The Bluegrass and Beyond

American foreign policy during the past four months has looked much different than it did during the previous eight years.

Many people have contrasted the approaches of President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush. They also have compared Obama with other American presidents since World War II.

George Herring of Lexington is taking a longer view — a much longer view.

George Herring. Photo by Matt Goins

Herring, a retired University of Kentucky professor, is a leading authority on the history of American foreign policy. He also is author of the much-praised book, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776, the seventh volume in the Oxford History of the United States.

Since its publication last fall, Herring’s book has been praised by reviewers for its comprehensive coverage, its analysis of major themes and its readability.

Herring said writing the book brought home to him how foreign relations have always been central to American history and success.

“There’s this myth of isolationist America,” he said. “But we are a nation that has behaved, from the very beginning, like a traditional great power. That means being aggressively, relentlessly expansionist. Vigorously defending our interests, and putting those interests above ideals when those things clashed.”

So far, Herring thinks Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been savvy and sophisticated about foreign affairs. But, he warned, Obama’s foreign policy “team of rivals” has yet to be tested.

Herring’s comments were echoed recently by Foreign Policy magazine, which asked experts to grade Obama’s performance so far. The results: 11 As, 16 Bs, 7 Cs — and a D from former Bush Administration official Elliott Abrams.

“I think the direction he’s moving is the right direction,” Herring said. “It accurately reflects where we stand in the world today. On style points, he has been spectacular. He has done some remarkable things.”

Chief among them, in Herring’s view, has been tempering the notion that America always knows best and can unilaterally dictate policies to other countries and determine outcomes.

Herring said such “American exceptionalism” has tripped up presidents for generations.

“People don’t like to be lectured,” he said. “They don’t like to hear other people talk about how great they are and how right they are. The other thing may be that it blinds you to the limits of your power.”

Herring said race, and sometimes racism, has played a major role in the history of U.S. foreign policy. The fact that Obama is a black man from a multicultural family gives him special credibility and standing with many foreign nations and leaders.

Herring sees Obama’s willingness to engage the leaders of other nations — even bitter enemies — as a positive sign, based on historical experience. Fresh approaches to dealing with Russia and Iran, for example, could be in our long-term interest.

Herring noted that Obama has been seeking the middle ground on many issues. His administration also has followed some paths that the Bush administration had started down during its final two years in office, such as relations with Europe and Israel and strategies for dealing with Iraq’s insurgency.

“The breaks or changes between administrations are never quite as sharp as the new administration would like you to believe,” Herring said. “Changing policy is often like turning around a huge aircraft carrier in stormy seas. So many positions are fixed it’s hard to change in terms of domestic politics.”

The economic rise of China and India — and perhaps Russia and even Brazil — will continue to make global politics more complicated. Although America is the leading world power, it is hardly the only one.

From the perspective of domestic politics, many of Obama’s approaches to foreign policy could be risky. If things don’t go well, he could be accused of being weak.

“There are no quick solutions to these problems; It’s going to require a patience on the part of Americans that is not part of our national character,” Herring said.

“When you get down to cases, the chances of a good outcome on Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, all of these things, is very much up in the air,” he said. “These are problems that don’t have easy solutions, or perhaps any solutions at all.”

John Stempel insists that the title of his new book, Common Sense and Foreign Policy, is not an oxymoron, even if it seems like it lately.

In fact, the veteran U.S. diplomat, senior professor and former director of the University of Kentucky’s Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce is optimistic that President-elect Barack Obama can repair some of the damage wrought by the Bush Administration’s so-called neoconservatives.

“What will definitely be gone is American unilateralism — the idea that we’re so powerful we can do whatever we want,” said Stempel, who is among 220 authors who will be signing books Saturday at the Kentucky Book Fair in the Frankfort Convention Center. “The neoconservatives will be anathema — as they deserve to be.”

John D. Stempel

At a recent signing party for the book (The Clark Group, $29.95), Stempel discussed what he thinks is needed to repair America’s relationships around the world. Mainly, he said, leaders must stop the “with us or against us” bluster of the Bush years and return to traditional principles of international cooperation and diplomacy — “the art of letting the other fellow have it your way.”

Stempel’s book is a concise tutorial on foreign policy, filled with common sense. He even seems to have discovered a secret that few writers like to admit: The shorter the book, the more likely people are to read it.

Stempel defines common sense in foreign policy as “creating balanced and moderate policies and carrying them out in a competent and consistent manner to maximize their effectiveness.”

In Stempel’s view, American foreign policy ran off the road after Sept. 11, 2001, because radical Islamic terrorism was a threat our top leaders didn’t understand and weren’t prepared to confront.

Stempel, whose 23-year U.S. Foreign Service career included five years in Iran before and during the 1979 Islamic revolution, said the neoconservatives brushed aside people in government who had expertise in Middle East politics and culture and made decisions based on ideology. The result: We bungled the job in Afghanistan, let Osama bin Laden escape and started an unnecessary war in Iraq that fueled terrorism.

But Stempel, a self-described “radical moderate” who served both Democratic and Republican administrations, notes that arrogant cluelessness is bipartisan. Remember Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs? Johnson’s Vietnam? Carter’s Iran hostage crisis?

In addition to radical Islamic terrorism, Stempel notes that the world is full of challenges and potential crises, including North Korea and the relationship between India and Pakistan.

So what should we do?

America is the world’s acknowledged military superpower. But, Stempel notes, nobody likes a bully. By flaunting its power, the United States has made itself unpopular with friends and foes alike. Obama’s current popularity overseas offers a window to start repairing the damage.

The U.S. government would have far more influence if officials worked harder to understand the motivations and dynamics of other cultures. “We especially need moderate allies in the Islamic world to refute and tamp down radicals,” he said.

He notes that, when Europe and Japan faced terrorist threats in the 1960s and 1970s, they brought them to heel through international cooperation, good intelligence and police work, not by declaring a “war” on terrorism.

“We currently treat terrorism as a concrete enemy, not as the tactic it truly is,” Stempel writes. “We emphasize the military response out of proportion to the necessary police and political efforts that would bring in more allied help. We are too focused on the ‘American Empire’ concept.”

Stempel thinks we should pay more attention to international public opinion and seek to understand the motivations of other governments, cultures and religions rather than just dismissing them as irrational or evil. “Awareness of the new and complex is essential for effective common sense,” Stempel writes.

And he suggests we follow the advice of former Baltimore Oriole manager Earl Weaver: “It’s what you learn after you think you know everything that really counts.”