Foreign Policy Analysis: Deconstructing John Lewis Gaddis

Deconstructing Gaddis

Yale professor John Lewis Gaddis gives President Bush a thumbs up in Middle East policy in the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs magazine.

On the first page of his article, Grand Strategy in the Second Term, Prof. Gaddis states,

"George W. Bush...has presided over the most
sweeping redesign of U.S. grand strategy since
the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt." (2)

Throughout the article Prof. Gaddis expands on the particulars of the President's historic paradigm shift:

"...the fact that more than three years have passed without [another 9/11-like] attack is significant."
"...the first and most fundamental feature of the Bush strategy--taking the offensive against the terrorists and thereby surprising them--has so far accomplished its purposes." (3)

"The military campaign [against Iraq] proceeded as anticipated..." (8)
...

"...on October 9, 2004, millions of Afghans lined up to vote in an
election that had no precedent in their nation's long history.
Had anyone predicted this three years ago, the response would
have been incredulity--if not doubts about sanity." (13)
...

"A conservative Republican administration responded by embracing a liberal Democratic ideal--making the world safe for democracy...if that does not provide the basis for a renewed grand strategic bipartisanship...then one has to wonder what ever would." (14)
...

"[Bush has achieved] far more...than any previous American administration has achieved in the Middle East." (14)

So, bravo, Mr. President. the war against Afghanistan was a success, the war against Iraq was successful and worthwhile, the war on terror generally has been pursued competently and efficaciously, and all this was done according to a "sweeping redesign of U.S. grand strategy" with bipartisan appeal.

Right? How could all of those statements be read otherwise?

They can't.

But that's not all that Gaddis says, nor is that the tone of his article as a whole.

It's not a matter of quoting out of context. Readers can read the whole article easily enough, it's only fifteen pages long. To quote out of context is to isolate specific portions of a piece that unfairly distort a clear, and different, meaning.

It is not that Prof. Gaddis makes one point that is clear when one reads the article as a whole. rather, it is that Gaddis SAYS things that are different.

Further he talks in code to avoid having one clear meaning attributed to him and he constantly jumps back and forth between similar sounding but completely different ideas so as to veil the bankruptcy of some of his ideas.

Consider the following, taken from the same first page on which appears the "grand strategy" quote above:

"Neither Bush nor his successors, whatever their party, can
ignore what the events of September 11, 2001, made clear:
that deterrence against STATES affords insufficient protection
from attacks by GANGS, which can now inflict the kind of damage
only STATES fighting WARS used to be able to achieve." (2)
(emphasis added)

This is a radically different statement than those at the beginning of this post and Prof. Gaddis does not so much as acknowledge the difference.

This is talking in code. Lubriciously, Prof. Gaddis has now completely recast the entire discussion.

First, according to the above, it is not a "war" that the U.S. is in. This is a crime problem, in which America must protect itself from attacks by "gangs."

This is in fact how Richard Holbroke and John Kerry conceptualized the terror issue according to the famous New York Times Magazine cover story near the end of the presidential campaign.

Gaddis clearly seperates state violence against America ("wars"), which can be defended by "deterrence," and murder by "gangs" which, in his view, september 11 only demonstrated can now be carried out on as massive a scale as previously only wars could.

This is not an isolated instance of careless wording by Gaddis. Later he writes,

"...the survival of the STATE SYSTEM itself could be at stake. Here lies the common ground...securing the STATE..." (7) (emphasis added)

These do not "clarify" the other statements that Gaddis made that are quoted at the beginning of this post. These do not provide "context" for their real meaning. These are in addition to, in contradiction with, and an obfuscation of, those statements.

The language itself, "the state system," "securing the state" is Stalinesque. This framework treats all "States" as existentially equal and with the same legitimacy in the fight against terrorism. Totalitarian or authoritarian, theocratic or democratic, they are all in this context equal: "Here lies the common ground."

the author of the times magazine cover story stated that according to Holbroke and Kerry the conflict as they saw it was not between one state, America, and Islam or particular states like Iraq and Afghanistan, or even with a general problem like "terrorism." Rather the fight was between "Civilization" and anarchy. It's the theme of the old tv show "I Spy" where the enemy was "CHAOS."

