Foreign Policy Sifter

The One Place in the World We Cannot Care About

If one believes inside the Beltway chit-chat, it is entirely possible to think every speck of Earth’s surface is of critical interest to the US. Let’s rundown the list:

*Western Hemisphere: This was handled centuries ago. The Monroe Doctrine may be interpreted poorly, but the Roosevelt Corollary is down pat inside I-495. It’s our job, after all. God said so. Stay out of it, Jay-Z!

*Western Europe: Fought a big war for this (didn’t you see Saving Private Ryan?) and they’re our biggest trading partner. Definitely part of the national interest. Nothing can go wrong here—unless it has to do with banking, in which case Washington has nothing to offer.

*Eastern Europe: Having already kicked Soviet (and Serbian) ass, Americans would prefer to see this area of the world become placid, continuing to develop a cheap tourism industry while maintaining its “character” (read: shabbiness). We can’t spend all 14 days in Paris!

*Russia: Thousands of nukes, lots of energy (in the hydrocarbon sense, not the demographic one), and quasi-global ambitions. We have to deal with Russia, and keep an eye on them. In case you think the Kremlin represents a midde-rate power trying desperately to influence its immediate surroundings, we forgive you for not noticing it’s part of a new axis.

*Central Asia: There’s some oil here, the dictators are hilarious, and it’s near Afghanistan. Crucial.

*Middle East: Since Americans consume 18.6 million barrels of oil per day, it is a US burden/duty to keep this large region functioning as part of the global economy. But every pundit wants to spread democracy there, too. Sort of. And let’s not forget those roguish Persians. Or our “staunch ally” the Israelis. Or our Saudi frenemies. Or Al Qaeda-plagued Yemen. Or…

*Northern/Eastern Africa: The place where Bush’s Freedom Agenda finally flowered (cough, cough) as Washington’s dictator friends fell with dizzying rapidity. Intervening in Libya ensured that America would be heavily involved for decades to come after it led (pretty much directly) to civil war in Mali involving yet another franchise of Al Qaeda. And don’t forget the Navy SEALS swashbuckling with pirates off the Somali coast, or the special ops base in Djibouti, the pronunciation of which has unleashed a thousand chuckles. You still can’t find it on a map, can you?

*East Asia: One of the largest and certainly the most populous area of the world. The US is pivoting like Wilt Chamberlain in that direction. President Obama calls it the future, undoubtedly true if not for those painfully nostalgic North Koreans (they’re nothing if not retro-chic). Anything that happens in this area will be monitored, so be prudent in Thailand.

*Pacific: Connected to East Asia and therefore totally untouchable. Stay the hell away! It’s in the middle of the Pentagon’s pivot!

The red circles indicate vital US interests. Leave no stone unturned in your search for something “non-vital”…

*South Asia: With the US legacy on the line in Afghanistan, actual threats emanating from Pakistan, and the Indian economic/Dell call center relationship, not to mention the whole “nuclear war” thing between New Delhi and Islamabad, this area is of vital interest.

*Arctic/Antartica: In a veritable race to the bottom, Washington can’t trust the Canadians to hold the former (tricky bastards), while the latter provides vital evidence that we are destroying the planet. Gotta keep ‘em safe!

*Southern Africa: By virtue of South Africa’s inclusion in the BRICS, this is a crucial area of the world where America must retain strong alliances or whatever. Plus, America’s own Morgan Freeman used to be president.

This, of course, leads us to the Central African Republic. More on that later.

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To Chem Or Not to Chem

What would papa do? Bashar al-Assad has some very lethal weapons and probably the will the use them. But as the world rings its hands over the issue, does the murderous dictator himself even think it would be wise to use them?

