beginning of 2011, the head of Mossad, Meir Dagan, estimated that Iran’s nuclear programme had been put back by at least one year as a result of the Stuxnet attack. It represented the most effective use of cyberwar to date, and as such can be seen as inaugurating a new era of covert inter-state competition in an emerging cold war in the cyber-realm (Sanger 2013), and hence also suggesting new areas of intelligence focus and future expansion. As former CIA Director Michael Hayden reflected: Previous cyberattacks had effects limited to other computers… This is the first attack of a major nature in which a cyberattack was used to effect physical destruction… Somebody has crossed the Rubicon… I don’t want to pretend it’s the same effect, but in one sense at least, it’s August 1945 (Sanger 2012: 200). However, cyber-warfare was not the sole means employed to derail the Iranian nuclear programme. The Stuxnet attack occurred in parallel with an Israeli campaign of assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists, one that constituted a further erosion of the previously deeplyembedded norm against assassination that had already been seriously undermined by the Bush and Obama drone campaigns. In both contexts, drones and cyber-warfare, the United States has set dangerous precedents that may be held to enhance its security in the short term but which have the potential to come back and bite the United States in the future as the technological advantages it holds in these areas are eroded and the technology spreads to other state and non-state actors.

Conclusions There has been some surprise, particularly among his supporters, that Obama as a Democrat, not to mention the recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, retained so much of the Bush administration’s approach to the ‘war on terror’ – in particular his decision not just to maintain, but to deepen and expand the armed drone campaign. However, this reaction overlooks the fact that what Bush inaugurated in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks was a structural shift in the US approach to counterterrorism. This shift was still in its early stages when Obama became president. The full potential of offensive drone and cyber-technology, as well as the anticipated benefits of increased domestic surveillance, only began to be realized during the Obama administration. Within this shift, the CIA’s role in the drone campaign, and before that in a global ‘detention and interrogation’ campaign that embraced extraordinary rendition and torture, has affected its institutional balance, self-image, and public perceptions of it – all for the worse. The 2011 nomination and confirmation of General David Petraeus as Director of the CIA, direct from the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with Leon Panetta’s move from CIA Director to Defense Secretary, entrenched the post-9/11 offensive turn in US intelligence. When, in turn, John Brennan was nominated to succeed Petraeus at the CIA in 2013, his past support for the CIA’s offensive turn – particularly his support for the ‘detention and interrogation’ campaign and for targeted killing – made him a controversial choice. At his confirmation hearings, Senator Barbara Mikulski told Brennan that she had

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Brennan replied that, ‘on the counterterrorism front, there are things that the Agency has been involved in since 9/11 that, in fact, have been a bit of an aberration from its traditional role’ (US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 2013: 69), that ‘the CIA should not be doing traditional military activities and operations’ (p. 70), and that if confirmed as CIA Director he would ‘take a look at that allocation of mission within CIA’ (p. 69). Given Brennan’s previously expressed preference for the military rather than the CIA to manage the expanding drone campaign, his confirmation may well lead to the CIA losing its drone role. This would mark a shift in, rather than an end to, the CIA’s offensive turn. It would still have frontline roles to play in Afghanistan and Pakistan and beyond – for example, in helping maintain the politico-military balance in Afghanistan and undertaking surveillance of militant suspects more widely. Regardless of the lead agency, there is no prospect of an end to armed drone use in the short term, despite the conclusion of the decade-long manhunt for Osama bin Laden and the elimination of much of the 9/11-era Al Qaeda leadership. Obama gave assurances in his longest public speech yet on the drones campaign in May 2013 that the use of drones would reduce after US combat forces withdrew from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. In the same speech, however, he gave extensive justifications for the continued use of drone strikes against terror suspects and admitted he had now codified the practice of targeted killing in a classified Presidential Policy Guidance directive which would embed the campaign in counter-terrorism policy for years to come (Obama 2013). As Brennan had felt obliged to explain in 2011: Unfortunately, Bin Laden’s death, and the death and capture of many other al-Qa’ida leaders and operatives, does not mark the end of that terrorist organization or its efforts to attack the United States and other countries. Indeed, al-Qa’ida, its affiliates, and its adherents remain the preeminent security threat to our nation (Brennan 2011). This underlines the difficulty of recognizing the end-point of a conflict rooted in a preventive paradigm, where the focus is on eliminating future potential threats. It also underscores the manner in which the drone option has its own dangerously addictive logic, one that has pushed consideration of long-term strategy and any alternative approaches to the margins. As former CIA analyst Bruce Riedel put it: ‘The problem with the drone is it’s like your lawn mower. You’ve got to mow the lawn all the time. The minute you stop mowing, the grass is going to grow back’ (Miller 2012). Or, as a former senior counterterrorism official formerly involved in the drone-targeting process explained: ‘Is the person currently Number 4 as good as the Number 4 seven years ago? Probably not, but it doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous’ (Miller 2012). This well illustrates how the logic of preventive war contains within it a tendency towards what science fiction author Joe Haldeman called The Forever War. The implication of this is that the CIA’s frontline role may shift, but that there is little prospect of a full return to the pre-9/11 status quo ante.

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Notes 1 Data on drone killings vary across sources. In this chapter we use data from the New America Foundation drones database, available via http://natsec.newamerica.net/about. This is a detailed database, but the challenges involved in data gathering on this issue should be recognized in approaching all data on drone strikes. 2 For a fuller account see McCrisken (2013), from which some of the material for this chapter has been drawn and revised.

References 9/11 Commission (2004) Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, New York, NY: W.W. Norton. Andrade, Dale (1990) Ashes to Ashes: The Phoenix Program and the Vietnam War, Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath. Baer, Robert (2002) See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism, New York, NY: Crown Publishers. Becker, Jo and Scott Shane (2012) ‘Secret “kill list” proves a test of Obama’s principles and will’, The New York Times, May 29. Bergen, Peter and Katherine Tiedemann (2010) ‘The hidden war’, Foreign Policy, December 21 (available online at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/12/21/the_hidden_war?page=0,5). Bernsten, Gary and Ralph Pezzullo (2005) Jawbreaker – The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA’s Key Field Commander, New York, NY: Crown Publishers. Brennan, John O. (2011) ‘Strengthening our security by adhering to our values and laws’, Program on Law and Security, Harvard Law School, September 16 (available online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/thepress-office/2011/09/16/remarks-john-o-brennan-strengthening-our-security-adhering-our-values-an). Brennan, John O. (2012) ‘The ethics and efficacy of the President’s counterterrorism strategy’, remarks at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, April 30 (available online at http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/the-efficacy-and-ethics-us-counterterrorism-strategy). CIA Inspector General (2004) Special Review: Counterterrorism Detention and Interrogation Activities (September 2002–October 2003), Washington, DC, May 7. Cogan, Charles (2004) ‘Hunters not gatherers: intelligence in the twenty-first century’, Intelligence and National Security, 19 (2): 304–21. DeYoung, Karen (2011) ‘Secrecy defines Obama’s drone war’, Washington Post, December 20. DeYoung, Karen (2012) ‘A CIA veteran transforms US counterterrorism policy’, Washington Post, October 24. Entous, Adam (2010) ‘How Obama’s White House learned to love the drone’, Reuters Special Report, May. Herszenhorn, David M. and Ellen Barry (2013) ‘From Russia, with wig: American spy suspect is ejected’, Washington Post, May 14. ICRC (2007) Report on the Treatment of Fourteen ‘High Value Detainees’ in CIA Custody, Washington, DC: ICRC. Johnston, Patrick B. and Anoop K. Sarbahi (2013) ‘The impact of US drone strikes on terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan’ (available online at http://patrickjohnston.info/materials/drones.pdf). MacAskill, Ewen (2011) ‘Cyberworm heads off US strike on Iran’, Guardian, January 17. Markoff, John and David E. Sanger (2010) ‘In a computer worm, a possible biblical clue’, The New York Times, September 29. Mazzetti, Mark (2103) The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth, New York, NY: Penguin Press. McCrisken, Trevor (2013) ‘Obama’s drone war’, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, 55 (2): 97–122. Miller, Greg (2011) ‘US officials: Raymond Davis, accused in Pakistan shootings, worked for CIA’, Washington Post, February 22.

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Miller, Greg (2012) ‘Plan for hunting terrorists signals US intends to keep adding names to kill lists’, Washington Post, October 24. Obama, Barack (2012) ‘Obama Google interview predator drone’, YouTube, video uploaded January 30 (available online at http://youtu.be/egVgOwPvNOA). Obama, Barack (2013) ‘Remarks by the President at the National Defense University’, White House Office of the Press Secretary, press release, May 23. Prados, John (2006) Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA, Chicago, IL: Ivan R. Dee. Rodriguez Jr, Jose A. with Bill Harlow (2012) Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions after 9/11 Saved American Lives, New York, NY: Threshold Editions. Sanger, David E. (2012) Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, New York, NY: Crown Publishers. Sanger, David E. (2013) ‘In cyberspace, new Cold War’, The New York Times, February 24. Savage, Charlie (2011) ‘Secret US memo made legal case to kill a citizen’, The New York Times, October 8. Scahill, Jeremy (2007) Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, New York, NY: Nation Books. Scahill, Jeremy (2013) Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield, New York, NY: Nation Books. Schroen, Gary C. (2005) First In: An Insider’s Account of how the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan, New York, NY: Presidio Press. Shane, Scott (2012) ‘Shifting mood may end blank check for US security efforts’, The New York Times, October 24. Traub, James (2012) ‘Silent but deadly: how the State Department tried and failed to force Obama’s drone program into the open’, November 16 (available online at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/ articles/2012/11/16/silent_but_deadly). US Department of Justice (2011) ‘Department of Justice White Paper: lawfulness of a lethal operation directed against a US citizen who is a senior operational leader of Al-Qa’ida or an associated force’ (available online at http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf). US Government (2002) The National Security Strategy of the United States, Washington, DC: The White House. US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2013) Open Hearing on the Nomination of John O. Brennan to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, February 7 (available online at http://www. intelligence.senate.gov/130207/transcript.pdf). Weinberger, Caspar (1990) Fighting for Peace: Seven Critical Years in the Pentagon, New York, NY: Warner Books. Weiner, Tim (2007) Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, London: Allen Lane.

Further reading Bergen, Peter (2012) Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Osama Bin Laden, London: The Bodley Head. Mazzetti, Mark (2103) The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth, New York, NY: Penguin Press. Sanger, David E. (2012) Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, New York, NY: Crown Publishers. Scahill, Jeremy (2013) Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield, New York, NY: Nation Books. Weiner, Tim (2007) Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, London: Allen Lane.

15 Transatlantic relations and US foreign policy David Hastings Dunn and Benjamin Zala

Structure and agency in transatlantic relations Despite being elected for a second term of office the Obama administration’s foreign policy agenda is still heavily affected by the legacy of the previous administration. While the most notable area where this remains true is the Middle East, the same can also be said for transatlantic relations. George W. Bush’s tenure will long be remembered as one of the most tumultuous in transatlantic relations. Never before in the post-war period had the Atlantic community been so comprehensively split and so actively opposed diplomatically as they were over the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The extent of the legacy of the Bush years for the Obama administration poses a series of questions for the analyst of US foreign policy. Not least of these is the extent to which Obama has been constrained by the problems and commitments which Bush left behind. While the retirement of Bush and his senior advisors in January 2009 marked a distinct end point to his administration, the opportunity for a fresh start for his successor was severally limited by American commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, and on-going challenges in dealing with Iran, North Korea, and the Middle East Peace Process. The notion that America had neglected the major structural changes occurring in the Asia-Pacific region, including but not limited to China’s growing international status as a major force in world politics, resulted in a strategic ‘pivot’ towards that part of the world in Obama’s first term. Such a move could have serious implications for the transatlantic link. The potential for change in transatlantic relations in part depends on how much scope there is for ‘agency’ in the ‘structure–agency’ debate. There has been much speculation since the low point of 2003 as to how much relations across the Atlantic between the United States and its erstwhile European opponents have improved. While 2003 marked the low point, relations were strained across the Atlantic before this, due to disagreement over climate change, the ABM Treaty, the International Criminal Court, the CTBT, and a whole host of other issues. These issues provided the backdrop to the diplomatic confrontations which occurred in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Since then, however, and particularly since the election of Barack Obama, there has been a marked improvement in the tone of the transatlantic dialogue. Substantially, from the Iranian nuclear negotiations to the intervention in Libya in 2011 to the renewed attempts to create an EU–US free-trade agreement, the shift from Bush to Obama appears crucial to the nature of transatlantic relations. However, structural factors seem set to intervene once more as the American turn towards the AsiaPacific (and therefore, to some extent, away from Europe) is set to create new challenges in the years ahead. How much of this is superficial and how much of it is substantive remains the subject of debate. A related question is how much of it is due to changes in the political actors on both sides of the Atlantic and how much is it to do with changes of substantive

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policy. In other words how much has agency changed and rejuvenated transatlantic relations and how much have these changes in political actor mitigated the structural factors which others see as sources of divergence between Europe and America? Analysing the recent history of the transatlantic relationship, and in particular its major crises, provides an important avenue for answering some of these questions as we face the coming years of internal crisis in Europe and an America attempting to turnaround a growing narrative of relative decline and retrenchment. A close examination of the driving forces behind the 2003 crisis to the restoration of transatlantic ties from the Bush second term through to Obama’s ‘pivot’ towards Asia highlights the complexity of structure and agency in this most critical of international relationships.

To Iraq and back? The nature of the dispute The debate over how much was permanently changed in transatlantic relations and how much has been restored subsequent to the Iraq episode must be set in historical context. Transatlantic relations have been marked by a series of crises with each successive episode being presented as uniquely different from the previous crisis in this troubled relationship. Michael Howard, referring to this long and troubled history remarked that the relationship was like a ‘successful but unhappy marriage’.1 The point being that it was somehow inevitable that this odd couple should and would be together but that did not mean that they were always entirely happy about the relationship. This of course does not foreclose the possibility that any new crisis could be the straw that broke the camel’s back. And for many observers the depth and nature of the transatlantic dispute over Iraq signified just that, something quite different from previous disputes and therefore a radical departure from this traditional way of thinking about this relationship. For Ivo Daalder and Mick Cox, for example, it represents the ‘tipping point’ in a relationship which was already badly fractured in the wake of diverging trends since the end of the Cold War.2 For this school of thought Iraq demonstrated that within the transatlantic relationship at least two conceptions of what the alliance meant were in operation. For the Bush administration and its allies the existence of the alliance ought to have ensured European support for America’s intervention in Iraq. The failure of many NATO allies to actively support the war and the efforts of some to politically oppose it were seen as disloyalty to the point of betrayal of both the United States as leader of that alliance and of the transatlantic spirit more broadly. For the opponents of this view, Atlanticism had an entirely different meaning. For this school the transatlantic relationship was premised less on a notion of follow my leader than on a set of shared rules and values, among them being a recognition of the importance of the institutions of the international system including the United Nations, international law, and collective decision-making among the major transatlantic powers over matters that materially affected their interests and security and indeed the stability of the international system as a whole. What the conflict in Iraq did, according to many observers, was to illustrate starkly these two conceptions of what Transatlanticism was supposed to represent. From both perspectives the split over the invasion of Iraq was seen as an infidelity from the spirit of Transatlanticism which could not easily be forgiven or forgotten by either side because of what that infidelity was seen to represent. Like most extra-marital dalliances, while the act itself (the invasion/ political opposition to the invasion) was seen as repulsive, more damaging still was what this was seen to represent of how one viewed the other. At the risk of taking this analogy too far the relationship between Europe and America has historically operated like the traditional 1940s marriage that it was, not only in terms of its division of labour but also to the fidelity

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of the ideas which the relationship enshrined. Historically it was like a courtly marriage, a political deal conducted with affection rather than love for mutual benefit. For its critics, however, Iraq brought into question the basis of that political deal. For others, however, there is a danger in extrapolating too much from this single event. For these observers while Iraq demonstrates considerable differences, the overall trend is one of convergence of interests in the context of an external threat rather than divergence of the modalities of dealing with it. Such observers are keen to remind us that on September 12 the French newspapers declared ‘we are all Americans now’ and NATO followed this with its historic declaration that the terrorist attacks represented an Article 5 violation, and therefore ‘an attack on one is as an attack on all’. The mood then was one of unprecedented unity and solidarity. Modernity was under attack and ‘the West’ responded with appropriate unity and support. Gordon and Sharipo also note that, ‘In a twist that few could have predicted before September 11, within a month America was conducting a major war halfway around the world, and the biggest problem for the European allies was that they wanted to send more troops than Washington was prepared to accept’.3 Nor was disagreement over Iraq on the scale that developed an inevitability, it is argued. Many alternative outcomes were possibly not as damaging to transatlantic relations as the events that followed: ‘Iraq was in many ways the perfect storm; there is no reason to believe that the crisis it provoked will be anything like the norm in transatlantic relations.’4 In this respect a degree of caution is necessary lest the mistake is repeated from 1991 when the first war against Iraq was widely interpreted as setting a new pattern for international relations. For the clash of the magnitude that occurred ‘resulted not just from structural trends, but also from a strong degree of contingency, personality, misguided diplomacy, poor leadership, Iraqi unpredictability, and bad luck’.5 And it is not difficult to imagine circumstances when either all the Europeans would have supported and contributed to military action or that full Iraqi compliance would have prevented American action. James Rubin makes a related point, that if the Bush administration had waited just a few months, ‘it would have been Iraqi non-compliance and not spurious claims about an Iraqi threat that would have triggered the war’ and as a result ‘many more countries would have been willing to contribute substantial troops and substantial reconstruction assistance if such international legitimacy had been obtained’.6 For Rubin though this of course was part of the message that Bush was sending by the way he prosecuted the war. Colin Powell, his Secretary of State, did not tour the world drumming up support in the way that James Baker had done a decade earlier. Bush himself stayed off the long-distance phone line. America was making the point that it was willing and able to act in its own defence in the way it defined it without having to ask anyone’s permission. Although the Bush administration rowed back from this approach somewhat in its second term, a trend further reinforced after the election of the Obama administration, the legacy of this episode lingers and therefore what the final consequence of this approach will be on transatlantic relations over the long term remains hotly contested.

Atlantica restored? Despite the depth of the crisis between the United States and Europe culminating in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 there has been much debate since then as to how much relations across the Atlantic have improved or even recovered. In his farewell tour of Europe in 2008 Bush was even able to utter, without any hint of apparent irony, that ‘When the time comes to welcome the new American President next January, I will be pleased to report that the relationship between the United States and Europe is the most vibrant it has ever been’.7 To the

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extent that this is true it has largely been attributed to changes in political actors at the elite level on both sides of the Atlantic: to changes in agency as the instigators of new policy and in mitigation of diverging structural trends. In relation to the second Bush term these changes have been attributed in part to the elevation of Condoleezza Rice to Secretary of State and the accompanying reduction in role for the combative Vice President Dick Cheney. Along with these changes came a series of replacement appointments in the top echelon of foreign policy advisors. In came Robert Zoellick, Robert Kimmitt, and Robert Gates and out went Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith, personalities most associated with the failed ideological approach of the first term.8 The neo-conservative hubris which saw American primacy without limit and which culminated in the invasion of Iraq had, by the second term, it was argued, run aground on the rocks of its own over-ambition. The Bush doctrine, which had been presented as a policy for widespread application was thwarted by the multiple failures of the policy in Iraq.9 Transatlantic relations and therefore US foreign policy towards its principal European allies have also undergone a remarkable turnaround largely as a result of changes in leadership on the continent. Initially this trend exacerbated the tensions across the Atlantic with those leaders who had supported Bush’s Iraq policy losing the confidence of their populations. Thus Jose Maria Aznar of Spain and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy lost office to opposition rivals in elections while Tony Blair lost the confidence of his party and the British population and was eventually replaced as Prime Minister. By contrast, however, elections in France and Germany brought in two new leaders who were much more Atlanticist in their outlook. The departure from the political scene of President Chirac of France and Chancellor Schroder of Germany, the principal opponents of the Iraq war and everything it represented, removed a considerable obstacle to better transatlantic relations. That they were replaced by leaders in the form of President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel, elected despite their intentions to improve relations with America, was a further boost to better relations. Berlusconi’s re-election in April 2008 reinforced this trend. The subsequent replacements of Sarkozy and Berlusconi were also free of first-hand experience of the Bush years debacle. Sarkozy’s election in particular was a major boost to the tone of relations across the Atlantic. With his easy bonhomie and accommodating rhetoric Sarkozy quickly became the ‘new Blair’ in American affections.10 As a result in his farewell tour of Europe Bush spent two nights in Paris, compared to one in London, and used the French capital to deliver the centrepiece speech of the tour – calling France ‘America’s first friend’.11 For Washington, according to a US diplomat, Sarkozy had become ‘the axis on which our relations with Europe will turn’.12 This is all rather different from the ‘axis of weasel’ of 2003. For France too ‘the frost is over’ according to an Elysee Palace spokesman, ‘We want to show the warmth that now exists between the two countries after the friction of the recent past’.13 In a similar way the new German Chancellor demonstrated her credentials in transatlantic relations as far as Washington was concerned by showing her ability to ‘identify problems, take initiatives, craft agreements other countries can support, and then turn to the United States for the contribution needed to close or enforce the deal’.14 The re-election of the Atlanticist Silvio Berlusconi reinforced this trend. The only exception to this rule was the rather curious position of the UK government under the short tenure of Gordon Brown which took steps to distance itself from Washington in a number of ways in a rather belated reaction to the excesses of the Bush administration in its first term, on the apparent assumption that it could simultaneously signal its disapproval of the Bush administration while remaining proAmerican. Although personal relations have cooled at the highest level between the UK and United States, however, on substantive policy issues the UK remains firmly Atlanticist and

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is the most robust supporter in material terms to American operations in Iraq and NATO and US operations in Afghanistan. Indeed in terms of the structure-agency debate, although counter to the prevailing trend, the actions of the Brown government reinforced the argument that transatlantic relations are susceptible to the influence of changes in agency as much as they are to the underling structural components of their bilateral relationships. Improvements in transatlantic relations were evident not only at the level of leadership atmospherics, however. There were real improvements on substantial issues as well as in the mood music. On the American side the combination of the failure of US policy in Iraq and the subsequent embroilment of the US Army in a major counter insurgency war there meant that the anticipated extension of the Bush doctrine to other ‘rogue’ states never materialised. Instead a more nuanced form of diplomacy developed in Bush’s second term with the United States supporting the EU led diplomacy towards Iran and the six party talks towards North Korea. A similar consensus was achieved in European and American efforts towards the restoration of the Middle East peace process between Israel and Palestine and the emerging statehood of Kosovo.15 Despite initial inclinations to the contrary Europe and America have also maintained a common approach towards the prohibition of arms sales to China and the nonrecognition of Hamas in the Gaza strip. The Bush administration also abandoned its position of denial with regard to global climate change and signed up, along with its European and Asian allies, to global targets for carbon reduction.16 The Obama administration, although rhetorically more supportive of the need to take action to address climate change, has found this difficult to achieve politically due to Republican Party opposition in Congress. In Afghanistan too all 24 NATO allies became involved in the alliance’s operations against the Taleban in what is for the alliance its first military engagement of any scale and its first military venture outside of Europe.17 The 2008 Bucharest NATO summit also made substantial progress, according to NATO’s Michael Ruehle, on ‘the need to move from a geographical understanding of security to a more functional approach…There is broad agreement on the direction of NATO’s military transformation, namely toward expeditionary capabilities for operations beyond Europe’.18 Under President Sarkozy France also announced the deployment of a further 750 French troops to Afghanistan and published the first major strategic review of its armed forces in 14 years. Among its recommendations was an increase in defence spending, further professionalization of the Armed Forces and the announcement of the intention to rejoin the integrated military command structure of NATO.19 America’s acceptance of the quid pro quo requested by France in return for this, that the United States accept a distinct EU security dimension within NATO, also represented new ground in transatlantic relations. The year 2008 also saw a substantial shift in European attitudes on two issues which had long plagued transatlantic relations, the related issues of ballistic missile proliferation – and how much of a threat this constitutes, and the appropriateness of missile defence as a strategy to deal with this. Up until this point the European NATO allies were reluctant to identify ballistic missile proliferation as an imminent threat to European security; to name the source of that likely threat in a NATO context, or to embrace ballistic missile defence as the best way of addressing that threat. All these positions have recently shifted, however, and the declaration following the Bucharest NATO Summit in April 2008 a significant shift in position towards the American approach on all three issues, stating that Ballistic missile proliferation poses an increased threat to Allies forces, territory and populations. Missile defence forms part of a broader response to counter this threat.

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David Hastings Dunn and Benjamin Zala We therefore recognise the substantial contribution to the protection of Allies from long range ballistic missiles to be provided by the planned deployment of European based United States missile defence assets. We are exploring ways to link this capacity with current missile defence efforts as a way to ensure that it would be an integral part of any future NATO wide missile defence architecture.20

While the Bucharest summit failed to reach agreement on the time scale by which Ukraine and Georgia should be invited to apply for NATO membership, even on this issue more progress was made than was expected before the meeting. Indeed given the range of issues and the growing number of negotiating partners involved the 2008 summit represented a significant set of achievements on a number of issues. While differences remain, including on which agreement has been reached, the level of unanimity on important security issues found among the transatlantic partners was unprecedented given the recent events. Whether this consensus represents a significant repair in transatlantic relations or even a recovery in the underlying trust between the United States and its allies remains hotly contested. Where there is room for agreement is that changes in agency have already been responsible for what improvement in relations have taken place.

New US president, new multilateralism? Although there are many points of similarity in the operational aspects of US foreign policy between President Obama and his predecessor for which the Obama administration has been criticized, there are also significant differences in their strategic outlook. While Bush approached the world as if the United States was the pre-eminent power in an international system that was essentially unipolar, Obama has a much more sceptical view of the global environment and America’s role within it. In 2002 the Bush administration set out its world view in a document called the National Security Strategy of the United States of America (updated in 2006), which spelled out the Bush administration view that The United States possesses unprecedented – and unequalled – strength and influence in the world. Sustained by faith in the principles of liberty, and the value of a free society, this position comes with unparalleled responsibilities, obligations, and opportunity. The great strength of this nation must be used to promote a balance of power that favours freedom and as a consequence that This is also a time of opportunity for America. We will work to translate this moment of influence into decades of peace, prosperity, and liberty… the aim of this strategy is to help make the world not just safer but better. Our goals on the path to progress are clear: political and economic freedom, peaceful relations with other states, and respect for human dignity.21 This highly expansive foreign policy was rooted in the twin beliefs that American power in the international system was ‘unprecedented and unequalled’ and that the United States had an obligation to use that influence to promote and instil what it believed were universal values. Using these premises as the foundation of its foreign policy the Bush administration tested these assumptions to destruction in the invasion of Iraq. Largely as a consequence of

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those events and the world which they helped to usher in the Obama Administration, out of necessity as well as choice, has developed a much less expansive vision of what the United States is capable of in an increasingly demanding international environment. Thus in talking about his opposition to the Iraq war in January 2007 Obama exclaimed that ‘I don’t want to just end the war, but I want to end the mind-set that got us into war in the first place’.22 A month later he expanded on this with regards to Iraq by stating that ‘It’s time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreements that lie at the heart of someone else’s civil war’.23 In these remarks Obama was signalling both the limits of American power and the need to limit the ambition of American foreign policy goals in order to avoid testing the limits of US power and influence. In office Obama has come to a similar conclusion about the limits of American power to transform Afghanistan. According to Woodward, Obama was clear that the strategy he wanted to adopt was about how we’re going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan… Everything we’re doing has to be focused on how we’re going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It’s in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room… I’m not doing 10 years… I’m not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars.24 The parallel with détente is instructive in that President Kennedy’s inaugural pledge to ‘pay any price, and to bear any burden’ had established too expansive a commitment and the realism of Nixon and Kissinger was a necessary corrective following the withdrawal from Vietnam. Where détente differed to the present international environment, however, was that in the late 1960s and early 1970s America faced the emergence of a single rising superpower in the form of the Soviet Union, whereas today America faces no single challenger for the position of dominant power within the international system. Instead it faces a series of issues, states, nonstate actors, and situations where its ability to influence events in favour of its interests and values is limited and potentially diminishing. It is a situation where there is less a prospect of loss of control in certain areas to another rising power or powers but more a loss of control to anyone or anything within an increasingly anarchic international system. In this respect his worldview is closer to that of many European powers than previous American administrations, which has meant that his approach is largely met with approval across the Atlantic. Given this strategic assessment the Obama administration has tried to construct an inclusive diplomatic approach which tries to utilize what power America has in the international system towards the creation of a multilateral approach for what is viewed as an increasingly multipolar world. Henry Kissinger has described this approach as a return to some sort of concert diplomacy… in which groupings of great powers work together to enforce international norms. In that view, American leadership results from the willingness to listen and to provide inspirational affirmations. Common action grows out of shared convictions. Power emerges from a sense of community and is exercised by an allocation of responsibilities related to a country’s resources. It is a kind of world order either without a dominating power or in which the potentially dominating power leads through self-restraint.25 An important aspect of that self-restraint is the recognition that America can’t have it all and correspondingly needs to prioritize cooperation in its relations with other great powers. What this means in practice is several things. For Obama and in direct contrast with Bush,

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resort to the use or threat of use of military force has been conspicuously downplayed. Thus in his May 2010 National Security Strategy document Obama states that ‘We will draw on diplomacy, development, and international norms and institutions to help resolve disagreements, prevent conflict, and maintain peace, mitigating where possible the need for the use of force’.26 Obama also stressed the need for an equal partnership, and in doing so was controversially critical of the previous US foreign policy record. In Trinidad and Tobago, part of what critics called ‘Obama’s apology tour’27 he made this contrast explicit, stating that I know that promises of partnership have gone unfulfilled in the past, and that trust has to be earned over time. While the United States has done much to promote peace and prosperity in the hemisphere, we have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms. But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations; there is simply engagement based on mutual respect and common interests and shared values.28 Another aspect of this new approach is the need to prioritize its foreign policy goals in relations with the major powers and act accordingly. It needs not to antagonize those states unnecessarily by criticizing them over issues such as their domestic human rights records or their democratic credentials. The most notable example of this new approach in operation was Hillary Clinton’s first visit to China as Secretary of State where the issue of human rights was downplayed in bilateral talks, and indeed was relegated to a meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, while other more substantive issues were discussed in meetings with the Chinese President and prime minister. As Clinton herself explained, ‘Successive administrations and Chinese governments have been poised back and forth on these issues [human rights], and we have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crisis.’29 This more pragmatic approach was also on display in Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearing before the Senate where what she didn’t say was as much a subject of subsequent debate as what she did. Outlining the administration’s new diplomatic approach Clinton talked about the importance of the three ‘D’s, defence, diplomacy, and development. The absence of the fourth D, democracy, was for many observers a clear departure from the ‘freedom agenda’ of the Bush administration.30 As Peter Baker observed in The New York Times: Since taking office, neither Mr Obama nor his advisers have made much mention of democracy-building as a goal. While not directly repudiating Mr Bush’s grand, even grandiose vision, Mr Obama appears poised to return to a more traditional American policy of dealing with the world as it is rather than as it might be.31 Supporting this analysis, rather interestingly, Obama’s National Security Council does not replicate the high profile democracy promotion post that his predecessor had, an indication of reduced priority.32 That is not to say, however, that Obama has abandoned the promotion of democracy as a US foreign policy goal, or that he does not believe in the articulation of American values in the foreign policy realm. Instead, however, it is clear that for Obama, regime type is no obstacle to necessary dialogue. This was evident in his inaugural address where he stated that ‘To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist’. Clearly the prospect of better relations with Iran in this case trumps concern about regime type, or even domestic behaviour. The Obama

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administration’s refusal to take a strong stand on the stolen Presidential elections in Iran in June 2009 was a clear example of this. The importance of the wider relationship and the fear of being seen to endorse the opposition movement, which would have been unhelpful to them, was the guiding consideration of the Obama administration. Obama himself has also indicated that he is less concerned with democracy in the abstract and would prefer an approach to good governance which approached the subject ‘through a lens that is actually delivering a better life for people on the ground and less obsessed with form, more concerned with substance’.33 This rejection of the previous administration’s focus on elections was echoed in Obama’s Cairo speech where his outreach to the Muslim world was accompanied by a statement about the importance of good governance and civil society, stating that ‘no matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who would hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.’34 It is an approach which seeks to be less divisive – no more ‘with us or against us’, and more an attempt to lead by example. As Secretary Clinton has argued–the administration intends to achieve its ‘goals using our power not to dominate or divide but to solve problems’ and to do so by capitalizing on America’s unique strengths we must advance those interests through partnership and promote universal values through the power of our example and the empowerment of people. In this way we can forge the global consensus required to defeat the threats, manage the dangers, and seize the opportunities of the 21st century… we will exercise American leadership to build partnerships and solve problems that no nation can solve on its own, and we will pursue policies to mobilize more partners and deliver results.35 The themes of cooperation and engagement permeate every foreign policy statement of the new administration and Secretary Clinton has called for a new ‘architecture of global cooperation’, because ‘no nation can met the world’s challenges alone’. For Clinton the administration’s goal of enlisting more partners to help solve the world problems is necessary both because ‘no nation can meet the world’s challenges alone. The issues are too complex. Too many players are competing for influence, from rising powers to corporations to criminal cartels, from NGOs to al Qaeda, from state-controlled media to individuals using Twitter’ and because most nations faced the ‘same global threats – from non-proliferation to fighting disease to counter-terrorism’. In this vision it is the US role to lead in turning commonality of interest into common action… [by using] our power to convene, our ability to connect countries around the world, and sound foreign policy strategies to create partnerships aimed at solving problems. We’ll go beyond states to create opportunities for non-state actors and individuals to contribute to solutions. We believe this approach will advance our interests by uniting diverse partners around common concerns and make it more difficult for others to abdicate their responsibilities or abuse their power, but will offer a place at the table to any nation, group or citizen willing to shoulder a fair

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In its bi-lateral relations with every other state the United States is the dominant power. It now seeks to mobilize those relationships to build global coalitions on the challenging issues of the era. Clinton also had a warning to those who would seek to undermine this leadership role and multi-partner approach, arguing that our partnerships can [also] become power coalitions to constrain or deter those negative actions. And to these foes and would-be foes let me say our focus in diplomacy and development is not an alternative to our national security arsenal. Our willingness to talk is not a sign of weakness to be exploited. We will not hesitate to defend our friends, our interests and above all our people, vigorously and when necessary with the world’s strongest military.37 In its search for this multi-partner approach the Obama administration is responding to the diffusion of power within the international system. The previously privileged relationship which existed within the West with America’s traditional allies in Europe and Asia is of necessity being supplanted and augmented by an approach which seeks to harness the engagement, influence, and leverage of new players in the realm of international politics. Rather like in the period of détente the United States under Obama seeks to use diplomacy to divide American’s antagonists and persuade new partners to act in ways that further the US agenda. For Obama himself, according to Fareed Zakaria, ‘His interest in diplomacy seems driven by the sense that one can probe, learn, and possibly divide and influence countries and movements precisely because they are not monoliths’ and in talking about Islamic extremists ‘he repeatedly emphasised the diversity within the Islamic world, speaking of Arabs, Persians, Africans, Southeast Asians, Shiites and Sunnis, all of whom have their own interest and agendas’ which need to be addressed separately.38 In accepting that the influence of the United States in the international system is not what it might be, the Obama administration has shown no sign of being daunted by the international agenda. Instead it has embarked on a vigorous series of diplomatic engagements in order to galvanize disparate coalitions of interests and parties towards addressing the main foreign policy challenges of the day. Recognising the classic difficulty of addressing collective action problems – that common issues usually result in an unequal willingness to bear burdens and run risks – the administration has also set out what is describes as a strategy of ‘smart power’ to help it to achieve these goals. What is meant by this term, according to Secretary Clinton, is the mobilization of our ability to convene and connect. It means our economic and military strength, our capacity for entrepreneurship and innovation and the ability and credibility of our new president and his team… Smart power translates into specific policy approaches in five areas: First, we intend to update and create vehicles for cooperation with our partners; second, we will pursue principled engagement with those who disagree with us; third, we will elevate development as a core pillar of American power; fourth, we will integrate civilian and military action in conflict areas; and fifth, we will leverage key sources of American power, including our economic strength and the power of our example.39

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The main paradox of this more ‘European’ approach to foreign policy is the relative neglect of transatlantic relations. Europe is no longer the site of political attention; rather the Europeans are seen as supporting actors in the unfolding drama of 21st century politics. However, in a few key areas, European actors have become central to the Obama administration’s foreign policy strategy. On Iran in particular, the transatlantic relationship has been at its strongest since before the Iraq split of 2003. The negotiations over the Iranian nuclear programme have been dominated, despite attempts by a number of so-called ‘rising’ or ‘middle’ powers such as Turkey and Brazil to create their own role, by the joint efforts of the United States, Britain, France, and Germany usually led by the EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton. While China and Russia have also taken part in the talks with Iran as part of a six-country negotiating coalition, it has been the transatlantic powers that have played the most dominant role and presented a united front. While divisions existed among these states, even as late as Bush’s second term, over the prospect of a military ‘solution’ to Iran’s nuclear activities, recent years have seen a large degree of unity among the United States and its European allies with the phrase ‘western’ (i.e. transatlantic) negotiators becoming widely used in public discourse.40

Structural changes in the transatlantic relationship While most commentators recognize and welcome the improvement in relations across the Atlantic during the Obama administration others continue to argue that structural changes in the international political system have resulted in patterns of divergence in relations between the United States and Europe of a fundamentally transformative nature. Amongst these trends two changes in particular are often identified: those which have taken place in Germany and the other in the foreign policy of the United States itself. The Berlin Republic Although provoked by the particular circumstances of the Iraqi crisis itself, the transatlantic dispute of 2003 signalled the operation of something much more profound than the future of Iraq itself. Coming as it did fourteen years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and two years after 9/11, the Iraqi crisis represented the culmination of several long-running processes. Although the French-led opposition to the invasion of Iraq was the most obvious demonstration of the rift within the Atlantic alliance, in some regards this was the least radical policy change of the debacle. President Chirac’s opposition to the Bush administration, while passing a new milestone in actively trying to thwart the strategic intentions of American foreign policy, was at least within the traditions of Paris’s historical opposition to what it sees as American hegemony. The same could not be said, however, in relation to the stance adopted by the Federal Republic of Germany. Historically Germany’s role within the transatlantic alliance was central to the linkage between Europe and the United States. Germany’s deference towards Washington in matters of security policy was a balancing counterpart to its partnership with France in the construction of the European project. Germany’s reliance on America for security was a restraining influence on European opposition to US foreign policy. As a quid pro quo for this restraint Washington was always careful to accommodate Germany’s concerns in recognition of the importance of the Federal Republic’s role within Europe and Europe’s role within the Cold War standoff. With the end of the Cold War the foundations of this grand bargain were nullified but its effects went unnoticed as a result of the benign international environment of the Clinton years combined with the process of

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German unification which absorbed much of Bonn’s attentions and resources throughout the 1990s. Throughout this period, however, at a time when Germany’s sense of its new identity was rising, the strategic importance of Germany to the United States, and thus the need to accommodate its concerns, was in decline. Where there was a coincidence of interests such as German participation in the Kosovo campaign in 1999, the structural changes in the nature of this relationship remained dormant. Quite what a turning point for German foreign policy the Kosovo war was, however, was masked by the shared objective of the allied participants. What at the time was seen as a demonstration of transatlantic solidarity, however, was in reality an indication of other forces at work. In fact the decision to take part in this military action was a marker more of a desire to pursue an independent foreign policy than it was a demonstration of alliance solidarity. Thus when the United States indicated its plans to conduct operations in Afghanistan through coalitions of the willing rather than through NATO; and then promulgated its doctrine of pre-emptive warfare, and applied that to Iraq despite no clear UN mandate to do so, the stage was set for Germany to break ranks with Washington and in so doing to break with its post-war tradition of limited sovereignty expressed as a constrained foreign policy. Thus as Buras and Longhurst explain, Germany’s opposition to the Iraq war was an expression of ‘normalization’ which for the ‘Berlin Republic relates to a changed perception of sovereignty and the licence this gives Germany to pursue a foreign policy line steered by conceptions of German interests…it was Germany’s freedom of action that counted’ now ‘and not the coherence of the Western alliance’.41 The significance of this change for transatlantic relations cannot be overestimated. As Andrews argues, ‘from a structural perspective, the key change in postwar European politics is Germany’s newfound capacity for policy manoeuvre….a new era of “permissiveness” for Germany’ has been ushered in which ‘represents a fundamental change in transatlantic relations’.42 This is primarily the case not because of the disagreement over Iraq but because of structural changes in the international system. The Iraqi crisis merely demonstrated that such disagreements were possible and set the ‘Schroder precedent’ for future repetitions. Absent the previously existing imperative of alliance cohesion the scope for future disagreements is now considerable since not only have the structural conditions changed but so have the German electorate’s awareness of those changes. Thus the German government is much more willing to criticize US policy, as it did in 2007 over Washington’s planned deployment of ballistic missile system components in Poland without fully consulting Russia.43 As a result, and rather ironically given the Berlin Republic’s new-found willingness to contemplate the use of force beyond the confines of narrowly defined self-defence, the ability of the United States to rely on Germany as an Atlanticist partner in matters of security policy has been diminished as a result of the changes in foreign policy outlook which the Iraq crisis brought to the fore. It is for this reason that the United States has failed to convince Germany to lift the restrictions on the deployment and operations of its forces in Afghanistan despite a sustained effort to do so. In this sense, despite the new mood created by the election of Chancellor Merkel, relations with Europe’s largest economy and America’s formerly staunchest ally remain in a different place to the Cold War period. The decision of Germany to vote against any participation in the NATO-led operation over Libya in 2013 was a further indicator of the willingness of the Berlin Parliament to express its growing pacifist trend. The fact that the Libya operation was a humanitarian mission with UN and Arab League support and was supported by the majority of the Libyan people made this decision all the more surprising. Taken together with the limited parameters of German operations in Afghanistan, from Washington’s point of view the validity of Germany as a reliable ally within the NATO context must be further questioned.

