Very Perceptive Stratfor article on Foreign Views Re Bush & Kerry and the U.S. elections. So good, I laughed out loud.
To: standard@stratfor.com
Subject: Geopolitical Intelligence Report: The U.S. Election and the International System
stratfor.com
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THE GEOPOLITICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT
The U.S. Election and the International System
September 14, 2004
By George Friedman
For better or worse, the United States is now the center of
gravity of the international system. It is the most powerful
country politically, economically and militarily. Therefore, any
change in political leadership can have a profound effect on
every country in the world. This is a fact that is both
universally resented and the fundamental reality in the world
today.
Foreign countries are not simply watching the U.S. presidential
campaigns passively. Some are trying to influence the elections.
All are trying to figure out who is going to win and place bets
accordingly. The ideal position for any country would be to do
something that is decisive in winning the election for one
candidate or another, incurring a debt that can be called in at a
later day. The worst thing another country can do is openly
intervene on behalf of the loser. Between now and election day,
countries are maneuvering continually to gain some sort of
advantage. Indeed, the basic characteristic of the international
system for the next 50 days will be tacking with the polls.
One of the things to understand about this process is that other
countries really don't understand the United States -- and in
many cases, they make very little effort to do so. It is a mantra
around the world that Americans are ignorant of and indifferent
to the rest of the world. There is certainly a great deal of
truth in that. However, it is not nearly as true as saying that
most foreigners haven't the slightest idea what the United States
is about or how it works. Given the enormous power of the United
States and the fact that it is, after all, a country of more than
a quarter-billion people, this lack of understanding is quite
remarkable. Equally remarkable is the fact that foreigners seem
convinced that they do understand the United States. Any French
intellectual or Chinese businessman will be happy to lecture you
on the nature of the United States -- usually in ways that can
only be described as bizarre.
The international system is therefore caught at present in a
fundamental contradiction. The system is trying to take its
bearings from an election in a country that few foreign
governments really understand. That, in turn, leads to some
fairly strange and sometimes almost inexplicable policy shifts.
For example, the Sino-Taiwanese relationship that has lurched
along over the past weeks, or Russian behavior, or Iranian
statements -- none of these can be fully understood without
factoring in the election and those countries' perceptions of it.
U.S. foreign policy under George W. Bush has been defined by the
Sept. 11 attacks and the ensuing war. Everything else -- from
military basing in Germany to trade relations with Australia --
has pivoted around the war. In general, this has made most -- but
not all -- countries unhappy with the United States. Bush's view
of the world has created a universal contingency: American
cooperation on non-war-related issues has been made dependent on
foreign cooperation with the United States in the war.
Obviously, this has made foreign countries quite unhappy. U.S.
demands concerning the war are unremitting and substantial. Many
countries don't want to involve themselves with the war. Prior to
Sept. 11, the trade agreements, political accommodations and
other ordinary traffic of the international system came at a much
lower price than they do now. Foreign countries are
understandably nostalgic for days when the hierarchy of U.S.
foreign policy interests was different -- and not nearly as
steep. In addition, allies that were vital to the United States
during the Cold War, like France or Germany, have lost their pre-
eminent position. Had they fully cooperated with the United
States over Iraq, they would have still lost their position: U.S.
relations with Pakistan or Egypt tower in importance -- in
Washington's eyes -- over relations with France or Germany.
Whenever a fundamental shift takes place in the international
system, nostalgia becomes a dominant theme. Throughout the world
there is a longing for a restoration of the old regime -- in this
case, the 1990s, the time after the Soviet Union collapsed but
before Sept. 11. There is a sense in many capitals that this
happy time was lost not because of Sept. 11, but because the Bush
administration both overreacted and reacted inappropriately to
the attacks. According to this point of view, Sept. 11 was a
tragedy of substantial proportions, but it did not justify or
require a complete reorientation of U.S. foreign policy. The Bush
administration's response was seen as simply disproportionate. In
some cases this is simply a self-serving view, an expression of
resentment at the price the United States is now imposing for
cooperation. In other cases, it is a genuinely held belief. It
is, in either event, a widely held but not universal point of
view.
One could conclude from this that foreign leaders generally hope
that John Kerry defeats Bush. It is a more complicated matter
than that. It is fair to say that most foreign leaders do not
personally like Bush. At the same time, it has been three years
since Sept. 11, and the irresistible pressure the United States
has placed on many foreign governments has already caused them to
reshape their policies toward the United States and the war. So,
for example, Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan or Vladimir Putin of
Russia may well personally dislike Bush and his entire foreign
policy team. However, they have already placed heavy bets on
Bush's foreign policy and incurred the domestic political costs
of doing so. If Bush were to lose and Kerry were to shift U.S.
policy dramatically, these leaders would have to scramble, and
some of them might fall.
Whatever their personal view of Bush, many of these leaders are
past the point of no return. They have already been forced to
make policy shifts that have imposed substantial domestic
political costs. If there were a major reversal in U.S. policy,
they would not only have had to pay the political price, but they
would now be completely out of sync with U.S. policy and have to
shift once again. For many, that maneuver is not an option. We
therefore have the following paradox: On the whole, Bush is
neither admired nor respected, for good reason or bad; but at
this point, these foreign leaders cannot afford to see another
major reversal in U.S. foreign policy. At the same time, their
innermost sentiment is that they would love to see Bush fall.