The role of chemical weapons in Syria is certain in only one respect: Each aspect of the problem is connected to the others. For the West, not “doing something” does leave open the possibility that chemical weapons will be used against rebel forces in either a broader offensive or some sort of last-ditch effort/retreat. Non-interventionism also leaves open the possibility that the attrition of Assad’s forces will eventually see certain bases fall to the rebels who might gain access to the big, bad WMDs. Staying removed from the conflict might give the US and others less chance of working with rebel groups to safely destroy these arms. We should emphasize chance because the punditry seems obsessed with the notion that, against massive historical evidence to the contrary, the United States will be able to play the Syrian opposition groups it deigns to work with like a fiddle. This will likely not be the case.

Of course, there is nothing about intervening that forecloses on the possibility of chemical weapons use. So “doing something” also risks a rapid regime collapse wherein the chemical weapons stores would be even more vulnerable to takeover and pilfer. The great fear is a jihadist group obtaining such weapons through theft or purchase. Even this is not a dangerous as it sounds. They would then have to develop the expertise to mix the chemicals to create anything more effective than a very local chem attack (like the Al Qaeda in Iraq chlorine bomb attempt).

The Syrian chemical stockpile remains a bit of a mystery. Most reporting indicates that VX, sarin, and mustard gas make up most of the arsenal, though others are suspected. The few instances where chemical weapons have been used left journalists and State Department officials confused, to say the least. Neither the circumstances nor the goal made themselves obvious in these suspected cases, and we won’t even go into their effectiveness (or lack thereof.)

While John McCain and Joe Lieberman lament the lack of US military action in Syria, at least regarding chemical weapons, the tactical and strategic situation militates against the Syrian government using the weapons. Rebel forces are geographically dispersed and they have no central command structure. We haven’t heard much recently about the “retreat to Alawite territory” option, though chemical weapons as an area denial tool may come into play should this occur. On top of these issues, there is strategic risk: Losing the non-approbation of China and Russia; potential direct responses by the US; more foreign sympathy for the rebels. It seems a silly gamble, given the drawbacks. General Dempsey agrees.

This makes the Obama administration’s decision to trumpet a “red line” over chemical weapons a rhetorical mess. Thus far, possible chemical weapons use has been localized and small scale, as one might expect. After a suspicious incident last December, to avoid the “toxic” words “chemical weapons,” administration spokesmen evoked the Shakespearean term “misuse of a riot control agent.” The casualties that night amounted to less than those of a large artillery barrage or assault on a populated town. Wisely, the administration has decided against making such all-too-frequent events red lines, yet they might have to jump through more hoops to avoid sounding feckless if a confirmed minor chemical weapons attack occurs. That, or (dubiously) upping US involvement.

In short, both circumstances and international support for the rebels will likely continue to dissuade the Assad regime from using chemical weapons. While doing more to unseat that regime could possibly mean improved preparedness to disarming Syrian WMDs, bombing the bad men will not eliminate the potential for chemical weapons use. Could it be true? Are we not mistaken?! Is the UN’s position really the best option?

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Is This Legal?

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Socialists vs Drones

A couple months ago, the blog left its Washington, D.C., cave, put on its turtleneck and fake goatee, and attended a small talk on drones given by a left-wing group that would have been monitored by the FBI when that sort of thing was allowed (wait a second…). We felt frisky: radical people were saying radical things! And, no bourgeois site is this, we even agreed with some of them! The meeting was at first oddly think tank-esque: A three person panel spoke on their experience and opinions on drones. One of the speakers had just returned from a fact-finding mission to the tribal areas of Pakistan, so she had no shortage of interesting things to share. The thrust of the talk was that the tribal areas are getting pummeled by illegal drone strikes and these weapons are out of control. There were even stickers demanding “Stop Killer Drones!”

