Hillary & Barack's Conventional Hawkery

Wednesday, 15th July 2009

The problem with Major Foreign Policy Speeches is that different folk are listening. For instance, this section from Hillary Clinton's "Hey guys, remember me?" speech today:

"...we will remain clear-eyed about our purpose. Not everybody in the world wishes us well or shares our values and interests. Some will seek to undermine our efforts. In those cases, our partnerships will help constrain or deter their actions. And to these foes and would-be foes, let me say: You should know that our focus on diplomacy and development is not an alternative to our national security arsenal. You should never see America's willingness to talk as a sign of weakness to be exploited. We will not hesitate to defend our friends and ourselves vigorously when necessary with the world's strongest military. This is not an option we seek. Nor is it a threat; it is a promise to the American people."

This is hardly controversial. At least it isn't at home. It may even be needed to reassure domestic critics, but I'd wager it sounds rather different elsewhere. if I were one of the countries with which the US says it wants to engage, I might hear that as a threat and a suggestion that if the United States doesn't get its way during negotiations it reserves the right to use "the world's strongest military" to crush me.

When you say "this is not a threat" you are, usually, actually making a threat. That's doubly so when the open willingness to use force is presented as a "promise to the American people". Now, here in dear old Britain we may think that the US might be right to take such an approach but what we think matters less than how these things are seen elesewhere. There, it could be taken as indicating that the American won't negotiate in good faith and, therefore, there's no reason to trust them or have any faith in their good intentions. Quite the opposite in fact.

Similarly, it's no surprise that Clinton would update Madeleine Albright's concept of America as the "indispensable nation" and argue that "Just as no nation can meet these challenges alone, no challenge can be met without America." This too might be true, but it's also a reminder that this administration, like its predecessors, is a firm believer in American hegemony. There might be differences in how that hegemony expresses itself (we're now in a "multi-partner" world, dontcha know?) but the essential analysis - and the premise upon which it is based - remains pretty much the same (at least when seen from overseas) regardless of which party happens to be in power in Washington.)

Not that this should surprise anyone. During the campaign the striking thing was how conventional Obama's foreign policy thinking was. The same might be said of Clinton's. Each has always bee quite happy to countenance attacking Iran, while after a brief flicker of thought, Obama retreated to the conventional Washington view of the Russo-Georgian conflict last summer.

The differences of tone and emphasis in the new administration may constitute a welcome break with the way the previous administration did business* and the new crew may have a greater, if still hardly broad, understanding of the limits of American power, but these are merely different, perhaps more palatable, means to an end which is more or less unchanged.

For more on how the speech went down amongst CFR types, check out Dan Drezner's live-blog. He doesn't seem bowled over either.

*A good thing - since tact and realism matter. So it's encouraging, I think, that the Obama administration is more likely to take its cue from the George HW Bush era and not that of George W Bush.

Filed under: Clinton (97 more articles) , Foreign Policy (311 more articles) , Iranian election (6 more articles) , Obama (355 more articles)

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Paul

July 15th, 2009 9:40pm Report this comment

When you say "this is not a threat" you are not making a threat.

Any one with any street nous will know that those capable of doing violence don't have threaten it.

porkbelly

July 15th, 2009 10:36pm Report this comment

More likely this is a belated attempt to correct the widespread impression - at home and abroad - that American foreign policy has been subordinated to Obama's messianic vision of himself and his mission to bring about galactic peace and harmony. You don't need to carry on about how strong and determined you are to defend you interests if that is how you are already perceived, do you? But after months of apologizing for two centuries of American crimes and moral failings, and foolhardy attempts to cozy up to enemies like Iran and N. Korea, few will take Hillary's tepid tough talk as anything more than window dressing. Jimmy Carter is starting to look like a pillar of strength by comparison.

ndm

July 15th, 2009 11:18pm Report this comment

Spencer Ackermann seems to have a more positive view of the speech:

-- Over the last several days, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has quietly begun institutionalizing the Obama administration’s pledge to rebalance civilian and military elements of national security. Her speech to the Council on Foreign Relations Wednesday afternoon is her most visible attempt yet to make a case for transforming the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development’s place in the national-security pantheon in order to suit U.S. foreign policy goals.

big gay al

July 17th, 2009 12:36pm Report this comment

Glad to see that the drug decriminalisation pilot programme has kicked off where porkbelly lives.

I think the overriding impression at home and abroad is that there are adults in charge of the White House again after 8 years of at times quite breathtaking incompetence. The only thing that was missing, unfortunately, was an assertion that American security is what's most important to the American government and that Israel can either start to understand that or get used to flying solo.

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