PANORAMAS FROM THE AMERICAN INTEREST

Conservative Internationalism

HENRY R. NAU
The old foreign policy schools debate is exhausted. We need a
new synthesis.
Published on April 20, 2014
Recent events in Ukraine, Syria, and Iran exposed once again a deep divide in American
policymakers approach to world affairs. President Obama hails his determined diplomacy as the
vindicator of events, bringing Iran and Syria to the negotiating table and isolating Russia for
practicing 19
th
-century military intervention in Ukraine. Throughout, Obama keeps the potential
use of force under, if not off, the table, ruling out any military options until negotiations fail.
His critics argue just as strenuously that Obamas diplomacy does little more than buy time for
aggressive nations like Iran and Russia to accomplish their objectives outside negotiations by
military force. In this view, negotiations without strength enfeeble American diplomacy, unmask
Americas military impotence and encourage precisely the kind of aggression that Russia
engages in today in Crimea.
These disagreements over the goals, phasing, and interconnectedness of force and diplomacy
have divided American strategists for decades. Internationalists, exclusively labeled liberal, have
long believed that foreign policy is largely a matter of goodwill, patience, and persistent
cooperation with other states to achieve common and ambitious aims of multilateral decision-
making, economic globalization, non-proliferation, promotion of human rights, and the spread of
freedom. If countries do not play by the rules, the world community can isolate them
diplomatically and impose economic sanctions. But the use of military force while negotiations
are going on is ill-advised, even if the other side uses force, because it only exacerbates distrust
and impedes agreement. Force is a last resort and then only with multilateral consent. Liberal
internationalism promises to accomplish a lot through diplomacy at very little military cost.
Nationalists and realists, on the other hand, usually considered conservatives, are more willing to
back diplomacy with force. But they pursue much less ambitious diplomatic aims. Nationalists
generally limit their aims to defense, usually after an attack, because up to that point they count
on other states to balance power in their own regions. After all, other countries care about their
security more than anyone else, and, generally speaking, if America takes care of itself and stays
out of their affairs, they will take care of themselves and stay out of our affairs.
Realists are less certain that balancing occurs automatically, and believe that the United States
has to deter hegemons in other regions because those hegemons, if they emerge, are more likely
to attack America in its own region. During the Cold War, realists led the campaign for
containment of Soviet hegemony using U.S. boots on the ground in Europe and Asia. In the
absence of the Soviet threat, however, and after debilitating wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, many
realists no longer advocate forward containment. They call instead for an offshore balancing
strategy that positions U.S. forces on the high seas over the horizon. Even if potential regional
hegemons such as Iran acquire nuclear weapons, the United States may be better off containing
them than using military force on the ground to stop their nuclear programs. Realists are willing
to incur more military costs, but their goals, namely the balance of power in distant regions, do
not inspire sustained support from most Americans. In 1991 President George H.W. Bush fought
a hugely successful realist war to restore Kuwaiti sovereignty in the face of Iraqi aggression, but
the American people voted him out of office 18 months later.
The tug of war between these approaches tends to produce swings in American foreign policy
and public opinion over time. The desire to achieve ambitious aims inspires far-reaching
initiatives both on the Left, as with Obamas omnipresent diplomacy, and on the Right, as with
George W. Bushs appeal to end tyranny in every nation and culture. Nationalism and realism
then counsel retreat and more modest but uninspiring goals. America overreaches and then
withdraws, hoping that other democracies will step up and shoulder the burden. But the bad
guys, not the good guys, usually step up. Iran and Russia expand their influence in the Middle
East, and North Korea and China rattle the sword in Asia and the Pacific. The balance of power
tilts toward tyranny, and America once again becomes a target of future attack. Terrorists may be
training today in Syria who will attack America or its interests tomorrow.
What can be done to break this unfortunate cycle? A third way is possible. It combines the best
of the existing approaches and leaves the worst on the cutting-room floor. It seeks to improve the
world system and spread freedom, as liberal internationalism does; it uses, but disciplines, force
with priorities and compromise, as realism does; and it does not surrender control to international
institutions but preserves American sovereignty, as nationalism does. It is an internationalist
approach but with conservative brakesa conservative rather than a liberal internationalism.
