While he admits that both men had their failures, Mr Ignatius is convinced that their use of free form approaches to diplomacy points the direction which the Obama administration needs to take. The emphasis on form which constitutes the subtext of the Ignatius view of what diplomacy is all about is, to put it mildly, wrongheaded. It places the cart anterior to the propulsive mechanism.
Mr Ignatius' analysis and recommendation also ignores the fundamental differences which existed between the presidents served by Dr Kissinger and Dr Brzezinski. Richard Nixon for all his faults did have a sound grasp of the realpolitik requirements of foreign relations. Jimmy Carter was so divorced from the gritty, down and dirty nature of foreign affairs that it scarcely mattered what Brzezinski did or how he did it.
Both Presidents Nixon and Carter were substantially different from Barack Obama. The Nice Young Man of the People From Chicago has neither Nixon's experience based grasp of foreign relations nor the ex-Georgia governor's mixture of morality and detachment from reality. Mr Obama has a concept of proper conduct of foreign affairs, believes that he has a complete understanding of what needs to be done and how to do it, and is devoid of any genuine comprehension of how international politics really works.
Mr Obama is wedded to the exceptional idea that the proper conduct of foreign relations depends upon pretending that all countries are created equal as regards their understanding of and commitment to the "rights and responsibilities" of a state operating as a member of the "international community." He subscribes as well to the idiosyncratic notion that all governments share an identical calculus of rationality. Beyond this he is convinced that nationalism, like the nation-state, is obsolescent at best, obsolete at worst. Finally, he is of the view that diplomacy is divorced completely from armed force.
In all these beliefs, Mr Obama is as wrong as a dog meowing.
The only positive assessment which might be made of Mr Obama's foreign policy theology is that of consistency. His intellectual (the term is used generically only) architecture of foreign policy is totally organic in its emergence from the president's post-modern, post-nationalist, multi-cultural, blame-America-first, "progressive" political perspective. The "progressive" basis of his world view is of a piece with his understanding of foreign policy and diplomacy.
But, to belabor the self-evident, mere consistency does not raise the Obama understanding of foreign relations from the bottomless pit of error in which it resides.
No Kissinger, no Brzezinski, no Machiavelli could help Mr Obama. Nor could any arrest the rapid loss of American influence and restore the US to its accustomed place of global leadership.
No diplomatic genius can ride to the rescue of Mr Obama and the US. The only source of rescue for Mr Obama--and the US--is Barack Obama. If and only if Mr Obama comes to the realization that his notion of the World According To Barack is wrong can their be even the slightest hope for improvement.
That this miraculous rescue is not likely to happen is apparent from the unpleasant fact that Mr Obama is laboring under the burden of anosognosia. Originally a purely medical term, the word now describes a condition in which a person is not only ignorant of something, (usually a matter of grave importance or centrality to the person) but, additionally, is ignorant of his ignorance. He knows not, and, worse, knows not that he knows not.
Mr Obama has demonstrated in fashions both deep and recurrent that he has no knowledge, no clue as to the way international politics works. His seemingly deliberate prolongation of self-induced ignorance gives rise to the suspicion that he still has no idea that he has no idea. Not knowing what is wrong, he cannot and has made no effort at remediation.
The amount of knowledge that Mr Obama needs to have in his onboard storage is not vast. It is, however, critical.
To cease being Clueless In The Oval and thus adrift at the policy level, Mr Obama needs to know a couple of simple--but to someone of his personal predilections, prejudices, and True Beliefs, quite unpleasant--facts. Here they are in a semi-bullet form.
-----States are not people, not individuals for whom hopes, fears, loves, and hates are palpable drivers of action. States are amoral collective entities for which interests are supreme. Typically, the height of a state's ethics is a not particularly narrow notion of what's-in-it-for-us?
-----Relations between states are predicated upon coinciding national interests. All diplomacy consists of either identifying and expanding upon coinciding national interests or, in the alternative, employing coercion such as to create a simulacrum of coincidence.
-----It follows that all diplomacy consists of either (1) the vanilla sort, the variety which emphasizes coinciding interests and expands/deepens these over time--the diplomacy which leads to the Obama decried "special relationship," or (2) the chocolate sort, the variety which relies upon coercion to establish a climate such that one's interlocutor modifies his policies and behavior to meet one's requirements.
-----All coercive diplomacy ultimately rests upon the credible capacity and political will to use force, military force. No lesser form of coercion has any effect absent the clear capability and will to use armed force in support of diplomatic objectives and foreign policy requisites.
-----The foreign policy of a Great Power (which the US still is seen to be despite recent attempts to resign that status) must be consistent. It must be consistent over time as a Great Power must be seen as predictable and reliable. And, there must be consistency between declaratory policy (words, including even the most expendable sort of remark by a president or secretary of state) and actions.
-----In a democracy the foreign policy of an administration must be congruent with the will of We the People. It must comport itself well with the expectations, values, and fears of the politically articulate public generally and not simply a subset of that public, the self-appointed "elite" of media, politics, academia, and business.
-----It follows from the two foregoing items that while a change of policy is acceptable, sometimes even necessary, it must be undertaken with deliberate speed and not as a bolt-from-the-blue tectonic shift.
-----Foreign policy must be characterized by consistency, patience, clear goals, definite lines drawn not on shifting sands but upon immovable granite. Further, policy must be explained fully and accurately not only to foreign audiences but to We the People. This is even more critical when changes in policy, even slight shifts in nuance, are contemplated.
-----There is no such thing as an isolated event in foreign policy. The threads of the foreign relations tapestry are so interconnected that a tug on one will result, intentionally or otherwise, in a tug on all.
There it is. All the president needs to know about foreign relations and diplomacy. It isn't hard to grasp fully and effectively. Anyone, not simply a Machiavelli or a Kissinger can get the concepts and use them effectively.
The pity and tragedy is that Mr Obama does not know yet that he does not know any of these simple, but central principles. And, he shows no realistic probability of waking up, smelling the coffee, and getting a grip on Foreign Policy For Dummies.
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