CYBERQUAKE!! • BLACKS IN PRISONS • SIR ROBERT COOPER ON SHAKESPEARE American Interest Policy, Politics & Culture Vol. XIII, No. 1 | September/October 2017 THE THERAPEUTIC UNIVERSITY A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Go Forth and Learn s The American Interest begins its 13th year, magazine and online both, our original purpose remains unchanged: We seek to explain America to the A world and the world to America; and to do it through an ideologically un- fettered, problem-solving orientation. As always, we use history leaned forward and social science admixed with the vast and varied experience of our authors. We aspire to go beyond explanation from time to time to propose reform in both domestic and foreign policy. As a recent case in point, the July-August issue is rich with specific ideas for genuine health care reform, and offers specific proposals to fix the State Department and shore up the U.S. nuclear deterrent. The issue you see be- fore you, however, only implies policy prescriptions, for it takes on questions of great difficulty and significance—we must truly understand a challenge before we can have an inkling of how to solve it. The first of these questions boils down to how rapid and widely spread technologi- cal change is making mincemeat of our accumulated stock of knowledge about how political and social worlds work. Disintermediation is an old phenomenon, but in its current global form, hitched to hyperconnectivity, it is propelling us outward into heretofore unimagined places. The same technologies pointed inward, so to speak, are also busy disarranging the stabilities of our personal emotional lives, creating in- tergenerational cleavages we struggle to grasp. Beware: These two essays, if taken to heart, may well keep you up at night. A second question concerns the derangement of our political vocabulary of the moment. Is all nationalism populism, or is nationalism only populism when it rushes upon us in recoil from globalist idealism unhinged? Are current manifestations of what is commonly presumed to be both populism and nationalism congruent with the generic label “conservative”? The short answer is no, and knowing the distinc- tions is, as usual, far more useful than any number of lazy conflations. Enlightened conservatism, insofar as it still may exist, is neither static nor populist—as the two essays in our “Up and to the Right” section illustrate, each in their own way. The third major question treated in this issue concerns the West’s institutions of higher learning—specifically, what seems not quite right about them lately. The three essays in our “Academentia” cluster investigate different aspects of this subject—none of them, mercifully, obsessing on the by-now hackneyed plaint concerning political correctness and associated assaults on free speech and open debate. Not that these problems are imaginary; they’re not. It’s just that they do not begin to exhaust the topic, properly defined. I have tended over the years to use the review section to broaden the shoulders of The American Interest, even thereby admitting some entertaining lighter fare into our pages. Not this time. If you think parsing the sources of inequality, of the mass incarceration of African-Americans and the racist history of American eugenics, and plumbing the depths of Shakespeare’s approach to politics are examples of lighter fare, then you probably pursue more serious hobbies than I do. We do not apologize for the focused and serious character of this issue. These are seriously troubled times, after all. So, as a certain ancient religious pamphlet adjures: “Go forth and learn.”

2 THE AMERICAN INTEREST CONTENTS 4(%!-%2)#!.).4%2%34s6/,5-%8))) .5-"%2 !545-.3%04%-"%2/#4/"%2 

CYBERQUAKE

6 Flattened: Disintermediation Goes Global by Dee Smith The unpredictability of the current global system goes all the way up, and all the way down.

15 Exposed: The Burdens of Pseudo-Intimacy by R. Jay Magill, Jr. The origins and effects of the advancing Age of Self-Exposure. 6 UP AND TO THE RIGHT

26 Conservatism and Nationalism: Varieties of Engagement by Paul D. Miller Behind Trump’s trade, immigration, and national security rhetoric lurks a greater danger: the conversion of America’s liberal nation- alism into an illiberal cult.

36 Enlightened Conservatism: The Fifth Marquess of Lansdowne by John Bew & Andrew Ehrhardt 44 With the “art of the deal” back in the vogue in American diplo- macy, the career of the Fifth Marquess of Lansdowne is overdue for a reappraisal.

ACADEMENTIA

44 The Real Gap by Hal Brands Those who study international security and those who practice it see the same world through very different conceptual lenses. 71

AUTUMN (SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER) 2017 3 55 The Therapeutic University by Frank Furedi How medicalized language and the therapeutic culture came to dominate Anglo-American institutions of higher education. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Francis Fukuyama, chairman 63 Hard Future for a Soft Science Charles Davidson, publisher & CEO Walter Russell Mead, editor-at-large by Bradford Tuckfield & director, The American Interest Online Behavioral economics, the science behind governmental “nudging” Josef Joffe and studies disparaging conservatives, has run aground. It’s time to reform the field for the benefit of scientists and citizens alike. Adam Garfinkle, editor Daniel Kennelly, senior managing editor Rachel Hostyk, associate editor Danielle Desjardins associate publisher Richard Aldous, contributing editor REVIEWS R. Jay Magill, Jr., illustrator 71 Luck, Chance, and Taxes Damir Marusic, executive editor, by Christopher Jencks The American Interest Online Luck has more to do with economic success than Americans like to cover design by Rachel Hostyk believe. Robert Frank’s new book challenges us to reckon honestly cover image, Dan Hallman with fortune, and what it means for social policy.

