Drawing from Dancy's notion of ethical particularism, we explore why foreign policy doctrines are counterproductive in terms of crafting sound responses to complex, fluid and dynamic events. However, despite their horrible track record, foreign policy dogmas remain ubiquitous--a phenomenon which is largely a function of how useful they are in the political sphere

al-Gharbi, Musa

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The Wilson Quarterly  Volume XXXIX, No. 3  With pomp and polish and platitudes, the 2016 presidential campaign is underway. It began in December, as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush announced he was “actively exploring” a run for the White House. Bush is more moderate than much of the Republican base on many issues–perhaps too moderate to ultimately win his party’s nomination.i On foreign policy issues, however, Bush tows a hawkish line, pushing for a more aggressive U.S. posture against Syria, Russia, Iran, China, and Cuba in order to better promote and defend American ideals and interests throughout the globe.ii  On the whole, the Republican hopefuls are “racing to the right” on foreign policy, arguing for a more muscular approach to international affairs. A narrative is taking hold that many of the problems facing the world today are the result of the Obama administration’s “failed leadership.” More specifically, they were not brought about by America’s ill-conceived actions, but instead, because of U.S. inaction: a failure to intervene as often or aggressively as “needed” around the world, which (to many conservatives’ minds) projected American weakness and undermined U.S. credibility.iii The solution? Clear principled American leadership. This line of reasoning permeates the recently-announced campaigns of noted surgeon Ben Carson, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and increasingly reflects the political strategy of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul as well.iv 2 | M u s a  a l - G h a r b i ,  “ T h e  C a s e  f o r  a n  U n p r i n c i p l e d  F o r e i g n  P o l i c y ”     T h e  W i l s o n  Q u a r t e r l y ,  V o l u m e  X X X I X ,  N o .  3  ( S u m m e r  2 0 1 5 )  The presumed Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, is perhaps more aggressive still: unwavering in her advocacy of Israel, comparing Putin to Hitler over Ukraine, pushing for a more confrontational approach to China, championing intervention in Libya and Syria (just as she previously did for Iraq), supporting the troop surge in Afghanistan as well as the likely ill-fated campaign against ISIL, defending the counterproductive drone program, and arguing for increased sanctions and the threat of force against Iran (although she now tentatively supports the nuclear negotiation effort).v  During her pre-announcement book tour, Clinton lambasted the Obama administration’s foreign policy, particularly the administration’s aspirational credo: vi  “Don’t do stupid shit.” Her complaint was not that the Obama administration has failed to live up to such an apparently modest goal, but instead, that “don’t do stupid *stuff*” is not an organizing principle, and “Great nations” need doctrines to guide their foreign policy.vii On its face, this line of criticism is absurd. Clearly, “avoid doing harm” is, in fact, a maxim designed to guide action (just ask any medical professional).viii Granted, it’s a principle guiding what not to do, rather than what to do. However, for this very reason, it is more basic (and more important than) any offensive strategy: it constrains what sorts of affirmative policies are desirable or even permissible. But notwithstanding this apparent lack of understanding about what “organizing principle” means,ix there is a more profound error that Secretary Clinton holds in common with the Republican frontrunners: the assumption that grand strategies are necessary or useful in guiding foreign policy. They aren’t.  