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Having fewer cooperative allies also feeds other aspects of the structural changes in transatlantic relations. With the end of the Cold War, the security of Europe secured, America is less interested in Europe as the cockpit of international politics, and the support of European states in its international relations is also correspondingly less vital than it was. It is perhaps these structural changes in US foreign policy in the post 9/11 period which may be most influential to transatlantic relations in the long term. US foreign policy – the implications of the Bush doctrine Despite the end of the Cold War American foreign policy remained focused on Europe throughout the 1990s due in large part to the politics of NATO and EU enlargement and the Balkan wars. Even during the Clinton administration, however, America’s new and distinctive position within the international system began to be expressed through an increased tendency to pursue its interests unilaterally, rather than in concert with its traditional transatlantic allies. Absent the Soviet threat America increasingly found no continuing need to trim its foreign policy inclinations in light of the sensitivities of its European allies. Alliance harmony was no longer a strategic imperative of the post-Cold War period and thus ceased to be a guiding principle of US foreign policy. Not until the arrival of the Bush administration in 2001, however, did this become abundantly clear to America’s transatlantic partners. From the outset the tone and substance of the new Republican administration marked a distinct contrast with the Clinton administration which it had replaced. Bush’s inclination to pursue an ‘America first’ agenda was accelerated in response to the terrorist attacks of September 2001and the strategic reassessment that followed was nothing less than revolutionary. Advocates of this argument point to the adoption of a new strategic doctrine by the Bush administration and to the fact that in doing so it abandoned the tenets of America’s post-war approach to grand strategy. Although it made headlines by its advocacy of pre-emptive military strikes, the new strategic doctrine’s implications are much broader and more significant than this. For over 50 years the United States relied on a combination of containment and deterrence as the guiding principle of its geopolitical approach. It was this strategy that successfully won the Cold War and it was this approach that was applied to Iraq after the Gulf conflict in 1991 by successive administrations, including, initially, that of George W. Bush. Containment, however, was a reactive and multilateral strategy that was framed in a period when US power was balanced by a rival superpower, the USSR. At the start of the 21st century the geopolitical position of the United States was very different and it is in these circumstances, and in the context of the global war on terrorism, that this new doctrine was forged. It could be distinguished from previous US strategies in three important ways: its focus on pre-emption, its hegemonic aspirations, and its unilateralism. While all three elements had an enhanced prominence in the new doctrine, they all had their antecedents in previous policy debates, and for this reason, it is argued, have become entrenched in US policy. Pre-emption Although the adoption of a policy that actively espoused pre-emptive military action to remove capabilities or regimes that threaten the United States was a significant change in policy, it was also one which had followed a clear evolutionary path. Throughout the Cold War there were various attempts made to break away from the constraints and risks that the

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containment doctrine involved.44 In the post-Cold War era the Clinton administration took a small step towards a pre-emption policy in 1993 with the announcement of the Counterproliferation Initiative. Importantly, however, this initiative aimed to provide a military capability. It did not propose the elevation of pre-emption to the forefront of US foreign policy as a declaratory strategy.45 The rationale of the policy under Bush was the perceived inability to deter the new type of adversary. ‘In the Cold War’, the NSS 2002 states, ‘weapons of mass destruction were considered weapons of last resort whose use risked the destruction of those who used them. Today, our enemies see weapons of mass destruction as weapons of choice’, with the result that the ‘United States can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past… We cannot let our enemies strike first.’46 The way in which the United States viewed its own nuclear weapons was also revised in light of this new doctrine; the Nuclear Posture Review added ‘rogue’ states to the list of potential targets and removed the pledge not to attack non-nuclear states. Support for pre-emption was bolstered by the successful use of military force in both Kosovo and the initial success in Afghanistan. For Washington, these missions developed ‘a profound optimism that we can do it – we can invade a country halfway round the world and bring about a reasonable settlement’.47 It was also a strategy that was developed with a target state in mind: Iraq. It was partly in that context that the strategy was initially judged favourably by members of Congress and the public alike. For many observers, however, there remained serious concerns about its implications both in general terms and with regard to Iraq in particular. For many of the European allies this policy also raised concerns with regard to the wider implications of the strategy and the distance that it created between them. If pre-emption was legitimate for the United States then why not for India against Pakistan, or vice versa, or Israel against Iran or any other number of possible scenarios. Concern was also expressed as to the limits of this policy. If Iraq followed on from Afghanistan then which state would be next after Iraq and where would the policy end given Washington’s long list of ‘rogue’ states? The development of this strategy posed a serious problem for the continuity of transatlantic relations as they had previously been understood. Despite the recent improvement in relation many European allies remain opposed to pre-emption as a strategic doctrine and saw little prospect of the United States renouncing its shift to this new strategic outlook. Much more of the thinking in relation to pre-emption has remained from the Bush administration into the Obama administration’s approach than was expected by most. While the muscular rhetoric has changed, the basic principle of ‘striking before being struck’ has remained albeit with less emphasis on regime change and full-scale intervention and more on the increased reliance on unmanned aerial vehicles (or ‘drones’) and Special Forces. Both have allowed the Obama administration to pre-emptively strike against groups and individuals seen to be a threat to US personnel and interests but at a distance (drones) and in the shadows (Special Forces). The result has been far less criticism from across the Atlantic than that faced by the Bush administration in its first term. Pre-eminence Though less widely reported, an equally important aspect of the new Bush doctrine was its statement that the United States would not permit any state to close the military lead that it established after the collapse of the USSR: ‘Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in the hope of surpassing or equalling,

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the power of the USA.’ Given that US military spending accounts for 40 per cent of global military expenditure, more than the next 20 largest spenders combined, as a statement of fact this was unremarkable. As a political aspiration, however, it illustrates how the United States viewed the world and its place in it. The NSS 2002 set out a world role that was proactive in its advocacy of what it called a distinctly American internationalism that reflects the union of our values and our interests. The aim of this strategy is to help make the world not just safer but better. Our goals on the path to progress are clear: political and economic freedom, peaceful relations with other states, and respect for human rights. It was a strategy that committed the United States to champion free markets, free trade, democracy, and human rights. The mechanisms it identified for this purpose were supportive allies, increased but conditional foreign aid and unrestrained military might. Unilateralism The third and related aspect of the new strategy was its insistence that ‘While the United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community, we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense’. In many respects this was the most troubling aspect of US foreign policy, particularly in the post-9/11 environment. Even the election of the decidedly multilateralist Obama administration was not enough to totally shift the perception of a superpower willing to ‘go it alone’. America’s opposition to the International Criminal Court, to the Landmine Treaty, the ban on Cluster Weapons, and the verification protocol of the Biological Weapons Convention has remained largely unchanged. Even the United States’ recent acceptance of the need to address climate change has not resulted in any major concessions in the international negotiations. What has changed, however, is the reluctance of the United States to initiate any additional military actions. Thus in March 2011 the Obama administration was slow to endorse British and French calls for action in regard to Libya. When NATO finally did engage in this conflict through a no-fly zone it was the Europeans who flew most of the missions and dropped most of the ordinance. While the United States was involved, it largely played a facilitating role, what an administration official dubbed ‘leading from behind’. Similarly during the external military intervention against Tuareg and Islamist rebels in Mali in 2013, Washington has been content to let the French take the lead, a particularly interesting development given the substantial amounts of money the United States had previously invested in training Mali’s military and intelligence services.48 In relation to Syria, the United States has shown great reluctance to become embroiled in what has become a bloody and protracted civil war. However, in the latter case, European powers such as Britain, France, and Germany have mimicked Washington’s position by adding their diplomatic support for the rebels opposing President Bashar al-Assad’s regime but refusing to offer anything other than very limited military support and certainly nothing approximating direct intervention. In relation to all three cases what is particularly striking is the lack of public debate about the transatlantic relationship. In stark contrast to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the differences between the United States and its NATO allies’ positions on both Libya and Mali have been limited to how involved Washington is willing to be in the specific military operations, rather than whether the intervention is justified in the first place. In relation to Syria, the positions of the major European powers (who were all at the heart of the transatlantic split over

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Iraq, whether joining or opposing the United States) have been almost indistinguishable from that of the United States. While many have predicted that on-going cuts in European defence budgets (generally as part of wider attempts to cut deficits in response to the global financial crisis) would significantly strain transatlantic relations,49 the reality seems to be that unease in Washington has been mitigated by a lack of appetite for military intervention generally. Added to this is a growing realization in Washington that significant cuts to the US military budget are unlikely to be avoided in the coming years, making criticism of similar choices in European capitals difficult to maintain.50

The ‘pivot’ towards Asia and the view from Europe The most significant shift in transatlantic relations in recent years would appear to have been driven by agency more than structure with the election of Barack Obama in the United States being centrally important to how the relationship was viewed from both sides of the Atlantic. However, by the time the Obama administration was halfway through its first term, the debate about structural power in the international political system had shifted quite dramatically. Rather than a world in which America would remain pre-eminent for the foreseeable future, many were speculating about Washington’s relative decline and a shift in the centre of global power from West to East.51 In particular, the impressive growth rates of a number of countries, and in particular the two ‘Asian giants’ of China and India was beginning to be translated into political clout. This gave the impression of a major trend that Washington had failed to grasp while it had been preoccupied with the War on Terror, the Iraq crisis and its impact on the transatlantic relationship, and the policies outlined above. As one observer noted, ‘In short, Asia is being reborn and remade. Yet the United States is badly prepared for this momentous rebirth, which is at once stitching Asia back together and making the United States less relevant in each of Asia’s constituent parts.’52 By the second half of 2011, the Obama administration had announced a ‘rebalancing’ of its strategic outlook to take greater account of what was happening in the Asia-Pacific region. The rationale behind what quickly became known as the US ‘pivot’ towards Asia was outlined in a 2012 US Department of Defense document that stated: US economic and security interests are inextricably linked to developments in the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia, creating a mix of evolving challenges and opportunities. Accordingly, while the US military will continue to contribute to security globally, we will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region.53 Such a re-focusing in national security assessments would inevitably take account of China’s military modernization programmes54 as well as important developments such as the building of a series of port facilities along the eastern and southern coasts of Asia aimed at increasing China’s naval presence in the region. Despite the improvement in transatlantic relations following the election of Barack Obama, this shift in US foreign policy has threatened to reignite tensions once more as European allies felt distinctly neglected in this rush to focus on the Asia-Pacific region. Allies such as Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia appeared to be set to take up the mantle of Washington’s nearest and dearest. Australia, for example, became the recipient of a new US marine base in Darwin55 while two combat brigades would be brought home from Germany56 after having been based there for decades. This despite the fact that

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in an op-ed piece in The New York Times in 2010, Obama claimed that ‘our relationship with our European allies and partners is the cornerstone of our engagement with the world’.57 Such has been the level of concern in European capitals, that the then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, felt the need to use a major speech at the end of 2012 to reassure transatlantic allies that ‘Our pivot to Asia is not a pivot away from Europe. On the contrary, we want Europe to engage more in Asia, along with us to see the region not only as a market, but as a focus of common strategic engagement.’58 The fact that Clinton felt the need to state this publicly and so directly speaks volumes about the concern in Europe. Despite the fact that most European leaders feel more comfortable with the less unilateralist and hawkish Obama administration than they did with its predecessor, the relationship for now appears beholden to larger structural trends and processes.

Transatlantic consequences The effects of the structural changes in the international system brought about by the end of the Cold War which mostly lay latent and suppressed throughout 1990s have now become the subject of political as well as academic discourse. Major events such as the end of the Cold War, German unification, 9/11, the reaction to the terrorist attacks and the invasion of Iraq, and finally the pivot towards Asia have now brought into question both the basis and the continued operation of the transatlantic community as it had previously been conceived. For many European observers the policies and positions adopted by the Bush administration were the culmination of a series of trends in American foreign and security policy which had been present but repressed throughout the Cold War period and latent but contained throughout the 1990s. The triumphalism of the National Security Strategy Document and the strategic aspirations which it advanced and the worldview that this betrayed seemed to represent for many European observers a significant point of departure from what was previously considered to be the basis on which the transatlantic relationship was based. To many Europeans their conception of transatlanticism was the pulling together of sovereign powers towards common goals in support and furtherance of their common values. It was this set of ideas that they had taken forward with the construction of the EU. As far as the United States was concerned, however, it now appeared that Washington was more concerned about geopolitical hegemony expressed as American leadership of political and cultural modernity. So rather than being allies and co-authors of a common future many European observers now saw themselves through the eyes of the Bush and Obama administrations as being either supporting acts to this new American strategic project or else largely irrelevant in the new power structure. The primary response to these developments at a strategic level was for the EU to draft a security strategy document of its own. In this document, A Secure Europe in a Better World, drafted by Javier Solana, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, the EU offered a riposte to the US strategy statement in a number of ways.59 Most immediately it widened the horizons of European security concerns by recognizing that Europe’s security interest and the threats which are posed to them are global rather than purely regional in their nature. It also set out three pillars of the common strategy. The first pillar called for the extension of the security zone around Europe and recognized the strategic priority of bringing stability to areas on the continent’s periphery. The second pillar concerned the mechanics of global governance and called for the reaffirmation of the United Nations as the principal institution of international security. And thirdly, the EU called for new policies to respond to the twin threats of terrorism and WMD proliferation.60 The main differences between the American and European strategy papers was the complete absence in the latter of any discussion of

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military pre-emption and the repeated calls to strengthen both international law and the institutions and norms of international order.61 While agreeing more or less on the nature of the security threats presented in the post 9/11 environment there were significant differences remaining over the appropriate means. Perhaps the most important aspect of the European Security Strategy document, however, was that it was written at all. That this was the case is indicative of the fact that the Europeanization process has been spurred on by the Iraq crisis itself. The lessons learned from the division in Europe over the Iraq crisis, which left the continent’s response to Washington divided and ineffective, was that such a division within Europe is best avoided in the future and that the best way for this to be achieved is through the development of common European approaches to foreign and security policy issues. However, as Europe becomes increasingly embroiled in its own financial and political crisis and Washington attempts to reverse its fortunes in terms of the global power structure it would appear that the transatlantic relationship now faces a new set of challenges. Whether the lessons from the Iraq crisis of 2003 can be translated into a new approach by both sides in the coming decades as America’s Asia pivot increases will, to some extent, determine the future character of the relationship. If Charles Kupchan is right that ‘if the Atlantic democracies hang together, they have a far better chance of anchoring the transition to multipolarity and ensuring that it happens by design rather by default’,62 then this has become central for both sides of the Atlantic. One of the most interesting developments in the second term of the Obama administration has been that despite the centrality of the ‘pivot’ towards Asia in US foreign and defence policy, the administration has reignited serious discussion of a US–EU free trade agreement. The fact that, despite the global financial crisis, the United States and EU together make up 25 per cent of exports and 32 per cent of imports globally, led President Obama to call for a renewed effort to create a transatlantic free-trade area in his 2013 State of the Union address.63 While many barriers will need to be addressed in the negotiations (not least reconciling the differences in American and European agricultural subsidies), there appears to be strong public support in the United States with a recent Pew survey showing that the majority believe that increased trade with the EU would be good for the United States.64 In the end what the free trade agreement discussion may actually signal is the importance of structural factors for both sides of the Atlantic – both the United States and Europe spent the first decade of the twenty-first century focused on transnational terrorism, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the latter’s effect on their own transatlantic relationship. Just as the election of a new American president appeared to herald a shift in priorities away from these issues (for both sides), the financial crisis struck and consumed time, energy, and political capital. All the while the two Asian giants of China and India, and other more farflung contenders like Brazil and Turkey, continued to rise both as economic powerhouses and increasingly as important centres of geopolitical power.65 The US–EU free trade agreement talks are perhaps the most potent symbol of the extent to which both sides of the transatlantic alliance are coming to recognize that their axis is not one in which the major developments in international politics will turn indefinitely. Therefore coming even closer together may be the only option to hold on to their structural power in a multipolar world.

Conclusions Transatlantic relations have improved significantly since the low point of 2003 in large part as a result of a concerted effort to do so on both sides of the Atlantic. The Iraq crisis of 2003

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presented a glimpse of a world in which the West was split and the transatlantic community was divided against itself in a state of political stalemate. It was an unappealing vision and one which new leaderships on both sides of the Atlantic have strenuously sought to avoid in their subsequent international relations. In their diplomacy since then over Iran, North Korea, the Middle East, and also Afghanistan and Iraq, the transatlantic allies have shown the positive benefits of working together rather than the pit falls and paralysis of oppositional politics. The current challenges in Syria, the Sahel, and elsewhere demonstrate the continued importance of the relationship. How much of this can be attributed to changes of agency, new leaders with new policies, and how much it reflects the cyclical pattern of transatlantic relations where structural tensions rise to crisis point before being mitigated, remains open to question. Although changes in both Germany and in the EU itself as an international actor provide significant and novel structural changes to the international system affecting the operation of the traditional pattern of relations across the Atlantic, it is changes in the United States itself and its subsequent effect on its relations with its European allies that perhaps presents the biggest challenge to the continued conception of transatlantic relations in the twenty-first century. Changes in the structure of world politics with the end of the Cold War have undoubtedly changed the context of transatlantic relations but how fundamentally these affect the ability of Europe and America to work in concert to deal with the new challenges which this new environment presents is in large part dependent on the nature of changes within the United States itself. Whether the ‘pivot’ towards Asia represents Washington’s attempt to ‘catch up’ with the ‘rising rest’ or instead the next chapter of its assertive post-Cold War global dominance will depend on Obama’s global ambitions in his second term and the ambitions of his subsequent successor. This decision is set to define whether the transatlantic relationship remains the most important partnership in international politics or whether it will become an artefact from a bygone age.

Notes 1 Michael Howard, ‘NATO at fifty: an unhappy successful marriage: security means knowing what to expect’, Foreign Affairs, May/June 1999. 2 Ivo Daalder, ‘The end of Atlanticism’, Survival, 45 (2) and Michael Cox, ‘Beyond the West: terrors in Transatlantia’, European Journal of International Relations, 11 (2), 2005, p. 210. 3 Philip H. Gordon and Jeremy Shapiro, Allies at War: America, Europe, and the Crisis Over Iraq (Brookings/McGraw 2004), pp. 1–2. 4 Ibid., p. 6. 5 Ibid., p. 8 6 James P. Rubin, ‘Political dynamite’, FT Magazine, 3 April 2004: 27. 7 Tom Baldwin and Charles Bremmer, ‘After years of the special relationship, is France America’s new best friend?’, The Times, 14 June 2008. 8 Charles A Kupchan, ‘The transatlantic turnaround’, Current History, March 2008: 139. 9 The most immediate impediment to the further application of this strategy was the failure to discover the WMD on which the case for the immediate invasion of Iraq was justified. The lack of any evidence of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons or even of any on-going programmes to produce them was widely seen as undermining the American case for war. What was true for the worst-case assumptions was also true for the best-case analysis. While the Iraqis might have been glad to be rid of Saddam Hussein they were not impressed with the inability of the American occupiers to provide security, civil amenities, and a semblance of order. The faulty assumptions on which Operation Iraq Freedom were built and justified were a setback for the Bush administration in both practice and in principle.

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10 Soumaya Ghannoushi, ‘Sarkozy, the new Blair’, Guardian Online, 28 September 2007 (available online at www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/sep/28/sarkozythenewblairpleasek). 11 See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7455156.stm. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid. 14 Kori Schake, ‘The US elections and Europe: the coming crisis of high expectations’, Centre for European Reform, November 2007: 2. 15 Kupchan, ‘The transatlantic turnaround’, p. 139. 16 Andrew Revkin, ‘After applause dies down, global warming talks leave few concrete goals’, The New York Times, 10 July 2008. 17 See http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/DefencePolicyAndBusiness/DefenceSecret aryMakesWashingtonSpeech.htm. 18 Michael Ruehle, ‘NATO’s 2008 summit: Bucharest’s balance sheet’ (available online at www. worldsecuritynetwork.com/showArticle3.cfm?article_id=15989, Accessed 14/7/08). 19 Charles Bremmer, ‘Sarkozy marches back into NATO with army shake up’, The Times, 18 June 2008. 20 It continues: ‘We remain deeply concerned about the proliferation risks of the Iranian nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. We call on Iran to fully comply with UNSCRs 1696, 1737, 1747 and 1803. We are also deeply concerned by the proliferation activities of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and call on it to fully comply with UNSCR 1718. Allies reaffirm their support for existing multi-lateral non-proliferation agreements, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and call for universal compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and universal adherence to the Additional Protocol to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Safeguard Agreement.’ See the text of the Bucharest summit declaration at http://www.nato.int/docu/ pr/2008/p08-049e.html. 21 National Security Strategy of the United States of America, 23 September 2002 (available online at www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/politics/20STEXT_FULL.html?pagewanted=all). 22 Spencer Ackerman, ‘The Obama doctrine’, The American Prospect, April 2008 (available online at www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_obama_doctrine). 23 Todd Heisler, ‘Years after campaign began, a different world,’ The New York Times, 17 January 2009. 24 Steve Luxemberg, Bob Woodward book details Obama battles with advisors over exit plans for Afghan war, Washington Post, 22 September 2010. 25 Henry Kissinger, ‘Obama’s foreign policy challenge’, Washington Post, 22 April 2009. 26 The White House, National Security Strategy, 27 May 2010 (available online at www.whitehouse. gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_security_strategy.pdf). 27 For Karl Rove, ‘President Barack Obama has finished the second leg of his international confession tour. In less than 100 days, he has apologized on three continents for what he views as the sins of America and his predecessors’. Karl Rove, ‘The President’s apology tour: great leaders aren’t defined by consensus’ (available online at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124044156269345357. html#articleTabs=article). 28 Barack Obama, ‘Address to the Summit of the Americas,’ Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, 17 April 2009 (available online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ Remarks-by-the-President-at-the-Summit-of-the-Americas-Opening-Ceremony). Emphasis added. See also Kim R. Holmes and James Carafano, ‘Defining the Obama doctrine, its pitfalls and how to avoid them’, Eurasian Review, 1 September 2010 (available online at http://www.eurasiareview. com/201009017636/defining-the-obama-doctrine-its-pitfalls-and-how-to-avoid-them.html), which also uses this quotation in a critique of Obama’s foreign policy. 29 ‘Clinton: Chinese human rights can’t interfere with other crisis,’ CNN, 22 February 2009 (available online at http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/21/clinton.china.asia/index.html). 30 Robert Kagan, ‘Foreign policy sequels’, Washington Post, 9 March 2009 (available online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/08/AR2009030801493.html). 31 Peter Baker, ‘Quieter approach to spreading democracy abroad’, The New York Times, 22 February 2009 (available online at www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/weekinreview/22baker. html?_r=1&pagewanted=print). 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid.

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34 Obama Cairo speech (available online at www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/04/obama-speech-incairo-vid_n_211215.html). 35 Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, ‘Foreign policy address at the Council on Foreign Relations’, Washington, DC, 15 August 2009 (available online at www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/ july/126071.htm). 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Fareed Zakaria, ‘Obama the realist’, Washington Post, 21 August 2009 (available online at www. washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/26/AR2008072601552.html). 39 ‘Clinton: Chinese human rights.’ 40 See, for example, Justyna Pawlak, ‘EU’s Ashton to meet Iran’s nuclear negotiator on May 15’, Reuters, 2 May 2013. 41 Piotr Buras and Kerry Longhurst, ‘The Berlin Republic, Iraq, and the use of force’, in Kerry Longhurst and Marcin Zaborowski (eds), Old Europe, New Europe and the Transatlantic Security Agenda (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005), 57–8. 42 David M. Andrews, ‘The United States and its Atlantic partners’, in David M. Andrews (ed.) The Atlantic Alliance under Stress: US–European Relations after Iraq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 71, emphasis added. 43 See comments made by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeiser – Daniel Dombey, ‘US lashes out at Kremlin over missile dispute’, The Financial Times, 22 January 2007. 44 In 1954 President Eisenhower announced his ‘Rollback Doctrine’ (which sought to ‘roll back’ the ‘Iron Curtain’ – that is, overthrow communist regimes in Eastern Europe), only to abandon Hungary to its fate in 1956 when that country put this policy to the test. Faced with the risk of confrontation with the USSR, which had invaded Hungary, the Eisenhower administration reverted to the safety and security of containment. In the 1980s the Reagan administration sought in its nuclear policies options pre-emptive contingencies for fighting a limited nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Similarly Reagan’s enthusiasm for both his Strategic Defence Initiative and, later, for radical arms control proposals, reflected his desire to escape US reliance on nuclear deterrence. Despite his support for these policies, however, deterrence remained US strategy. 45 Interestingly, the adoption of the pre-emption strategy was not the immediate response of the Bush administration to the September 2001 terrorist attacks. In his congressional address on 20 September 2001, President Bush declared that the new grand purpose for US policy was ‘ending terrorism’. The switch to preventing the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction ‘in the hands of irresponsible states’ was a policy developed gradually during 2002 (Lemann, N. ‘The next world order’, The New Yorker, 25 August 2002; see also David Hastings Dunn, ‘Bush, 9/11 and the conflicting strategies of the “War on Terrorism”,’ Irish Studies in International Affairs, 16: 11–33 (October 2005)). 46 The National Security Strategy of the United States, 2002 (NSS 2002), cited in full in The New York Times, 20 September 2002, p. 6. 47 Philip Gordon cited by Gerard Baker, ‘Missing in action’, The Financial Times. 48 Adam Nossiter, Eric Schmitt, and Mark Mazzetti, ‘French strikes in Mali supplant caution of US’, The New York Times, 13 January 2013. 49 Daniel Dombey, ‘US fears scale of European defence cuts’, The Financial Times, 16 September 2010. 50 David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker, ‘Cuts give Obama path to create leaner military’, The New York Times, 10 March 2013. 51 This shift had been reflected in a number of important interventions – for example, Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (New York, NY: Norton, 2008); Kishore Mahbubani, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East (New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2008). For more on this see Nick Bisley, ‘Global power shift: the decline of the West and the rise of the rest?’, in Mark Beeson and Nick Bisley (eds), Issues in 21st Century World Politics (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), pp. 66–80. 52 Evan A. Feigenbaum, ‘Why America no longer gets Asia’, The Washington Quarterly, 34 (2) (2011), p. 26. 53 United States Department of Defense, ‘Sustaining US global leadership: priorities for 21st century defense’, January 2012, p. 8.

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54 Jonathan Holslag, Trapped Giant: China’s Military Rise (Oxford and London: Routledge and the International Institute for Strategic Studies). 55 Peter Hartcher, ‘US marine base for Darwin’, Sydney Morning Herald, 11 November 2011. 56 Thom Shanker and Steven Erlanger, ‘US faces new challenge of fewer troops in Europe’, The New York Times, 13 January 2012. 57 Barack Obama, ‘Europe and America, aligned for the future’, The New York Times, 18 November 2010. 58 Hillary Clinton, ‘On the US and Europe: a revitalized global partnership’, speech at the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 29 November 2012. 59 Javier Solana, ‘A secure Europe in a better world,’ European Council, Thessaloniki, 20 June 2003. 60 On the latter see Joanna Spear, ‘The emergence of a European “strategic personality”,’ Arms Control Today, November 2003. 61 See Ronald D. Asmus, ‘The European security strategy: an American view’, in Roland Dannreuther and John Peterson (eds), Security Strategy and Transatlantic Relations (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 24. 62 Charles A. Kupchan, No One’s World: The West, the Rising Rest, and the Coming Global Turn (Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 150. 63 William A. Galston, ‘Obama’s pivot to Europe: forget China. An EU trade deal would be the real game-changer’, Brookings Institution (20 February 2013) (available online at ). 64 Bruce Stokes, ‘A big year for transatlantic ties?’, CNN World, 14 January 2013 (available online at ). 65 Despite the fact that some such as Michael Cox have rightly expressed some scepticism about the material basis of the inevitable ‘rise’ of some of these powers, nonetheless a narrative of a shift to a multipolar world has become all pervasive over the last five years or so. See Michael Cox, ‘Power shifts, economic change and the decline of the West?’, International Relations, 26 (4): 369–88.

16 The US ‘pivot’ to the Asia Pacific Oliver Turner

The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action (former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, November 2011).

Introduction The Obama administration perceives the contemporary ‘rise’ of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as among its most immediate and significant policy challenges. This is unsurprising given the speed of the country’s economic growth, the expansion of its military capabilities, and its increasingly influential political presence. A particular concern among groups of policymakers and academics is the extent to which China may challenge the regional status quo; Beijing’s military spending is growing rapidly and important debates are now centred upon a ‘rising’ China as a catalyst for instability or even conflict in the region. This understanding famously led former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick to insist that China becomes a ‘responsible stakeholder’ in the international system (Zoellick 2005). Yet the reorganization of the Asia Pacific’s security environment is not being driven just by China. Complicit others in the region are of key significance and, as still the world’s only true superpower, the United States retains the principal ability to manipulate the Asia Pacific, especially (though not exclusively) in the military-security realm. Since late 2011 this has become an especially pertinent issue. In November that year former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a ‘pivot’ for the United States away from Afghanistan and Iraq towards the Asia Pacific (Clinton 2011). This change in policy focus is still in its infancy but it represents a potential long-term redirection of American interest and resources, particularly within the military-security arena. In January 2012, and despite having earlier implemented widespread national defence cutbacks, President Obama confirmed this landmark shift: ‘We will be strengthening our presence in the Asia Pacific, and budget reductions will not come at the expense of that critical region’ (US Department of Defense 2012e). Washington refrains from citing China as the primary motivating factor behind this refocusing of military attention. Nonetheless, it is clear that the PRC is an important component in the elevation of the Asia Pacific to the highest priority of Washington’s foreign policy. Indeed, in November 2011 US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta asserted that the United States is threatened by ‘rising powers’ such as China and India (US Department of Defense 2011). The purpose of this chapter is to outline the motivations for, and the most recent developments in, the United States’ ‘pivot’ (later also termed ‘rebalance’) towards the Asia Pacific. This is important in the first instance because the ‘pivot’ represents the beginning of an

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ostensibly protracted reorientation of foreign policy priorities in Washington. In addition, it is explained that the ‘pivot’ relies strongly upon powerful and well established understandings both about the United States and its role in the world, and especially of the other most significant actor in the Asia Pacific: China. China is often spoken about in very particular ways, not least within the discipline of international relations (IR), the intellectual foundations of which are grounded firmly in the West. With this in mind, the purpose of the chapter is also to argue that the ‘pivot’ has been conceived, promoted, and initiated from often unhealthy ideas about China as a ‘new’ or ‘rising’ power. It is asserted that IR has traditionally defended the interests of the United States as the leading global hegemon, by legitimizing and promoting its supposed rational security-seeking responses to ‘challengers’ abroad. In such a way, it is asserted, China is considered guilty until proven innocent and in many ways it has become possible for the ‘pivot’ – which could otherwise be far more controversial and which carries the potential to foment instability and even conflict in the Asia Pacific – to be presented as both logical and unproblematic. The chapter proceeds as follows. It begins with a brief review of how China’s development, or ‘rise’, is commonly perceived within the most influential circles of the IR literature. It moves on to discuss the background to the US ‘pivot’ to the Asia Pacific and then the key features of, and motivations behind, the strategy as it is unfolding today. The chapter then concludes with some final thoughts upon the potential consequences of the ‘pivot’ for the future security of the region.

IR and China’s ‘rise’ The IR literature on China’s emergence as a new global power is, both theoretically and empirically, diverse, and multifaceted. In recent years a particularly prominent theme has been the study of China as either a revisionist or a status-quo power (see for example Johnston 2003; Liang 2007; Feng 2009). Status-quo powers are said to be those which seek to maintain the prevailing distribution of power because they are content to operate within it. Revisionist powers, meanwhile, are those which strive to improve their position vis-à-vis others by modifying the structure of their surrounding environment. Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice argued explicitly that ‘China is not a “status quo power”, but one that would like to alter Asia’s strategic balance of power in its own favor’ (Rice 2000: 56). Some authors within the IR literature propose not only that China is a revisionist power but one which actively threatens the security of the United States and its regional neighbours (see for example Kaplan 2005; Cohen 2007). The general consensus is far less vitriolic, however, and posits that China currently more closely resembles the image of a status-quo power. ‘It is too early to conclude that China’s rise will destabilise international relations’, argues Zhu Feng (2008: 35. See also for example Segal 2007; Shirk 2007). Alistair Iain Johnston rejects the validity of this debate principally because the terms themselves lack analytical value (2003). Two additional and inter-related issues also arise. First, in some respects it is valid and productive to enquire whether China is systemmaintaining or system-challenging in its regional and global intentions. Yet the debate as a whole has excessively narrowed our focus of concern. It has isolated China as the principal unit of analysis, formalizing its place as the independent variable from which dependent variables such as the United States are studied. Thus, even when Beijing is absolved of responsibility for adversely affecting its regional security dynamics, the conclusions are commonly derived by centralizing and privileging China. As noted at the outset, dominant

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lines of enquiry such as ‘will China rise peacefully?’ or ‘is China a status quo or revisionist power?’ have drawn excessive attention from the capacity of other actors to reorganize the security environment of the Asia Pacific. Second, it is important to recognize that this overriding focus upon China has emerged at least in part from the character of the international relations discipline. Historically, IR theory has almost exclusively been the product of American (and to a lesser extent British) scholarship and dominated by neorealist frameworks of study. Neorealism tells us that as China grows the United States will feel insecure and respond logically with security-seeking behaviour as a classic transition of power begins to emerge (see for example Mearsheimer 2006). In recent years, however, ‘post-positivist’ scholars including those active within social constructivist, feminist, and post-colonial circles have done much to expose pertinent silences of neorealism. Principal among these is a tendency to view the world from a strongly Western-centric perspective and to emphasize the destabilizing and potentially dangerous consequences which are brought by ‘new’ or ‘rising powers’.1 The influence of these core assumptions remains so that as China ‘rises’, it is widely interpreted as a problem to be resolved (see Turner 2009). Yet while neorealists may claim to inhabit a position of neutrality, observing and explaining the behaviours of states from a dislocated vantage point, this theoretical perspective has in fact always acted in support of the West by rationalizing its global dominance (Acharya and Buzan 2010: 3). Theory is never advanced without intent and, as Robert Cox famously observed, always serves the interests of particular people (1981: 128). The neorealist agenda implicitly (whether intentionally or not) demonizes China the ‘rising power’ while representing the actions of the United States as rational and necessary responses in defence of its own security. Within this paradigm China is immediately presented with the task of proving itself as non-threatening, regardless of its stated intentions and behaviour. IR debates surrounding the nature of China’s so-called rise, then, and in particular those which examine the extent to which it is likely to challenge the structure of its surrounding environment, are in some ways both flawed and dangerous. They have marginalized interest in how regional actors other than China, most notably the United States and those it counts as ‘allies’, are actively – indeed constantly – revising the power dynamics of a region so frequently identified as now vulnerable to the ‘rise’ of China. To affirm, this is not to dismiss the utility of examining the likely impacts of China’s expanding resources and increasing global influence, and this line of enquiry produces valuable and timely avenues of research (see for example Christensen 2001; Mearsheimer 2006; Feng 2008). After all, the PRC’s economic, political, and military growth – for good or bad – is arguably the most consequential development for Asia in half a century or more. Yet at the same time a certain theoretical and disciplinary bias within the study of international relations has encouraged understandings of China as a necessarily destabilizing new power to which the United States must respond to reassert stability and order. It is important to note that the influence of realism is not contained to the lecture theatres of universities or the pages of scholarly literature, to be absorbed by a comparative few. It has enjoyed a long presence in national policymaking circles, not least in the United States where famous proponents of realist thought (in broad terms) include Condoleezza Rice, as well as Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, and John Bolton. Having outlined a number of pertinent issues with respect to the way China is commonly perceived in the West and within the discipline of international relations in particular, the chapter turns now to examine Washington’s ‘pivot’ towards the Asia Pacific. It does this to show not merely how the United States (along with significant others) is increasingly

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responsible for reorganizing the region’s security environment, but how the types of understandings about the world highlighted above are working to present an otherwise potentially controversial strategy as both necessary and unproblematic.