EDITORIAL BOARD Anne Applebaum, Eliot Cohen, Tyler 76 Locked In Cowen, Robert H. Frank, by Richard Thompson Ford William A. Galston, Owen Harries, “Racism” is the easy answer to the question of how America’s G. John Ikenberry, Stephen D. Krasner, prisons got so full of African Americans. A new book offers a more Bernard-Henri Lévy, Sebastian Mallaby, Michael Mandelbaum, C. Raja Mohan, complex and hopeful view. Ana Palacio, Itamar Rabinovich, Lilia Shevtsova, Hiro Aida, 80 A Race to Nowhere Mario Vargas Llosa, Wang Jisi, by Edward J. Larson Ruth Wedgwood [In Memoriam: Were Jim Crow and American eugenics laws the models for Nazi Peter Berger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Bronisław Geremek, Samuel race laws? Huntington, Ali Salem] 84 Shakespeare’s Politics by Richard Cooper ADVERTISING & SYNDICATION We know little of the Bard’s political opinions, but there’s much we Damir Marusic can learn of them from the recurrent themes of his works. [email protected] (202) 223-4408

website www.the-american-interest.com Subscriptions: Call (800) 362-8433 or visit www. the-american-interest.com. One year (6 issues): $39 print; $19 online; $49 for both. Two years (12 issues): $69 print; $38 online; $98 for both. Please add $14 per year for print-subscription delivery to Canada and $33 per year for delivery to addresses outside the United States and Canada. Postmaster and subscribers, send subscription orders and changes of address to: The American Interest, P.O. Box 15115, North Hollywood, CA 91615. The American Interest (ISSN 1556-5777) is published six times a year by The American Interest LLC. Printed by Fry Communications, Inc. Postage paid in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. ©2016, The American Interest LLC. Application for mailing at periodical pricing is pending in Washington, DC, and ad- ditional4 mailing offices.THE Editorial AMERIC offices:AN 1730 INT RhodeERES TIsland Ave. NW, Suite 707, Washington, DC 20036. Tel.: (202) 223-4408. Fax: (202) 223-4489. AcAdementiA

Those who study international security and those who practice it see the same world through very dif- ferent conceptual lenses.

Te Real Gap Hal Brands

cademics are a conflicted lot, simul- assessment issued that same year, New York taneously cherishing and bemoaning Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote that A their isolation from the world. Pursu- “some of the smartest thinkers on problems at ing the life of the mind necessarily entails cul- home and around the world are university pro- tivating independence and even detachment fessors, but most of them just don’t matter in from politics, the news cycle, and government today’s great debates.”4 policy. Yet detachment can easily become ir- Such concerns are hardly new, of course; relevance, and in recent years there has been handwringing about academic irrelevance a tidal wave of concern—from academics and dates back decades. But there is nonetheless non-academics alike—that international rela- systematic evidence that the scholarship-policy tions scholarship has become ever more remote gap is real and widening. A 2011 survey found from the affairs of state. that 85 percent of American international re- In a 2009 Washington Post op-ed, Harvard lations scholars felt that the academia-policy scholar and former policymaker Joseph Nye divide was as great or greater than it had been warned of a “growing gap” between academics twenty to thirty years prior.5 The alienation and government.1 A contemporaneous study appears to be mutual. Another recent survey, concluded that “the walls surrounding the this time of policymakers, informed academ- ivory tower have never seemed so high.”2 Rob- ics that “what the academy is giving policy- ert Gallucci, then president of the MacArthur makers is not what they say they need from Foundation, lamented in 2014 that the acad- us.”6 emy was making only inadequate contribu- The gap endures, moreover, despite myriad tions to critical debates on global security and efforts to close it. The late, great international U.S. foreign policy.3 And in another stinging relations scholar Alexander George created his “Bridging the Gap” initiative to forge closer Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger Distin- links between academia and government guished Professor of History at the Johns Hopkins some fifty years ago. Secretary of Defense School of Advanced International Studies, and a (and Georgetown University Ph.D.) Robert senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budget- Gates created the Minerva Initiative in 2008 ary Assessments. to encourage “eggheads” to do more research

