George Friedman
The United States held elections last night, and nothing changed. Barack Obama remains president. The Democrats remain in control of the Senate with a non-filibuster-proof majority. The Republicans remain in control of the House of Representatives.
The United States held elections last night, and nothing changed. Barack Obama remains president. The Democrats remain in control of the Senate with a non-filibuster-proof majority. The Republicans remain in control of the House of Representatives.
The national political dynamic
has resulted in an extended immobilization of the government. With the House --
a body where party discipline is the norm -- under Republican control, passing
legislation will be difficult and require compromise. Since the Senate is in
Democratic hands, the probability of it overriding any unilateral
administrative actions is small. Nevertheless, Obama does not have enough
congressional support for dramatic new initiatives, and getting appointments
through the Senate that Republicans oppose will be difficult.
There is a quote often
attributed to Thomas Jefferson: "That government is best which governs the
least because its people discipline themselves." I am not sure that the
current political climate is what was meant by the people disciplining themselves,
but it is clear that the people have imposed profound limits on this
government. Its ability to continue what is already being done has not been
curbed, but its ability to do much that is new has been blocked.
The Plan for American Power
The gridlock sets the stage
for a shift in foreign policy that has been under way since the U.S.-led
intervention in Libya in 2011. I have argued that presidents do not make
strategies but that those strategies are imposed on them by reality.
Nevertheless, it is always helpful that the subjective wishes of a president
and necessity coincide, even if the intent is not the same.
In previous articles and
books, I have made the case that the United States emerged as the only global
power in 1991, when the Soviet Union fell. It emerged unprepared for its role
and uncertain about how to execute it. The exercise of power requires skill and
experience, and the United States had no plan for how to operate in a world
where it was not faced with a rival. It had global interests but no global
strategy.
This period began in 1991 and is now in the process of ending. The first phase consisted of a happy but illusory period in which it was believed that there were no serious threats to the United States. This was replaced on 9/11 with a phase of urgent reaction, followed by the belief that the only interest the United States had was prosecuting a war against radical Islamists.
This period began in 1991 and is now in the process of ending. The first phase consisted of a happy but illusory period in which it was believed that there were no serious threats to the United States. This was replaced on 9/11 with a phase of urgent reaction, followed by the belief that the only interest the United States had was prosecuting a war against radical Islamists.
Both phases were part of a
process of fantasy. American power, simply by its existence, was a threat and
challenge to others, and the world remained filled with danger. On the other
hand, focusing on one thing obsessively to the exclusion of all other matters
was equally dangerous. American foreign policy was disproportionate, and
understandably so. No one was prepared for the power of the United States.
During the last half of the
past decade, the inability to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled
with economic problems, convinced reasonable people that the United States had
entered an age of permanent decline. The sort of power the United States has
does not dissipate that fast. The disintegration of European unity and the
financial crisis facing China have left the United States, not surprisingly,
still the unchallenged global power. The issue is what to do with that power.
The defeated challenger in the
U.S. election, Mitt Romney, had a memorable and important turn of phrase when
he said that you can't kill your way out of the problems of the Middle East.
The point that neither Romney nor Obama articulated is what you do instead in
the Middle East -- and elsewhere.
Constant use of military force
is not an option. See the example of the British Empire: Military force was
used judiciously, but the preferred course was avoiding war in favor of
political arrangements or supporting enemies of enemies politically,
economically and with military aid. That was followed by advisers and trainers
-- officers for native troops. As a last resort, when the balance could not
hold and the issue was of sufficient interest, the British would insert
overwhelming force to defeat an enemy. Until, as all empires do, they became
exhausted.
The American strategy of the
past years of inserting insufficient force to defeat an enemy that could be
managed by other means, and whose ability to harm the United States was
limited, would not have been the policy of the British Empire. Nor is it a
sustainable policy for the United States. When war comes, it must be conducted
with overwhelming force that can defeat the enemy conclusively. And war
therefore must be rare because overwhelming force is hard to come by and
enemies are not always easy to beat. The constant warfare that has
characterized the beginning of this century is strategically unsustainable.
Libya and Syria
In my view, the last gasp of
this strategy was Libya. The intervention there was poorly thought out: The
consequences of the fall of Moammar Gadhafi were not planned for, and it was
never clear why the future of Libya mattered to the United States. The situation
in Libya was out of control long before the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi. It was
a case of insufficient force being applied to an uncertain enemy in a war that
did not rise to the level of urgency.
The U.S. treatment of Syria is
very different. The United States' unwillingness to involve itself directly
with main military force, in spite of urgings from various directions, is an
instance in which even a potentially important strategic goal -- undermining
Iranian influence in Syria -- could be achieved by depending on regional powers
to manage the problem or to live with it as they choose. Having provided what
limited aid was required to destabilize the Syrian government, the United
States was content to let the local balance of power take its course.
It is not clear whether Obama
saw the doctrine I am discussing -- he certainly didn't see it in Libya, and
his Syrian policy might simply have been a reaction to his miscalculations in
Libya. But the subjective intentions of a leader are not as important as the
realities he is responding to, however thoughtfully or thoughtlessly. It was
clear that the United States could not continue to intervene with insufficient
forces to achieve unclear goals in countries it could not subdue.
Nor could the United States
withdraw from the world. It produces almost one-quarter of the world's GDP; how
could it? The historical answer was not a constant tempo of intervention but a
continual threat of intervention, rarely fulfilled, coupled with skillful
management of the balance of power in a region. Even better, when available as
a course, is to avoid even the threat of intervention or any pretense of
management and let most problems be solved by the people affected by it.
This is not so much a policy
as a reality. The United States cannot be the global policeman or the global
social worker. The United States is responsible for pursuing its own interests
at the lowest possible cost. If withdrawal is impossible, avoiding conflicts
that do not involve fundamental American interests is a necessity since
garrison states -- nations constantly in a state of war -- have trouble holding
on to power. Knowing when to go to war is an art, the heart of which is knowing
when not to go to war.
One of the hardest things for
a young empire to master is the principle that, for the most part, there is
nothing to be done. That is the phase in which the United States finds itself
at the moment. It is coming to terms not so much with the limits of power as
the nature of power. Great power derives from the understanding of the
difference between those things that matter and those that don't, and a
ruthless indifference to those that don't. It is a hard thing to learn, but
history is teaching it to the United States.
The Domestic Impasse
The gridlock which this
election has given the U.S. government is a suitable frame for this lesson.
While Obama might want to launch major initiatives in domestic policy, he
can't. At the same time, he seems not to have the appetite for foreign
adventures. It is not clear whether this is simply a response to miscalculation
or a genuine strategic understanding, but in either case, adopting a more
cautious foreign policy will come naturally to him. This will create a
framework that begins to institutionalize two lessons: First, it is rarely
necessary to go to war, and second, when you do go to war, go with everything
you have. Obama will follow the first lesson, and there is time for the second
to be learned by others. He will practice the studied indifference that most
foreign problems pose to the United States.
There will be a great deal of
unhappiness with the second Obama administration overseas. As much as the world
condemns the United States when it does something, at least part of the world
is usually demanding some action. Obama will disappoint, but it is not Obama.
Just as the elections will paralyze him domestically, reality will limit his
foreign policy. Immobilism is something the founders would have been
comfortable with, both in domestic politics and in foreign policy. The voters
have given the republic a government that will give them both.
George Friedman, November 07, 2012
"The Elections, Gridlock and Foreign Policy is republished with permission of Stratfor."
"The Elections, Gridlock and Foreign Policy is republished with permission of Stratfor."
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