Then the moderator asked the vanguard if they had any questions and—here’s where the format stopped resembling Brookings—comments. From that point, with the exception of a couple queries, the meeting became a guerrilla grad school sociology class. Opinions were shared at length, and occasionally in impressive paragraph form, in attempts to connect the vastness of American foreign policy and capitalism to the current policy towards Pakistan. Men and women, young and old, denounced the US government and the president with distaste conservatives would understand, sometimes consulting their one capitalist-enabled guilty pleasure, the iPhone, to check facts. Idealism was dripping ¹. Secular amens were flowing. Everyone agreed. Lest you think we’re insulting: The discussion was definitely more interesting and thought provoking than CNN.

We found one aspect of their agreement curious. The speakers, who clearly knew quite a bit about UAVs, politics, and Pakistan, focused on the perfidy of drones. They went over the usual suspects: they aren’t accurate and kill innocents, they create enemies, other countries will get them, and they represent a new way of unsustainable war. It was a strange discourse—focused on the instrument of policy—you see fairly often (here, here, and here). In effect, the drone is often and unnecessarily anthropomorphized: How inherently evil are these machines! After all, they only carry out policy. Drones themselves are no more perfidious than rifles or tanks or lead paint-infused toys. And they’re certainly less deadly (at least than the first two). Yes, they kill innocent people, but in a climate of aggressive US counterterrorism, drone use must be compared to the alternatives.

Of course, airplanes can’t really win wars by themselves. Air strikes can kill people, degrade capabilities, and influence the target to do what one wants, but truly intransigent enemies are unlikely to give up due to bombs falling from the sky. Nor can we pretend that UAVs conduct missions based solely on their own surveillance. Signature strikes are common, but many strikes have other intelligence feeding into them. How many conflicts need we see the US enter into before it is acknowledged that air power is potent, but hardly a “war winner”? It’s part of something bigger, both within the military and US foreign policy as a whole, which those at the meeting acknowledged but did not focus enough on.

Another common refrain among those opposed to drone warfare is some form of the Golden Rule. “How would you like it if someone else’s robots dropped bombs on your homeland?” This is more than merely a question of international law. In the case of Pakistan, the complaint is unrealistic. The Pakistanis are capable of shooting down UAVs, and yet they choose not to. They deem the threat of militants, who have killed thousands of Pakistani civilians and soldiers, to be the greater of the two evils. The Afghan government could demand that the US not fly them, but Kabul does not make such a demand. The use of drones in places like Somalia, Afghanistan, and Yemen occurs because those countries either cannot prevent it, welcome them, or ignore them. The US and other powerful countries worth “worrying” about can deny drones airspace. (They fly slowly and have no appreciable defense mechanisms.)

Moreover, the “warning” over other nations acquiring such technology rings rather hollow (while acknowledging that the legality issue is important). First of all, even if the Pentagon stopped funding these programs, other nations would continue to do so. American non-use of UAVs will not change this, and, as we tried to explain above, the platform itself is neither indiscriminate nor deadly, meaning there will never be a treaty banning them. UAVs are not WMDs. Second, these aircraft patrol the aforementioned places for a reason—counterterrorism—and the US would use force in these areas regardless of the capabilities of Predators. Obviously, Milwaukeeites don’t want Chinese drones interfering in the Sausage Race. Using such far-fetched notions as an excuse, however, totally ignores the circumstances in Pakistan and the capabilities of the US.

There is a certain logic to UAVs expanding or prolonging wars, but their use today doesn’t appear to support that. In Somalia, for example, Special Ops units were killing people long before drones got in on it.

These arguments appeared to rest on the notion of temptation. Much as Congressional Republicans took extraordinarily hardline positions on the budget after years of their own profligacy (so government spending must be indiscriminately slashed), our socialist friends were worried about the notion of UAVs making war too easy (so UAVs are terrible). The US, in possession of amazing platforms capable of killing enemies without risk to itself, would then see opportunities everywhere to flex its muscle and oppress people. It’s easy to sympathize with the logic of this position, but reflect for a moment: Is the US “winning” the wars in Pakistan and Afghanistan? Has President Obama sent drones roaring into Syria in order to stop what every talking head has said is a slaughter the US must “do something” about? Would the CIA not be interested in Mali if it did not have drones? We do not criticize caution in the face of an industrial complex and political-class predisposition toward using force, but, as poll numbers on Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan show, Americans are skeptical of commitments “because we can.”