44 THE AMERICAN INTEREST on critical national security issues.7 The list of used economic sanctions and coercive diplo- such projects goes on, yet so does the gap. Why macy to restrain potential proliferators. They is this the case? have also seriously considered taking preven- The explanations are diverse, and the rea- tive military action against enemies pursuing sons offered many. International relations nuclear weapons, from the Soviet Union and scholars—particularly political scientists—in- China during the Cold War to North Korea creasingly emphasize abstruse methodologies and Iran thereafter. In 2003, the United States and write in impenetrable prose. The profes- even fought a counter-proliferation war to pre- sionalization of the disciplines has pushed ventively disarm Saddam Hussein. For U.S. scholars to focus on filling trivial lacunae in policymakers, it often seems, there is nothing the literature rather than on addressing real- more dangerous than a hostile state obtaining world problems. The tenure process punishes the bomb. young scholars for “sucking up to power” and Scholars, however, are generally more san- cultivating audiences beyond the academy. guine. There are, certainly, diverse views with- The long timelines of academic research and in the academy on this matter. Yet most aca- publishing make it difficult even for the most demics hold that the dangers of proliferation engaged scholars to offer prompt policy ad- are overstated, the likelihood of nuclear ter- vice. Busy policymakers, for their part, simply rorism or nuclear war is infinitesimal, and the lack time to engage academia as much as they costs of aggressive counter-proliferation poli- might like. cies dramatically outweigh the benefits. Dan- Many of these factors are hard-wired into gerous adversaries such as the Soviet Union, the academia-policy relationship, and many Maoist China, and North Korea have gotten do indeed contribute to the gap. But a more the bomb, after all, and we have lived to tell fundamental factor is also at work. On some the tale. Leading academics even contend that of the most crucial issues of international se- nuclear proliferation can be stabilizing, be- curity and American statecraft, the academic cause the iron logic of nuclear deterrence will and policy communities have significantly— foster peace between rivals. John Mearsheimer even dramatically—opposing views of what is famously argued for a Ukrainian nuclear deter- at stake and what ought to be done. What we rent in the early 1990s, as U.S. officials were have here, then, is not a mere failure to com- working feverishly to foreclose that very pros- municate. It is a harder, yet more illuminating pect.8 Kenneth Waltz, the dean of modern in- reality—that those who study international se- ternational relations theory, controversially ar- curity and those who practice it see the same gued that “more may be better,” and in 2012 he world through very different conceptual lenses. predicted—altogether contrary to established U.S. policy—that a nuclear Iran would exert efore we attempt a theory of the case, let a benign, stabilizing influence on the Middle Bus first illustrate the case. Consider, for in- East.9 When it comes to nuclear proliferation, stance, divergent policy and scholarly perspec- the gap can be sizable indeed. tives on nuclear proliferation. Or consider an even bigger question: what For decades, there has been a bipartisan America’s grand strategy should be. Within policy consensus that the spread of nuclear the policy community, there has long been a weapons represents a grave threat to American virtually unassailable consensus that American security, and that strong—even drastic—mea- engagement and activism are the pillars of a sures to impede proliferation are warranted. stable, prosperous, and more democratic world. U.S. officials have long worried that aggres- It follows that forward military deployments, sive rogue states would use nuclear weapons alliance commitments, and the other aspects of to blackmail America and its allies, and that a globe-straddling geopolitical posture are in- the spread of the bomb would heighten the dispensable to global wellbeing and U.S. secu- chances of nuclear terrorism, nuclear war, or rity. Call it “primacy,” “empire,” or “American other calamities. Accordingly, both Demo- leadership,” but this idea has been affirmed in cratic and Republican administrations have every major U.S. strategy document reaching

AUTUMN (SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER) 2017 45 ACADEMENTIA back decades, and it has been the single over- fought major wars in Korea and Vietnam at arching theme of both Democratic and Repub- least in part to avoid undermining the credibil- lican foreign policy since World War II.10 This ity of even more important guarantees in other consensus has been challenged by the rise of parts of the globe. Conversely, most scholars Donald Trump, but the fact that so far his argue that credibility is a chimera; there is sim- presidency has seen far more continuity than ply no observable connection between a coun- substantive change indicates that American try’s behavior in one crisis and what allies and globalism remains resilient. adversaries expect it will do in the next. Policy- Within the academy, however, a far dim- makers insist that credibility is worth protect- mer view of that tradition prevails, and the ing; scholars reply that some of America’s cost- dominant school of thought favors American liest wars have been fought to sustain a tragic retrenchment of a dramatic variety. “Offshore illusion.11 balancers” and advocates of “restraint” call for Nor are the disagreements between scholars rolling back U.S. alliances and overseas force and policymakers confined to abstract or theo- deployments, swearing off the significant use retical issues. On some of the most significant and pitched foreign policy debates of the post-Cold War era, the The policymakers concluded that battle lines have also been starkly drawn. NATO expansion was a strategic In the 1990s, for in- necessity; the scholars sided stance, the policy com- munity coalesced— with George Kennan in deeming it albeit after much “a fateful error.” internal debate—in support of expanding NATO to include for- mer members of the of force in all but the most exceptional circum- Warsaw Pact. NATO enlargement would sub- stances, abandoning democracy-promotion sequently be carried out by Democratic and and other “ideological” initiatives, and even Republican administrations as the best way of encouraging selective nuclear proliferation to ensuring U.S. influence, geopolitical stability, reduce America’s global burdens. These schol- and democratic consolidation in Eastern Eu- ars argue that U.S. engagement is actually rope. International relations scholars, by con- destabilizing and counterproductive—that it trast, overwhelmingly opposed NATO expan- creates more enemies than it defeats, causes sion on grounds that it was unnecessary and wars rather than prevents them, and weakens would deeply antagonize Russia. John Lewis America rather than protects it. This view is no Gaddis wrote that he could “recall no other fringe position. It is supported by ivory-tower moment when there was less support in our giants such as Mearsheimer, Barry Posen, and profession for a government policy”; similar Stephen Walt. And, some prominent dissent- views prevailed among Gaddis’s political sci- ers notwithstanding, it commands widespread ence colleagues.12 The policymakers, in other adherence within the academy. words, concluded that NATO expansion was The gap is even wider when it comes to an- a strategic necessity; the scholars sided with other critical issue: the concept of credibility. George Kennan—the quintessential policy- Since the early Cold War, U.S. policymakers maker turned academic—in deeming it “a have worried that if Washington fails to honor fateful error.”13 one commitment today, then adversaries and The clashes were even sharper over the deci- allies will doubt the sanctity of other commit- sion to invade Iraq in 2003. That decision was, ments tomorrow. Such concerns have exerted admittedly, contentious even within the policy a profound impact on U.S. policy; America world, but the Bush Administration—as well

