The Grand Strategy of the Western Alliance

I should write something intelligent, supportive, and enthusiastic about Blake Hounshell's "The Old New World Order."

Assume I have done so [here] and go read his piece:

American Prospect Online - The Old New World Order: A revival of pragmatic liberal internationalism is what the world, and America, need now. By Blake Hounshell. Web Exclusive: 11.03.06

Remember Vietnam? It has been over thirty years since the last Marines made their ignominious helicopter exit from the rooftop of the U.S. Embassy in a Saigon on the verge of collapse. Last week, with barely any Americans noticing, the World Trade Organization (WTO) announced that after nearly twelve years of grueling negotiations and reforms, our former communist enemy had completed the necessary steps to go to the WTO's General Council on November 7 for an up-or-down vote on membership....

What should we think of Vietnam's journey? The country is by nobody's definition a democracy, though its abysmal record on human rights has improved somewhat in recent years. But its rapid growth (second only to China in Asia) has bettered the lives of millions of Vietnamese....

Recently here on TAP Online, Shadi Hamid and Spencer Ackerman debated what should serve as the lodestar of a progressive foreign policy vision. Hamid argued that the United States should make the promotion of democracy the centerpiece of its foreign policy, while Ackerman advocated that human rights take that role. Such questions will very likely become more relevant after Tuesday, if Democrats gain more power in Congress. But neither Hamid nor Ackerman offered the correct answer. As the small example of Vietnam helps to illustrate, the United States ought to be redirecting its energies toward renewing its strength and expanding the postwar liberal world order. Do that, and the rest -- democracy, human rights, liberal reforms -- will eventually follow...

Comments

[dale]

"Renewing it's strength."
What does that mean? Especially in the context of Vietnam?

Maybe the better phrase would be "reviewing it's strength." Or "what is a liberal use of our national strength?"
anything but a vague "renewing" of national strength. Unless that renewal is a self critical rejection of empire and a focus on human development and environmental sustainability throughout the world.

Our strength in Vietnam killed millions of Vietnamese.

[kharris]

Emotionally, going directly for the result you want is more rewarding, so more politically sustainable, than creating the conditions that you hope will result in what you want, and then waiting for results. Think about Bush's horrible foreign policy. We could counter terrorism through better intelligence, through police action, through cultivation of freinds and forstering of a benevolent image of the US around the world. Or we could kill people from the part of the world that seems to have sent terrorists against us. Bush pushed the one with the quickest emotional payoff, wrong as that was.

The call to foster democracy and human rights by ignoring them and worrying about traditional (presumably economic) liberalism instead is not all that emotionally rewarding. It will be hard to maintain support for such policies, based just on the desire to foster democracy and human rights.

The good news (good, I guess) is that those policies will be supported by more than just the desire for human rights and democracy. In this cynical age (and what age isn't?), this call for taking the long way around to democracy and human rights looks like the economic elites turning humanitarian concern to their own interests. "Make the world safe for my economic interests and, as if by magic, your interests will be served as well." Seems a bit pat.

If we really care about human rights, we might want policies that foster human rights.

[pjgoober]

"Our strength in Vietnam killed millions of Vietnamese."

Why is Vietnam spoken out against so much but not Korea? The *main* difference I can see is that one was successful and one was not. The fruits of latter are evident in the wealthy, healthy, numerous people of South Korea, while only devastation can be seen as the only outcome of vietnam. What is the moral difference of the two efforts though?

[Jon Fernquest]

Hounshell: "[Vietnam's] rapid growth (second only to China in Asia) has bettered the lives of millions of Vietnamese....democracy, human rights, liberal reforms -- will eventually follow..."

I would get skinned alive for stating that this truism holds for Burma too, but I bet it does.

If the US wants to reduce their influence to zero they'll tie trade completely to human rights and democracy.

Actually, doing this is really an ex post indicator that the country is not important to the US anymore.

The current obsession is Iraq. Can you imagine the US denying free trade privileges to wealthy Middle Eastern countries or tieing them to human rights...or doing this for China?

Similarly, back in the days of the Cold War, such a tieing would have been inconceivable for South Korea (or Vietnam if it had developed export capabilities).

Now take Burma, always off American radar. Recently, it entered radar momentarily allowing Bush, his wife, and Boltman, to score a couple of cheap democracy-human rights PR points (they ended up losing the game anyway)

Burma is thoroughly in China's camp. America's tieing economics to democracy and human rights has put it there for the last twenty years.

I am a teacher. I lived in Burma for two years. Yet if I opened a school there, I would be jailed by American law for investing in the country.

From a distance tieing trade to rights seems a noble thing to do. Up close you tend to notice more mundane things like PEOPLE WITHOUT FOOD CLOTHES OR HOUSING