3/26/2020 Notes On A Grand Strategy For The United States In The 21st Century

Jun 27, 2014, 03:17am EDT

Notes On A Grand Strategy For The

United States In The 21st Century
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry Contributor
Business

This article is more than 5 years old.

The United States went from having an Administration with a bad strategy to one
with no strategy.

While the bad strategy has proven disastrous indeed, perhaps we are starting to
realize just how unsuited to the times the no-strategy option has been. But, there is a
problem. It seems that our foreign policy debates are exhausted, stuck between
alternatives that have all failed, whether liberal internationalism, realism or
neoconservatism (or seat-of-the-pants-ism). The intellectual exhaustion of the
Obama Administration is the function of the intellectual exhaustion of an entire
establishment.

Sorry for the tautology, but I do think it's pretty important for the world that the U.S
have a strategy, and the right one. And I think I have it.

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Here are some inchoate notes on it:

Assumptions / Problems / Opportunities

Our goal should be to expand Pax Americana. Fukuyama is still right.

We're really headed for the End of History, in his narrow sense. The problem
many parts of the world haven't gotten the memo. There is a "Global System"
call it Pax Americana: globalization, trade, economic and other
interconnectedness, more-or-less responsive government, and so forth.
Countries that are in Pax Americana prosper; countries that are outside Pax
Americana are dreadful places to be in, routinely commit large-scale crimes,
and pose a danger to Pax Americana by promoting or abating various forms o
extremism. But while some countries/regions are completely outside Pax
Americana, many more countries are only partially in Pax Americana; they ar
not "rogue states", but they are corrupt and dictatorial states that also pose
their own specific challenges. In the 21st century, there is no country other
than the United States that can sustain Pax Americana. Europe doesn't have
the will. India isn't ready. The other contenders don't have the right values. W
need a new American century. But for that, we need a strategy. Most people
who believe in some form of "end of history" tend to believe it will happen
automagically, because internet and trade, but this is not true. International

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orders, like Republics, seem to "just happen" but are really only sustained by
tremendous, hard, virtuous work.

In the 21st century, demographics will matter a great deal. I am not

talking about some grand theory of history. I am talking about the fact that th
21st century will experience an absolutely unprecedented phenomenon: most
regions in the world having below-replacement or barely-replacement
birthrates, and aging populations. It is not just graying Europe and Japan:
Russia, China, the Arab world, Latin America, all have this problem to varying
degrees. International politics are very often domestic politics, and this will b
the defining domestic politics issue of the 21st century. Meanwhile, countries
and regions that have good demographic profiles, particularly the US, sub-
Saharan Africa, and maybe India, will have key advantages (and also
challenges), again, not because of some grand theory of history, but simply on
a relative basis, because they will not be stuck in that trap.

We need to do nation-building, but we suck at it. Both sides of that

sentence should be obvious. Both sides matter a great deal.

Supporting dictators sucks. Not just for ethical reasons, although it

matters a great deal. But the Arab Spring was the predictable consequence of
the Devil's bargain struck by the United States many decades before. Egypt is
textbook. We have some interest in some place. We support the ruling
dictator/junta. The ruling dictator/junta is inevitably corrupt and repressive.
The corresponding democratic movement is therefore anti-American. This
means we can't support democratic reform, even though we should. The thing
simmers and simmers until it blows up. I've been saying this for years, but no
one listened. I do say "it sucks" because there's no good option there. (Or is
there? Read on...)

Ok, So Here's What We Should Do, You Guys

Build A Nation-Building Force Distinct From The Military. Military

work and nation-building work are just two different and separate things. The
demand a different organization, a different culture, different recruitment,
different skills, different procurement--different everything. No wonder we
suck at nation building. Sending the Marines to do nation-building work is lik
sending the New York Fire Department to kill Bin Laden, and saying that is n

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knock against either of those fine institutions. We should take half the
Pentagon's budget (yes) and build a force that is dedicated to nation-building
Look at what's going on right now in South Sudan, which is predictably
collapsing on itself. We are not talking about a humanitarian agency--this
should be a force with teeth, one that shoots back when shot at. But a force
that is dedicated to nation-building, not winning wars. Here I am totally
drawing on the work from the strategic planner Tom Barnett (watch his
excellent TED talk).

Build A Global Political Bankruptcy Process. North Korea. Somalia.