46 THE AMERICAN INTEREST THE REAL GAP as most foreign policy elites, and significant A second and related possibility is that poli- bipartisan majorities in the Congress—ulti- cymakers are just not interested in reasoned de- mately resolved that war was the only way of bate. Some scholars of American grand strategy disarming a dangerous and implacable adver- claim that, since any clear-eyed assessment re- sary. That conclusion, however, was vocifer- veals the wisdom of retrenchment, policymak- ously rejected by most international relations ers resist this conclusion only because they are scholars, who argued that Saddam was not an gripped by liberal ideology, compromised by imminent threat, that he could be contained bureaucratic or professional self-interest, or in and deterred at an acceptable price, and that thrall to political interest groups. Likewise, ac- war was likely to be very costly and unleash ademic critics of the Iraq War have sometimes a flood of unwelcome consequences. Several asserted that the policy community’s argu- dozen leading academics bought a full-page ments for confronting Saddam were mislead- ad in the New York Times to make their case; ing or downright dishonest, and that the war hundreds of additional international relations was waged not on the basis of hard facts but scholars later signed a letter calling the invasion on irrational fears or hidden motives.16 Schol- the “most misguided policy since Vietnam.”14 ars and policymakers disagree, in other words, Across an array of enormously consequen- because scholars care about objective analysis tial issues, then, the policy and scholarly com- and policymakers don’t. munities have often found themselves at log- Alas, this explanation probably reveals more gerheads. There are, of course, issues of war about academic arrogance and condescension and peace on which one can find greater agree- than it does about the gap. There have been ment between these two groups, and neither cases, such as the Iraq War, in which scholars community was—or is—fully monolithic on were more prescient than the policy commu- any of the issues discussed here. But the basic nity, although the idea that policymakers were pattern remains. The gap between academics driven by nefarious motives was always ris- and policymakers is real, it is profound, and it ible.17 But it is not self-evident that the scholars is deeply substantive in nature. The question is have been right and the policymakers wrong how to explain it. on many of the issues considered here. There is a credible intellectual case, for in- ne potential answer goes back to the idea stance, that one key reason why Europe did not Oof a failure to communicate. Perhaps the quickly revert to an unstable, violent multipo- academics have been unable to get their argu- larity after the Cold War—as leading scholars ments before the policy community, and so such as Mearsheimer predicted—was that the policymakers have not been exposed to their persistence and expansion of NATO helped wisdom. This would be reassuring, at least for stifle destabilizing influences.18 There is a the academics, if true; unfortunately, it is not. similarly credible case that a capacious Ameri- On most of the issues discussed here, the barri- can grand strategy, although costly and often ers that frequently impede communication be- frustrating to manage, has for decades muted tween policymakers and scholars simply have security competitions in key regions and thus not been present. Academics have made their prevented the emergence of a more dangerous arguments in major newspapers and policy international environment that would require journals; they have written in admirably intel- far greater U.S. resources to manage. ligible English; they have entered policy de- And, as William Wohlforth has noted, bates in a timely fashion. Academic critiques there are myriad instances in which academics of NATO expansion, for instance, began to themselves have gotten it wrong. Most schol- appear several years before that initiative was arly observers warned that seeking German consummated, and the Clinton Administra- reunification within NATO in 1989-90 would tion was well aware of them.15 Policymakers precipitate catastrophic upheaval; it was the have not been oblivious to well-reasoned aca- policymakers who understood that rapid re- demic arguments; those arguments have sim- unification within NATO was the best way of ply failed to carry the day. averting such turmoil.19 Analysts could debate

AUTUMN (SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER) 2017 47 ACADEMENTIA at length which group has had a better bat- system is an end in itself, then perhaps nuclear ting average over the years, but the idea that proliferation is a good thing, because it might academics have the answers and policymakers foster mutual deterrence between foes like refuse to listen just doesn’t hold up. Washington and Moscow during the Cold The gap, then, is not a product of policy- War, or Washington and Tehran today. For makers’ ignorance or biases, welcome as that policymakers, however, such stability is un- idea might be to academics. It results, rather, desirable. American officials don’t want to be from the fact that academics and policymakers deterred by U.S. adversaries; they don’t want operate according to very different intellectual enemies capable of checking American power paradigms that lead to very different ways of by threatening U.S. territory with devastating viewing the world. These paradigms reflect the nuclear strikes. They want maximum freedom divergent imperatives and intellectual perspec- of action in dealing with those adversaries, and tives that shape the two communities’ work, to be able to contain and if necessary defeat and they can best be understood by consider- them at the lowest possible cost. Secretary of ing several key dynamics that frequently set State Dean Rusk once put it well: “It was al- scholars and policymakers at odds. most in the nature of nuclear weapons that if someone had them, he did not want others to have them.”20 What’s good for the system may Citizens of America or not always be good for America. This tension Citizens of the World? is one key contributor to the gap. t an academic conference on nuclear A statecraft I attended some years ago, one American Power: For Good or Ill? discussion regarding the effects of nuclear pro- liferation turned on whether one assessed the second and closely related dynamic in- issue as a citizen of the United States or as an Avolves sharply contrasting views of Ameri- analyst of the “international system.” The con- can power. Almost without exception, policy- sensus answer was that scholars are first and makers see the United States as Harry Truman foremost citizens of the world; they should be once described it—as “one of the most pow- less concerned with the parochial American erful forces for good on earth.”21 There have perspective. been mistakes and excesses over the years, poli- That makes sense for individuals whose pro- cymakers would admit, but American power fessional remit is not to advance U.S. interests, and policy have largely been on the side of the but to study—as disinterestedly as possible— angels in promoting freedom, advancing pros- big, conceptual questions about how the world perity, and shaping a better world. works. It makes particular sense for structural Many scholars, by contrast, have a more realists, who locate answers to these questions skeptical view of American power. They see not in the policies of individual states but in patriotic fervor as the enemy of objectivity, and power imbalances and other structural char- they commonly believe that no great power can acteristics of the international system. Yet for be as exceptional and benign as American of- policymakers, this approach makes no sense at ficials claim. Their skepticism also reflects the all. Policymakers are not citizens of the world; lingering ideological fallout from Vietnam and they are advocates for the United States. The later Iraq, conflicts that caused deep ruptures intellectually curious ones may be interested between academia and government, and con- in the workings of the international system, vinced many scholars that America was itself a but they are primarily and properly concerned dangerous, destabilizing actor in global affairs. with advancing U.S. interests, and tend to Leaving aside the question of who is right, value abstract concepts like stability and peace these conflicting perspectives push scholars only insofar as they advance those interests. and policymakers in radically different direc- This distinction is critical when it comes tions. Policymakers tend to believe that the as- to nuclear proliferation. If the stability of the sertive use of U.S. power will have benign and