Gaddis continually weaves this "I Spy" framework in with other nearly identical sounding language that has a totally different meaning. In the next to the last page of the article he writes,

"What September 11 showed was that the United States
can no longer insulate itself from what happens in that
part of the world: to do so would be to ignore clear and
present danger." (p. 14)

Thus, he flips back to framing the discussion in the more comfortable and familiar way as a problem for the United States and away from the radical, crackpot notion that it is a problem of all "States" against anarchy.

Not only does Gaddis refrain from clearly articulating and taking responsibility for the "I Spy" framework but he doesn't even allude to its practical implications, which are staggering and frightening.

Gaddis even adopts Kerry's campaign speech assertion that he would never give some other body a "veto" over his authority as Commander in Chief:

"[Gaining multi-lateral support] will not involve giving anyone else a VETO over what the United States does to ensure its security and to advance its interests." (p. 7) (emphasis added).

But just as Senator Kerry said in the next breath that there SHOULD be a "global test" for U.S. intervention, so Gaddis says,

"It will, however, REQUIRE persuading as large a group of states as possible that these actions will also enhance, or at least not degrade, their own interests." (p. 7) (emphasis added)

This is not accidental language. Prof. Gaddis knows what "require" means. He knows that it's a command, a condition precedent to its referrent. He knows that it's different from something like "demonstrates a need for," or "makes desirable."

Neither did Sen. Kerry misspeak in the first debate when he used the phrase "global test." He simply coupled it with the reassurance that he would not give any other body a "veto" over his authority as Commander in Chief.

Here is one example of what Gaddis' "I Spy" framework means.

Saudi Arabia was the home of fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers and of Osama bin Laden himself.

The kingdom was founded on and supports Whhabbism, one of the most radical strains of Islam.

Saudi Arabia is a brutally authoritarian monarchy that deflects internal dissent by allowing its mullahs to preach calls to violence against America and Israel. A member of the official Saudi delegation that visited President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas in the summer of 2002 was a religious leader who in April of 2002 had preached a sermon calling for the enslavement of Jewish women for the pleasure of Muslim men.

It is a country that places copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in prominent places in its airports.

It is a country that is regarded by most (I thought all until I read Gaddis) as one of the keys to solving the problem of Islamic terror.

Under Prof. Gaddis' "I Spy" framework Saudi Arabia has the same legitimacy in the fight against terror as does the United States.

"I Spy" also unifies all terrorists. the I.R.A, the Basques, the Chechens, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, they're all the same. They all threaten equally legitimate states which are part of a single "Civilization." In fact, this is the argument that President Putin made after the Beslan school massacre.

This is obvious nonsense, morally repugnant and strategically bankrupt. It is this though what provides Prof. Gaddis with the basis for his criticism of Bush's foreign policy "redesign."

First, Gaddis discusses the violence that the Bush administration has done to the distinction between "pre-emption" and "prevention," two long-used concepts in theoretical and legal discussions of war. Gaddis thus shifts his language back to the level of state-to-state theory and interaction.

The dangers of Bush's "conflation" mistake are many as Gaddis sees it:

"...the United States itself will appear to much of the world as a clear and present danger." (5)
...

"For the world's most powerful state to suddenly announce that its security requires violating the sovereignty of certain other states whenever it chooses cannot help but make all other states nervous." (5)
...

"As the political scientist G. John Ikenberry has pointed out, Washington's policy of pre-emption has created the image of a global policeman who reports to no higher authority and no longer allows locks on citizens' doors." (5) [ed note: He needed a political scientist as authority for that?]
...

"[The invasion of Iraq has resulted in] an unprecedented collapse of support for the United States abroad."(6)
...

"...Americans within a year and a half [of 9/11] found their country widely regarded as an international pariah." (6)

There are many points of note to be made on these quotes which are all taken from a section ironically titled "Speaking More Softly--and More Clearly."

First, using the pre-emption/prevention issue is not necessary to make his point, which is clear enough from the quotes above, that is, that the U.S. must act more multi-laterally in the future.

Second, he states that "John Kerry made it clear during the 2004 campaign that he would not have relinquished [the pre-emption] option had he won the presidency."

