Foreign Policy
Fall 1998

Notes for the Margins

By Christopher Lord, Managing Editor, Perspectives

 

At any given moment in history, an influential idea—and thus an influential intellectual—is one that provides a persuasive simplification of some policy question that is consistent with the particular mix of core values then held by the political elite.

James Q. Wilson, The Public Interest, Summer 1981

I suppose there are three constituencies we might imagine that our activities could ideally reach: policymakers, professional specialists, and the general public. But we know, don’t we, in our heart of hearts that policymakers read those two-page spin pamphlets written by inside-the-Beltway corporate-lobbying types rather than foreign-policy journals, while the general public, it seems, is on the whole and increasingly content with the TV schedules and the sports results. But don’t blame yourselves: It’s not a question of quality. Not just a question of quality, anyway. George Kennan, for instance, has a passage in his memoirs where he describes the realization many years after the event that all the exquisitely crafted, fine-grained analyses of Soviet politics that he had sent over the encrypted wire from Moscow for years had never made it beyond the desk officer’s in-tray. He had foolishly thought—vanitas vanitatem—that since he had defined the whole intellectual thrust of post-War American strategy toward the Eastern Bloc, someone in the State Department or the White House or somewhere would surely be at least marginally interested in his further thoughts on the matter, or in his assessments of Stalin’s state of mind, or something... And so he had diligently stayed up late at night, tapping away on his typewriter, and sending over his characteristic reams of immaculate copy. But no. Nobody even read it. Not Wanted On Voyage. He had shot himself in the foot, you see. By giving the administration a reasoned justification for its policy, he had removed any possible further interest in reasoning about policy. For reasoning equals questioning equals dissent: oh yes. No doubt about it. And whatever George Kennan, or anyone else might have thought about it, there was now a small matter of a trillion dollars’ worth of nuclear weapons to be manufactured and procured, well wasn’t there? And so dissent was the last thing anyone in the loop had on their minds.

Plus ça change... Let’s take a look at the so-called NATO debate. NATO expansion, that is. On the one hand (in the blue corner) we have the international academic community. On the other hand (in the red corner) we have NATO’s Office of Information and Press. NATO Review. Factsheets. In six languages. And over the last eight years we have seen an absolute 180-degree reversal in official and public perception of NATO d its supposed function. At the end of the Cold War, remember, even George Bush just assumed that NATO was finished. Even the people working there thought it was all over. They really did. But, well, there was still the small nagging issue of all those fat little armaments deals, wasn’t there... so there’s a dance in the old dame yet Archy she says toujours gai yes toujours gai. And on the one hand (in the blue corner), there was the international academic community formulating all sorts of plans and theories and analyses, and on the other hand (in the red corner), there was the first faint glimmer of hope in the form of the idea that NATO could “re-define its mission.” Yes... And soon there was talk of a “thorough re-evaluation of alliance policy” and that sort of thing. Splendid! And the worried fat-cat bureaucrats gradually realized that maybe they wouldn’t have to make fresh employment plans just yet after all. Well, the obvious practical problem with this idea was that the alliance had just in fact completed such a policy review (in the form of the New Strategic Concept, finally completed in 1991), and it was obvious to Those Who Knew that it would be completely impossible to repeat the operation. Getting most of the world’s major armaments producers to redefine their commercial relationship had been an extremely delicate operation, even in the calm waters of the Cold War. With the uncertain new situation, plus of course the inconvenience that the supposed threat from the USSR had suddenly disappeared, the chances of getting anyone to agree to anything that might have a material effect on sales were frankly very remote.

So how did we get to where we are today? NATO as the most legitimate international political organization in the world? The armaments industry as the bedrock of democracy? There are two essential factors: the first is smoke; and the second, yes, is mirrors. The conjuror’s miracle, like all the best illusions of that kind, is of a stunning simplicity of technique: It is so simple, in fact, and yet at the same time so impossible-seeming, that no individual could have thought of it. For the brilliant solution was simply this; instead of actually carrying out the promised reforms, NATO collectively discovered that it was enough—more than enough—just to say that the reforms were underway: No! That they had already been accomplished. And this indeed is what you will now hear. It suits everyone. It suits the old members, the new members, the diplomats, the politicians, simply everyone. NATO, they will tell you, is now chiefly concerned with regional security, with Bosnia and such-like crises; and everyone will look serious and agree. And yet... how many nuclear submarines and aircraft carrier battle groups and fighter bombers and attack helicopters do we need exactly for this exciting new mission? Well, the surprising answer is that we need exactly the same amount of all these important artifacts as before. Indeed, the Pentagon anyway has been able to salvage all its major procurement programs, and the NATO bureaucracy has managed to weather the storm. Which is the main thing, let’s face it.

