Liberals for 'Conservative' Grand Strategy?

I've been reading with some fascination the conversation by my friends over at the National Security Network's blog, Democracy Arsenal. If I am reading their meaning correctly, three consecutive posts on U.S. grand strategy are arguing that the essence of progressive grand strategy is about the U.S. becoming a conservative power.

Starting with Ilan Goldenberg at NSN and followed by Shawn Brimley of CNAS and David Shorr of the Stanley Foundation, all three say this pretty clearly:

• Goldenberg: "The goal of American foreign policy should be to sustain the international system that that has served the United States and mankind so well for the past 60 years."
• Brimley: "Beyond the defense of the homeland, a grand strategy of sustainment would commit the United States to the pursuit of three vital global interests: stable balances of power in key regions, an open international economy, and continued access to the global commons. Such things are international public goods, and are thus shared goals that can constitute a foundation of an efficacious approach to a stable world order."
• Shorr: "We are indeed reorienting America from being a revolutionary power toward being a status quo power, and properly so. The last several years have been nothing if not a reminder of the hazards and unintended consequences of major disruptions toward the status quo."

I find this emerging consensus very troubling. So does Shadi Hamid, another blogger at Democracy Arsenal:

So, yes, I was concerned by David’s conclusion that “we are indeed reorienting America from being a revolutionary power toward being a status quo power, and properly so.” If this is indeed true – and if this is really what progressives want – then I’m really, really confused and more than a bit worried. Of course, we shouldn’t be a revolutionary power – in the sense that that revolutions are usually disrupting and often violent – but if we aspire to reinstate the status quo, let us just recall that the status quo wasn’t all that great for a lot of people.

While Shadi looks at the flaws from the perspective of those on the receiving end of our grand strategy, I prefer to look at it as tragically sub-optimal for U.S. long term interests. If we only focus grand strategy on an analysis of states and threats with a short-term horizon, I think Ilan, Shawn and David are right. But to limit ourselves to that level of analysis misses the real driver of international politics in the 21st Century.

Take for example the strategic importance of energy. Few would argue that energy, in particular oil, is the single largest source of strategic instability in the world today. Three major wars have transpired in the Persian Gulf since Washington and the world realized the U.S. was dependent on global oil markets in the 1970s. Prices are spiking and destabilizing politics around the planet. Likewise with food and raw materials. Increasing demand from rising Asian economies combined with high continued consumption from the West is squeezing existing supply chains. A recent New America/Terror Free Tomorrow poll discovered that 86% of Pakistanis cannot purchase enough wheat.

A state and power analysis of these issues argues that as the economic power of Asia increases, their military power will also increase so to avoid a period of more militarized strategic competition, it is time to recognize Asia's new power by giving them more of a stake in the structures of the international order. But the UN has a really bad track record when it comes to resource conflicts of major world powers. It is pretty much useless when such major strategic interests are at stake.

A deeper analysis yields better options. What lies behind these two economic dynamics is on-going and inexorable process of economic inclusion. In the 1990s, we thought about development, and helped close to a billion people enter the global market economy. But now that we have 2 billion people consuming at middle incomes or better, we're crashing the system. The net impact of two decades of post-Cold War development now forces us to think in terms of inclusion. How do we make economic space for--how do we include--the 4.5 billion people wanting to enter the formal sector of the global economy but for whom we have no energy, raw materials, land, or transport?

In China this narrative is about urbanization. By 2030, China will move an additional 700 million people into its cities. This is the single largest and fastest rural-urban migration the world has ever seen. As the McKinsey Global Institute points out, Chinese urbanization will overwhelm global patterns of of energy production, resource consumption, land use and mobility. Behind China is a long line of one billion more aspiring capitalists in India and 2 billion others scattered around the rest of the world.

Attempting to mount a conservative grand strategy in a period that will have to be one of massive economic transition is foolish. No institutional framework can manage the populist pressures of large nations without enough of the basic economic inputs to fulfill their aspirations, much less their aspirations. We can also anticipate that widespread discontent in illiberal societies will emerge either as militant nationalism or militant extremism. Either outcome poses major threats to international peace and stability and quite likely, the U.S. directly.

What is on offer from the two candidates is still insufficient to stem this tide. Even if Senator Obama wins the White House and signs into law the energy policy on his campaign website, it still won't be enough innovation in enough time to deal with the urbanization of China. Here, emissions reduction by 2050 is not the test. Consumption is. Obama promises only 35% reduction by 2030. Using the CIA's Factbook's oil numbers, we'll give back 7.3 million barrels per day of oil but, without a major shift, China will increase consumption by 8.5 mbpd. In that kind of scenario--where the U.S. commits to a 30% reduction of oil consumption--OPEC might not actually invest in additional upstream capacity. By 2030, in addition to many of the non-Opec major fields drying up, we will likely see a net reduction in production capacity and prices will spike even higher.

The problem is not Obama's, but it could be. The problem is the mindset in Washington's. Few in Washington are willing to think like FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower, in terms of grand strategies that shape the U.S. economy to do the nation's strategic heavy lifting. As a result, we are still talking about how much mitigating climate change will "cost" the United States and we are still talking about foreign policy as only the stuff we do "over there."

This should be government 101. Grand strategy is the correlation the economic engine and the national security strategy to meet the challenges of the day. When our economy is becoming more of a strategic liability than a strategic asset, it is time for a new grand strategy. With all due respect to my colleagues at Democracy Arsenal, a grand strategy of "conservation" is more akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.