By PHK
Why does the American public seemingly fail to recognize that responses to foreign policy problems can, and should, consist of more than either 1) the military “solution” or 2) “head-in-the-sand” raise-the-drawbridge isolationism? In reality, these either/or answers to events that occur abroad are as specious as W’s failing policies in Iraq and most of the rest of the Middle East.
In my experience, neither sending in the troops nor withdrawing into self-righteous indignant uber-patriotism work well in dealing with the world’s complex problems. In the first instance, invading other countries - particularly based on fallacious reasons - leaves a nasty taste in the mouth of the country, the people invaded, and their neighbors. Not to mention much of the rest of the world.
Thanks to the ill thought-out invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, for instance, we are, as retired-General William Odom points out, now caught in the midst of a vicious civil war in which Americans have become targets in a centuries old Muslim religious conflict in which more Americans and Iraqis are being killed and wounded by the day.
Yet, an isolationist retreat from the world around us won’t work either. Turning off the alarm and stuffing our heads under the pillow just postpones the inevitable. As 9/11 demonstrated, the oceans no longer protect us, nor, despite rhetoric to the contrary - in reality have they ever. Today, globalization of the economy in which the U.S. is a major driver reinforces the continuing need for international engagement.
Retreat behind the Moat?
A retreat into isolationism is where the country may be headed thanks to the Iraq debacle according to the most recent poll of U.S. attitudes by the Pew Charitable Trust conducted in October. Unless, of course, Americans are more sophisticated than portrayed in this and other opinion polls that record basically binary-phrased responses to “either-or” type questions. Like: should the U.S. send in the Marines or retreat behind the moat? One or the other, please. Many surveys don't handle more complexity well.
In my view, however, forget the either/or Qs and As: because there’s a third way that’s far cheaper than “sending in the Marines.” It’s more like keep the Marines as the last resort.
The third way is diplomacy. This means continuous public and private engagement with foreigners abroad and at home – with government officials and their publics. It means listening as well as advocating. And it means adequately funding – and administering – the U.S. organizations assigned to do the job.
We need Embassies that don’t behave like Crusaders’ Castles on 24/7 high alert. We also need a professional, well-trained, culturally sensitive, historically and politically knowledgeable, language qualified Foreign Service with political, economic, public diplomacy officers assigned abroad to do the jobs required of them as opposed to today’s iron fenced, granite edifices that bristle with security officers and are too often “headed” by political appointees whose only known qualifications are fundraising for the President’s election campaign.
How many Americans, I wonder, really understand how the country’s diplomatic establishment functions at home or abroad? Or what its tasks, requirements and needs are – or the miniscule number of people and the paucity of funds involved in furthering this country’s foreign policy objectives diplomatically?
My guess is very few. Why? Because the lead (not the sole) agency, the State Department has done a wretched job of selling itself at home to the Congress and the American voters within the union’s fifty. The only thing the department does, it seems, outside the beltway is to send a very few professional, often soon to retire, diplomats-in-residence to recruit for the Foreign Service exam – an exercise, in my view, that only raises expectations - but does little to help those outside Georgetown University which trains its students for the exam, pass.
Over the years, the right wing has maligned the State Department for its “cookie-pushing, cocktail- party-going, striped-pants” image of the very model of an American Ambassador – as opposed to the gun-slinging macho military man in desert fatigues, Snoopy-cool Ray-bans “over there” to defend the country against all comers. Yet this Hollywood-depicted Ambassadorial caricature is precisely that: a caricature.
In twenty-seven plus years in the Foreign Service I never saw an Ambassador in striped pants. The cocktail parties I attended, worked at, arranged and hosted were all about work – a way to get to know influential people, exchange information and perhaps float ideas that could not have been raised in the context of a formal office call or at the negotiating table.
Such cocktail parties happen outside the 8-5 (often 8-8 or later) work day. As for cookie pushing, I don’t remember that task in any Ambassador’s job description – except perhaps in the context of buying a box or two from the Girl Scouts as a personal good will gesture.
So it seems to me the U.S. diplomatic establishment and its friends need to torpedo the Bush Administration’s misguided policy hard sell (it’s not working anyway) and engage in educating Americans – including those outside the Beltway - about the third way to approach the abroad.
If this doesn’t happen, Andrew Kohut’s survey data may well prove right – and isolationism’s consequences will come crashing down on our heads. The results will not be pretty. They are, however, avoidable.