What Do They Want From Us? Posted by David Shorr

The Des Moines Register asked an Iowan (yours truly) and a number of international colleagues -- Canadian Louise Frechette, Turkish Yavuz Baydar, Brazilian Georges Landau, and Japanese Masaru Tamamoto -- what the world seeks from America and our new leaders. My response went something like this:

What the world needs most from America and incoming President Barack Obama is for us to be a solid citizen of the world community - really not so different from what we expect of neighbors in our own communities.

Our actions internationally should be guided by the principles of basic civics: Play by the rules, seek the greater good and reach out to the marginalized.

In other words, only by taking stock of our fundamental relationship with other nations can we better match our foreign policy to today's world. The first challenge is to see what has changed for the United States as a global power and what hasn't. In a nutshell, America is still a superpower, but being a superpower doesn't mean what it used to.

We live in a globalized and networked world. Our kids have more friends and acquaintances from other countries than we did at their age. In terms of foreign policy and national security, we are less able to achieve our aims through the simple, command-and-control assertion of strength. As we see all around us, when problems crop up that might seem limited and localized, they inevitably send out shock waves - think piracy off the Horn of Africa or subprime mortgages.

The way to keep such problems from cropping up so regularly is the steady spread of peace, prosperity, freedom and good governance. In a sense, the idea is to have a strong, global, law-abiding majority - peoples who are prospering and world leaders who are coming together rather than splitting apart.

The thing that hasn't changed for America as a superpower is our stakes, interests and values. Among major powers, the United States is the most globalized. The dollar is the global currency, our population is the most culturally diverse and our universities are the global educational destination of choice. As a result, we have the greatest stakes in the health of the international order.

Perhaps more than any nation, the United States needs a robust, rules-based order. Indeed, this interest in a world that largely observes rules of peaceful international relations is one reason the United States takes pains to preserve its military advantage.

Yet in recent years, America's international posture has projected an image of a self-appointed enforcer rather than a true leader. We forgot, at least for a time, that might does not make right. In fact, the reverse is true: Right actually makes might. The moral high ground is a position of significant political influence.

These ideas may seem overly broad, but they offer a strategic framework for many important foreign-policy challenges that the Obama administration confronts:

- Nonproliferation: The immediate problems of the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs are leading indicators of a wider threat to the nuclear nonproliferation norm, which rests on a grand bargain between nuclear haves and have-nots. As the United States struggles to keep more countries from acquiring nuclear weapons, it will face increased pressure to live up to its own Non-Proliferation Treaty obligation to disarm. Key first steps: halting any work on new types of nuclear weapons, a U.S.-Russian agreement to reduce to 1,000 total weapons and a pledge not to be the first to strike with nuclear weapons.

- Handling of accused terrorists: The United States has betrayed long-standing military traditions, strayed from its own legal standards, undermined its credibility as a champion of human rights and victimized numerous detainees through torture, murder or years of unjustified imprisonment. This issue is a clear test of America's commitment to the very principle of rule of law that it trumpets around the world. The Obama administration must categorically reject torture, close Guantanamo and either put detainees on trial in regular courts or release them.

- Global climate change: Perhaps no issue better crystallizes the questions of responsible global citizenship. The parallel to domestic social responsibility is clear: Those who pollute and exempt themselves from preserving the environment for public benefit are civic delinquents. Obama faces difficult trade-offs in negotiating the most inclusive possible international agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, but passivity is not an option.

We live in a time when the interdependence of a small world isn't a high ideal; it's our basic reality. The rest of the world needs America to roll up its sleeves and work together on the many complex problems of our time. And as Obama wrestles with these historic challenges, he'll need the involvement and goodwill of all of us.
 

Comments

[Don Bacon]

What the world needs most from America and incoming President Barack Obama is for us to be a solid citizen of the world community . . .interdependence . . .work together

I agree, but the Democratic Party Platform and SecState-designate Clinton disagree.

Platform: "The Democratic Party believes that there is no more important priority than renewing American leadership on the world stage."

Clinton: "I believe American leadership has been wanting, but is still wanted."

We have just got a whiff of Obama's leadership, or non-leadership, with his silence on Gaza, so perhaps this misguided leadership gig won't amount to much after all, and we can follow your prescription of collegiality.