First, conservative internationalism insists on promoting freedom, not just balancing power. It
embraces the view that America is an idea, not just a place defined by territory or shared culture.
That was true even at its Founding, when America was largely British and Protestant; and it is
undeniable today, when its population increasingly mirrors the rainbow cultures of the world. If
culture made America, America would still be British; rather, it was ideology, a relentless,
contentious commitment to advance both liberty and equality. And with time America learned
that it cannot improve on these goals at home without also pursuing them abroad. When the
United States waged the Cold War in the name of freedom, it made more progress on civil rights
at home than ever before. When it withdrew from the world in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan
peaked at four million members, some 30,000 of whom, wearing white sheets and masks,
marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in 1925 in a blizzard of bigotry.
But the United States cannot promote freedom everywhere at once. George W. Bushs
exhortation to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every
nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world was inspiring but
plainly Pollyanna-ish. The United States needs some kind of filter to modulate its fight for
freedom in the world.
Enter the realists. They insist that there be a significant threat to the material well-being of
America before the U.S. government gets actively involved on another countrys behalf;
otherwise, America stays home, enjoys its own freedom and lets other countries develop theirs if
they wish. So if Syrias civil war, Russias intervention in Ukraine or Chinas island aggression
in Asia poses a threat, realists ask how. For some realists, there is no threat until we are attacked,
as we were from Afghanistan. For others, there is no threat unless our access to oil or some other
critical raw material is impeded, a principal motivation for George H.W. Bushs war in Kuwait.
For still others, there is no threat until a hegemon threatens to emerge in another region, the
principal concern today with Iran in the Middle East, Russia in the former Soviet zone, and
China in the Pacific.
Realists are little concerned, however, with freedom abroad. They prioritize stability and peace,
which in the short run; they believe, are harmed rather than helped by efforts to champion the
Syrian opposition, Iranian dissidents, or Ukrainian resisters. They start in the right direction but
they stop too soon. It is never enough just to preserve stability, because despots are the primary
cause of violence within and across borders. Stabilizing their interventions today just sets up
another opportunity for them to aggress again tomorrow. Weakening them and strengthening
democracy, therefore, is the only effective way to reduce violence in world affairs over the
longer run.
A neighborhood of democracies is much safer than
one of despots.
A neighborhood of democracies is much safer than one of despots. There is no specific timetable
for this transition, but there is also no doubt that it is the driving purpose of American foreign
policy.
Over the years, more liberal internationalists and realists have grasped this point. During the
Cold War, neoconservatives emerged to decry the lack of military muscle in Americas dtente
policy. They were not realists, because they cared about freedom abroad, and they were not
liberal internationalists, because they valued the use of military strength during negotiations.
Like Senator Scoop Jackson and President Ronald Reagan, they called for a more assertive use
of force to weaken the Soviet Union. After the Cold War, realists emerged, like Charles
Krauthammer and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to argue that military muscle had
to serve a more significant purpose than just momentary stability. They called for a realism
aimed at abetting democracy (democratic realism) and a military policy that tilts the balance
of power toward freedom.
Today, both neocons and democratic realists warn that Iran is achieving its objectives by force
and outside negotiations, marching steadily toward a nuclear capability, and expanding its
influence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza. Russia is doing the same in Georgia and now
Ukraine, and China too on the high seas in the Pacific. Meanwhile, America negotiates and
refrains from using force until negotiations fail. The result: While negotiations continue, the
balance of power outside negotiations tips steadily toward Iran and its patrons in Moscow and
Beijing.
Connecting freedom and force can be costly, however. After two decade-long wars, each with
arguably little to show for all the cost in blood and treasure, the American public has little
stomach for further military interventions. Look at the opposition in Congress on both Left and
Right to the proposed unbelievably small military strike against Syria, or to U.S. and NATO
military intervention in Ukraine. Yet freedom and force can be linked if policymakers set clear
priorities. Again, realists can be helpful. They set priorities for balancing power by way of
geopolitics: focus on the major powers, not all powers. Conservative internationalism sets
priorities for spreading freedom by geo-ideology: focus on freedom where it counts the most,
namely on the borders of existing free countries.