48 THE AMERICAN INTEREST THE REAL GAP broadly beneficial effects: That belief has been taken that averted awful consequences—if central to forward-leaning initiatives from only because once thwarted the consequences NATO expansion to the invasion of Iraq to can never be proved.”23 the preference for a globally ambitious grand Such considerations weigh heavily on strategy. Many scholars, conversely, prefer to policymakers in ways academics often find constrain American power—whether through difficult to grasp. In the 1990s, Clinton Ad- self-abnegation in the form of grand strategic ministration officials were hardly blind to retrenchment, or through constraints im- the potential costs of NATO expansion, but posed from without in the form of nuclear they also had to consider the potential costs proliferation. of not expanding NATO. Instability in East- For if Washington is, as Kenneth Waltz ern Europe? Tensions between Germany and once wrote, an aggressive power “fond of its eastern neighbors? Nuclear proliferation beating up poor and weak states,” then de- by historically insecure states such as Poland? velopments that make it harder for America “Many threats to European stability seemed to play the global bully are welcome.22 If very real,” one insider later recalled.24 American dominance and immoderation To take another example, in 2002-03 the lead to destabilizing behavior, then American Bush Administration certainly underestimated power should be balanced. If the notion of the costs of action against Ba‘athi Iraq. But “credibility” has spurred America to under- academics frequently missed just how much take unwise interventions in the past, then the Administration feared the possible con- that concept must itself be discredited. In sequences of inaction: unconstrained Iraqi sum, if scholars and policymakers disagree on WMD programs, an eroding sanctions and the first-order question of whether American inspections regime, opportunities for coopera- power is usually used for good or for ill, then tion between Iraq and various terrorist proxies. it is hardly surprising that they differ on so Indeed, given that 9/11 had demonstrated the many policy matters. potentially horrific consequences of inaction against another enemy, it would have been odd indeed had the Bush Administration not been Costs of Action Versus preoccupied with avoiding another catastroph- ic failure of omission.25 Costs of Inaction In the case of Iraq, of course, the costs of ac- any academic critiques of government tion turned out to be far higher than the likely Mpolicy focus on the costs of U.S. ac- costs of inaction, largely because Saddam’s ca- tion in foreign affairs—the costs of invading pabilities were themselves overestimated and Iraq, expanding NATO, maintaining a globe- the aftermath of the invasion was bungled. spanning grand strategy. Scholars are naturally But the basic intellectual divergence remains: drawn to this sort of accounting because the Academics have the luxury of focusing on the costs of action tend to be concrete and quanti- disasters caused by U.S. policy, while govern- fiable (lives lost, dollars spent). At the very least ment officials must also consider the disasters they are usually observable (relations with Rus- that decisive action might avert. sia degraded). Yet this approach often distracts scholars from something that policymakers in- tuitively understand: that there are also costs Cutting Cleanly Versus of inaction. Those costs can be just as severe as the costs of action, but they are far harder to Muddling Through measure because they are necessarily prospec- he academic enterprise rewards sharp, tive, and, if the policy succeeds, they never ma- Tstrongly argued analyses that come down terialize. As Henry Kissinger, the quintessen- cleanly on one side of a given debate. Few pro- tial academic-turned-policymaker, once wrote, fessional points are awarded for splitting the “Mankind will never know what it was spared difference or straddling a divide; the articles because of risks avoided or because of actions and books that have the most impact and gar-

