The Next Decade (7 page)
When President Clinton decided to bomb Yugoslavia in 1999 and when President Reagan decided to invade Grenada in 1983, Congress could not stop them had it wished to. American presidents impose sanctions on nations and shape economic relations throughout the world. In practical terms, this means that an American president has the power to devastate a country that displeases him or reward a country that he favors. Legislation on war powers has been passed, but many presidents have claimed that they have the inherent right as commander in chief to wage war regardless of it. In practice, they have brought Congress along to support their policies. That is unlikely to change in the next decade.
It is in the exercise of foreign policy that the American president most resembles Machiavelli’s prince, which isn’t that surprising when you consider that the founders were students of modern political philosophy and that Machiavelli was its originator. Just as we must acknowledge the existence of an American empire, we must acknowledge the value of his insights and advice for our own situation. That the president’s main concern is foreign policy and the exercise of power conforms to Machiavelli’s teaching:
A prince, therefore, must not have any other object or any other thought, nor must he adopt anything as his art but war, its institutions and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands. This discipline is of such efficacy that not only does it maintain those who were born princes but it enables men of private station on many occasions to rise to that position. On the other hand, it is evident that when princes have given more thought to delicate refinements than to military concerns, they have lost their state. The most important reason why you lose it is by neglecting this art, while the way to acquire it is to be well versed in this art.
The fundamental distinction in U.S. foreign policy, and in the exercise of power by U.S. presidents—the distinction discussed by Machiavelli—is between idealism and realism, a distinction embedded in the tradition of U.S. foreign policy. The United States was founded on the principle of national self-determination, which assumes a democratic process for selecting leaders, reflected in the Constitution. It was also built on principles of human freedom, enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Imperialism would seem to undermine the principle of self-determination, whether formally or informally. Moreover, the conduct of foreign policy supports regimes that are in the national interest but that don’t practice or admire American principles of human rights. Reconciling American foreign policy with American principles is difficult, and represents a threat to the moral foundations of the regime.
The idealist position argues that the United States must act on the moral principles derived from the founders’ elegantly stated intentions. The United States is seen as a moral project stemming from the Enlightenment ideals of John Locke and others, and the goal of American foreign policy should be to apply these moral principles to American actions and, more important, American ends. Following from this, the United States should support only those regimes that embrace American values, and it should oppose regimes that oppose those values.
The realist school argues that the United States is a nation like any other, and that as such it must protect its national interests. These interests include the security of the United States, the pursuit of its economic advantage, and support for regimes that are useful to those ends, regardless of those regimes’ moral character. Under this theory, American foreign policy should be no more and no less moral than the policy of any other nation.
The idealists argue that to deny America’s uniquely moral imperative not only betrays American ideals but betrays the entire vision of American history. The realists argue that we live in a dangerous world and that by focusing on moral goals we will divert attention from pursuit of our genuine interests, thereby endangering the very existence of the republic that is the embodiment of American ideals. It is important to bear in mind that idealism as a basis for American politics transcends ideologies. The left-wing variant is built around human rights and the prevention of war. The right-wing version is built around a neoconservative desire to spread American values and democracies. What these two visions have in common is the idea that American foreign policy should be primarily focused on moral principles.
In my view, the debate between realism and idealism fundamentally misstates the problem, and this misstatement will play a critical role in the next decade. Either it will be resolved or the imbalance within U.S. foreign policy will become ever more evident. The idealist argument constantly founders on a prior debate between the right of national self-determination and human rights. The American Revolution was built on both principles, but now, more than two centuries later, what do you do when a country such as Germany determines through constitutional processes to abrogate human rights? Which takes precedence, the right to national self-determination or human rights? What do you do with regimes that do not hold elections like those in the United States but that clearly embody the will of the people based on long-standing cultural practice? Saudi Arabia is a prime example. How can the United States espouse multiculturalism and then demand that other people select their leaders the way people do in Iowa?
The realist position is equally contradictory. It assumes that the national interest of a twenty-first-century empire is as obvious as that of a small eighteenth-century republic clinging to the eastern seaboard of North America. Small, weak nations have clear-cut definitions of the national interest—which is primarily to survive with as much safety and prosperity as possible. But for a country as safe and prosperous as the United States—and with an unprecedented imperial reach—the definition of the national interest is much more complicated. The realist theory assumes that there is less room for choice in the near term than there is, and that the danger is always equally great. The concept of realism cannot be argued with as an abstract proposition—who wants to be unrealistic? Coming up with a precise definition of what reality consists of is a much more complex matter. In the sixteenth century, Machiavelli wrote, “The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms. You cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.” This is a better definition of realism than the realists have given us.
