Teddy Roosevelt ; Power politics, Teddy Roosevelt ; Power politics, etc. What the heck do these two have in common? It turns out quite a lot. According to Edmund Morris’s Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt’, America’s 26th president was an ambitious man who strongly believed the United States should claim its rightful place as a power among nations and helped makes this come to fruition around the turn of the 20th century. ‘Rise’, which is the first of what is expected to be a 3 volume set, does not even cover a day of Roosevelt’s presidency (covered in ‘Theodore Rex’), but much can be learned about the US as a rising power by following the triumphant rise of Theodore the student, rancher, state legislator, colonel, Governor, and Teddy the Vice President. In fact, Morris portrays Roosevelt’s rise to power and greatness as inevitable and it is not too far fetched to believe that the reader should see Ol’ Teddy as a metaphor for the United States as a whole.

“No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumphs of war”

Growing up in New York City, Theodore Roosevelt came from a privileged background and was also able to travel to Britain, all over Europe, North Africa, and the Levant in his youth. He had an affinity for naval history throughout his life and fostered a close friendship with none other than Alfred Thayer Mahan, probably the most influential naval strategist in modern times. Mahan promoted a strong navy, which would be used as a projection of power tool in global affairs and Roosevelt couldn’t agree more. Roosevelt would serve as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President McKinley and helped put this policy into practice.

However, Roosevelt’s stay in Department of the Navy was short lived as much to his delight the United States was to enter a war with Spain over the Spanish-controlled colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. This was to be the Spanish-American war of 1898 and after a clear American victory, the United States not only found itself with imperial colonies of its own, but also as a great power player that would not leave the world stage ever again (while at least up until 2010). Roosevelt, besides being a major hawk pushing for the war, helped train and lead the eccentric military regiment, the so-called Rough Riders, into the successful defeat of the Spanish in Cuba. The pathetic details of the lack of training and professionalism of the whole American military at this time, especially the Rough Riders, is hard to believe. At the time, the US was anything but a well-polished military machine. Without a professional army, groups like the Rough Riders, a mix of western cowboys and Harvard intellectuals, had to created, drilled, and organized along with other fighting units in a very short period. Nevertheless, despite some setbacks, Roosevelt’s Rough Riders (march on San Juan Hill) and the American Navy (clearly outclassed the Spaniards in the Pacific) showed itself more than a match for a fading Spanish power. That’s great powers for ya, either you’re up or you’re down.

“It is through strife, or the readiness for strife, that a nation must win greatness”

To cover the ‘Speak softly, Carry a big stick’ presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, I’ll have to get through ‘Theodore Rex’, which is on my bookshelf right now (right next to The Onion’s ‘Our Dumb World’). Ironically, the bombastic, always looking for a challenge Teddy Roosevelt had a rather peaceful two-terms as president. Morris’s ‘Rise’ was an intriguing, in-depth look (almost 800 pages) at one America’s greatest men and one can’t help but come away with a more clear picture of a nation coming into it’s own on the world stage.

The philosophical influences of President Barack Obama, like all the American presidents before him, has a critical impact on how his administration sees international relations and accordingly sets forth a foreign policy to match. The main arguments one hears regarding Obama’s foreign affair’s viewpoint are whether or not he is a realist, liberal internationalist, or something in between. Scholar Walter Russell Mead offers up a deeper analysis of the current president, one steeped in American history and culture. Mead sees American foreign policy sprouting forth from four schools, all named after influential American figures: Jeffersonian, Hamiltonian, Jacksonian, and Wilsonian. Mead describes these four schools and how they each have helped the United States rise from a tepid and weak group of colonies to the superpower we see today in his fantastic work ‘Special Providence‘.

Back to President Obama. Mead has just published a significant piece on how he views the current president in terms of the aforementioned four schools of US foreign policy outlooks. Mead sees Obama as a leader with split personalities (nothing surprising as most Americans, including our leaders, share many aspects and beliefs from 2 to 3 of the schools), with one foot strongly entrenched in a Jeffersonian world and the other more loosely fit into a Wilsonian sock. Here is Mead’s cogent description of Obama the Jeffersonian:

Obama comes from the old-fashioned Jeffersonian wing of the Democratic Party, and the strategic goal of his foreign policy is to reduce America’s costs and risks overseas by limiting U.S. commitments wherever possible. He’s a believer in the notion that the United States can best spread democracy and support peace by becoming an example of democracy at home and moderation abroad. More than this, Jeffersonians such as Obama think oversize commitments abroad undermine American democracy at home. Large military budgets divert resources from pressing domestic needs; close association with corrupt and tyrannical foreign regimes involves the United States in dirty and cynical alliances; the swelling national-security state threatens civil liberties and leads to powerful pro-war, pro-engagement lobbies among corporations nourished on grossly swollen federal defense budgets.

