Foreign Policy Challenges Face the Next President by Wes Allen Riddle

Wes Riddle’s Horse Sense #366

Foreign Policy Challenges Face the Next President

The biggest thing in the news and on people’s minds lately, and understandably, has been the credit crunch and implicitly the extent to which it threatens financial institutions and poses a threat to economic wellbeing in the country and indeed around the world. Boys and girls on Wall Street screwed up, and their mistakes trickle down a lot quicker than the obscene profits do. Effects could be stagflation, unemployment, not to mention declining value of stock, which affects so many savings and investment vehicles like mutual funds or retirement accounts. Wall Street is tied to Main Street in other words. Bad bank loans might mean someone misses payroll and someone else gets laid off. The Treasury Secretary and Fed Chairman used the last ounce of credibility left to this administration and sounded an alarm the sky was falling. They looked visibly rattled during testimony, so much so the Congress actually moved to do something. Amazing.

Wise, unwise or indifferent Congress acted to rescue private interests with public money and to socialize the economy further. Government is convinced now it can repeal the business cycle and prevent ever having another recession, at least a deep one (Government does everything else so well. Why worry). Precisely. The next president, whomever he is, is going to have unprecedented problems to manage, economically speaking. Ditto in terms of foreign policy. Moreover, the linkage between the economy and foreign affairs has perhaps never been as star-crossed. It takes money backed by more than debt to run an empire, hold enemies at bay and help out friends. That’s in a good year. Whether or not you are embroiled in Iraq and Afghanistan, or faced with a subversive adversary like Iran or an outwardly resurgent hegemonic hopeful like Russia. Risk is better played on board games than on banks and battlefields.

The list of problems facing the next president will be large. Moreover, the country is moving from one policy phase to another. The situation in Iraq has turned around since 2006 and is all but won, if by winning we mean sufficiently stabilized. Soon U.S. concerns and foreign policy debate won’t be all about Iraq, but rather on how best to responsibly downsize forces in Iraq to face mounting challenges elsewhere, including in Afghanistan, with resources that are admittedly stretched thin. If we are smart we’ll invest some slack in a strategic reserve of forces, i.e., not to commit all our troops but to give ourselves flexibility, just in case things go south in Pakistan or we’re faced with events in the former Soviet Union like the recent conflict in Georgia (to say nothing of domestic hurricanes).

The next president will confront difficult situations with Iran, as well as with Russia. The two are not equal, however, as the threat Russia poses far exceeds anything Iran can do. One very important strategic challenge involves keeping Russia from successfully reaching out to Iran and Iran from accepting strategic accommodation and/or cooperation with Russia. We ought to work hard to achieve a more stable understanding with Iran if possible. We need Iran to stop hurting our interest in Iraq and start helping it in Afghanistan; after all, there’s no love lost between Iran and the Taliban, any more than with Saddam Hussein. Both Iraq and Afghanistan border Iran too, which given U.S. troop presence in those countries, should give pause to consider a perception of threat posed by us—particularly if we believe they are part of an ‘axis of evil.’ Even if by hard work and bargaining we win Iranian cooperation, we won’t win the war in Afghanistan without closing down sanctuary and supply lines entering in from Pakistan, which constitute the Vietnam equivalent of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The president also needs to close the book on Al Qaeda and stop exploiting that threat for political purposes and for concentrating power in Washington. It is as easy and as hard as declaring victory and moving to other foreign policy challenges. The fact is that Al Qaeda is decimated and hasn’t been successful in attacks in the United States since 2001 or in Europe since 2005. That doesn’t mean Islamist terrorism won’t be around for a long time, but it does mean the war on terrorism is down to swatting fleas and watching for larvae to grow. There are successful models to employ moreover, which do not involve wholesale occupation of foreign countries. We need Turkey’s cooperation more vis-à-vis a resurgent Russia (Georgia borders on Turkey), than we need stoke worries over Iraqi ‘Kurdistan’ (which also borders Turkey).

Talk about change. Americans want change. This is a so-called change election. Both Republicans and Democrats spout about change, and it’s a campaign slogan for at least one major party candidate. But change in foreign affairs as the term indicates, follows events that aren’t altogether in domestic hands. Many of the most important issues from 2009 to 2013 can’t even be imagined today any more than 9/11 was foreseen during the election of 2000. Any more than Truman knew Korea would dominate his second term or JFK expected the Cuban Missile Crisis to happen or knew it would define his presidency. In 1976 Carter didn’t imagine his presidency would or could be wrecked by an Iranian revolution deposing the Shah and American hostages being taken. George H.W. Bush didn’t expect to preside over the collapse of communism either. The point is that it isn’t all about the economy stupid.

Ultimately voters will judge which of the candidates has the character and competence needed to lead and to make right decisions in a very challenging, geopolitical landscape. Clearly soldiers on the front have their duties. Public servants also have theirs, from the postman to the fireman to the policeman to the teacher. We don’t think of it nearly enough, but while the freeman, freewoman and citizen have arguably few of what are termed duties per se, the one that stands out in peace and in war, in boom or in bust is the duty to vote. It is the duty as it were, to determine who takes the helm and steers a course through known and choppy water and perhaps through a few spans uncharted.

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Wesley Allen Riddle is a retired military officer with degrees and honors from West Point and Oxford. Widely published in the academic and opinion press, he ran for U.S. Congress (TX-District 31) in the 2004 Republican Primary. This article loosely based on reports by George Friedman, Chief Intelligence Officer of Strategic Forecasting (STRATFOR) in September 2008. Email: wes@wesriddle.com.

October 6, 2008