The Obama administration’s struggle to respond to the Syrian regime’s almost certain use of chemical weapons is the culmination of over a decade of bankrupt and bungled US foreign policy. The past few days have made it clear that neither the American public nor their counterparts around the world trust the US government to lead the international community through another military conflict. On Saturday, President Obama punted the decision to Congress, which will create a tortured week or more of debate, accusations, and grandstanding in the US. Unfortunately, few are likely to do the soul-searching required to realize just how bad a state American foreign policy is in.
For over a decade, America has bullied and bruised its way through crisis after crisis, leaving behind damaged relationships, broken societies, and discarded international norms. Since 9/11, US foreign policy has been characterized by an overwhelming reliance on military force as the instrument of choice, and by an overbearing and gratingly moralistic unilateralism that has done great damage to global stability, US prestige, and the alliances and relationships that should guard the international order.
Thus, as the world faces yet another crisis—which will certainly not be the last to darken this decade—we find Secretary of State John Kerry fretting over American credibility and the inviolability of international norms. “We have been warned,” Kerry declared, “against inaction, indifference, and especially against silence when it mattered most.” He argued that the issue at hand
matters deeply to the credibility and the future interests of the United States of America and our allies. It matters because a lot of other countries, whose policy has challenged these international norms, are watching. They are watching. They want to see whether the United States and our friends mean what we say.
It is directly related to our credibility and whether countries still believe the United States when it says something. They are watching to see if Syria can get away with it, because then maybe they too can put the world at greater risk.
Yes, credibility, the old siren song of American foreign policy. The same lure of credibility drew us into a losing battle in Vietnam, as it has drawn us into a string of subsequent military adventures, each of which sapped the very credibility policy-makers sought to uphold. The very fact that the US has to go to war so frequently in pursuit of foreign policy ends and in defense of international norms should sound an alarm. When you have no credibility and you lack the patience to build it, you find yourself left with no options but to fight.
This credibility deficit owes significantly to the Bush Administration’s handling of the “Global War on Terror” and the rush to war in Iraq in 2003. Yet the same sort of kinetics-first approach to foreign policy has continued unabated with the Obama administration’s handling of a host of crises. After the bungling of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the shine of US military power as an instrument capable of solving the world’s problems has faded. But the American foreign policy elite still has not given up on this faith in military force as a panacea. It is not, except perhaps as a 10 percent accompaniment to a 90 percent symphony of skillful international diplomacy and consensus building.
Due to characteristic American impatient righteousness and to domestic political pressures that reduce our discourse to an apoplectic cacophony, US diplomacy has been reduced to half-hearted, moralizing lectures to the rest of the world accompanied by the threat of unilateral use of force to police the international order. US officials swear that they value international norms, but they are too impatient to bolster and follow those same norms and institutions when crisis strikes.
When it comes to Syria, then, it should be no surprise that world leaders are unable to even begin building an international consensus. They’ve failed even at aligning their own constituents behind them. Prime Minister David Cameron of the UK put the question of military intervention in Syria to a parliamentary vote, but made little effort toward building support. Unsurprisingly, he was rebuked, with even his own party deserting him. And President Obama has now publicly thrown the gauntlet down in what seemed much like a huffy taunt, daring Congress to shy from the righteous path he has chosen. The coming debate is unlikely to create clear consensus, much less enhance the credibility of the American position on the world stage. Tellingly, the two parties are so petulantly estranged that they even took their briefings on the situation separately.
It is high time that the US foreign policy elites clamored for something other than war. It is time not only to seek to uphold international norms, but also to follow and nurture them. It is time for the US to realize that it cannot go it alone, and cannot lead by pushing. Rather, it must lead by building consensus and doing the patient, slow, grating work of diplomacy. It will take a good deal of time to heal the wounds created by more than a decade of trampling all over the rest of the world. Indeed, it is precisely because of American unilateralism that there is no consensus to be found today when a dictator inflicts atrocities upon his people. Yet, as grave as the toll is in Syria, rushing into another unilateral action (that will solve nothing militarily, by the way) will only deepen and prolong the harm done to international norms and institutions. The next crisis may be even more critical to core US national interests. The community that US policy-makers find on that dark day will be the one that they either cultivate or further alienate today.
Peter J. Munson is responsible for preventive services and global crisis management for a private sector corporation, coming to this position after his retirement from the US Marine Corps in 2013. He is a Middle East specialist with professional proficiency in Arabic. Munson is the author of two books: “War, Welfare & Democracy: Rethinking America’s Quest for the End of History” and “Iraq in Transition: The Legacy of Dictatorship and the Prospects for Democracy.”
Frank Chukwuka Osimi 
Rob Hunter 
John Duvall 
amspirnational 
Sean Walters 
It is true that America’s unilateralism in the past is responsible for the inability of world powerss to reach a consensus decision on Syria following her alleged use of chemical weapons on her own people. But how posssibble is it for America to convince Russsia and China who are always at odds with her to reach a consensus agreement with her on any serious issue that threatens global peace and security when they are praying for America’s fall? America has to act unilaterally because Russia and China are not interested in reaching a consensus with her. For instance, could America have waited for Russia and China to support her before invading Afghanistan following the 2001 attack on her by late Osama Bin Ladin? America can never reach consensus with Russia and China. Otherwise, she will not act on any issue that threatens the world.
Russia and China recognized the individual and collective right to self-defense after 9/11 via UNSCRs 1368 and 1373.