Obama seeks a quiet world in order to focus his efforts on domestic reform — and to create conditions that would allow him to dismantle some of the national-security state inherited from the Cold War and given new life and vigor after 9/11. Preferring disarmament agreements to military buildups and hoping to substitute regional balance-of-power arrangements for massive unilateral U.S. force commitments all over the globe, the president wishes ultimately for an orderly world in which burdens are shared and the military power of the United States is a less prominent feature on the international scene.

Mead goes on to discuss the drawbacks and benefits of Obama’s approach to the world from this viewpoint and also showcases how the president is still invested and affected by the other schools, specifically the Wilsonian’s. Mead is concerned that these school’s inherent contradictions could negatively affect President Obama if not handled skillfully. In the end, Mead warns of Obama becoming a reincarnation of a certain, much maligned ex-president:

The contradiction between the sober and limited realism of the Jeffersonian worldview and the expansive, transformative Wilsonian agenda is likely to haunt this administration as it haunted Carter’s

Read the whole piece and let me know what you think.

(Picture courtesy of foreignpolicy.com)

It’s been a historic couple of days here in our nation’s capital. So much so that this DC native braved the crowds, his better sense and the elements to join in the festivities early yesterday morning. Out of the house at 6:30am and greeted by a swarm of military police directing traffic (in full camo no less). It’s a brisk 1.5 mile walk to the Capitol…Metro’s inundated with revelers far more dedicated than anyone should be pre-dawn. On first sight, K Street’s been transformed into a roving carnival of merchants hawking Inaugural paraphenalia. Capitalism’s alive, thriving and in full-effect as Obama hats, buttons, posters, sweatshirts fly off the shelves. Helicopters buzz overhead and police sirens scream past me as I navigate around the many downtown street closings. I (eventually) settle in alongside the U.S. Capitol Building and wait patiently to hear the message we all came to hear and desperately want to believe.

Despite the fanfare of January 20th, the real work begins today (although admittedly it’s been going on for months). The Administration will likely focus it’s earliest energies on ensuring the swift passage of an economic stimulus plan. And on the international front? A declaration ceasing all future activity at Guatanamo Bay. With this largely symbolic gesture President Obama will seek to break from his predecessor and recommit the American people to a trajectory along the ‘moral high ground’. What’s next on the docket? Your guess is as good as mine (if not better). International crises tend to occur on their own schedules and with little warning.                    

There is tremendous excitement in DC these days, it’s unlike anything I’ve experienced before. It’ll be imperative for President Obama to capitalize on this good will to generate enthusiasm for the long road ahead. His biggest challenge might be meeting the lofty expectation his followers, a nation, and the world have heaped upon him. It’ll be no small feat.

Make sure to check out our new contributer Adam’s Bio in the About Page.

Though the war in Iraq and the presence of thousand of US troops slowly dropped from the recently concluded presidential campaign and before then the mainstream media, the situation and future US policy toward the conflict will be crucial.  During the early part of his campaign Barack Obama stated many times that he would ‘end this war’ and laid down a 16 month timeframe where all combat troops would be out, with only a ‘residual force’ remaining.  While since he was elected Obama has taken a more cautious stance and has emphasized that though he still supports a 16 month timeframe, which is about a year ahead of the newly signed agreement between the US and Iraqi governments, he will listen to his commanders on the ground.  

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Dustin Gillette with schoolchildren while on patrol in Iraq

This is a welcome change, but many still feel that by leaving ‘too early’ the US may be jeopardizing gains made and risk leaving behind a government not ready to control its territory.  The best argument I’ve read which advocates a more sustained US military presence in Iraq is from Stephen Biddle, Michael E. O’Hanlon, and Kenneth M. Pollack’s ‘How to Leave a Stable Iraq‘ in last month’s Foreign Affairs.  They first layout the real progress achieved in the country and assert that a continued US presence will enable a smooth transfer of power during the upcoming Provincial and National elections, both scheduled to occur in the next two years.  Here is an excerpt:

Drawdowns on this scale in Iraq cannot be rushed without serious risk. For now, a substantial U.S. presence is essential to stabilize a system of local cease-fires and maintain an environment in which gradual compromise can proceed without gambling on a single grand bargain among wary rivals in Baghdad. This is not to say that today’s troop count can or should be maintained until 2010 — modest near-term withdrawals to below the pre-surge levels will be necessary to establish a sustainable posture. The 130,000 troops and 15 brigades of the pre-2007 force may be too large to maintain into 2009 without unacceptable damage to the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps. But if the United States can maintain a substantial force in Iraq through the critical period of the next two to three years, there is now a credible basis for believing that major drawdowns after that can be enabled by success rather than mandated by failure.

