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The University of Texas at Austin

Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs


Book Review

James Traub's 'Freedom Agenda' Smart, Incomplete


James M. Lindsay, Tom Slick Chair for International Affairs and Director, Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law

 Austin American Statesman - October 29, 2008

In the years after the War of 1812, Americans saw vindication of their own struggle for political liberty in events overseas. Countries across South America had claimed their independence from Spain, and Greeks were rising up against Ottoman tyranny. It only seemed natural for Americans to lend support to their fellow patriots in arms.

 

John Quincy Adams would have none of it. In an Independence Day speech in 1821, the secretary of state warned that America "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy." It is "the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all," but "the champion and vindicator only of her own."

 

Adams' injunction became an axiom of American foreign policy in the 19th century. America would spread democracy by setting a good example, not by intervening in the affairs of others.

Although bathed in principle, Adams' warning was rooted in practical politics. His United States was a weak country unable to affect events in far off lands. But it had much to lose by becoming entangled in them. Adams made necessity a virtue.

As James Traub, a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, details in "The Freedom Agenda," his useful and even-handed history of America's efforts to spread democracy abroad, Adams's warning lost its appeal once America grew stronger. Victory in the Spanish-American War made it a world power and put democracy promotion on the political agenda. From William McKinley, who wanted to tutor the Philippines in good government, to Woodrow Wilson, who wanted "to make the world safe for democracy," to George W. Bush, who committed us "to ending tyranny in the world," it has more or less stayed there — at least rhetorically — ever since.

 

America's democracy mission has always had its dissenters. Some, like failed presidential candidates Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan, believe Adams laid down a maxim good for all time. Critics on the left denounce the hypocrisy they see in presidents talking of democracy while coddling friendly autocrats and occasionally subverting elected governments in places such as Iran and Guatemala that are seen as a threat to American interests.

 

But the most influential critics of democracy promotion have been realist thinkers such as Henry Kissinger and Hans Morgenthau, who have dismissed our enthusiasm for democratization as naive and hubristic. Naive because we routinely underestimate the difficulty of building democracies in foreign lands and forget that it can come at the cost of other foreign policy goals. Hubristic because it assumes that we possess the power and the wisdom to make it happen.

Realists have some history on their side, as Traub lays out fairly and concisely. We celebrate our successes; every schoolchild knows that America brought democracy to Germany and Japan after World War II. But we forget the far longer list of failed attempts in places such as the Philippines, Haiti (more than once) and Nicaragua.

 

The fact that we have failed more often than not didn't dissuade George W. Bush from using his second inaugural address to make democracy promotion the lodestar of his second term. But Traub rightly suggests his commitment was more hat than cattle. Weapons of mass destruction, not democracy, was the reason the United States invaded Iraq. Democracy promotion became a staple of the president's speeches only when no weapons turned up and the Iraqi insurgency took root. Even then, he never developed a strategy to translate his grand vision into reality. "Indeed, the budget he submitted to Congress two weeks after the second inaugural address actually proposed cutting funding for the government's democracy promotion programs." Egypt appears to be the only country Bush pressured to adopt democratic reforms, and he abandoned that effort once he decided he needed Cairo's help to contain Iran.

 

Roads to democracy

Traub worries that Bush's rhetorical "recklessness" has discredited democracy promotion efforts both at home and abroad. On the former score, he shouldn't worry. Rather than running away from democracy promotion, both John McCain and Barack Obama have affirmed their commitment to it. The zeal to spread democracy, or at least to talk about it, seems encoded in our collective political DNA. Partly that reflects our political culture. But it also reflects the fact that in a globalized world where problems leapfrog borders it matters who your neighbors are and how they govern themselves. Where Adams feared his America would lose its soul if it ventured abroad in defense of democracy, today we worry we will lose our soul — and our security — if we don't.

 

What then is the best way to promote democracy? The suggestions Traub offers are sensible — at least as far they go. We will have trouble persuading others to embrace our ideals as long as we excuse torture and ignore the rule of law when it serves our purposes. We should be more humble about what we promise, especially since whether others embrace democracy is ultimately not our decision but their choice. In that respect, Bush's soaring second inaugural address violated a cardinal rule of politics — never overpromise and under-deliver. And we should tailor our policies to reflect the differences that exist among authoritarian countries.

 

But Traub's advice hardly exhausts the subject. He says little about how we might seduce rather than compel countries to adopt democratic reforms. As he notes, traditional democracy promotion efforts often founder because they require us to intervene directly in the politics of other countries. When we demand governments change their behavior, or channel funds to pro-democracy groups, smart autocrats exploit our actions to stoke nationalist sentiments and paint democracy activists as collaborators doing Washington's bidding.

 

A more effective strategy might be to give countries reasons to choose democracy on their own. The European Union successfully consolidated democratization in Eastern Europe because membership in the EU and the benefits it entails required former Soviet bloc states to adopt democratic reforms. A similar idea motivates President Bush's Millennium Challenge Account. Unfortunately, the program has never received the level of funding that the president promised.

 

Traub also offers no guidance on the toughest issue in the democracy debate: How should we choose when democracy promotion efforts conflict with other foreign policy goals — as they inevitably will? Is it more important that Saudi Arabia hold down oil prices or adopt democratic reforms? Should we criticize domestic repression in Russia if it means jeopardizing Moscow's cooperation in the war on terrorism?

Although Traub does not provide all the answers, the next administration would do well to take to heart the counsel he offers in "The Freedom Agenda." It just might make us more successful at vanquishing the monsters that we now believe our commitment to democracy commands us to destroy.

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