What I assert that Gaddis is doing here is once again using language to deliberately veil the true radical nature of his ideas.

The quotes above are very strident. Gaddis feels very passionately about the Bush mistake of conflating pre-emption and prevention. That John Kerry would have continued use of the pre-emption doctrine is not apposite to Gaddis' point, which is that Bush conflated that internationally accepted principle with a new, more controversial and dangerous one, preventive war. Of course he does not say that John Kerry would have continued THAT.

Third and most obvious, is the language that Gaddis uses. It is jarringly over-the-top and out of place with the language he uses in other sections of the article and simply schizoid when placed in the same article with his laudatory language of Bush.

Fourth, its content, Gaddis' "meaning" here, is just bizarre.

The United States is "WIDELY REGARDED" as an "INTERNATIONAL PARIAH."

The United States, in pursuing a course of preventive war, will appear, to "MUCH OF THE WORLD" as a "CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER."

Wow.

"Widely regarded," "much of the world;" not as bad as "universally regarded" or "most of the world," but still pretty bad obviously.

But, question: Who exactly? Who exactly does Gaddis allege feels this way?

France? Does Gaddis mean that the French think that the U.S. is a "clear and present danger" to them?

China? Do the Chinese regard us as an "international pariah?"

Prof. Gaddis, exactly which countries have the image of the U.S. as a "global policeman...[who] no longer allows locks on citizens' doors,"--as the political scientist G. John Ikenberry pointed out to you? Professor Ikenberry, can you help out here?

Russia? Does Gaddis believe that Bush's friend "Poot-Poot" is "nervous" that the U.S. may attack his country?

How about if we take it by continents.

Europe, who amongst you doesn't like Nascar... er... Who amongst you believes that America is a "clear and present danger" to you? Do i see one hand? Poland, I can't see you back there. Bulgaria, where are you hiding?

Prof. Gaddis, which country(ies) in Europe feel that the United States is a "clear and present danger?" There must be many, since, according to you, "much of the world" feels that way. Is there one?

How about Asia? Japan, the U.S., pariah or no? Cambodia? Tibet? Richard Gere, what say ye? Prof. Gaddis, who are we missing?

Australia?

Sub-Saharan Africa? South Africa, are you building underground bomb shelters and instructing your school children in the art of "duck and cover" for fear that Bush may drop atomic bombs on the beloved country? You're not?

South America: You Brazilians, Chileans, and Argentines, anybody battening down the hatches down there?

Gaddis' contention that the U.S. "has suddenly...announce[d] that its security requires violating the sovereignty of certain other states...," is wild. One imagines Bush and Cheney in the Oval office each morning, Cheney spinning a globe and a blind-folded Bush laughing malevolently and randomly pointing to some country and saying "THAT ONE!," and plans for the invasion of Luxembourg are put in motion.

Gaddis asseverates that "ALL OTHER STATES" are nervous about this. Is Gaddis' vcr permanently stuck on Dr. Strangelove? Did Michael Moore vet this article for him?

Who says something like that, much less writes it in a scholarly article?

WHICH COUNTRIES, Professor Gaddis, are "nervous" that the U.S. may willy-nilly decide to invade them randomly, "whenever it chooses?"

Prof. Gaddis well uses language to sugarcoat the strong medicine of his ideas. He is also a practiced user of the bogeyman overstatement masquerading as scholarship.

And of the straw-man argument. For example, he states that,

"The President and his advisers seem to have concluded"
that the international "status quo everywhere needed
shaking up. Once that had happened, the pieces would
realign themselves in patterns favorable to U.S. interests."
(p. 14)

Yes, one can see in one's mind's eye Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld sitting in their bunker the night of September 11 saying to each other, "I think if we just shock and awe the world a little and really shake things up the pieces will just naturally realign themselves in our favor."

And what, in the paragraph from which the above quote is taken, was just a "seeming" mode of thought on the part of the Bushies, becomes in the next paragraph on page 15, a FACT:

"The assumption that things would fall neatly into place after
the shock was administered was the single greatest misjudgment
of the first Bush administration."

How did we get from here to there?

This is what passes for foreign policy analysis these days.


-Benjamin Harris