The US ‘pivot’ to the Asia Pacific Background and context The appalling terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11 2001 were catalysts for profound changes in the direction of US foreign policy. Afghanistan was almost immediately identified as a cradle for enemies of the United States and the wider West, and Iraq once more became the focus of attention as a ‘rogue regime’ supposedly active in bolstering anti-American activities abroad. For years understandings of a global terrorist threat were the primary driver of US foreign policy. Most importantly they motivated, and – crucially for the Republican government of George W. Bush (2001–9) – justified among many the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. For a decade, even into the current Democratic presidency of Barack Obama, these arenas acted as magnets for enormous amounts of American efforts and resources. During this time it also became increasingly clear that the threat of terrorism against the United States had been largely misunderstood and exaggerated; while events like 9/11 were evidently possible, terrorism was not as organized or pervasive as had been asserted (see for example Jackson 2005; Mueller 2005). Worse, the financial costs of the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have been far outweighed by those to human life. Accurate numbers of civilian casualties are almost impossible to determine but it is certain that in both Iraq and Afghanistan multiple tens of thousands have occurred since the start of US military operations in each, with very many more displaced or otherwise affected.2 Obama’s election campaign of 2008 was built in large part upon criticism of Bush’s record in Afghanistan and Iraq. In July that year he observed: ‘we have lost thousands of American lives [in Iraq], spent nearly a trillion dollars, alienated allies and neglected emerging threats – all in the cause of fighting a war for well over five years in a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.’ He argued for a reallocation of both military and non-military resources to Afghanistan and Pakistan, because this region represented ‘a terrorist sanctuary’ (quoted in The New York Times 2008). As president in December 2009, Obama authorized an increase of 30,000 US troops in Afghanistan and since 2010 American combat troops have gradually been withdrawn from Iraq. In the United States public opinion gradually turned against the presence of American troops in these places. Between the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and Obama’s election victory in 2008, for example, the proportion of Americans who believed that the use of military force there was the right decision fell from 72 per cent to 38 per cent (Pew Research Center 2008). In October 2011, 78 per cent of Americans supported the announcement that by the end of the year US troops would fully withdraw from Iraq (Washington Post 2011). Public support for military operations in Afghanistan has remained higher, although in 2011 it was found that half of Americans favoured quickening the withdrawal of US troops, compared to just over a fifth who favoured maintaining troops there until all remaining goals had been accomplished (Gallup 2012). Regardless of widespread suspicions that overall US security has been adversely affected by the US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the official rhetoric from Washington is that its goals are steadily being achieved. Yet disillusionment with the purpose, cost, and efficacy

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of these central elements of the global ‘War on Terror’ – both among the general public and in Washington – are key motivating ‘push’ factors behind a change in focus. Key ‘pull’ factors include the consistent growth of China’s economic and political influence throughout the Asian region, particularly since the 1990s,3 but also the broader and much-discussed shift of global economic power in the early twenty-first century from North America and Western Europe to Asia. This is illustrated by the fact that between 1973 and 2010 Asia’s share of global trade doubled, to just over 30 per cent. Further, China has now overtaken the United States to become the world’s largest exporter (WTO 2010) and its economy is projected to become the world’s largest sometime between 2016 and 2020. Like that of China, India’s economy has been growing consistently since the 1970s and by some measures is now among the topfive largest in the world. Japan’s (for now) remains the third largest, meaning three of the top-five biggest economies in the world are in Asia for the first time in centuries. Other regional actors including Australia, Vietnam, and the Philippines have experienced broadly healthy growth figures since the turn of the millennium. They contrast starkly with many Western states – particularly within Western Europe – which have experienced heavy recessions since the financial problems of 2007–8. With all this in mind, former Secretary of State Clinton’s assertion that ‘the Asia Pacific has become a key driver of global politics’ appears something of an understatement. The purpose of the US ‘pivot’, she argued, is ‘to sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values’ across the region (Clinton 2011). Some argue that if the years 1900–2000 represented the ‘American century’ – a term coined by the American media tycoon Henry Luce in the 1940s – the next hundred years will more probably be the ‘Asian century’. No single state is ever likely to attain the type of predominance over so many arenas of global affairs the United States achieved throughout the post-war period, and today the character of American power remains expansive, pervasive, subtle, and ingrained. It is found within multilateral organizations, through trading regimes, over development policy, and across myriad other arenas so that ‘new’ economies are operating within frameworks of global governance formulated and maintained principally by the United States. Washington’s influence will therefore not disappear as quickly as some analysts contend. Equally, however, the increasing global influence of those states which constitute the Asia Pacific – where barely 30 years ago there was comparatively little – cannot be ignored. Hillary Clinton observed in 2011 that ‘the United States stands at a pivot point’. While in many ways the world is not changing as radically and fundamentally as many suggest, the ‘pivot’ itself is potentially a highly significant development in US foreign policy. As discussed below, for the United States it represents a refocusing of attention upon a region in which it has long boasted considerable influence and whose security environment in particular, despite China’s meteoric ‘rise’, is still most vulnerable to adaptation and reorganization by policy prescriptions in Washington. Contours and developments In January 2012, after President Obama had affirmed the United States’ new ‘pivot’ strategy, Secretary of Defense Panetta elaborated upon the extent to which the size and remit of the American military were to change. In particular, he identified the two regions the Pentagon now considers key to securing American interests abroad: the Middle East and the Asia Pacific. ‘These are the areas where we see the greatest challenges for the future’, stated Panetta. ‘The US military will increase its institutional weight and focus on enhanced presence, power projection, and deterrence in the Asia Pacific’ (US Department of Defense

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2012e). Of course, American involvement in this region has a long and complicated history. During the Second World War and Cold War in particular it became a site of enormous financial and human cost for the United States. Since then in South Korea, Japan, and Guam, among others, Washington has retained a significant military presence. By historical standards, then, an intensification of American security interests in the Asia Pacific is nothing new. However, the Obama administration has recently placed the type of emphasis on this part of the world which has been absent since the US withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975. Indeed, in late 2009 Obama argued that ‘the fortunes of America and the Asia Pacific have become more closely linked than ever before… The United States looks to strengthen old alliances and build new partnerships with the nations of this region.’ He concluded by proclaiming himself ‘America’s first Pacific President’ (2009). Obama referred directly to alliances with, among others, Australia and the Philippines as ‘the bedrock of security and stability’ in the region (2009). Australia and the United States have co-operated militarily for decades, most notably through the Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS) established in 1951. The United States does not solely own or operate any military bases in Australia but has limited use of a number of its facilities and participates in co-operative projects. For example, the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap in central Australia is a satellite tracking station built in the 1960s which remained active throughout the American operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. A more recent development was the announcement in November 2011 that around 200 US troops were to be deployed to a base in Darwin in northern Australian. The troops arrived at Robertson Barracks in April 2012 and the number is expected to rise to around 2,500 by 2015 (US Department of State 2011a). Earlier that year Australian Minister for Defence Stephen Smith revealed plans to increase US access to other military facilities in Australia: ‘What I colloquially describe as more troops in, troops out, more ships in, ships out and more planes in and planes out’, he explained (Australian Department of Defence 2011). In March 2012 Smith confirmed that the US air force would be granted greater access to two bases in Australia’s Northern Territory and that plans were being made for the United States to make more frequent use of the HMAS Stirling naval base on the country’s west coast. Smith also announced that discussions were underway regarding future use by the American military of the Australian-administered Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean (Australian Department of Defence 2012). The argument here is not that the United States is singularly responsible for militarizing the Asia Pacific. Indeed, and as will be shown, the transference of American troops to Darwin is just one of a number of instances which demonstrate the mutual complicity of various regional governments in this regard. Between 2001 and 2011, for example, the Australian national defence budget increased by almost 50 per cent, to US$23 billion (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute 2012a). The argument, rather, is that the United States remains the actor most capable of dominating and reorganizing the military-security environment of the Asia Pacific and that in recent months it has become more focused upon this aim. Its recent activities in Australia clearly augur a future of continued military expansion there, and they complement a range of additional developments now being advanced throughout the region. As indicated by Obama in 2009 the Philippines is now considered a second key partner of the United States in the Asia Pacific (Obama 2009). Of course, and as a former colonizing power there, the United States has a long history of military interests in the islands. Until the early 1990s its largest Pacific navy and air force bases, Subic Bay and Clark Air Base, were operational in the Philippines. Throughout the ‘War on Terror’ the Philippines was designated a Major Non-NATO Ally by Washington and recently this type of co-operation has

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intensified further. In early 2012, for instance, Washington began negotiating the movement of American troops to the Philippines which is keen to reinforce its military ties with the United States (Cushman 2012). In March the Philippines’ Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario confirmed that he wanted more intensive security relations with Washington and more frequent military drills (Mogato and Francisco 2012). In August 2011 the Philippine navy took ownership of a US Hamilton Class cutter, a type of armed vessel used until recently by the American Coast Guard (Embassy of the United States 2012). In May 2012 a second was transferred to Manila (Embassy of the Philippines 2012). According to Washington the aim of this strategy is to improve the Philippines’ ability to maintain its maritime security by countering regional threats. The stated intention is also to ‘support other improvements in its surveillance and detection capabilities’ (Embassy of the United States 2012). The Philippines has numerous on-going territorial disputes with its neighbours, most notably China and Vietnam over the Spratley and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. In January 2012 Philippine Senator Richard J. Gordon argued that China’s development in particular necessitated stronger US–Philippine security ties in the region: ‘The United States has been losing ground in this region… You have a China that is beginning to flex its muscles, and it is pushing us around… We need to have a fireman nearby’ (Singapore Institute of International Affairs 2012). In 2005 the United States and Singapore signed a Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA) designed to enhance cooperation in security and defence. From this foundation it was announced in 2011 that the two nations would strengthen these ties. In June former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates revealed plans to send Littoral Combat Ships, for specialist use around coastlines, to Singapore. The aim, he said, was to improve ‘command and control capabilities’ and to expand ‘training opportunities to help prepare our forces for the challenges both militaries face operating in the Pacific’ (US Department of State 2011b). Singapore is also already a significant buyer of American military equipment. Between 2007 and 2011 it was the world’s fifth largest arms importer and US defence contractors were involved in 43 per cent of its acquisitions (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute 2012b). Most recently, in April 2012, Secretary of Defense Panetta and Singapore Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen agreed to intensify bilateral military training exercises, as well as ‘enhance interoperability and promote greater co-operation between both armed forces’. According to the US Department of Defense the SFA will also be ‘further operationalized’ to deepen American involvement in the region (US Department of Defense 2012d). Elsewhere, in June Panetta announced that Washington now seeks closer maritime relations with Vietnam, especially throughout the South China Sea (US Department of Defense 2012b). The Department of Defense states that increased access for US ships to Vietnam’s ports is a key element of allowing the United States to ‘achieve its objectives in the Asia Pacific’ (US Department of Defense 2012c). More broadly, Panetta has revealed plans to increase the proportion of overall US navy resources in the region from 50 to 60 per cent (US Department of Defense 2012a). Finally, since 1979 the Taiwan Relations Act has codified the American commitment to defending the island. It continues to ensure that the United States provides Taiwan with advanced military equipment, despite consistent criticism from Beijing, and in May 2012 the US House of Representatives voted in favour of selling the government in Taipei 66 new fighter aircraft (Granger 2012). Despite all this, and to expand upon a previous point, it would be erroneous to suggest that the security environment of the Asia Pacific is being reshaped by US policies alone. China’s recent investments in defence capabilities in particular are well documented. The oft-repeated truism that its military spending remains dwarfed by that of the United States is

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countered with reference to Beijing’s annual defence budget which is now equal to those of the United Kingdom and Russia combined (calculated from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute 2012a). That budget continues to increase by around ten per cent each year and important questions still circulate about the accuracy of official figures (Chen and Feffer 2009). The constitutionally pacifist Japan is becoming engaged in a ‘quiet arms race’ in response to perceived dangers from China and between 2007 and 2011 arms imports across the South East Asian region increased by 185 per cent (Hughes 2009; Stockholm International Peace Research Institute 2012b). It is also important to note that Washington’s renewed focus upon the Asia Pacific is not represented by a purely one-dimensional military-security approach (and neither is the argument that the US ‘pivot’ towards the Asia Pacific is being conducted with insidious aims). In March 2011 the first resident US ambassador was accepted into the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and in the same year the United States became a full member of the East Asia Summit. In December Hillary Clinton became the first US Secretary of State in half a century to visit Burma and in March 2012 Washington signed a heavily protracted free-trade agreement with Seoul. The increasing militarization of the Asia Pacific, then, is just one facet of a range of complementary policy strategies now being utilized to solidify the United States’ presence in the region. Collectively, they highlight that while Beijing indeed has an obligation to become that ‘responsible stakeholder’ (Zoellick 2005), a concern for the multitude of relevant activities in which the United States (and others) are engaged must be re-accommodated to attenuate an overriding focus on whether China is likely to disrupt or revise the security environment of the Asia Pacific. Neorealist mantra helps to promote the ‘pivot’ as rational security-seeking behaviour and a solution to the ‘problem’ of a ‘rising’ China. But as still the world’s only superpower, and with such pervasive and deeply-rooted foundations of power which Washington is now seeking to further reinforce throughout the Asia Pacific, an overriding disciplinary focus on China’s ‘rise’ is unhelpful. Not least, this is because Washington’s ‘pivot’ strategy has the potential to foment deeper hostility and mistrust. China’s capabilities are expanding rapidly but the ‘dangers’ it poses are frequently distorted and often exist more as a product of American imaginations than it does an accurate representation of Beijing’s intentions (Pan 2004; Turner 2013). Thus conflict in the Asia Pacific is not inevitable, but concerns have already arisen over the potential effects of the ‘pivot’. In July 2011 for example the Chief of the General Staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army stated that US training operations with the Philippines and Vietnam were ‘inappropriate’ (Joint Chiefs of Staff 2011). This followed a warning from former Chief of the Australian Army Peter Leahy, who argued that closer military ties with the United States could destabilize Canberra’s relations with Beijing and facilitate conflict in the region (Leahy 2012). Neorealists claim to observe and explain the world from a neutral vantage point but when the PRC is examined as Asia’s most significant and consequential ‘rising’ power it inevitably generates American (and wider Western) preconceptions of China as a challenger to the status quo. Therefore whether Beijing’s focus is on regional preservation or hegemony in some ways matters little. China is no blameless victim of American expansionism or neoimperialism, but at the same time its security environment is being increasingly reorganized and controlled by others. If Washington interprets the actions of a growing PRC (hostile or otherwise) to represent a challenge to this control – as enduring neorealist rhetoric in particular tends to encourage – it is entirely possible that its own apparently rational ‘pivot’ designed to maintain the status quo may be that which does the most to facilitate tensions and even conflict in the region.

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Conclusion The purpose of this chapter has been to present the contours and developments of the United States’ ‘pivot’ towards the Asia Pacific. The stated purpose of the ‘pivot’ is to protect American interests in an increasingly salient region of global affairs, reflected most pertinently in the expanding economies of key actors including India, Australia, and Vietnam. The rapidly increasing political and economic influence of China in particular is a key factor in this policy shift. This chapter also argued that an overriding focus upon a ‘rising’ China has emerged within the discipline of international relations, and is commonly framed by powerful and enduring rhetoric inspired by traditionally-dominant neorealist thought. The result has been the representation of the PRC as a necessarily destabilizing newcomer to the US-dominated status quo. To resolve the ‘problem’ of China, policies which may otherwise be more controversial – such as the deployment of US troops to Australia and enhancing military co-operation with the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, and others – can be presented as logical and unproblematic. A recent Center for Strategic and International Studies report asserts that ‘by shaping the security environment [of the Asia Pacific] through the active engagement of our forces in the region working with allies and partners, we can contribute to a stable, peaceful and prosperous Asia that is good for all nations in the region and good for the world’ (CSIS 2012: 4). The hope, of course, is that stability, peace, and prosperity – within a region noted for its relative inter-state harmony since the end of the Vietnam War in the mid-1970s – become norms in the twenty-first century. However, and as this chapter has shown, US efforts to ‘shape’ the Asia Pacific are relying heavily upon the transference of military resources to a region in which it already claims significant authority. It is not inconceivable that these efforts – and the ideas and assumptions upon which they rest – rather than the actions of a ‘rising’ China, may do most to disrupt the future security of the Asia Pacific.

Notes 1 A key weakness of this assumption is its lack of concern for the power of identity dynamics. This is demonstrated by the fact that India, with rapidly increasing military and economic resources, is rarely interpreted as a threat to US security in a comparable manner to China (see, for example, Pan 2013; Turner 2013). 2 Iraq Body Count estimates that over 120,000 civilians may have been killed in Iraq since 2001 (‘Documented civilian deaths from violence’, www.iraqbodycount.org). Tragically, the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan has only been reliably monitored since 2007. It is estimated that up to around 12,000 civilians were killed between 2007 and 2012 (see Congressional Research Service 2012). 3 China’s economy has been expanding rapidly since the late 1970s, but in the past 10–15 years Beijing has steadily become more active in global affairs. This is evident, for example, in China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001, and its joint establishment of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in the same year. Ann Kent notes that between 1966 and 2000, China increased its membership of intergovernmental organizations from one to fifty (Kent 2002).

References Acharya, A. and Buzan, B. (2010) ‘Why is there no non-Western international relations theory? An introduction’, in A. Acharya and B. Buzan (eds), Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives on and Beyond Asia, London: Routledge. Australian Department of Defence (2011) ‘Minister for Defence – interview with Julia Christensen, ABC Darwin’ (available online at http://www.minister.defence.gov.au/2011/10/20/minister-fordefence-interview-with-julia-christensen-abc-darwin/) (last accessed 22/12/2012).

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Australian Department of Defence (2012) ‘Minister for Defence – doorstop interview, Sydney’ (available online at http://www.minister.defence.gov.au/2012/03/28/minister-for-defence-doorstopinterview-sydney/) (last accessed 30/11/2012). Chen, Sean and Feffer, John (2009) ‘China’s military spending: soft rise or hard threat’, Asian Perspective, 33(4): 47–67. Christensen, Thomas J. (2001) ‘Posing problems without catching up: China’s rise and challenges for US security policy’, International Security, 25(4): 5–40. Clinton, Hillary (2011) ‘America’s Pacific century’, Foreign Policy, November (available online at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/americas_pacific_century?page=full) (last accessed 24/1/2013). Cohen, Warren (2007) ‘China’s rise in historical perspective’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 30 (4–5): 683–704. Congressional Research Service (2012) Afghanistan Casualties: Military Forces and Civilians, Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service. Cox, Robert (1981) ‘Social states, forces and world orders: beyond international relations theory’, Millennium, 10 (2): 126–55. CSIS (2012) US Force Posture Strategy in the Asia Pacific Region: An Independent Assessment, Washington, DC: CSIS. Cushman, John H. (2012) ‘Manila negotiates broader military ties with US’, The New York Times (available online at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/world/asia/manila-negotiates-broadermilitary-ties-with-us.html) (last accessed 16/12/2012). Embassy of the Philippines (2012) ‘PH Navy receives US Coast Guard cutter Dallas’ (available online at http://www.philippineembassy-usa.org/news/2572/300/PH-NAVY-RECEIVES-US-COASTGUARD-CUTTER-DALLAS/d,phildet/) (last accessed 5/11/2012). Embassy of the United States (2012) ‘Testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade’ (available online at http://manila.usembassy. gov/security_and_trade_ties.html) (last accessed 19/11/2012/) (last accessed 20/11/2012). Feng, Huiyun (2009) ‘Is China a revisionist power?’, Chinese Journal of International Politics, 2 (3): 313–34. Feng, Zhu (2008) ‘China’s rise will be peaceful: how unipolarity matters’, in R. Ross and Z. Feng (eds), China’s Ascent: Power, Security, and the Future of International Politics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 34–54. Gallup (2012) ‘In US, half say US should speed up Afghanistan withdrawal’ (available online at http://www.gallup.com/poll/153260/Half-Say-Speed-Afghanistan-Withdrawal.aspx) (last accessed 20/12/2012). Granger, Kay (18 May, 2012) ‘Granger amendment adopted into Defense Authorization Bill’ (available online at http://kaygranger.house.gov/press-release/granger-amendment-adopted-defenseauthorization-bill) (last accessed 13/12/2012). Hughes, Christopher W. (2009) ‘Japan’s military modernisation: a quiet Japan–China arms race and global power projection’, Asia Pacific Review, 16 (1): 84–99. Jackson, Richard (2005) Writing the War on Terrorism: Language, Politics, and Counter-Terrorism, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Johnston, Alistair I. (2003) ‘Is China a status quo power?’, International Security, 27 (4): 5–56. Joint Chiefs of Staff (2011) ‘Transcript of remarks by Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and General Chen Bingde’ (available online at http://www.jcs.mil/speech. aspx?ID=1626) (last accessed 1/12/2012). Kaplan, Robert (2005) ‘How we would fight China’, The Atlantic Monthly, 295 (5): 49–64. Kent, Ann (2002) ‘China’s international socialisation: the role of international organisations’, Global Governance, 8 (3): 343–64. Leahy, Peter (2012) ‘We must not get too close to the US’, The Australian (available online at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/we-must-not-get-too-close-to-the-us/ story-e6frgd0x-1226324255470) (last accessed 14/12/2012).

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Liang, Wei (2007) ‘China: globalization and the emergence of a new status quo power?’, Asian Perspective, 31 (4): 125–49. Mearsheimer, John J. (2006) ‘China’s unpeaceful rise’, Current History, 105 (690): 160–2. Mogato, Manuel and Francisco, Rosemarie (2012) ‘Manila offers the US wider military access, seeks weapons’, Reuters (available online at http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/29/us-philippinesus-idUSBRE82S0LD20120329) (last accessed 27/11/2012). Mueller, John (2005) ‘Simplicity and spook: terrorism and the dynamics of threat exaggeration’, International Studies Perspectives, 6 (2): 208–34. New York Times (2008) ‘Obama’s remarks on Afghanistan and Iraq’, 15 July (available online at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/us/politics/15text-obama.html?pagewanted=all) (last accessed 2/12/2012). Obama, Barack (2009) ‘Text of Obama’s Tokyo address’, Wall Street Journal (available online at http:// blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/11/13/text-of-obamas-tokyo-address/) (last accessed 3/12/2012). Pan, Chengxin (2004) ‘The “China threat” in American self-imagination: the discursive construction of other as power politics’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 29: 305–31. Pan, Chengxin (2013) Knowledge, Desire and Power in Global Politics: Western Representations of China’s Rise, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Pew Research Center (2008) ‘Public attitudes towards the War in Iraq: 2003 – 2008’ (available online at http://www.pewresearch.org/2008/03/19/public-attitudes-toward-the-war-in-iraq-20032008) (last accessed 13/12/2012). Rice, Condoleezza (2000) ‘Promoting the national interest’, Foreign Affairs (available online at http:// www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/55630/condoleezza-rice/campaign-2000-promoting-the-nationalinterest) (last accessed 13/11/2012). Segal, Adam (2007) ‘Chinese economic statecraft and the political economy of Asian security’, in W. Keller and T. Rawski (eds), China’s Rise and the Balance of Power in Asia, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 146–61. Shirk, Susan (2007) China: Fragile Superpower, New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Singapore Institute of International Affairs (2012) ‘US: Pentagon to trim armed forces; talks to expand military cooperation with Philippines’ (available online at http://www.siiaonline. org/?q=programmes/insights/us-pentagon-trim-armed-forces-talks-expand-military-cooperationwith-philippines) (last accessed 14/12/2012). Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (2012a) ‘Singapore shells out for security’, Wall Street Journal, 21 March (available online at http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2012/03/21/ singapore-shells-out-for-security/) (last accessed 18/11/2012). Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (2012b) The SIPRI Military Expenditure Database (available online at http://milexdata.sipri.org/result.php4) (last accessed 22/11/2012). Turner, Oliver (2009) ‘China’s recovery: why the writing was always on the wall’, Political Quarterly, 80 (1): 111–18. Turner, Oliver (2013) ‘Threatening China and US security: the international politics of identity’, Review of International Studies, 39(4): 903–24. US Department of Defense (2009) ‘Active duty military personnel strengths by regional area and by country’ (available online at http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/MILITARY/history/hst0912. pdf) (last accessed 5/12/2012). US Department of Defense (2011) ‘Remarks by Secretary Panetta at Electric Boat in Groton, Conn.’ (available online at http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4929) (last accessed 10/12/2012). US Department of Defense (2012a) ‘Remarks by Secretary Panetta at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore’ (available online at http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=5049) (last accessed 11/12/2012). US Department of Defense (2012b) ‘Panetta’s Cam Ranh Bay visit symbolizes growing US–Vietnam ties’ (available online at http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=116597) (last accessed 8/11/2012).

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US Department of Defense (2012c) ‘Secretary Panetta speaking to the crew of USNS Byrd in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam’ (available online at http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript. aspx?transcriptid=5050) (last accessed 4/12/2012). US Department of Defense (2012d) ‘Joint statement from Secretary Panetta and Singapore Minister for Defence Ng’ (available online at http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=15160) (last accessed 10/12/2012). US Department of Defense (2012e) ‘Defense strategic guidance briefing from the Pentagon’ (available online at http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4953) (last accessed 10/12/2012). US Department of State (2011a) ‘Obama: US–Australia security deal will bring regional stability’ (available online at http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2011/11/20111116115300neh pets0.2824213.html#axzz1qyKTfsG4) (last accessed 12/12/2012). US Department of State (2011b) ‘Defense Secretary Gates on US commitments in Asia’ (available online at http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/texttrans/2011/06/20110604122721su0.9975245. html#axzz1qyKTfsG4) (last accessed 1/12/2012). Washington Post (2011) ‘Public opinion is settled as Iraq War concludes’ (available online at http:// www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/behind-the-numbers/post/public-opinion-is-settled-as-iraq-warconcludes/2011/11/03/gIQADF2qsM_blog.html) (last accessed 16/12/2012). WTO (2010) International Trade Statistics 2010, Geneva: World Trade Organization. Zoellick, Robert (2005) ‘Whither China: from membership to responsibility’, remarks to National Committee on US–China Relations, 21 September 2005.

Further Reading Clinton, Hillary (2011) ‘America’s Pacific century’, Foreign Policy, November (available online at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/americas_pacific_century?page=full) (last accessed 24/1/2013). Ikenberry, G. John and Mastanduno, Michael (eds) (2003) International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific, New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Yahuda, Michael (2011) The International Politics of the Asia Pacific (3rd and revised edn), London: Routledge. Pan, Chengxin (2013) Knowledge, Desire and Power in Global Politics: Western Representations of China’s Rise, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Turner, Oliver (2014) Representing China: Identity, Power, Policy, London: Routledge.

17 The United States and the Arab spring Now and then in the Middle East Linda B. Miller

Introduction This second edition of ‘New Directions’ invites the two inevitable questions: what has changed? What has remained the same? At first glance, readers will assume that in a chapter devoted to the United States and the Middle East in the wake of the region’s on-going upheavals, the emphasis would be on change rather than continuity. Such a conclusion is premature. Persistent turbulence in the wide range of countries from Tunisia and Egypt to Yemen and Bahrain has produced a constant search for stability in Washington. Now, as at the time of our first edition, few subjects of US foreign policy reveal a larger chasm between theory and practice than the Middle East. Now as then few, if any, topics in American foreign policy invoke more dramatic US domestic reactions than the Middle East. This survey of ‘new directions’ in Obama’s universe, like its predecessor that assessed the two-term Bush administration, will highlight not only the paradoxes of American policies toward specific countries but also toward the region as a whole, while also situating those policies in the larger debates about the American role in the world. My ‘now and then’ approach will underscore patterns that best illuminate continuities, often building on detailed analyses by journalists and non-governmental actors who attempt to hold US officials accountable for responses, or the lack of them. These first drafts of history, together with more scholarly texts, dramatize the various ways in which the American reach still exceeds its grasp, even though in Obama’s second term the geographical boundaries that help to shape US policy formation and execution have suitably shrunk to exclude Afghanistan and Pakistan, as a way to deal with the difficult management of bilateral relationships with Israel, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey, Algeria, and Jordan. Although an unfolding story, the misnamed ‘Arab spring’, with its seasonal adjustments, superbly demonstrates the structural gaps between goals and means in US foreign policy.1 Just like the policymakers of the first and second George W. Bush administrations, their Obama successors have discovered that all these countries have their own domestic politics and strategic priorities which do not necessarily coincide with those of Washington. Some, like Iran, have electoral cycles as complicated as the United States that may provide unexpected results, as did the 2013 contest when the cleric and former nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rohwani, won in one round. Initially, this result appeared to open a door for renewed talks on Iran’s acquisition of the complete nuclear fuel cycle as part of a possible deal on a gradual lifting of sanctions. Since all players, Arab and non-Arab, live in a volatile region with long unresolved conflicts, restoring balance and restraint, so frequently announced in Obama’s presidential

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addresses as declared American objectives, has proved difficult, at best. The one consistency has been the uncertainty of finding the elusive combination of diplomatic, economic, military, and cultural instruments to attain these goals, even as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have wound down from the American domestic perspective. Now as then the links between US policies in the Middle East and more general debates and dilemmas in American foreign policy still deserve more attention than they generally receive, especially the perennial question of whether America is in ‘decline’.2 Now as then the slowly evolving worldviews of top US officials on this controversial subject explain why the seemingly spontaneous uprisings, such as those first in Tunisia and later in Libya, have proved to be so complex for US policymakers. The Middle East has figured prominently in US foreign policy since the founding of the Republic, often competing for attention with Asia, where the recent official announcement of a ‘pivot’ epitomized the Obama administration’s desire to reset priorities, to stress economics, and the competition with China. Historically, as reviewed in our first edition, in a detailed account of the role of America in the Middle East from 1976 to the then present (2007), Michael B. Oren reminded us of the region’s importance as the site of missionary efforts, proxy battles with the Soviet Union, contested trade routes, or oil deposits. He went on to reinforce the status of the Middle East as a source of endemic US frustrations when local players gave priority to their own agendas or cleverly tailored their own compulsions to US fears of the moment.3 Now, as in the first decade after 9/11, several years after the Arab spring erupted, another familiar issue remains: what should be compared to what? For example, in terms of articulating the steadily diminishing US choices in the brutal Syrian civil war, are Rwanda and Bosnia, with their genocidal implications, the most convincing analogies? Or is a disintegrating Syria more comparable to proxy battles of the Cold War, with Iran, Russia, and the United States once again the key players? Is Libya, with its messy military and political aftermath, now the correct template for more direct American intervention in Syria? If so, what are the choices and constraints?

Updated visions or familiar fantasies? For many observers, the Arab spring represents a set of nationalist uprisings that have revealed dramatically the previously known but less visible tensions between the demands of status-quo Middle East governments, many of them authoritarian as in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, and their own peoples (with whom they have frequently been at war or working at cross purposes). That many of these countries were US allies whose leaders presented an acceptable face in Washington is traced in the many volumes analyzing these often fractious high-level visits, particularly the memoirs of diplomats. Now as then, with Arab documents still closed, existing accounts are necessarily limited, but even before the recent ‘revolutions’, there was enough in the public domain to ‘enable Americans to read about the fighting in Iraq and hear the echoes of the Barbary Wars and Operation Torch or to follow presidential efforts to mediate between Palestinians and Israelis and to see the shadows of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.’4 As noted in our first edition, American Cold War presidents, caught between the rival demands of communism and nationalism, tried to balance US domestic priorities and international imperatives as the British and French withdrew after World War II. Muddling through, with the occasional covert intervention as in Iran in 1953 or the more general Middle East crises in 1956, 1967, and 1973, rarely indicated any overall architecture in

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American responses. As the post-colonial regimes in Egypt, Syria, and Iraq challenged America’s authority, better relations were established with the Jordanian and Saudi Arabian monarchies, often via arms deals as well as oil purchases. Since the advent of the Arab convulsions, these patterns have shown surprising resilience, even as American leaders have struggled to adapt their existing means to deal with novel, non-territorial actors like Al Qaeda and its regional franchises. For President Obama, it has been a juggling act trying to decide whether and how to prop up once favored state leaders like Hosni Mubarak or once tolerated figures like Bashar al Assad, or whether and how to incorporate new non-governmental players on the ground, when their allegiances to their own narrower causes, including survival and possibly Islamic fundamentalism, could also threaten US national security interests. Each president has tried to avoid the mistakes of his predecessors. For George W. Bush, with scant knowledge of the Middle East, this meant refusing to repeat the over-involvement of Bill Clinton in Israeli–Palestinian negotiations, while embarking on the two lengthy wars that hollowed out the American military and also contributed to the economic crisis of 2008. Bush, like many of his generation, displayed a form of triumphalism after the Cold War, whose successful conclusion consolidated the view that states, hierarchies, friends, and foes were the permanent building blocks of international relations. Networks, non-state actors, and social movements were chiefly the province of various American international relations theorists, with realists, liberal institutionalists, and constructivists working on their familiar terrain, but seldom influencing policy options directly. As self-styled pragmatists, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, both oil men with little comprehension of the larger currents then roiling the Middle East, knew how to construct arms deals and fossil fuel purchases, and knew what blandishments were needed with both the Saudi princes and Israeli political leaders. Prior to the Arab spring, such a limited agenda might have sufficed. In circumstances of chronic regional underdevelopment and rising fanaticism, of jihadi appeals to unemployed young people, the Bush administration was basically out of its depth. Now these same indicators are among the many factors that have strengthened in the Arab spring and have posed many of the same trade-offs for the Obama administration as it has tried to maneuver through the chaotic transitions in Egypt and elsewhere. Obama, as a community organizer and a constitutional lawyer, has brought different personal skills to the fore, though many of his foreign policy team, especially in the first term, were Clinton-era holdovers. If the Bush entourage was spectacularly unprepared to deal conceptually with the divergent meanings of 9/11, the Obama successors have also foundered when their own similar preferred outcomes have proved unattainable. Both sets of American leaders wished their Middle East counterparts would operate according to Washington’s scripts, so that Iraq, for example, would emerge after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 (and much later after the withdrawal of US combat forces) as a Westernstyle democracy derived from the earlier, presumably successful Eastern Europe outcomes of 1990–1. Not surprisingly, the official Obama playbook for Egypt and Libya (and Syria initially) highlighted the US role in the formation of potential functioning democracies that would emerge after carefully prepared elections. This posture meant urging allies like Britain and France to take the lead, the better to avoid US ‘boots on the ground’.5 Why these scripts have been chosen has had less to do with events in the region than with the US executive’s need to present a persuasive narrative to Congressional committees who fund American diplomatic, economic, and military responses. Additionally, political leaders wanted to reach increasingly skeptical groups in American society who questioned the utility of US

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engagement at a time of austerity at home and in the wake of unsatisfactory outcomes in Iraq and Afghanistan where ‘victory’ remained illusory. The Middle East during Obama’s watch has still looked autocratic in some parts like Saudi Arabia, and theocratic in other parts like Iran. As the Arab spring merged into the summer, then fall, winter, and spring again, US official reactions continued to reveal both confusion and caution. As President Obama and some leading Congressional figures positioned and repositioned themselves for the 2012 elections, they did so amid the tumult, stalemate, and postrevolutionary disillusionment that underscored the important distinctions among (and timetables of) countries as varied as Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, Israel, Morocco, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. American politicians had little time for nuances as domestic audiences remained focused on the US economy. For individuals more preoccupied with election and re-election at home, frustration grew as Middle East politicians adopted a variety of ways in order to stay in power, ranging from constitutional changes to crude demonstrations of force, from cabinet shake-ups to deployment of troops across borders. Routinely, many of these local leaders have blamed ‘foreigners’ as the reason for popular protests as they have tried to cope with the inevitable demonstration effects. Young people or social networking as complicated variables were often blamed as unwelcome sources of change by those wanting to cling to a fragile status quo. Before and after the 2012 elections, US leaders traveled to the region as a way of earning credibility back home. For example, pictures of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressing either the Council on Foreign Relations or in public meetings with nongovernmental advocates of change in the Middle East were efforts to project reassurance that the Obama administration was firmly ‘on the right side of history’. So, too, the administration’s belated embrace of democracy promotion, earlier dismissed as a Bush administration fantasy, revealed the desire to have a consistent story line as events lurched out of control, especially when regional secular versus religious impulses drew US newspaper headlines and instant analysis from bloggers and other self-styled authorities. An equally interesting effort to portray the Obama White House as a citadel of forecasting trends accurately, rather than a place of internal disarray in crises, also emerged. Paradoxically, the announcement that the president had ordered a study directive seeking a review of political reform in the Middle East and North Africa in August 2010 backfired when, in the initial phases of the regional upheaval, various Cabinet officers spoke of US leverage just as its favored players in Lebanon suffered setbacks. Deeper knowledge of the importance of loyalties to tribe, clan, or faction remained the province of newly resurrected academic ‘country’ experts or experienced journalists. What we learn is sobering. Those regimes like Yemen, whose leaders’ hold on American aid or military support rested on their anti-Al Qaeda credentials, remained the most internally threatened after the death of Osama bin Laden. Those leaders whose nepotistic political structures once looked the most impressive, as in Egypt and Tunisia, proved to be among the most vulnerable or sclerotic. In a frequently repeated pattern, both the executive and legislative branches of the US government remained preoccupied with secure access to regional energy resources and with the bilateral relationships to secure them. The entrenched tendency to air brush the results of 1989 in Europe and stress the happy ending(s) there as a way of suggesting how turmoil in the Middle East would resolve was expected. Yet, the region’s collection of monarchies, republics, theocracies, and democracies, with varying histories of national identity, religious fervor, corruption, or civic culture, make most generalities misleading. Ironically, when US officials have wanted an ‘Arab model’ to organize American responses, Turkey is often the favorite candidate. Now it, too, is experiencing unrest.

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Repeatedly, it is precisely this need to produce a convincing tale that blends American idealism and pragmatism with more than casual nods to ‘exceptionalism’ that still bedevils US policymakers determined to focus on American domestic problems. This awkwardness has illustrated the unintended consequences of allowing sometimes incompetent local players to claim ‘victory’, as did the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, or to condemn the United States for not doing ‘more’, as in Syria. If there are no satisfactory conclusions to this story arc in the short term, such ambiguity does permit US political figures to disagree about how to express American preferences. How and when should US politicians state that some leaders have lost ‘legitimacy’ although they remain technically in power, as in Damascus? Former diplomats have had time to explain why rich societies like Kuwait, the UAE, or Qatar, countries these individuals know well, may survive the winds of change sweeping the region, if anyone is listening attentively. These experts (and some journalists) were among the first to point that these same wealthier governments could fuel region-wide Sunni versus Shia clashes in the form of cash, arms, or media blitzes, as in the Syrian civil war. By remembering that US political figures and their regional counterparts always play to two audiences – domestic and international – we may better understand the significance of Sen. John McCain’s widely photographed ‘stealth’ visit to Syrian ‘rebels’ and Secretary of State John Kerry’s virtually simultaneous announcement of a ‘private–public’ $4 billion aid package to advance ‘regional economic development’ and also talks about talks between Israel and the Palestinians in May 2013. Thus, two tried-and-true ‘Big Ideas’ about American foreign policy have survived and prospered. The first is the self-image of the United States as the beacon of hope, or the shining city on the hill, or the benign hegemon. The second, a more pragmatic image, is of the United States as the on-the-ground fixer, broker, banker, fireman, cajoler, and mediator in the intra-Palestinian struggles as well as in the seemingly intractable Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Secretary Kerry’s frenetic pace from conference to conference, from capital to capital, was meant to signify American interest at the very time influential observers questioned whether Obama had selected the ‘Machiavellian’ option for Syria that would let the already broken country collapse in order to punish Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah in the longer term. The duration of the civil war has allowed such interpretations to flourish, alongside the visual depictions of the humanitarian crisis affecting Syria’s neighbors. Thus US ‘passivity’, a damning enough verdict, might have a different framing that could be more favorable internationally as Washington tried to get others to join in any effort to sort out ‘good guys’ among the rebels that would provide the basis for administration support in US public opinion polls. At the June 2013 G-8 summit, President Obama’s eloquent invocation of the Northern Ireland peace settlement as a possible predicate for how renewed talks between Israel and the Palestinians might unfold is another effort to blend the two images for both domestic and international audiences. In weighing the likely impact of any US initiatives or reactions to Middle East turmoil, it is important to insist that the individual Middle East country accounts, whether presented in Washington as examples of mutated ‘domino theories’ or as ‘the democratic peace’ delayed, rest fundamentally on local agendas and institutions abroad that the United States does not control, but still may influence, albeit intermittently.

Convoluted roadmaps, sharpened realities? In both the Bush and Obama administrations, a few examples of how local actors have consistently refused to play the American game according to US rules make the point. By far the most successful of these state players are those whose leaders know how to manipulate the

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inner workings of the US executive and legislative branches, who know how and when to lobby. For Israel, the Bush administration’s neglect of negotiations for six years allowed the Israeli government to proceed with its own agenda vis-à-vis the Palestinians and Iran. For Iraq, the American tendency to regard Iraqi sovereignty as less important than US control of the battlefield allowed sectarian violence to escalate to the point of civil war. For Iran, the US insistence on preconditions for talking to Teheran allowed any differences on nuclear matters between the clerics and the then Iranian president to recede. Each roadmap developed pot-holes that no amount of belated US attention could mask. Each permutation within each country, whether electoral or violent, has reinforced this observation. As assessed in our first edition, unforeseen events, such as the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri and the resulting withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, rendered Washington’s ad hoc plans incomplete, if not unworkable altogether, for they often showed that individual country roadmaps had to accommodate shifts elsewhere in the region. Two years later, the US ‘surge’ in Iraq, with its undesired result of additional sectarian strife, put paid to America’s imperial posture like no other series of events since 1991 until the Arab spring. For the Obama administration, subsequent roadmaps have revealed an interest in placing Middle East regional challenges and political frictions at home in a larger setting, while the Republican Party moved further to the right to accommodate the Tea Party.6 When American roadmaps met resistance, such as when Israel rejected pressures to curb settlement construction activity in the West Bank during Obama’s first term, there was no Plan B. Similarly, when Iran rejected US demands for a cessation in uranium enrichment, an official American reassessment followed, but existing patterns of reaction persisted. Now as then, although the United States might use all instruments of foreign policy, absent nuclear weapons, toward Iraq and Iran, including force and sanctions, it could and would use mainly diplomacy toward Israel and the Palestinians. This imbalance of goals and means renders any success partial, at best. Thanks to some flexibility, however infrequent, in its final year, Bush administration policymakers finally agreed to explore and even conduct low-level talks with Iran, along with its previous saber-rattling behavior. Following this tentative lead, Obama’s policymakers tried ‘engagement’ with Iran during his first term as a contrast to Bush’s first-term ‘axis of evil’ rhetoric. Washington was slow to clarify its even scaled-down goals in the Middle East after the 2012 elections, in part because the United States was still trying to fathom the intricate contests between Sunni, Shia, and Kurds regionally, but also in part due to America’s permanent campaign cycle. Now as then, US roadmaps based on a country-by-country approach may be obsolete, but the tendency to develop roadmaps according to this deep-seated mindset is tenacious. Given this predilection, still driven by outdated assumptions of US predominance in the Middle East, roadmaps for Israel, Iraq, and Iran often seem either too simple or too complicated, as they have for numerous sectors of society, including women, in post-revolutionary Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya.7 This drive for a streamlined story has made it difficult to depict the cross-border actions of either Hamas or Hezbollah in a fashion that US domestic publics would interpret as demanding more sustained American support for some but not all of the ‘rebels’ in Syria, once the administration decided to do that in a limited fashion. Essentially, by trying to avoid the sharpened reality that the US ‘moment’ in the region may be ‘over’,8 the Obama administration, like its predecessors, finds it difficult to accept that usually Washington is institutionally incapable of dealing with more than one main issue at a time. The continuing preoccupation with Iraq or Iran has meant that other Middle East developments would proceed at their own pace, rather than Washington’s. At crucial

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moments, for example, during Obama’s postponed second-term visit to Israel in March 2013, America’s clout did achieve at least a temporary rapprochement between Jerusalem and Ankara when the local leaders were reluctant to do so alone, given their own fractious domestic politics or nationalist thrusts as part of their own respective electoral cycles. Obama’s 2013 soaring rhetoric, as in his 2009 Cairo speech years earlier, focused on empathy as he urged both Israelis and Palestinians to overcome decades of war, terror, misperceptions, and negative stereotypes. Nevertheless, these appeals remained grounded in the two familiar bedrocks of US policy: Israel’s security and access to Arab oil supplies. Again, the recent pulling and hauling in the Middle East reveals some of the major difficulties with US foreign policy overall. The familiar gap between aspirations and attainments stands out, as well as a predilection for short-term fixes rather than long-term planning. The American over-dependence on particular leaders when things seem to go wrong in terms of Washington’s preferences is a recurring trend. The selection of Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a model for other regional leaders to emulate is understandable, given the announced US goal of better relations with ‘the Muslim world’, but there was little US provision for unrest in Turkey when it erupted and cast Erdogan’s domestic leadership into question, whatever his international stature seemed to promise. The failure to understand, let alone manipulate successfully, other cultures or local imperatives is also blatant. Equally telling is the tendency of American negotiators to ignore issues of accountability and compliance that has often doomed even successful agreements. These are the sharpened realities that both scholars and policymakers have confronted once again in the stark choices about future American intervention in Syria and a revival of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Regardless of the US party in power, a changed context with both demographic and technological shifts at home as well as in the Middle East overall, means that even the most skillful adaptations of American idealism and pragmatism may not produce favorable US policy outcomes unless Washington ‘delivers’ in the age of instant communications and the fitful, perhaps irreversible, empowerment of Arab publics.9 In fact, what the United States could deliver in concrete terms, whether aid or arms, diplomatic support or rhetorical endorsement, is itself often unclear.