As we teased through armed intervention options in South Asia (and Yemen) and kept arriving at the status-quo as more or less the best choice, the questions of whether drone attacks create enemies kept coming up. Most everyone seems to think so, whether or not they deem the operations “worth it.” Most Pakistanis, surprisingly, don’t really know much about the “Drone War” in the FATA and Peshawar. But granting that these attacks tarnish America’s image and bolster support for radical groups, should drones be the focus? The other options include land invasion, arming proxies, manned-aircraft bombardment, and so on. While “double taps” and other such tactics are disgraceful, the carnage in Nicaragua in the 1980s serves as one of many reminders that the pursuit of the national interest can be extremely bloody whether or not robots are involved.

In short, our new acquaintances should edit their stickers to read what they really want, “Change current US policy toward South Asia!” As Slouching Towards Columbia put it some months ago, “The Drone War Does Not Take Place.” Drone warfare does. The US conducts targeted killings of individuals it believes threatens its citizens and interests. Washington uses violence to compel others to do its will (in this case, one supposes the will would be not targeting Americans, but it seems more like whack-a-mole). Drones are used as a convenient, and possibly enhanced, tool to pursue this objective, but they are by no means necessary or sufficient for carrying it out. We might have written this post much more succinctly: “Does it matter whether F-18s, Special Ops Forces, or UAVs blow up houses in the tribal areas if Pakistan?”

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Hollywood Kills Bin Laden (Or Finding Osama)

Despite 9/11’s significant emotional resonance and status as the great turning point into a new era of conflict, many Americans view the Iraq War as the event from which more relevant policy lessons can be derived. Wasteful and disproportionate US actions led some to take a more cynical and cautious view of the use of force—on everything from torture to tanks—compared to those who think of Al-Qaeda’s 2001 terrorist attacks as the defining event of the decade. Preaching the “one-percent doctrine” and over-hyping intelligence, the Bush Administration aggressively used the threat of terrorism to help build up the Iraq menace. After months and years of US casualties that would eventually eclipse those of 9/11 without diminishing the threat, a sense that America’s greater wound was self-inflicted became widespread. The lesson learned was a variation on the theme that using force to change a society one did not understand presents incalculable difficulties. This more circumspect view of power did not mean that counterterrorism—that is, “taking the fight to the enemy”—was passé, only that, with proper vigilence, extremists would never triumph; the Long War could be won if the US used its resources wisely.

This understanding of American actions bleeds over into the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Those chastened by America’s Iraq experience, along with naturally fading memories of terrorism, were less obsessed with the Al-Qaeda leader and probably more relieved than thrilled by his demise. The box was checked, the job was done, let’s keep discussing the real problems. Whopping crowds in front of the White House were mostly college-age kids, sure, but their exuberance could make one shudder: How much time and money was spent going after this guy? With troops still bogged down in Afghanistan after thousands dead and wounded in Iraq, did bin Laden, in some ways, accomplish his goal? Or at least not yet lose? Vice President Biden’s rhetorical flourish of “General Motors alive, bin Laden dead” was clever, and a bit empty. The Iraq War was of no strategic value, and while the president and his running mate bragged about the killing of bin Laden, more resources and credibility went on the line in Afghanistan to little apparent purpose. Bin Laden’s death was revenge, the utility of which was the absolutely certainty of what would happen to those who followed in his footsteps. A hard-earned American success.

