Foreign policy

3. Anderson, Revolution (23 February 2025)

by kurto

Inspired by recovering individual liberty and market economics as well as the need for a strong military, the Reagan presidency amounted to a revolutionary restoration of American government, lifting the United States to the brink of winning the Cold War – albeit not before recovering from the Iran-contra affair.

The three fundamental issues of American politics are peace, prosperity, and individual liberty. The core of the 1980 presidential campaign, from Anderson’s vantage as policy and economics chief, were economic policy (i.e., tax), energy, and foreign policy and defense. Reagan saw a thriving economy and strong military (i.e., anti-Soviet foreign policy including the Strategic Defense Initiative) as imperatives; the latter was not a contingency but an absolute requirement. The arms race was one-sided, the US held back by elite opinion. Declining Soviet economics were accelerated by falling oil prices, China’s conversion to market economics, and American missile defense, which together forced Russia to choose between guns and butter. Whereas an improving US economic would alleviate the same dilemma.

In August 1980, economic forecasters including the Congressional Budget Office showed tax revenue for the next five years would increase faster than government expense. By 1985, there would be a $45 billion surplus; but the $55 billion deficit in 1981 was a campaign liability. Reagan’s October 1976 op-ed calling for reexamination of Harding and Kennedy supply-side tax cuts was the closest he came to claiming cuts would instantly yield more revenue. Tax cuts resulted in the wealthy carrying a large share of the burden.

In the 1960s-80s, new policy ideas came from universities, think tanks, publishing houses, and news media. Milton Friedman is the economic hero; reforming the regulatory state was a major component of economic policy. For Anderson, public service was a duty, but working at Hoover was preferable.

Cabinet councils, informal work groups for interrelated – but not government-wide – issues were highly effective. The use of advisory boards was invaluable for presenting outside views to the president. In foreign policy, advisors are more critical than in domestic affairs because matters are less subject to public knowledge and scrutiny. In Reagan’s second term, Baker, Meese, Kirkpatrick, and Deaver were out of the picture, while Bush was ineffective. Bill Casey is the villain: his sins included Iran-contra as well as dismantling PFLAB. Iran-contra reinforced that trading with terrorists is a very poor strategy: the terrorists will always return for more. Producing intelligence should always be separate from setting policy (consuming it).

Management under Reagan featured establishing strategic priorities, changing tactics as warranted, delegating aggressively, and negotiating from overstated starting points. In elaborating Reagan’s strategy of asking for 200 percent of the objective, he defends Baker’s work as chief of staff. Nixon’s mismanaging personnel selection crippled his presidency, a mistake Reagan was conscious to avoid.