But this is merely embittered European whining, I hear you mutter. Rotten, decaying Europe, still unable to face up to the realities of the modern world. What do they expect? Metternich for Christ’s sake? So OK then. Let’s take a look at Asia. Let’s take a little look at Clinton’s heart-warming love-in with Jiang Zemin. And yes, what we find is that the same essential mechanism at work: Don’t waste time on dealing with those difficult foreign-policy problems. Just announce that you are going to deal with them; after a decent interval, let it be understood that you are now actually dealing with them through some back-room kind of process it wouldn’t be convenient to explain right now; and soon it will be time for you to say proudly that you have now dealt with it. And since reasoning equals questioning equals dissent, well, anyone who asks questions— negative negative negative!—whether it’s a Harvard professor or the New York Times or anyone really—is demonstrably letting the side down and can therefore safely be ignored. Do we have a problem with human rights in the People’s Republic? Not anymore! We could go on indefinitely. And we are not dealing with marginal details here: We are dealing with long-term and central policies.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) policy in Russia is another apt example. Ask anyone who doesn’t have a stake in it what they think about this and they will tell you not just that this policy is a failure but that it has been an unimportant factor in encouraging the criminalization of business and the collapse of industry in Russia. But ask the IMF or the State Department or of course the Russian government and what you will hear is that the IMF program in Russia is a great success and just needs to be expanded by a few billion dollars to keep it on track. The same goes for IMF policy in the Far East. The World Bank, meanwhile, has pulled in its horns a bit and under James Wolfensohn is trying to clean up its act a little—after decades of ruinous public projects in Third World countries that typically lined the pockets of corrupt politicians and their friends while doing positive harm to the lives of the poor people in the countries involved—but let us not have any illusions. Public debate was not the reason for this change of heart. Successive directors of the World Bank have always been able to impose their own ideas (since they operate outside any effective political control), and the most destructive period of World Bank activity was that of Robert McNamara’s leadership, when he had to be moved sideways from the Pentagon after his enthusiasm for carpet bombing was found to be just a wee bit embarrassing over in South East Asia.

There are simply no grounds for a foreign-policy debate anymore. Simplistic lies hit the spot much better and more reliably. The techniques of mass-media democracy mean that foreign-policy issues are increasingly left out of the picture as far as election programs are concerned, and this means that elected representatives feel that foreign-policy matters form no part of their mandate. This in turn means that governments, government agencies, and international organizations are left to their own devices. What, then, is the function of foreign- policy publishing? Well, it does still have some uses.

The first thing is to fix the consensus opinion of the day in people’s minds—the status quo ideology. The main mechanism here is simply repetition. If there are enough articles about the importance of economic growth for Third World countries, to take a very real example, the idea that economic growth is what these countries mainly need becomes second nature to policymakers, specialists and public alike. Right-wing organizations of various kinds have long ago discovered that this is a reliable way to out-flank any potential critics: out-publish them. And since most people involved in foreign-policy publication are not radicals or risk takers, this strategy basically succeeds. There might still be some weirdos out there who want to read Covert Action Quarterly or Executive Intelligence Review or whatever the hell it might be, but on the whole there is a very solid-looking business-friendly consensus that is manufactured by very professional means day after day, year after year.

Another, complementary function for foreign-policy publication is the traditional one of Jobs For The Boys. This is not to be sneezed at, let’s face it: As Disney capitalism spreads itself over everything everywhere, anything that offers an alternative way of life to corporate executive-dom is important and should be preserved. The disadvantage of this system is frankly that the needs of professional structures diverge from those of the rest of society. Journals that devote themselves to the important task of résumé-building for academics or other marginalized professionals increasingly promote debates that are of stunning irrelevance to anything else in the foreign-policy field. Theoretical debates between rival academic factions, while in principle OK, in fact these days tend to hinge on issues which no one outside the charmed circle is likely to understand, or care about even if they did understand them.

So what is left? Are we really working just as a sounding board for the convenient political fictions of the day and serving to legitimize the activities of whoever has enough money, power and influence to determine foreign-policy agendas? Well, unfortunately, if we want to succeed—if we want to be “influentia,l” as James Q. Wilson would say—then the answer must be Yes. That is exactly what we are doing. And if we do not accept such a role for ourselves, then we can find a temporary compromise. Rather than actually writing the stuff (for there will always be a line of conventional-minded and hard-working yes-men for that purpose), we can limit ourselves to scribbling our comments in the margins.