Commentary: The Hell of Good Intentions, Stephen M. Walt

Commentary: The Hell of Good Intentions, Stephen M. Walt

Read this along at the same time as Duty, Robert M. Gates, and an interesting complement to it. Thoroughly enjoyed the read.

I got to this book as it was on the Army War College Commandant’s Reading course list for this year. I took the course last year, enjoyed the selections, and given I love to read, will probably keep asking for their reading list so I can read books like this.

Walt makes an argument against a longstanding foreign policy approach termed liberal hegemony.  It is the rational version of the “let’s pull back, we’re trying to do too much and push our liberal democracy concepts on other countries and we need to do more about minding our own business, and being more selective in asserting our power internationally in support of specific and achievable national interests.” This is in contrast to the less rational isolationist rhetoric about other countries are cheating us, robbing us, etc and we are going to “win” by doing things differently than previous administrations. He even points out how the current administration has talked a good game and recommended some good changes to foreign policy, but their rationale for doing so often gets lost- doing the right things for the wrong reasons- and beyond that, as “the establishment” pushes back, the administration falls back into line and ultimately ends up embracing, rather than rejecting, liberal hegemony.

His thesis is presented as radical and outside the mainstream (of the foreign policy elite, that is), but I’m not so sure it is.  There are quite a few people in the military and out, that have been calling for a less militarized foreign policy, for one that is more restrained in objectives, that embraces a more realist perspective and approach.

A good deal of the argument is counterfactual in nature, and the author acknowledges successes in U.S. foreign policy and also that some failures might also have happened even without a liberal hegemony approach.

The text allocates the vast majority of content in explaining and providing examples of the how and why of the problem Walt describes and unfortunately, only the last chapter really gets after his vision of what right would look like.

I did find myself asking whether I would identify more with ‘the establishment’ or with his more reserved approach, labeled "offshore balancing," which grossly simplified is preventing hegemons in other parts of the world who could challenge U.S. supremacy in the international arena. I would wholeheartedly agree with de-emphasizing the M in the DIME and investing more in the other elements of national power (diplomatic, information, economic) in executing foreign policy. I would argue differently, though, in that I don’t think we’re spending too much and too engaged with both allies and adversaries. I think the problem is more in the messages and objectives- the mixed messages – that we are sending to allies as we challenge them and insult them far more than we need to, and for some reason are ignoring and excusing the bad behavior of traditional adversaries and embracing them as they continue to do those same things that we previously condemned them for. We’re just confusing other countries right now and they’re waiting to see how this next election turns out to see if we’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing the past 3 years, return to more ‘business as usual’ or go in some other direction.