A precarious future? Now as then new directions for US foreign policy in the Middle East will depend upon a delicate balancing of reformulated goals, suitable means, and a long list of obstacles that always confront any outside powers in the region. Considering how this balance might look from the standpoint of the three countries that were then, and are also now, the targets of recent roadmaps demonstrates the hazards. On the tenth anniversary of the Iraq war’s commencement in 2003, observers and policymakers were still debating whether the US-led war and occupation were necessary or a wasteful use of scarce resources. As both Israel and the Palestinians remain preoccupied with their internal politics, is the US drive for a re-energized two-state solution still relevant, as the Syrian civil war spills over artificial yet recognized borders and creates an even larger humanitarian disaster for Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon? As Washington strives to bring regional economics and politics together, is it too late? By downgrading Sunni–Shia tensions in Iraq in 2003 and in the region subsequently, are American officials resorting to old concepts of ‘indispensability’ when ‘dispensability’ as a result of internal US interagency turf battles between the CIA and the Defense Department are unresolved?10 The vagaries of the Middle East persist as the Arab upheavals persist. What would constitute a change, a new

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direction in the US tendency to either ignore the region in favor of Europe or Asia and then to refocus on it obsessively? What explains the propensity to exaggerate the importance of the Middle East in US foreign policy as opposed to relationships with Latin American or African countries?11 Promoting human development along with national security in US dealings with the array of democracies, theocracies, and autocracies in the region is vital, as is rewarding those individual regional leaders who stand against terrorist groups determined to damage civilians in random attacks, not with arms deals, but with economic assistance based on good governance, as Washington has tried to do in Africa and Latin America. This requires making distinctions between what is exportable and what is not from the American experience to a region still struggling with the imperial legacies of imposed boundaries and institutional fragmentation. Now the added burdens of drought and insecure food supplies related to global warming, together with populist unrest, have fueled additional turmoil and delayed internal accommodations to the newer realities of globalization in the Middle East. These newer realities embrace both climate change and rapid urbanization as dislocating factors in traditional societies undergoing political shifts at the same time. Now as then zeal to impose solutions from the outside has often resulted in ‘tarnished outcomes’. Such outcomes are hardly unique. Indeed, what US policy in the Middle East expresses now is what John Montgomery foresaw as early as 1986, well before the end of the Cold War and the 9/11 attacks, let alone the Arab spring. The United States requires ‘skills of patient diplomacy and a national self-confidence independent of military assertiveness’ in order to be a ‘great power’ rather than a superpower.12 There should be little disagreement with this somber assessment now, as the United States itself has turned toward internal ‘renewal’ as have so many of its Middle Eastern allies and adversaries. Scholars, too, must renovate their pet theories. As F. Gregory Gauss argues in a seminal article, almost everyone ‘missed the Arab spring’, due to misreading trends that did not fit into established categories. Academic investment in such assumptions as the long-term viability of Arab dictatorships and state control of the economy, coupled with scant attention to the reinvigoration of Arab identity, left regional specialists unprepared for the political earthquakes still roiling the region.13 Both scholars and policymakers must revisit both cherished theories and practices if they are serious about a ‘new direction’. The Middle East as a region still offers the chance of testing basic truths, such as the policy wisdom associated with the late George F. Kennan. He argued that single doctrines for US foreign policy were unsuitable in the Middle East, along with Europe and Asia. These regions were the enduring subjects of US diplomatic interest and deserved the highest level of attention over time and space, although internal developments there would remain essentially beyond US control. Such an approach would correctly place sharpened realities before convoluted roadmaps, updated visions before familiar fantasies. Such a challenge awaits every US administration, specifically the painful recognition that the new rules of the game in the region are increasingly being written in the region itself rather than in outside capitals like Washington just as the contours of the game itself is changing. Midway in the US electoral cycle between 2012 and 2014, the Syrian civil war continues to offer a test case to gauge what has been learned. The overheated debate over the American role, heightened by Obama’s pronouncement that the use of chemical weapons would be a ‘red line’, even as Congressional opponents remained determined to keep the death of Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi before the US public, indicates the distance American officials must travel to bring the different strands of US domestic politics and foreign policy into some coherent framework. When regional specialists in American and British think

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tanks ask whether allies of Syria like Iran and Russia are more committed to keeping Assad in power than supporters of the various rebels are to securing his removal, they are recounting the useful bromide that many things in international relations are about other things. In this case, for example, because Russia has a lengthy agenda with the United States well beyond Syria, Vladimir Putin wishes to pursue that agenda from a position of ‘strength’, however inaccurately he and his supporters may define the concept. From this perspective, continuing to arm the Syrian regime while publicly endorsing the idea of a Geneva peace conference looks like a sensible approach in Moscow. Any coherent American framework should include both a more sophisticated appreciation of sectarian strife and an acknowledgement that Washington’s actions (or inactions) may aggravate historical grievances. As David Bromwich insists: ‘The recent past is still with us, if we take the time to look.’ This is the background against which one must assess the judgment of those persons – well placed in the media and the foreign policy elite – who have lately urged another violent intervention by the United States in Arab lands. Three days before the Benghazi hearings, on May 5 (2013) Bill Keller published a double-length op-ed in The New York Times. His column was entitled ‘Syria is not Iraq’, and its moral was adequately conveyed in Keller’s final words: ‘Getting Syria right starts with getting over Iraq.’ Bromwich goes on to advise: Let us pause to remember Iraq before we follow Keller’s invitation to get over it. Almost 4,500 Americans died in Iraq, and 32,000 came home wounded. Of the numbers of Iraqi dead that would be living had the Americans not bombed, invaded, and occupied their country, reliable estimates are harder to come by, but in 2008 The New England Journal of Medicine estimated a total of 151,000 violent deaths by June 2006; and the seven years that followed have added many thousand more.14 Citing the American naiveté, Bromwich concludes: Americans for a long time have tended to think (when we think of other countries at all) that the more new nations spring up, the better. This goes with our relaxed communitarianism but bears little relation to realities elsewhere. Our latest siege of optimism, which followed the collapse of the Soviet empire, has now been given a fair trial over a quarter of a century. It has not always worked out well. Not in the Balkans, not in the former Soviet republics, and not, it seems, in the Middle East.15 Bromwich’s analysis has angered other observers who see these warnings as condoning US passivity and divorcing American values from the conduct of foreign policy. Leon Wieseltier, for instance, in a series of blistering opinion columns in The New Republic, warns that enthusiasm for elevating US domestic politics over American international leadership has damaged not only the chances for significant political change regionally as a result of the Arab spring but also the quality of life in the United States itself. By underwriting ‘a light footprint’ diplomatically as well as militarily, the Obama administration has settled for potential irrelevance globally and cynicism at home, a toxic combination that has severed conscience from action, especially in response to the ‘butchery’ in Syria. He argues that ‘bystanderism’ as a policy stance looks appealing but is self-defeating in the longer run when the United States will have to deal with its abnegation of responsibility for a destabilized Middle East whose fortunes the United States might have shaped more decisively.16

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For the even more historically minded who see ‘the longer game’ in the Middle East for the US and other outsiders, reviewing others’ imperial histories is enlightening as a useful corrective to the repeated failings of ‘presentism’ or amnesia in US foreign policy scholarship and practice. Secretary of State John Kerry’s belated public statement that the United States waited ‘too late’ to deal effectively with the Syrian conflict, so that only bad options were now available, points up the difficulties of over-confidence in international conferences as a modus operandi, when other instruments have failed. If nothing else, such public statements hint of a large awareness that the United States cannot remake other nations, that world politics requires that we accept that the 21st century will feature multiple versions of order and modernity. Though controversies will continue over whether the United States is now, or was then, ‘an empire’, if only a reluctant one, lessons from the British experience, the even more distant past, may still be germane. As Maya Jasanoff asserts: Colonization and territorial expansion have been normalized under the umbrella of nation-states, whether in China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia, or our own United States. Military interventions take place in the name of a universalized concept of ‘human rights’, and are given the post-colonial seal of approval by multinational organizations. Forms of economic and cultural domination have been subsumed under the heading of ‘globalization’. All these concepts have sharp critics, to be sure – but none currently carries so wide a negative rhetorical charge in English as ‘empire’: But the truth is that ‘empire’ is far from finished. Even the British empire lingers on in some shadowy sense today. You can see it on the map: in the overlapping geographies of imperial coaling stations with today’s major bank headquarters and news bureaus, in the continuing prominence of certain geostrategic hotspots, in the global standard of Greenwich mean time. As we grapple with the acute material challenges that confront our globalized and digitized world – looming resource shortages, changing climate, pandemic disease – we may well find that empire becomes as palpable, and as mappable, a reality as ever.17 These useful reminders of ‘overstretch’, so vividly depicted in the vast literature on empires, a literature closely mirroring the contemporary debates on decline, are especially welcome in an era of Big Data and celebrity culture, of sports metaphors in foreign policy analysis and 24-hour news coverage, of blogs and Wikileaks. They arrive as the lure of returning to the re-imagined US isolationism of the 1930s may seem attractive. Remedying America’s societal inequalities and crumbling infrastructure is crucial. Nevertheless, undertaking such domestic tasks as if international imperatives in the Middle East were static rather than dynamic would be foolish, as recent Republican and Democratic US administrations have discovered. Scholars will continue to speculate about whether America’s fate will resemble that of Britain, France, Russia, Turkey, and others whose empires are now history.18 Policymakers, true to their own preoccupations, are more likely to recall George Shultz’s warnings about the Middle East in his 1993 memoir. He titled those chapters ‘Progress and despair’.19 More to the point, as President Obama has reshuffled his second-term national security team, with an eye to his legacy, and has appointed loyal close friends like Susan Rice and Samantha

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Power to high-level positions, may be Shultz’s often paraphrased, rueful observation that: ‘I knew everything would be all right once things settled down. Then I realized that things never settle down.’20 Now, as at the time of our first edition, the management of American power is at the center of world politics. Of course, US political leaders may repeat the mistakes of the past, especially the tendency to personalize foreign policy or to outsource the burdens of leadership that are still required. To govern is still to choose. If so, a third edition of ‘New directions’ explaining why some paths were taken and others rejected will be needed then as urgently as this second edition is needed now. The recent Big Ideas and Master Narratives of US foreign policy, for example, ‘smart power’, so carefully assessed in this edition, may have different names then. Such concepts will be as difficult to ‘operationalize’ then as they are now. Significantly, they will still reflect the more enduring verities of American foreign policy in a rapidly changing international system in which the temptations to put new data into old categories is powerful, yet dangerous, perhaps less so if we accept that the inherent tension between US interests and values will be defined and redefined generationally at home and abroad. If the Arab spring becomes the ‘Arab quarter century’21 or longer, any ‘new directions’ will become outdated unless we recognize that this tension in the American polity is structural. As this chapter has shown, analysis of a complex region of the world, the Middle East to some, the Near East to others, requires attention to detail but also a bigger picture, one that demands the insights of both theorists and policymakers, as well as regional experts, journalists, social scientists, humanists, and, increasingly, physical scientists.

Notes 1 See Linda B. Miller, ‘Seasonal adjustments?’, Argentia, 5 (1), December 2011 (electronic magazine of the US Foreign Policy Working Group, BISA). 2 Robert J. Lieber, Power and Willpower in the American Future, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. See also Robert Kagan, The World America Made, London: Vintage Books, 2012. 3 Michael Oren, Power, Faith and Fantasy, New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2007. 4 Ibid., p. 506. 5 The origins of the concept of the United States ‘leading from behind’ are traced carefully in Ryan Lizza, ‘The consequentialist’, The New Yorker, May 2, 2011, pp. 44–55. 6 See, for extended analysis, Walter Russell Mead, ‘The Tea Party and American foreign policy’, Foreign Affairs, 90 (2), March/April 2011, pp. 28–44. See also Theda Skocpol and Vanessa Williamson, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012. 7 These reactions are brilliantly reported in Robin Wright, Rock the Casbah, Simon & Schuster, 2012. See also Nicolas Pelham, ‘Is Libya cracking up?’, in Robert B. Silvers (ed.), The New York Review Abroad, New York, NY: New York Review of Books, 2013. 8 This is the principal contention of, among others, Fawaz A. Gerges, Obama and the Middle East, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 9 Marc Lynch, The Arab Uprising, New York, NY: Basic Books/PublicAffairs, 2012. See also Emile Hokayem, Syria’s Uprising, London: Routledge, 2013. 10 Vali Nasar, The Dispensable Nation, New York, NY: Doubleday, 2013. 11 Richard N. Haass, ‘The irony of American strategy’, Foreign Affairs, 92 (3), May/June 2013, pp. 57–67. 12 John Montgomery, Aftermath, Westport, CT: Auburn House, 1986. See also Richard Solomon and Nigel Quinney (eds), American Negotiating Behavior, US Institute for Peace, 2010, and also Stanley Hoffmann, World Disorders, Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. 13 F. Gregory Gauss III, ‘Why Middle East studies missed the Arab spring’, Foreign Affairs, 90 (4), July/August 2011, pp. 81–90.

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David Bromwich, ‘Stay out of Syria!’, The New York Review of Books, June 20, 2013, p. 4. Ibid., p. 6. See also Stanley Hoffmann, Chaos and Violence, Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. See Leon Wieseltier, ‘Washington diarist’, The New Republic, July 1, 2013, p. 63. Maya Jasanoff, ‘Hearts of darkness’, The New Republic, June 10, 2013, p. 53. See, for instance, Charles S. Maier, Among Empires, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. 19 George Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. 20 For a sweeping overview tracing the elite networks of US policymakers like Shultz in both government and in the corporate worlds, consult David Rothkopf, Running the World, New York, NY: Basic Books/PublicAffairs, 2005. See also Dennis Ross, Statecraft, New York, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007. 21 Thomas L. Friedman argues for this verdict in The New York Times, April 12, 2013.For additional sources, especially of ‘mainstream’ opinion, see such journals as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Survival, The National Interest, The American Interest, International Security, International Affairs, and International Politics. See also journals of ‘ideas’ including The Atlantic, Harpers, Commentary, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and The New Republic. 14 15 16 17 18

Websites www.newamericancentury.com www.pbs.org www.theatlantic.com www.carnegieendowment.com www.abuaardvark.typepad.com www.juancole.com www.thewashingtonnote.com www.washingtonpost.com www.nytimes.com www.iht.com www.cfr.org

18 Obama, Wikileaks, and American power Inderjeet Parmar

Introduction The publication of over one million confidential US government documents (including up to 250,000 classified US diplomatic cables) by the Wikileaks whistle-blowing media organization in 2010–11, added to the leaking of several hundred thousand confidential official documents related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2007, and hundreds of files related to inmates at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility on Cuba, in 2010, raises a myriad issues for students of US politics and foreign policy: not only in relation to the contents of the documents, but also the response of the US administration to the Wikileaks organization, its leader, Julian Assange, and the alleged source of the leaks, US army private Bradley Manning. There are also wider contextual issues related to increasing government secrecy and opposition to transparency, and the pursuit of ‘whistle-blowers’, most recently of intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, that expose malpractice, including the use of torture by government personnel. The leaked documents do not represent just the largest leak of official US documents since the Pentagon Papers were exposed by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971 and published in The New York Times, they expose US violations of the rule of law, and details of the inmates held at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre. Collectively, and in a broader context, the Wikileaks revelations cast a rare light on contemporary US foreign and national security concerns, attitudes, and activities across the globe and constitute a valuable resource for scholars and citizens alike. Where investigative journalism may have fallen short, it may well be that Wikileaks has shed light on American power by supplying detailed, official, and confidential documents on some of the most significant issues of our time, permitting scholars to compare public rhetoric with actual practice. Even more broadly, Wikileaks’ autonomy of large corporations and the American and other states constitutes, in the words of Manuel Castells, ‘a fundamental threat to the ability to silence, on which domination has always been based’.1 It is surprising then that the Wikileaks ‘episode’ has been relegated to the political margins as far as US foreign policy is concerned, or perhaps it reflects the rather narrow boundaries of the sub-field. The dominant message from many prominent scholars from the very beginning was to dismiss the leaked documents as of little significance, even though only a small minority of US embassy cables had by then been released, arguing that they revealed little or nothing not already known or, indeed, unwittingly showed US diplomats in a positive light. The scholarly and mass media agenda having been set, despite US and foreign publics’ disquiet, amid calls for draconian punishment against Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, the issue has been pushed to the margins of public attention even by the media organizations that used, and continue to use, information made available by Wikileaks.

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In effect, the issue has been seen as an isolated episode rather than having any broader ramifications. Yet, the Obama administration declared the ‘leakage’ an attack on the entire international community and set about pursuing Assange, Wikileaks, and Manning, employing legal and extra-legal means via state and non-state agencies, and stepped up legal and extra-legal efforts, based on techniques developed in the ‘War on Terror’, to extirpate whistleblowing organizations that dare expose American state secrets. This chapter suggests that the Wikileaks issue raises broad questions about the character and exercise of American power which should inform any evaluation of the degree to which its values align with behaviour. It also proves revealing in regard to the central claim of candidate Obama in 2008: that his administration would mark a significant shift in policy from the Bush administrations’, which the Wikileaks cables reveal to be a hollow claim. This chapter offers a basic analytical framework to help assess the documents’ impacts and significance, considers some evidence from the cables themselves, and evaluates the impact of the cables and the Wikileaks phenomenon for American power and image in the world, particularly its ‘soft power’. The chapter begins, however, by examining the underlying narratives of US power, the worldviews revealed therein in regard to allies and enemies, as well as the treatment of Julian Assange and Bradley Manning. To large numbers of people not ‘in the know’, the secret embassy cables and other documents contain ‘news’: such publics include Americans but also peoples of Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. And they were not so complacent about the messages revealed by Wikileaks, including the official confirmation, to broad criticism, that the United States was engaged in targeted assassinations using unmanned aerial vehicles, i.e., drones. Cables alluded to the hope – a vain one, as it turned out – that the Obama administration would reverse the trend. In fact, Obama has overseen the six-fold expansion of drone attacks and expanded their use to several parts of Africa. The leaked documents raise the issue of the ethics of US diplomacy: there are doublestandards revealed in the secret cables or at the very least potential moral ambiguities rather than black-and-white representations of friends and foes. There are confidences undermined, reputations tarnished, integrities questioned. Cables reveal the extent of US state and corporate cooperation in Nigeria, for example, a state with massive oil and gas reserves and a long history of foreign domination. They also indicate that Nigeria could end up like Pakistan in 25 years – socially and economically polarized, politically unstable, with insurgencies related to political Islam within its borders. The recent payment of a fine by former US vice president Richard Cheney, among other oil company executives, to avoid prosecution for bribery of public officials in return for billions of dollars of oil and gas contracts in Nigeria underlines the point: America’s insistence on good governance, eradication of corruption, and political reform as keys to development in Africa is undermined by major oil and other corporations closely tied to America’s preferred economic model of development. The fact that double standards are well known to occur does not depoliticize and close the matter. Such behaviours violate publicly-stated positions of American administrations and undermine their legitimacy, deplete their reservoir of goodwill, the soft power that is supposed to make them so attractive to others that others will seek to be ‘more like us’ and ‘want what we want’.

Problems and advantages of the leaked documents The leaked documents provide something approaching a slice of American diplomatic transmissions, discussions, opinions of their contacts with foreign diplomats, governmental and

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political leaders, military officers, and so on. Despite the quantity, therefore, of documents, there are limits in their use as a source of ‘final’ conclusions on any specific question. Their representativeness is also questionable – what proportion of total cables sent do these represent? Are they typical or selected for their ‘novelty’ value? Wikileaks as an organization filtered the cables before release, and their preferred newspaper outlets further filtered them. Consequently, scholars using Wikileaks documents need to supplement them with other sources – such as biographies, memoirs, interviews – as well as background historical and political context, to make ‘sense’ of them, to draw any meaningful conclusions that may stand the test of time. The other point is that the embassy cables, which inform the bulk of this chapter, offer only a single department’s ‘view of the world’ – that of the US Department of State, and not that of the Department of Defense, Commerce, Treasury, etc. There are few White House documents among them although discussions of Guantanamo may be found in other leaked documents. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence of inter-departmental discussions, positions, and conclusions, suggesting that embassy officers were at least attempting to offer a rounded view of US administration viewpoints. From the ‘other’ side, discussions are reported with a range of foreign contacts from across the political, financial, governmental, and military worlds. Supplemented with Guantanamo files and the war logs, we obtain a broader picture of the mindsets of US administrations in recent times, including Obama’s. The secret embassy cables offer some very interesting material for scholarly analysis. Given due caution, historical contextualization, and supplementation with other knowledge, the cables offer an opportunity to scholars to emerge from their own silos and see a bigger picture of American global power. Indeed, that was the original post-9/11 rationale for making available to up to three million US government personnel the ‘level-3 secrecy’ cables. Government personnel would, it was hoped, be able to make intellectual connections between happenings in one part of the world with those in other parts and, perhaps, develop analyses that prevented the recurrence of the terrible terrorist violence of September 11 2001, which witnessed thousands of deaths in New York City and Washington, DC. The unmonitored and unregulated breadth and unfettered nature and extent of the access, however, paved the way to the documents’ leaking. The purposes of America’s power – soft, hard, or smart – according to Joseph Nye, the author of the concepts, and President Barack Obama and the then Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is to enhance America’s global standing, authority, and prestige, making it so attractive such that others will ‘want what we want’, without the need for carrots and sticks. Credible American power enhances the nation’s ability to maintain and develop global institutions and rules that make smoother the relatively free flow of goods, people, ideas, and money around the world, strengthening the market system and diminishing ‘threats’ to those flows and the market system. The purpose of American power is to defend that view and practice of national interests – a world system conducive to American leadership if not total predominance. Such a global role requires constant attention, the deployment of vast resources of all kinds in relation to other countries, regions, and international organizations. It requires the development and orchestration of governmental and private networks, a truly imperial system of relationships designed to promote American influence through trade, aid, investments, public diplomacy, incentives, threats, and the use of lethal military force. In effect, Nye has broken down into its base components the ‘alchemics’ of a complex compound of powers and capabilities that constitute the, in practice rather messy, idea and attempts at American global hegemony. To maintain hegemony and secure favourable outcomes,

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however, much depends on actual and perceived American global behaviour, and its ‘image’, not to mention high levels of legitimacy at home in regard to its global mission. Wikileaks has performed an important service by furnishing official documents related to the ways of American power in the contemporary period. A basic analytical framework It is useful to develop an analytical framework to assess the impact of leaked US embassy cables, through observable behaviour from the US administration. A four-level framework is proposed ranging from zero impact to highly significant impact: • •

•

•

Zero impact: no publicly-observable effects, either in media releases or other public statements. Insignificant/minor impact: this may consist of statements to the media indicating administration position, condemnation, denials of the information’s novelty or significance, possibly claims that leaked information advantages the administration in some ways. Significant impact: this would require active management of the problem, which may include condemnation, legal, and other action against perpetrators; reform of information security procedures; a media campaign to limit damage; PR offensive against perpetrators. Highly significant impact: this may be divided into four parts – legal: i.e., major legal changes such as new legislation in the United States and legal action by others (UN, other leaders, non-state organizations, individuals) against the US administration; opinion: shifts in opinion abroad; diplomatic: damage to relations with key states and international institutions; policy: shifts in US foreign policy due to information leaks.

Evidence from Wikileaks This section of the chapter examines some of the major findings. Starting with a general overview of the underlying narratives of US power, the discussion moves on to consider evidence of US diplomats’ spying on foreign UN officials in New York, in contravention of international law; the half-heartedness of the Obama administration’s attempts to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and the continuation of indefinite detention of terror suspects; the protection and privileging by the United States of Israel over its Arab allies; embarrassing revelations about Britain’s attitude to the US alliance, including its racialized character; information on Sino–US interdependence; possible influence of Wikileaks on the ‘Arab spring’; the United States’ overt and covert campaign against Wikileaks; and the treatment meted out to Bradley Manning. The cables reveal a mixture of the ordinary and extraordinary nature of America’s global interventions: everywhere is an American national interest, in a world that is clearly interconnected and interdependent – Islamic insurgents dealing in drugs in South America are constructed as part of a worldwide insurgency that will take generations to quell not to mention gargantuan resources. Nigeria is the ‘next’ Pakistan while Yemen could become the next Afghanistan – full of insurgents and ‘ungoverned spaces’. There is revealed a global systemic worldview that, as Madeleine Albright noted, means America ‘sees further’, takes broader views of ‘local’ issues. It is the world’s ‘regional’ power, self-evidently indispensable.

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Related to this is the composite message or subtext: an imperial creed exhibiting an unalloyed belief in the United States as a pragmatic, moderate, rational, reasonable, helpful, progressive, conflict-reducing, peace-seeking, responsible power. There is little room for self-doubt, nuance, or ambiguity on this matter. Yet, for all the references to the heavy burden of responsibility, remarkably little reference is made to the fact that countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, among others, despite their implication as funders and sources of terrorism, have been American allies, and recipients of aid, trade, weapons, and military training for several decades. Clearly, ‘responsibility’ has many meanings. Given the self-confident character of the American self-image revealed, anyone who disagrees with US ideas or policies gets short shrift: opponents and critics are quite routinely referred to as ‘anti-American’ and undermined as personally or psychologically deficient. Spanish former judge, Baltasar Garzon, for example is portrayed as ‘controversial’, mainly because he investigated US allies like Chile’s former General Augusto Pinochet and critiqued inmates’ treatment and detention at Guantanamo Bay. Critique or investigation of the ‘reasonable’, ‘responsible’, and ‘moderate’ can mean just one thing: that critics are, by definition, unreasonable, irresponsible, and extreme: anti-American.2 Nuance and ambiguity are revealed in US dealings with recognized allies involved in funding and protecting and even organizing terrorist organizations that attack American and other allied forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Cables confirm that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), which receives large-scale support from the United States, backs, trains, protects, and organizes various terrorist groups and insurgents in Pakistan and Afghanistan, as well as those that attack Indian Kashmir and the ‘mainland’. Pakistan is described as an unstable state, with lawless ungoverned spaces, armed with nuclear weapons in violation of international non-proliferation treaties, receiving billions of dollars in US aid – long before Bush and during the Obama administration. Yet, despite US aid, and the personal popularity of President Obama, ‘America is viewed with some suspicion by the majority of Pakistan’s people and its institutions… We are viewed at best as a fickle friend, and at worst as the reason why Pakistan is attacking its own’. The Pakistani administration is also officially confirmed as supporting US drone attacks in its own territory, with premier Gilani saying that ‘We’ll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it’. Embassy cables also note largescale extra-judicial killings by security forces in frontier areas during anti-terrorist operations. For fear of undermining military ‘goodwill’, however, cables caution against public criticism. The issue here is the impacts of such revelations on public opinion in those states. Being undemocratic and, sometimes, feudal polities, there are few legal channels for expressing dissent. In such circumstances, the secret cables, despite confirming what many experts already knew, take on an incendiary quality: publics finding out, and confirming with confidential documents, that their governments are completely at odds with public opinion that, for example, sees Israel and the United States as the main threats to Middle Eastern peace, not Iran. This has the potential to increase donations to and support for terror groups, not to mention fomenting rebellion against pro-United States and other regimes, including, as argued below, partly triggering the ‘Arab spring’ of 2011–12.

Illegal spying on UN and other diplomats and countries This is one of the most damaging revelations from the embassy cables: officially-sanctioned international law-breaking by US diplomats. Not only illegal, the activity undermines America’s self-promotion as champion of the rule of law and brings under suspicion diplomats collecting information normally gathered by intelligence agencies.

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While the then secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, is noted as ordering surveillance on Kofi Annan, the then UN secretary-general, in the run up to the Iraq War of 2003, Hillary Clinton is revealed to order, at the behest of the CIA, US diplomats to collect various kinds of information on UN ambassadors, including personal and private information such as DNA, fingerprints, iris scans, passwords and encryption codes, email addresses, credit card numbers, frequent-flyer account information, and so on. In addition, and somewhat more conventionally, diplomats are asked for biographical information on UN diplomats. Current UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, and his office and secretariat were targeted as were America’s allies and rivals on the Security Council. The information collected was to be passed on to the ‘intelligence community’. These actions are in direct violation of international agreements: the 1946 UN convention on privileges and immunities, part of the US– UN Headquarters agreement; and the 1961 Vienna convention on diplomatic relations which protects ‘official correspondence’, passwords, etc. Law professors and public officials in Australia called on their government to publicly complain to the United States about this criminal activity, rather than pursuing those who made the illegal activity public. In a number of cables to US Africa representatives, a request to collect information included markings of weaponry and military base plans. Diplomats in Cairo, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Amman, Damascus, and Riyadh were asked to collect information on Palestine Authority and Hamas leaders’ travel plans and vehicles, among other things. The cables reveal not just the blurring of the distinction between diplomacy and spying, but also show that the range of personal information being gathered extended well beyond the usual, something that seriously undermines trust and goodwill, key components of ‘soft power’. Clinton was forced to apologize for the spying order to her international counterparts and the UN secretary general, although no mention was made of any decision to rescind the order. ‘in the dark halls… and the detention cells of Guantanamo, we have compromised our most precious values’ (presidential candidate Obama 2008) One of newly-elected President Obama’s first actions was an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility for ‘enemy combatants’ exempt from the protections of the US constitution and Geneva conventions: ‘The detention facilities at Guantánamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order,’ Obama stated on 22 January 2009. Yet, by 2013, no action to close the facility had been undertaken, and at least 150 detainees remain incarcerated there, mostly without charge. Indeed, in regard to the Bagram Airport, Afghanistan, detention facility’s inmates, the Obama administration successfully defeated legal attempts in the US Supreme Court to extend US constitutional protections. The Guantanamo files, published by Wikileaks, confirm not only the unlawful and brutal treatment and torture of prisoners but also how little the Obama administration did to enforce its own executive order. Consequently, as with the spying order to US diplomats, the Obama administration did not break with the policies pursued by its predecessor, President George W. Bush. The fig-leaf of potential congressional opposition served to rationalize the failure to close Guantanamo but the decision to prevent the extension of constitutional protections to Bagram inmates was taken by the Obama administration alone. As campaigning blogger Glenn Greenwald notes, one of the most notorious cases of illegal detention without charge and then release after six years of captivity is Al Jazeera cameraman, Sami al-Haj:

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this was one of the most discussed cases in the Muslim world – that the US would imprison an Al Jazeera journalist without charges for years – yet… it was almost entirely suppressed in establishment media outlets… even as American journalists obsessed on the imprisonment of American journalists by Iran and North Korea for far shorter periods of time. Al-Haj, who consistently claimed that he was interrogated almost exclusively about his work for Al Jazeera, and hardly at all about being an ‘Al Qaeda courier’, is vindicated by the leaked files. His personal file notes that he was illegally detained ‘to provide information on… the al-Jazeera news network’s training programme, telecommunications equipment, and newsgathering operations in Chechnya, Kosovo and Afghanistan, including the network’s acquisition of a video of UBL [Osama bin Laden] and a subsequent interview with UBL’. Viewed in conjunction with the UN diplomats’ illegal spying order, this suggests that under the cover of pursuing Al Qaeda, the United States persecuted a law-abiding journalist whose work for a legal media organization had not violated any laws. If President George W. Bush was a champion of exempting the United States from inconvenient international laws, President Obama continued the tradition. Instead of closing Guantanamo, President Obama in his first term ordered the indefinite detention of most remaining inmates. Yet, as the Guantanamo files show, the sources and collation of information as to the ‘dangerous’ character of inmates is deeply flawed and should occasion significant public concern. The documents show an intelligence operation dependent on informants, from within and without the prison camp, based largely on rumour and innuendo, including self-ascribed Al Qaeda insiders, many of whom were subsequently released. In one particular case, of a man held for nine years, a file revealed what The New York Times calls ‘the haunting conclusion of his 2008 assessment: “detainee’s identity remains uncertain”’. In 2011, President Obama ordered his indefinite detention. The failure to close Guantanamo, the Obama White House claims, was congressional pressure about the security threat to the United States. However, a Washington Post investigation in 2011 revealed that just one congressman had raised any objections to a programme to release some inmates into his constituency in northern Virginia, that even supportive congressmen were not mobilized, that there was no attempt to use the party whips to ‘twist arms’ as is usually the case when any administration resolves to take firm action. In short, there was little resolve and little coordination of effort from the White House, according to the Post. Yet, a report necessitated by his own executive order indicated to Obama that a mere 20 inmates had evidence against them that was deemed ‘court-worthy’. Finally, a European court ruled in December 2012 that the abduction, forced disappearance, and torture of Kaled El-Masri, a German national, by Macedonian authorities at the behest of the CIA, was illegal and that the state of Macedonia was responsible. The court cited Wikileaks cables as one source of evidence in reaching its verdict. This is the first time a state has been tried and found guilty by a court of extraordinary rendition, torture, forced disappearance. Once the CIA realized they had rendered an innocent man, they dumped him in the Albanian countryside. El-Masri managed to get back to Germany and start legal proceedings that the United States dismissed during the Bush and Obama administrations, backed by the Supreme Court. The European Court found that a ‘total absence of accountability and remedy in the USA in relation to the CIA’s rendition and secret detention programmes operated during the administration of President George W. Bush’. The Court stated that ‘the concept of “State secrets” has often been invoked to obstruct the search for truth’. According to Amnesty International, ‘Both the administration of President George W. Bush

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and that of President Barack Obama have argued for judicial dismissal of such lawsuits, while at the same time failing to ensure other routes to accountability and remedy’. While the historic ruling indicates many more such cases will come to light in Europe, rumours of a return to the rule of law under an Obama presidency had clearly been exaggerated.

America’s allies and foes in embassy cables Much of the US official embarrassment with the release of cables relates to damage to allies and rivals. Below is a flavour of the way Britain, Israel, and China were portrayed: Britain collaborated with the United States over transfer of the Chagos Islands on a racialized basis, exposing one element upon which the ‘special relationship’ is thought to rest by British officials. Cables related to Israel cover much ground including the conscious aim of maintaining Israel’s military edge over powers in the Middle East, including other US allies. The schizophrenic character of Sino–US relations is painted in various cables – a kind of ‘competitive cooperation’ that could yet spill over into military conflict. Special relationship I: Britain Wikileaks cables proved especially embarrassing to the David Cameron administration regarding the unequal relationship between Britain and the United States. During the election campaign of 2010, leaders of what developed into a Coalition government were proclaiming their ‘independence’ of, and criticizing New Labour’s ‘slavishness’ towards the United States while, privately, Cameron’s foreign policy team promised the United States a thoroughly ‘pro-American regime’, if elected. William Hague and Liam Fox, who went on to head the FCO and MoD, respectively reassured the Americans they would be loyal, with Fox promising increasing military ‘interoperability’. Told by an American representative that the United States wanted a ‘pro-American regime’, Hague reassured him of his loyalty by invoking blood ties: his sister is American. He holidays there. America, he said, is the ‘other country to turn to’, the ‘essential’ relationship, for people like him – ‘Thatcher’s children’. Luckily, American officials provided reassurance that Britain was safe and special: it provides ‘unparalleled’ help in achieving American foreign policy objectives. The same official thought it advantageous to ‘keep HMG off balance about its current standing with us’ as it might make London ‘more willing to respond favourably when pressed for assistance’. Yet, he noted, ‘The UK’s commitment of resources – financial, military, diplomatic – in support of United States global priorities remains unparalleled’. Britain is willing to fight wars in faraway lands alongside the United States and try to marshal others’ support as well. This makes Britain almost indispensable to the United States. So, the ‘essential’ nation to Britain appears indispensable to the United States too. Together, the Anglo-Americans keep going the global system. None of this will be especially surprising to anyone remotely familiar with British foreign policy. What is interesting is the thoroughly subservient tone and character brought out by leaked US embassy cables and the complete confidence that the special relationship remains central to the UK. Other embassy cable revelations concerning Anglo-American relations offer evidence of the enduring alliance between the two countries: evading laws to permit the United States to keep cluster bombs on UK territory; protecting US interests in the Iraq inquiry; and trying to block the return of the people of the Chagos Islands to their homeland, several decades after Britain evicted them to make way for a US military base in the Indian Ocean.

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The racial-colonial attitude at the heart of the relationship – pointed out above – is further underlined in regard to the Chagos Islands: their people are referred to as ‘Man Fridays’ in embassy cables. ‘Man Friday’ was ‘discovered’ by Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe on ‘his’ desert island, and civilized by him after a suitable period of tutelage. The Chagos Islands were transferred by Britain to the United States to establish a military base and 2000 islanders evicted to facilitate this, back in the 1960s. To undercut the islanders’ decades-long campaign to return to their homeland, FCO officials decided to declare the islands a ‘marine park’ or ‘reserve’ which would prevent the islanders’ return and permit continuation of the US military base. The FCO official stated that ‘We do not regret the removal of the population,’ especially as United States and UK occupation of the islands is what accounts for their ‘pristine’ condition. There would be no ‘Man Fridays’ on the islands in future either. Special relationship II: maintaining Israel’s ‘qualitative military edge’ The United States is committed to maintaining Israel’s ‘qualitative military edge’ over other US allies in the region. In that regard, in 2008, the United States pledged $30 billion aid to Israel from 2008 to 2018 in order to keep it ahead of other powers in the Middle East. Obama has maintained the pledge as part of his National Security Strategy, 2010. In response to Israeli objections to arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and fears that such countries might be future adversaries of the United States and Israel, the US representative responded that weapons sold to the Saudis, Egypt, Jordan, etc. merely replace those which they have bought from the Americans in the past. They are not new-generation, more powerful weapons and weapons systems, providing qualitatively enhanced military power. Implicit within that US reassurance to Israel is a two-tier alliance policy with Israel in pole position – the really special relationship – leaving a lingering belief that the Saudis et al. are far less trustworthy or reliable. This is further underscored by the rationale for supplying them US arms: they are ‘to convince these regimes that their best interests lie with the moderate camp rather than with Iran’. They could go either way, in short. Cables confirm that US representatives agree with the Israeli assessment that the Goldstone Report into war crimes committed by both sides during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in December 2008, was biased in remit and result. Israelis were reassured, according to cables, that the United States was doing everything in its power to prevent the progress of the report towards the UN Security Council for action, and a request was made to Israel to supply additional information and investigations that undermined the report. The aim was for the Obama administration to ‘help deflect any further damage from the Report’. China: global economic responsibility There are numerous upbeat assessments of China’s potential as a major ally in stabilizing the global economic system if only it would take greater responsibility and jettison naïve notions about ‘non-interference’ in other nations’ affairs. One assessment of the next 30 years of US–Chinese relations echoed British concerns about American irresponsibility in adopting ‘isolationist’ policies during the 1920s. It was predicted in that cable that as China’s global interests develop, it will realize that the protection of those interests and the system that promotes them requires active intervention. The burden of global economic responsibility which the more experienced and wiser Americans have learned requires continual attention to systemic institutions and rules.

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The cables reveal China’s willingness to engage in international financial institutions, suggesting reform of the IMF, and even integration of China’s currency, RMB, into the Fund’s Special Drawing Rights function. There are US calls, supported by China, for broadening representation on IFIs (international financial institutions) to reflect the new economic balance of forces in the world. Cables also reveal British economic and financial diplomacy to further integrate China in the world system. Despite warning about ‘Chinese hubris’ brought about by its new-found economic clout, cables make crystal clear the power of the Chinese economy. In one cable, Hillary Clinton refers to the difficulties of ‘talking tough’ to one’s ‘banker’. There are few anxieties, however, about China’s withdrawal from trade with the United States or destabilizing the dollar. As Chinese representatives are quoted as saying, China has a ‘huge stake in how the US manages the dollar’, rejects protectionism in principle, and wants to play a more constructive role in the global economy. If at the systemic and bilateral levels Sino–US relations appear positive, in the main, US embassy cables related to Africa are less optimistic. There appears to be no explicit recognition of a Chinese economic, security, or intelligence threat to US interests in Africa, though the need actively to monitor Chinese activities is emphasized. In particular, one cable bemoans China’s ‘authoritarian capitalism’ model, noted as ‘contrarian’ and ‘politically threatening’ because the Chinese are willing to do business with all regimes. China operates a principle of ‘non-interference’ in the internal affairs of nations in which it invests. China, it is noted, has neither morals nor altruism, acting purely out of self-interest. This was stated by assistant secretary for African Affairs, Johnnie Carson, to a group of representatives of international oil companies in Nigeria. Kenya was judged to be a major destination of Chinese economic influence in Africa. Its imports and exports with Kenya were more than double America’s, and China’s role in developing Kenya’s roads, railways, ports, and oil industry contrasts with US efforts to promote political and governance reform. China’s sale and installation of telecommunication and computer facilities is noted as are arms and ammunition sales. Even more problematically, Chinese investors are criticized for failing to transfer knowledge and technology to Kenyans, using mainly imported Chinese labour, and being involved in ivory smuggling. Fearing a possible backlash – ‘blowback’ is the term used – cables urge the United States not to be too closely associated with China’s economic interests in Kenya. As China engages in more and more peace-keeping operations, and its navy has begun patrolling the Gulf of Aden in search of Somali pirates, questions are asked about the Chinese armed forces: are they an additional global resource or a new threat? Overall, the embassy cables reveal a schizophrenic attitude to China under Bush, and which has broadly continued under the leadership of President Obama.

Wikileaks and the Arab spring The causes of uprisings, rebellions, and revolutions are always difficult to locate and disentangle. But as New York Times editor Bill Keller (no friend of Julian Assange or Wikileaks) argues, if Wikileaks did not cause the rebellion in Tunisia in December 2010 that triggered anti-government protests and uprisings across the Middle East, ‘it certainly fuelled it’. The description in US embassy cables of governmental corruption, human rights violations, and humiliations, of greed and amassing of great wealth in very poor and unequal societies, across the Middle East, appears to have added fuel to the protests that brought down established regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, and bolstered uprisings elsewhere, including

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Bahrain, Libya, and Syria. The role of Facebook, Twitter, and the internet more generally in making viral the Wikileaks embassy cables, confirming in stark confidential US embassy dispatches for the whole world to see the depth of unprotested corruption, may well have had a significant effect on the uprisings against established regimes. Certainly it is worthwhile to consider some, admittedly, circumstantial evidence. In Tunisia, the Tunileaks website published nation-specific US embassy cables at the end of November 2010 – several weeks ahead of the uprisings there, initially triggered by the self-immolation of a young market-stall holder, Mohammed Bouazizi, in December 2010. The fact that millions of people had internet access assisted the process of informing the citizenry of the corruption and contempt of their leaders. Tunisia reportedly has the highest proportion of Facebook users in the world. In Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere, a very similar message struck home: that the effectively unremovable leaders and their cronies were amassing ever greater wealth at the expense of the people and were preparing to hand power to family members upon stepping down from office, as in the case of Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak. In Yemen, the president joked about and drank whisky with US General David Petraeus, while portraying an image of Islamic abstention, in addition to cables reporting that the drone attacks in Yemen that President Saleh had claimed been carried out by his army had been conducted by American forces. Across the region, Al Jazeera’s role must not be underestimated in spreading the word that the US ambassador to Tunisia had described Tunisia’s leaders as a ‘quasi-mafia’ that coveted ‘cash, services, land, property, or (yes) even your yacht’. Within the Arab world, a Doha Debate poll in early 2011 found that across 17 Arab countries, 60 per cent believed that the Wikileaks revelations played an important role in the uprisings across the region; the same percentage believed that the cables would change the way in which governments behaved in future, and that the world became a better place because of Wikileaks. This is further ballast for the argument that the role of Wikileaks in fomenting and fuelling change in the region should not be discounted. It is paradoxical that Hillary Clinton played down the cables’ significance in order to diminish the status of Wikileaks. Yet, as we shall see in the next section of this chapter, publicly proclaiming an organization inconsequential does not preclude very aggressive attempts to destroy it.