The Problem with “Grand Strategies” To understand why foreign policy doctrines are counterproductive, let us begin with a handful of humble axioms: First, situations are importantly different from one another. Libya is not Ukraine. The Syria of the 1950s is neither the Syria of 2011, nor the Syria of 2014. The crises America faces today are not the same as those of Rome at the time of its collapse. While drawing analogies can sometimes be useful, taking comparisons too seriously will tend to obscure rather than elucidate the problems policymakers are currently faced with. Indeed, a policymaker’s overreliance on historical tropes is a sign that they probably lack a nuanced grasp on the actual situation at hand — and are likely not well-informed about history, either.x Second, situations are fluid and often volatile: they evolve over time in response to myriad factors, most of which are difficult to predict or control.xi Therefore, mindfulness of the present will be far more useful in guiding policy than attempts to model the future, draw analogies from the past, or frame contemporary developments within pre-existing narratives.xii  Third, U.S. interest, and the optimal means of promoting them, are also heavily context-dependent and evolve along with the situation to which they’re indexed. Accordingly, strategies which take American interests for granted are likely to be blind to critical opportunities and risks presented by particular circumstances.xiii  Fourth, even what is morally right is heavily determined by the context in which options are presented — both at the personal and institutional levels.xiv  3 | M u s a  a l - G h a r b i ,  “ T h e  C a s e  f o r  a n  U n p r i n c i p l e d  F o r e i g n  P o l i c y ”     T h e  W i l s o n  Q u a r t e r l y ,  V o l u m e  X X X I X ,  N o .  3  ( S u m m e r  2 0 1 5 )  In light of these propositions, we are left with the question: why would policymakers approach fluid and dynamic problems through rigid principles and reactionary applications?  The Incentive Problem It is disturbing that policymakers seem so willing to embrace policies driven by ideology or abstract projection at the expense of paying attention to the facts on the ground, or even in outright defiance of known empirical realities.xv But worse still is that even as it becomes glaringly obvious that these ill-conceived measures are failing or even backfiring, the typical response by policymakers is to explain problems away with empty counterfactuals about how the strategy is essentially sound and could have worked better under alternative circumstances — with the proposed “solution” typically being to double-down on the current policies, rather than to rethink their aims and methods. This is virtually the definition of fundamentalism. And yet, it is fundamentalists who win elections. This is no less true in America than in the Middle East in the wake of the Arab Uprisings. It is a problem intrinsic to democracy itself. While doctrines will generally give rise to terrible policies,xvi they make excellent soundbites and political slogans:xvii  The public loves the melodrama created by the apparent clashes of these lofty ideals. Perhaps more importantly, voters like simple narratives about what is happening and why; they like hopeful and bold (even if poorly substantiated) visions of the future. Constituents want complex issues related in an accessible fashion, short enough to fit between commercial breaks, distill into an op-ed column, or squeeze into a 140-character tweet. And so, for these reasons, voters are more likely to elect someone who has some neat, tidy ideological package to offer.xviii  This may be why Americans, despite being generally and consistently averse to military interventions,xix tend to elect politicians who are likely to resort to force to resolve foreign policy challenges, while decrying their political opponents as “weak” or “isolationist.”xx    Pragmatism over Idealism or Populism Perhaps the one exception to the aforementioned trend has been Barack Obama, who has tended to base critical policy decisions on what the public wanted in the moment rather than subscribing to any particular doctrine.xxi But ironically, many voters seem to resent him for this,xxii as the midterms underscored yet again. And it’s hard to blame them: Americans are notoriously ignorant and reactionary about issues related to foreign affairs and national security — and far too disengaged from our military.xxiii But for all that, we have the good fortune of living in a representative (rather than direct) democracy, where citizens elect politicians who are supposed to have the temperament and expertise to make tough, often controversial, decisions on their behalf. While accountable to citizens via occasional elections, precisely what American politicians are not supposed to do is reflexively defer to the public in the interim. The rightly (if improperly) maligned foreign policy track record of the Obama administration should serve as a cautionary tale for why not. 4 | M u s a  a l - G h a r b i ,  “ T h e  C a s e  f o r  a n  U n p r i n c i p l e d  F o r e i g n  P o l i c y ”     T h e  W i l s o n  Q u a r t e r l y ,  V o l u m e  X X X I X ,  N o .  