I believe that the debate between realists and idealists is in fact a naive reading of the world that has held too much sway in recent decades. Ideals and reality are different sides of the same thing: power. Power as an end in itself is a monstrosity that does not achieve anything lasting and will inevitably deform the American regime. Ideals without power are simply words—they can come alive only when reinforced by the capacity to act. Reality is understanding how to wield power, but by itself it doesn’t guide you toward the ends to which your power should be put. Realism devoid of an understanding of the ends of power is frequently another word for thugishness, which is ultimately unrealistic. Similarly, idealism is frequently another word for self-righteousness, a disease that can be corrected only by a profound understanding of power in its complete sense, while realism uncoupled from principle is frequently incompetence masquerading as tough-mindedness. Realism and idealism are not alternatives but necessary complements. Neither can serve as a principle for foreign policy by itself.
Idealism and realism resolve themselves into contests of power, and contests of power turn into war. To turn once again to Machiavelli: “War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes an ability to execute, military plans.”
In the twentieth century, the United States was engaged in war 17 percent of the time—and these were not minor interventions but major wars, involving hundreds of thousands of men. In the twenty-first century, we have been engaged in war almost 100 percent of the time. The founders made the president commander in chief for a reason: they had read Machiavelli carefully and they knew that, as he wrote, “there is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.”
The greatest virtue a president can have is to understand power. Presidents are not philosophers, and the exercise of power is an applied, not an abstract, art. Trying to be virtuous will bring not only the president to grief but the country as well. During war, understanding power means that crushing the enemy quickly and thoroughly is kinder than either extending the war through scruples or losing the war through sentimentality. This is why conventional virtue, the virtue of what we might call the good person, is unacceptable in a president. Again as Machiavelli put it, “The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.”
Machiavelli introduces a new definition of virtue, which instead of personal goodness consists of being cunning. For princes, virtue is the ability to overcome fortune. The world is what it is, and as such, it is unpredictable and fickle, and the prince must use his powers to overcome the surprises the world will present. His task is to protect the republic from a world full of people who are not virtuous in any conventional sense.
Presidents may run for office on ideological platforms and promised policies, but their presidency is actually defined by the encounter between fortune and virtue, between the improbable and the unexpected—the thing that neither their ideology nor their proposals prepared them for—and their response. The president’s job is to anticipate what will happen, minimize the unpredictability, then respond to the unexpected with cunning and power.
From Machiavelli’s point of view, ideology is trivial and character is everything. The president’s virtue, his insight, his quickness of mind, his cunning, his ruthlessness, and his understanding of the consequences are what matters. Ultimately, his legacy will be determined by his instincts, which in turn reflect his character.
The great presidents never forget the principles of the republic and seek to preserve and enhance them—in the long run—without undermining the needs of the moment. Bad presidents simply do what is expedient, heedless of principles. But the worst presidents are those who adhere to principles regardless of what the fortunes of the moment demand.
The United States cannot make its way in the world by shunning nations with different values and regimes that are brutal, all the while carrying out exclusively noble actions. The pursuit of moral ends requires a willingness to sup with the devil.
I began this chapter by speaking of the tension between the American republic and empire in the decade ahead. Whatever moral scruples we might have about being an empire, this is the role history has cast us in. If the danger in becoming an empire is that we lose the republic, certainly the realist view of foreign policy would take us there, if not intentionally, then simply through indifference to moral issues. At the same time, idealists would bring down the republic by endangering the nation, not through intent but through hostility or indifference to power. Of course, the fall of the republic won’t occur in the next decade. But the decisions made during the next decade will profoundly affect the long-term outcome.
Over the next decade, the president won’t have the luxury of ignoring either ideals or reality. Instead he must choose the uncomfortable synthesis of the two that Machiavelli recommended. The president must focus not only on the accumulation and use of power but on its limits. A good regime backed by power and leaders who understand the virtue both of the regime and of power is what is required. This is not a neat ideological package that explains and reduces everything to simplistic formulas. Rather, it is an existential stance toward politics that affirms moral truths in politics without becoming their simpleminded prisoner, and that uses power without worshipping it.
In preventing the unintended empire from destroying the republic, the critical factor will not be the balance of power among the branches of government, but rather a president who is committed to that constitutional balance, yet willing to wield power in his own right. In order to do this, the president must grasp the insufficiency of both the idealist and the realist positions. The idealists, whether of the neoconservative or the liberal flavor, don’t understand that it is necessary to master the nature of power in order to act according to moral principles. The realists don’t understand the futility of power without a moral core.
Machiavelli writes that “the one who adapts his policy to the times prospers, and likewise that the one whose policy clashes with the demands of the times does not.” Morality in foreign policy might be eternal, but it must also be applied to the times. Applying it to the next decade will be particularly difficult, as the next decade poses the challenge of the unintended empire.
CHAPTER 3
