Grand Strategy

Obama's Second Nobel

Patrick Doherty — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 05:20:00 -0400

It's strange how partisan reactions to the Nobel Prize completely missed the common-sense rationale behind the Obama pick. According to many of my outside-the-beltway friends, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for defeating President Bush and arresting the dark spiral into which his administration had set the nation and the world. That Obama did it as an African American who first had to defeat the Democratic heir-apparent was even more remarkable. The entire campaign gave the world hope that cynicism, unchecked wealth, and fear could be overcome.

For the rest of the world--and for most of America--that is enough of an accomplishment to earn the Nobel Peace Prize. But it was not all. Obama has since led the G20 to stabilize the world economy in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression. He reached out to the Islamic world, with an open hand and he urged the world to reduce our collective nuclear arsenal.

So the prize is clearly deserved, for President Obama turned the United States around.

But as a leader, he has much still to do, and he knows it. The nation is still in the red--progressing, but in the red. The question is, is the President thinking as seriously and as in depth about America's new role in the world as he as been triaging the world's urgent crises or planning the strategy in South Asia.

From what I can tell, the answer is still no. The default grand strategy--hegemonic assurance--remains the same, even if it is now shifted into its more liberal form. In other words, we are still saying to the world, we will address the world's greatest security threats and provide basic international security, freedom of navigation, etc, as long as great and rising powers do not challenge our military dominance. We would pay for that strategy by trading security for debt. The United States said we would be the consumption engine to fuel global growth as long as producing, or surplus nations kept buying our debt. As a hedge against the unknown reality of the Post-Cold War world, it was a decent idea. But as a long-term post-Cold War grand strategy, it was a recipe for overreach and economic collapse--and we got both.

Until we change that failed grand strategy, the other items on the President's agenda will suffer or stall. From climate change to economic growth to ending wars. It will be by leading Washington, the nation, and the world towards a new American grand strategy where the President has the opportunity to earn his second Nobel prize. This time, he will only have to articulate a powerful new domestic economic engine that will back up a principled and achievable global strategy.

And he will have to articulate it soon. Oslo would be a good place to start.

Time to Focus on the Great Powers

Patrick Doherty — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 15:45:00 -0400

By Patrick Doherty and Ben Katcher

While the media are drawn to the story of the day, which today means the killing of Baitullah Mehsud in Pakistan and the longevity of the "cash for clunkers" program here at home, it is essential for the Obama administration to keep its eye on the strategic ball. In short, while the administration was absolutely right to triage the domestic economy and global crises like Iraq and Afghanistan during its first six months, the President and his most senior advisors must now turn to the great questions of statecraft: great power relations and America's role in the world.

The reality is that the post-war global order, in which the United States asserted a de facto strategy of hegemony, is now irretrievably dysfunctional and, when it comes down to it, triggered the domestic and foreign crisis that consumed the president's agenda until now. That old strategy, as our colleague Michael Lind has written, was founded on a simple bargain: Washington would let the rest of the world export to the American consumer, hollowing out our own manufacturing base but subsidizing our consumer lifestyle. In return, we would assert a kind of global hegemony, using the tools of foreign policy to dissuade the rise of peer competitors (our military budget and capabilities), to reassure the world's powers that we would take care of common threats (Iraq, Afghanistan, Serbia), and in those cases of resistance to our hegemony, to coercively disarm them (Iran, North Korea).

It was always a time-limited gambit and time finally ran out a year ago when the economic foundation of the strategy collapsed spectacularly in the U.S. housing crisis. Addicted to the false security of bundled American home mortgages, Wall Street built a house of un-priceable derivatives on the sand of irresponsible sub-prime mortgages -- fueled by easy access to credit provided by exporting nations like China, Japan, Germany and the Gulf States. Borrowing against rising home prices to keep consumption high, American households lost trillions in home value and cut back dramatically on consumption--such that Chinese exports fell 30 percent.

At the same time, our over-stretched military was finding it harder and harder to find the budget and the manpower to match the operations tempo that hegemony required. And despite today's confirmation of Baitullah Mehsud's death, it looks increasingly like that operations tempo will only remain high, if not get higher.