Zero Dark Thirty definitely imparts the difficulty of finding and killing the most wanted man in the world. The movie is highly procedural, though it does not telegraph or excessively simplify each link in the chain. Upon the arrival of the protagonist, new operative “Maya” (Jessica Chastain), the CIA agents involved in the case rattle off a bevy of potential bin Laden harborers in the hope of making any tenuous connection to the man himself. They don’t have a clue, and that’s part of the story. Chastain’s character comes in to add both the now famous obsession as well as new ideas. Most of them just don’t go anywhere for awhile. The prisoners under their control are tight lipped. Whereas Argo goes for the major embellishment, showing the unglamourous, and occasionally unsuccessful, manhunt is a strong point of this film. Of course, director Katherine Bigelow implies that “enhanced interrogation” brought information valuable in finding bin Laden. This appears questionable, but the movie is more nuanced than some would have you believe. One of the suspects doesn’t give up the dirt until after the pain stops and he’s offered some food and cigarettes. Whether or not you believe that the US government only waterboarded three people in the hunt for bin Laden (the makers of this film obviously didn’t think so), the nearly insufferable former CIA director Michael V. Hayden seems right when he says that the intel gleaned from enhanced interrogation “formed part … of the tapestry of information” that did eventually lead to finding bin Laden.

Particularly for those who aren’t thrilled by waterboarding or Guatanamo conversations, the film’s dry evidence collection is well-paced by depicting bombings in Pakistan, Afghanistan, London, and Saudi Arabia.¹ The urgency is renewed with each Al Qaeda strike, which is effective cinema, if shaky logically. (Did bin Laden plan and order these strikes?) But that’s where the perspective of the film is very important. Though inherently political, Zero Dark Thirty is still very much an “insider’s perspective.” Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and adminsitration officials make appearances, but Bigelow wants to pull you into the weeds. When seven CIA agents, one of whom is Maya’s friend, are killed in Afghanistan by a suicide bomber, the protagonist sheds all veneer of geopolitical motivation.

Character development, slowly built through the film through friendships, bureaucratic politics, and the occasional joke, essentially stops with about an hour left in a 157 minute film. Partly this is to make way for the oddly exhausting yet mesmerizing recreation of the Abbottabad raid. It also drives you toward the single-mindedness with which Maya, but not everyone else, pursued bin Laden. Scenes in which nameless administration officials present objections and delay operations show the machine stopping individual initiative. She kept fighting for an operation to kill enemy No. 1 while others “dithered” over whether or not it was worth the risk. It’s possible to see Bigelow playing this straight rather than simply criticizing timorous DC operators: After all, the raid itself was far from smooth and the Pakistani Air Force eventually scrambled (American-made) F-16s. Caution was reasonable.

We can’t really say if Zero Dark Thirty is a glorification of the hunt for bin Laden, or a tale of the dangers of single-mindedness or, conversely, underfunding an important project. Regardless of what one thinks, the last scene of the film is, amazingly enough after the uberpatriotic raid, a poignant reminder of the complexities of the endless campaign against terrorism: As Chastain’s character boards an empty plane home from Afghanistan after the bin Laden’s death, she is asked “Where do want to go?” Having no answer, she begins to cry. There’s something in that for everyone.

[1] Not to mention all the attacks that aren’t depicted, like the massive Madrid train bombing in 2004. Here again, Iraq muddles the waters: we’d forgotten just how many terrorist attacks were successfully carried out over the past decade, and it’s unclear, to say the least, whether or not the war in Afghanistan has helped keep them away from the American homeland.

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Diplomaster: Mr. Rodman Goes to Pyongyang

Now that Hillary Clinton finally chose to hang up the passport, here are a few scenarios regarding the world’s most celebrated diplomat.

The Feeler

North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un’s love for basketball and the 1990s Chicago Bulls in particular is well documented, but his euphoria at meeting Dennis Rodman seems sadly misplaced. Though an experience any Bulls fan or sufferer of low self-esteem would envy, the budding strongman must have been thrilled over bigger news. We submit that Rodman might have been in North Korea to gauge the dictator’s interest in hiring Michael Jordan as a “consultant at large.” He could run the national basketball program, play for the team, increase industrial productivity by brutally mocking plebs in a “Socialist Worker Hero Hall of Fame” speech, or possibly deploy his nervy resolve in negotiations over the nuclear program (let’s just hope, for Kim’s sake, that MJ channels his pre-Wizards/Bobcats talents). Regardless, the US must think this through: Can the world’s last superpower really handle the pain?

