Foreign policy begins at home : the case for putting America's house in order PDF
Preview Foreign policy begins at home : the case for putting America's house in order
FOREIGN POLICY BEGINS AT HOME ALSO BY RICHARD N. HAASS War of Necessity, War of Choice The Opportunity The Reluctant Sheriff The Bureaucratic Entrepreneur Intervention Conflicts Unending Beyond the INF Treaty Congressional Power EDITED VOLUMES Honey and Vinegar Transatlantic Tensions Economic Sanctions and American Diplomacy Superpower Arms Control FOREIGN POLICY BEGINS AT HOME The Case for Putting America’s House in Order Richard N. Haass BASIC BOOKS A MEMBER OF THE PERSEUS BOOKS GROUP New York Copyright © 2013 by Richard N. Haass Published by Basic Books, A Member of the Perseus Books Group All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10107. Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected]. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Haass, Richard. Foreign policy begins at home : the case for putting America’s house in order / Richard Haass. pages; cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-4650-6596-7 (e-book) 1. United States—Foreign relations. 2. United States—Politics and government. 3. World politics. 4. International relations. 5. Security, International. I. Title. JZ1480.H32 2013 327.73—dc23 2012049203 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Dedicated to Brent Scowcroft CONTENTS Introduction PART I THE RETURN OF HISTORY Brave New World American Primacy China’s Rise A Post-European World The Wannabe Major Powers The Global Gap Reason for Optimism Reason for Worry The Middle East Morass The Consequences of History’s Return PART II RESTORATION ABROAD Doctrines and Democracy Saving Lives Taking on Terrorists Integration Restoration A Defensible Defense PART III RESTORATION AT HOME The Deficit and the Debt Energy Education Infrastructure Immigration Economic Growth Politics Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes Index Introduction This relatively short book is predicated on a consequential idea: The biggest threat to America’s security and prosperity comes not from abroad but from within. The United States has jeopardized its ability to act effectively in the world because of runaway domestic spending, underinvestment in human and physical capital, an avoidable financial crisis, an unnecessarily slow recovery, a war in Iraq that was flawed from the outset and a war in Afghanistan that became flawed as its purpose evolved, recurring fiscal deficits, and deep political divisions. For the United States to continue to act successfully abroad, it must restore the domestic foundations of its power. Foreign policy needs to begin at home, now and for the foreseeable future. Foreign Policy Begins at Home is a book that I never imagined writing. Sandpaper off the nuances and subtleties, and this is a book that argues for less foreign policy of the sort the United States has been conducting and greater emphasis on domestic investment and policy reform. For someone such as me, a card-carrying member of the foreign policy establishment for nearly four decades, this borders on heresy. What got me to this point? More than anything else it began with the second Iraq war (begun in 2003) and the Afghan troop surge initiated in 2009. I mention both because my differences over the trajectory of American foreign policy are not with a single party. Many participants in the foreign policy debate in both parties appear to have forgotten the injunction of former president and secretary of state John Quincy Adams (that America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy”), along with the lessons of Vietnam about the limits of military force and the tendency of local realities to prevail over global abstractions. As was the case with Vietnam, neither Iraq nor Afghanistan (as of 2009) was a war of necessity; more important, neither was a justifiable war of
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