The 8th Circle

Foreign Affairs (July/August 2008 front cover)

Eight years ago, Dr. Condoleezza Rice then part of the foreign policy team advising the candidacy of George W. Bush , wrote in Foreign Affairs on the subject of America’s national interest. She takes up the same task in the July/August 2008 issue of the aforementioned publication (Rethinking the National Interest: American Realism for a New World). Needless to say, anyone who is remotely interested in international relations should read this part reflection on the eight years of the Bush administration, part defense of the administration’s policies, and part articulation of what Rice views as America’s national interest and foreign policy disposition - the latter, a blend of realism and idealism together (watch Kissinger roll his eyes).

In a fairly long article, Rice has lots to say. We need not be burdened with getting through everything, but I should draw your attention to some sections of the article, those thematically relevant for this blog.

First, the major difference between Rice v.2000 and Rice v.2008 is her complete turnaround on nation building*:

We recognize that democratic state building is now an urgent component of our national interest. And in the broader Middle East, we recognize that freedom and democracy are the only ideas that can, over time, lead to just and lasting stability, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So far so good. You couldn’t expect a different answer, and realistically the circumstances on the ground will necessitate that whomever will be elected America’s next president - the national interest will call for nation-building.

A Sovietologist by training, Rice argues that the U.S. relationship with Russia is based more on “common interests than common values” (same goes for China):

Our relationship with Russia has been sorely tested by Moscow’s rhetoric, by its tendency to treat its neighbors as lost “spheres of influence,” and by its energy policies that have a distinct political tinge. And Russia’s internal course has been a source of considerable disappointment, especially because in 2000 we hoped that it was moving closer to us in terms of values. Yet it is useful to remember that Russia is not the Soviet Union. It is neither a permanent enemy nor a strategic threat (emphasis added). Russians now enjoy greater opportunity and, yes, personal freedom than at almost any other time in their country’s history. But that alone is not the standard to which Russians themselves want to be held. Russia is not just a great power; it is also the land and culture of a great people. And in the twenty-first century, greatness is increasingly defined by the technological and economic development that flows naturally in open and free societies. That is why the full development both of Russia and of our relationship with it still hangs in the balance as the country’s internal transformation unfolds.

The second large section of Rice’s essay is spent on arguing for the need to treat democracy promotion and economic development as two inseparable objectives:

Too often, promoting democracy and promoting development are thought of as separate goals. In fact, it is increasingly clear that the practices and institutions of democracy are essential to the creation of sustained, broad-based economic development — and that market-driven development is essential to the consolidation of democracy.

As a political scientist Rice is intimately familiar with the debate about the relationship between GDP/pc and regime type (see works by Adam Przeworski, Larry Diamond and others). What’s harder to prove, from a scientific point of view, is which causes which: is it that democracy leads to higher economic development or the other way around? Rice chooses the easy way out - do both: promote democracy AND economic development. The twist this time around is her emphasis on “social justice.” This phrase was not used even once in her 2000 essay.

Rice also addresses the proposition that authoritarian capitalism is a viable, if not better, alternative to liberal capitalist democracies. This was also discussed on this blog here.

The untidiness of democracy has led some to wonder if weak states might not be better off passing through a period of authoritarian capitalism. A few countries have indeed succeeded with this model, and its allure is only heightened when democracy is too slow in delivering or incapable of meeting high expectations for a better life. Yet for every state that embraces authoritarianism and manages to create wealth, there are many, many more that simply make poverty, inequality, and corruption worse. For those that are doing pretty well economically, it is worth asking whether they might be doing even better with a freer system. Ultimately, it is at least an open question whether authoritarian capitalism is itself an indefinitely sustainable model. Is it really possible in the long run for governments to respect their citizen’s talents but not their rights? I, for one, doubt it.

Rice is not alone who doubts this. In the beginning of 2008, Michael McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss wrote precisely on this subject in an essay for Foreign Affairs, titled The Myth of the Authoritarian Model.

But back to Rice’s article, which unsurprisingly devotes a significant portion to the Middle East (and that’s with Iraq getting its own separate section albeit a smaller one). Rice identifies three challenges to the emergence of modern democracies in the Middle East:

1. the global ideology of violent Islamist extremism (e.g. al Qaeda, etc.)
2. aggressive states that seek not to peacefully reform the present regional order but to alter it using any form of violence — assassination, intimidation, terrorism (e.g. Syria, Iran)
3. finding a way to resolve long-standing conflicts, particularly that between the Israelis and the Palestinians

What is astonishing is the Secretary’s continued insistence, in 2008, that the war on terror was somehow linked to Iraq. Rice attempts to make a connection between the lack of democracy in the region and terrorism in the following way:

• Middle East is not democratic
• Saddam’s Iraq was central to the region, and it was authoritarian
• Authoritarian states breed terrorism, because they do not allow the expression of political views by peaceful means, and push groups to adopt violent means (i.e. terrorism)
• After September 11, to address “deeper malignancies” of the Middle East, America needed to take care of Saddam to take care of terrorism

Except that the connection between Iraq and 9/11 has always been very elusive, if any. In fact a certain government commission found no “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and al Qaeda.

So what is America’s national interest? It is the promotion of democratic development that incorporates human rights and leads to social justice for a given state’s most marginalized citizens.

The shift toward the focus on “humanitarian” issues is very pronounced throughout the article. As mentioned previously, the inclusion of the phrase “social justice” is new, so is the mention about environmentally friendly sources of energy, and a whole two paragraphs about the importance, indeed the critical nature of education to American national security. This is hardly the stuff of traditional national interest as proposed by Hans Morgenthau et. al.

Finally, having surveyed the past eight years, Condoleezza Rice closes with the articulation of uniquely American realism.

Ultimately, however, what will most determine whether the United States can succeed in the twenty-first century is our imagination. It is this feature of the American character that most accounts for our unique role in the world, and it stems from the way that we think about our power and our values. The old dichotomy between realism and idealism has never really applied to the United States, because we do not really accept that our national interest and our universal ideals are at odds. For our nation, it has always been a matter of perspective. Even when our interests and ideals come into tension in the short run, we believe that in the long run they are indivisible.

*Note:  Rice is using “nation building” and “democratic state building” interchangeably, even though a good argument can be made that the two can be quite different.