The Landing

Everyone knows that Dennis Rodman is an alien. No one disputes his extraterrestrial appearance or rebounding ability. It seems clear that the Kim regime, armed with useless nuclear weapons, finally will pull the coup de grace Gaddafi or Saddam could only dream of: Finding those who eluded Jody Foster in Contact.

The Genes

Obviously, Rodman is transferring neither brain power nor style from the West. In fact, on these counts, Americans and their allies should be thrilled: Northeast Asia’s most aggressive state might now clad its soldiers in bright pink cutoff tops and force them to submit to insalubrious piercings as a result of Kim’s infatuation. However, we think something much more sinister is at play: a gambit to strip a declining US of its great basketball advantage. If Rodman convinces all of his record-setting 1996 Chicago Bulls teammates to be cloned in Pyongyang, in twenty-five years North Korea will dominate Olympic basketball and pluck American youth from high school to play in the recently inaugurated “Forced Labor League.”

The Drinker

Isn’t the former champion and all-star center supposed to be a recovering alcoholic? If so, it looks like he had quite a time in the Democratic People’s Republic. His sponsor must be pissed. Might Rodman have gone to use the classic, “Well, I’m in North freaking Korea, I can at least have a beer” excuse? North Korean hairstyles certainly didn’t attract he of the leopard-print head.

Obviously.

This is not what anyone had in mind, except perhaps the probably euphorically happy Vice TV, who got more ink than Rodman’s chest (Marv Albert: “Yes!”), by “basketball diplomacy.” Dreamy ideas of opening one-party, mind-controlling states through the universal message of ballin’ involved heartfelt children’s camps, humourous exhibitions, and smiling TV appearances symbolizing a thaw in tensions. Instead, a few weeks after missile and nuclear tests, we get Ambassador Rodman. Yes, he was a champion, but now is a totally washed out moron without a solid jumpshot. The Obama adminstration needs to take control of this situation: You don’t send Nickelback to showcase the arts, do you?

Rodman’s trip did remind us of the more random, press-oriented trips of the past. Some meant something, either diplomatically or politically. Nixon seemed like a serious politician after “The Kitchen Debate.” Bill Clinton got hostages back from Kim the Middle a few years ago. Bill Richardson helped negotiate various band-aid agreements before that. Jesse Jackson retrieved some hostages once, right? (He did, multiple times). Bono (but not The Edge!) and Angelina Jolie have academics who study their effect. These random acts of diplomacy range from the possibly important to almost totally irrelevant. None of them, however, even come close to how hilarious and appropriate this meeting was. A delusional dictator of a washed-up country meets a delusional washed-up allstar. Everyone is happy, or should be.

So, expressing outrage over this event is silly. Col. Steve Ganyard, USMC (Ret.), a former deputy assistant secretary of state and ABC News consultant said, “There is nobody at the CIA who can tell you more personally about Kim Jong-Un than Dennis Rodman, and that in itself is scary.” No more so than the litany of diseases ol’ Dennis may have dropped off in the DPRK. Rodman didn’t say much about the situation other than “Call me, Obama” and “Kim is a life-long friend.” While Rodman’s diplomatic pioneer status is highly amusing, it’s hardly a missed opportunity. What if noted war monger (and first Bulls Dynasty point guard) BJ Armstrong had lectured Kim on human rights between layups? He wouldn’t have gotten out of there without a mysterious knee injury. Let Rodman’s trip stand as a remarkable curio, a hilarious event that only reminds us of what we knew: The West’s relations with North Korea are terrible.^[1]

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[1]: Given Rodman’s bizarro boosterism upon returning to the United States, one does have to wonder whether the North Koreans subjected him to some Manchurian Candidate-style hypnosis (probably not; they just plied him with alcohol and who knows what else), or if this was a master stroke by the Obama administration: Nary two days after Rodman’s return, amid Pyongyang’s latest blustery salvo, the Chinese appeared to be on board with sanctioning the Hermit Kingdom. The reason is clear: the Rodman gambit scared the bejesus out of them.