AUTUMN (SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER) 2017 49 ACADEMENTIA ner the most citations are often those that make one might like or expect. In academia, the el- provocative arguments in plausibly persuasive egance and parsimony of the concept is what fashion. Policymakers, for their part, believe counts, and the challenges of implementation that wisdom—or at least prudence—often are an afterthought. Simplifying assumptions resides in splitting differences and muddling can be made, practical constraints ignored, through. They recognize that uncertainty is inconvenient political realities buried in a plentiful and hedging useful; they seek not to footnote. In academia, the idea must work in foreclose options but to keep them open for as theory; in policy, it must work in practice. long as possible; they hope that nuanced state- As a result, policymakers are often skepti- craft can mitigate the drawbacks inherent in a cal of the bold ideas scholars proffer. Realist given approach. academics might advocate a grand strategy The NATO expansion debate is a clas- that leaves human rights and democracy pro- sic example of this divide. Most academics motion by the wayside; most political leaders insisted that Washington had an either/or understand that such a brutally amoral real- choice: It could either conciliate and inte- politik—whatever its geopolitical merits— grate Russia, which meant foregoing NATO cannot long survive in the American system. expansion, or it could expand NATO and Offshore balancers confidently assert that poison the relationship with Moscow.26 But America should withdraw all of its troops policymakers treated this as a false choice, from key theaters and then quickly return if a and so pursued a strategy that involved ex- threat emerges; policymakers understand that panding NATO while also seeking to pre- the diplomatic, logistical, political, and mili- serve decent U.S.-Russian relations. They tary difficulties of doing so are daunting and made it clear that Russia had no veto on perhaps insuperable. Scholars downplay the NATO membership policies, yet they simul- near-term instability that American retrench- taneously lavished attention and praise on ment will create by touting the supposed Boris Yeltsin, brought Moscow into the G-7, longer-term benefits; policymakers cannot APEC, and other institutions, helped keep ignore the tumult and violence that generally the Russian economy afloat through bilat- accompany the transition from one interna- eral aid and IMF and World Bank lending, tional order to another. and established new forums to provide Rus- Similarly, with respect to nuclear prolif- sia with greater involvement within NATO. eration, scholars can predict—on the basis of Academics derided this approach as wishful neorealist theory—that stable deterrence will thinking; in retrospect, they may well have take hold if Iran or other U.S. adversaries get been right. But policymakers might well the bomb. But policymakers understand that, have responded that their approach made in the past, nuclear stability between rivals has sense—in a world characterized by imperfect often emerged only after a series of danger- choices and considerable uncertainty—as a ous crises—such as the U.S.-Soviet crises over way of achieving one goal without prema- Berlin and Cuba during the early 1960s—and turely foreclosing another. they question how well deterrence can work in a region as congested and volatile as the Middle East. Academics see no problem super- The Elegance of Theory Versus imposing the Cold War deterrence model onto a region that hardly resembles the U.S.-Soviet the Messiness of Reality environment; policymakers intuitively realize n the policy world, beautiful concepts that this is a bad idea. Icount for little. The key question is wheth- It is thus ironic that academic critics of U.S. er any concept can actually be implemented policy so often claim the mantle of realism. amid imperfect information, the constraints From the policymaker’s perspective, true real- imposed by bureaucracy and politics, and the ism often lies in recognizing the constraints general messiness of a world in which neither and complexities that bring high-flown con- adversaries nor allies ever behave precisely as cepts down to earth.

50 THE AMERICAN INTEREST THE REAL GAP

Probabilistic Judgments Versus that it was not the likelihood but the magni- Worst-Case Scenarios tude of a potential threat that mattered most. For scholars, a solid probabilistic judgment is t its best, academic theory generates reli- good enough; for policymakers, it is only the A able probabilistic judgments about how beginning of the analysis. the world works—ideas that explain or pre- dict most of what happens, even if they don’t account for everything. But policymakers are Rational Choice less concerned with general propositions than with imminent particularities. “Analysis . . . in an Irrational World seeks principles of general validity,” Kissinger ost international relations scholarship wrote, whereas “effective policy fits its mea- Mproceeds from the “rational choice” sures to circumstances.”27 Scholars, in other model, which assumes that all states act on words, are hedgehogs, seeking to formulate the basis of their objective interests, and that one encompassing idea about the international their behavior is thus fairly predictable. Coun- system; policymakers are foxes, concerned tries do not commit suicide; regimes and lead- with the distinctive characteristics of each situ- ers do not knowingly pursue courses of action ation. And whereas social scientists are primar- that jeopardize their own survival. Policymak- ily concerned with trends rather than outliers, ers know from their own experience, however, policymakers must continually be preoccupied that rational choice does not always prevail with low-probability events that could have in an irrational world. Ideology, politics, and outsized, even catastrophic, consequences if other factors distort leaders’ choices; adversar- they occur.28 ies make decisions that, if not irrational, are Scholars can thus take a fairly relaxed view of nu- clear proliferation Rational choice may be a good point because, in general, nuclear deterrence of departure for understanding works. Policymak- the world, but there is too much it ers have to consider whether this might simply doesn’t explain. be the case in which it doesn’t. Schol- ars could argue in 2002-03 that it was extremely unlikely that certainly puzzling. How else to explain the fact Saddam would use his suspected WMD ca- that the Soviet Union acquiesced in its own pabilities against America or distribute them dismemberment—thereby violating every te- to terrorists. Policymakers had to ask whether net of realist theory—when it still retained the Saddam—who was exceptional in so many re- military power to hold onto its empire? How spects—might be an outlier in this regard as else to explain the fact that Saddam Hussein well. did not fully come clean regarding his WMD Moreover, in the wake of another high-im- programs in 2002-03, when it seemed clear pact, low-probability event that few observers to everyone else in the world that the survival had anticipated, how could policymakers not of his regime, as well as his own personal sur- conclude that even fairly remote but horrify- vival, hinged on it? Rational choice may be a ing dangers had to be confronted more ag- good point of departure for understanding the gressively than before? This was the essence world, but there is too much it simply doesn’t of Vice President Cheney’s “one percent doc- explain. trine”—the idea that, in a post-9/11 world, one How do these clashing perspectives in- had to credit the dangers of potential outliers, fluence the gap? Consider, again, the case of