This flies in the face of a majority of America’s public opinion who seem tired and fed up with the war effort, but who are not marching in the streets, with the Democratic Party’s pronouncements during the long campaign, and with many academics and experts.  Professor Marc Lynch wrote a short rebuttal to O’Hanlon, Biddle, and Pollack’s piece and elaborates further on his blog.  Lynch believes that the US needs to commit to leaving Iraq at a measured, but substantial pace, as this is the only way the Iraqi politicians and factions will be forced to make real compromises.  He argues that the US presence is only accommodating those Iraqi’s who wish to keep the status quo without further reconciliation, for instance in regards to the Sunni Awakening soldiers who are still without a place in the nation’s security or police apparatus.  Here is an excerpt:

The problem lies in the fundamentally flawed belief that providing more security is the key to achieving political compromise. Restoring basic levels of security from the low point of 2006 was indeed essential. But now, contrary to what the authors argue, improved security is making the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki less likely to make meaningful compromises, since Maliki currently sees little downside to not doing so. The Iraqi government simply does not share American assessments of the negative consequences that would result from failing to achieve reconciliation. And as long as the U.S. military protects Iraqi leaders from the consequences of their choices, they are probably correct. Ironically, their feeling of security has led them to insist that a security agreement with the United States include a commitment to withdraw combat troops by the end of 2011, likely rendering the policy Biddle, O’Hanlon, and Pollack advocate no longer viable.

I believe the ‘surge’ has had a dramatic effect on Iraqi stability and its government’s chances on providing a semblance of a normal life for most of its citizens, but O’Hanlon, Biddle, and Pollack are correct in arguing that these gains could be lost if the US is seen to be departing either too hastily or in a way that separates Iraq’s future from America’s.  The surge worked largely because Iraqi actors, mainly the Sunni’s, realized that the US wasn’t going anywhere and that for them to have a chance at power they had to start playing the game of government, not insurgency.  The surge was not just more troops on the ground, it was an American ‘double down’ on its commitment to the country’s stability and progress.  I think Obama’s latest rhetoric and actions portend to a sensible and cautious Iraqi policy, one where he listens to many voices and comes up with what will hopefully be a successful strategy for a stable Iraq and an honorable American departure, whenever that may be.

To no one’s surprise, President-elect Obama has been riddled with foreign policy advice from a myriad of sources.  Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and the Taliban have each put forth threats and hopes for reconciliation with the newly elected US president, though the latter come with caveats that Obama change the country’s respective missile defense and military presence in Afghanistan policies.

In the academic world, the journal Foreign Affairs has been featuring advice for the to-be president for going on 2 years now, and finally has a name to put to its policy recommendations.  On the site, they currently feature an old essay by Dean Rusk, who would become JFK’s Secretary of State, describing what he sees as the President’s role in foreign policy.  Barack Obama himself put forth his own foreign policy beliefs and views in an earlier article for the magazine.  Lastly, Peter Beinart describes what he calls a ‘liberal foreign policy’ under Obama.

Foreign Policy Magazine also has some interesting articles advocating policy recs for the big O.  The most interesting pieces were ‘Five Physics Lessons for Obama‘, featuring the issues of nuclear terrorism, global warming and space, neo-con Richard Perle’s 7 recommendations, and another piece calling for Obama to ‘go for it‘ on many vital and challenging issues.  FP also asks several experts to pick their diplomatic Dream Team for the administration.

And who better, I know a lot of you would say ‘anybody!’, to give advice to the new administration than the current Secretary of State and former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.  Rice gives her thoughts and advice in a lengthy New York Times Magazine article.  It is fascinating to see just how different the challenges facing Obama’s administration are from the one’s President Bush’s faced on his inauguration day in 2001.  

In one bit of good news for world stability and for the current Bush and future Obama administration is the approved security pact between the US-Iraqi government, providing a legal standing to the presence of US troops in the country until 2011, when they will be nearly mandated to leave the country.  

Lastly, geez I can’t stop, here is a transcript from Obama’s 60 minute interview last night, though they only discuss foreign policy for a few moments.