Attack on Wikileaks, Assange, and Manning The Obama administration has waged a systematic campaign to destroy the Wikileaks organization, using legal means, public agencies, as well as private information security and financial corporations. The message is crystal clear: anyone who ‘blows the whistle’ on government behaviour, without authorization from the administration, will be located and punished, including prosecution under the Espionage Act (1917). Currently, the Obama administration has invoked the Espionage Act more frequently than any previous administration. Conversely, the Obama administration remains free to leak to the media official, classified information that serves its own interests: the ‘kill lists’ for action under the drone programme; the US–Israeli cyber-attacks on Iran through the Stuxnet computer virus which, had Iran committed on the United States would, according to the Obama administration, be construed as an act of war; and leakage of the details of the operation to kill Osama bin Laden in his Pakistan hideout, to further promote Obama’s strongman image ahead of the 2012 elections. That Obama aims to continue to keep whistle-blowers under pressure is further signalled by the signing statement accompanying the National Defense Authorization

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Act (2013) in which the president argued that he would ignore anti-whistleblowing legislation where it conflicted with his authority. He would remain the final arbiter of legitimate whistleblowing, undermining a law his administration signed in November 2012. In the immediate aftermath of the leaks in late 2010, political pressure was brought to bear on several US organizations, via public calls for denial of services to Wikileaks by private corporations – Amazon, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, among others – alongside shrill calls from several sources, including Vice President Joe Biden, for the arrest or even assassination of Julian Assange, to stop the operation of Wikileaks as an organization. Biden referred to Assange as a ‘high-tech terrorist’. There are also rumours suggesting cyberwarfare by the US authorities against Wikileaks, and counter-warfare by pro-Wikileaks hackers against Amazon, Visa, Bank of America et al. Wikileaks was denied its Domain Name System service and cloud-storage facilities; its payment systems were disrupted; and had its iPhone app disabled. In effect, a private–public partnership was built that enabled an attack on Wikileaks by private organizations, in the service of the American state, because they believed a State Department letter implying lawbreaking on the part of Wikileaks when, in fact, the leaks were covered under the First Amendment. Private firms are not subject to constitutional constraints, unlike government. Amazon removed Wikileaks material from cloud-storage facilities; PayPal stopped processing donations to Wikileaks, as did Visa, Mastercard, and the Bank of America. Although the technical attempts to disable Wikileaks failed, the attacks on its business services led to a reduction of over 80 per cent of its revenues. Twitter and Google, on the other hand, did not act to disrupt or disable Wikileaks, indicating fissures in the public–private networks against Wikileaks. Nevertheless, despite knowing that Wikileaks has broken no laws, the relevant corporations above continue to deny services to the organization. In addition to the above, private information and intelligence firms, like Stratfor (Wikileaks released five million of the firm’s private emails), were more than willing to sell their expertise to aid the US administration and others to suppress leakages and deal with whistle-blowers. In one email, Stratfor operatives welcomed the Wikileaks releases of documents and hoped to profit from them: [Is it] possible for us to get some of that ‘leak-focused’ gravy train? This is an obvious fear sale… And we have something to offer… mainly our focus on counter-intelligence and surveillance… Could we develop some ideas and procedures on the idea of ‘leakfocused’ network security that focuses on preventing one’s own employees from leaking sensitive information? Stratfor, and other such firms, work closely with government agencies and indeed are largely staffed by former government intelligence agents. The attack on Wikileaks is seen by legal scholars, such as Harvard’s Yochai Benkler, as extra-judicial war on terror techniques being extended to the civilian domain normally protected by the constitution. New laws to ‘protect’ intellectual property rights are merging with those designed to combat terrorist organizations and will formalize the public–private networks that worked well, but imperfectly, in the Wikileaks case. ‘It represents a new threat… to the very foundations of the rule of law in the United States’, and a threat to media freedom and transparency, Benkler argues. The head of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, currently asserting asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, has been labelled a terrorist and is wanted for questioning in Sweden on sexual and rape allegations. It is widely believed that those allegations provide the formal

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cover to take to Sweden Assange and from there to extradite him to the United States to face charges under the Espionage Act. There are several issues: first, Assange is not an American citizen; Wikileaks leaked documents from outside the United States; and Assange did not steal the documents; all of which raises the issue of the extra-territorial application of US law. Secondly, there are doubts as to the sincerity of the Swedish authorities particularly because of the apparently incompetent way that the case against him has been pursued. The former district prosecutor for Stockholm, Sven-Erik Alhelm, now a professor of law at Lund University, in a sworn affidavit noted several unusual aspects of the investigation of Assange: that he has yet to be charged for any offence, that the two women alleging rape and other sexual offences were interviewed by police together rather than separately, that the Swedish prosecutor went ‘public’ with rape allegations in violation of normal procedure, and that issuing a European arrest warrant appeared excessive in the absence of formal charges. It is important also to remember that Sweden contributes military forces under US– NATO control in Afghanistan; it contributed military assistance during the Libyan intervention; its ministers report regularly on military and intelligence matters to the US embassy; and its Afghanistan-based aid agencies supply intelligence to the United States on a regular basis. It collaborated with the United States on extraordinary rendition by the CIA of people who had applied for asylum to Sweden. And Assange’s Wikileaks website exposed a whole range of US–Swedish cooperation that did not reflect well on Sweden’s global image as ‘a good state’. A country so close to the United States may be likely to extradite Assange. If that is assumed, then the violations of police and judicial procedures during the early part of the investigation of Assange’s alleged sexual assault and rape of two Swedish women – which he denies – acquire an essential political context that appears lacking in most mainstream analyses of the matter. Bradley Manning: held in military detention, allegations of cruel and unusual punishment Manning was found guilty of having passed to Wikileaks hundreds of thousands of confidential US government documents and was held in military detention since 2010 and is now serving a 35 year sentence. For much of the time he was on remand, he was kept in solitary confinement and stripped of clothing at night as part of a ‘suicide-watch’ regime rejected by US army doctors as unnecessary. According to a petition by his lawyers, and supported by the defence lawyers’ website, Manning was required to eat alone using only a spoon; not allowed to speak with other prisoners; slept on a suicide mattress with a coarse ‘tear-proof security blanket’ resulting in rashes and carpet burns; and not permitted any personal items nor exercise in his cell. Manning was constantly monitored every five minutes, some lights in his cell were on permanently; the fluorescent light outside his cell was kept on during the night. These conditions were in addition to the maximum custody conditions imposed, which included being placed in a cell directly in front of the guard post so he could be monitored at all hours of the day, having to wake up at 5 am each day, having to stay awake until 10 pm every day and not being permitted to lie down or lean against the cell wall. In January 2013, Manning’s possible future sentence was reduced by 112 days in recompense for the ‘excessively harsh treatment’ he received at the Quantico marine base, Virginia, where he was incarcerated. The United Nations’ special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, was denied unfettered access to Bradley Manning and, indeed, to inmates at Guantanamo, to ascertain first hand from Manning and others the condition of their detention. Manning had yet to be tried in any court or, therefore, found guilty of

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any offence. In March 2011, State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley, was forced to resign after he commented that ‘What is being done to Bradley Manning is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid on the part of the department of defense’. Crowley continued that his remarks ‘were intended to highlight the broader, even strategic impact of discreet actions undertaken by national security agencies… and their impact on our global standing and leadership. The exercise of power in today’s challenging times and relentless media environment must be prudent and consistent with our laws and values.’ President Obama stated he was reassured by the Pentagon that Manning’s confinement was ‘appropriate’ although he had previously made improving America’s global standing one of the key aims of his administration. He had also denounced detainees’ extreme treatment by the Bush administration but has failed to either prevent its continuation or apologize or compensate innocent victims of torture, rendition, or forced disappearance.

Conclusions The claim that there are no, or very few, negative consequences for the United States resulting from the Wikileaks revelations and phenomenon more generally appears complacent if not invalid. There is much even in the brief review above suggesting that there is new previously unknown material now publicly available that has already had negative consequences for America’s influence and standing in the world and in relation to specific nations. The argument is made that even material that was known by experts is politically salient due to its publication to a global audience. This is particularly a problem for those who either support American influence or are open-minded. It is in those populations that the impact of the secret cables, based on how they are interpreted and presented in their nation’s media, is likely to be strongest and most interesting. People already opposed to or sceptical about US power will find plenty of material to confirm their extant suspicions: it is supremely useful to have in one’s arsenal facts and opinions from the source itself, offering a kind of unsolicited confession. The other issue is that the political handling of the Wikileaks affair is an additional factor in itself, adding further to the fall-out from the leaked documents. For the manner of its handling also speaks volumes about the character of a polity and society, particularly about how closely its actions conform to its stated values and ideals. In that regard, the United States is especially vulnerable given the values-based public rhetoric of freedom, human rights, and the rule of law. For the UN expert on torture to criticize the treatment of Bradley Manning exposes a glaring sense of immunity from international supervision. And the European Court’s historic ruling in December 2012, and its use of some Wikileaks material in reaching its findings, indicates that further exposure of the routine use of torture by the CIA and US-allied nations is likely to continue, and continue to demonstrate American officials’ impunity from international laws to which the country is signatory. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s calls for internet freedom in authoritarian states, like China, where Google was destabilized for causing offence to high officials, may now be seen in a harsher light. Media and opinion-management go hand in hand. Agendasetting and issue-framing are fundamental to effective media management strategies: actions, policies, approaches that powerful states take or propose must be sold to publics in order to be politically salient. Wikileaks is a major disruption to various such agendas because it represents a loss of control. While minority opinions are considered worthy they tend not to be backed by large resources: the internet age may provide anyone with access a voice but it is likely to be a small voice and get out to relatively few people unless backed up by the kind of resources only major corporations and state agencies possess. Wikileaks has not only gained

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worldwide attention through its previous publicity campaigns, especially the war logs of 2010, but also by leveraging major respected print and online news outlets like The New York Times, the Guardian, and The Hindu, among others. Despite Wikileaks censoring certain kinds of information, especially related to individuals who may be at risk if their names were publicized, and allowing the news outlets to show material to US officials before publication, this still represents a significant shift in the balance of power and initiative. A handful of people who run a small organization based on donations has seized the media and opinionmanagement initiative. As cables show, both the Bush and Obama administrations pay keen attention to ensuring a favourable media image of the United States, and minimizing negative images, as one would expect. It is the loss of control that is especially significant. In light of Obama’s promises to restore America’s image and moral standing, the Wikileaks release of secret cables, the draconian handling of the matter, added to the revelations of massive levels of surveillance of American citizens by the NSA, is severely damaging to the Obama myth of change and America’s reputation as the ‘land of the free’. As David Bromwich argues Since the prosecution of whistleblowers, the abusive treatment of Bradley Manning and the drone assassinations of American citizens have been justified by the president and his advisers, a dissident in the United States may now think of his country the way the dissidents in East Germany under the Stasi thought of theirs.

Notes 1 Edward Snowden’s leakage of surveillance programmes of the National Security Agency in the summer of 2013 has also exposed not only the comprehensive character of US government surveillance, via the information gathered by private internet corporations like Google, Apple, and Microsoft, but also the ways in the Obama administration has rendered even more secretive the unregulated legal process by which massive surveillance is conducted – David Bromwich, ‘In praise of Edward Snowden’, London Review of Books, 4 July 2013. 2 The smearing of Edward Snowden as a ‘narcissistic’ traitor, from across the political spectrum, shows, according to David Bromwich, how authoritarian the liberal establishment in America has become since 9/11.

Further readings and websites Wikileaks.org – the entire set of documents from private and governmental sources. Cablesearch.org – a slightly more user-friendly document search site. Foreign policy articles collection on the embassy cables (http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/ o2/22/cable_news). Glenn Greenwald’s blog at Salon.org. Bachrach, J. (2011) ‘WikiHistory: did the leaks inspire the Arab spring?’, World Affairs Journal, July/ August. Benkler, Y. (2011) ‘Wikileaks and the Protect-IP Act: a new public–private threat to the internet commons’, Daedalus. Bromwich, D, (2013) ‘In praise of Edward Snowden’, London Review of Books, 4 July. Fuchs, C. (2011) ‘Wikileaks: power 2.0? Criticism 2.0? Alternative media 2.0? A political-economic analysis’, Global Media Journal (Australian Edition), 5 (1). Stone, G.R. ‘Wikileaks, the proposed SHIELD Act, and the First Amendment’, Journal of National Security Law and Policy, 5 (105).

19 The United States and the UN Return to the fold? Craig N. Murphy

Throughout the 2008 US presidential campaign, various voices supportive of the United Nations could be heard expectantly predicting that, if Obama won, the long estrangement of the United States from the UN would end. This chapter looks back – after Obama’s second victorious run for the presidency – and concludes that less has changed than might have been expected. Obama’s policy has been more of a piece with that of George W. Bush than many US supporters expected, but that is largely because the pro-Obama optimists failed to recognize that Bush’s policy was much of a piece with those of the administrations that came before him. As the distinguished French scholar of international cooperation, Jacques Fomerand, put it at the end of the Bush years, there was a ‘remarkable pattern of continuity with previous administrations’ that ‘runs counter to the comforting notion that we are in a mere fleeting moment of irresponsible insanity’.1 The continuity from Bush through Obama has been largely a consequence of the structural position of the United States within a global political economy that remains governed by the state system (a legacy of the Agricultural Age) even while the outlines of the (necessarily) global political system of the Industrial Age are becoming more apparent.

Who left the fold? Some of the voices that were the most hopeful about US–UN relations in 2008 were those of the UN’s ‘Mohicans’, members of the tontine created by those who worked for the United Nations in its first year when located on the Bronx campus of the City University of New York’s Hunter College. (Many staffers lived along the Hudson River, where James Fenimore Cooper set The Last of the Mohicans and ‘Uncas’, the novel’s hero, had a name that sounded like it could be one of the proliferating UN agencies where the irreverent young men and women worked.) Most of the remaining Mohicans have trouble seeing the United States as the estranged child of the UN; if anything, the relationship is the other way around. After all, most of the UN’s original staffers were from the United States. Bruce Stedman’s story is typical. The long-time finance chief of the UN’s development coordinating body remembers sitting on a US destroyer in the Pacific reading E.B. White’s New Yorker magazine dispatches from the San Francisco Conference where the original ‘United Nations’ (the wartime alliance) founded today’s ‘United Nations Organization’. White’s passion made Stedman ache to be part of the struggle to create this Americaninspired organization for world peace. In the week he was demobbed, Stedman went to join a new battle, in the Bronx, where he found scores of other idealistic young Americans.2 Stedman eventually got an unusually important job – over the years, something more than 80 per cent of the UN system’s personnel and resources have been devoted to its field offices

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in the developing world.3 Yet, even the American Mohicans who ended up in more typical jobs – as statisticians, or stenographers or the like – shared Stedman’s sense of mission, and his sense that creating the UN was the logical sequel to the US victory in 1945. After all, the UN system was, to a great extent, an invention of the US government, of Franklin Roosevelt and those who were close to him.4 John W. Holmes, a Canadian diplomat involved in wartime negotiations, remembers Roosevelt closing the earlier Hot Springs conference with the playing of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, a sign, Holmes believed, of what the American sponsor imagined the UN would become.5 The United States acted on the assumption ‘that it was the destiny of mankind to become units in the expanding Republic of God’ (established in 1776)’.6 Roosevelt’s child, the United Nations, was meant to rally the nations of the world to fulfill that destiny. Instead, to the chagrin of some of its earliest American supporters – including Stedman and some of the other aging Mohicans – sometime in the 1970s or 1980s, the UN left the traditional American fold by aiding and giving voice to people with other visions of humankind’s future: petty dictators who use the UN to aggrandize themselves, and more powerful dictators who use it to weaken the democratic ideals once embraced by the United States. That is why, the argument goes, in the 1940s, most Americans preferred multilateralism while, today, many dislike it. That change has as much to do with changes in beliefs as it does with changes in attitudes: the UN was created at a time when, unlike today, most Americans believed that some form of global government – something a good deal more complex than the UN – was inevitable, and in the not too distant future. The evidence of that belief is overwhelming. Throughout the war, high-level academic–government partnerships assessed the pre-war international institutions and proposed ways in which they might be reformed7 and leaders of both US political parties competed to develop the most attractive vision of world government. In fact, one of the most popular books in the United States from 1943 through 1945 was a compilation of the four most prominent of these visions. It is true that the least radical of the four was developed by a Republican, former President Herbert Hoover,8 but the most comprehensive was written by Roosevelt’s most successful Republican challenger, Wendell Willkie.9 The politicians’ books and E.B. White’s New Yorker columns (that Bruce Stedman read at sea) were part of a popular genre that had generated bestsellers throughout the Second World War. The books included an outline for an international organization of democracies written by The New York Times’ interwar correspondent in Geneva, Clarence K. Streit.10 Even more remarkable were the world government plans developed by the polymath, Ely Culbertson, already famous throughout the United States as the inventor of contract bridge (a game addictively embraced by many Mohicans and other bright young men and women of the day). Culbertson’s second book on world government includes what now seem almost comically laudatory cover endorsements from leading scholars and public intellectuals of the day. Frederick L. Shuman, whose undergraduate text on international relations was the one most widely read in the United States from the 1930s until around 1960, wrote, ‘the structure Mr. Culbertson has reared is so ingenious, so integrated, so beautifully articulated that it is almost irrelevant, not to say irreverent, to suggest knocking off a portico in one place or adding another somewhere else’. Charles A. Ellwood, Duke University political economist, champion of positivist social science, and past president of the American Sociological Association, called Culbertson’s plan ‘the most perfect machinery yet devised by the mind of man to prevent international war’. Journalists Dorothy Thompson (considered by Time to be one of the two most influential women in the country, the equal of Eleanor Roosevelt) and Max Eastman (in the midst of his theatrical, and well-timed disavowal of his old role as a lion of the left) were no less admiring.11

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Today, the reception of Culbertson’s particular plan for world government may seem bizarre, but it is worth recounting just to make clear how much the times have changed: It would be difficult to imagine that (say) Joshua Goldstein (author of the most popular international relations text in the United States today), Robert O. Keohane, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Francis Fukuyama would all embrace a plan for world government developed by the inventor of (say) Guitar Hero®. But perhaps the only reason it is so difficult to imagine is that none of today’s major US scholars, policymakers, or public intellectuals would embrace any plan for world government, no matter who invented it. Things were very different in the 1940s. Then, the only question that divided the different US advocates of world government was what form the evolving system of world government should take: should it be federal – modeled on the government of the United States and formed via a process of constitutional bargaining similar to the one that gave the United States its constitution of 1787, or should world government evolve from the specific-purposeoriented – ‘functionalist’ – public international unions, such as the International Telecommunications Union, that began to emerge in the 1860s and that many observers in the 1940s considered the one successful part of the League system?12 Roosevelt’s vision was a compromise. It combined functionalism with a kind of great power concert. He worked to reestablish the public international unions on a new, stronger footing. (The Hot Springs conference was about creating the Food and Agriculture Organization, which replicated the pre-League agriculture union – even occupying the same building and retaining the staff.) At the same time, the center of the UN system was to be the great power Security Council, with its Military Staff Committee and unified military force – perhaps a potential center of power for a US-inspired federal government. Of course, the US worldview of the 1940s had huge blind spots that obscured truths that, today, we can see quite clearly. For example, the wartime literature in the United States rarely discussed a third, equally plausible path to world government. Not only can world government (1) emerge from the devolution of functions to expert-based organizations, or (2) be established through an act of federation, it also can (3) be created by a predominant power. In theory, there were functionalist, federal, and imperial paths to that world that so many Americans in the 1940s expected and desired. In the 1940s, some might even have argue that this last form of ‘world government’ was the one that had been theorized the best; after all, it was different than global empire or world supremacy, the putative goal of every state since time immemorial, according to many realists. However, imperialism and colonial empires were out of favor in the United States at the time, especially among the internationalists who supported Roosevelt. Nonetheless, it is ironic that this third possibility was rarely mentioned in the United States at a time when many foreign observers, such as John Holmes, saw this as exactly what the United States was attempting to create. In recent years, Yale comparative legal scholar Amy Chua has made a great deal of the debatable argument that there have been a small number of actual historical examples ‘global’ empires or ‘hyper-powers’.13 She includes George W. Bush’s United States among such powers, but agrees with today’s common wisdom that, in 1945, the United States was not such a power. Nonetheless, the United States created an embryonic world government, the UN System, through means that Chua considers typical of the few successful global powers: Roosevelt’s UN was largely the result of an imperialism of soft power, a kind of ethical hegemony that took into account many of the interests and aspirations of the other victorious powers, as well as those of the vanquished.14 It is only in relation to that kind of hegemony that the United States now seems to have left the fold: it has become something like a true hyper-power, but it is no longer willing to

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accommodate some of the interests and aspirations of other states, especially many of the national interests and aspirations that are amplified by the UN system. These two developments may be related; that is, a structural change may have led to a change in US policy. Even so, it is worthwhile first to consider the perceptions and attitudes – the worldviews and the policy goals – that are the proximate causes of this change in policy.

How US ideas about the UN have changed and why The US government’s recent lack of support for the interests and aspirations concretized within the United Nations is, in part, a consequence of the United States’ abandonment of the belief in the impending necessity of world government: If world government is not on the horizon, then respect for the institutions that serve as the incubators of such government (according to the functionalists) or as a sort of ethical-hegemonic reflection of one’s own aspirations for a governed world order (according to critical realists) is no longer necessary. The academic view Such a change in understanding has certainly gone on within the US academic community, which, compared to similar academic communities in other powerful countries, has an unusually strong relationship to government.15 Yet, many younger international relations scholars may be surprised to realize how late this wartime idea persisted. In the mid-1960s, it was still the height of political realism to argue, as Hans J. Morgenthau did in his ‘Introduction’ to David Mitrany’s A Working Peace System, that the nation state was obsolete and the traditional politics among nation states would never get us to necessary world state.16 Something has happened in the five decades since then. While some US scholars focus on global governance (perhaps best defined as ‘what world government we really have’) and a very few others imagine the eventual evolution of a world state,17 most US scholars and policymakers – most of whom received their higher education since the mid1960s – understand world affairs as the politics of the state systems that have been with us since the beginning of settled agriculture over 5000 years ago. We live, most US scholars argue, in a system defined by state powers and interests and almost everything that really matters in terms of ‘global governance’ takes place as a consequence of strategic interactions that are defined by state power and interests. There is no world government provided by international organizations – no weak, functionalist foreshadowing of what will become, there is no way to achieve world government (except, perhaps, via the temporary military supremacy of a single state), and, as a result, there is no practical way to speak sensibly about an imminent ‘need’ for world government. The UN system is only an instrument of the foreign policies of its various state members, and, given its limited resources, it is a very weak instrument, at that. The hypothesized sources of this new, post-1960s consensus are many. Alexander Wendt, perhaps the most prominent US scholar who still sees world government as inevitable, points to the rising scientism of the scholarly discipline that took off in the 1970s and brought with it an unwarranted distrust of teleological arguments.18 Yet, much of the ‘inevitability of global governance’ discourse that dominated the first two thirds of the twentieth century was equally scientistic: it presented evolutionary models of political economy that claimed that only political systems regulating economic life across the entire geographic area of fundamental production can survive. Therefore, because industrial capitalism (or, according to some scholars, the industrial system, per se) pushes toward a single global economy, a unified polity will follow.19

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Alternatively, Susan Strange often pointed to the irony that, in the United States, the rise, in the 1970s, of international political economy led to the dominance of state-systemcentered studies of the ‘politics of international economic relations’ that almost eclipsed older, non-state-centric, traditions of political economy.20 Perhaps this is the reason that the academic interest in world government waned: American scholars just found it easier or more comfortable to study states. Nonetheless, the most significant reason may just be that, by the 1970s, the UN system, the only ‘world government’ we had, became awfully boring to most scholars in the United States.21 The global security structure that affected the United States was its nuclear balance of terror with the Soviet Union. Moreover, by the early 1970s, the US government institutions that were concerned with the fields of the UN’s primary operation – especially development – had become as interesting and as powerful as the UN itself. Arguably, both the academic and the governmental turn away from the UN system was reinforced by the rising competence, and the rising bureaucratic demands, of USAID, the country’s bilateral aid agency.22 This combination of factors has led to a situation in which today, unlike in 1945 or in 1966, US academics rarely see the UN system as important simply because it is the main precursor we have to world government. In the US hyper-power, post-Soviet world, some scholars, such as Michael Mandelbaum, simply see the United States as global governance, as ‘what world government we have’.23 More typical are the views of Stephen Krasner, the nuanced and reflective Stanford University professor who served as a Director of Policy Planning in the George W. Bush State Department. In a wide-ranging television interview, Krasner spoke of how the European Union, with its supra-nationalism, pooled sovereignty, and functionalist governance of various industrial problems, represented something fundamentally new and different from the classical states of the state system,24 but he ignored the similarities at a global level, where the UN system, the WTO, and a range of related private standard setters maintain pockets of activities where supra-nationalism, pooled sovereignty, and (certainly) functionalist governance might be seen as well. Elite and popular attitudes Outside the academic world, US views about the desirability of some kind of world government have changed less markedly since the 1960s. Surveys continue to find majorities of US citizens who want a much stronger United Nations and who consider such a development to be necessary because the world is becoming more ‘interconnected’ and problems are ‘more of an international nature’. At the height of the Bush years, more than 60 per cent of the US public would have given the UN a standing peacekeeping force and international marshals capable of arresting national leaders accused of war crimes as well as the right to investigate violations of human rights wherever they occur and the power to regulate the international arms trade. On the other hand, only 45 per cent of the US public approved of international taxes to pay for the UN’s work.25 (However, as my students often point out, perhaps only 45 per cent of US citizens would approve of taxes to support the operation of governments at any level.) While the US public consistently supports a much stronger role for the UN than has been deemed imaginable or desirable by scholars for more than a generation, elite and popular attitudes toward the existing UN have been declining since the 1960s. US views reached their nadir in 2003 and 2004, around the time that Secretary General Kofi Annan made it clear that he considered the US war in Iraq to be in violation of international law. In August 2003, 60 per cent of US citizens polled by Gallup felt that the UN was doing a ‘poor job’ with 37 per cent saying it was ‘doing a good job’. These results were almost the reverse of when

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Gallup first asked the same questions, 50 years earlier when 55 per cent felt the UN ‘was doing a good job’.26 Some students of US foreign policy see this declining affection for the UN as a consequence of the incoherently connected philosophies that have governed elite foreign policy attitudes since the beginning of the Republic. As leaders of a secular ‘City on the Hill’ and model for the world to emulate, these men and women have an almost Manichaean attitude toward the rest of the world: When foreigners follow the US lead, they are good; when they do not, they are bad.27 Hence, when the UN was simply a reflection of the vision of its US founders, it was good. As the UN became something different, it became something bad. Kofi Annan understood this dynamic quite well, which is one reason that he organized his ambitious program for UN reform (what he hoped would be his great legacy) around the themes of Franklin Roosevelt’s original ‘Four Freedoms’ speech in which he named the wartime alliance (the ‘United Nations’) and first spelled out his vision for the postwar world.28 Annan’s reforms failed due to the opposition of the Bush administration’s ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, whose distain for the organization was extreme. Nevertheless, the broader US opposition to the UN, which has been developing for decades, would doom any attempt to present the current organization as the dutiful child of its founders. In all of the major conflicts that have come to define the UN, US elite opinion (and, in many cases, mass opinion) has come to diverge from that of the UN majority and of the UN’s permanent staff (what scholars call the ‘second’ United Nations29). As early as 1965, Hayward Alker and Bruce Russett had discerned the four main conflicts that would divide the UN: 1) the East–West conflict, 2) the North–South conflict between the rich, largely capitalist, countries and the Third World, 3) the conflict over Palestine, and 4) a conflict over the future of multilateralism. Only one of these conflicts, the first, has disappeared. In the remaining three cases, US views have increasingly become those of the minority within the UN system. The United States, of course, welcomed Israel’s independence, but US administrations did not become unwavering supporters of Israeli positions until sometime after the 1967 war. (In 1956, Eisenhower opposed the British, French, and Israeli attack on Egypt over Suez.) Moreover, there was no solid UN majority in opposition to Israel until the early 1970s when most Sub-Saharan African governments (the UN’s largest regional bloc, by far) switched from supporting Israel to supporting the views of the Arab states, initially in the wake of what Africans perceived as Israel’s unreasonable rejection of the peace proposals made by a commission of the continent’s most distinguished heads of state.30 The timing of the United States’ isolation on North–South issues is similar. The United States was a designer and the main benefactor of the UN’s development system until around 1970. The organization that eventually became the UN Development Program (UNDP) was the direct descendent of the Marshall Plan and was intended to be something like the Marshall Plan writ large for the whole world. The Marshall Plan’s only chief executive officer, Republican businessman Paul Hoffman, was the first head of UNDP and remained in the job until 1971.31 UNDP and its predecessors, in turn, were instrumental in convincing almost all of the UN specialized agencies (including the World Bank), to begin the development work that has become the central mission of most of the agencies.32 The centrality of the United States as a supporter of the developing world within the UN ended with the US war in Vietnam and the Nixon administration. That was when the United States cut its financial support for multilateral development organizations (shifting some to USAID) and took a uniquely oppositional position to Third World proposals to reform international economic institutions in the wake of the collapse of the original Bretton Woods mechanisms.33

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The US government’s opposition to further extensions of multilateralism is something of a later vintage, and it, of course, is not something supported by the majority of the US public even if the opposition may have the tacit support of many in the US academic community. It was the Reagan administration, in 1981, that first signaled a major retreat from multilateralism, initially by calling for a wholesale review of the United States’ participation in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the specialized agencies that many observers considered to be already the most subservient to the United States. The new US policy was the brainchild of the relatively new conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, which argued for ‘American withdrawal from a UN system it could no longer dominate’.34 The special case of the George W. Bush administration It is not surprising that Heritage promoted such a position. The Foundation was one of many organizations that contributed to the rise of the political right in the United States over the last generation. Many of the organizations were created and bankrolled by conservative Christian businessmen from the south and west, men such as Fred, David, and Charles Koch, the last of whom is described by one liberal blogger as, ‘the richest and most politically connected mogul you’ve never heard of’. Koch (pronounced coke) heads Koch Industries, the world’s largest private company with oil refineries, gas pipelines, cattle ranches, paper mills, and financial services that produce an estimated $90 billion in revenue a year. Although Koch is richer than George Soros or Carl Icahn – and spends millions each year to lobby Congress and to bankroll libertarian causes – he is largely unknown outside of his hometown of Wichita, Kansas.35 For the UN, the geographic origins of the supporters of the new right were important. From Reagan onward, the Republican Party has gained power by solidifying the white majority in southern and western states regions previously either dominated by the Democratic Party or else competitive between the two parties. The new regional power centers of the Republican Party are areas where, for a variety of historical reasons, isolationism, militarism, and the starkest versions of international Manichaeism are typically found.36 Since Reagan’s rise, the history of the Republican Party has been the story of the return to the worldview that typified the party before Wendell Willkie. Historians recall that it was the power of Republican isolationists in the US Senate that doomed Woodrow Wilson’s vision of the League of Nations. The global economic depression, Hitler’s rise, the success of the global alliance that defeated him, and the pressures of the early Cold War left the Republican Party under the control of internationalists through the Nixon administration. Similar internationalists remained at the center of the administration of George H.W. Bush, but his son’s views were much closer to those of Reagan. This view of the UN was well summarized by the hour-long videotape that was widely distributed by Republicans as part of Bush’s 2000 electoral campaign: ‘Global governance: the quiet war against American independence.’ The video, narrated by the man who would soon become US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, explains that the Clinton administration has made an unholy alliance with ‘global bureaucrats’ to give the UN ‘control over American land, natural resources, private property, our economy, and even our children’.37 The career of John Bolton, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs under George H.W. Bush and UN Ambassador for George W. Bush epitomized these views. The title of Bolton’s revealing memoir of his tenure as UN ambassador, Surrender is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad,38 neatly encapsulates the larger vision of which his attitude toward the UN is a part: because most

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foreign governments are venal and envy the power and wealth of the United States, in the UN, the United States is always surrounded by a potential global coalition of enemies. Whatever its original, naïve purpose, today, the United Nations merely amplifies the power of this anti-US coalition. Thus, a heroic defender of US interests needs to stand firmly against the UN and UN majority, except on those occasions when it is possible to use some of the powers of the UN to serve the immediate goals of the nation. Bolton was at the center of the Republican attack on the United Nations since its beginning. During Ronald Reagan’s first term, a well-intentioned internationalist Republican Senator from Kansas, Nancy Kassebaum, introduced legislation to limit US payment of its UN dues in order to encourage administrative reform of the organization, following on proposals made by the Heritage Foundation. This began a policy of under-funding the UN and many of the specialized agencies that has been a consistent part of US–UN policy ever since.39 Assistant Secretary of State Bolton not only played a role in promoting the Heritage idea, he also ‘led the campaign to withdraw US membership from UNESCO’ and threatened to withdraw US funding to the UNDP if it did not funnel millions of dollars to various US non-governmental organizations on the right, including the Heritage Foundation itself.40 Under George W. Bush, Bolton credited himself with thwarting Kofi Annan’s attempts to unify and strengthen the administrative capacity of the UN system, with ending the UN career of Annan’s powerful deputy, British Liberal Democrat Mark Malloch Brown, and with finding what he hoped would be a pliable replacement for Annan in Ban Ki-Moon. However, Bolton came to question the permanence of his ‘victories’. By 2007, he was speaking out against what he considered a failure of nerve on the part of his old boss (Bush), an unwillingness to use military force against Iran and North Korea, and a dangerous tendency to rely on the UN.41 Most observers point to the same actions as evidence of a new ‘pragmatism’ that took hold in Bush’s last two years, a pragmatism that reinforced more traditional internationalists, such as Stephen Krasner, who still worked in a government that had seemed to be dominated by men like Bolton. Newsweek editor and Harvard-trained international relations scholar Fareed Zakaria pronounced this shift ‘What Bush got right’ and argued that the next administration should not simply ‘reverse course’, but learn from Bush’s brief final period of political realism.42 Throughout that period, even the Bush administration’s understanding of global governance and its attitude toward the UN system – or, at least, multilateralism – seemed to change. After the Russian invasion of Georgia in summer 2008, administration spokesmen warned Russia that the nature of the world had changed. To maintain a powerful, productive, and modern economy, industrial states had to be linked closely to one another; they had to be members in the multilateral clubs in which the rules of the world economy were set, and Russia risked not being unwelcome in those vital forums. By extension, of course, what was good for Russia was also good for the United States. The old Heritage Foundation argument for withdrawing from any multilateral organizations that the United States could not dominate had been rejected. The second George W. Bush administration was no longer a special case.

Another not so special case The similarities between the George W. Bush administration and Obama’s first administration are striking. If anything, some of the simplest indicators would suggest that Obama was a little less supportive of the UN as a provider of necessary global services, and a bit more

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likely to treat it as merely an instrument of US foreign policy. Neither administration changed the US pattern of underfunding the UN that began in the 1980s. On that score, Bush was better than Obama. After 9/11, he cut the United States’ ongoing official debt to the UN in half, but the US debt started to creep up again in 2007 reaching an average of US$ 1.5 billion, a figure that Obama cut to about 1.25 billion in 2010 – a little lower than the average debt before 9/11, but higher than in 2002–7.43 Of course, much of the UN system’s work lies outside the regular budget for which countries are assessed: it is the voluntarily supported economic and social development work of the UN, the work for which the United States paid over half the costs until the early 1970s. In almost all countries around the world, the UN is its development staff: the 130,000 civilian field staff, and the 30,000 staffers back in Western Europe or North America at the headquarters to which the field workers report. All of the field offices are in the developing world or in Eastern European ‘transition countries’, and 83 per cent of the staff there are locally recruited.44 Depending on where one draws the lines between the different organizations of the UN system, it involves somewhere between 30 and 90 separate development organizations whose primary coordination mechanism, both at headquarters and in the field, is typically staffed by officers of the UN Development Program, a body that, through the 1990s, was always headed by a US citizen, in large part because the United States was always the largest voluntary donor. Currently, the United States is the fifth largest donor (behind Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the UK) and most of the US donation is tied to programs supporting reconstruction in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Haiti. The Obama administration’s most recent request to Congress for UNDP was only two-thirds of the largest annual request made by the George W. Bush administration, and two-thirds of the average annual actual appropriation then. Ironically, throughout the Obama years, Congress has actually appropriated more to UNDP than the president has asked for.45 The US–UN budget story is indicative of the overall position of the Obama administration: it sees the UN as an instrument of US foreign policy, albeit a very important one that needs to be used with great skill. The administration’s ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, is a consummate diplomat who would never engage in any kind of destructive behavior and UN bashing that delighted John Bolton. At one point, Rice looked as if she would become the second US Ambassador to the UN to be elevated to be Secretary of State. When the first to do so, Madeleine Korbel Albright, wrote to lament Rice’s withdrawal from consideration, Albright said of Rice’s UN service: Since 2009, she has held the moral high ground for the United States in the most diverse and contentious diplomatic arena on the globe. Her efforts contributed mightily to tough economic sanctions that have weakened Syria’s brutal regime and made life far more difficult for the leaders of Iran. She has steadfastly defended our ally Israel from unbalanced attacks, and argued effectively for a Security Council resolution that paved the way for the removal of Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi.46 Bruce Jones, the head of the Brookings Institution’s project on Managing Global Order made a similar assessment: [Q]uite a bit of what the UN does… is simply incomprehensible… Rice has wisely stayed away from much of that part of the UN, and concentrated her efforts in those areas where UN decisions do matter or where countries that matter to the United States have chosen the UN to pursue an important agenda… The defining element of Rice’s

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worldview is that America should be able to use its power in all its forms to protect its interests and to defend core values… Rice has had four years of demonstrating how to marry American diplomacy with the tools of hard power to effect outcomes.47 These were fitting tributes, emphasizing the Security Council and fundamental US interests – including the situation (the Israeli–Palestinian conflict) where the United States stands against an overwhelming UN majority. They reflect an underlying vision of the UN as a forum and as an instrument of US foreign policy – which it certainly is – but they ignore what the UN is to most people in the world (i.e., the UN development system) and what the UN once was to the United States: the seed of an inevitable global political order beyond any nation state, even the United States. Why is this the US view? The Obama administration’s adoption of a UN policy of Albright-redux and the Bush administration’s late development of foreign policy pragmatism certainly did not mean a fundamental change in official US policy toward multilateralism, global governance, or the UN system. There may be structural reasons for the persistence of US disenchantment with multilateralism. There is a fundamental difference between a global power, even a hyper-power, that can imagine creating a form of world government in its own image (as the United States did for that brief moment in the 1940s), and a global power that recognizes that most forms of institutionalized international cooperation will be reached through compromise. Unfortunately, for that power’s leaders, many of those compromises will not serve the power’s interests as well as unilateral action can. Or, to put it another way, a global power is always going to be tempted to use its vast power in its own narrow and short-term interests, rather than in service of its long-term, global vision. This was clear more than a century ago when Great Britain, another of Amy Chua’s handful of hyper-powers, had the vision of creating a liberal world economy controlled by a coalition of limited democracies that is now so popular among US elites today. However, when it came to creating global institutions that could make such a system work – especially institutions under which British commercial and military interests would be held accountable to international norms – the British were unusually cautious. Consider the Hague conferences of 1899 and 1907, which had vast agendas that were truncated by a few powers. As originally conceived, the conferences would have banned many of the weapons and tactics that became commonplace in the twentieth century (including aerial bombardment) and they would have created binding international commercial law and global trade courts that would have been even stronger than what was created when the weak General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade became the much more powerful World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995. In the months before the 1899 conference, British public intellectual W.T. Stead worried (presciently) that British caution might lead his government to limit the issues that would be discussed at The Hague.48 In 1907, when The Hague agenda was expanded to include all the original proposals, a growing trade conflict between Britain and the most recently industrialized (and, at that moment, more industrially successful) Germany led that young empire to oppose discussion of tariffs, private international law, taxation, rights of foreigners to hold property, standards, and international labor issues – many of them issues in which Germany had been the sponsor and benefactor of international cooperation in the 1890s. In 1907, Great Britain joined Germany in opposing greater institutionalization of the international governance of global transportation and communication and, in other venues, blocked

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international cooperation on health and sanitation because health regulations might impact British shipping. The British argument that the germ theory of disease was not scientifically proven was very similar to the Bush administration’s absurd claims about a lack of scientific consensus on global warming.49 The British example illustrates that any similarly strong power will be tempted to use its power for short-term gain rather than to work collectively to institutionalize a longer-term vision, but doing so is a matter of choice: Might not a new US administration resist the temptation? The records of the Carter and Clinton administration should give us pause. It was, after all, Jimmy Carter – perhaps the most internationalist president after Kennedy – who first pulled the United States out of a UN agency. From 1977 to 1980, Carter temporarily withdrew the United States from the International Labor Organization when US, but not Israeli, concern about the organization’s embrace of the Palestine Liberation Organization was added to persistent opposition of US labor leader, George Meany.50 Bill Clinton and his closest advisors also embraced multilateralism. Clinton gave strong hortatory support to the creation of the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Protocol. Yet, if even Clinton at some point had the political capital to get Congressional approval of those initiatives (which he may never have had), he certainly did not choose to use it. The man that the Clinton administration selected to be UN Secretary General, Boutros BoutrosGhali, even claims that, for short-term domestic political reasons, Clinton undermined comprehensive UN reform and did nothing to support Boutros-Ghali’s bold attempt to make the promotion of democracy a central purpose of the organization.51 Boutros-Ghali is not an unbiased source, but his account of these issues is broadly supported by the then number-two official in the UN, UNDP Administrator Gus Speth, an American nominated (meaning ‘appointed’) by Clinton. Speth speaks of his surprise at Clinton’s last-minute reversal of support for the reform plan that Speth developed. Clearly, Clinton had heard from UNICEF chief, and former Manhattan Borough President, Carol Bellamy, whose independent source of power would be curtailed by the reform. While Speth does not dwell on Clinton’s motivation, others point to the aspirations of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who needed the backing of New York’s Democratic Party leaders for her planned run for the US Senate.52 The difference between the Clinton administration and other recent great power advocates of multilateralism has been marked. Gordon Brown envisioned using the pledges of major aid donors as a kind of collateral that would allow the UN to raise so much capital for economic development that otherwise pie-in-the-sky MDG poverty-reduction goals suddenly seemed plausible.53 Successive conservative presidents of France have proposed and even begun to institute taxes on ‘global’ transactions (such as airline tickets) to provide the UN with an automatic, independent source of finance.54 Perhaps the only difference between the Europeans and the Americans is that neither the British nor the French government can gain petty, short-term advantage by working to undermine some aspect of the UN system in the way that every US president can. The US president faces the temptation to make political patronage appointments to those UN jobs that, by tradition rooted in power, are his to make (such as the chief executives of UNICEF and the World Bank). Because the United States still provides by far the largest financial contribution to most UN agencies, the US administration has the power to appease many domestic constituencies by threatening to withdraw funding or support for specific actions, something no other state is in the position to do. Moreover, because the UN system as a whole will, almost inevitably, have some agencies or programs whose actions deviate from norms that are widely shared in the United States, every US administration will, at some point, be under pressure to use that power.