AUTUMN (SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER) 2017 51 ACADEMENTIA nuclear proliferation. Scholars can argue that their conclusions on empirical evidence that can an Iranian bomb is unlikely ever to be used be gathered and measured. or even aggressively brandished, because ra- These differing epistemologies lead to dif- tional Iranian leaders understand that such fering conclusions on the issue of credibil- recklessness could invite national obliteration. ity. Scholars are skeptical that “credibility” Yet policymakers—who see the viscerally an- and “reputation” really matter, because these ti-American ideology that drives the Iranian concepts are ultimately states of mind and regime, and who intuitively understand that are thus difficult to measure. (The fact that escalatory pressures can be severe even when measuring them requires getting inside the escalation is not desired—find such assur- heads of foreign policymakers only adds to ances not entirely reassuring. the difficulty.) Most policymakers, however, Or consider the Iraq War. Leading academ- find this skepticism bemusing. They know ic theorists were dismayed that the Bush Ad- that credibility matters from their experi- ministration failed to grasp that Saddam would ence of allies and adversaries constantly try- be deterred from using his WMD or handing ing to assess how seriously the United States them off to terrorists because he would, surely, treats its commitments, and because it seems understand that such an act would bring about commonsensical that how a nation—or a the destruction of his regime. Yet leading U.S. person—behaves today has some bearing on officials knew just how rashly and violently perceptions of how it will behave tomorrow. Saddam had behaved in the past, and America If the United States fails to enforce a red line had just been dealt a staggering blow by an en- in Syria, or wavers in its response to Chinese emy that was indeed suicidal. In these circum- salami-slicing in the South China Sea, then stances, the Bush Administration—rightly of course friends and foes will wonder what or wrongly—found it impossible to stake na- Washington will do the next time one of its tional security on the presumption that Sad- positions is challenged. In other words, the dam would behave in cautious and predictable fact that credibility is elusive may make it less ways. Presumptions of rationality are critical real to scholars who rely on hard data—but to international relations scholarship, for few not to policymakers who place their faith in theories can work without them. Yet they of- experience and common sense. fer only so much comfort to policymakers who know how crazy the world can be. Accountability Versus Impunity Experience Versus Empiricism tephen Walt, one of the premier interna- Stional relations scholars of his generation, n the 1990s, Paul Nitze acidly observed that, has argued that bad ideas persist in the poli- Iwhile political science might be intellectually cy community because policymakers are not impressive, too often it was “contrary to experi- punished for their mistakes.30 That assertion ence and to common sense.”29 As Nitze’s com- seems ludicrous to policymakers, because it ment indicates, policymakers place great value gets things precisely backwards. If a tenured on their own experience in assessing the interna- academic makes a bad prediction or advocates tional environment; they are often skeptical of a wrongheaded policy, no real-world conse- the work of academics who have never faced the quences ensue. Walt’s sometimes co-author, same dilemmas. They invest real significance in John Mearsheimer, paid no professional price common-sense propositions about how states for predicting that NATO would break up interact; they are less taken by deeply researched after the Cold War; he even gained consider- or elegantly theorized accounts that run counter able prominence by wrongly forecasting that to experience or basic geopolitical logic. Aca- Europe would return to a Hobbesian state of demics, on the other hand, are dubious of poli- nature once the superpower conflict ended. cymakers’ experience or received wisdom as a Policymakers, however, are painfully aware guide to how the world works; they seek to base that their own misjudgments can cause cata-

52 THE AMERICAN INTEREST THE REAL GAP strophic results. Lives may be lost, resources such a bad thing. Academia and policy rep- squandered, the national interest impaired— resent two different intellectual cultures for to say nothing of reputations and careers ru- a reason, which is that they exist to fulfill ined. This is perhaps the most fundamental different societal functions. And intellectual intellectual difference between academics and diversity and even intellectual tension is usu- policymakers—the impunity that comes with ally a blessing, not a curse, in addressing any being an inhabitant of the ivory tower versus important subject; there is wisdom, or at least the responsibility that comes with having a po- insight, in the approaches taken by scholars sition of real decision-making authority—and and policymakers alike. The gap could be it matters greatly to the gap. narrowed if it were possible to turn academics It is easy for academics to advocate dra- into policymakers or policymakers into aca- matic, epochal shifts in U.S. grand strategy, demics, but a great deal would undoubtedly because they bear no ultimate responsibility if be lost in the bargain. the world reverts to a more violent and dan- What would be helpful in rendering the gerous state. Policymakers are naturally more inevitable intellectual tension more construc- circumspect because they are responsible for tive than confounding, however, is for both the consequences of such an enormously risky grand strate- gic experiment. It is easy for scholars to Intellectual diversity and even blithely assert that intellectual tension is usually things will be fine if Iran gets the world’s a blessing, not a curse, in most destructive addressing any important subject. weapons, but poli- cymakers charged with protecting U.S. security and regional interests cannot reasonably do the sides—especially the academics—to achieve a same. It is easy for scholars to urge that U.S. more explicit understanding of the intellectual policymakers confronted with a severe inter- barriers that often stand athwart a closer rela- national crisis should just forget about cred- tionship. Doing so will not lead to perfect con- ibility. Government officials charged with de- ceptual harmony between philosophers and terring adversaries, sustaining a global alliance kings, but it could engender more intellectually network, and preventing the next crisis cannot constructive dialogues that get to the analyti- be so cavalier. Walt is thus right, albeit in an cal nub of the disagreements between the two ironic way. There is indeed an accountability communities. It could also foster greater empa- gap, and it makes all the difference. thy between groups that both care passionately The academia-policy gap will persist, then, about the issues they confront. because of the conflicting intellectual traditions The unhappy alternative is that scholars and imperatives that cause these communities and policymakers will be doomed to mutual to disagree so profoundly on so many critical incomprehension, continuing to talk past issues. This persistence will undoubtedly be a each other because they are operating from source of frustration for those—on both sides different first principles and worldviews. At of the gap—who seek a closer relationship be- a time when the United States needs every tween the world of thought and the world of bit of intellectual firepower it can muster to action, and particularly for academics who wish deal with an increasingly challenging world, policymakers would take them more seriously. neither academics nor decision-makers—nor But the fact that the two groups see the the nation they both care about—would find same world so disparately is not, in itself, such estrangement rewarding.