There are three such borders in todays world, two primary and one secondary. The primary ones
lie between the free countries of Europe and an increasingly authoritarian Russia, and between
the free countries of AsiaJapan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Indiaand communist China and
North Korea. The secondary one lies between democratic Israel and its autocratic and theocratic
neighbors. (The latter is secondary in the sense that freedom is scarcer, more fragile, and harder
to achieve in the Middle East than it is in Europe or Asia.)
When countries on these borders are threatened, America is threatened. Why? Because as the
specter of tyranny moves closer to the core of the democratic world, the world becomes a less
hospitable place. The border of freedom recedes, and the violent presence of despotism swells.
That was the case in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, where instability threatened to spill over
into Slovenia, Austria, and Hungary; and it is the case today in Ukraine or Turkey, where
Russian troops and the Syrian conflict endanger stability and freedom in Eastern Europe and
Israel. In such cases, the United States not only counterbalances material threats (for example,
ensures that Russia does not repeat its interventions in Ukraine and Georgia) but stays for the
long haul to pull these border countries toward democracy. It does so not by military occupation
and civilian reconstruction but by exploiting powerful nearby free markets and democratic
alliances. Think of the role the European Union and NATO played to secure freedom in Eastern
Europe after the Cold War and potentially play today in Ukraine and Turkey. By working from
inside out where freedom already exists, the prospects of spreading freedom are greater and the
costs more defensible.
In countries remote from the borders of existing free countries, the United States deals with
material threats but does not stick around to promote democracy. It gets in and out as quickly as
possible, putting another government in power that will not attack America again in the short
term. It subordinates democracy promotion, not because these countries are necessarily unfit for
democracy but because they are not first in line for democracy. Thus, priority for democracy
promotion goes to Turkey and Ukraine, next to Europe, not to Iraq; to Pakistan, next to India, not
to Afghanistan; to Taiwan and South Korea, next to Japan, not to Burma or Mongolia; and to
Jordan, Egypt, and, yes, Syria, next to Israel, not to Libya or the Persian Gulf states.
In the past decade, the United States has done just the opposite. To defeat terrorism, it intervened
massively in remote regions, principally Afghanistan and Iraq, and stayed to promote
democracy. Meanwhile, it neglected democracy where it is most important, on the borders of
existing free countries. Ukraine fell under greater Russian influence and now invasion, Turkey
was weakened by U.S. actions in Iraq and inaction in Syria, Egypt succumbed to the Muslim
Brotherhood and then again to military rule; Pakistan was destabilized by U.S. policy in
Afghanistan; and U.S. allies in Asia were increasingly threatened by Chinese muscle-flexing in
the East and South China Seas. But is intervention still worth it, even in high-priority border
countries? More and more Americans think it is not.
Enter the nationalists. They argue with increasing vehemence that the United States should stay
out of foreign conflicts. They aim for a more modest level of involvement, for a foreign policy
that preserves national sovereignty and a strong defense, not one that strengthens international
institutions and keeps U.S. troops in rich allied countries indefinitely. All the major industrial
allies are now durably democratic. They interact peacefully and can do vastly more to help
themselves and others than was the case when the major U.S. alliance systems formed after
World War II. Many conservative Americans, especially libertarians, like the idea of individuals
and nations taking care of themselves and being left alone as long as they do not harm their
neighbors. They champion limited government or self-government both at home and abroad.
Nationalists may be dubious about spreading freedom, certainly by current methods of nation-
building, but they understand that the safe, decentralized world of sovereign nation-states that
they champion can only be peaceful if freedom spreads.
This kind of conservative endgame recognizes the desire of other nations to find their own way
and preserve their own uniqueness. It reminds us that the purpose of international cooperation,
like the purpose of domestic government, is not to usurp the national or personal responsibility of
others but to help them attain their independence and self-realization. A third way is more
comfortable with a world of less tidy outcomes and more give and take.
