Reluctance as Policy

Mike Coté

Mike Coté is a writer and podcaster focusing on history, Great Power rivalry, and geopolitics. He has a Master’s degree in European history, and is working on a book about the Anglo-German economic and strategic rivalry before World War I. He writes for National Review, Providence Magazine, and The Federalist, hosts the Rational Policy podcast, and can be found on Twitter @ratlpolicy.

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32 Responses

  1. Philip H says:

    Weakness and complacency. Right. Because Trump’s Bro-mance with both Putin and Kim Jong Un was so successful at deterring them? Because Bush The Younger’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were so successful in building stable democracies that wouldn’t serve as global terrorist training grounds? Because 60 years of sanctions were so successful at turning Cuba democratic?

    What you call strength has been shown repeatedly to be folly. History doesn’t look kindly on hollow sabre rattlers, and even less so on those who – like Putin – follow the rattling with needless escalation and bloodshed. We wasted 20 years and a Trillion dollars in Afghanistan with the nuttery you propose.

    The Biden administration is still saddled with course correcting at home post-pandemic. We are funding weapons the Ukrainians have made highly successful. We have sanctioned Russia as fully as we legally can and made them mostly a pariah on the international economic stage. We have rebuilt, rearmed, and are about to expand NATO. And we’ve done all this without making verbose fools out of our selves. I’d say the course the Biden administration has set is a good one – unless you are an arms dealer.Report

    • Mike Coté in reply to Philip H says:

      One can criticize the current administration for its bad policy & also dislike prior administration’s policies. But Trump isn’t the president, Biden is. If, God forbid, Trump is re-elected in 2024, I’ll have plenty to criticize.

      Russia is not an international economic pariah; they are only that in the West. Most nations haven’t adopted our sanctions regime. Western European nations are already urging conciliation with Russia. NATO expansion is good, but that’s not something American policy caused. And sanctions on Russian energy would be far more effective if we took decisions at home that increased American production & incentivized future investment. Simply setting a bogus price cap isn’t useful.Report

      • Philip H in reply to Mike Coté says:

        we took decisions at home that increased American production & incentivized future investment.

        As would telling the truth about statements like this. See the open secret here is that the oil companies aren’t interested in investing, no matter what we do. Biden has approved more oil drilling permits the Trump did at the same time in his administration, but less drilling and refining are going on. Oil companies are not reopening pandemic shuttered refineries and aren’t building new ones because global demand is trending downward. Natural gas is STILL less expensive for energy generation then most other sources – which means markets are driving a switch independent of any government action or rhetoric. and ore and more solar and wind are coming online. Which means we may not need as much drilling and production. We are already moving away from “needing” Russian energy. which we didn’t before anyway since Russian oil was what – 4% of our production?Report

  2. Pinky says:

    I’m curious why you only included Iran peripherally in this analysis. Like Russia and China, they have their eyes on expanding their power, and the US has been equally reluctant to respond to their crisis.Report

  3. InMD says:

    This series of posts really makes me feel my age. Maybe perspective requires every generation to watch a president land on an air craft carrier and make a patriotic speech that turns out to be completely divorced from facts on the ground. But I digress.

    Russia is allowing its military to be defeated and economy destroyed in an ill advised war of choice and China is of its own volition creating the biggest threat to its government and economy in 30 years… and the take away is that Joe Biden is a weakling who is inviting war? I would say the real lesson is that authoritarian regimes have profound difficulty in learning and self-correcting. Why would we imitate them, by failing to learn from our own all too recent disasters? What policy should we be following that we aren’t? The OP doesn’t say.Report

    • Pinky in reply to InMD says:

      I’m old enough to remember Bush Sr. sitting on his hands while the collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in not much improvement. Also old enough to remember Obama sitting back while the Arab Spring fizzled.

