The (Ex) Washington Realist

“During the last several years it seems as if every major book or article on American grand strategy contains the observation that the United States is more powerful than any international actor since the Roman Empire was at its zenith. At the same time, however, the U.S. failure to suppress the insurgency in Iraq and to stabilize Afghanistan have caused many foreign policy analysts to ask, ‘Why is it that the United States with all its hegemonic power cannot seem to get its way and attain its objectives in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and in its disputes with powers like Iran and North Korea?’”

So asks Christopher Layne in the forthcoming September/October issue of The National Interest. Layne, Associate Professor of International Affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A & M University, provides a reason:

“Deterrence involves the use of power to persuade another state to refrain from taking an action that the United States does not want it to take. Compellence, on the other hand, involves the coercive use of American power to compel another state (or substate actors) to undertake to act, against its own preferences, in ways that Washington wants it to act.

“The United States has had a high degree of success using its military power to deter other states from attacking the American homeland, or U.S. allies abroad, even though deterring terrorists is much harder than deterring states. It has been far less successful at compellence. This helps to explain, for example, why American military power stops North Korea and Iran from attacking their neighbors but is seemingly ineffective in persuading them to give up their nuclear weapons programs.”

The fear that America has succumbed to what Layne calls the the “hegemon’s temptation”—the temptation to use its military power promiscuously—without evaluating chances for success—is reflected in a second essay in the September/October 2006 issue co-authored by TNI’s editor emeritus Robert W. Tucker and David Hendrickson of Colorado College. They write:

“A more reasonable understanding of America’s true power is that it maintains in abundance the elements whereby to contain and deter threatening actions by hostile regimes. For defensive purposes, it can still marshal an impressive international consensus; it is only when it finds aggressive war necessary to ensure its security that it becomes isolated and friendless in the international community. For defensive purposes, its military power, both conventional and nuclear, is prodigious; it is only when the United States seeks to assign to military power tasks that press against its inherent limitations—e.g. using force to promote liberal democracy, or threatening force to compel change within the national territory of hostile regimes—that it appears insufficient for the tasks it is called upon to perform.”

Should we be surprised at the difficulties the U.S. is facing in trying to tap down the ongoing crisis in the Middle East or in stopping Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons? These essays help to explain the real challenges facing Washington—and how burying our heads in the sand won’t make things better.