Quite often people buy books by the author. But some books deserve attention because of their readers. For example, in 1979 the head of one think-tank, not well-known at that time, commissioned his employees to work out a package of recommendations for a future Republican President. A year later a multi-page volume with an ambitious title “Mandate for Leadership” was handed over through aides to newly elected Ronald Reagan. After he looked through the book, he ordered to distribute the book among the members of his team. Later, “Mandate for Leadership” began to be regarded as Reagan’s unofficial program1, and the Heritage Foundation (which authored the recommendations) became one of the most successful think tanks and a benchmark for many new organizations and made the existing ones adjust. Given the overwhelming amount of information in the political sphere, the Foundation not so much prioritized the depth of analysis but rather sought to make it timely and handy for decision-makers.
Over years, the Foundation’s intensive work gave a considerable advantage in the American political arena to Conservatives whose ideas it protected: Liberals had no organization providing intellectual support of its positions comparable to the Foundation in terms of expert and marketing capacities. The year 2003 saw the birth of such an organization, i.e. Center for American Progress (CAP), rather leftist in its views (even from the point of view of Democrats). The most prominent and remarkable forum of the American left was headed by a man who throughout most of his career avoided publicity, the former head of Clinton’s administration (1993-2000), John Podesta2. Within a short period of time he managed to create quite a powerful and influential research and propaganda structure.
In the primaries of the 2008 election campaign John Podesta actively supported H. Clinton, however he was the one whom Obama trusted to head his transition team3. The CAP head already had by that time a detailed plan of action entitled “Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President”. Today, this 700-page volume is available not only to the members of the American administration but to all those who are interested in the US policies. It is the result of the joint effort of 67 experts having experience of working in Congress and Clinton’s administration.
The authors believe that November 4, 2008, symbolizes the end of the three-decade conservative cycle and the passing of initiative to progressive forces. Comparing Obama and their former “boss” they point out that Clinton was a progressive president in the conservative era; while now the USA has a progressive president in the progressive era, which opens up absolutely new opportunities for reforming the country. As the past administration completely failed, the country is in need of immediate reforms. CAP experts put premium on four main lines of reform:
(1) strengthening democracy by changing the electoral system, providing the population with a wider access to information, encouraging changes in financing election campaigns, and also restoring balance between the executive and legislative branches;
(2) enhancing economic opportunities, which implies not only overcoming the economic crisis but also setting up a system that would provide for an increase in income of all social strata (not only of the rich as it has been the case over the past years) and would guarantee social security of low-income people;
(3) stepping up diplomacy as a major tool in ensuring security, which should help to restore American leadership;
(4) creating a “greener world”, which implies that the ecological aspect should be taken into account when decisions are made in any field and on any issue, and building an economy that would be less dependant on hydrocarbon sources.
The practical nature of the book is fully reflected in its structure. Apart from the introduction, it has four sections with the first one devoted to how the work in the White House is organized, and the other three – to the main areas of state policies: economic, domestic, as well as security policy. Each of the theme-based parts contains overviews of the main lines of activities in the pertinent field. For example, the field of national security has the following lines: curbing terrorism, withdrawal of troops from Iraq, fighting global poverty, averting nuclear threat, strengthening the system of domestic security, ensuring the protection of human rights and supremacy of law, employing public diplomacy to improve the image of the USA. The following chapters give recommendations with respect to specific bodies, ministries and departments; they are of both purely organizational and informative character. In most cases, the measures put forward are grouped according to periods into those that should be adopted in the first hundred days, in the first year and long-term measures.
At first glance, the last chapter dealing with the problems of national security should be of interest to foreign affairs experts. It is not quite the case in reality. Most of the book’s authors are liberal globalists of Clinton’s call-up. Over the past years they have partly adjusted their views but not the general approach that consists in postulating that foreign and domestic policy are inseparable. Consequently, the element of foreign policy along with the one of domestic policy can be found in almost every chapter.