      Additionally I remember Carter, so I know that Democrats can publicly embarrass human rights abusers without becoming warmongers.Report

      • Philip H in reply to Pinky says:

        what would have had them do?Report

      • InMD in reply to Pinky says:

        I don’t know. I think the US has a serious propensity to over-estimate its capabilities. In retrospect we probably should have done more to help Russia specifically integrate itself into the West after the fall of the USSR. Of course hindsight is 20/20 and there are also a lot of reasons to wonder how possible that would be. It’s hard for me to blame people in the early 90s who thought Russia would follow the same path as other eastern bloc countries that have turned out fine. Now we know there were a lot of factors working against that, and at a certain point Russia is also responsible for Russia.

        Re: the Arab Spring I am not sure what we were supposed to do with that. The worst thing for any would be liberal in the Arab world is for people to believe America is on their side. I assume the reasons for that are obvious by now. I would also say from Iraq to Libya there’s no place in that part of the world that is obviously better for our having put our fingers on the scale at some point. If any of those countries ever manage to become normal democracies we should of course be open and friendly to them but it is clear to me that for the process of getting there they are better off without us. Even encouragement alone is interpreted as a threat to to overthrow a government (the only thing we seem reliably able to do), and understandably so.Report

        • Philip H in reply to InMD says:

          The neocon world view is that we can’t rest until every nation is a US style “western democracy.” Because no other form of government works for its people better. Which I find hugely ironic what with our form of government currently hanging by a thread and having a history of slavery and Jim row that would be the envy of authoritarians everywhere.Report

          • Jaybird in reply to Philip H says:

            Please understand, my skepticism of the neocon worldview is not because of the whole democracy thing, but because of the whole “what actually happens when we invade and start shooting people” thing.

            Iraq and Afghanistan provide good counter-arguments to the whole neocon thing.

            “But they aren’t counter-arguments to *DEMOCRACY*!!!”

            No, they aren’t. They’re counter-arguments to putting carts before horses, though. And if you’re hoping for more liberal democracies out there, you need to quit leapfrogging to elections after the whole “make them more liberal like us” fails to kick off. (Yet. Surely yet.)Report

          • Chip Daniels in reply to Philip H says:

            Even if we start with the premise that liberal democracy is universally superior, the first premise of liberal democracy is that it must respect the will of the people.

            And unfortunately there are plenty of places around the world like Afghanistan where liberal democracy just isn’t popular among the people. There are plenty of Afghans who do want it, but just not enough to constitute a majority.

            In circumstances like these, there really isn’t any external solution.Report

          • InMD in reply to Philip H says:

            I think this is also wrong. Over the long term western style democracy has proven to be the most successful form of government for the most people in terms of living standards and economic development. That’s just a fact. Among the long list of things the neocons get wrong is their belief that we can reliably midwife democracy in other countries through force of arms. The list of successes with that approach is short, and often dependent on unique circumstances, and the list of failures is long. Every country must follow its own path, and do the heavy lifting alone.

            Regarding the US I would say there is no democracy that simply established itself as complete on day 1. The UK took a long winding path from civil war and empire to get there. France’s first try ended in chaos and complete reversion to monarchy. We all know Germany’s story. All of the Asian democracies have come through paths of war and periods of dictatorships that slowly eroded. The one thing the OP is right about is that the alternative models demonstrated by Russia and China aren’t holding up well. The fact that we remain a work in progress does nothing to dispute that. There was a 1965 in the US, but I feel confident that there will never be one in Putin’s kleptocracy or in China under the communist party.Report

          • Pinky in reply to Philip H says:

            That’s more a caricature of the neocon view. One could note that there are no people who identify as neocons and that there are no neocon proposals on the table so it doesn’t matter if we caricature it, but if the point is to analyze past decisions to inform future policies, then we should be more accurate. This isn’t my central point but it’s worth making.Report

  4. Greg In Ak says:

    So people are looking at welding us into our apartments and going full authoritarian. Oh geez, that is ridiculous.