3  ( S u m m e r  2 0 1 5 )  American leadership doesn’t want for populism or idealism — what it lacks is pragmatism.xxiv But given the proclivities of the American voter, perhaps the best that one can hope for is leaders who are great at exploiting narrative tropes to explain their policies to the public while their actions are determined by careful, informed, and realistic assessments of the challenges the U.S. faces. However, Americans shouldn’t hold their breath in anticipation of such a noble liar anytime soon (certainly not for 2016): our politicians tend to be cynical in all the wrong ways.xxv   About the Author Musa al-Gharbi is an instructor in the Department of Government and Public Service at the University of Arizona (South), and serves as the managing editor for the Southwest Initiative for the Study of Middle East Conflicts (SISMEC). Readers can connect to his other research and social media via his website: http://fiatsophia.org/  i Nate Silver. “Is Jeb Bush too Liberal to Win the Republican Nomination in 2016?” Five-Thirty-Eight. 16 December 2014. ii Zach Beauchamp. “On Foreign Policy, Jeb Bush Sounds Like His Brother. Smart Play.” Vox. 18 February 2015. Peter Beinart. “Jeb Bush’s Foreign Policy Problem.” The Atlantic. 19 February 2015. Marc Caputo. “Jeb Bush Sets Out Foreign Policy Vision as he Mulls Presidential Bid.” Tampa Bay Times. 2 December 2014. Yochi Dreazen & Siddhartha Mahanta. “When It Comes to Foreign Policy, Is Jeb Bush His Brother’s Keeper?” Foreign Policy. 17 December 2014. iii For the interested reader, I systematically explore the profound errors underlying popular narratives on credibility here: Musa al-Gharbi. “Obama Must Abandon Failed Strategies in Syria and Ukraine.” Al-Jazeera America. 13 November 2014. ibid. “Why America Lacks Credibility in the Middle East.” Foreign Policy in Focus. 10 March 2015. iv Ben Kamisar. “Ben Carson Trips Up in Foreign Policy Interview.” The Hill. 18 March 2015. Philip Klein. “Rubio v. Cruz is the Most Important Foreign Policy Battle of 2016.” Washington Examiner. 16 April 2015. Mitt Romney. “The Price of Failed Leadership.” Wall Street Journal. 17 March 2014. Danny Vinik. ”Rand Paul Becomes Less of a Libertarian Every Day.” The New Republic. 7 April 2015.  v John Avlon. “Libya Airstrikes: The Women Who Called for War.” The Daily Beast. 20 March 2011. Peter Beinart. “Israel’s New Lawyer: Hillary Clinton.” Haaretz. 11 August 2014. ibid. “What’s Missing from Hillary’s Iraq Apology.” The Atlantic. 9 June 2014. Zack Beauchamp. “Hillary Clinton Will Pull the Democrats—and the Country—in a Hawkish Direction.” Vox. 13 April 2015. Robert Golan-Viella. “Hillary Clinton’s Afghanistan Problem.” The National Interest. 17 December 2013.  Mark Kennedy. “Hillary Clinton to Ottawa Audience: ‘Military Action is Critical’ Against ISIS.” National Post. 6 October 2014. Howard LeFranchi. “Hillary Clinton Floats a Syria No-Fly Zone. How Real an Option for the U.S.?” Christian Science Monitor. 13 August 2012. Laura Meckler. “Hillary Clinton is Both Supportive and Skeptical of Iran Nuclear Talks.” Wall Street Journal. 30 March 2015. Arshad Mohammad. “Clinton Defends Drone Strikes After al-Qaeda Leader Abu Yahya al-Libi Killed.” Huffington Post. 7 August 2012. David Morgan. “Clinton Says U.S. could ‘Totally Obliterate’ Iran.” Reuters. 22 April 2008. Josh Rogin. “Hillary Clinton Celebrates the Iran Sanctions that her State Department Tried to Stop.” The Daily Beast. 15 May 2014. Timothy Stanley. “Hillary, Putin’s No Hitler.” CNN. 5 March 2014. Shannon Tiezzi. “Imagining U.S.-China Relations Under Hillary Clinton.” The Diplomat. 30 July 2014. Kelley Vlahos. “The Military-Industrial Candidate.” The American Conservative. 20 November 2014. vi Mike Allen. “’Don’t Do Stupid S---‘ (Stuff).” Politico. 1 June 2014.  vii Jeffery Goldberg. “Hillary Clinton: ‘Failure’ to Help Syrian Rebels Led to the Rise of ISIS.” The Atlantic. 10 August 2014.  viii Nassim Nicholas Taleb. “Naïve Intervention.” Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. Random House, 2014: pp. 110-20.  ix Michael T. Klare. “Why Hillary Clinton is Wrong About Obama’s Foreign Policy.” The Nation. 3 September 2014.  