Furthermore, the basic strategic facts on the ground have changed dramatically since the early 1990s when hegemony was proffered during the George H. W. Bush administration. China is now a massive economy whose GDP is more about building China then exporting cheap goods to the West. Russia is no longer the post-Soviet basketcase it was under Boris Yeltsin, for Vladimir Putin has marshalled its energy resources and nuclear arsenal to make it a real force in the many strategic issues along and beyond its incredibly long frontier. Europe, meanwhile, used the last two decades to absorb Eastern Europe and along the way avoided getting into a balance of trade trap with Asia. Japan remains a major creditor of the United States and is increasingly concerned that American security guarantees in East Asia are not what they once were. Indeed, the combined economies of Russia, China, India and Brazil are likely to outstrip those of the G-7 in twenty years time, according to Goldman Sachs Chief Economist Jim O’Neil.

Luckily, this new reality points directly to the major issues that require a new great power agreement: global macroeconomic rebalancing, the need to adapt and manage global energy markets, and establishing global and regional collective security architectures.

The most immediate challenge is to begin rebalancing the global economy in a way that promotes sustainable global growth. The American consumption-led model of global growth is not coming back. The great powers must work together to create and balance new sources of domestic demand within their own territories. The United States and China in particular must conceive a new economic relationship that reduces the massive trade and capital flow imbalances at the root of the present economic recession. This will require a combination of policies that reorient China’s economy toward domestic demand and develop a new economic engine to power the United States for the coming decades.

Of equal importance is energy. The United States’ Energy Information Agency 2009 Energy Outlook predicts that global energy consumption will increase 44% from 2006-2030. Anticipating this increase in demand and the corresponding increase in prices, the great powers have so far conceived of energy security as a largely zero-sum game, and competed with one another for access to hydrocarbon resources from Africa to Central Asia to the Arctic Pole.

Russia, China and the United States all rely on a highly volatile and fragile global energy system. Such volatility, however, has had negative impacts in each of the great powers in recent years. The rise in oil prices accellerated the financial crisis in the United States, in China, high energy prices forced government energy subsidies that, for a while, took the profit out of their export sector. While in Russia, falling prices undercut government subsidies to its uncompetitive industries and massive pensioner class.

With Russia and Europe competeing over access to Caspian and Central Asian energy, with Russia, China, and the United States competing over Iranian energy resources and the U.S. and China signing a memorandum of understanding committing both to work towards a "low carbon economy," the geopolitics of energy will continue to shape the strategic outlook of great powers unless something changes. A new energy order that allows economies to develop, transform and function while facilitating global stability and prosperity is in all the powers' interest but as of yet is hard to discern.

Finally, the security arrangements and institutions that guided the United States through the Cold War must be updated to reflect current power realities. This requires a serious effort at global institutional reform as well as the creation of capable regional security structures that allow for rules-based regional resolution of threats to international security. At the global level, the UN Security Council and the International Financial Institutions need to reflect the realities of today, not 1945. Looking to models like NATO and the EU, regional organizations like ASEAN, the African Union, and the Rio Group need to increase their capability to promote regional stability and sustainable economic integration. Governor George W. Bush was right: the United States should not be the world's policeman.

As President Obama emerges from his first six months of domestic and global triage, conventional wisdom believes that his next priorities should be the usual laundry list: health care, climate change, Iran, Afghanistan, and North Korea. But a deeper look at these issues, we believe, reveals that most of them can be made much more tractable if the President first strikes a durable great power bargain with Russia and China.

The reasons for focusing on Russia and China should be clear. Russia because of the leverage provide by its energy resources and infrastructure and its nuclear arsenal, and China because of its rising economy and massive population. Europe, Japan, India and Brazil are, of course, real or rising world powers and must be accommodated in any new global concert, but their interests, capabilities, outlook and strategies are simply do not cross the great power threshold.

Of the three great powers, the United States is in the strongest position to lead such an agenda. Our post Cold War grand strategy has met its natural death and the Obama administration came into office with a mandate to not only deliver change we can believe in, but specifically to "change the mindset" that led the United States to war in Iraq. Meanwhile, China and Russia are in the opposite position: their ability to adapt their grand strategies to a new American agenda is extremely limited, giving the United States a significant silver lining.

