Volume 4 | Issue 3 | Article ID 1870 | Mar 29, 2006 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus

The Flawed Rice Doctrine of 'Transformational Diplomacy' and American Global Policy

Walter LaFeber

The Flawed Rice Doctrine of 'Transformational Diplomacy' and American Global Policy

By Walter LaFeber

In her January 18, 2006 speech at Georgetown University, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice attracted attention by arguing that U.S. foreign policy would henceforth be shaped by a “transformational diplomacy . . . rooted in partnership, not paternalism.” Her address was taken by some observers to mean that the neoconservative policy assumptions which have condemned the United States to the tragedy in Condoleezza Rice Iraq and elsewhere were being replaced by a realist perspective taking American policy back A closer reading of her speech leads to another to the more constructive days of the conclusion: the address is mostly old, failed partnerships George Marshall and Dean policy dressed in necessarily different rhetoric. Acheson (whom she singled out for praise in Most significantly, Rice began the speech not her question-and-answer session), formed with by emphasizing partnership, but with George Western Europe and Japan. These partnerships W. Bush’s Second Inaugural Address from aimed to institutionalize both the rebuilding of which she quoted that it is U.S. policy “to seek those war-devastated partners and the and support the growth of democratic of the Soviet Union. movements and institutions in every nation and culture with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.” This “mission,” Rice added, is “transformational diplomacy,” and nowhere does she say this diplomacy came out of any partnership – which is well, because it didn’t.

Nor could it. Only a person ignorant of human history could seriously discuss “ending tyranny in our world.” Rice’s putative hero, Dean Acheson, told a group of military and

1 4 | 3 | 0 APJ | JF diplomatic officers in 1949 that the idea that divisions in Iraq. It could have been better good and evil could not coexist in the world dealt with, as Professor Michael Howard was the height of absurdity. Good and evil, argued in a remarkable (and remarkably Acheson noted in his own inimitable fashion, ignored) article in the January/February 2002 had coexisted ever since Adam and Eve left the Foreign Affairs, by covert, combined Garden of Eden, and given the historical record intelligence operations directed against (and, one might add, nuclear weapons) , such terrorist cells. Among other implications, coexistence, this Cold Warrior believed, had to Howard’s recommendation could have led to continue. The partners Rice has in mind tend to the killing or capture of Osama bin Laden and see the world through Acheson’s eyes, not the Ayman al-Zawahiri (who has been linked to President’s or, apparently, her own.. Given recent bombings in Europe) in Tora Bora Acheson and the partners’ long historical view during late 2001-2002, instead of pulling out and insights into human nature, they did not, the U.S. Special Forces and covert agents who and do not, believe that “tyranny” can be were pursuing him and sending them to Iraq. eradicated everywhere; it is rooted in a human The worst possible tactic, Howard warned, nature that cannot be changed, only contained. would be war (especially, one assumed, a Bush and Rice’s religious views, and the virtually go-it-alone conflict falsely labeled a President’s faith in American military power, preemptive war) against an Islamic nation-state may lead them to believe human nature can be that would generate more jihadists than it universally cleansed to suit their idealism, but eliminated. all of recorded history is on the side of Acheson and the partners. Rice’s two major proposals, spreading democratic regimes and forming new “If you’re relativist about right and wrong, then partnerships to do it, are contradictory. There you can’t lead,” Rice told the Georgetown is no obvious interest in Europe, Japan, or other audience in her question and answer session. U.S. allies to embark on a Wilsonian mission to That axiom indeed served Bush well in winning the democratically deprived. A notable elections by overly simplifying security issues. exception to this reluctance is Poland’s deep But it became an albatross around the neck of involvement along with Washington’s in the U.S. diplomacy when the President bragged he Ukrainian and Georgian regime changes. would call evil by its proper name, proclaimed Democratizing Iraq, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iran and North Korea as parts of the Axis of Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan, to mention only Evil – and now, with Iraq in near civil war and some of the more important players in a broad U.S. strategic options disappearing, he finds it region profoundly destabilized by the Iraq war, necessary to bargain with the Iranians to has drawn considerably less interest from prevent civil war in Iraq and essentially turn Rice’s hoped-for partners. the North Koreans over to China and South Korea who have quite a different approach to She gives away the central weakness of this Kim Il Sung’s regime than does, or did, Bush. “transformational diplomacy” by her use of Rice’s remarks contain the kind of good/evil history. At Georgetown Rice several times dichotomy that many Americans love to hear, mentioned the rebuilding of Germany and but such a dichotomy has little to do with the Japan between 1945 and 1951 as models for world they have to deal with in 2006. Evil future regime changes. As some people tried to exists, but the lesson of the past three years point out in the months before the invasion of leads to the conclusion that the evil ofIraq (when the German and Japanese models terrorism should have been dealt with not by were loudly proclaimed as universals by the holding elections or deploying U.S. Marine neoconservatives and their then allies in the

