The joke is on us

The temptation to do an April Fool’s post is great, but the barriers are greater:  how can anyone joke about Bashar al Assad murdering Syria’s citizens and managing nevertheless to stay in power?  Or about nuclear weapons in the hands of the Iranian theocracy?  A war we are losing in Afghanistan?  A peace we are losing in Iraq?  A re-assertive Russia determined to marginalize dissent?  An indebted America dependent on a creditor China that requires 7-8% annual economic growth just to avoid massive social unrest?  I suppose the Onion will manage, but I’m not even one of its outer layers.

Not that the world is more threatening than in the past.  To the contrary.  America today faces less threatening risks than it has at many times in the past.  But there are a lot of them, and they are frighteningly varied.  Drugs from Latin America, North Korean sales of nuclear and missile technology, Al Qaeda wherever, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in the wrong hands, bird or swine flu…  Wonks are competing to offer a single “grand strategy” in a situation that does not permit one.  Doctrine deprived Obama has got it right:  no “strategic vision” can deal with all these contingencies.  They require a case by case approach, albeit one rooted in strength and guided by clear principles.

American military strength is uncontested in today’s world and unequaled for a couple of decades more, even in the most draconian of budget situations.  A stronger economy is on the way, though uncertainty in Europe and China could derail it.  All America’s problems would look easier to solve with a year or two, maybe even three, of 3-4% economic growth.  The principles are the usual ones, which I would articulate this way:

• The first priority is to protect American national security
• Do it with cheaper civilian means as much as possible, more expensive military means when necessary
• Leverage the contributions of others when we can, act unilaterally when we must
• Build an international system that is legitimate, fair and just
• Cultivate friends, deter and when necessary defeat enemies

My students will immediately try to classify these proposition as “realist” or “idealist.”  I hope I’ve formulated them in ways that make that impossible.

There are a lot of difficult issues lying in the interstices of these propositions.  Is an international system that gives the victors in a war now more than 65 years in the past vetoes over UN Security Council action fair and just?  Does it lead to fair and just outcomes?  Civilian means seem to have failed in Syria, and seem to be failing with Iran, but are military means any more likely to succeed?  If the threats to American national security are indirect but nonetheless real–when for example North Korea threatens a missile launch intended to intimidate Japan and South Korea–do we withhold humanitarian assistance?

America’s political system likes clear and unequivocal answers.  It has categories into which it would like to toss each of us.  Our elections revolve around identity politics almost as much as those in the Balkans.  We create apparently self-evident myths about our leaders that don’t stand up to scrutiny.

The fact is that the world is complicated, the choices difficult, the categories irrelevant and the myths fantasies.  That’s the joke:  it’s on us.