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Hello Emotion. Please Come Get the Best of Me.

Richard Cohen, a columnist for the Washington Post, works in some foreign policy advice for the newly minted President Obama, Part II: “The people of any country are not chattel to be treated any way their government wants. This—a furious sense of moral indignation—must return to American foreign policy and be the centerpiece of Obama’s second term. This is no longer a matter of choice. It is a necessity.” Take that you cold-hearted sons a bitches!

We aren’t entirely sure what “a furious sense of moral indignation” is, but Mr. Cohen is obviously quite affected at what’s happened in Syria. He contends that outside intervention there should have occurred. He cites the 60,000 dead, the refugees, and the potential destabilization in Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey. Cohen goes right for your heart strings, “Children have died. More children will die.” He looks at the past: a no-fly zone would have been easy to implement and a morale killer for the regime; “incompetence” preventing the US from knowing which rebel groups were “moderate” or not; and the initial potential for Assad to leave peacefully if international pressure had been immediate. It was necessary to act, Cohen writes, to prevent destabilization and death, and for the sake of common sense.

Inexplicable leaps in logic proliferate on the WaPo editorial page all the time, and this bit is no different. Cohen’s basic cry is humanitarian—and that’s OK and worth listening to—but he then starts with the inevitable “let me layer my case with unprovable geopolitical and military thoughts so you won’t think I’m a bleeding heart.” The Kurds are “restless” now, you see, and obviously the influx in refugees to Lebanon will inevitably cause a massive conflagration. Certainly, a military intervention would have been relatively easy, not much easier than figuring out which small rebel groups dispersed over a large swath of territory were less likely to massacre political opponents or support international terrorists. Why even back this up?

A little more anger, or misguided policy, should come from this agony.

Cohen claims that had the US intervened in Syria earlier, before so much blood was shed, then Assad could have left and there wouldn’t have been a civil war. This is a nice unprovable idea. The protests started for a reason and their success might have precipitated an actual revolution; precluding a civil war because the dictator is out of power is strangely myopic, coming from an American who remembers the Iraq War (not to mention one who copped to being “miserably wrong” by originally cheerleading for it).

Cohen writes of Syria in the past tense, which initially seems odd and shouldn’t dissuade you from the fact that he surely supports intervention now, because this little cri de coeur is meant for the coming term. Remember, a “furious sense of moral indignation” must guide the US for the next four years, not maintaining military supremacy in a period of relative austerity, supporting economic systems complementary to American interests, and bolstering security without expending significant resources… or, God forbid, redefining some interests and lowering Washington’s overweaning desire to claim every region as “critical.” There is something natural and healthy about trying to give a coherent moral face to a country’s foreign policy; if no one tried, things would at the least become rather boring for the commentariat. But Cohen fails the test of parsimony and immediacy (a regular problem with interventionists): We know from the two most recent US wars that with the flag basic rights do not necessarily follow, and rather than claim moral bankruptcy over something President Obama hasn’t done, why not address the moral quandary of something he authorizes somewhat frequently?

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The Revenge of Robert Kaplan

Hopefully, Robert Kaplan’s analysis for which you have to pay for is better than the stuff he writes for the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal. In case you missed it in the holiday crush, the travel writer turned Navy War College prof turned think tanker turned “chief geopolitical analyst” at the private intelligence firm Stratfor recently wrote a piece warning of the “return of toxic nationalism.” In general, we liked Kaplan’s travel journalism. But ever since he started the agonizing transition toward becoming a “public intellectual,” both his writing and his insight have lost their shine. The problem is that he embraced the mantle of Realism and has become conversant in the jargon of International Relations theory without, it seems, truly comprehending the theories themselves. And for a chief “analyst” at a firm that makes its dime “forecasting” major events, Kaplan relies on anecdotal evidence to an astounding degree.