    The fear with giving out most advanced arms is that IT WILL spark escalation not just that we would be blamed. We don’t even know if the UKR would want our most sophisticated stuff since that is often hard to integrate and would take a long time. We have been giving more arms and almost certainly serious intell to UKR. It’s good Biden hasn’t been listening to the pro russian chorus on the right side.Report

    • InMD in reply to Greg In Ak says:

      I actually think the slow approach of aid to Ukraine has worked quite well. You don’t hand advanced weapons to a government your own intelligence services say will not last a week into an invasion. Even when they prove themselves capable you don’t openly hand them weapons that might immediately result in a decisive victory, especially if they may not have the training and sophistication to use them. Instead you trickle in just enough to let them slowly win without making a big show of it. The Biden admin has been imperfect on this but so far I rate them above average.Report

      • Greg In Ak in reply to InMD says:

        I agree. Biden has done a good job with UKR. Even if Germany and France are being weanies ( serious poli sci term) they are imp allies so we have to work with them. Can’t just tell allies to get bent since we do need them. As it is UKR has been getting weapon systems from lots of countries that has to lead to complicated difficult logistics.

        Literal tons of ind/small team weapons and lots of basics like artillery and ammo are prob more important that fancy stuff. That along with whatever intell we’ve been sharing.

        This is one of those challenges where there is no clear right or wrong. It’s all messy and hard to figure. We arent’ privy to lots of secrets which may ( or may not) bolster the admins case.Report

        • InMD in reply to Greg In Ak says:

          The politics of the situation are a lot harder in Europe. It’s just a constraint we have to operate within and it does us no good to blow up what has so far been unexpectedly impressive solidarity. I never understand takes that treat foreign policy as nothing more than a matter of will of our own president. There are other actors involved with their own interests.Report

      • North in reply to InMD says:

        Yeah outside the neocon fever swamps (more war! more war!) and the paleocon camp (Just. Let.Russia.Win!) it’s been generally recognized that Biden has done a spectacular job in propping up Ukraine and not stumbling into escalation *knocks on wood*.Report

  5. Chip Daniels says:

    The proposals outlined in this essay amount to:

    1. Providing more advanced weaponry to Ukraine;
    2. Speaking more forcefully about Russia’s authoritarian human rights abuses;
    3. Speaking more forcefully about China’s authoritarian human rights abuses;
    4. Interrupting our enemy while they are making a mistake

    I don’t disagree with any of this necessarily, especially the first.

    But I think the efficacy of speaking forcefully is vastly inflated, substituting good domestic politics for actual advancement of interests.

    And further, should our goal be “protecting American hegemony”, or protecting and advancing the liberal international order?

    For example, it appears that one happy consequence of Russias misadventure is the renewed resolve of the EU and NATO powers to protect their sovereignty and to ward off subversion from bad actors.

    American hegemony isn’t necessary here, and frankly isn’t desirable.

    Or consider Taiwan. We can and should strongly reiterate our commitment to their defense, but it is Taiwan who bears the weight of any conflict and rightfully should take the lead in determining how bellicose or conciliatory a tone to be taken.

    Again, the suggestions here aren’t wildly off base, but #4 seems unwise..Report

  6. Chris says:

    First off, the United States should not participate in any multilateral diplomatic discussions without the most important party to any such talks: the government of Ukraine.

    Has anyone suggested that we do participate in talks without Ukraine?Report

  7. North says:

    Proof of the progress of history; in 2022 this kind of thinking is bemusedly disdained at OT. In 2002 it would be getting reverent hearing in the halls of power in DC. Whatever else one can say about Trump (and there’s so much to say)- he did whip the neocons out of the GOP something fierce.Report

  8. Saul Degraw says:

    The Blob is strong in this post. I think Biden has been pretty strong on foreign policy. He has provided unprecendented aide to Ukraine without involving ground troops, he withdrew us from a 20 year and going strong quagmire. He has worked with the E.U. to help limit Russia’s economy during its unlawful invasion of Ukraine. What he has not done is been a warmonger and for the blob, that is a bridge too far.Report

    • Damon in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      Don’t forget about all that “special’ help we’ve contributed. I’m thinking of those pipeline accidents and such. Even if it wasn’t “our guys” doing the actual dirty work, it was likely our logistics support that was needed to support them. Not that I’m saying we didn’t do it, ’cause we likely did.Report