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It is perhaps a law of international politics that hyper-powers are fickle (if not feckless) friends of global governance. There may be some validity to Jacques Fomerand’s concern that the ‘irresponsible insanity’ of the Bush administration’s policy toward the UN is more the norm with the United States, rather than the exception.

Notes 1 Jacques Fomerand, ‘UN–US relations from the standpoint of the organization: what can the UN do with an “indispensable nation” and “reluctant sheriff”?’, American Foreign Policy Interests, 29(4, 2007): 267. 2 Bruce Stedman, interview with the author, 3 February 2005, for Craig N. Murphy, UNDP: A Better Way? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 3 The UN system as a whole includes all the UN specialized agencies, which include some of the ‘public international unions’ established in the nineteenth century and continued under the League of Nations; the UN system includes the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Scholars distinguish the ‘first’ United Nations, the club of nations, from the ‘second’ United Nations, the international civil servants and global public administration that is provided by them. (See, Inis L. Claude, Jr, ‘Peace and security: prospective roles for the two United Nations’, Global Governance 2 (3, 1996): 289–98.) It is the personnel of the second UN, and the resources that they employ and they distribute, that have been so focused on the developing world. Sir Robert Jackson’s 1969 ‘Capacity study’, the first, and only, major internal evaluative study of the entire system estimated an even higher percentage. Given the increase in membership from the developing world since 1969, there is every reason to believe that the UN’s work has become even more focused there. See Robert G.A. Jackson, A Study of the Capacity of the United Nations Development System, vol. 2 (Geneva: United Nations, 1969), 4. 4 The celebrated recent history of the San Francisco Conference emphasizes the role played by Truman and those close to him in the months after Roosevelt’s death. Stephen C. Schlesinger, Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations: A Story of Superpowers, Secret Agents, Wartime Allies and Enemies and their Quest for a Peaceful World (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2003). Schlesinger’s perspective is especially relevant to the Charter and the central organs of the UN, but the history of the UN system as a whole, whose specialized agencies began to be established as early as 1943, is much more a story of Roosevelt and those close to him. Eric Helleiner has begun some critically important studies of those connections, the first of which has been published as ‘Reinterpreting Bretton Woods: international development and the neglected origins of Bretton Woods’, Development and Change 37(5, 2006): 943–67. 5 John W. Holmes, ‘Looking forward and backwards’, keynote speech to the First Annual Meeting of the Academic Council on the UN System, 23 June 1988, published as an occasional paper by the ACUNS Secretariat, Hanover, NH, 1988. 6 Quoted in Fomerand, ‘UN–US relations’, 274. Fomerand says that Holmes, in turn, described himself as quoting ‘an unnamed Canadian social scientist’, 278. 7 Craig N. Murphy, International Organization and Industrial Change: Global Governance since 1850 (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), 163–6. 8 Herbert Hoover and Hugh Gibson, ‘The problems of lasting peace’, in Henry Seidel Canby, ed., Prefaces to Peace (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, Doubleday, Reynal & Hitchcock, and Columbia University Press, 1943). 9 Wendell L. Willkie, One World (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1943), abridged in Canby, Prefaces to Peace. 10 Clarence K. Streit, Union Now: The Proposal for an Interdemocracy Federal Union (New York, NY: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1940). 11 All the quotations are from the cover of Ely Culbertson, Total Peace: What Makes Wars and How to Organize Peace (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1943.) 12 One example of the debate was James Avery Joyce, ed., World Organization: Federal or Functional? A Roundtable Discussion (London: C.A. Watts & Co., Ltd., 1945), which the title page describes as ‘A discussion by Patrick Ransome, George Catlin, Edvard Hambro, C. B. Purdom and J. A. Joyce, chairman, held in London, February 5, 1944, which had as its main theme Professor Mitrany’s pamphlet, “A working peace system”. An introduction by Professor Mitrany and an article by H.G. Wells have been added’. A somewhat similar defense of the functionalist view

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appeared in the Nobel Lecture of the 1946 Peace Laureate, Emily Greene Balch, the American founder of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and one of first professors of international relations, ‘Toward human unity or beyond nationalism’, nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ peace/laureates/1946/balch-lecture.html. Amy Chua, Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance and Why They Fall (New York, NY: Doubleday, 2007). This is a standard description of ethical hegemony used by many followers of Antonio Gramsci. I owe my understanding of it to the late Italian diplomat, Enrico Augelli; see Enrico Augelli and Craig N. Murphy, America’s Quest for Supremacy and the Third World (London: Pinter Publishers, 1988), 124–34. A point made by many scholars and discussed cogently as the problem of ‘In and Outers’ in Thomas J. McCormick, America’s Half Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989). Hans J. Morgenthau, ‘Introduction’, in David Mitrany, A Working Peace System (Chicago. IL: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 7–12. See Campbell Craig, ‘Hans Morgenthau and the world state revisited’, in Realism Reconsidered: The Legacy of Hans Morgenthau in International Relations, Michael C. Williams, ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 196–215. Perhaps the most prominent of these is Alexander Wendt, ‘Why a world state is inevitable: teleology and the logic of anarchy’, Civitatis Paper of the Month, no. 4, May 2004, www.civitatis.org/ pdf/wstate.pdf. Ibid. Thomas G. Weiss and Sam Daws remind students of the UN of the late Harold Jacobson’s ironic appreciation of such arguments, ‘World politics: continuity and change since 1945’, in The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations, Thomas G. Weiss and Sam Daws, eds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 84. Much of this strand of political economy originated with mid-19th century authors who were concerned about the unification of small states (e.g., Germany, the United States, and Italy) to create larger units that would support industries that could compete with those in Great Britain, the first industrial nation. See Murphy, International Organization and Industrial Change, 144. For example, Susan Strange, ‘An international political economy perspective’, in Governments, Globalization and International Business, John H. Dunning, ed. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1997). This is the implication of the argument of Gene M. Lyons, the Dartmouth College professor who helped reinvigorate the study of the UN in the United States in the 1990s; see his Putting ACUNS Together (New Haven, CT: Academic Council on the UN System, 1999). This is an argument that was made forcefully to me by many of the Mohicans I interviewed when I studied UNDP. Some of the evidence is summarized in a section entitled ‘Running the gauntlet for US funds’ in Murphy, UNDP, 154–8. Michael Mandelbaum, The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World’s Government in the Twentieth Century (New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2005). ‘Conversations with history: Stephen D. Kranser’, 6 November 2007, ideo.google.com/videoplay? docid=7645542962499624840&ei=59GySNDiDpDuqwLwsMTqDA&q=Krasner&vt=lf&hl=en. University of Maryland Program on International Policy Attitudes, Americans and the World, United Nations, www.americans-world.org/digest/global_issues/un/un1.cfm. Ibid., and Bill Nichols, ‘US view of UN largely negative’, USA Today, 9 September 2003. See Augelli and Murphy, America’s Quest for Supremacy, 35–74. Lee Feinstein of the US Council on Foreign Relations tried to make this connection abundantly clear to an elite audience that had become quite skeptical of the UN. See Feinstein, ‘Annan’s UN report seeks to take into account UN interests’, 22 March 2005, www.cfr.org/publication/7953/ feinstein.html?breadcrumb=%2Fbios%2F3348%2F%3Fpage%3D2. See Claude, ‘Peace and security’. Divisions within that group certainly contributed to its failure, as well. See Saadia Touval, The Peace Brokers: Mediators in the Arab–Israeli Conflict, 1948–79 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 202–24. Murphy, UNDP, 41–50, 56. Ibid., 57–60, 82–93. A collapse that was engineered by the Nixon administration. Significantly, the US break from ‘the South’ was not yet definitive even in the Nixon years; the Republican congressman whom Nixon

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nominated to replace Hoffman was one of the strongest advocates in the UN Secretariat for the Third World’s ‘new international economic order’ proposals, something that Nixon understood would be the case when he made the nomination, Murphy, UNDP, 158–62. Yves Beigbeder, Management Problems in International Organizations: Reform or Decline? (London: Frances Pinter, 1987), 12. Carol Eisenberg, ‘Billionaire Koch plays politics, but out of public eye’, Muckety, 8 August 2008, and see the more nuanced discussions of the Koch foundations on the Media Transparency website, www.mediatransparency.org/funderprofile.php?funderID=9. Michael Lind has written one of the more popular discussions of how these regional origins have changed US foreign policy. See his Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics (New York, NY: New America Books, 2003). ‘Global governance: the quiet war against American independence’, An Eagle Forum Television Special Report, distributed by Cross Media Communications, 1997. John Bolton, Surrender is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2007). The US-based Global Policy Forum, often in collaboration with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, has maintained the most exhaustive and consistent analyses of the chronic UN financial crisis. The starting point for their analysis is, ‘Background and history of the UN financial crisis’, www. globalpolicy.org/finance/chronol/hist.htm. Ian Williams, ‘Why the right loves the UN’, The Nation, 13 April 1992, reprinted at www.globalpolicy.org/reform/williams.htm. Steven Lee Meyers, ‘Bush loyalist now sees a White House dangerously soft on Iran and North Korea’, The New York Times, 9 November 2007. Fareed Zakaria, ‘What Bush got right’, Newsweek, 18–25 August 2008, www.newsweek.com/ id/151731. Global Policy Forum, US versus Total Debt to the UN, 1996–2011, http://www.globalpolicy.org/ images/pdfs/US_v._Total_Debt_Chart1996-2012.pdf. Statistics on civilian field staff as of 31 December 2007, UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination, High-Level Committee on Management, ‘Head count of field staff’, CEB/2008/ HLCM/26, 9 December 2008, p. 5 including footnote e; headquarters’ staff as of 31 December 2009, UN System Chief Executives Board for Coordination, High-Level Committee on Management, ‘Personnel statistics’, CEB/2010/HLCM/HR/24, p. 10, supplemented by overlooked data on the World Bank,web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTABOUTUS/0,,contentMDK :20101240~menuPK:1697052~pagePK:51123644~piPK:329829~theSitePK:29708,00.html and International Monetary Fund, ww.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/glance.htm. UNDP Washington Office, United Nations Development Programme Fact Sheet, May 2012, http:// www.us.undp.org/WashingtonOffice/UNDPFactSheet2012.pdf. Madeline K. Albright and Samuel R. Berger, ‘The real Susan Rice’, Foreign Policy, 14 December 2012, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/12/14/the_real_susan_rice. Bruce Jones, ‘Susan Rice and 21st century diplomacy’, Brookings Up Front, 14 December 2012, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2012/12/14-susan-rice-state-jones. W.T. Stead, The United States of Europe: On the Eve of the Parliament of Peace (New York, NY: Doubleday & McClure Co., 1899), 443–8. Murphy, International Organization and Industrial Change, 102–4; James Brown Scott, The Reports to the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1907), 407– 10. Richard N. Cooper, ‘International cooperation in public health as a prologue to macroeconomic cooperation’, in Can Nations Agree?, Richard N. Cooper, et al. eds (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1989), 178–254. Walter Galenson, The International Labor Organization: An American View (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981). Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Unvanquished: A US–UN Story (New York, NY: Random House, 1999). Murphy, UNDP, 292–4. Announced in Gordon Brown, ‘Remarks to the Royal Institute of International Affairs/Chatham House Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility’, 22 January 2003. ‘Annan welcomes France’s airline ticket levy to help developing countries’, UN News Centre, 27 December 2005, www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=17044&Cr=France&Cr1.

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Further reading Global Policy Forum, http://www.globalpolicy.org, probably the best single website on all the work of the UN system and the entire range of debate within it. The archived sections on ‘The Iraq Conflict’ and on ‘Empire’ place current US–UN relations in a larger historical context. Two of the blogs associated with Foreign Policy provide excellent coverage of the UN system and US policy, David Bosco’s ‘The Multilateralist’, http://bosco.foreignpolicy.com and Colum Lynch’s ‘Turtle Bay’, http://turtlebay.foreignpolicy.com. Dan Plesch, America, Hitler and the UN: How the Allies Won World War II and Forged Peace (London: I.B. Taurus, 2011), is a wonderful analysis of the deeper roots of the UN. Thomas G. Weiss, What’s Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix It (2nd edn) (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012), a lively critical analysis from the United States’ preeminent scholar of the United Nations. Madeline Albright, Memo to the President: How we can Restore America’s Reputation and Leadership (New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2008). While presented as advice, this analysis by one of the longest-serving and most knowledgeable Democrats connected with the UN and US foreign policy as a whole can also be a good guide to what the Obama administration hopes to accomplish in foreign affairs.

Part 4

A view from practitioners

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20 American power, patterns of rise and decline Ketan Patel and Christian Hansmeyer

Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned doesn’t know what they’re talking about (President Barack Obama 2012, State of the Union Address). The rise of China and the end of the American century is a topic that has occupied policy makers, economists, and investors throughout the past decade. While the continuing rise of China has recently been called into question by some, American decline still appears to be a foregone conclusion in the eyes of many analysts and commentators. However, any predictions about the shape of American decline require both a close examination into the nature of American power and influence today and a clear definition of what is actually declining. American leadership and power today are diversified across multiple areas of impact, and while these areas are all clearly interrelated, a shifting power balance across one or several does not necessarily result in a general ‘American decline’. The following note attempts to define the nature of American power, look to history for lessons as to how the 21st century, widely termed the Asian Century, may unfold, and highlight some of the issues that the United States might seek to stave off any aspects of its decline that are of significance. In the summer of 1897, Great Britain was celebrating the Diamond Jubilee of Victoria, the Queen Empress of the British Empire. At the time, she ruled over the largest empire the world had ever seen, comprising 20 per cent of Earth’s landmass and an equal proportion of the global population. Britain’s Royal Navy controlled the high seas with more ships afloat than the next four largest navies combined and its merchants controlled global trade and the capital flows. At the same time, Britain’s GDP had already been overtaken in absolute terms by the United States and Germany, both of which produced more steel (and armaments) and were taking the lead in the creation of new industries like chemical and pharmaceuticals.1 At the apogee of British imperial power, strategists were already predicting its imminent decline. Today, over a century later (and at the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee) much has been written about America in decline, the end of American Empire, and America losing ground in the face of China’s rise. Looking at the publishers’ lists of new books on the topic, one would believe that decline, at least among intellectuals, is a foregone conclusion. President Obama even felt the need to address the matter in the 2012 State of the Union address: while catchy in its pithiness, the phrase ‘American decline’ does not exactly lend itself to precision, which makes an evaluation of the subject difficult. What is declining and how is it declining? Is American decline defined by being overtaken as the world’s largest economy by China, the general waning of influence of the United States on international politics, or by the closing of the military gap between it and the rest of the world? In order to discuss or evaluate the idea of American decline, a clear definition of decline is first required.

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Defining decline Only 29 per cent of the Chinese people feel that China is economically ahead of America according to a recent global survey by Pew, while 41 per cent of the total surveyed said that China was the world’s economic power compared to 40 per cent favouring the United States.2 Everybody agrees that that the United States today is still the world’s largest military, economic, and political power, generating almost a quarter of the world’s GDP and nearly half of its military spending.3 Given the sheer magnitude of American power today, it is inevitable that the country will decline relatively to others in a dynamic world. China may surpass the United States in terms of absolute GDP as early as 2020,4 but it will still be a developing country with low levels of personal wealth, an imbalanced economy, and low levels of economic value addition. The analysis summarized in Figure 20.1 is typical of analysis showing the rise of China’s power relative to America’s. The criterion is based on an index calculated from a country’s share of economic power (measured by GDP, trade, and net capital exports) and clearly shows the expected growth of China and the relative macro-economic decline of the United States over the next 20 years. Although economic and political power might well be related, the two are not perfectly correlated. Let us start at the end-product of US pre-eminence in political power. During the past 25 (or 50) years, American pre-eminence has driven global economic development, globalization, and integration, spread democracy (following the demise of communism in Eastern Europe), attempted to establish an international order based on universal human values, including the freedom of individual choice, personal liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and worked with its allies to establish a code of conduct enshrined by global institutions such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, NATO, the World Bank, the Transatlantic Alliance, and OPEC among others. The test of a broader definition of power would need to weigh whether China’s economic rise 1) enables it to exert greater influence in these bodies, 2) undermines these institutions, 1973

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or 3) enables China to replace these with others that are more in line with China’s interests and worldview. We will take each in turn. Firstly, China’s influence in many of these bodies has increased as a direct consequence of America and its allies pursuing a policy of engagement.5 Secondly, with regards to institutions that allow for a veto to be exercised by the authoritative body, such as the UN, while China may have the ability to prevent resolutions of institution, this ability is no different from that of any member, regardless of relative economic strength. Finally, China has not introduced new international bodies and shows no sign of having the aim or influence to do so. The fact is that China does not seek to exert this kind of influence at this stage in its development programme. So, is there an absolute level of economic decline below which the United States becomes irrelevant globally despite the prevalence of other factors? Answering this question requires a broader and deeper examination of American leadership in the world.

The facets of American leadership We highlight five important facets of American leadership, as follows. Economic leadership As mentioned above, the tipping point of the United States’ economic position relative to China will be reached between 2020 and 2030 by most measures.6 However, we may well be measuring the wrong things. Absolute size does not necessarily equal economic pre-eminence – beyond absolute GDP there are a number of additional factors which will continue to tip the scales of economic leadership in the United States’ favour for some time. The US dollar is the global reserve currency Despite signs of recent weakening of the dollar, the US dollar remains the world’s major reserve currency, representing over 62 per cent of global foreign currency reserves. Although the dollar’s share has dropped from a high of 70 per cent about a decade ago, mainly due to the introduction of the euro, the recent global financial crisis has not reduced its attractiveness as the leading global reserve currency.7 The US dollar’s position is a driver as well as a consequence of the country’s financial depth and provides it debt financing at an attractive cost of funding v. other nations – and hence provides an on-going competitive advantage (The comparative interest rates for the United States, China, and India in May 2012 – 0.25 per cent, 6.31 per cent, and 8.00 per cent,8 respectively – provide a good indicator of the difference between the United States and two of the rising powers.) Clearly, the RMB is not convertible and cannot be contemplated as a reserve currency by any of the world’s nations. Crossing the line of convertibility is the first step of a long process of establishing credibility. US financial market dominance The United States remains the world’s most important and largest financial market. US-listed companies represent 30 per cent of total global market capitalization9 and the United States is home to the world’s largest bond market, with over US$ 35 trillion of debt outstanding (representing over 43 per cent of global issuance).10 The depth of its capital markets and the transparency of its regulations all ensure that the United States will remain a, if not the, key destination for financing and investment for international corporates and investors for some

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time, regardless of the absolute size of its economy. Financial dominance is not decoupled from economic power of course, but a weakening of the latter does not automatically imply the loss of the former. The major Chinese indices have been tested during the global financial crisis and have not been found to be credible. In 2012, when the GDP of China had risen 7.8 per cent v. the United States’ at 2.2 per cent, the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index was nearly flat while the S&P had risen by 11.5 per cent.11 US financial assets and wealth Tied to the two points above, the United States in absolute terms remains the wealthiest nation by far, holding 39 per cent of the world’s financial assets.12 The United States is also the world’s largest source as well as destination of foreign direct investment with over US$ 3 trillion flowing into the United States to date. Although China is the world’s second largest recipient of FDI at US$ 1.2 trillion to date, America’s level of FDI capital stock remains nearly three times as high as China’s and the structure of the US economy, its legal system, and its support for the free flow of capital will ensure that it continues to receive the largest share of global investment for some time.13 Breadth of economy The United States has one of the world’s most diversified economies, balancing trade, consumption, and investment with a high contribution from services (80 per cent v. the global average of 64 per cent)14 to GDP. Moreover, on a per capita basis the United States generates near US$ 50,000 of GDP (on a purchasing power parity basis), the highest in the G8 and among the highest in the world.15 By comparison, despite the absolute size of the Chinese economy, it continues to lag far behind on per capita terms, with per capita GDP levels ranked 93nd globally on a purchasing power parity basis, below countries like Peru, Namibia, and East Timor.16 More importantly the economy and the underlying society remain imbalanced, with among the smallest services sector in the world (at 43 per cent of GDP), artificially low wages, low levels of consumption (at 35 per cent of GDP v. 70 per cent in the United States), and rising levels of income inequality (with the highest GINI coefficient of the world’s ten largest economies).17 China’s current slow-down is linked to these imbalances. Comparative economic value addition Finally, US industries and companies have high levels of economic value addition, driven by a wide range of factors including the development of intellectual property, the use of technology, high levels of capital investment, and among the highest labour productivity in the world, with a US manufacturing employee creating US$ 104,606 of value annually compared to a Chinese industrial worker producing US$ 12,642, a difference of over eight times.18 The size of the trade imbalance between the United States and China belies a critical underlying difference in economic value add between the two countries. Looking at an example, the Apple iPad, a US$ 500 (retail price) product, is assembled in China and exported to the United States. Although each iPad shipped increases the US–China trade deficit by a nominal US$ 250 (the whole price), less than 5 per cent of this value is captured by Chinese companies, who provide important but low-value assembly services. US-based Apple Inc. captures 30 per cent of the value in the form of profits and the balance goes to the Japanese and Korean providers of hardware and components.19 The United States’

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productivity and the nature of its value addition remain in a different league to China’s, which still needs to industrialize a large number of its 700 million peasants. Innovation leadership America also continues to lead the world in innovation. US citizens have won 299 of the 621 scientific Nobel Prizes awarded to date, a staggering 48 per cent of the total.20 Chinese citizens, by comparison, have won none. Among (mainland) Chinese-born, there have been four Nobel Prize winners, all of them in physics, and all of them following graduate studies and prize-winning research conducted in the United States – as US citizens. While China by some measures may be overtaking the United States in terms of the number of international patents filed,21 America remains pre-eminent in terms of applied innovation. Of the world’s 15 largest companies by market cap, ten are American. More importantly though, four of these companies are technology companies (IBM, Microsoft, Apple, and Google), of which three were founded within the past 30 years. While China also has three companies in the top 15, and over ten companies in the top 100,22 all are state-owned enterprises, oligopolists in domestic markets with no foreign competition (e.g. in energy, banking, and communications).23 The United States has demonstrated like no other country in the world its ability to innovate, develop technologies, invent new business models, and build new industries. The death of Apple’s founder Steve Jobs unleashed a flood of tributes on China’s internet as well as a lively discussion around why China has been unable to bring forth a Steve Jobs of its own yet. While China has announced its ambition to lead globally in the development of clean energy and is currently building the world’s largest capacity across wind, solar, and hydro power, there were no Chinese companies among the top 25 filers of clean energy patents in 2011 (while the United States had nine, including the top-two filers).24 The US lead in innovation is deeply ingrained in its higher education, its corporate culture, its venture capital industry, and in a society that values and supports independent thinkers and individual achievement Looking at the state of China’s largest growth industries, such as digital media and the internet, it is unclear whether China has or will have the potential to compete with the United States in innovation without some fundamental shifts in its political risk appetite, which seems unlikely in the short term.25 Military leadership Another area in which the United States will continue to dominate the world for the foreseeable future is military power. The United States contributes almost 50 per cent of global military spending (not unlike the British Navy in the 1890s) and has the world’s largest navy and air force as well as the most advanced army in terms of technology. US military might spans the globe, with over 70 international military bases and the only true blue-water navy in the world, capable of projecting power into other nations’ waters. US military spending is such that even on a per capita level, the United States has the second highest defence outlay in the world.26 This dominance, in addition to providing the United States with the concrete ability to use military action as a tool of policy, allows it to shape and influence regional power balances globally to its own interests. In addition, the United States is the biggest supplier of arms in the world at US$ 19.9 billion compared to China at US$ 0.9 billion.27 Although the projection of global power also implies global vulnerability, the United States’ military pre-eminence has been and will continue to be a key instrument of national power, increasing Asian defence budgets notwithstanding.

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Alliance and multilateral leadership The United States has also strategically augmented its strength through the participation in and leadership of supranational organizations, including the IMF, World Bank, NATO, and others, although the level of US influence and participation in each varies from case to case. In some cases such as NATO, the United States has an undisputed leadership position while in others, such as the IMF and the World Bank, it is the first among equals, often with outsized voice or participation rights (e.g. the United States today has four times the number of voting rights as China in each of the World Bank and IMF).28 Further, the United States was instrumental in founding institutions in which it (arguably) does not enjoy preferential rights such as the World Trade Organization and the United Nations, but continues to wield outsized influence or soft power in these bodies, despite often being at odds with the majority views of organizations (e.g. vetoing Security Council resolutions on Israel or failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol). US participation in and leadership of these supranational organizations strengthens its position globally and integrates it more closely with its allies. Only the United States combines both the international clout as well as the will to wield long-term power in supranational and multilateral organizations today, and as a result has a created a network of strategic allies around the globe. China, on the other hand, by virtues of ideology, policy, and geography, on account of the Western focus of the others, has been described as the ‘world’s loneliest superpower’.29 China’s allies, in the Middle East and Africa in particular, do provide much needed natural resources to fuel China’s rise but do not earn it international respect and often cost it power with the established leaders.

Cultural and soft power leadership Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the United States leads the world in soft power. Its culture (music, entertainment, literature, social media etc.) is broadcast around the world and its consumer products are even more global. The United States, and the American way of life, has exercised its fascination on subsequent generations of immigrants for over 200 years now with little sign of abating. It is telling that China has more students at US colleges than in any other foreign country, numbering 157,558 in the 2010–11 academic year.30 Even more telling, by some counts almost 75 per cent of the children of current and retired minister-level Chinese officials have acquired either green cards or US citizenship.31 By comparison, few are the American citizens studying at Chinese universities and non-existent are the children of US officials who have applied for Chinese passports. America’s and China’s ‘performance’ in the Pew Global Attitudes Survey, which has been surveying international opinions for over a decade, is a corollary of their respective levels of soft power. While all countries surveyed, barring India, China, and certain Middle Eastern countries, have a positive view (defined as over 50 per cent of population having a ‘very favourable’ or ‘somewhat favourable’ opinion of the country) of the United States, China was unfavourably viewed by a diverse set of countries including Brazil, India, Germany, Japan, and Mexico. Moreover, more often than not China’s image has trended downward in most countries during the past decade.32 America still enjoys both breadth and depth of power. It could be argued that its soft power is actually the greatest source of its strength in the world: its values and culture, policies and institutions are found to be attractive and aspired to by people around the world. America’s ideals and its soft power are the ultimate instruments of its success in attracting and enabling human talent, upon which all of its economic, financial, and military successes

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actually rest. As long as the United States can continue to maintain its fundamental attractiveness to large parts of the world, it will continue to acquire the human capital required to reinvent itself and maintain a leading position globally.

Scenarios of decline We have examined other examples from history to determine the potential pattern of American decline. Throughout history, countries, dynasties, and other political groupings have risen to dominate their known worlds, held on to increasingly tenuous positions in the face of growing external competition and internal pressures, and subsequently declined back to their historical positions or fully disintegrated in the face of a rising power. This framework has held true across geographies and eras, whether the Romans in the Mediterranean Basin in antiquity, the Mughals on the Indian subcontinent, the Mongols in Eurasia in the Middle Ages, or the British globally in the 19th century. Looking at the rise and fall of past empires we can see that these movements, although they unfolded over different periods of time, follow a pattern. They were rarely instantaneous and declines, absent catastrophic disruptions, generally occurred over prolonged periods. The chart in Figure 20.2 captures the rise and fall of five major empires throughout history from the year of their founding to the year of their termination.33 While there is clearly some correlation between the size of an empire and its rate of development, the more interesting positive correlation is between the rate of an empire’s growth and that of its decline. It seems that empires, such as the Arab, Mongol, and British, which rose very rapidly also fell very rapidly. The implication for America of course is one of timing. By most measures the 20th century has been the American Century, one in which the United States has expanded within and dominated (to varying degrees) the global order. It stands to reason that the stability of institutions and

Figure 20.2 The British Empire, 1902, on the death of Queen Victoria, empire at maximum extent. Source: Multiple original sources taken from Imperial Ends, Alexander J. Motyl (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2001)

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systems will continue to sustain American power for a good deal of the 21st century. Looking at past empires again, we have extrapolated growth and decline profiles to make a series of estimates about the rate and timing of a potential American decline. Measuring the change of the US share of global GDP provides the clearest proxy for predicting US power in the world, as landmass (the United States’ last territorial acquisitions having been made in 1898, in the wake of the Spanish American war) is an imperfect corollary to power, and soft power is difficult if not impossible to measure consistently over time. Predicting US power and its potential decline also requires assumptions around the starting point of US dominance, as well as assumptions as to the timing of its peak and point of decline. Given the diversity of America’s leadership today, it makes sense to view US dominance through both political and economic lenses. Economic dominance model Economically, the United States began witnessing rapid GDP growth and development during the middle of the second half of the 19th century (see Figure 20.3).34 This development was driven by the growth of railroads, the opening of the US West, industrialization and steel production, and a large influx of immigrants to the United States. From approximately 1875 onward, the United States consistently grew its share of global GDP from approximately 8 per cent to a peak of 35 per cent immediately after World War II, which quickly dropped to 25 per cent in the mid-1950s.35 Since then US share of global GDP has trended down slightly to just under 22 per cent now.36 In our economic model, US expansion would have taken place between 1875 and 1950 with the subsequent period representing a steady-state plateau. Based on these assumptions, and looking at the growth curves of 15 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10%

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Figure 20.3 Development of US power, 1875–2100, as measured by % share of global GDP: economic forecast model. Source: GPCResearch, June 2012

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previous empires, US power would begin to decline around 2030 and its decline would be complete by the end of the century. Taking only the five largest empires in history, decline would begin as early as 2015 and terminate around 2090. These calculations are based on applying the median growth curves to US power rather than their absolute size. On average, the empires examined typically managed to maintain periods of dominance for about 100 years in absolute terms before beginning to decline. On this basis, given that US dominance was established after the close of World War II, US power would continue unabated until the middle of the 21st century. Thereafter, America’s power would begin a long and prolonged decline into the middle of the 22nd century. Political dominance model Looking at political power provides a different starting point and trajectory of American power (see Figure 20.4). Politically, the United States did not begin exercising political power until the 20th century. While an argument can be made for Rooseveltian foreign policy starting in 1900 as the beginning of US political leadership, a safer date would be the US involvement in World War I and subsequent role in the restructuring of Europe. American political leadership continued to grow in the interwar years, during World War II, and through the Cold War, culminating with the fall of the Soviet Union, a period that was (somewhat rashly, in retrospect) deemed the ‘End of History’.37 The logic above resultantly gives us a start date for American power of 1917–18 and a peak date of 1989–92. Applying the growth curves of 15 previous empires to these assumptions results in a much longer period of continued US leadership. Taking into account the relatively quick rise (from 1918 to 1990), the analysis suggests the plateau would last until 2065 and the decline would be complete by 2130. If we 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10%

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Figure 20.4 Development of US power, 1875–2100, as measured by % share of global GDP: political forecast model. Source: GPC Research, June 2012

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look to the growth curves of the five largest empires again, the plateau lasts to 2051, and the decline is completed a decade earlier in 2121. However, it is important to realize that this calculation rests on the double assumption that US power peaked in 1992 and that it will continue to enjoy a period of stability before declining. Clearly, major external shocks change the speed and pattern of decline. In the face of America’s ‘War on Terror’ and the global financial crisis, many would argue that American decline is imminent or has set in already. If we were to, say, choose 1917–18 as the starting point for American power and choose a date in the past decade, which contained 9/11, the war in Iraq, and the global financial crisis (2001 for illustrative purposes) as the turning point of decline, a very different estimate of American power emerges. In this case, the peak of American political power would be assumed to have set in during the 1950s–1960s – in line with the United States’ actual economic peak as measured by share of global GDP (see Figure 20.5). Given the short and sharp rise of American power in this model, the decline post-2011 is equally rapid. Under this model the fall would be complete between 2055 and 2065, depending on whether one applies the curve of all 15 or just the five largest empires. This implies that a significant portion of the decline to come will occur in the near future and that we will be witnesses to the dislocation caused by the collapse of a great power.

Preserving the power base In 2010, 18 per cent of global foreign direct investment went to the United States and 11 per cent went to China and India.38 If the major correlation of share of capital flows was based on a proxy of GDP (a big assumption but one that is broadly indicative of the real long-term rise in economies) and structural economic and political readiness was established alongside 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% US GDP (actual) 5%

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Figure 20.5 Development of US power, 1875–2100, as measured by % share of global GDP: political forecast model (alternative). Source: GPC Research, June 2012

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GDP growth (again a big challenge and assumption), based on current expectations of the rise and fall of GDP, the US share by 2050 would drop to 14 per cent while China’s and India’s share would rise to over 30 per cent of the global capital flows. If capital changed hands in such large amounts, power would too. The geo-politics of economic power require the United States to address some fundamental issues and assumptions. It is becoming increasingly clear that the United States has made strategic errors in allowing certain critical territories to slip from its grasp and certain assumptions to remain unchallenged. The United States has neglected three critical territories. The first is the Greater Pacific region, that is, the Pacific region expanded to include India, which is one of the most dynamic commercial regions of the world and a strategic bloc for China to control. It is only recently under the Obama administration that the claim to the region has been reiterated.39 The second is the cross-section of the world that has oil, minerals, and commodities, in particular, Africa and Russia but also parts of Latin America, South Asia, and the Arctic. Third is the ‘commercial high ground’, that is, the execution of regional or world-changing projects and endeavours. It has been a long time since President Kennedy set the race to put a man on the moon. China in the meantime is learning fast and building railways from Beijing to Lhasa, a 50-km six-lane sea-bridge, and a dam that can be seen from space.40 The United States has also allowed three important assumptions to go unchallenged. The first is the assumption of inevitability – of the decline of America – and is a dangerous and self-fulfilling one. In accepting inevitability, American policymakers and leaders implicitly make policy that brings about the decline of their own nation and given the dependency of their allies, they place these nations at risk too. In their calculations they forget that the Soviet Union could have eclipsed America but did not, that the EU was hailed as a superpower that has not materialized41 as such, and that Japan was expected in the 1980s and the 1990s to rise to dominate the world42 but did not. The world and especially America cannot afford to enter into such dangerous thinking. The second assumption is that capitalism has failed. There is no doubt that the global financial crisis has damaged the credibility of the United States as a leader of capitalism and undermined its most recent brand of banking and finance-led capitalism. That this was a failure of a recent brand of financial engineering as opposed to capitalism itself has not been demonstrated by the resurgence of the US economy. The third assumption–that carbon-based fuels are sufficient to meet our needs–is also dangerous in a consumerist world that is expected to reach nine billion people by the turn of the century. In 2008, President Obama stated the need for a renewed approach to energy independence saying, ‘I’ve called for an investment of $15 billion a year over 10 years. Our goal should be, in 10 years’ time, we are free of dependence on Middle Eastern oil.’43 Later in 2012, as the magnitude of the United States’ shale gas reserves became more apparent, President Obama said in his State of the Union address, ‘We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years’.44 However, the discovery of shale gas only provides a ‘bridge’ to a new energy, not a way to renew a superpower. The discovery of functionally superior energy sources creates the basis for subjugating or leapfrogging America just as America could leapfrog the British Empire by becoming the oil superpower over Great Britain’s coal-powered empire. In order to maintain and defend its pre-eminence in the world, America will need to focus both inward to serve its domestic constituents well and outward to effectively manage relationships with its allies and partners. The divisiveness and partisanship in American politics that began since the wars following 9/11 and continued through this administration’s tenure is unprecedented in recent memory and threatens to limit the effectiveness of America’s

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leadership and response to global (and domestic) developments. The inability to agree the response to the US budget deficit led to the de-rating of the United States in the summer of 2011 and undermined the capital markets further. Unless its leaders can rebuild a consensus to effectively govern and legislate, the country will not only corrupt its domestic politics, it will also lose its moral authority in the eyes of the world and gradually undermine its influence on a wide range of international issues. The United States has some way to go in rebuilding and enhancing global trust in its leadership position, which suffered greatly during the Bush administration. While President Obama entered office with a measure of international goodwill, and has been seen to have enhanced the perception of the United States,45 the administration has been unable to reverse the trend line of decline in the United States’ position as a trusted global leader. To retain its supremacy, Americans would, conscious of what made America powerful in history, renew that power in the light of global developments. This is a longer topic for another time.

Conclusion Turning the clock back to Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, we can confidently say with the benefit of hindsight that imperial strategists’ fears of imminent decline at the time were premature. It took another twenty years and the devastating impact of World War I to push the British Empire into terminal decline and yet another twenty-plus years and an even greater war to complete the fall of power. Whatever happens to the United States, it will not happen overnight. Based on the past, our model places the beginning of the decline of American power as early as 2001 and as late as 2065. This implies an end of power at the earliest by 2055 and at the latest at 2130. Luckily, as so many ads for financial products say, ‘The past is not a certain measure of the future’. Our analysis demonstrates that America is the only nation with the breadth and depth of leadership to be the superpower. It is clear that China’s extraordinary rise has the potential to be an asset to the world but China is not yet well-placed to surpass American power. The Chinese people are very clear that they have a long way to go to rival a nation which they perceive as pre-eminent. It is the West that has developed a frenzy about the fall of America. It is worth noting that at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, America, China, and India together accounted for over 40 per cent of the world’s population, about 37 per cent of the world’s GDP, 33 per cent of the world’s fertile land, over 36 per cent of the world’s oil consumption, and 20 per cent of world trade.46 In the long term, the sharing of economics and power is likely given these statistics. However, in determining whether the world should want a pre-eminent America, one has to examine whether the collapse of American power is likely to deliver enhanced peace, prosperity, or freedom any time soon, whether the European Union or China or India are ready to deliver a better world order, or whether some form of consensus-based world order is possible. These may well be end states for the future but, in the meantime, reasserting American leadership appears to be a requirement for global stability. Closely tied to American leadership is economic growth and stability. If the United States’ economic recovery post the global financial crisis is not sustainable we may well find ourselves in a lost decade made more risky by the EU’s (in-)ability to resolve its debt crisis and the on-going slowdown of China’s economy. Barring a catastrophic disruptive event (which is not impossible given what we have witnessed since the turn of this century), American power is set to remain the most powerful force in the world for a long time to come.