Sorry Pete, but disagree with much of this. The the Bush admin pursued (and got) Congressional approval for military action in Afghanistan and Iraq, pursued (and got) international coalitions for both conflicts, got UNSCR 1386 establishing ISAF in Afghanistan (one was not needed for the initial invasion since the invasion was based on self-defense after the 9/11 attacks), and got UNSCR 1441 demanding Iraq comply with weapons inspections (he only partially complied) which warned that Iraq would face “serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations.” The subsequent coalition after the initial invasion of Iraq was 40+ countries. That is not unilaterialism. Let’s not re-write history.
America funds the jihad to chase the Soviet from Afghan
and Osimi is wondrously indignant that Russia might not have cooperated in 2001. Only in America, the hubris.
John,
I agree the author shouldn’t have used the term “unilateral” in this context. However, I do generally support the sentiment that our military operations in recent history have played a role in diminishing our foreign policy credibility. While those operations should not be cited as evidence of America’s inability or unwillingness to muster international support prior to their execution, they can be referenced as examples of the United States’ inability to effectively use military force to achieve its stated political endstates. To that end, it is understandable that both US citizens and a sizeable portion of the international community are skeptical of the US government’s capacity to use its military as a tool for “good” or even “less bad” in Syria, despite its intentions (i.e. setting attainable and concrete political objectives).
Sean: From the article:
“For over a decade, America has bullied and bruised its way through crisis after crisis, leaving behind damaged relationships, broken societies, and discarded international norms. Since 9/11, US foreign policy has been characterized by an overwhelming reliance on military force as the instrument of choice, and by an overbearing and gratingly moralistic unilateralism that has done great damage to global stability, US prestige, and the alliances and relationships that should guard the international order.”
“Bullied and bruised”? “damaged relationships”? “discarded international norms”? “overbearing and gratingly moralistic unilateralism”?
This is hardly the case. American did not do these things by itself, if it did them at all.
“This credibility deficit owes significantly to the Bush Administration’s handling of the “Global War on Terror” and the rush to war in Iraq in 2003.”
Hardly….
This does not apply to the US ONLY. I would argue the international system has credibility deficit. Every major country’s intel service believed Sadam had WMD. This was not American bullying the UNSC to gets its way.
“It is high time that the US foreign policy elites clamored for something other than war. It is time not only to seek to uphold international norms, but also to follow and nurture them. It is time for the US to realize that it cannot go it alone, and cannot lead by pushing. Rather, it must lead by building consensus and doing the patient, slow, grating work of diplomacy.”
Great….would love to have this happen. But try to get the permanently divided permanent members of the UNSC to develop a consensus on anything. Its impossible at this point. And it has very little to do with US actions over the past decade as the author claims. It has everything to do with a shifting geopolitical landscape do to: the Arab Spring, fracking and energy independence resulting in shifting resource power, war weariness with military actions that were planned and carried out with in a way that bordered on ineptitude (too few troops in Iraq, for example, and a doctrine of COIN that was nothing but wishful thinking by influential liberal hawks), and many other things all resulting in the subsequent development/evolution of all of the world’s major powers aligning their self-interest based on all of the former.
I am not a fan of intervention in Syria, but the author seems to want to lay the blame at the feet of the US for the current diplomatic and military predicament. That, in my opinion, is a thesis filled with factual and historical flaws.
…..and I know Pete (we were at TBS together). He is a bright guy with some good ideas. I just disagree with his assessment of how the world got to this point as laid out in this article.
John,
I see and concede your point that the US did obtain UNSCRs, etc. I do know that there was a large coalition assembled. I should have chosen a better word or qualified it more carefully. I guess I would rewrite it to say that the US bullied its way to multilateralism and cherry-picked its intelligence to buy a UNSCR. Yes, it wasn’t unilateralism in fact and I knew that, but I do think that the Bush Administration’s “you are with us or you are with the terrorists” attitude was unilateralism in spirit and the subsequent bungling of Iraq, fumble of Afghanistan, and revelation that the UNSCR was based on trumped-up intelligence did irreparable harm to US credibility and that of the international institutions it used in this case. The US had a moment to be a uniting and multilateral power and instead chose to be unilateral in spirit and very divisive. It chose to use the moment to lead its coalition off to a war that the Administration and its military leaders botched through a great deal of hubris and arrogance. It strong-armed its way to a coalition of 40+ members, and many of those same have vowed to not be fooled again.
I take your criticism, but stand by the thrust of my essay.
Pete-
Thanks for clarifying. I agree with much of the ‘thrust’ of your essay, something I should have stated earlier. I just disagree with you to a certain degree on how we got here. Both the Bush and Obama admins were presented with powerful and persuasive circumstances when or just after assuming office: Bush with the attacks of 9/11 and Obama for Bush’s unpopularity which, among other things, led to the unprecedented level of international good will with which Obama entered the office of the Presidency. When presented with the opportunity to unite a highly fragmented world on some very important foreign policy issues, both the Bush and Obama admins bungled those opportunities: Bush for how/why he invaded Iraq, Obama for “leading from behind”, amongst other reasons. We are all familiar with the charges of incompetence and hubris against the Bush admin, some valid and some not in my opinion. But I believe the Obama admin’s lack of a coherent foreign policy and poor decision-making on numerous fronts has led to a continued degradation in American global leadership since the end of the Bush years, a conclusion whose explanation is too long for this space.
Suffice it to say I have been disappointed, but not surprised, by Obama’s lack of executive competence. As a politician, he jumped to far, to fast. Serving as a big-city mayor (Chicago?) then a state Governor (Illinois?) would have served him better in the long run. Either/Both would have given him the time and experience needed to develop the skills necessary to be an effective executive (you and I both are familiar with the time and experience needed to develop such skills….they do not come quick and easy). Instead, he had to learn while serving in the world’s most demanding job. He might have thrived in either of those positions to which he is more suited due to his domestic policy proclivities.
Stay well and hope we can discuss further another time…..Semper Fidelis.