So what would a third way look like today in Syria? It would start by acknowledging the
material threat to Israel (existential) and the United States (oil, terrorism), which is clearly
greater in Syria than it was in Libya. It would aim to weaken despots in Damascus, not uphold a
chemical weapons ban that strengthens Assad in the short run and does nothing to slow the
killing. It would arm the moderate rebels because the other side is arming Assad, and it would
acknowledge that you cant replace Assad unless you know with whom you want to replace him.
It would recognize that on this secondary border of freedom, democracy is at best a long-term
prospect. It would negotiate compromises with Assad and eventually a replacement government
that trade off sanctions for permanent access to Syrian societyfor example, converting UN
chemical weapons inspections (assuming the chemical weapons are destroyed) to monitoring
relief aid in Syria, or linking sanction relief to the increased presence of foreign NGOs, including
foreign investment, operating inside Syria. Over time Syria can be opened up and later
democratized, much the way the Helsinki Accords opened up and eventually moderated
communist control in Eastern Europe.
How about in Iran? Once again, start with the military threat to Israel and American oil in the
region, which are even more substantial than in the case of Syria, but dont stop there and accept
containment. Instead, push back during negotiations by keeping residual forces in Afghanistan,
rebuilding a military relationship with Iraq, and arming the Syrian moderates. Aim in
negotiations for compromise, not surrender or instant democracy, trading off a civilian nuclear
program for opening Iranian society and economy that over time weakens despotic institutions.
And what about Ukraine? The threat to U.S. defense is the hollowing out of NATO, and the
threat to Western freedom is the most substantial since Soviet tanks repressed freedom in Poland
in 1981. On the other hand, as Reagan understood in 1981, the mistake is not to negotiate with
Russia but to negotiate from weakness, to give up too much, too early, for too little. The United
States abandoned the missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic before reset
negotiations even began, excluded tactical nuclear weapons from the New Start Treaty (weapons
that are of some importance today in Ukraine), and failed to continue to press NATO
partnerships for Georgia and Ukraine. All of that was done to buy Russian help to extricate U.S.
forces from Afghanistan (an important but short-term goal) and to bring the Russians on board
for some marginal (not crippling) sanctions on Iran.
So what to do now? Help the Ukrainian economy and rally NATO military defenses in the Baltic
States and Poland. If Russia marches into western Ukraine, yes, there is little the United States
can do militarily, just as there was little the United States could do militarily in Poland in 1981.
So learn from Ukraine as Reagan did in Poland. When Defense Secretary Weinberger told
Reagan that the United States had few military options in Poland, Reagan replied: Yes I know,
Cap, but I never want to be in that position again. Meanwhile, offer the Russians positive
alternatives if they recalibrate their policies in the near abroad: more industrial and economic
cooperation (they will need it when oil prices collapse, as they did in 1985, sinking the Soviet
Union), more transparency of NATO activities, and further arms control measures that include
tactical nuclear weapons and joint work on missile defenses.
Is there a slippery slope here, a risk that using a little force now could drag America into a bigger
war later? Perhaps, but there is a bigger risk to doing nothing. Moreover, the use of force is not
intended to win but to provide the backdrop against which to negotiate a better agreement.
Right now only one side is using force, the despotsand that, too, is a prescription for a bigger
war later. Agreements negotiated from weakness do not last. In present tensions in the Middle
East, Ukraine and the Far East, Syria, Iran, Moscow, and Beijing are increasing their military
gains; eventually, America will get yanked back into a conflict in one or more of these areas at
much higher military cost.
Conservative internationalism offers a third way in Syria, Iran, and Ukraine that pursues the goal
of defending and spreading freedom but disciplines that goal by prioritizing freedom on the
borders of existing free countries, not in remote regions. It uses less military force, sooner, to
avoid the use of larger amounts later, and deploys military leverage to erode the hold of despots
but not to force them into unconditional surrender, which then invariably means unconditional
nation-building that is expensive and often difficult to pull off. This approach may not always be
appropriate. But it seems particularly appropriate at the present time, as Americans indulge once
again in the cycle of diplomatic overreach and military retreat.
Henry R. Nau is professor of political science and international affairs at the Elliott School of
International Affairs, George Washington University, and author, most recently, of Conservative
Internationalism: Armed Diplomacy Under Jefferson, Polk, Truman, and Reagan (Princeton
2013).