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Endnotes 1Nye, “Scholars on the Sidelines,” Washington 16See, for instance, Chaim Kaufmann, “Threat Infla- Post, April 13, 2009. tion and the Failure of the Marketplace of Ideas: 2Daniel Maliniak, Amy Oakes, Susan Peterson, and The Selling of the Iraq War,” International Secu- Michael Tierney, “Inside the Ivory Tower,” Foreign rity (Summer 2004). Policy (March/April 2009). 17Also, most academics did not challenge the essential 3Robert Gallucci, “Academia and the Foreign Policy- premise of the war—that Saddam had active and Making Process,” MacArthur Foundation, May 7, advancing WMD programs. 2014. 18As Mearsheimer himself later admitted. Com- 4Nicholas Kristof, “Professors, We Need You!” New pare Mearsheimer, “Why We Will Soon Miss York Times, February 15, 2014. the Cold War,” Atlantic Monthly (August 1990); 5Maliniak, Peterson, and Tierny, TRIP Around the with Mearsheimer, “Why Is Europe Peaceful To- World: Teaching, Research, and Policy Views of In- day?” European Political Science (September 2010). ternational Relations in 20 Countries (Teaching, 19William Wohlforth, “How Did the Experts Do?” in Research, and International Policy Project, 2012), Melvyn Leffler and Jeffrey Legro, eds., In Uncer- p. 66. tain Times: American Foreign Policy After the Berlin 6Paul Avey and Michael Desch, “What Do Policy- Wall and 9/11 (Cornell University Press, 2011). makers Want from Us? Results of a Survey of Cur- 20Quoted in Francis Gavin, “Politics, History and the rent and Former Senior National Security Deci- Ivory Tower-Policy Gap in the Nuclear Prolifera- sion Makers,” International Studies Quarterly (June tion Debate,” Journal of Strategic Studies (August 2014), p. 228. 2012), p. 587. 7Gates, Speech at Association of American Universi- 21Truman, “Address Before a Joint Session of Con- ties, April 14, 2008. gress,” April 16, 1945. 8John Mearsheimer, “The Case for a Ukrainian Nu- 22Scott Sagan and Kenneth Waltz, The Spread of clear Deterrent,” Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993). Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate (Norton, 9Kenneth Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More 2013). May Be Better (International Institute for Strategic 23Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Little, Brown Studies, 1981); Waltz, “Why Iran Should Get the and Company, 1979), p. 55. Bomb,” Foreign Affairs (July/August 2012). 24Stephen Sestanovich, “Could It Have Been Other- 10See Hal Brands, “U.S. Grand Strategy: Not So Bad wise?” The American Interest (May/June 2015). After All,” The American Interest (January/Febru- 25See Douglas Feith, War and Decision: Inside the Pen- ary 2017). tagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism (Harp- 11For policymaker views and the scholarly response, erCollins, 2015). see Daryl Press, Calculating Credibility: How 26See Bruce Russett and Allan Stam, “Courting Di- Leaders Assess Military Threats (Cornell University saster: An Expanded NATO vs. Russia and Chi- Press, 2005). na,” Political Science Quarterly (Autumn 1998); 12Gaddis, “The Senate Should Halt NATO Expan- Charles Kupchan, “Expand NATO—and Split sion,” New York Times, April 27, 1998. Europe,” New York Times, November 27, 1998. 13Kennan, “A Fateful Error,” New York Times, Febru- 27Kissinger, “The Policymaker and the Intellectu- ary 5, 1997. al,” The Reporter, March 5, 1959, p. 34. 14Jim Lobe, “Security Scholars Say Iraq War Most 28The fox/hedgehog distinction has been made, most Misguided Policy Since Vietnam,” OneWorld, Oc- recently, in Philip Tetlock, Expert Political Judg- tober 12, 2014; “War with Iraq Is Not in America’s ment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? (Princ- National Interest,” New York Times, September 26, eton University Press, 2006). 2002; also John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, 29Nitze, Tension Between Opposites: Reflections on “An Unnecessary War,” Foreign Policy (January/ the Practice and Theory of Politics (Scribner, February 2003). 1993), p. 3. 15Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand: A Memoir of Presi- 30Stephen Walt, “Where Do Bad Ideas Come From? dential Diplomacy (Random House, 2003), pp. And Why Don’t They Go Away?” Foreign Poli- 231–2. cy, January 3, 2011.

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