But there is not much time. Grand strategy must be conceived of and executed well in advance of political judgment days. There are less than three years before the Obama administration must report on its progress to the American electorate and Russia and China's current strategies are every day reducing American maneuverability and options. It's time to focus.

Khanna Makes Esquire's 75 Most Influential List

Patrick Doherty — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:09:00 -0400

New America Foundation's Parag Khanna has been named on Esquire's list of the 75 most influential people for the 21st Century. The magazine's October issue states that, "Amid the recent surge of dashing political-military-international-affairs intellectuals, Khanna stands out as young, original, and roughed up. He spent two years humping the terrain of 50 developing countries to research The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order."

According to Steve Coll, president and CEO of the New America Foundation, "Second World was a bracing, energetic, provocative piece of reporting and thinking that has deeply influenced American discourse about the kind of world the next president will inherit. Parag is the sort of writer who is not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom or to change his own mind; at a time when too much of our foreign policy thinking is rooted in frameworks from the past, he has proved himself to be an essential new voice."

Khanna's next book, How to Run the World, is on the future of diplomacy and will be published in 2010 by Random House.

Kuwait Activates Emergency Plan

Patrick Doherty — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:39:00 -0400

The Kuwait Times and Middle East Times are reporting that Kuwait has activated its Emergency War Plan in response to the deployment of two additional U.S. strike groups to the Persian Gulf, the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group and the U.S.S. Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group.

The Middle East Times is saying that Kuwait is preparing for a scenario in which hostilities break out in response to a U.S. naval blockade of the Iranian coast.

However, oil prices continue to drop...

Transportation for America

Patrick Doherty — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 22:04:00 -0400

I just came across the Transportation for America campaign. It's a coalition of some great organizations who recognize the strategic importance of building out a 21st century transportation network for the United States.

In a nutshell, T4A is advocating the following:

Build a world-class rail and transit network that puts us ahead of the rest of the developed world, not behind.
Help communities meet the soaring demand for homes in neighborhoods that require less driving and have access to high-quality transportation options;
Restore, and then keep our existing highways and public transportation networks in tip-top shape.

This is important.

My colleagues in the Smart Globalization program here at New America recently hosted former Senator Majority Leader Tom Daschle and CEO Leo Hindery to talk about how our health care crisis is creating a massive competitive disadvantage. Our transportation infrastructure is doing the same thing.

Our current system, especially in terms of passenger travel, is dependent on the automobile. Beyond the pain at the pump this causes, for the daily routine of going to work and school, this is like giving everyone in a hi-rise building their own personal elevator car. I love that analogy because it is so true. The amount of land, energy, and income we waste on personal transportation is incredible. Especially when that system so often results in traffic jams and so much wasted time. No wonder our suburban families are stressed to the breaking point.

I digress. My favorite recent study, the McKinsey Global Institute's report, China's Urban Billion, details how the rural-urban migration of 700 million Chinese from the countryside and into the cities will challenge the world. Energy, transportation and land-use are three of the four dimensions of that challenge and this initiative is the first serious coalition I've seen that is capable of even starting the conversation here in the States.

But it is also popular. As T4A points out, "90% of Americans believe that new communities should be designed so we can walk more and drive less."

Folks, it's time to recycle suburbia.

A Bold Strategy for Cuba and Latin America

Patrick Doherty — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:17:00 -0400

[My latest entry on The Havana Note...]

The Havana Note talks a lot about the need for a new policy towards Cuba. Fifty years of failure is a shameful, bi-partisan indictment of how policy is made in Washington. Luckily, as we have been and will continue to show, more people recognize that change is on the way. But change for change's sake is foolish, and could easily backfire on the United States.

Fortunately, the emerging consensus on changing Cuba policy happens to coincide with another consensus, here in Washington, that America needs a major overhaul of all our relations with Latin America -- and with the rising influence of Hispanic voters.

But both movements lack strategic coherence.

Today I want to propose some ideas on tying these two efforts together in light of the great strategic challenges facing the United States over the next 30-40 years.

