Power and US policy

The Egyptian crisis and wider turmoil in the Middle East has intensified the debate in America and beyond about how Washington should respond to the turbulent turn of events in the region.

Many argue that the Obama administration has been little more than a bystander as violence has spread across the Middle East. An example cited is of Washington taking only a verbal position on the bloody crackdown that followed President Mohamed Morsi’s ouster. Critics have accused President Obama of indecision and lacking any clear strategy toward the Arab upheaval; unable to choose between supporting democracy and bolstering what goes by the name of ‘stability’.

This policy confusion is regarded as especially damaging at a dangerous moment for the Middle East. A prominent right-wing detractor accused the Obama administration of rendering the US irrelevant by its inaction.

Others have argued that Obama’s ‘backseat’ approach, seemingly approved by a public tired of overseas entanglements, is a reaction to the neoconservative interventionism of his predecessor – the Bush administration’s disastrous effort to ‘reshape’ the greater Middle East by waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

From that perspective Obama’s approach of ‘restraint’ avoids inflaming complex situations, where Washington no longer calls the shots. As one analyst pointed out Egypt is hardly going to dance to America’s tune and ‘rearrange its politics” for the sake of a billion dollars a year. The US simply does not have the leverage it once did. This limits-to-power view has also been voiced by America’s defence secretary, who recently stated that US “ability to influence the outcome in Egypt is limited.”

In this backdrop a new book by Richard Haass, a leading American foreign policy expert, adds another dimension to the debate. Written before the latest twist in the Egyptian saga, the book is not a study of America’s Middle East policy. But its key messages have a direct bearing on the debate underway. Haass joins those who advocate a more focused and limited US role in the Middle East (although more recently he has urged a robust American response to allegations of chemical weapons’ use by Syria).

Haass makes it clear that his call to “eschew a foreign policy focus on the greater Middle East” to “remake these societies” is not a strategy to abandon the region. He urges charting a middle course between the extremes of preoccupation and disengagement, one that avoids direct military involvement and uses diplomatic and economic instruments as the “staple” of US engagement. He is emphatic in cautioning the US against pursuing any aim to “remake societies” in this region because such efforts are bound to fail.

The book however has a much wider canvas. Its main premise is that the biggest threat to America’s security and prosperity comes not from abroad but from within. America, Haass writes, cannot play an effective global role unless it puts its own house in order. This in turn necessitates that it be more restrained and selective in its overseas engagements and more disciplined in addressing its fiscal and debt challenges, which jeopardise the country’s economic future and global position.

His principal concern is with America’s “shortcomings” that directly threaten its ability to exercise influence abroad, compete in global markets, generate the resources needed to promote its overseas interests and above all, set an example for others. In an echo of a phrase first used by Thomas Friedman and subsequently by President Obama in a 2011 policy speech, Haas writes that nation building at home is more important than anywhere else. “America needs to remake itself more than the world”.

But he explicitly distances himself from the ‘America in decline’ school. The US, he claims, is not in decline but underperforming at a time when other countries are performing better than in the past and better than America. This is undermining America’s capacity to compete economically and shape international events.

For the past two decades the US has overreached, says Haass. A decade of war has hurt both America’s standing and reputation for competence. In fact American primacy has been eroded by external wars as much by internal weakness. He therefore emphasises the need to restore the economic, social and physical foundations of American power.

This seems to echo the overarching theme of President Obama’s 2010 national security strategy. The strategy started with the acknowledgement that America’s influence abroad begins with the steps taken at home. That strategy document described renewing the economy as central to the administration’s aim to build the foundation of American power. Haass also approves of President Obama’s aim to rebalance US foreign policy from the Middle East to Asia – the region that is “home to the world’s largest and most dynamic economies and the bulk of the world’s principal powers, and where the US has a broad range of interests and commitments.”

The book places Haass who has served mostly in Republican administrations, firmly within the realist school, which seeks to deal with the world as it is, in contrast to other approaches that often call for aggressive methods to refashion or remould it.

In essay-like chapters he examines a number of foreign policy doctrines to ask which is the most appropriate for the US to adopt to renew its role and influence. He considers democracy-promotion, humanitarianism and counterterrorism but discards them all. On the latter, he says terrorism is but one challenge that cannot define US foreign policy or provide an all-encompassing framework.

He also examines a fourth: ‘integration’. He differentiates this from ‘containment’, which was about limiting the reach of certain countries. Integration on the other hand is about “bringing them in, to make them part of regional and global arrangements”. Integration is a promising construct for the future as it aims to develop rules and institutions for global governance and persuade as many states as possible to follow them to achieve common goals.

For Haass, this appealing foreign policy compass, desirable in the long term, represents just a partial guide for the present. Instead the doctrine he chooses is ‘Restoration’. This prescription rests on the assessment that the world today is relatively less threatening for the US. This offers America “strategic respite” to reprioritise its focus and assets. So Haass advocates greater attention and redirecting of resources to domestic rather than international challenges. This aims to rebuild American strength and thus enable it to deal with potential strategic rivals.

He argues that a ‘Restoration’ approach would also avoid too pronounced a focus on the greater Middle East and avoid large-scale military interventions for the purpose of remaking other societies. It would direct US attention more broadly to the Asia-Pacific region, which is set to determine the course of the rest of this century. He argues that this would also “rebalance” the execution of foreign policy, shifting from military instruments to using economic and diplomatic tools.

In sum “restoration as a foreign policy doctrine is about restoring the internal sources of American power and restoring balance to what the US aims to do in the world and how it does it”. What Haass wants above all else is for the US to reverse the phenomenon of underperforming at home and overreaching abroad.

But isn’t this what the Obama administration has already sought to do, albeit erratically, and thereby elicited criticism for its ‘lack of ambition’ or leadership in pursuing both domestic and foreign policy goals? Hasn’t this approach – so far – yielded rather mixed results at home – not least due to the gridlock caused by partisan politics – and uncertain outcomes abroad in a world, which is in no one’s control? In a ‘non polar’ environment, to use Haass’ lexicon, any assumption that the US can revive its previous dominance must be squared with the reality of a world that is undergoing profound, structural shifts in global power from the West to the East and heading to a decidedly decentralised future.

Richard Haass, Foreign Policy Begins at Home, New York, Basic Books, 2013.

The writer is special adviser to the Jang Group/Geo and a former envoy to the US and the UK.