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Notes 1 Ferguson, Niall, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2004). 2 Pew Global Attitudes Project, June 2012. The 21-nation poll found that 41 per cent of people said China was the world’s economic power, while 40 per cent favoured the United States. Among the 14 nations that were asked the same question in 2008, the margin was wider: 45 per cent placed the United States on top four years ago, with just 22 per cent for China, but in the latest poll China was favoured 42 per cent to 36 per cent. The trend was especially strong in Europe. The survey also found that China’s image has grown more negative over the past year in the United States, Japan, and parts of Europe. 3 World Bank, GDP (current US$); Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Military Expenditure. 4 OECD, The Economist, Chinese Academy of Sciences. 5 Cf. Hachigian, China’s New Engagement in the International System, 2009. 6 See Footnote for above, also World Bank, EIU, National Intelligence Council, Goldman Sachs. 7 IMF, Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves, 2011. 8 Bloomberg, ‘1 month bank CD rates for U.S and India and the one year lending rate of the People’s Bank of China’. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 US Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Bureau of Statistics of China, Bloomberg, ‘SSE Composite Index up 1.5 per cent in 2012’. 12 Allianz Global Wealth Report, 2011. 13 IMF. 14 World Bank, World Factbook. 15 IMF, World Bank. 16 IMF. 17 National Bureau of Statistics of China, IMF, World Bank. 18 International Labour Organization. 19 Personal Computing Industry Centre. 20 Nobel Foundation. Includes Chemistry, Physics, Physiology, or Medicine, and the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. 21 World Intellectual Property Organization, 2012 World Intellectual Property Indicators Report. 22 CapitalIQ, 1 March 2013. 23 Bloomberg, 1 March 2013. 24 Clean Energy Patent Growth Index. 25 We examined this gap, its sources, and its implications at http://greaterpacificcapital.com/chinaand-the-freedom-advantage/. 26 SIPRI Yearbook 2011. The UAE has the highest per capita spending on defence. 27 Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2003–10; Grimmett, 2011; http://www.imf. org/external/np/sec/memdir/members.htm; www.worldbank.org. 28 World Bank, IMF. 29 Min Xian Pei, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, quoted in The Atlantic, 2012. 30 Institute of International Education. 31 New Tang Dynasty TV. 32 Pew Global Attitudes Survey. 33 With normalized landmass-change assumptions. 34 Robert J. Gordon, The American Economic Review, 89 (2). 35 Maddison, Angus (1995) Monitoring the World Economy, 1820–1992, Paris: OECD. 36 IMF. 37 Francis Fukuyama (1989/1992) The End of History and the Last Man. 38 UNCTAD. Interestingly, during the same period, the United States provided 26.4 per cent of total FDI investments while India and China jointly provided 6.7 per cent. 39 President Barack Obama, East Asia Summit, November 2011. 40 The Qinghai–Lhasa Railway, the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macao Bridge, and the Three Gorges Dam, respectively.

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41 Charles A. Kupchan (2002) The Atlantic Monthly; Jeremy Rifkin (2005) The European Dream: How Europe’s Vision of the Future is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream. 42 Ezra Vogel (1980) Japan as Number One. 43 President Barack Obama, 7 October 2008. 44 President Barack Obama, State of the Union Speech, January 2012. 45 Attitudes toward the US are generally more positive today than in 2008, the final year of the George W. Bush administration… Majorities or pluralities in 18 of 20 countries admire the US for its science and technology, and most of the publics surveyed embrace American music, movies and television. Around the world, US ideas about democracy and American ways of doing business have become more popular since Obama took office… More than seven-in-ten in Germany, France, Britain, the Czech Republic and Italy express confidence that Obama will do the right thing in world affairs. Big majorities in Japan and Brazil also hold this view. There is little support for Obama, however, in the predominantly Muslim nations surveyed. Fewer than three-in-ten express confidence in him in Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey and Jordan… Outside of Pakistan, however, Obama consistently receives higher ratings than Bush did in 2008. This is particularly true in Western Europe and Japan. Pew Global Attitudes Survey, 13-Jun-2012. 46 World Bank, World Factbook.

21 Presidents’ agenda The decisions that will shape US–China relations Ketan Patel and Christian Hansmeyer

In November 2012 the two largest economies in the world selected their heads of state, in one case extending the mandate of an incumbent leader in a national election and, in the other, transitioning power from one generation of leadership to the next in what has been considered to be a more top-down managed process. With President Obama confirmed for another four years and President Xi Jinping set to run China for the next ten, these two leaders will need to determine whether and when to compete or collaborate on many of the world’s most important issues. Within the coming decade during which China by the estimates of many analysts is expected to overtake the United States in terms of GDP, the next four years in particular will be critical in shaping the relationships between the two countries and forming the trajectory of their respective future economic growth and development. During the past decade, China has gone from being a ‘strategic partner’ (under US President Clinton1) to being a ‘strategic competitor’ (under US President Bush2). The future nature of the strategic relationship will be shaped by how Presidents Obama and Xi choose to tackle the top bilateral issues of trade and economics, foreign policy, and natural resources, as well as their respective top domestic issues. It is clear that without a strong domestic base China cannot succeed in its sustainable and stable rise and America cannot regain the political and economic high ground it has occupied for the better part of a century. Before exploring the top issues facing the two countries it is useful to look at the circumstances of both leaders’ rise to power in the context of their respective political systems as well as at the nature of their roles and responsibilities, which are summarized in Table 21.1. A quick glance at the table should suffice to demonstrate that the two leaders’ positions and circumstances, while sharing some similarities, are very different. The starting points from which these two men have secured their victory will affect their ability to address the domestic and international issues that will shape the big US–China decisions that need to be taken. Although total American GDP between 2009 and 2012 expanded by 3.0 per cent (the EU’s total growth over the same period was 1.0 per cent and Japan’s 0.1 per cent), the domestic impression that the American economy is not performing creates a significant pressure to address all factors that benefit the American economy including imports from China.3 China’s growth during the same period has slowed from 11.9 per cent to 7.8 per cent4 and this also will create significant pressures for the incoming government. The agenda that will occupy both men is long and complex, mired in domestic, regional, and international issues. The approaches they take and the decisions they make on each of these can set the two nations as strategic adversaries or strategic partners. The challenge of how these potential areas of conflict are resolved will demonstrate the character of the two

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Table 21.1 Leaders’ respective political systems and the nature of their roles and responsibilities United States of American – Barack Obama

People’s Republic of China – Xi Jinping

Position and powers

Head of State, Commander in Chief, Head of State, Chairman of Central Head of Federal Government Military Commission, General Secretary of CP Central Committee Election process and Elected by Electoral College with Officially elected by 3000-strong results 62% of votes (51% of popular National People’s Congress; de vote1) facto agreed upon by party elders Checks on power Power of the Presidency checked by Power shared among seven-member Congress and Supreme Court Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) Domestic political House of Representatives held by Decisions in the PSC believed to be landscape opposition; country deeply consensual, with multiple interest partisan with political process groups within the Communist deadlocked Party represented within the PSC and the Central Committee2 Most pressing domestic America’s continued economic Continued drive for widening issue recovery and return to broadparticipation in prosperity while based prosperity implementing political reform Notes 1 President Obama is the first Democrat to win more than 50% of the popular vote since President Roosevelt in 1944, but the Republican majority in the House of Representatives may weaken the President’s ability to implement policy choices. 2 The influence of former president Jiang Zemin is considered to underline the policy choices Xi is most likely to lean towards.

nations. We lay out below some of the key factors that are pertinent to the direction of each of these major factors.

The top bilateral issues The economic issues (See Figures 21.1–21.5.) The crux of the issue Although China has reduced its current account surplus significantly, from 10.6 per cent of GDP in 2007 to 2.6 per cent last year, the United States runs the world’s largest current account deficit against China, whose strong export sector has been a key driver of its economic development. Until such time as China has rebalanced its economy lead by domestic consumption (a multi-decade challenge with its own issues), any factors that undermine China’s exports undermine its prosperity and are a force for destabilization. Downside Risk

Current Position

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Figure 21.1 Bilateral trade and tariffs.

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Figure 21.2 WTO anti-dumping measures by country, 1995–2009. Source: World Trade Organization Note: China remains the largest target of anti-dumping cases globally, subject to nearly the same number of measures as the next three largest targets combined Downside Risk

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Figure 21.3 Currency and capital account.

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Figure 21.4 China’s US dollar reserves.

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Figure 21.5 FDI and protectionism.

The status quo To date, both countries have assiduously sought to avoid the escalations that could lead to a trade war such as tit-for-tat tariffs, and have sought to resolve their differences within the confines of the WTO, despite Chinese products from car tyres to solar panels facing US tariffs from anywhere from 18 per cent to 250 per cent.5 For the presidents’ agenda Political and economic pressures in either country could easily reverse the ‘peaceful’ status quo of today and lead to an escalation outside of the established rules of engagement. Preventing this is an essential part of continuing a global open trade environment for the world at large of which America is a major beneficiary.

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The crux of the issue Although the RMB has risen over 30 per cent against the US dollar since 2005 (including 10 per cent since 2010), the United States still believes that it is undervalued.6 The status quo When the Republican US presidential candidate Mitt Romney called China a ‘currency manipulator’ during the recent presidential elections and the US Senate voted to sanction China for its currency policies in 2011, China felt unjustly attacked and under-appreciated for its progress to date in addressing the issue, particularly given its stated on-going commitment to the gradual liberalization of its capital account and exchange rate. Recent initiatives include doubling the trading band of the RMB against the US dollar earlier this year, from 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent per day, and increasing investment caps for RMB investments under the qualified foreign institutional investor scheme.7 For the presidents’ agenda Although China appears to be making steady progress in exchange rate liberalization, if China suffered a hard landing, it might well be tempted to devalue its currency to kick-start further export growth, even at the cost of further domestic unbalancing. For China, its currency and the exchange rate are important levers with which to manage a socially and politically stable path of growth for the country, and any pressure on its freedom to use these levers could be seen as a threat to its overall plan and would be rebutted accordingly. The United States helping China manage the transition to currency and capital liberalization is clearly of mutual benefit to both countries. The crux of the issue As of 30 June 2012, China held a total of $3.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, about 70 per cent of which were held in US dollars.8 Although representatives of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) have stated that China’s exchange reserves have ‘exceeded our country’s rational demand’,9 China’s options to reduce its forex reserves generally and US debt holdings specifically are quite limited. The days when the United States could comfortably say ‘it’s our currency and your problem’10 are clearly over and the stability of the world’s primary exchange currency has become a matter of urgency for the US Treasury. The status quo China to date has sought to escape the ‘dollar trap’ by reinvesting its dollar purchases in other reserve currencies and natural resources, but liquidity constraints limit the scale of these alternatives.11 Although the PBOC can today continue to absorb additional US dollars generated by Chinese export earnings in order to fund US government debt, a long-term solution would require the United States presenting China with a series of viable dollardenominated investment alternatives. For the presidents’ list A more active and substantial strategy, the Sino-dollar, similar to the petro-dollar strategy (employed by Middle Eastern oil-exporting nations whereby they returned capital to the

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United States as an investor) would represent such a longer-term solution. Clearly, despite the need for such a solution, America is not ready for the scale of Chinese investment that would represent a viable Sino-dollar strategy. Identifying a range of industries for investment by China could be the first step of a longer process of opening to the flow of capital. The crux of the issue In addition to intermittent trade protection, direct investments between the two countries have also been subject to increasingly frequent restrictions. While China has adopted a blanket approach to limiting foreign investment and competition in a fairly wide range of sectors, the United States has taken a more ad hoc approach to restricting Chinese investment in US assets typically by invoking national security interests. The implication of closed doors is clear: Chinese companies, whose outbound investment is expected to reach up to US$ 800 billion by 2016,12 will invest elsewhere. The status quo The United States regularly excludes Chinese companies from US acquisitions on national security grounds. Ralls Corp., which is owned by Chinese nationals, was the first company in 22 years to be ordered to divest an investment on the basis of national security, Ralls having purchased wind farms near a military testing facility in Oregon.13 Most recently the United States excluded Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers Huawei and ZTE from US contracts and acquisitions.14 Huawei has already established six research centres in Europe to date without a problem.15 For the presidents’ list Such lost opportunities for the United States are not incremental: combining US brands, technology, and market access with Chinese capital and low-cost production can create a new generation of US–Sino or Sino–US global industry champions capable of restructuring formerly uncompetitive industries. However, for this to occur, the United States would need to open itself to investment from China without initial reciprocity. Britain’s commitment to free trade and the free movement of capital in the 19th century during an era of global protectionism made it the richest and most powerful country in history and the United States would need to follow suit in a similar manner today.

In summary: the shape of the economic relationship The macro-economic factors above will be critical for the two countries and their leaders to consider, given that under most of the ‘accepted wisdom’ forecasts China will overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy before the end of President Xi Jinping’s reign. The graph in Figure 21.6 assumes a moderate recovery of US growth (to 2.5 per cent annually) and a moderate easing of China’s growth (to 6.5 per cent annually over the period) with reasonable inflation and USD–RMB currency appreciation. Clearly, the shape of both curves will be driven by each leader’s ability to push through much needed domestic economic reform. China has recognized the need for it to invest in foreign countries and to do so in scale. To succeed in this, China will need to come to grips fully with the growing resistance to what nations perceive to be the Chinese government controlling their nation’s key assets.

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Figure 21.6 Overtaking America:US–China GDP growth forecast. Source: GPC research; assumptions: US GDP – 2.5%; US inflation – 2%; China GDP – 6.5%; China inflation – 3%; CNY appreciation – 3%

US protectionists see China managing its currency value to benefit its trade and then utilizing the reserves accumulated to buy up international assets. America appears not yet to have fully recognized that, without this investment, the value of the American homeland will decline, and we may see the end of the dollar as the reserve currency. This would be a big negative psychological blow to the United States and its international standing, and may well be considered to mark the end of the primacy of the United States.16 Finding a solution whereby China can invest in very substantial amounts across diversified sectors in the United States without a ‘national security’ alarm bell going off is becoming a strategic question for America. The foreign policy issues The crux of the issue The most important development in US–Chinese foreign policy is the Obama administration’s ‘pivot’, a shift of diplomatic and defence resources away from the Middle East and back towards the Asia-Pacific (see Figure 21.7). President Obama succinctly summarized the strategy: ‘We will preserve our unique ability to project power and deter threats to peace… Our enduring interests in the region demand our enduring presence in the region.’17 The status quo Although the United States has not to date taken a direct position in the multiple sovereignty disputes in the South and East China seas disputes, its rhetoric places it on a collision course with China, which is seeking to project regional power for its own enduring interests too. For China, the uncertainty over US aims and actions is a considerable source of insecurity, which risks triggering strong reactions to perceived threats that will enhance, rather than diminish regional security. The current territorial disputes involve China and Taiwan, Vietnam,

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Downside Risk

Current Position

Upside Opportunity

Hostile Seaboard w. Nuclear Japan

Game of Thrones

Asia’s Mediterranean

Figure 21.7 Asia-Pacific and the pivot.

Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines in the South, and China, Japan, and South Korea in the East China Sea, and no roadmap for the negotiated settlement of any of these disputes has been proposed (by any party). For the presidents’ list Unless China or its opponents – under US leadership – develops a comprehensive framework to settle outstanding disputes and issues, China may well find itself facing a hostile seaboard along its entire Pacific border, significantly reducing China’s security. At the extreme, it could find itself isolated by the wider international community. Japan presents a peculiar case in point, which if current trends continue will continue to diversify its substantial investment of capital and IP away from China. The case for Japan having a nuclear defence capability in such a case will not be difficult to find in a region where China and North Korea both have weapons (and India and Pakistan as well). The countries in the region with on-going territorial disputes are increasingly asking China to see the South China Sea not as Chinese but as Asian. If China can do so, it can create a mechanism for managing disputes, and the South and East China Seas can become a primary conduit for the exchange of capital, goods, and ideas within the region, much like the Mediterranean Sea has been for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa throughout much of history. The crux of the issue America’s Taiwan policy is a unique situation within the larger pivot strategy and a continued issue for China (see Figure 21.8). America withheld diplomatic recognition of China in favour of Taiwan until 1972 and has continued to support Taiwan financially and militarily, even threatening to use nuclear weapons during the Taiwan Straits Crisis18 periodically, while ‘reaffirm[ing] its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question’.19 From China’s perspective, continued US support of Taiwan remains a major obstacle to reunification with the mainland. The status quo Taiwan has in recent years become increasingly dependent on China across multiple dimensions, with more than a dozen agreements between the two countries signed on issues including tariff reduction, investments, tourism, and joint police cooperation, among others, and the 2012 re-election of President Ma Ying-jeou has shown that Taiwan’s citizens are in favour of closer ties to the mainland. However, America’s Taiwan policies continue to have real implications for US–China relations: following a January 2010 US$ 6 billion US arms sale to Taiwan, Downside Risk

Current Position

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The Iron Seawall

Stop and Go

Peaceful Co-existence

Figure 21.8 Taiwan.

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China suspended a senior bilateral security dialogue with the United States for the first time, and implemented a series of sanctions against US companies doing business with Taiwan. For the presidents’ list America’s Taiwan policy is a key factor influencing the ‘stop–go’ engagement between the China and Taiwan and the fragile balance between them could be tipped quickly either way. A more aggressive US policy could re-create an ‘Iron Sea Wall’ in the Taiwan Strait, undoing years of cautious progress, while a more constructive policy would help drive a peaceful co-existence where both parties benefit from the transfer of know-how and investment. The crux of the issue Central Asia stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north (see Figure 21.9). As such it has historically been the crossroads for the movement of people, goods, and ideas between the Middle East, India, and East Asia as well as the venue for critical political and military actions throughout history. The region’s rich resources and borders continue to make it the intersection of interest of major and regional powers including the United States and China. The status quo Central Asia today is home to America’s ‘War on Terror’ in Afghanistan, China’s oil and gas pipeline, and deals with Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, the former Sino–Soviet border dispute, and China’s autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, which have seen increasing levels of civil unrest in recent years. Central Asia in other words continues to be a core focus area for China’s foreign and security policy. The United States, on the other hand, has pursued a hodgepodge of policies in a region that lies between two of its own focus areas, the Pacific Rim and Middle East. Currently, the United States and China as well as countries like geographically important Russia and culturally–ethnically important Turkey are playing a modern, more complex version of the Great Game, in Central Asia, vying for trade, energy, and other natural resources, in addition to the security interests that drove completion between Britain and Imperial Russia in the 19th century. For the presidents’ list In the current form of the Great Game, the nations of Central Asia are participants rather than pawns, and beneficiaries of the competition over their resources and friendship. A shift in the United States’ or China’s modus operandi could change this though to a more urgent struggle for position. Should the United States wish to pursue a strategy of containment, it may well make sense to ‘encircle’ China by pursuing a clear Central Asia strategy to complement its Asia-Pacific strategy. From China’s perspective, however, it may make sense to patiently build relationships, taking small pieces of the board and fill the void that Downside Risk

Current Position

Upside Opportunity

The Scramble for Central Asia

The Great Game

Spheres of Influence

Figure 21.9 Central Asia.

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America leaves as it withdraws from key parts of the region, as it is currently doing in Afghanistan. The crux of the issue Americans are the biggest consumers per capita of natural resources globally (see Figure 21.10). One of the key elements of China’s foreign and economic policy is resource security, whether through foreign acquisitions of companies or the acquisition of mineral rights in third countries. China’s ability to transform its economy and maintain social stability is predicated on continuing economic growth, which in turn requires significant energy and material resources. The status quo China’s demand has already pushed up prices for key commodities globally while many of its proposed acquisitions of assets in countries like the United States and Australia have failed due to resistance driven by considerable popular backlash, driving China to pursue opportunities in countries widely perceived as pariahs by the international community, such as Sudan, Myanmar, and Iran. Using this approach, China has had a relatively free run at its resource strategy for about two decades, although resource constraints are pushing both countries into more frequent direct competition. For the presidents’ list Given the demand for resources, America and China are for now natural competitors. In addition, shale gas is a potential game-changer: China has the largest single country shale gas reserves, while US-allied North America has even more. The key question for America will be whether it should share or keep its technological advantage in exploiting shale gas and also whether it should export or stockpile the resource itself. Sharing and exporting will lessen competition but minimize its clout down the line when the world faces shortages. Withholding will lead to China having to pursue increasingly aggressive sourcing, potentially in South America and Canada, in what America sees as its ‘backyard’. This ‘encirclement’ of America would have far-reaching implications. As an example, China today imports 400,000 barrels of oil per day from Venezuela, nearly all of which are at the expense of exports to the United States.20 More importantly it has provided Venezuela with US$ 32 billion in loans,21 much of it being used to purchase Chinese goods and products, including arms, affording China potential levels of influence in South America that the United States for much of its history has considered as unacceptable as formulated by the Monroe Doctrine. In summary: the shape of the foreign policy relationship Foreign policy choices offer each the opportunity to ‘encircle’ the other. America’s positioning in the South China Sea and Central Asia (coupled with an India engagement policy) can Downside Risk

Current Position

Upside Opportunity

Winner Take All Bidding War

Discrete Resource Strategies

Leadership for Alternatives

Figure 21.10 Natural resource competition.

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create an effective encirclement of China. China’s positioning in South America and Canada can create an effective encirclement of America, and in either case both nations could put forward economic and national security interests to defend their respective moves. Effectively executing these moves would require coordination and cooperation with a wider group of partners and interested parties. The United States has a long history of participating and leading in multinational organizations, and has used these effectively to further its own policy goals, winning support where possible (e.g. NATO’s Balkan engagements) but going it alone where required (vetoing UN resolutions criticizing Israel over Palestine22). China, on the other hand, is a relative newcomer to multilateral diplomacy (learning quickly as it has demonstrated in looking after its interests on Sudan, Iran, North Korea, and Syria) and this, combined with an unwillingness to take action in what could be construed as another country’s ‘internal’ affairs, has led it to take a more passive foreign policy stance and vetoed multiple UN security resolutions. America has a window of opportunity to work with China to help its participation or to see China learn how to be more proactive in defining and addressing its foreign policy goals and challenges. Domestic issues The crux of the issue Both America and China are finding it difficult to regain their former economic confidence. America is struggling to redefine a form of capitalism that can align Republicans and Democrats let alone the rest of the world behind America. China is struggling to chart its own course in a world where the role model is no longer defined by America’s capital markets. This has led China to reduce its ambition to ‘safe’ growth. The status quo Five years after the collapse of the subprime housing market, the nationalization of its autoindustry and a US$ 787 billion stimulus package initiated in 2009,23 America is slowly recovering from the global financial crisis. The impact of the fall is felt in an unemployment rate of 7.7 per cent24 and an economy that has very slowly recovered from the 5.3 per cent contraction it suffered in Q1 2009 to 2.2 per cent for the full year 2012.25 The recovery looks and feels more like a slow climb from a depression than the rebounds from previous recessions (see Figure 21.11). China too must continue to deliver prosperity to its people. The country has fallen from the heights of 12 per cent GDP growth to under 8 per cent now.26 At these growth rates, China’s economic activity does not generate sufficient wealth generation in America, Europe, or Japan, who have come to rely on China to help drive their own economies. Further, at the current employment rates, China cannot rely on keeping the steady stability it has enjoyed given how raised expectations have become among its people.

Downside Risk

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Reinventing America

Figure 21.11 Prosperity.

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For the presidents’ list Continued political stalemate will stall the United States’ fledgling recovery and perhaps throw the country into depression (see Figure 21.12). This will further decrease American influence in the world and its ability to shape the global agenda, as well as exacerbate the socioeconomic fault lines within the country itself. Bold bipartisan action could reinvigorate America, driving innovation, economic activity, and broad-based wealth creation. China’s need to reinvigorate its economy is essential to its peaceful rise. Also a lower growth China risks being a far less influential force in the world, merely a trader sourcing raw materials rather than a strategic ally for growth. The crux of the issue China may be the only country in history where the minimum annual GDP growth required for assuring social stability has been widely believed to be around 8 per cent.27 In the United States, the election has demonstrated the divisions of ideology, economic class, and ethnicity. Although external shocks (such as another major homeland terrorist attack which thankfully seems unlikely) can galvanize and unify the nation, America will need to find its own positive internal rationale for stepping back from its divisions to re-forge US society into a more unified one. The status quo While China’s 8 per cent growth requirement can partially be explained by the gap between nominal GDP and real income growth, the potential instability risk of lower growth in China is a largely a consequence of its political system. The Chinese Communist Party during the Deng-Jiang eras implemented widespread socioeconomic reforms that were not followed up with corresponding political reform during the past Hu-Wen decade. Today, issues including corruption, promotion based on patronage, increasingly sophisticated censorship, and a higher standard of government accountability are high on President Xi Jinping’s agenda. Although the short-term priority will be economic stability and on-going rebalancing, without longer-term political reforms, China’s huge economic gains risk being undone. On the upside, President Xi’s expected ten-year reign provides a sufficient runway to develop and implement a carefully managed and staged political opening. On the downside, further stagnation and repression will likely lead to internal strife and a potential risk to the system. If the new leadership sees its mandate as playing it safe rather than developing and executing an ambitious vision, China will continue to muddle through many of its core issues rather than address them. With regards to the United States, the 2012 presidential election cost a total of US$ 6 billion.28 China could easily argue that America also faces the need for reform of its political system. High on the list for reform is banking and finance, healthcare, education, entitlement, and immigration. A windfall profit from unlocking the riches from its shale reserves might allow the United States to continue funding programmes like social security and the public healthcare systems and also provide the impetus for a resurgence in American Downside Risk

Current Position

Upside Opportunity

Repression and Collapse

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Staged Opening

Figure 21.12 Reform.

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industry. However, in the absence of a significant windfall, widespread and far-reaching reforms will clearly be required. For the presidents’ list President Xi’s ability to leave a more lasting legacy to China and the world than the outgoing leadership may largely be driven by his ability to overcome internal obstacles among the leadership team and drive change. It is not clear that the task will be any easier for President Obama who will need to reach accommodation with a Republican House of Representatives across a wide range of critical domestic issues. In summary: the impact of domestic issues Both the United States and China will need to manage their most pressing domestic issues, the return to prosperity for the United States alongside the reform of society and political reform in China, as well as continued economic growth. Without solving its core domestic problems the United States will be unable to resume a constructive leadership role in world affairs. Without political reform and continued economic development, the material gains China has made in the decades since initiating economic reform risk being undone. Successfully addressing these pressing domestic issues in China and the United States will in some ways be a prerequisite for constructive multilateral engagement between the two countries. Unless both countries’ leaders can build the domestic consensus required to solve these problems it is unlikely that they will have the political capital to make the bold moves required to reshape the US–China relationship to the advantage of all.

Overall conclusion In reviewing the core US–China issues we have sought to illustrate the extremes of each position to provide a perspective on the potential risks and benefits of each. Given the fact that the countries need to have an integrated approach to bilateral relations and the interrelated nature of the issues themselves, it is highly unlikely that either country would actively choose to pursue an extreme position on any one of these issues. In all likelihood, both countries will continue to follow a nuanced path in the wide middle ground in dealing with one another, swinging to extreme positions tactically to achieve short-term results or in response to specific events. The overall shape and direction of the US–China relationship will likely be determined by a number of factors. Vision and character Much will be determined by whether the vision and character of the leaders incline them to compromise rather than conflict. President Xi Jinping sits within a party and politburo that has moved toward consensual and negotiated decision-making, making it unlikely that President Xi will seek or be able to carve out a radical personal agenda. The likely focus of the first term will be the economy and modest political reform. President Obama has shown himself to be a pragmatist in his foreign policy dealings who is able to take unexpected positions. His energy will also be occupied in continuing to grow the economy while addressing reform under what is set to be difficult opposition. In both cases, vision will most likely take second place to execution focused on a safe growth path for the economy and modest progress on social and political issues.

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Political action freedom How much freedom for political action do both leaders have? President Obama in his first term was not able to overcome stiff partisanship and establish an effective working relationship with a Republican House of Representatives. He will certainly need to address this in his second term if he is to implement what is still an ambitious agenda. President Xi’s political freedom will be built over his first term. Barring major setbacks, President Xi should have the opportunity to exercise greater power following the next National People’s Congress in five years, when five of the seven Politburo Standing Committee members retire. Power division and balance President Obama has rehabilitated the United States in the eyes of international leaders away from the unilateralist superpower of the Bush era. This perceived multilateralism has earned him recognition and a measure of respect. Holding but not necessarily overplaying the winning military hand may also help but the current status of US engagement remains insufficient for the world’s leading power in the face of a China that is rapidly catching up in economic power. The overall winning hand requires its economy to be an ace. In this regard, America has a multi-decade game to play focused on carbon energy (based on shale) in the short term, a disruptive and innovative alternative in the longer term, the transformation of its infrastructure, and the expansion of its formidable and superior industry based on lowcost fuel. Popular views of China overtaking America may well be failing to take into account the strength of America as a force for innovation and reinvention. For now, China and the United States have realized the need to minimize distracting conflict and are willing to use international entities such as the WTO or UN to address their issues. Finally, we focus too often on trends rather than game changers, individual events or actions that can quickly tip the scales. Many or all of the issues we have discussed can run to one of the two extremes. Events that would shift the two to a negative extreme with significant downside risk include among others 1) US military action with a direct impact on Chinese national security, e.g. intervention in Iran that chokes off one million barrels of oil exports daily, most of them to China; 2) actions by either party in a sovereignty dispute that escalates to conflict between China and a US ally, e.g. Japan or Taiwan; or 3) prolonged internal unrest in China, particularly by a minority group or region. Events with significant bilateral upside potential on the other hand include 1) a wide-ranging opening of America to Chinese investment and reciprocal opening of China to America; 2) a, say, US$ 100 billion collaboration on alternative energy sources; 3) China repositioning as the biggest provider of know-how and financial aid to emerging markets; or 4) China settling all of its territorial disputes, including a full reconciliation with Japan, in favour of opening wide these markets and re-positioning its brand. Both presidents have an important opportunity to form a vision of what a US–China looks like and set in motion a new and highly constructive pattern in the next few years.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5

Speech at the Washington summit with President Jiang Zemin, 1997. Foreign policy speech, US presidential campaign, 2000. World Bank. The actual GDP growth for the full year 2012 was 7.8 per cent. US Department of Commerce, October 2012.

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Bloomberg. Ibid., April 2012. People’s Bank of China. Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People’s Bank of China, April 2011. US Treasury Secretary John Connally, 1971. Paul Krugman (2009) ‘China’s dollar trap,’ The New York Times; more recently well explained by James Parker (2012) ‘The dollar trap: China’s misunderstood foreign exchange reserves,’ The Diplomat. Asian Venture Capital Journal, February 2012. Reported by Bloomberg et al. Sep 2012. Ibid., October 2012. Reported by Xinhua, October 2012. The decline of Sterling as a global reserve currency went hand in hand with the dismantlement of the British Empire following World War II, creating a vicious circle of declining power and liquidity that led to Britain’s irrelevance, both practical and perceived, in global politics and finance. President Barack Obama, speech to the Australian Parliament, November 2011. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, televised speech, March 1955. Joint US–PRC Shanghai communiqué, February 1972. US Energy Information Association. Reported by Reuters, May 2012. 35 of the 44 vetoes exercised by the United States on the UN Security Council between 1972 and 2011 related to Israel and Occupied Territories. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act 2009, estimate by Congressional Budget Office February 2012, later estimates increased to US$ 831 billion. US Bureau of Labor Statistics, seasonally adjusted, November 2012. US Bureau of Economic Analysis. World Bank. Cf. The Financial Times (2012) ‘Does China still need 8% growth?,’ June. Center for Responsible Politics, August 2012.

Afterword: Securing freedom Obama, the NSA, and US foreign policy Andrew Hammond and Richard J. Aldrich

Throughout American history, intelligence has helped secure our country and our freedoms (Barack Obama, Remarks on the Review of Signals Intelligence, 17 January 2014).

Introduction In October 2013, Europe witnessed a diplomatic furore. The German magazine Der Spiegel revealed that America’s largest spy agency, the National Security Agency (NSA), was intercepting data from the mobile phone of Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor. The subject dominated the EU Summit that began on 24 October and the American ambassadors to Berlin and Paris found themselves besieged by embarrassing questions they would rather not answer. Although many former intelligence practitioners dismissed the uproar as ‘crocodile tears’ – explaining that the Germans also conduct extensive electronic espionage – the political fallout was considerable. ‘Spying between friends, that’s just not done,’ Merkel told the summit. ‘Now trust has to be rebuilt’ (Spiegel Staff 2013). The source of these revelations was the former NSA contractor, Edward Snowden. His documents and PowerPoint slides have made the headlines weekly since June 2013. Yet as of January 2014, less than one per cent of his material had been released. Recognizing the possibility of repeated embarrassment, Obama had already ordered a number of internal reviews and inquiries. These revealed that Merkel was not alone. According to the Wall Street Journal the NSA – America’s pre-eminent signals intelligence agency – had routinely monitored some thirty-five world-leaders. Some of this surveillance was stopped abruptly, including operations against senior figures in the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. In December 2013, newly released documents from Snowden revealed a new range of surveillance targets that included the office of the Israeli Prime Minister and the leaders of major international companies and aid organizations (Appelbaum et al. 2013). Further transatlantic embarrassment followed. Perhaps the most interesting figure on the surveillance lists was Joaquín Almunia, then serving as Vice President of the European Commission. Significantly, he enjoyed a watching brief over antitrust issues in Europe. The European Commission exercises significant powers in the realm of international trade and it has used these powers against American companies in the recent past. Microsoft and Intel, for example, have suffered large fines for impeding fair competition. The leaked documents indicate that NSA, together with its British partner GCHQ, intercepted Almunia’s communications in 2008 and 2009 (Glantz and Lehren 2013). EU trade diplomacy is a sensitive subject and predictably perhaps, the European Parliament responded by declaring the activities of the NSA and GCHQ to be illegal (Hopkins and Traynor 2014). Evidence has also

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emerged suggesting that the Americans joined with the British to spy on the Israelis, the Germans, and the European Union, or worked with the Canadians to spy on the Brazilians. The White House has been forced to ask serious questions about the relative costs and gains of such ventures. On 17 January 2014, after a number of reviews and consultations that lasted six months, Obama announced a range of changes to practice and procedure. Although these changes were modest, the White House had been placed on notice. A series of whistleblowers and leakers – of whom Edward Snowden is the most recent and most prominent – has created a climate of ‘regulation by revelation’ (Aldrich 2009). The details of any future secret intelligence programmes will probably have to be defended in public and this may very likely have a deterrent effect. Yet, as Obama said in his January 2014 remarks on NSA reform: what is at stake in this debate goes far beyond a few months of headlines, or passing tensions in our foreign policy. When you cut through the noise, what’s really at stake is how we remain true to who we are in a world that is remaking itself at dizzying speed (White House 2014). Glen Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who acted as Snowden’s conduit for the disclosures, concurred in a response to Obama’s speech on CNN: ‘the question really is what kind of values do we have as a country’ (Greenwald 2014). As so often in American history, then, the central axis of contestation is over the fraught and ever-evolving relationship between two values that Thomas Paine took to be ‘the true end of government’: freedom and security (Paine 1995 [1776]: 7). This conversation has become charged of late as the result of the recent NSA disclosures, set against a background of accelerating technological change.

The NSA before Obama Organizationally, intelligence derived from electronic interception – known in the trade as ‘sigint’ – has always belonged to the US military. Despite a history of diplomatic codebreaking success during the Second World War, the failure to predict the outbreak of the Korean War prompted Harry Truman to create a single sigint entity called the National Security Agency in November 1952. This approach was partly inspired by the British who had already unified their own interception programme around Government Communications Headquarters or GCHQ in the immediate post-war period. It differed in the fact that while GCHQ Directors tend to be civilians, every NSA Director – including the one that has mostly served Obama, General Keith B. Alexander – has been a senior military officer. Indeed, a 1971 Department of Defense Directive ensures that this is so. In the American system of government, nonetheless, singularity is never easy to enforce. The CIA and later the DEA, for example, have run their own parallel sigint programmes and it was a joint NSA–CIA field unit (the Special Collection Service) which carried out the tapping of Angela Merkel’s phone (Cass 2003). Since the end of the Cold War, the biggest enemy of the NSA has been technological change. Michael Hayden, NSA Director between 1999 and 2005, explained that while mobile phone usage had increased from 16 million users to 741 million, internet usage had increased from 4 million users to 361 million (Aldrich 2010: 486). This volume has continued to increase exponentially; with the world sending more than 3 million emails a second by 2014. Fibre-optic cables carried much of the traffic, but were difficult to tap into. Even if this tsunami of new electronic material could be collected and stored, analysing it seemed an

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impossible task. Not only was the NSA budget reduced by 30 per cent due to post-Cold War retrenchment, but the changed international environment was also characterized by a proliferation of new security challenges and subjects of interest. These required a broader range of language skills and resources that were simply not available (Aid 2003). During the 1990s, Hayden’s predecessors were confronted with this need to address breath-taking change in the realm of information and communications technologies. Looking for radical changes in working practices, they turned to the private sector. Partnerships with large companies like Narus and Northrup Grumman delivered innovative approaches that allowed NSA to trawl the internet. Meanwhile privatizing many of NSA’s logistical needs and back-office functions allowed them to work a degree of budgetary magic. Indeed, by 2007 more than half the intelligence community’s budget went to outsourcing companies (Shorrock 2008). Booz Allen Hamilton was one of the major contractors that came to its assistance and one of its employees was Edward Snowden. The 9/11 attacks added to NSA’s problems, but in their wake brought a massive influx of additional resources. Under George W. Bush, the American intelligence community budget increased from 45 billion dollars a year to 75 billion dollars a year (Shane 2012). This is almost certainly a profound underestimation since the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan brought with them additional moneys that helped to boost reconnaissance and surveillance programmes (Belasco and Daggett 2004). The PATRIOT Act (2001) also loosened some of the requirements under which the NSA had been operating due to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978). After 9/11, then, NSA had two primary missions. The first was to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the second was to support the wider campaign against terrorism on a global basis. NSA’s work on political and diplomatic targets often came a poor third as resources were squeezed by the need to support an increasingly kinetic ‘War on Terror’. NSA struggled to support two simultaneous wars waged in freedom’s name in Iraq (‘Iraqi Freedom’) and Afghanistan (‘Enduring Freedom’). Neither the NSA nor the cryptanalytic arms of America’s three armed services were prepared for the insurgencies that would unfold in both theatres. Arriving in Afghanistan in late 2001, their multimillion dollar ears could initially hear frustratingly little when ranged against low-tech insurgents who utilized cheap Japanese walkie-talkies; this was augmented by a dearth of requisite linguistic capabilities (Aid 2012). It was the same story in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq. As the insurgency gained momentum the NSA was unable to deliver the intelligence that American forces needed. This began to be reversed in 2004 with the construction of the first Iraqi mobile telephone network. Iraqi insurgents and foreign fighters made extensive use of this, making themselves vulnerable to monitoring by the NSA. Along with geo-location and biometrics, sigint made a major contribution to American success in the Battle of Fallujah in November 2004 (Aid 2009). More importantly, at a crucial juncture in the counter-insurgency campaign sigint contributed greatly to the bloody but ultimately successful struggle between American Special Forces and insurgents operating inside Baghdad during 2007–8. The seamless integration of signals intelligence and night raids ensured that bomb technicians were killed or captured faster than they could be replaced (Urban 2010). While the Bush presidency witnessed multiple inquiries into intelligence failure, they focused on the lack of warning for the 9/11 attacks and the hunt for mythical Iraqi WMD. The CIA and FBI were heavily criticized, but the NSA escaped relatively unscathed. Nevertheless, fear of another 9/11-style attack, underpinned by Al Qaeda attacks in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, prompted the NSA and its allies to channel significant resources to counterterrorism. As we have seen, the internet, the exponential increase in types and volumes of communication – including Skype – were a major problem for NSA.

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This was amplified by the challenge-and-response nature of the war against Al Qaeda. A programme of military strikes, rendition, and incarceration degraded Al Qaeda as a functioning hierarchic organization and removed its capacity to command or support terrorist attacks with training or personnel. Accordingly, militant Islamic terrorism shifted to self-starters who radicalized via the internet. The pressure to look at small groups or even individuals embedded in the United States and Europe required more granular detail as the search shifted towards terrorists who were increasingly alert to the growing perils of electronic surveillance (Sageman 2008). Since the 1990s, both terrorism and organized crime have required the NSA to look at people rather than states. The NSA understood that the organizations that held the most data on people were not intelligence agencies or even governments, but supermarkets, banks, airlines, and ISP providers. The new intelligence agencies of the twenty-first century included Google, Facebook, and every commercial organization that issued its customers with loyalty cards. Meanwhile, the majority of citizens on the planet now emit ‘electronic exhaust fumes’ as the result of their everyday activities. Collecting, storing, and analysing this information – unimaginable in its extent – became a high priority for the NSA. Progress was made with additional resources granted by Congress, resources that were subject to only limited oversight. In 2008, the NSA began to finalize its plans for a new Data Center. This 1.5 million square feet facility stores data from intercepted satellite communications and fibre-optic cables in Bluffdale, Utah. The facility had to be built there, as power grids on the East Coast simply did not have the capacity to supply it. The NSA’s Utah Data Center boasts an annual electricity bill of some $40 million – suggesting that the NSA has been processing a lot of electronic data. In the ever-evolving relationship between American security and American liberty a key problem for the NSA has been that American law is much stricter on the surveillance of its own citizens than of foreigners. These are complex problems for a nation ‘who in order to form a more perfect union’ provided for a ‘common defense… [to]… secure the blessings of liberty’ (US Constitution). Despite NSA Deputy Director1 John C. Inglis’ assertion that liberty versus security ‘is a false question… a false choice, at the end of the day we must do both’ (2013), there are undoubtedly difficult trade-offs and politically consequential choices.2 These problems reared their head during the Obama administration.