Unlike the Cold War or World War II, when ideological foes bent on global aggression defined the central strategic challenges to the United States -- and when a policy of isolation against Cuba made sense -- I argue that the central challenge facing the United States today and for decades to come is the need to create the economic space for the entrance of up to 4.5 billion people into the formal sector of the global economy.

This challenge is presented in stark relief by China. By 2030, 700 million Chinese will leave the countryside and move into the cities, entering the formal sector of the global economy. This alone is the largest rural-urban migration the planet has ever encountered and in the short term it will put incredible global stress on energy, resources, and transportation while requiring new approaches to land use that we have never encountered.

But that same narrative is happening all over the developing world.

Continue reading on the Havana Note...

Sahara Sun, Mediterranean Union, and Global Order

Patrick Doherty — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:08:00 -0400

Two fascinating news stories deserve to be juxtaposed, but I don't have much time between meetings today.

First, is the recently concluded conference launching the Union for the Mediterranean, led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The second item, related to the first, is that UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Sarkozy are backing a £35bn supergrid for Europe and North Africa that would facilitate the the kind of renewable energy economy that T. Boone Pickens could only dream of and that Al Gore is only just starting to talk about.

Contrast that bold, sustainable initiative with China's quest for coal in Australia and the utterly disheartening and, really, dysfunctional news that there are up to 90 billion barrels of oil under the Arctic ice sheet, which of course is becoming thinner due to our previous oil use.

The United States has a strategic choice ahead of itself. Europe, in my book, is leading the way.

I'd like to see a Western Hemisphere renewable power grid that drives development, sustainability and economic integration in our region. That way the solar, wind, tidal, hydro, and geothermal resources that abound in our region can satisfy all our energy needs--residential, commercial, and transport.

That's a big idea.

Continued 07/25/2008 2:43pm

The global order piece is an exploration of longitudinal regions, at least for Europe/Africa and North and South America as the next kind of regional economic grouping. The rationale is the requirement for a sustainable, reliable, and resiliant energy grid as well as deeper, more balanced economic development in the global south. With logitudinal regions, weather discrepancies in solar and wind are mitigated, while access to reliable energy for smaller or more densly populated states is assured.

Building that infrastructure will produced good jobs across these new regions. Developing the technology will yield incredible profits. Extending reliable access to inexpensive energy will improve development outcomes for everyone. In our own hemisphere, this would be key to reducing the relatively forced dynamic of economic migration. With energy and jobs at home, there will be less motivation for crossing borders or overstaying visas.

As BP used to say, it's a start.

What Would Nixon Do on U.S.-Cuba Relations?

Patrick Doherty — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:18:00 -0400

We hope you can join us for this event next week:

Thirty-seven years after Nixon went to China, the next President of the United States has another chance to split a non-threatening communist state away from an aggressive socialist power. Then, like now, there is an opportunity to really change the perception of the United States in the world and shift the conversation.

This event is co-hosted by the New America Foundation and The Nixon Center.

To register for this event, click here.

Start: 07/28/2008 - 12:30pm
End: 07/28/2008 - 2:00pm

New America Foundation
1630 Connecticut Ave, NW 7th Floor
Washington, 20009

Featured speakers

Dimitri K. Simes
President, The Nixon Center
Former Foreign Policy Advisor to Richard Nixon

Flynt Leverett
Senior Fellow, Director, Geopolitics of Energy Initiative, New America Foundation
Former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs, National Security Council

Julia E. Sweig
Rockefeller Senior Fellow & Director Latin America Studies
Council on Foreign Relations

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.)
Former Chief of Staff, Department of State
Pamela C. Harriman Professor, College of William & Mary

Moderator

Steve Clemons
Director New America Foundation/American Strategy Program
Publisher, www.TheWashingtonNote.com

Internships at the American Strategy Program

Patrick Doherty — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:06:00 -0400

Calling all prospective interns... special consideration given to those who can start in August... We can guarantee at least one of the two superstars above will be part of your internship...

Click here for the official link.

Intern, American Strategy Program

The New America Foundation is continually seeking enthusiastic intern applicants to assist the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. The American Strategy Program at the new America Foundation is one of Washington's most dynamic and innovative foreign policy centers situated at the nexus of strategy, policy and politics.