South Sudan. Syria. Zimbabwe. Mali. These are all states that are politically
bankrupt. The IMF has a process for the budgetary bankruptcy of states, but
there is no process for political bankruptcy (again, I am just repeating Barnett
here). I am not talking about an equivalent of the IMF, or some sort of other
international body. But I am talking about a deliberate effort to bring in the
relevant members of the international community (basically the G-20), and g
them to contribute legitimacy, treasure, and hopefully manpower, to the
nation-building efforts that are going to be led by the United States.
Routinizing the process and formalizing it (albeit in an informal way!) will
avoid having to work ourselves up into an improvisational frenzy each time
some tinpot dictator decides to massacre hundreds of thousands of innocent
civilians. Not an international organization, because we want the effort to be
American-led, and not lay the groundwork for some supranational Leviathan
but involving as broad a section of international partners as possible so that it
doesn't become reckless American adventurism and imperialism.

Do A Marshall Plan For People We Like. The Marshall Plan was great!
We should do it more often! I am here thinking of the countries in the
"suburbs" of Pax Americana, suburbs more in the French sense of the bad sid
of town than in the American sense of leafy tranquility. Middle-income
countries whose people might not like the United States very much, and whos
economies might not be so great. In post-War Europe, the Marshall Plan was
mostly focused on giving countries foreign-exchange reserves so they could
import stuff, and rebuilding destroyed infrastructure. Today, we are hopefully
more chastened about going off and doing white elephant development
projects in distant countries. Fair enough. Perhaps the most underrated and
ill-understood part of the Marshall Plan was basically the United States doing
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stockmarket takeover of Europe's elites. Anybody who was anybody was sent
on trips to the United States, to study in the United States, and so on. The fea
that many of these countries would tip into Communism was real, and it was
real charm offensive. This is primarily what I have in mind. I am sure some of
this already exists. Let's do a lot more of it, and let's organize it. We should als
dramatically expand and revamp the Peace Corps so that it is a true soft-
diplomacy corps rather than feel-good pseudo-humanitarian field trips for
liberal college graduates. A lot of this New Marshall Plan it should be,
basically, consulting on how to run your government better. There should be
other components of course, particularly in terms of getting US companies to
invest more in those countries (cough, like China is doing in Africa, cough).
But beyond the practical benefits of the programs, which would be real, the
point will be to announce loudly and clearly to the world: (a) if your country i
friendly with the United States, there will be tangible benefits; (b) the United
States actually cares about the rest of the world. Let's actually have a strategy
for making it tangibly good to be friendly with the US; let's give practical
assistance to countries that want to improve their institutions, moreso than w
do at present and with higher priority.

Help Our Dictator Friends Be Less Horrible. Remember the Dictator

Dilemma I mentioned above? Let me be cynical/materialist: a lot of whether a
dictatorship is toppled is determined by basic economics. If the middle class i
doing well, you won't topple the dictator. If it's not, you will. And a lot of that,
in turn, is usually determined by whether dictators have terrible policy or not
Again, Egypt is the case in point. The Egyptian government was pretty corrup
but very incompetent and bureaucracy was choking the economy, because the
government was running the bureaucracy as a jobs program. If Mubarak had
implemented boring neoliberal reforms, he might still be in Cairo--and the
vast majority of Egyptians would be better off than they are today. If there is a
solution to our Dictator Dilemma (and I agree it is tricky), our best bet is
probably to try to influence a South Korean-style story. Good economic policy
leads to stability and a prosperous middle class in the short run, and
democracy over the long run. The second-best is a Singapore-style story: a sof
dictatorship that basically doesn't do much harm--again, with good
governance and good economics being key. Again, from the self-interested
perspective of Dictator X, this is a program he should want to sign up to.

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Democracy should remain our long-term goal, but without good governance
and a robust middle class, "democracy" is not viable (this is the lesson of Iraq
and what should have been the lesson of '90s Russia). We should be clear
about this. Our goal will be to encourage "responsive [i.e. accountable]
government" rather than democratic government in countries that we think
are not yet ready for democracy. We might help civil-society groups that we
think will indirectly encourage democracy over the long run. But no more of
this hypocrisy of saying we support democracy and not actually doing it. We
support democracy--for countries that are ready. For others, we support the
Pax Americana and responsive government and rising standards of living
(which is what people actually care about anyway).

Build Charter Cities. The US government should take the lead in the
charter cities movement. Why? Well, first of all, because it's awesome, and it
would do immeasurable good to countless people. Second of all, because it
would help us increase our population and attract the best people. And third o
all, because it would show in a concrete way to people on every continent, clos
to them, that the American Way of Life is awesome.

