A New Realism

A Realistic and Principled Foreign Policy

Bill Richardson

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2008

Summary:  The United States needs a foreign policy that is based on reality and is loyal to American values. The next U.S. president needs to send a clear signal to the world that America has turned the corner and will once again be a leader rather than a unilateralist loner. Getting out of Iraq and restoring our reputation are necessary first steps toward a new strategy of U.S. global engagement and leadership.

BILL RICHARDSON, Governor of New Mexico, is a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Sixty years ago, in the pages of this magazine, George Kennan presented a compelling case for U.S. global engagement and leadership to contain Soviet power. His strategic vision laid the foundation for a realistic and principled foreign policy that, despite mistakes and setbacks, united the United States and its allies for the duration of the Cold War.

In the wake of the Bush administration's failed experiment with unilateralism, the United States needs once again to construct a foreign policy that is based on reality and loyal to American values. Such a policy must address the challenges of our time with effective actions rather than naive hopes. And it must unite us because it is inspired by the ideals of our nation rather than by the ideology of a president.

In his July 1947 "X" article, Kennan argued that the United States must meet Soviet power with American power and communist ideology with credible democratic leadership. He understood that containing Soviet communism would require strong American international leadership and that such leadership would depend on the power of our military, the dynamism of our economy, and the courage of our convictions. This strategic vision -- because it was based on fundamental realities and fundamental American values -- informed the policies not only of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower but also of every president, Democratic or Republican, for two generations.

America is a great nation that knows how to defend itself. But its greatness is built on foundations more solid than self-absorption. We defend ourselves best when we lead others, and the key to our history of effective leadership has been our willingness to seek and find common ground, to blend our interests with the interests of others. Truman and Eisenhower understood that defending Europe and America from the Soviets required a strong military, but they also understood that we could not lead our allies if they did not wish to follow.

These and subsequent American presidents knew the importance of moral leadership. While our remarkable military and prosperous economy gave us the power to lead, our commitment to human dignity -- including our willingness to struggle against our own prejudices -- inspired others to follow. If America is to lead again, we need to remember this history and to rebuild our overextended military, revive our alliances, and restore our reputation as a nation that respects international law, human rights, and civil liberties.

Today, we are at the beginning of a new era of unprecedented global opportunities and global threats. New challenges demand that we chart a new strategic course. To do so, we must reject easy ideological recipes and examine carefully the assumptions that guided us in the twentieth century. We must assess what it means to be America in the world of today -- a world of rapid economic and technological change, grave and worsening energy and environmental risks, and the simultaneous emergence of new world powers and asymmetric security challenges.

In the twenty-first century, globalization in all its forms is eroding the significance of national boundaries. Many of the greatest challenges that we face -- from jihadism to nuclear proliferation to global warming -- are not faced only by us. Urgent problems that once were national are now global, and dangers that once came only from states now come also from societies -- not from hostile governments but from hostile individuals or impersonal social trends, such as the consumption of fossil fuels.

American foreign policy must be able to cope effectively with these realities. We must reject both isolationist fantasies of retreat from global engagement and neoconservative fantasies of transforming other countries through the unilateral application of American military power. Our policy also must go beyond the balance-of-power realism of the last century. In this new, interdependent world, we need a New Realism -- one driven by an understanding that to defend our national interests, we must, more than ever, find common ground with others, so that we can lead them toward our common purposes.

Looking reality in the face also requires recognizing that because of the failures of the Bush administration, U.S. influence and prestige are at all-time lows. The damage is extensive: in an age of terrorism, when we need all the friends we can get, we find ourselves isolated. The Bush administration's policies have weakened our alliances, emboldened our enemies, depleted our treasury, exhausted our armed forces, and fueled global anger against us. From global warming to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to the number of troops that would be needed to pacify Iraq, this president has preferred ideology to evidence. He has been unwilling to accept that leadership requires not just the power to destroy but also the power to persuade. Rather than doing the hard, patient, necessary work of strategic diplomacy, he has indulged the fantasy that he could reorder the world through unilateralism and bullying.

The Bush administration's foreign policy also has lacked sound principles. The president has regularly employed the rhetoric of the virtuous, but his actions have not matched his words. Moralizing has substituted for moral leadership, lecturing others about democracy has substituted for respecting democratic values. George W. Bush has claimed to be championing democracy, but the rest of the world sees a great nation diminished by secret prisons, torture, and warrantless wiretapping. And every day that we remain mired in Iraq, the world is reminded of the folly, the dishonesty, and the disregard for the opinions of others that got us there.