x Adam Gopnik. “Does it Help to Know History?” The New Yorker. 28 August 2014. Jacob Heilbrunn. “Misusing History.” The National Interest. 22 April 2014. Daniel Larison. “The Uses and Abuses of Historical Analogies.” The American Conservative. 1 December 2014.                                                           5 | M u s a  a l - G h a r b i ,  “ T h e  C a s e  f o r  a n  U n p r i n c i p l e d  F o r e i g n  P o l i c y ”     T h e  W i l s o n  Q u a r t e r l y ,  V o l u m e  X X X I X ,  N o .  3  ( S u m m e r  2 0 1 5 )                                                                                                                                                                                             Nassim Nicholas Taleb. “One Thousand and One Days, or How Not to be a Sucker.” Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (2nd Edition). Random House, 2010: pp. 38-50.  xi Nassim Nicholas Taleb. “The Problem of Induction.” Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets. Random House, 2005: pp. 116-35.  xii David T. Moore. “On Being Mindful.” Sensemaking: A Structure for an Intelligence Revolution (2nd Edition). National Defense Intelligence College, 2013: pp. xxiii-xxv.  xiii Daniel Larison. “Lessons from the Libyan War.” The American Conservative. 19 November 2014. Michael J. Mazarr. “Rethinking Risk in Defense.” War on the Rocks. 13 April 2015. William R. Polk. “The Mental Block and the Broadside.” Middle East Policy. 17 June 2014. Jeremy Shapiro. “First Rate Intelligence: U.S. Government Understanding of the Syrian Civil War.” Project on Middle East Political Science. 12 February 2014. xiv I explore this point at length in: Musa al-Gharbi. Building on Nietzsche’s Prelude: Reforming Epistemology for the Philosophy of the Future. Universal Publishers, 2014. xv Stephen J. Dubner. “The Folly of Prediction.” Freakonomics. 14 September 2011. Robert W. Merry. “Obama’s Ukraine Folly Comes Full-Circle.” The National Interest. 6 September 2014. Randall W. Stone. “The Use and Abuse of Game Theory in International Relations: The Theory of Moves.” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 45, No. 2: pp. 216-44. James Traub. “Bashar al-Assad and the Devil’s Bargain.” Foreign Policy. 14 November 2014. Stephen Walt. “Democracy, Freedom and Apple Pie Aren’t a Foreign Policy.” Foreign Policy. 1 July 2014.  xvi Andrew Bacevich. “Save Us from Washington’s Visionaries.” Huffington Post. 31 March 2015. James Carden. “Grand Strategy is Bunk.” The American Conservative. 3 December 2014.  xvii Elisabeth Anker. “The Danger in Political Melodrama.” New America. 9 October 2014. Daniel Larison. “Bumper Sticker Foreign Policy and the 2016 Election.” The American Conservative. 23 April 2015.  xviii David Bromwich. “The Immorality of American Exceptionalism.” The American Conservative. 23 October 2014.  xix John Mueller. “Syria: It Wasn’t Isolationism.” The National Interest. 14 October 2013.  xx W. James Antle III. “’Isolationism’ Has Lost All Meaning.” The American Conservative. 29 December 2014. Andrew Bacevich. “American Isolationism: Nothing More Than a Myth.” Mother Jones. 24 October 2013. Noah Millman. “Who Would Vote for a Peace Candidate?” The American Conservative. 27 January 2015. Joseph S. Nye Jr. “A Smarter Superpower.” Foreign Policy. 13 October 2009.  xxi Michael Crowley. “This May Be the Real Obama Doctrine.” Time. 28 May 2014.  xxii Marwan Bishara. “U.S. Political High Priests.” Al-Jazeera English. 2 April 2014.  xxiii Harry Alsop. “Americans Surveyed: Misunderstood, Misrepresented, or Ignorant?” The Telegraph. 15 February 2014. Zack Beauchamp. “American Overreaction about ISIS isn’t just Wrong—It’s Dangerous.” Vox. 1 October 2014. Noam Chomsky. “Why Americans are Knowledgeable about Sports but Ignorant about Foreign Affairs.” AlterNet. 15 September 2014. James Fallows. “The Tragedy of the American Military.” The Atlantic. January/February 2015. C.J. Werleman. “The Shocking Numbers: Americans are Dangerously Ignorant on Politics.” AlterNet. 18 June 2014.  xxiv Jordan Olmstead. “Maintaining the Status-Quo ≠ Advancing National Interests.” SISMEC. 5 May 2015.  xxv Juan Cole. “Top 10 Ways the U.S. is the Most Corrupt Country in the World.” Informed Comment. 3 December 2013. 

The Case for an Unprincipled Foreign Policy

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The Case for an Unprincipled Foreign Policy

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