Primary Responsibilities

Substantive research to support the American Strategy Program in general and the following areas:
1. Grand Strategy, Great Powers and America's Role in the World
2. Nuclear Strategy and Non-Proliferation
3. Middle-East Policy
4. Counter-terrorism and Counter-insurgency
5. U.S.-Cuba Policy
6. Smart Globalization
Content development for ASP's various policy blogs.
Administrative support to the program associate as directed, including staffing events at New America.
Other tasks as directed.

Qualifications

Ideal candidates will have the following qualifications:

Enrollment in a undergraduate foreign policy program;
Proven research and analytical skills, with a clear substantive interest in one of the initiatives listed above;
Strong writing and editing abilities;
Familiarity with internet research tools;
Ability to multitask in a fast-paced environment;
Be a flexible and enthusiastic team player; and
Relevant language skills a plus but not required (Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, Hebrew, Farsi, etc.)

Application Process

Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. ASP prefers to hire interns for Fall, Spring, and Summer time periods, though other arrangements will be considered.

E-mail resume, cover letter and one writing sample (up to six pages) to: Human Resources Department, New America Foundation, jobs@newamerica.net. Please state "Intern, New America Foundation/American Strategy Program" in the e-mail subject line.

Applicants must be currently eligible to be employed in the United States. The New America Foundation is an equal opportunity employer.

Could McCain Adopt Gore's Energy Plan?

Patrick Doherty — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:59:00 -0400

Sometimes it is good to provoke an unconventional thought. I'm wondering whether Al Gore's energy speech, which Senator Obama has not yet fully embraced, could be picked up by Senator McCain to upset the curious balance between the two candidates and secure the win in November.

Let me start at the beginning. In his path-breaking address yesterday, Al Gore shook loose the bonds of political gravity and finally proposed a key element of any new American grand strategy: 100% carbon-free electricty by 2018.

Saying "100%" about anything in the context of sustainability in America is nearly impossible in Washington, but the former Vice President seems to understand what McCain and Obama have yet to fully grasp: the nation is hungry for a decisive, bold step towards a new economic engine for the United States.

It's not just my opinion. E.J. Dionne, writing today in the Washington Post quotes polling from Democracy Corps that says the Democrats just do not have a "compelling narrative" on the energy issue. Look closely at Carville and Greenberg's polling analysis and you see the prize at stake here:

...With nearly 80 percent saying the country is off track, voters are paying a lot of attention to the issues impacting their lives and the country’s future, and they are paying a lot of attention to the qualities of the candidates.

The cornerstone of our next economic engine is going to be a carbon-free energy system. It's not really a political issue, it's technical. Al Gore just tossed both McCain and Obama the blueprint, but will either be able to pick it up?

I think McCain has a real opportunity to surprise the country. As long as Obama sticks with his less-than-decisive energy policy, which, the same Democracy Corps analysis reports, is not winning over American minds anyway, the only thing holding McCain back from embracing a radically-new energy economy is inertia.

Certainly it's not ideology. That's because there is both a neoconservative and a free-market argument for a massive economic transformation rooted in energy. From the neocon perspective, the faster the United States makes the shift to renewable energy, the sooner the illiberal states of the Middle East lose their leverage over U.S. policy in the region. Electricity is not the biggest part of this, oil is, but as I've said many times over the last five years, we already have a plan to get off oil as a transportation fuel. Jim Woolsey and Andrew Marshall would be thrilled.

From the free-market perspective, Gore's approach of a tax-shift instead of cap-and-trade puts the market, not the government, in the driver's seat when it comes to picking the technologies and products that get us to carbon neutral energy. Cap-and-trade, with its easy Congressional carve-outs, gives Congress an incredible ability to protect pet industries--exactly the kind of market-distorting behavior that got us here in the first place. Of course, which candidate would not love to promise all Americans a major new cut in their income tax?

Obama should be thinking seriously about waiting too long to embrace this call for 100% in 10 years. America wants bold, decisive leadership in taking us to a new direction for the nation as a whole. McCain is a neoconservative, a free marketer, but mostly a maverick who understands capturing the new center of the American political spectrum wins the Oval Office.