A provocative presentation by a major foreign policy Realist characterized current US engagement in Ukraine and the Middle East as distractions from our primary concern, China. In this Realist view, a “near peer” rival poses a threat per se, so must be contained or outcompeted. China is certainly the most potent near-peer on the planet, and U.S. capacity to compete in military terms has diminished. So, in this assessment, America needs to curtail other commitments to concentrate on the most important challenge. But must we follow the Realist rulebook?
The question that Realism will not address is our intentions. In that view, those are transient, irrational drivers, sometimes codified as ideologies, possibly useful to mobilize populations, but ultimately irrelevant. Russia, as one illustration, retains a strategic posture almost identical to that of the USSR, despite the demise of Soviet Communism.
So – are our commitments in Ukraine and Israel irrational, naive, corrupt or just dumb? Our politics give many muddled reasons for every policy. But regarding Ukraine, many do worry for the security of truly democratic neighbors. In the Middle East, for all the opinions pro or con about Israel, it is, within its self-defined constituency, a democratic, due-process polity.
If nations are billiard balls, unitary peoples named by “natural” traits of blood, soil, church, or tongue, their interests confined to safety and wealth, the Realist case is strong.
Many nations fit this case but America is different. Ancient received characteristics do not underpin our existence. This nation conceived itself by divorcing the font of blood and soil and church and tongue of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. They posited a new “People,” defined only as holders of certain “Truths:” that all humans are equally and inherently endowed with unalienable personal rights, and that governments exist to secure those rights. To opt not to defend other societies that live in those tenets, if we have means, belies our self-conception. And a nation’s existence is the most real of national interests.
If we make commitments abroad for reasons unconnected to our creed, that also detracts from our existential rationale. If we oppose Russia to extend our influence via NATO expansion, if we support Israel solely out of kinship in a Judeo-Christian tradition, if we contain China to keep economic and geopolitical pre-eminence, we portray our nation as one more billiard ball. In this case, Russia, China, Hamas, Iran, and diverse regimes of the “global South” really should aim to weaken us. Who are we that we must win the Realist world’s zero-sum game?
If we are more than a billiard ball, and yet make national commitments that make our goals look like hegemony and wealth, then we need to re-set our policy core. As scholar Ali Wyne has pointed out, we need to answer, to ourselves and to the world: “what is America’s affirmative purpose?”
If China is a rival, what is our point of contention? We have not declared that clearly, instead vaguely citing various riffs on “democracy,” human rights, the liberal order, and economic fair play. But one issue speaks directly to our founding: Taiwan is one of the freest societies in the world. To abandon Taiwan to PRC conquest risks betraying our existential premise. If we were unable to offer useful aid for a plausible resistance, we might temporize – and we do oppose Taiwan’s formal independence. But we are not the America of John Quincy Adams’ day, clamoring beyond our reach to aid a Greek nation of which we knew nothing, against an Ottoman Empire of which we also knew nothing. Defending Taiwan for its freedom is no adventure seeking “monsters to destroy,” if – if – we clarify Taiwan’s free society as our vital interest. Clarification might require give-and-take engagement with the PRC over other issues like trade, finance, or maritime piracy. Rivalry and opposition to many PRC practices will remain, but couldn’t we calibrate our general stance, warming if they liberalize and cooling if they regress? Wouldn’t Taiwan’s autonomy then fit clearly into our core interest?
Regarding Ukraine, democracy cannot be our motivation given Ukraine’s incomplete example, nor can geopolitics, as it is precisely Putin’s concern. But Russia’s aggression is a justification for us. In 2014 we saw Russian sympathizers in eastern Ukraine, and our opposition was tempered. In 2022, even Putin cast his invasion as hegemonic right. Before and in to the 20th Century, nations generally accepted that sovereigns could initiate war simply to pursue some interest, with victory or defeat as arbiter of their claim. Might made right. That has become global anathema since 1945; only a tiny handful of cases have contravened it, and the biggest perpetrator, Saddam Hussein, met an appropriate fate. Return of a global state of nature would block the progress of, and threaten, free societies. Precluding that return enables our purpose. Supporting Ukraine against Putin in those terms serves our true interest.
Israel’s case will present quandaries and conundrums, given their military dominion over so many Palestinians. Our defense of Israel should be based on their ethos of a free society, and any hesitations should center on doubts over their interest in freedom’s ethos.
Our affirmative purpose abroad is to protect those places where freedom has a strong hold, to nurture its possibilities where people are building it, and to enable and encourage those who seek it, all based on our own validation at home of our chosen tenets. We must not muddy this purpose in our conduct. If a hard world demands measures that do not fit, for instance in Cold War support of allied dictators, we must clarify why, and compensate for the inconsistency as much as possible. If we systematically contradict our creed, we forfeit its appeal as well as our founding premise, and become indeed one more billiard ball on the Realist’s pool table. But if, in word and deed, we act clearly for our founding premises, we change the whole game.
Common Conviction 