Remain Leviathan, And Let's Try To Make Sure We Don't Fight The
Last War. US military issues per se should be the topic of a whole new post
(indeed, book), so I'll keep it short and sweet. First: utter US military
superiority is a deterrent to potential challengers, and we should continue to
have a massive defense budget (albeit better spent) and a massive great-
power-war military. Second, in the age of the unmanned vehicle, a carrier/F-
22-based force projection paradigm smells a lot like horse cavalry in the
Blitzkrieg age. I'm just saying. This whole post is premised on the idea that
we're not going to have World War III because no one can take on the US
military, but this presumes that we won't be "disrupted" by some new form of
warfare which, of course, is never sure. Given the extreme bureaucratization o
the Pentagon and the corruption of the procurement process, it doesn't smell
good. But, again, this is a whole new topic on its own.

Region-Specific Strategies

Middle East. Sorry. I have nothing. Too much of a mess. If I get a revelation
will get back to you, promise.

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China. China is perhaps the most badly misunderstood important geopolitic

actor today. It is neither a hypercapitalist champion nor a geopolitical rival. It
is, mostly, a very poor and increasingly polluted country with a fantastically
corrupt and incompetent government whose alarmingly gender-skewed
population cannot replace itself. The risk that we need to worry about in re:
China is not them becoming a superpower; it is them collapsing into anarchy
and civil war or a new, totalitarian and revanchist regime. And trust me, this i
how China's Politburo sees it. China is a tremendously unstable country, and
will only grow more unstable as its population ages, its workforce shrinks
before it has reached high-income status, and countless millions of angry
young men find themselves without jobs or women. Our best hope for China i
that it has enough years of growth in it left that it trundles on in a roughly
civilized shape. This means that the US policy towards China should be as
doveish as possible. Of course, there is complication there. US interests in the
region and US credibility as the guarantor of global security demands that it
not be seen as too dovish towards China. And an avowed dovish policy will
lead to Chinese hawkishness, which will demand US response and tension
escalation, which is what we want to avoid. There is a delicate balancing act
there. But it certainly means as friendly an economic policy and cooperation a
possible, and no undue saber-rattling. Our main priority should be to keep
Chinese GDP up and to the right.

Russia. Roughly the same as above, for roughly the same reasons: an aging
country with a culture traumatized by communism and far too many nukes.
Putin knows he is riding a rodeo horse, and hanging on for dear life. The
invasion of Crimea really was a show of weakness, which does not mean it
should be treated lackadaisically. Russia is interesting, because Siberia is
probably going to be the object of a new Great Game because global warming
will make it fertile ground in many more ways than one, but that (and Central
Asia) is a topic for another day.

India. Now, India is key. If we play our cards right, the 22nd century's super
power will be either the US or India. We should be consciously grooming them
to take over the baton, like we took over from Britain. They have the Anglo
culture and institutions, their birth rate is ok. Of all the "blocs" and BRICs,
India is the one with the greatest potential. India also has tremendous, usuall
rehashed problems, related to institutions, governance, economic policy,
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intense poverty, tremendous disparities, religious tensions, and so on. When

was talking about a new Marshall Plan, I was mostly thinking about India. We
should go all-out and do whatever it takes to help India develop and tie it ever
closer to the Pax Americana and help it embrace (its own version of) the
American System. Long term, all the awestruck fantasies about China is true
about India. Nobody gives India the respect and attention it deserves.

Sub-Saharan Africa. Speaking of undue lack of respect and attention... Sub

Saharan Africa has the best demographics in the world; high birth rates and
youth. Enormous growth. On fronts such as democracy and violence, in fits
and starts, despite everything, it is steadily and impressively improving. It is
developing from the bottom-up. It is fervently religious, and Christianity is
growing there at a rapid clip. It will be one of the most important regions of th
21st century. While we should be sober about the lessons of previous top-dow
hey-ho development efforts, it should be one of the main targets of our New
Marshall Plan, and of nation-building efforts, and of the charter cities
initiative. Please, important though those may be, let's not look at it through
the lens of Chinese mining companies and Islamist violence.

Latin America. The Monroe Doctrine is still good! Latin America is also a
prime target for the Marshall Plan, both for development reasons and for PR
reasons. Now that the Cold War is over, I don't know why we haven't invaded
Cuba, but other than that things are pretty much going well.

Europe. Ignore.

So this is roughly it. Obviously must more can and should and maybe even will be
said. But I hadn't committed these notes to paper before and I felt it was time to do i
now.

(NB: there is a movement known as reform conservatism dedicated to improving

the GOP's domestic policy platform, with which I have been associated. That
movement has been criticized for not offering up any foreign policy ideas. I think
that's misplaced: reform conservatism arises out of an analysis of a domestic polic
problem and therefore brings domestic policy answers. This post is not trying to la
out "the reform conservative foreign policy platform." I guess what I'm trying to sa
is, views my own, RTs are not endorsements.)

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Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry
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I'm a writer and a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. I most recently worked as an
analyst, and before that at Business Insider, where I co-created BI… Read More

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