Number 133 • Sept/Oct 2014 • $8.95 Paul J. Saunders Obama’s No Realist David A. Bell Hobsbawm’s Elitism Tim Montgomerie Britain’s Tea Party Fixing Fragile States www.nationalinterest.org Dennis Blair, Ronald Neumann and Eric Olson KISSINGER’S VISION How to Restore World Order by Jacob Heilbrunn Number 133 . September/October 2014 The Realist 5 The Wanderer by Paul J. Saunders Is President Obama truly a realist? Not a chance. In the absence of an overarching strategy, his pragmatism in isolated cases doesn’t build toward any larger objectives. Articles 11 Fixing Fragile States by Dennis Blair, Ronald Neumann and Eric Olson Despite thirteen years of American operations in fragile states, there have been few changes in our cumbersome, inefficient and ineffective approach to interagency operations in the field. The time for reform is now. 21 The Eternal Collapse of Russia by Paul Starobin Despite centuries of dire predictions, Russia isn’t going anywhere. Critics tend to exaggerate its ailments or fail to place them in proper context. 30 Britain’s Tea Party by Tim Montgomerie United Kingdom Independence Party leader Nigel Farage poses a dire threat to the British establishment. He’s gaining support by arguing that native, patriotic Britons are victims of a smug political class that has surrendered the nation to immigrants, rule by Brussels and self-serving elites. 37 Limited War Is Back by Jakub Grygiel and A. Wess Mitchell nato needs to rearm and defend itself to cope with a new military threat. For Europe to rely on the American security umbrella—in both its conventional and nuclear forms—is no longer tenable. 45 Europe’s Peripheral Vision by Milton Ezrati If France and the nations of Europe’s beleaguered periphery fail to enact fundamental fiscalreform, they will remain economic basket cases, dependent on Germany and subject to its demands. 53 The New Interventionism by David C. Hendrickson From a self-consciously conservative power in the early years of the Cold War, the United States has now fully emerged as a revolutionary actor in the twenty-first century. 59 A Tale of Two AUMFs by Robert Golan-Vilella The force authorizations behind the Iraq War and the “war on terror” have both evolved in ways their authors never envisioned. Congress should repeal the former and significantly revise the latter. Reviews & Essays 67 Kissinger’s Counsel by Jacob Heilbrunn In his new book World Order, Henry Kissinger offers a sweeping guide to the rise of the modern state system. Establishing a stable balance of power remains as imperative today as it was in the era of Westphalia. 76 Bourgeois Hobsbawm by David A. Bell The famous British historian Eric Hobsbawm attracted notoriety for his attachment to international Communism. But he was also profoundly, if paradoxically, bourgeois, and in a distinctly Jewish way. 83 Rebels Who Had a Cause by Barry Gewen Vaclav Havel and Adam Michnik fought totalitarianism. After the Iron Curtain fell, however, post-Communist Eastern Europe, with its Hieronymus Bosch panorama of greed, corruption, hedonism and cynicism, gave these former revolutionaries much to be disillusioned about. 89 Perlstein’s Bridge to Nowhere by Geoffrey Kabaservice Rick Perlstein’s The Invisible Bridge seeks to provide a definitive account of the transition from Richard M. Nixon to Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately, his suspicion-versus-innocence framework is too simplistic to explain the rise of modern conservatism. Images Flickr: page 8; Ford Library: page 68; Shutterstock: pages 23, 26, 49, 78, 87; Wikimedia Commons: pages 16, 36, 40, 58, 63, 72, 91, 96 Published by The Center for the National Interest Charles G. Boyd Chairman Maurice R. Greenberg Chairman Emeritus Henry A. Kissinger Honorary Chairman Jacob Heilbrunn Editor Dimitri K. Simes Publisher & CEO Harry J. Kazianis Managing Editor Paul J. Saunders Associate Publisher Robert Golan-Vilella Associate Managing Editor John Allen Gay Assistant Managing Editor Advisory Council Rebecca M. Miller Assistant Editor Richard Burt Chairman Morton Abramowitz Political Editor Graham Allison Robert W. Merry Conrad Black Ahmed Charai Contributing Editors Leslie H. Gelb Aram Bakshian Jr. Evan G. Greenberg Ian Bremmer Gary Hart Ted Galen Carpenter Zalmay Khalilzad Christian Caryl Kishore Mahbubani Amitai Etzioni John J. Mearsheimer Nikolas K. Gvosdev Richard Plepler Bruce Hoffman Alexey Pushkov Michael Lind Brent Scowcroft Paul R. Pillar Ruth Wedgwood Kenneth M. Pollack J. Robinson West David Rieff Dov S. Zakheim Cover Design: Emma Hansen Owen Harries Editor Emeritus Cover Image: ©Roman Märzinger/ Robert W. Tucker Editor Emeritus Westend61/Corbis Editorial Office The National Interest, 1025 Connecticut Ave, nw, Suite 1200, Washington, dc 20036. Telephone: (202) 467-4884, Fax: (202) 467-0006, Email: [email protected], Website: http://nationalinterest.org Subscription Office Postmaster and subscribers please send address changes and subscription orders to: The National Interest, P.O. Box 1081, Selmer, tn 38375. Telephone: (856) 380-4130; (800) 344-7952. Email: [email protected]. Rate: $39.95/year. Please add $5/ year