Article
Democracies of the World, Unite
The American Interest, January/February 2007
James M. Lindsay, Director, Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, LBJ School of Public Affairs
Ivo Daalder, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
The Bush revolution in foreign policy is over. After September 11, the Administration acted on the conviction that an America that dared to shake off the constraints of international rules, laws and institutions could remake the world for the better. What they found instead was that an America unbound alienated allies, empowered adversaries and divided Americans. Faced with an overstretched military and multiplying threats, the Bush Administration in its second term has acknowledged through its deeds what its critics have long argued: The United States, powerful but not omnipotent, needs to work closely with others if it is to solve the foreign policy challenges now confronting it. To paraphrase Richard Nixon, we're all multilateralists now.
While the Bush Administration's renewed commitment to cooperate with others resolves one major foreign policy debate of the past six years, it doesn't resolve another—namely, what kind of multilateralism do we need? President Bush's conversion to multilateralism has been of a particular sort. It mostly involves traditional diplomacy, typically only with close U.S. allies, and almost always on an ad hoc, problem-oriented tactical basis—as with the decision to take Iran's nuclear program before the UN Security Council. There is no strategic vision of how international institutions can be shaped to serve longer-range American interests. In many ways, then, President Bush's second-term multilateralism is a kinder, gentler version of his first-term unilateralism.
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Copyright 2006 The American Interest LLC