This is making it very difficult for them to read the election
because they simply don't understand the issues dividing
Americans.
Kerry's core position has been that the United States has fought
the war in Iraq and elsewhere without proper coordination with
allies. Many countries would agree that there wasn't proper
coordination, but only in the sense that their arms are still in
agony from being twisted. The problem that Kerry describes --
that the U.S. is fighting unilaterally -- doesn't gibe even
slightly with their experience, because dozens of governments
have been persuaded or bludgeoned into collaboration, even at the
risk of estranging some leaders from their constituencies. It
seems to many countries that Kerry is looking at the estrangement
of the United States from France and Germany as emblematic for
what has happened around the world. The Italians and Pakistanis
wonder what in the world Kerry is talking about.
Kerry is talking to an American audience. What he is saying is
this: The alliance system that won the Cold War has been
abandoned by Bush in fighting this war. It is essential to retain
that alliance in this war. Now, since Britain is working with the
United States, as are the majority of other European states, it
is clear that he is speaking of the French and Germans, the two
major allies from the Cold War that are missing. Kerry is
certainly held in higher regard around the world than Bush, but
he is confusing other countries by what he is saying. Other
countries do not see unilateralism -- they would be delighted if
the United States went ahead and did what it wanted without
involving them. What they are seeing is intense and effective
pressure on key countries for multilateral action. The last thing
they see is unilateralism.
All of this goes back to basic foreign misunderstanding of
American politics. Though both Bush and Kerry agree on the
principle that the United States should never fight without
allies -- that is a non-issue -- they disagree on two points.
First, Bush argues that the alliance system that won the Cold War
is irrelevant today; what Germany thinks on a subject doesn't
matter nearly as much now as what Pakistan thinks. Kerry argues
that the European relationships that won the Cold War should
remain the foundations of foreign policy today. Bush's view of
alliances is that they are temporary instruments designed to
achieve particular ends; Kerry's view is that they ought to be
permanent institutions for managing the international system.
The second issue goes to the heart of what an alliance is. Bush's
view is that every alliance must be evaluated in terms of its
utility for the United States and that the United States must
pursue its foreign interests, even if an existing alliance
resists it. Kerry appears to be arguing that since alliances
should be seen as permanent institutional frameworks, accepting
limitations on American freedom of action is a small price to pay
for retaining critical international institutions. Bush, for
example, looks at NATO in terms of its utility in this war and
will not be limited by its lack of consensus. Kerry looks at NATO
as a permanent and necessary institution that must survive this
particular war, even if it means accommodating discordant views.
This is a very old debate in the United States. The simplistic
internationalist-isolationist dichotomy has not been at all
useful in understanding the American debate. The real debate has
always been between two schools of internationalism. One school
looks at international institutions and alliances in terms of
their immediate utility to the United States, a means toward an
end. The other looks at these same institutions as ends in
themselves -- enhancing U.S. national security by their very
existence. Thus, one school looks at the United Nations as a
hindrance to the pursuit of national interest. The other looks at
the United Nations as being at the heart of the national
interest.
This is a subtle issue that is publicly manifested in this
debate. One side says that the United States should never be
limited in its pursuit of its national interest by institutions
or allies. The other says that the preservation of these
institutions and allies, however flawed they might be, must be
the primary goal of U.S. foreign policy. Bush represents the
former view; Kerry represents the latter view.
One of the things hurting Kerry is that his view has, in general,
been a minority view in the United States. Americans had no broad
objection to NATO, the International Monetary Fund or the United
Nations as an instrument of foreign policy, but they have never
bought into them as the end of foreign policy. The latter view
has very much been the elite view of foreign policy -- the
Council on Foreign Relations, the Atlantic Council, etc. It has
never been the consensus view in the United States. The issue was
submerged during the Cold War, when both sides were satisfied by
the same institutions. It was not an issue during the 1990s, when
there was freedom to maneuver, but it has become the fundamental
dividing line now.
Most foreign leaders do not understand this quintessentially
American debate. They look at U.S. behavior in naturally
parochial views -- what is in it for them. In general, they view
U.S. behavior since Sept. 11 as unfortunate, but most are far
past the point of no return. They are not so much betting on Bush
in this election as having already bet so heavily on Bush that
they have no alternative any longer. Most are engaged in
ingratiating themselves with Bush. Most seem to think that Bush
will win the election. They do not seem to understand why. They
are not happy with the likely outcome, yet prefer it to the
alternative.
Bush is ahead, and we continue to expect him to win. Among other
reasons, no Democrat from outside the South has won the
presidency since Kennedy. This is not an accident. The view that
Kerry has expressed is a quintessentially northeastern, Atlantic
perspective. It is not received sympathetically in the rest of
the country. Foreign embassies are in Washington, D.C., and New
York -- which are not really representative of the United States.
The sensibility that foreigners pick up in these cities hardly
represents the basic views.
Therefore, we expect to see intense yet clumsy maneuvering in the
next few weeks. Few foreign leaders have a real sense of American
political culture, just as few Americans have a real sense of
French or Saudi political culture. The debate in the United
States is far from frivolous or unsophisticated. It has been
going on for a long time. In the end, we find it doubtful that
the view of a Boston liberal will win the day. It seldom has in
the past, and it will be hard to make the case today. But on that
debate turns, if not the fate, then certainly the interests, of
many nations.
(c) 2004 Strategic Forecasting, Inc. All rights reserved.
stratfor.com
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