An Ontological Approach to U.S. Foreign Policy

The Republicans running for president don’t seem to grasp the central foreign-policy question of the moment: What should the United States be? This is the same question that was foisted upon America at the end of World War II, and that George H.W. Bush/Bill Clinton were confronted with after the Soviet implosion. (Bush was not in a position to forge a new, post-cold war order; Clinton sidestepped the challenge.) George W. Bush thought he answered this question after the September 11, 2001 attacks by declaring war on terrorism, but he didn’t. He simply found a new enemy to wage war against. The question remains: What is the meaning of America — what is our purpose — in a post-cold war, post-September 11 world? What should we be? The current commander-in-chief hasn’t been very instructive. His worldview consists of two, seemingly contradictory tenets: Reject the previous administration’s foreign policy; then, inch back from that rejection by reluctantly embracing some of the previous administration’s most controversial positions. (Exhibit A: Guantanamo. The Afghanistan surge and even the pursuit of free-trade agreements suggest a similar reappraisal.) This sort of fecklessness has led to a “policy” that is not so much a policy as a series of fumbles and unwelcome surprises. The administration’s misadventure in Libya, alienation of important allies (Britain, France, Israel, India et al.) and inability (so far as we know) to curtail Iran’s nuclear-weapons program are all reflections of a White House that seems unsure of what it wants. 

So, the question Romney, Pawlenty, Bachmann et al., ought to be tackling is: What do we want? Or, better put, what should we be? This is a more fundamental (even ontological) approach to the external world. It presupposes that the conventional interests and policies and even supranational organizations that have framed the whole, international system should be re-examined. 

Final thought: Implicit in President Obama’s worldview, however fragmented and poorly thought through that may be, is the assumption that America is (and ought to be) in a state of relative decline. Question: International relations abhor a vacuum. If America abandons (or is forced to abandon) its role as superpower, who will fill that vacuum? Is that a desirable outcome? If not, what can we do to avoid it?