[Don Bacon]

Of course people in general aren't big fans of the US government. The Pew World Research polls have told us that the world's people, particularly Muslims, generally hold the US in contempt. Domestic polls give the US Congress a 20/70 approval/disapproval rating, and the president's popularity isn't much higher. The world's disapproval is due, not to any dislike of Americans, but a well-warranted disgust with US government economic and military aggression, AKA "US leadership."

So where does Clinton get her views, I wonder? Where is the evidence, except from the hegemonic US-firsters, that the world craves US leadership?

The rest of the world needs America to roll up its sleeves and work together on the many complex problems of our time.

Yes.

[Zathras]

David Shorr's response to the Register's question is interesting, but incomplete. It reads like the statement of someone looking for an American foreign policy that will make him feel better about his country rather than one that will advance American interests in the world.

"Reaching out to the marginalized" is a fine concept, but most of the time it doesn't yield high returns in international relations. There aren't any more "marginalized" people in the world than those of the African countries south of the Sahara, to whom the Bush administration has "reached out" more than any of its predecessors. One can argue this was a good thing in many ways, but its benefit to the material interests of the United States is severely limited, and what goodwill it has earned us does not extend beyond Africa itself. Nor is the force of moral example as powerful as many Americans like to think it is. Moral example is what America brought to the genocide in Darfur; for years the American government and American relief organizations were the largest sources of aid to refugees and the American government the major player in seeking negotiated settlements to Sudan's internal wars -- an effort that, in the end, accomplished nothing.

Foreign relations are not all about power relations. They are, however, mostly about power relations; the only reason the moral example of the United States or any other country has any force at all is because it rests on a solid foundation of American economic and military power. That foundation has become notably less solid in the last eight years, as Americans have relied on ever-higher levels of debt to maintain their standard of living and the outgoing administration mortgaged its foreign policy and the future of the American military to an adventure in Iraq.

Damage has been done, and damage must be repaired. It won't be repaired by improvements in atmospherics, changes in rhetoric that mask reluctance to make hard choices and stick to them. Talk about global cooperation on climate change is about as cheap as talk can get if it is coming from people who aren't willing to embrace higher energy prices in the United States; if the commitment in Iraq is not one we can afford to maintain that commitment must be liquidated, not left in place until we are sure the Iraqis won't start killing one another again as soon as the American army leaves. Most of all, an America with an economy and financial markets on the brink of collapse won't be in a position to lead anything, no matter how pure its intentions.

What has changed in the last eight years is primarily that the foundation of American power has been damaged. Repair that damage to the best of our ability, and we can do any number of good things on the margins of policy; fail in that task, and nothing else we do will matter, because we won't have the strength to make it last.

[Don Bacon]

Zathras,
The subject under discussion is "What Do They Want From Us?" not "How do we advance US interests in the world?"

[Zathras]

Yes, but how we advance American interests in the world is the subject that matters.

[Dan Kervick]

Why are American interests really that important? The United States comprises only about 5% of the world's people. The US will get by. Aren't there larger projects to attend to?

[Zathras]

For the American government, no. There aren't.

For individual Americans committed to humanitarian projects, spreading the Gospel or just making money in global trade there are. To specific foreign audiences many things may be more important -- Pakistanis want to be sure they are always able to shake their fists at India, Arabs want to kill Jews, Jews want to take Arab land, Chinese Communist Party members want to make sure capitalism does not mean they lose their grip on China, Russians want to indulge nostalgia for Stalin, Europeans want to live prosperous, undemanding lives untroubled by risk or immigrants.

Other people's priorities. Other people's problems. It is no more than prudent for Americans to be aware of them, but to the extent they are involved with American foreign policy their priority has to be the advancement of their own country's interests. If it isn't, they should go do something else.

[Don Bacon]

Well, now we know why Zathras doesn't care about the opinions of people who weren't wise enough to be born in America. They are all fairly worthless fist-shakers, killers, land-takers, power-grippers, Stalin-lovers and improperly undemanding! Who knew?

Of course non-Americans are interested in the advancement of their own countries' interests, but many of them, as exhited by their new fondness for non-US-dominated alliances, recognize the importance of listening to others and working for multilateral common goals.

Of course there are some individuals, too, who grow into adulthood and never comprehend that there are other people in the world who are just as important as they are. They never learn to share. I'm thinking of one that I know locally. He's special, don't you know. Normal rules don't apply to him. And this is sort of the way the US has been acting, and why Shorr's posting is so important.

The rest of the world needs America to roll up its sleeves and work together on the many complex problems of our time.

Yes.