Remember the Institutions
The main thing I worry about these days is the possibility of a severe, Depression-style economic downturn. But another thing I worry about is that efforts to avoid a severe, Depression-style economic downturn will suck so much of the oxygen out of the room that there’s no political capital left to do the things that I would have called essential 9 months ago. Like revitalizing and reinvigorating the whole system of international institutions on which the climate of geopolitical peace and prosperity rests. My CAP colleague Nina Hachigian has a great piece on the TNR website trying to make the case that these are complementary issues:
But Roosevelt’s foreign policy–and his focus on global architecture–offers equally important lessons for Obama. What is missing so far from today’s talk of a progressive-era-in-the-making is a unifying agenda for American foreign policy that will leave the world safer and more prosperous when President-elect Obama leaves office. In his time, FDR led America through World War II and then became a key architect of the new world order that followed. Before he died, Roosevelt conducted the critical diplomacy that established the United Nations, the world’s first lasting institution of global governance.
Obama’s national security team will need creative solutions to today’s urgent foreign policy challenges, from Iraq and Afghanistan to North Korea, Iran, Congo, and Middle East peace. These complex issues will take a new caliber of diplomatic muster, and progress on any would be a triumph. But the times call for an ambitious, coherent international focus that goes beyond specific predicaments and ensures lasting change. How should America use this moment, with a progressive in the White House, a roiling worldwide crisis, and enormous power relative to our peers, to shape the world beyond our shores? The Obama administration should advance toward a goal that FDR championed–the strengthening of international institutions. [...]
More importantly, the threats we face today, from the global financial crisis to terrorism and climate change, even more than 60 years ago, demand international coordination. Plus, by engaging in the renewal of international regimes, America will earn goodwill it needs for all its international aspirations. Working again toward the common good, in concrete ways, and through organizations that benefit all, will begin to repair America’s image in the world. Finally, in today’s economy, it’s important to note that working through international institutions, when effective, can be a bargain. The U.N. is conducting some 17 peacekeeping operations with more than 70,000 troops for less annually than the cost of one month of U.S.-led operations in Iraq. At a time when the U.S. doesn’t have an extra penny for anything, working through collaborative institutions will stretch our security dollars.
The U.S. should not lose sight of the fact that the American people have little sense of the alphabet soup of international regimes that help keep them safe and prosperous. With his rhetorical skills and international outlook, President-elect Obama is the right leader to advocate for them, invest in them, create them and in doing so, create his own legacy.
Certainly I hope so. As of this afternoon, I’m a bit pessimistic about the prospects that this will actually happen in terms of US domestic politics. On the other hand, the global downturn does seem to be tending to reduce the level of international tensions and to focus leaders and populations alike on the basic commonality of the challenges facing the world.
20 Responses to “Remember the Institutions”
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January 5th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Obviously, all these big plans about fighting global warming sound silly at present when the big risk right now is global depression. Similarly, Obama’s obsession with high mileage cars seems oh-so-2008.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
We can’t afford to bully our way through the world anymore. I hope Obama gets wise to the futility and pointlessness of military action in Afghanistan, and keeps us out of future conflicts.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I’m concerned with this blog’s recent shift to the right.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
But for most of FDR’s presidency – less as time went on, but still pretty much until the bombs dropped on Pearl Harbor – US foreign policy was *non-existent*. That is, the isolationist view held sway, and FDR, while stretching it as far as he could (e.g. Lend-Lease), didn’t stray that far from the political zeitgeist pre-war. For instancHe definitely didn’t do anything to try to salvage the League of Nations. Without a doubt, the world was “more dangerous” after 8 years of the Roosevelt administration – not saying he could have done anything about that. Roosevelt only got the political backing to create ‘a global architecture’ in the context of the bloodiest war the world had ever seen. While Obama, has the advantage of a more internationalist consensus, the crisises mentioned by Hachigian simply don’t have the visceral magnitude that the entirety of the situation in the early 40’s had. And if anything, the Iraq war has tended to reduce the political consensus of internationalism. There is also the real fact that the UN peacekeeping operations mentioned have real problems, not all of them due to lack of funding.
Last: “On the other hand, the global downturn does seem to be tending to reduce the level of international tensions” At best, the jury’s still out on this one, but if it happens, it will be the first time it’s happened, *ever*.
January 5th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
The US faces no significant short-term foreign threats at all.
January 5th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Next to a depression the biggest worry should be is “that efforts to avoid a severe, Depression-style economic downturn will suck so much” money out of the Treasury that the US goes broke.
The entire alphabet soup of bank/financial programs cost over a trillion from March to October and had mighty unintended consequences. Sucking so much money out of the system surely contributed to the credit seize up. Even without expansion of those programs the deficit is now spinning out of control as tax receipts fall. In fact the latest program, to buy up mortgage backed securities is not being done with borrowed money, the Fed is printing the money.
No way will they print the money to give to Negroes however and the markets don’t want to give them money either so the stimulus package is liable to cause a blow up in the Treasury market if they try to borrow half a trillion or so in a short time period, like they did in Sept. Oct. That time the flood of paper was met with an even bigger tsunami of demand as the world fled to the ’safety’ of Treasuries. Then too, and try to follow this: the Treasury was borrowing the money and then giving it to banks and financial players who were turning around and buying, Treasuries. A beautiful circle jerk for sure.
Now back to the money for negroes. That’s a no no and that is why today they said a large portion of the ’stimulus’ would actually be in the form of tax cuts. Ahhhhh, music to the ears of the elites. No negroes getting those.
January 5th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
In his time, FDR led America through World War II and then became a key architect of the new world order that followed.
Does she think FDR survived past the end of WW II?
January 5th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Re: The main thing I worry about these days is the possibility of a severe, Depression-style economic downturn.
I think we are out of that danger-zone now (absent some unforeseeable calamity). The big danger now is Japan-in-the-90s stagnation.
January 6th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Thanks for the comments, guys. The fact is that the financial crisis is global. So even the best possible stimulus package wont be as effective absent international coordination. In April the G20 is going to get together to debate what new global financial architecture could prevent future crises and help to fix this one. So that’s a time when the Administration could remind people what the IMF, World Bank and other international orgs actually do. Rea–thanks for the catch.
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