By Dr. Janne E. Nolan
The next president needs to revive America’s commitment to cooperative global engagement based on the rule of law. There is no greater priority if the United States hopes to restore its global stature. The U.S. currently lacks a clear strategy to guide global engagement in a way that other nations perceive as fair and legitimate. Vague and shifting “doctrines” issued over the last decade – from America’s right to launch unilateral, preemptive military strikes against global adversaries to the abandonment of vital international norms, such as the Geneva Convention – have proven as bewildering to allies as to potential foes, leaving the United States increasingly isolated internationally. The next president will need to recognize that legitimacy is not a dispensable luxury in the 21st century – it is an essential ingredient of strategic success and sustainable, powerful leadership.
The politics of the last decade have deepened divisions among Americans. Civil society has been undermined by acrimonious partisan conflicts that substitute rhetoric for informed discourse. Americans have been led to believe that they no longer share common values, pitting soldiers against peace activists, citizens against immigrants, the affluent against working families, and so-called elites against caricatures of the “average American”. Inside the government, professionals have been marginalized from policy-making in favor of a few political appointees, with predictably disastrous results.
The failures of American institutions to adapt to contemporary security challenges also are glaring and urgent. Resources for counter-terrorism pay short shrift to efforts to help Americans understand international Islamic fundamentalism or the role of religion as an arbiter of conflict. Investment in the skills needed to influence non-state entities committed to violent change or to counter the rising tide of anti-Americanism has barely increased. Despite escalating strains on the nuclear nonproliferation regime, strategies to persuade nations to stop seeking weapons of mass destruction remain inchoate and disputed. Diplomatic initiatives are hobbled by domestic controversies and typically lack high level attention from the intelligence and policy communities.
The emphasis on coercive instruments to promote US influence (from preventive intervention to air strikes to covert operations to indefinite detention of immigrants and suspected terrorists) has created an undue reliance on the military for a wide range of complex missions. The idea that technologically superior forces are sufficient to secure political as well as military victory has proven to be quixotic and misguided, however. Indeed, no one is more in favor of revitalizing the role and effectiveness of civilian agencies to shift some of these burdens than the current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates. His ideas should be supported.
The United States can never succeed if it stands divided. The next president has to reach out to the best and the brightest across all sectors of American society to join in common cause for enlightened global engagement. We have seen what can happen when decision-making gets narrowly concentrated inside the Executive Branch among a few individuals who are bent on a singular agenda. The professional stature of public servants has taken a serious beating in recent years. Restoring the appeal of public service will take time and effort but it is essential if we want to protect American democracy from being hijacked again.
Dr. Janne E. Nolan, a former national security official in the State Department and a staff representative to the Senate Armed Services Committee, has served as a member of several government commissions, including the investigation of the l998 embassy bombings in East Africa chaired by Admiral William Crowe. She is the author of numerous books and articles about the politics of national security and teaches at Georgetown University and the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.