All these criticisms are in play in the “toxic nationalism” op-ed. First, there’s the apparent lack of self-awareness. Kaplan begins by criticizing “Western elites” for their belief that “universal values” trump “the forces of reaction.” Apparently, Kaplan doesn’t think of himself as part of the “self-referential world of global cosmopolitans” because he chews the fat with officials in Vietnam and the Philippines. More on this later.

Kaplan sees the rise of nationalism everywhere—just take a look at Egypt, Syria, Northeast Asia, India, Russia, and, yes, horror of horrors, the EU! The problem with Kaplan’s premise isn’t that everything is truly hunky-dorey the world over, but that our fearless analyst fails to acknowledge the important differences of between all of these situations. Egypt is an example of relatively peaceful revolution where it appears the forces of sectarianism may win out, whereas Syria is a violent civil war. Both are internal reactions to repressive regimes, but what outside colonial or oppressive force are they casting off? Sectarian and ethnic conflict is certainly in play, but nationalism has little to do with it.

It’s hard to fathom how this internal jousting for power relates to the very interstate geopolitical concerns with which the rest of his examples are preoccupied. Nationalism is nothing if not an ideology, yet here’s Kaplan: “The disputes in Asia are not about ideology or any uplifting moral philosophy; they are about who gets to control space on the map.” Yes, but it’s often impossible to tell if nationalism or actual strategic concerns drive the fight for geographical dominance. Yes, Japan and Korea and China and India and Vietnam fight with each other over islands and boundaries. But is that because they’re wild with nationalism or because they’re concerned about security?¹ It’s just as hard to tell the difference when it comes to Russia.

That sort of uncertainty after decades disappointment should be understood in any conversation with “elites.” One can’t help but think that the “elite” straw man borders on an outdated caricature. For example, not only do significant numbers of Europeans and Americans fear what they see as incompatibility of republicanism and Islam, the more activist ones see a need to use force to spread those values. It’s hardly a consensus that the forces of “integration” will inevitably win out. Setting Realism aside for a moment in favor of being realistic, did anyone serious believe that the politics of “exclusion,” as Kaplan calls them, were dead? Particularly in Egypt, Russia, Syria, or East Asia? The editorial seems more suited to pinching post–Cold War enthusiasm rather than a policymaker in 2013.

Kaplan acknowledges that democratic values matter little when it comes to settling international disputes, but his emphasis is wrong-headed and his solution is laughable. Realist theory says that state behavior is driven by the need for security, of which power, fear, and geography are the main factors. This puts the focus on policy and action rather than rhetoric and and discourse. Nationalism is merely an organizing principle and the reason you don’t want to mess around in other people’s business (because nations hate it when outsiders impinge on their sovereignty).

With an undefined, amorphous nationalism as the enemy, here’s Kaplan’s Big Idea:

Just as the requirement to eat comes before contemplation of the soul, interests come before values.

Yet because values like minority rights are under attack the world over, the United States must put them right alongside its own exclusivist national interests, such as preserving a favorable balance of power. Without universal values in our foreign policy, we have no identity as a nation—and that is the only way we can lead with moral legitimacy in an increasingly disorderly world. Yet we should not be overturning existing orders overnight. For it is precisely weak democracies and collapsing autocracies that provide the chaotic breathing room with which nationalist and sectarian extremists can thrive.

Did you catch that? He throws a bone to his realist buddies (interests before values) before saying basically the opposite (let’s trumpet our universal values, but let’s do it quietly and prudently). So what’s the difference between Robert Kaplan and a member of the Western elite again?

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