for Canada and $20/year for other international deliveries. The National Interest (ISSN 0884-9382) is published bimonthly by the Center for the National Interest. Articles are abstracted and indexed in P.A.I.S., Historical Abstracts, International Political Science Abstracts, U.S. Political Science Documents, Political Science Abstracts and America: History and Life; articles are available on microfilm from University Microfilms International, and archived on Lexis-Nexis. Periodicals postage is paid at Washington, dc, and at additional mailing offices. ©2014 by The National Interest, Inc. The National Interest is printed by Fry Communications, Inc. It is distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Ingram Periodicals (18 Ingram Blvd., La Vergne, tn 37086; 615-793-5522). The Realist in the White House Emergency Public The Wanderer Relations Bunker that one can too easily imagine the administration building By Paul J. Saunders immediately beneath the Situation Room for its most important decision making. Still, it is not difficult to see how the image s President Barack Obama a foreign- of foreign-policy realism could appeal to the policy realist? For most of his time president and his communications team—it in office, both his supporters and his has provided superficial intellectual and detractors have said that he is—and political legitimacy to Obama’s frequently Iuntil very recently, Obama did not dispute expressed desire to concentrate on “nation it. On the contrary, the White House often building at home.” It likewise helped aggressively cultivated the image of the pres- the administration to justify avoiding ident as a steely-eyed pragmatist judiciously undue involvement in complex and making tough calls on both international time-consuming international problems, and domestic policy. Nevertheless, in his especially those inherited from former May commencement speech at West Point, president George W. Bush, whose legacy the Obama finally distanced himself from this, White House has publicly repudiated but saying that “according to self-described re- quietly continued in many respects. alists, conflicts in Syria or Ukraine or the Want to get out of Iraq? Pivot to Asia Central African Republic are not ours to instead—it’s more strategically important. solve” and that this view is inadequate to Need to withdraw from Afghanistan? “the demands of this moment.” We’ve done all we can there. Hope to stay If we take President Obama at his word out of further wars in the Middle East? that he is not a realist—and there are good Negotiate with Iran and use Congress as reasons to do so—his administration’s an excuse to stay out of Syria. Americans long flirtation with foreign-policy realism frustrated with Bush’s expensive choices and especially with the Left’s “progressive were understandably tempted. realists” raises two important questions. In the end, however, the White House First, why were the president and his public-relations operation was too clever advisers comfortable with longtime and by half. The administration could not widely held perceptions that he was a really explain why it was prepared to use realist? Second, what changed their minds? force in Libya but not Syria, especially Answering these questions with any after President Bashar al-Assad appeared to certainty would require a front-row seat cross Obama’s “red line” by using chemical weapons. More recently, Obama’s carefully Paul J. Saunders is executive director of the Center built reputation for caution became a for the National Interest and associate publisher of growing liability after his oratorically The National Interest. strong but factually weak response to The Realist September/October 2014 5 Realism is much more than pragmatism; confusing the two is one of the most fundamental and enduring errors in America’s foreign-policy debates. Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Iraq’s with a deep understanding of American sudden vulnerability to the militant group power and in service of a strategy based on branding itself the Islamic State—and the American national interests. Obama is not administration’s struggle to respond—made a realist because his policies typically start matters worse by simultaneously calling and stop with the pragmatic and even the into question the abrupt U.S. withdrawal in opportunistic. He appears to have excessive 2011 and the bizarre policy of undermining faith in international norms, little real stability on one side of the Iraq-Syria appreciation of power’s uses and limits, and border while trying to preserve it on the minimal interest in foreign policy, much other. The president and his team needed less American international strategy. to come up with a new rationale for his Obama’s repeated efforts to contrast the policies that would sound reasonable, twenty-first century with the nineteenth explain when his administration would century highlight his inordinate attachment use force and when it wouldn’t, and rebut to rules and norms in an environment of interventionist criticism of his purportedly international anarchy where there is no “realist” approach.