2 4 | 3 | 0 APJ | JF media), the experiences in Germany and Japan budget line. On this issue Bush has made his are the exceptions that prove the rule.decision: he prefers K Street and the interests Rebuilding worked in those two instances it represents over C Street and its State because of uniquely favorable circumstances: Department. This has to be “the work of a homogeneous populations, reliable military generation,” Rice declared. True, but if any of security, legitimate local administratorsits goals are to be realized, the work will have through whom the occupiers could work, to begin with the generation that follows the legitimacy brought by allies who cooperated Bush administration. (sometimes unhappily) with Washington, and a full U.S. treasury used by officials willing to Rice’s Georgetown speech is less a movement commit billions of dollars up front. These back to the realism and multilateralism uniquely favorable circumstances stand in exemplified by her old mentor, Brent striking contrast to those found in allScowcroft, than it is a repackaging of failed subsequent U.S. wars down to and including neoconservative policies that seeks to disguise Iraq and . Rice noticeably never regime change with the rhetoric of Wilsonian mentions Vietnam, that great effort of U.S. democracy, and that hides a lack of actual nation-building in the half-century after 1951, multilateralism (and badly needed legitimacy) with such misleading phrases as “coalition of nor does she note the repeated failures of the willing,” or, in this case, “partnership.” If American attempts to impose stable the second Bush administration does democracies (teaching them how to elect good understand the historic mistakes made by the men, in Woodrow Wilson’s instructive words), first Bush administration, it cannot by proved in the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, by Rice’s appearance at Georgetown. Acheson Cuba, and the Philippines over the past 120 advocated the and NATO. In years. stark contrast, Rice advocates nothing that might institutionalize “partnership.” She offers Americans have repeatedly tried Rice’s only the suggestion that the United States “transformational diplomacy” and it has failed. “localize our diplomatic posture” and create Redoubling an effort based on bad history and more “virtual presence posts” in which false assumptions will not change the outcome. American diplomats can exchange computer Nor will it be changed by Rice’s other proposal messages with the target audience. It is not a at Georgetown: to increase rapidly the number bad idea, just irrelevant to the need for of Foreign Service Officers and relocate them rethinking and radically readjusting U.S. from traditional postings to the newlyforeign policy. To rephrase, the Rice doctrine contested areas where culture clashes and revealed at Georgetown never confronts the terrorists breed. Such a turn would be welcome administration’s failed assumptions about if policies were reconsidered and many billions human nature, spreading Wilsonian democracy, of dollars more made available. But as Karen and what true partnership with allies should Hughes, among others, learned on her trip to mean. the Middle East in late 2005, old U.S. policies delivered even with the smoothest of Madison Walter LaFeber is the Tisch University Avenue’s phrases get nowhere with local Professor at Cornell, and author ofAmerica, audiences. And Bush’s devotion to tax cuts, Russia and the , 1945-2002. He wrote along with huge deficits, make the scope of this article for Japan Focus. Posted March 2, Rice’s proposal a pipe dream rather than a 2006.

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