The NSA and Obama During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to reconfigure the ‘War on Terror’. He offered a counter-terrorism strategy that would be both more ethical and more effective. At one and the same time Obama offered to deepen Bush’s commitment to counter-terrorism while backing away from both the physical excesses and Manichean rhetoric of his predecessor. There was much continuity on counter-terrorism, but Obama’s new approach had two important elements – first, taking the war to Al Qaeda in a more focused way through a significant increase in drone strikes and special force raids (Becker and Shane 2012). This was dramatically underlined during Operation Neptune Spear on 2 May 2011, which led to the death of Osama bin Laden. Second, was a heavy investment in intelligence designed to ensure there were fewer major terror incidents, especially within the American homeland (McCrisken 2011). During his election campaign, Obama had emphasized the importance of reconciling national security imperatives with American core values and constitutional propriety. Accordingly, when Obama took office in January 2009 he was required to address a number

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of what were taken to be toxic legacies. One of these was Guantanamo Bay, which he promised to shut down, something which proved much more difficult in practice. The other pressing problem was an NSA intelligence programme codenamed ‘Stellar Wind’. This was a controversial eavesdropping operation that involved the mass surveillance of millions of American citizens in collaboration with major telcom providers. The purpose was to search for increasingly elusive Al Qaeda cells that were suspected of continuing to operate within the United States. The programme involved collecting the call data of American citizens en masse within the United States and subjecting it to data mining. Remarkably, the programme was conducted from Vice President Cheney’s office without seeking the authority of America’s main authorization body for such operations, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Activity Court, also known as the ‘FISA Court’ (Risen and Lichtblau 2005). ‘Stellar Wind’ was authorized by Bush shortly after 9/11 on the legal basis of ‘wartime powers’. White House lawyers claimed that these powers trumped constitutional safeguards designed to protect American citizens from mass surveillance. Most lawyers, including the Dean of Yale University Law School, are deeply dubious about these arguments. The decision of America’s largest telecom providers to hand over telephone billing records to the NSA, moreover, now looks plainly illegal. The effectiveness of the programme is also questionable. Robert S. Mueller, the Director of the FBI, has conceded that leads from the NSA’s ‘Stellar Wind’ programme were so numerous that his FBI field agents who had to follow them up called them ‘Pizza Hut cases’ – because so many seemingly suspicious calls turned out to be takeout food orders (Gellman 2011). Like the drone operation he inherited, ‘Stellar Wind’ has not only continued but expanded under the Obama administration. It has been succeeded by four different NSA programmes that span the full range of electronic communications and also allow this data to be crossmapped with information from banking and financial sources (Gellman 2013). The NSA’s defence of its actions has been that the FISA Court often took several weeks to authorize surveillance, by which time terrorists have often switched their communication channels (NSA 2009). However, most people suspect that the scale of the operation would have shocked the judges of the FISA Court – which almost never turns down a government request for surveillance. Indeed, worries that the courts would eventually find the activity illegal were so intense that Congress was persuaded to pass special retrospective legislation to grant senior executives at companies like ATT and Verizon immunity from prosecution. A variety of lower courts have judged ‘Stellar Wind’ illegal and government has been forced to resort to state secret privilege in an attempt to quash further legal review. The controversial nature of this particular activity underpinned Snowden’s decision to leak a wide range of material about NSA in 2013. One the most important aspects of Obama’s national security strategy has been a firm determination to make secret programmes more secret still, and to avoid further leaks. The story about illegal domestic wire-tapping was first revealed in outline by two American journalists, Jim Risen and Eric Lichtblau, in stories published in The New York Times as early as 2005. One of their sources appears to have been the NSA whistle-blower Thomas Drake. Obama, to be sure, has been even more energetic than Bush in seeking to use the courts to punish government whistle-blowers and to bring pressure to bear on journalists who work with them. Indeed he has launched more legal actions against the press and their inside sources than any previous American president (Harris 2012). This is underlined by the thirty-five-year sentence imposed on Bradley Manning, the source of the State Department cables obtained by Wikileaks, and the decision to charge Snowden with espionage. The NSA is not only America’s largest intelligence and surveillance organism. It also fulfils two other functions: information assurance and cyberwar. The NSA serves as

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America’s main government authority for information assurance, including the security of the national electronic infrastructure and the internet. Some have asserted that this additional defensive mandate results in a conflict of interest, even a degree of institutional schizophrenia. Those who seek intelligence prefer weak and vulnerable electronic systems, while those responsible for information assurance and secure commerce prefer robust electronic architectures. The fact that NSA is also home to US Cyber Command makes this contradiction even more visible (Herrington and Aldrich 2013). Cyberwar has formed an important instrument of Obama’s foreign policy. In March 2010, Obama reportedly approved Operation Olympic Games, the electronic sabotage of Iranian nuclear facilities in collaboration with Israel.3 Using a virus known as ‘Stuxnet’, Obama launched one of the most advanced cyber-attacks. The White House saw this as the only way to dissuade Israel from a conventional strike on Iranian reactors. The attack was successful, leaping across the air gapped facilities at Natanz, and the malicious software stopped many thousands of Iran’s centrifuges. However, over-ambitious programming by the Israelis caused Stuxnet to spread to computers beyond the Natanz facility. Stuxnet made its way from the laptops of Iranian engineers out on to the internet, making it available for scientists all around the world to examine. Stuxnet is therefore the one of the first examples of unintentional cyberweapon proliferation. Again, the Obama administration has demonstrated its securitymindedness. General James Cartwright, one of those close to the operation, has been subjected to a year-long investigation by the US Department of Justice examining the leak of classified information about Stuxnet to the American media (Sanger 2012). Obama’s enthusiasm for the cyberwar dimension of the NSA has wider consequences for US foreign policy. American determination to achieve superiority in terms of offensive cyber-operations is somewhat at odds with the priorities of many of its allies, including many leading European states, who have tended to emphasize defence and stronger information assurance. Many countries around the world believe the aggressive development of cyberwarfare capacities threatens the electronic infrastructure of all developed states, not least because of the possibility that those developing these dark arts might become disaffected. American commercial software companies are especially anxious about the NSA’s exploitation of hard-to-find flaws in software, believing that it is costing them millions in lost sales. Diplomacy around these complex issues now constitutes a fraught and rapidly expanding area of activity for the State Department (Nagyfejeo 2014).

Obama and Snowden The NSA’s most pressing tasks under both Bush and then Obama have been supporting America’s two foreign wars, together with counter-terrorism. Diplomatic intelligence has been a lower priority. Nevertheless, NSA operations against the politicians and diplomats of friendly states have provoked America’s friends and allies for more than a decade. In early 2003, for example, the GCHQ whistle-blower Katherine Gun revealed an NSA request to increase spying on the non-permanent members of the UN Security Council and Mexico in the run-up to the Iraq War (Aldrich 2010: 521). This theme was revisited in 2010 when Wikileaks disclosed thousands of secret State Department cables. These demonstrated that US diplomats had been tasked to collect a vast range of personal data from their foreign counterparts in order to promote electronic surveillance. Notably embarrassing was a State Department cable sent to US diplomatic missions in 2009 entitled, ‘Reporting and collection needs: The United Nations’ that was in effect an espionage shopping list. US Foreign Services Officers were asked to acquire cell phones

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numbers, telephone directories, email listings, credit card account numbers, and even frequent-flyer account numbers of foreign diplomats. Indeed, several retired American diplomats from the Reagan era were shocked, commenting that this had not been State Department practice in the past (Stein 2010). Snowden’s revelations about the NSA spying on Angela Merkel have merely exacerbated an already familiar area of discomfort for American diplomats. The issue of spying on friends matters more for Obama than it did for Bush. Obama has made a high-profile commitment to change the style of American foreign policy, placing more emphasis on multilateralism, co-operation with allies, and the United Nations as an institution. As Obama told the UN General Assembly the year he took office: ‘The United States stands ready to begin a new chapter of international cooperation, one that recognizes the rights and responsibilities of all nations. And so, with confidence in our cause, and with a commitment to our values, we call on all nations to join us’ (White House 2009). Moreover, although Obama travels significantly less than his predecessor, the overall rise in the importance of summitry and face-to-face discussion in world diplomacy, especially on economic and trade matters, makes these revelations even more embarrassing (Lee and Hudson 2004). Finally, the latest disclosures involve multiple embarrassments because they have exposed the way in which Britain and Canada work with the NSA to spy on other allies, causing deep anger among America’s close espionage partners like GCHQ. Obama reacted to Snowden’s revelations in two ways. First, he ordered a discreet diplomatic offensive. American diplomats have responded to the NSA scandal by quietly pointing out that European citizens are much more likely to be watched by their own governments than the NSA. France has an almost identical system that collects nearly all telephone calls, emails, and social media activity that come in and out of France. Like the American NSA, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden have all developed the ability to tap into fibreoptic cables allowing them to collect vast amounts of data. The NSA and GCHQ have reportedly advised other European countries on the best way to create a permissive legal regime to facilitate this. New legislation approved by the French Senate allows the authorities to use surveillance to protect ‘the scientific and economic potential of France’ raising the possibility of spying on foreign businesses and trade negations (Richet 2014). Second, Obama ordered a series of reviews and reports. Obama has also personally met with leaders from companies like Apple, Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook, Google, and AT&T to discuss the NSA’s data-collection methods, recognizing that intelligence activity is no longer really owned by the intelligence agencies but instead by all the major corporations that do business over the internet. The centrepiece was an NSA review taskforce consisting of former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell, University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone, former Obama regulatory expert and legal scholar Cass Sunstein, and former Office of Management and Budget privacy director Peter Swire. This taskforce produced a constructive and thoughtful report of over 300 pages entitled ‘Liberty and Security in a Changing World’.4 The most substantive recommendation is that the phone companies, not the government, store American metadata. Metadata is the call data – who called whom from where and when – that is at the centre of the ‘Stellar Wind’ controversy. This recommendation, they argued, would bring the NSA closer to the UK’s GCHQ and the situation created in Europe under recent EU legislation, but would not radically alter the NSA’s permissions or capability (PRGICT 2013). From the point of view of American diplomacy, perhaps the most radical suggestion is that the NSA should be broken up and civilianized. Obama’s panel wanted to see responsibility

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for cyber-security and also for cyberwarfare removed from the NSA, leaving it with only its core intelligence mission. However, Obama told the advisory panel in short order that the Pentagon would continue to own America’s largest spying agency. They were also told that the Director of the NSA would also continue to head the Central Security Service and US Cyber Command (Hughes 2013). In January 2014 this was confirmed when Obama chose Vice Admiral Michael S. Rogers, a specialist in cyberwar, as the new director of the NSA (Sanger and Shankerjan 2014). The irony here is that Obama has not only rejected many of the recommendations of his own panel, but also suggestions for restraining surveillance which echo those he himself made as Senator only five years ago. The shift in Obama’s policy on surveillance is demonstrable, as is the overall calculus between national security and individual liberty (McCrisken 2011). Meanwhile Obama himself has spent a good deal of time pondering the Snowden problem. His national security team have warned him that this episode threatens not so much the end of privacy for the citizen but rather the end of secrecy for government. Contrary to much of the expectation that came with an election campaign built upon a message of ‘hope’ and ‘change’, Obama has been extremely active in attempting to maintain and even increase state secrecy. Nevertheless, in a world in which increasing numbers of American government officials and contractors have access to high volumes of top-secret data, more ‘Snowdens’ seem likely. Obama, then, has multiple concerns. Snowden has undoubtedly degraded the effectiveness and allure of an intelligence system that is costing America and its closest allies an estimated $100 billion a year. Obama is also anxious that the next disgruntled former employee might not choose to go to the newspapers. Instead they might choose to sell vast volumes of personal data that the government has collected on American citizens to unscrupulous parties, either to foreign countries or criminal enterprises, perhaps even the Russian mafia. Complex and costly lawsuits would certainly follow. What action has Obama taken? Over the last few months two White House officials from the National Security Staff have been busy reviewing NSA overseas targets to assess whether the risk of embarrassment when exposed is worth the policy gains to foreign policy. US officials have already acknowledged that spying on Merkel was no longer occurring. This was part of a broader review of US intelligence activities around the world by all US espionage agencies, including the CIA, with what White House officials have called a special emphasis on: ‘examining whether we have the appropriate posture when it comes to Heads of State; how we coordinate with our closest allies and partners; and what further guiding principles or constraints might be appropriate for our efforts’ (Reuters 2014). On 17 January 2014, Obama outlined his new policy on the NSA. It offered little change and rejected the more substantive recommendations of his own advisory panel. The big issue for Obama was the successor to ‘Stellar Wind’, a programme that American courts have attempted to declare illegal but which, as mentioned above, has expanded under Obama. He undertook to consider placing American metadata under the control of the telecoms who owned it rather than the NSA, but underlined that he was not prepared to abandon the associated intelligence capability. The catch here is that the NSA’s capability depends on pooling as many different types of electronic data as it can in one place. As with Obama’s promise to close Guantanamo, this has the appearance of a vague assurance without a concrete solution. For the same reason, Obama refused to go down the road of requiring more use of national security letters from the FISA Court, since this would push the NSA away from wholesale data mining and back towards ‘retail surveillance’ focused on named individuals.

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Obama also ignored recommendations from the American software and computer industry: that the NSA should not deliberately weaken commercial software, and that they cease exploiting flaws in software to mount cyber-attacks or surveillance. America’s Silicon Valley was clear that they thought that Obama had not gone far enough (Guynn 2014). Obama likewise made some implausible assertions. For example, he insisted that the NSA does not spy to provide America with commercial advantage. Yet, previous Directors of Central Intelligence, notably James Woolsey, have asserted that this is one of the intelligence community’s missions. Obama did at least offer an olive branch to foreign heads of state, assuring them that there would be a list of premiers that the NSA could not spy upon. But even this raises as many problems as it solves. Who will be on the list, who will be off the list, and who will know (Landler and Savage 2014)?

Conclusion In his recent landmark speech on sigint reform Obama attempted to root surveillance and NSA activity within a broader American struggle for freedom. However, his approach to the NSA and the broader diplomacy of surveillance is consistent with the rest of his national security policy. Increased surveillance has been central to the American exit from Iraq and the prosecution of the war in Afghanistan. It has also been important in hitting Al Qaeda harder in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Arab Peninsula. Nonetheless, it is difficult to square NSA activity during his watch with his much-vaunted emphasis on core values, especially the collection and analysis of metadata that is almost certainly unconstitutional. It is also difficult to square the aggressive targeting of the personal communications devices of friends and allies with Obama’s ambition for a more multilateral foreign policy. In a world of summits, more personal embarrassment looms for Obama and for any US ambassador in Europe. America’s approach to the NSA, we may conclude, continues to be dominated by a sense of exceptionalism. The surveillance of foreigners, whether mere citizens or premiers, is not taken to be of fundamental importance. More significant are constitutional issues around the legality of domestic wiretapping in a country where ‘individual freedom is taken to be the well-spring of human progress’ (White House 2014). A country, what is more, which was founded upon a deep mistrust of overweening government and ideas of individual rights enforceable against the collectivity. In December 2013 a federal judge decided that that the NSA’s collection of bulk phone data – which was done without FISA authorization – was unconstitutional. US District Court Judge Richard Leon asserted that the practice was a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches, adding ‘I cannot imagine a more “indiscriminate” and “arbitrary” invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval’. A government appeal is expected. Once again, however, state secrets privilege is likely to be used to quash the ruling. Nevertheless, Snowden himself saw this court ruling as justifying his actions. ‘I acted on my belief that the NSA’s mass surveillance programmes would not withstand a constitutional challenge, and that the American public deserved a chance to see these issues determined by open courts.’ Snowden’s judgement was that both Congress and the American courts had failed as regulators of the intelligence community and that he had no option other than to attempt what might be called ‘regulation by revelation’. Yet this has not worked either. Whatever changes might result from Obama’s recent review, they are likely to afford little additional protection from surveillance for anyone, whether inside or outside

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America’s borders (Hughes 2013). The conversation over security and freedom with regards to this issue, therefore, will continue: as will the debate which is much broader still and which has been continued for over two centuries – that over the nature and meaning of America and its relationship with the outside world as it goes about the business of securing freedom.

Notes 1 The highest-ranking civilian within NSA. 2 In an effort to assuage public discomfort, on 29 January 2014 NSA Director General Alexander appointed an ‘NSA Civil Liberties and Privacy Officer’, former Senior Director for Privacy Compliance at the Department of Homeland Security Rebecca Richards. 3 The precise date is unclear, but Kaspersky Labs estimate that Stuxnet was released in March 2010. 4 In the American context, as Eric Foner notes, ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ are quite often used interchangeably (1998: xiii).

References Aid, M.M. (1999) ‘The time of troubles: the US National Security Agency in the twenty-first century’, Intelligence and National Security, 15(3): 1–32. Aid, M.M. (2003) ‘All glory is fleeting: sigint and the fight against international terrorism’, Intelligence and National Security, 18(4): 72–120. Aid, M.M. (2009) ‘The troubled inheritance: the National Security Agency and the Obama administration’, in Loch Johnson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 243–56. Aid, M.M. (2012) Intel Wars: The Secret History of the Fight against Terror, New York: Bloomsbury. Aldrich, R.J. (2009) ‘Regulation by revelation? Intelligence, transparency and the media’, in R. Dover and M. Goodman (eds), Spinning Intelligence: Why Intelligence Needs the Media, Why the Media Needs Intelligence, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 13–37. Aldrich, R.J. (2010) GCHQ: The Untold Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency, London: HarperCollins. Appelbaum, J., Stark, H., Rosenbach, M., and Schindler, J. (2013) ‘Berlin complains: did US tap Chancellor Merkel’s mobile phone?’, Der Spiegel, 23 October. Bamford, J. (1983) The Puzzle Palace: America’s National Security Agency and its Special Relationship with GCHQ, London: Sidgwick & Jackson. Becker, Jo and Scott Shane (2012) ‘Secret “kill list” proves a test of Obama’s principles and will’, The New York Times, 29 May. Belasco, A. and Daggett, S. (2004) CRS Report RL32422, ‘The administration’s FY2005 request for $25 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan: precedents, options, and congressional action’, 22 July. Cass, S. (2003) ‘Listening in: are the glory days of electronic spying over – or just beginning?’, Spectrum IEEE, 9 May. Danger, David, E. and Shankerjan, T. (2014) ‘NSA choice is navy expert on cyberwar’, The New York Times, 30 January. DeYoung, Karen (2011) ‘Secrecy defines Obama’s drone war’, Washington Post, December 20. DeYoung, Karen (2012) ‘A CIA veteran transforms US counterterrorism policy’, Washington Post, 24 October. Foner, E. (1998) The Story of American Freedom, New York, NY: W.W. Norton. Gellman, B. (2011) ‘Is the FBI up to the job 10 years after 9/11?’, Time Magazine, 12 May. Gellman, B. (2013) ‘US surveillance architecture includes collection of revealing internet, phone metadata’, Washington Post, 16 June.

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Glantz, J. and Lehren, A. (2013) ‘NSA spied on allies, aid groups and businesses’, The New York Times, 20 December. Gorman, S. (2008) ‘NSA’s domestic spying grows as agency sweeps up data’, Wall Street Journal, 10 March. Greenwald, Glen (2014) ‘Interview: The Lead With Jake Tapper’, CNN Transcripts, 17 January 2014, http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1401/17/cg.01.html Guynn, J. (2014) ‘Silicon Valley’s reaction to Obama’s NSA reforms: not enough’, Baltimore Sun, 17 January. Harris, P. (2012) ‘Drone wars and state secrecy – how Barack Obama became a hardliner’, Guardian, 2 June. Herrington, L. and Aldrich, R. (2013) ‘The future of cyber-resilience in an age of global complexity’, Politics, 33(4): 299–310. Hopkins, N. and Traynor, I. (2014) ‘NSA and GCHQ activities appear illegal, says EU parliamentary inquiry’, Guardian, 9 January. Hughes, B. (2013) ‘Stakes rise for Obama’s NSA review’, Washington Examiner, 17 December. Inglis, J.C. (2013) ‘NSA/CSS core values with NSA Deputy Director, John C. Inglis’, National Security Agency/Central Security Service, 10 January 2014 (available online at http://www.nsa.gov/ about/values/core_values.shtml). Johnson, T.R. (2009) American Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945–1989, Vols 1–4, Fort Meade, MD: NSA. Jones, G.G. (2013) Hunting in the Shadows: The Pursuit of Al Qa’ida since 9/11, New York, NY: Norton. Landler, M. and Savage, C. (2014) ‘Obama outlines calibrated curbs on phone spying’, The New York Times, 17 January. Lee, D. and Hudson, D. (2004) ‘The old and new significance of political economy in diplomacy’, Review of International Studies, 30(3): 343–60. Madsen, W. (1998) ‘Crypto AG: the NSA’s Trojan whore?’, Covert Action Quarterly, 63 (Winter): 36–7. Markoff, John and David E. Sanger (2010) ‘In a computer worm, a possible biblical clue’, The New York Times, 29 September. Mazzetti, Mark (2103) The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth, New York, NY: Penguin Press. McCrisken, Trevor (2011) ‘Ten years on: Obama’s war on terrorism in rhetoric and practice’, International Affairs, 87(4): 781–801. Nagyfejeo, E. (2014) ‘Transatlantic collaboration in countering cyber terrorism’, in T. Chen, L. Jarvis and S. Macdonald (eds), Cyber Terrorisms: A Multidisciplinary Approach, New York: Springer. NSA (2009) ST-09-0002 Working Draft, Office of the Inspector General National Security Agency/ Central Security Service, reproduced in The New York Times, 9 March. Olcott, A. (2012) Open Source Intelligence in a Networked World, Continuum Intelligence Studies, London: Continuum. Paine, T. (1995 [1776]) Rights of Man, Common Sense and Other Political Writings, New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Preamble to the Constitution of the United States (n.d.) The National Archives (available online at http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html). PRGICT (2013) ‘Liberty and security in a changing world: report and recommendations of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies’ (available online at http:// www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/2013-12-12_rg_final_report.pdf). Reuters (2014) ‘White House conducting detailed assessment of NSA’s targets’, 9 January. Richet, J.L. (2014) ‘New French surveillance law: from fear to controversy’, Computerworld, 7 January (available online at http://blogs.computerworld.com/privacy/23326/new-french-surveillancelaw-fear-controversy). Risen, J. and Lichtblau, E. (2005) ‘Bush lets US spy on callers without courts’, The New York Times, 16 December.

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Rodriguez Jr, Jose A. with Bill Harlow (2012) Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions after 9/11 Saved American Lives, New York, NY: Threshold Editions. Rosenbach, E. (2012) Find, Fix, Finish, New York, NY: Public Affairs. Sageman, M. (2008) Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sanger, David E. (2012) ‘Obama order sped up wave of cyberattacks against Iran’, The New York Times, 1 June. Sanger, David E. (2013) ‘In cyberspace, new cold war’, The New York Times, 24 February. Sanger, David, E. and Shankerjan, T. (2014) ‘N.S.A. Choice Is Navy Expert on Cyberwar’, New York Times, 30 January 2014. Scahill, Jeremy (2013) Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield, New York, NY: Nation Books. Shane, Scott (2012. ‘Shifting mood may end blank check for US security efforts’, The New York Times, 24 October. Shorrock, T. (2008) Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Spiegel Staff (2013) ‘Embassy espionage: the NSA’s secret spy hub in Berlin’, Der Spiegel, 27 October. Stein, J. (2010) ‘Former State Department intelligence chief says spy orders unprecedented’, Washington Post, 29 November. Urban, M. (2010) Task Force Black: The Explosive True Story of the SAS and the Secret War in Iraq, London: Little, Brown. US Government (2002) The National Security Strategy of the United States, Washington, DC: The White House. White House (2009) ‘Remarks by the President to the United Nations General Assembly’, The White House, 23 September 2009, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-Presidentto-the-United-Nations-General-Assembly White House (2014) ‘Remarks by the President on Review of Signals Intelligence’, The White House, 17 January 2014, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/01/17/remarks-president-reviewsignals-intelligence Williams, C. (2001) Explorations in Quantum Computing, London: Springer, 507–63.

Further reading M. Aid, Secret Sentry: The Untold Story of the National Security Agency (New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2009). M. Aid, Intel Wars: The Secret History of the Fight against Terror (New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2012). J. Bamford, Body of Secrets: How NSA and Britain’s GCHQ Eavesdrop on the World (New York, NY: Doubleday, 2001). J. Bamford, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to Eavesdropping on America (New York, NY: Doubleday, 2008). David E. Sanger, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power (New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 2012).

Index

Africa: African Union 179, 181; AFRICOM 171, 175; AIDS relief 170; authoritarian regimes supported by US 173–4, 178–9; autocrats welcomed by US 174; in Bush era 169–71; corporate responsibility needed 180; counterterrorism counterproductive 178, 179; counterterrorism policy 169, 171, 180–1; credibility of US in 178; democratization rhetoric and practice 177, 180; development aid 169–70, 172, 180; drone deployment 175 (counterproductive 178); economic policy 172–3; elections fraudulent 170, 174; exploitation 177; extraordinary rendition 175–6; foreign aid allocation basis 177; global trade restructuring 180; health programs 176; ‘international division of labor’ role 179; intervention 176; investments 173; long-term and short-term interests of US 177; militarization 177 (continued 174–5; reducing 180); military training programs 170–1; Millennium Challenge Account 170; neglect by US 77; Obama era 171–6; overthrow of leaders 168; policy (conclusions 181; rethinking recommendations 180–1); political policy 173–4; post-Cold War 168–9; realpolitik 176, 180; relations with US 168–71; relations with, historical development 168–9; resource extraction 178; strategic assets access 171; terrorism’s root causes 178, 180–1; trade 172–3 AFRICOM, (African Military Command) 171, 175 aid, and faith-based initiatives 125–6 allies, US and China compared 280 anarchy in international environment 85 arms supplier, US and China compared 279 Asia: centre of global power 77; trade with 89, see also ‘pivot’ to Asia Asian economies, growth rates 82–3 bin Laden, killing 192 Britain, special relationship with US 76 budget deficits 82

capitalism and Marxism 53–4 capitalist interests transnational 59 Center for a New American Security 115 change in policy xix–xx; apparent 68; election campaign 68; expectation of 78; impossibility of 78; non-establishment candidate 68, 69; opportunities for xx China: Asia as core focus area for 296; Asia and ‘Great Game’ 296–7; capital liberalization 292; commodity demand 297; compromise or conflict with US 300; disputes over territories 294–5; domestic issues summarised 300; encircling of or by US 297–8; events triggering extremes 301; exchange rate liberalization 292; exports’ importance 290–1; foreign direct investment (between US and) 293; foreign reserves 292–3; growth 298–9; influence in global institutions 276–7; investment in foreign countries 293–4; investment restrictions 293; multilateral diplomacy 298; power balance with US 301; prosperity 298–9; reform 299; relationship with US 76 (factors in 300–1); resource security 297; rise of 73–6; security 295; Sino-dollar strategy 292–3; Taiwan (agreements 295; US policy 295–6); tariffs on exports 291; US pivot to Asia 294 church and state division 126 ‘cognitive misers’ 134 Congress, role in divided government 101 conservative evangelicals see evangelicals constitution first amendment, and faith-based initiatives 126 constructivism 16–18; advantages 25; agents and structures mutually constitutive 17; assumptions 17–18; conventional 17; critical 17; criticism 24; ideational factors 18; mutual constitution 21; norms 18; socially connected world 17 consultation, Obama’s policy of 43 continuity, Bush to Obama 46, 158, 210 controversy over administration xix core values and foreign policy 22

316

Index

corporate elites xxii, 150, 151 corporate elite networks, foreign policy 149–60 cosmopolitan identity model 72 counterterrorism: change possibilities 23; counterproductive measures 24; institutionalization internationally 23; institutionalization in US 22–3; living discourse 23; overview 15 counterterrorism campaign: constructing 21; representation 22 cyber-warfare 192–3 decline: British Empire 275; defined 276–7; economic dominance model 282–3; of empires 281–2; political dominance model 283–4; scenarios 281–4; thesis 81; of US 80–1 defence: cuts 7–8 (‘sequester’ 8; strategies for implementing 9; US and Europe 212); expenditure comparisons 83 democracy promotion 168; Middle East 233, 234 Democratic Leadership Council, and Clinton 111 demographics, change 71 divided government, and partisan polarization 101 domestic and foreign policy under pressure 8 drone deployment: Africa 175; increase 188–9; justification 189 economics: breadth of economy 278; dollar as reserve currency 277; financial assets 278; financial markets 277–8; value addition 278–9 economies: emerging 82–3; ranking of 74; states and corporations 86 economy, repairing 70 elections and Middle East 234 elite networks 150, 152, 154, 156, 158, 160 elite power 150, 151, 152, 154, 159 energy independence of US 285 Europe, retreat of US from 76–7 evangelicals: beliefs 120; foreign policy preferences 121; and Iran 124; and Islam 122–3; and Israel 123–4; missionaries in war zones 122; and Republicans 121; support for presidential candidates 123–4; and war on terror 122 executive branch 69, 77 federal budget: of Bush and Obama contrasted 8–9; deficit reduction consequences 8; deficits 7–8 financial crisis (of 2008) 82; coordinating response with China 89; recovery 298 foreign direct investment 278, 284; comparisons 60 foreign policy: adviser organisation 114; Africa (continuity 176–7; expectations 165;

history 165; literature review 166–7; mutual benefits 166; ‘positive sum’ framework 167; realpolitik 166; realpolitik framework 167; strategic vision lacking 166); antidemocratic 57; approaches to 74; belief systems 134–5; bipartisan consensus 95; Bush and Obama compared 43, 202–3; capitalism defended 57; Center for a New American Security 115; change (claim hollow 244; lack of 72–3; obstacles to 60, 70; unlikely 63); Cold War 57–8; Cold War consensus 95–6 (ends 96–9); conditions for public to affect 144; conservative approach 69–70, 130; contestation and negotiation 22; continuity from Bush to Obama 32–3, 62, 248; control of events diminishing 203; cooperation 205; corporate elite networks 149–60; corporate elite power 150 (and personal ties 151; and planning bodies 151); cyber operations and information assurance 308; decision process 144–5 (public input 145); democracy-building 204; diffusion of power 206; diversity under Obama 48; and domestic politics 50, 239; double standards and legitimacy 244; dual logic 62, 64; engagement 205; equal partnership 204; expansive 202; and faith- based initiatives 125–6; global military involvement 63; goals 108; history of empires 240; hybrid 49; implementation 245–6; and inter-imperial rivalry thesis 55–6; interfaith approach 125; legacy repudiated 88; levels of public support needed to impact policy 146; liberal internationalism 96, 98; liberalism 49–50; limits of US power 203; Middle East 231–2 (difficulties with 237); military lead 210, 211; multi-partner approach 206; multilateral approach 203; and Muslim world 124–5; nation building 11; National Security Strategy 202; neo-racism 75; neoliberalism in Latin America 60; Obama’s experts 113; Open Door policy 157; overthrow of governments 63; partisan and ideological differences 137–43; partisan polarization 98; partnership creation 205; perspectives on public’s role 133; ‘pivot’ to Asia 294; post-war 56; power, purposes of 245; pragmatism 50; pre-emptive military action 209–10 (continuity 210); prioritizing goals 204; problem solving 205; public attitudes stability 135; public impact 135–6; public insight 133–47; public moods 134; public view consistency and impact 144–6; public’s general orientation to 136–7; public’s orientation analysed by party and ideology 137–43; racial worldview 71; and Rand Paul 129; reactionary regimes 57; realist

Index aspects 45–6; rebalancing towards Asia 12; reposturing under Obama 115; Republican Party 36; Republican position changes 129; respect to foreign powers 75; rhetoric and practice 243; and Ron Paul 128–9; salience of issues to public 145–6; ‘smart power’ 88, 206; soft power as key tool 44; staffing appointments 69–70; strands 128; strategic doctrine of Bush administration 209; systemmaintaining role 57–8; think tanks shape 108; threat of force downplayed 204; transition team 114–15; typology of views 96; and ultra-imperialism theory 56–7; unilateralism 211–12 global commons 159 global economy: balance changing 80; domination by US 60 global governance: interactions by states 261; scientistic discourse 261 global power: route to 6; short-term gain 267, 268 globalization 58–60; and threats 86 government, corporate community connections 149 grand strategy: continuity 159; future 160; Open Door policy 158; outline 159 grand-strategy makers 152; affiliations 152; broad-based links to capital 154; corporate affiliations enumerated 153–4; corporate elite 160; think tanks linked to 154, 156; and transnational corporations 153, 154 hegemonic stability theory 84 hegemonic states and exogenous systemic change 87 hegemonic transition 84–5 hegemony: allies’ leading role 90; continuity 90; and economic strength 88; repudiation of interstate war 91; theories of 84 identity models 72 identity and narrative 21–4 identity politics 72–3 immanent critique 23, 24 imperial identity model 72 imperialism: and capitalism 54; definition 54; informal 54 information revolution 87 innovation, US and China compared 279 intelligence: agents arrested 185; authorisation 186; bin Laden hunt 187; Blackwater employees 185, 187; budget 305; CIA (Counterterrorist Center 186, 188; role change 194; role historically 186); commercial intelligence 309; cyber-warfare 193; European operations 309; illegal

317

methods 188; interrogation outsourcing 188; offensive turn 193; pre-emptive action 187; private sector (operatives 187; outsourcing 305); role change 185; sources 188 inter-imperial rivalry thesis and foreign policy 55–6 inter-state warfare redundant 86–7 international relations: anarchy 85; neorealism and China 221; revisionist powers 220; status quo powers 220; views of Middle East 233 intervention as transnational role 59 leadership position, global trust in 286 leaks see Wikileaks liberal dichotomy and foreign policy 50 liberal international relations theories 42–3 liberal internationalism 96, 98 liberalism: description 41; as engagement 44; hawkish 44; and interventionism 49; and Obama’s personnel 48–9 liberalism of Obama: ideological 42; introduction 41; pragmatism 43; in rhetoric 44–6; theoretical 42; in wars 46–8 Libya, limited intervention 11, 211 Marxism: and foreign policy 53–64; and capitalism 53–4; and Cold War foreign policy 57–8; global capitalist approach 58 Middle East: international relations viewpoints 233; multiple simultaneous issues 236– 7; promoting human development 238; responses to crises 232–3; roadmaps inadequate 236; theories and doctrines 238; US domestic and international images 235 military hegemony, and US primacy 61 military power, US dominance 279 multilateralism, US government’s opposition to 263–4 National Security Agency: commercial information collection 306; conflict of interest 308; continuity (Bush to Obama) 307; counterterrorism 305; cyberwar function 308, 310; Data Center 306; diplomatic intelligence 308–9; illegal surveillance 307; information assurance 308; Iraq 305; liberty and security 306; origins 304; partnerships 305; reform 304, 310; ‘Stellar Wind’ operation 307; supporting wars 305; surveillance 311; technological changes 304; telecoms metadata storage 309; telecoms surveillance 307; unconstitutional behaviour 311; whistle-blower 307 Nationalist identity model 72 neoclassical realism 6 neoconservatism: absent in foreign policy 29; alleged death of 29; analysis 30–1;

318

Index

broad political support 35; continues under Obama 29–30; and democracy promotion 31; and foreign affairs 29–30; and liberalism compared 31; longevity 32; and nationalism 31–2; network 30, 36–7; and realism 38–9; Romney’s adoption of 34, 35; scholarship on 30–1 neoconservatives: agenda and public opinion 38; criticism of Obama by 33; divisions among 33; electorate demographics 37–8; future prospects 37–8; influence in Republican Party 35–6; and internal party politics 38; opponents 33; presidential candidates 34 non-western countries, rise of 73 norm revisionist, US as 19 normative change 20; constructivism 23 norms: and counterterrorism 18–20; definition 19; disciplining effect 19; international legitimacy 20; redefining 19; redefinition and world politics 20; on torture 20 Open Door policy: globalizing 157–8; as grand strategy 158; history 157; and Obama 158–9 partisan divergence 98 partisan polarization 97–104; causes of 97; consequences 99–100; differential effect on parties 100; and divided government 101; effects mixed 104; foreign policy 98; growing 99; high policy 102; ideological range 100–1; low policy 103; measures of 97; party platforms 98–9; and presidential domination 102; and Presidential FastTrack Authority 103; presidential and party differences 100; summary 103–4; voting patterns 99 party ideological homogeneity 97 ‘pivot’ to Asia 158–9, 212–13, 219–27; Asian economics 223; background 222–3; China 294 (defence budget 226; as destabilizing influence 227; emphasis 220– 1; importance 219; intentions distorted 226; as status quo power 220); concerns over potential effects 226; European concern 212–13; key regions for US interest 223; military partners of US (Australia 224; Philippines 224–5; Singapore 225; Taiwan 225; Vietnam 225); military presence historically 224; non-military dimensions 226; policy focus change 219; power of US pervasive 223; rationale 212; reliance on military resources 227; security aspects 89; shift in global economic power influences 223; significance 89; war on terror influences 222–3 policy planning bodies: and corporate elite 156; foreign policy influence 151; and

grand-strategy makers 154, 156; inner circle 154, 156; transnational corporations and 156 policy planning institute directors, corporate elite affiliations 156 political parties’ drift 34 political system reform 299 power: and hegemony 80; measures of 86; shift from West to East 212; superiority decreasing 7 power balance in legislature 124 power class, WASP 71 power dynamics, global 74 power transition theory 83, 85; applicability 85 presidential candidates and position on Israel 123–4 presidential election campaign funding 63 presidents, US and China compared 289 president’s domination variation 102 preventive war, end-point recognition 194 Progressive Policy Institute, and Clinton 111 public policy formation, and business class 149 racial attitudes, change in 71 racial minority status xxi–xxii ‘rational public’ 134 realism 3–7; classical 4–7 (liberal ideals 5; national interests 5; US foreign policy analyses 5); and interests 6; and intervention avoidance 11; motives of states 10; neoclassical 6; of Obama in wars 47; and strategy 10; structural 3–4 (constraints 9; and hegemony 4; variations 4); and US foreign policy 3–13 (conclusions 12–13); and war 47 realists, decline in Republican Party 36 ‘relative autonomy’ of the state 62 Republicans: and Christian Right 121; and evangelicals 121; foreign policy challenge 38–9 ‘revolving door’ between public sector and private sector 151, 152 Russia, relations with 12 security, burden-sharing in Asia 90 Security Strategy documents, Europe and US 213–14 society, inequalities in 149 soft power: and American identity 72–3; leadership by US 280–1 spying scandal 303 state: and church division 126; and corporate interests interwoven 151; interaction system changing 87; secrecy 310 status of nations, relative 75 strategy: Asia 158–9; errors in commercial 285 Stuxnet (NSA operation) 308 success in world politics 88 superpower, US and China compared 286 supranational organizations, US and China compared 280 systemic transition 85–7

Index targeted killings 189; codified 194; counter productive 191; effectiveness 191; ethics 190; intelligence loss 191; policy 192; public awareness 191; target selection process varies 190 tax cuts 82 Tea Party 126–30; domestic issues 128; and evangelicals 127; foreign policy division 128; influence 127, 130; paradox of support 131; political make-up 127; presidential candidates 127; and Republicans 127; Ron Paul 128–9 terrorism: perception 128–9; response to threat 21; as threat to core values 21 theory, uses of xxi think tanks: alienation by Bush 112; and Bush, GHW 110; and Bush, GW 111–12; and Carter 109; Center for a New American Security 115; and Clinton 110–11; connect with public 107; fading 110; influence assessment 116–17 (difficulties 116–17, 118); insight on foreign policy 114; and Obama 107, 112–16; Obama foreign policy experts 113; participation 108; predictions of use by presidential candidates 117; presidential candidates 109, 113; and Reagan 109–10; relevance and influence 117, 118; value 117 torture, redefinition 20 trade barriers removal benefits US 61 trading blocs 60 transatlantic relations: advisors changed 200; agreements 201; ballistic missile proliferation 201–2; Bush era legacy 197; common goals as basis for 213; decline with ‘pivot’ to Asia 212–13; Europe-US free trade agreement 214; European leaders affect 200; European perception 213; France 200; future character 214; Germany 200 (opposition to Iraq war 208; pacifist trend 208; role historically 207); importance 215; improvement 200–1; interpretations 198; Iran, united front on 207; Iraq 198; legitimacy of Iraq war 199; public debate lacking 211; solidarity 199; structural changes 207–12; structure- agency debate 197–8, 201, 212; Transatlanticism 198; UK 200 transnational capitalism 60 transnational corporations and policy planning networks 156 transnational role of US 59

319

transnationalization of states 58 treaty ratification failures 102 Trilateral Commission 109, 156 ultra-imperialism theory and US foreign policy 56–7 unified government, and partisan polarization 101 United Nations: conflicts dividing 263; debt owed by US 266; Development Program 263, 266; development staff 266; origins 258–60; public support for 262; reform undermined by Clinton 268; Republican opposition to 264–5; under- funding policy by US 265; as US foreign policy instrument 266, 267; US government’s opposition to 264–5; US views of 261–4 war on terror: Authorization for Use of Military Force Joint Resolution 187; constructivist perspective 16–25; continuation 193; by Obama 158; open- ended 15; public support 222; term dropped 176 wars, Obama’s 46–8 West, fragmentation 82 Western economies, growth rates 83 Wikileaks 243–57, 308–9; allies, effects on 247, 250; Arab spring 252–3; attacked by US administration 253–4; China (African influence 252; assessments of 251); consequences and handling 256; damage to US image 257; ethics of US diplomacy 244; European Court citation 249; extent of 243; finances reduced 254; Guantanamo Bay 248 (closure 249); interventions 246; Israel’s special relationship 251; leader, case against 255; legal views 254; media, loss of control by administration 256, 257; as resource for scholars 243, 245; self- image of US 247; source’s detention conditions 255; spying on United Nations 247–8; Sweden 255; UK (embarrassment 250; racialism 251; subservience 250) world economy 267 world government 267; Culbertson’s plan 259–60; global empires historically 260; inevitability 259; models 260; paths to 260 world order, US-centred 159 World Trade Organization, US can reject provisions 61