Making The World An Offer It CAN Refuse

By Cernig

Matt Duss pointed out to me what he describes as an 'interesting" take on America's place in a multi-polar world. Writing today in the L.A. Times, John C. Hulsman of the German Council on Foreign Relations and A. Wess Mitchell from the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington argue that America is placed in the role of the most powerful Mafia family - and they don't mean it in a bad way.

It is one of the best-known scenes in cinematic history. Vito Corleone, head of one of the most powerful organized-crime families in New York, crosses the street to buy some oranges from a fruit stand. Seconds later, his peaceful idyll is shattered as multiple gunshots leave him bleeding in the street -- victim of a hit by Mafia rival Virgil "the Turk" Sollozzo.

By a miracle, he is only badly wounded. Two of his sons, Santino (Sonny) and Michael, and his adopted son and consigliere, Tom Hagen, gather in an atmosphere of shock to try to decide how to save the family.

This, of course, is the hinge of Francis Ford Coppola's movie, "The Godfather." It is also a startlingly useful metaphor for the strategic problems and global power structure of our time. The don, emblematic of Cold War American power, is struck by forces he did not expect and does not understand, as was America on 9/11. Intriguingly, his heirs embrace very different visions of family strategy that approximate the three schools of thought -- liberal institutionalism, neoconservatism and realism -- vying for control of U.S. foreign policy today.

By which they mean to draw an analogy making Tom's "legal-diplomatic worldview similar to the liberal institutionalism of today's Democratic Party", Sonny's "Sonny's shoot-first, ask-questions-later approach" identical with the "rash instinct to use military power as a tactic to solve structural problems" of "arch-neoconservatives such as Norman Podhoretz and Michael Ledeen" and Michael's use of "soft and hard power in flexible combinations to influence others" as being the prescription of foreign policy realists .

As Matt says, it's an interesting take - although I think there's a tendency to leap over contrary arguments in their rush to make the analogy stick. For instance, the notion that Tom-style diplomacy's success is always based upon being "conducted from a position of unparalleled strength" and therefore inapplicable to an age where "the reality...is one of increasing multipolarity -- something lost on Tom, who, like many Democrats, thinks he is still the emissary of the dominant superpower" seems to be unsupported by the experiences of a multitude of nations which haven't been superpowers all this time. It reeks of American exceptionalism to accept without argument that America should play to different rules, using military "hard" force whenever it feels it will aid "soft force" negotiations, than every other nation which has used diplomacy alone from a position of non-super status all this time.

The authors conclude by saying that if America emulates Michael Corleone then:

though no longer hegemonic, America [will be] able to position itself, like the Corleones, as the next best thing: primus inter pares -- first among equals.

Do you mind if I hear an echo of McCain's League of Enablers there?

The primary problem with this entire argument is that, at the end of the day, the Corleones were criminals that no-one except other criminals would wish as a neighbour. I know it's fashionable to see all nations and all governments that way - but it doesn't make for good gaming tactics. Seeing others as necessarily bad actors leads one inevitably to a hawkish outlook, seeing others as necessarily good actors to a dovish one. The "realist" outlook is therefore simply another hawkish stance, although less given to kneejerk violence than the neoconservative one, it still will reach for the military hammer more often than not. But gaming theorists identify a middle course described as "tit-for-tat" - attack me and I'll attack first, co-operate and I will co-operate more too. This strategy doesn't include a presumption of good or bad acting from others and indeed fails if it isn't flexible enough to spot turnarounds in other's behaviour - for instance a bad actor who decides to become a good one for a while should be rewarded for co-operation until that co-operation ceases. Likewise, a previously good actor who is suddenly threatening or coercive has instantly lost all stock of goodwill. It's the way most of humanity conducts its own daily interpersonal interactions.

In foreign policy terms, and especially in a world where America no longer has an overwhelming monopoly in coercive violent threats, the hawkish "realists" with their assumption that everyone will be bad actors will always produce prescriptions for action that the rest of the world not only can refuse but will want to refuse.

In other words you don't become first among equals by machiavelian manouvering for it or by making them an offer they can't refuse, because equals aren't that dumb. You get it simply by being the best of them all in every behaviour while still according others the respect of equals anyway. What's so difficult about that concept for the VSP set that they think America cannot do that?

Comments

[DragonScholar]

I'm actually reminded of a story from the Taoist tales.

An great leader was frustrated with one of his vassals refusing to pay taxes (let's face it, tribute) and work with him. He could of course launch a war or something else, and pay the price.

A wise man told him that what he should do is to follow the appropriate traditions and rituals and behaviors, and in short, get his act together and act like a good leader. So he did so.

The vassal eventually relented and began sending taxes and rejoined the leader.

The basic point? Give people a reason to follow you first. If you're a jerk, force is ALL you have left.

[anderson]

American power ... is struck by forces he did not expect and does not understand.

Please. This is simply nonsense. It was certainly expected, on many levels. And if there is a any lack of understanding, it is exists because there has been a choice made not to understand it. If media jokers still insist in this baseline narrative, whence derives the Bushian notion that they "hate us for our freedoms," they are merely demonstrating that they still don't get it.

[anderson]

Sorry. They are not "media jokers" per se. Which tends to damn them even more. For people supposedly aware of effects and outcomes of policy prescriptions, how can they possibly believe that terrorist attacks against American interests are not expected. Feh.

[KevinD]

Good post as always, glad I found this blog.