Foreign Policy Folly

A worrisome conservative strategic vision

William Ruger from the June 2001 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

A policy aimed at ensuring global dominion could be costly in terms of lives as well. Defending the widely cast alliance system advocated in Present Dangers could involve the United States in bloody battles in places with little direct relevance to American interests. Even if these allies remain out of harm's way, who knows how many lives could be lost in the various interventions contemplated by these authors?

The financial and human costs prescribed by this book might be reasonable if the threat environment demanded it. Yet the United States is incredibly secure. Even if it retrenches, American interests will be safe for the foreseeable future. For one thing, the balance of power in Eurasia, a traditional American concern, is in no danger of being overturned. Additionally, U.S. rivals face significant obstacles to becoming serious threats. The U.S. also enjoys a robust nuclear deterrent force, powerful and technologically superior conventional forces, and still-relevant geopolitical advantages. In fact, U.S. security is very much assured, especially given that America faces a relatively benign threat environment. Therefore, such a vast price is hardly necessary. Contrary to what we read in this book, the sky is not falling anytime soon, and America can easily afford to reshape its security policy in a manner consistent with this reality.

American hegemony is sure to be costly in terms of blood and treasure, but it is also fruitless in the long term. Considering that unipolarity is a historical oddity, it is almost given that other states will eventually rise up and challenge any attempt by the United States to dominate the international system ad infinitum. Indeed, as most students of international politics know, the exertions of maintaining hegemony will only increase the incentives for others to balance American power. This is particularly the case when the hegemon explicitly sets about "making trouble" for those who fail to conform to its preferences. In fact, Peter Rodman's chapter on Russia presents evidence that current U.S. dominance may already be provoking counterbalancing behavior.

Furthermore, it is commonly known that hegemons bear the seeds of their own destruction. The cost of underwriting the international order is borne mostly by the dominant power, thus allowing others to free-ride. This serves to erode the relative power of the hegemon, making its dominance unsustainable in the long run. These free-riders also narrow the gap by emulating the successful superpower and benefiting from the natural diffusion of its superior technology. Hegemons also tend to suffer from "imperial overstretch," which further diminishes their power.

A wiser policy for such a fortunate state would be to extend the life of its relative position by taking advantage of the opportunity to retrench and reduce its defense spending. This strategy would allow the unipolar power to return freed up financial and human capital to the private sphere where the wealth and technological advances necessary for long-term security are created.

Another flaw in the logic of this book's overarching vision is its assumption that there is what academics call "a seamless web of interests" that binds the security of states together. This assumption, which is based on a rather selective reading of world history, posits that threats to others are actually threats to the U.S. itself. It is also the root of the claim that instability and crises abroad will adversely affect American interests if they are allowed to fester. However, we should view these arguments no more seriously than we now view the old domino theory. They are kindred ideas, and the assumption underlying them is as likely to get the U.S. into trouble now as it did in the past. In fact, it already has, considering that this assumption was, and remains, at the base of the rationale for our ongoing involvement in the distant and strategically unimportant Balkans.

Present Dangers hardly offers the conservative vision it advertises, at least in the American sense of the word. First, it is a policy that will threaten rather than preserve many of America's traditional values, such as individual liberty, small government, and anti-militarism. As has been pointed out by a number of historians, war and preparing for war are the soils that nurture the growth of state power, burdensome taxation, conscription, and militarism. If American conservatism should stand for anything, it should be the goal of limited government. Yet the primacist policies offered here guarantee the opposite: a leviathan.

Second, rather than an American conservative vision aimed at protecting a free society of individuals, Present Dangers offers a communitarian perspective that seeks, in Kagan and Kristol's words, "honor and greatness" for the nation. In this way, it is a Greek as well as Roman strategy. Indeed, one can see a lot of continuity between this book and the spirit of the Athenian polis. The Athenians saw virtue in the individual sacrificing for the greatness, glory, and honor of the community. Indeed, the greatness and honor of the polis defined those of its members. Pericles even went so far as to argue that someone without interest in the duties of public life was "a useless character."

The American tradition is quite different. It suggests that the state should seek neither glory nor honor. To the contrary, the state is charged simply with protecting individuals who fulfill their dreams and aspirations in the private, not public, sphere. Surely the Greek spirit that animates Present Dangers is not consistent with the American vision of the relation between the state and the society it protects. Actually, these conservatives could learn one thing from the once-great Athens: that striving for glory, honor, and hegemony leads to ill-conceived endeavors like the expedition against Syracuse that fatally wounded our democratic ancestor during the Peloponnesian War.

Lastly, rather than a policy rooted in conservatism, the vision presented in Present Dangers instead succumbs to what F.A. Hayek called the "fatal conceit" of modern liberalism: "that man is able to shape the world around him according to his wishes." While a few contributors, notably Friedberg, are careful to avoid this conceit, one senses in this book a certain hubris about the ability to control events in world politics. Once you believe that "everything depends on what we do now," it is easy to stumble down a path to doom.

Instead, the United States must realize its limited capacity to control events in international politics. Indeed, it must rid itself of the unrealistic belief that every seam is connected and that the United States should or could repair any tear in the fiber of world peace and stability. Once these fallacies are understood as such, America, and perhaps even conservatism, can safely return to normalcy.

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