21. Kennedy, Rise and Fall of Great Powers (13 Dec 2018)

by kurto

The rise and fall of leading nation-states is determined by the interplay of economics, technology, and military prowess. Expanding nations more easily support ever-rising costs of warfare; declining countries have to make fateful strategic choices. In the author’s multipolar framework, changes in trade patterns presage the outcomes of strategic conflicts, and so foreshadow the next political order. Individual leadership is less important because imperatives and choices are made in the context of Bismarck’s ‘stream of time’: strengths are relative. The outcome of warfare over 1450-1950 confirmed long-term economic shifts, often borne of new technology. Revised territorial order reflected redistribution, but peace did not freeze socioeconomic conditions.
Global powers tend to overspend on defense and underinvest in growth. Japan became a financial power (i.e., leading creditor nation) following its industrial rise: evidence – or the author – suggests the Asian country is most likely to supplant the ‘overstretched’ USA. The challenge to American longevity lies in defense commitments to overseas position obtained when it had a higher share of global GDP, a better balance of payments, and less debt. The most serious threat hegemons face is failure to adjust to change.
In the 15th century, European states trailed the Asian dynasties. War shaped its rising powers; distributed economic growth made it impossible to suppress all of them; the key economic development was the long-range ship. Within Europe itself, states were always spending to overpower another. Spain lacked manpower, grew slowly (aside from New World bullion), and suffered precarious finances. It was overstretched. French aspirations were checked by the balance of power, most importantly by result of the War of Spanish Succession, and backward finance. Following the Diplomatic Revolution of 1753, which crystallized England’s balance of power strategy, British mercantile prowess and ability to borrow fueled its win in the Seven Years War (one of seven with France over 1689-1815), and thus hegemony to 1945.
In the Victorian era, Britain’s industrial might was less oriented to the military than any era since the Stuarts. Further, it had no appetite for Continental interventions. Its power owed to its navy and colonies – productive investments – as well as the City of London. Despite the rise of late 19th-century US and Germany industry as well as Prussian military reform, the UK’s position circa 1914 was not so weak as often portrayed. Alliance diplomacy encouraged the drift to World War I, and prevented a quick resolution. The series of UK diplomatic concessions to the US (e.g., fisheries, the Panama Canal, Alaska) overturned conventional expectations of ‘natural’ Anglo-American hostility, and so won the UK a vital ally.
Kennedy observes the Versailles and peacetime politics were reshaped by ideology (Wilson and Lenin), one of the few nods to political ideas. The League didn’t deter aggressors but confused the democracies. Now comprising 27 countries, European consensus on colonies collapsed. Russia is seen as reactive instead of acquisitive in search of a ‘near abroad’ buffer. In the postwar era, the US rise was fueled by commanding share of world GDP, substantial tech innovation, a military proven in Europe and Asia, plus the atomic bomb. But Russia quickly erased the nuclear gap and America’s relative lead shrank after the 1960s: Vietnam, Iran, etc. indicate overstretch. The author applauds Kissinger for recognizing limits of American foreign policy; Nixon’s China overture changed the correlation of forces. Deng wisely recognized peace is necessary for the ‘four modernizations’: agriculture, industry, science, military. Kennedy sees less hope for Soviet Russia but suggests it will be hard to displace its Communist political system. Japanese central planning plus its lack of military commitments makes it the natural successor to the USA.
More like deterministic political science than long-view history, Kennedy’s work overlooks that power is a wasting asset, itself to be used as if an investment; that ideas have consequences, as fuel for socioeconomic events; and relative status is not a straight line – opportunities can be missed. Of course, he failed to anticipate two decades of Japanese stagnation due to real estate collapse, the fall of Soviet

7. Parker, Chamberlain and Appeasement (19 May 2019)

by kurto

            Narrates British foreign policy in the 1930s, relying on government records and personal papers to show Neville Chamberlain clung to once-respectable appeasement well after the dangers of Hitler’s Germany superseded the errors of World War I. The consequences were postponed rearmament, loss of any chance to head off the conflict, and near disaster in 1940. The consensus of appeasement comprised sympathy for rectifying the Versailles treaty, for great power conciliation (contra French obstruction), and limiting remilitarization, particularly aircraft. It further included strong belief in the League of Nations, and implicit opposition to an antebellum arms race. Chamberlain, who never attended university and so was uncomfortable with challenging debate, held an overmighty opinion of himself and was susceptible to Hitler’s flattery. Close allies Eden and Halifax were pushed away during a succession of events that gradually swung public opinion against status quo: occupation of the Rhineland, the Spanish Civil War, Anschluss, Czech occupation, Polish occupation. The author’s treatment of Soviet gambits, which Chamberlain correctly resisted as camouflaged aggression, is wrongheaded: although diplomatic papers don’t prove it, Stalin’s postwar behavior clearly shows his intent to aggrandize. Chamberlain was prepared to concede Hitler’s demands, if possible through Italian intervention, because he focused on independence (as determined by the UK) not territorial integrity; Eden’s exit from the cabinet made the policy his own. When Chamberlain finally allowed rearmament as a hedge, he focused on the navy and then the air force, despite the obvious threat of the new technology. His course neither deterred Germany nor made conciliation possible. (Aside: the possibility of the unseen moderate is plausible only if the extreme leader can be identified. Otherwise the leader is in fact the extremist and the policy is his.) Having drawn the main line, the author veers into problems presented by totalitarians in Spain and Japan, the latter threatening British economic interests in China, observing Chamberlain was too slow to pursue US support. This highlights the book’s understating Britain’s position as the world’s hegemon, but a declining one – the Athenian problem. Pursuant to which is treatment of Britain’s economic position, compromised by balance of payments shortfall and skilled labor shortage: the US recession of 1937 helped the British position. Chamberlain’s foreign policy dictated rearmament, at a slow pace. The Liberals offered no real alternative to the Conservative prime minister, but Winston Churchill’s presence offered a ‘duel’ comparable to Fox-Pitt or Gladstone-Disraeli; oddly, the author says Chamberlain’s policy has been ‘unfairly’ portrayed by the victor.