The keynote idea of the book is that it is necessary to adapt the American strategy in the context when globalization followed a scenario other than the one forecast by the American establishment in 1990s. Having created opportunities for global expansion of the American capital, values and military power, globalization, simultaneously, resulted in the transfer of the main industrial facilities outside of the USA, emergence of new competitive countries (such as China and India), blurring of the American traditional identity by the inflow of immigrants, and in the growth of pervasive terrorist networks.
At the same time, the USA cannot refuse to participate in globalization processes, due to their objectivity; on the contrary, they should again accept them as the basis for their strategy but, this being said, overhaul their interpretation. Ironically, today’s progressive liberals, who used to be the core of Clinton’s administration, have recourse to the same rhetoric that their critics from among anti-globalists employed as early as in the late 1990s. They speak about the need to give social and ecological dimensions to globalization and that growing economic competition should not lower living standards, should not lead to overexploitation of resources and deterioration of the environment. Only the introduction of non-economic conditions and requirements into globalization can halt or at least slow down the current tendency of such new economic giants as China and India growing stronger to the detriment of the US positions. The book gives a number of recommendations to rectify the imbalances of economic liberalization; and it suggests that they should be firstly used in the USA, and afterwards spread out worldwide.
Meanwhile, the new administration is required to have no recourse to unilateral actions, to make no attempts of power domination, to waive the concept of pre-emptive wars and of changing regimes, and not to impose aggressively its own ways. As to the main threat to the US national security (CAP experts believe that it is still terrorism), a new strategy, framed though in the well-known terminology, is offered to deal with it, that is the deterrence strategy. It stipulates that large-scale military operations should give place to a more active interaction with other countries in intelligence activities and cooperation in law-enforcement with more effective information and propaganda support.
Progressive liberals also suggest that the new administration should intensify its cooperation with traditional allies and new partners, withdraw troops from Iraq, promote the practice of multilateral trade agreements including in them provisions relating to environmental and labor protection, work out its own package of proposals for the climate change conference in Copenhagen. In general, the book reflects the drive of the American left to revive the soft consensus-based leadership of the US, but in the fundamentally new context as opposed to both the cold war period and Clinton’s period.
At the same time, the authors of the book do not refuse to preserve continuity as to the traditional elements of the US policy. American leadership as a key objective is not in question. Liberal globalists believe that it is still more appealing to the world than any other order. Cooperation with a wide range of partners, wherever and whenever it is possible, has been declared the main instrument for reviving this leadership. This does not mean, however, that if such cooperation turns out to be impossible the US will just sit twiddling its thumbs. The strive to be considerate of a great number of countries is not the equivalent of mandatory respect for the interests of everybody, and still less does it mean that the USA is ready to give away the priority of its own interests.
In this respect the Russian political analysts should pay attention to the fact that Russia is largely on the periphery of the CAP experts’ attention. Russia is relevant in the context of the US strategy only segmentally. Its relevance is acknowledged as far as the problem of nuclear arsenals is concerned (though, even in this aspect strategic balance is not at the top of the agenda). Moreover, they state the necessity of fostering Russia-NATO relations and engaging Russia in the settlement of the Iranian problem. But these are perhaps the few fields where Russia is regarded as a key player (it is not even mentioned in the context of the Korean nuclear problem). For comparison: China is mentioned in connection with almost every aspect of the US international activities, be it the world trade, reform of international financial institutions, combating climate change or maintenance of international security. And practically in each of these fields China is the number one partner.
Such perception of Russia should be given some consideration, especially seeing that “Change for America” justifys its intended use as an important source of ideas for Barack Obama. This is supported not only by the fact that many of the CAP experts are now working in the White House and state departments, but also by the practical steps taken by the new president. Cases in point of the implementation of the recommendations given in the book are that Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the United Nations, became a member of the US National Security Council, that the “nuclear-free world” was declared a long-range goal, and that a speech was delivered specifically devoted to the relations with the Muslim world and many others. It is not to be expected that all the other recommendations will be carried out, as liberal globalists constitute only a part, though quite influential, of Obama’s team. Nevertheless, the US global strategy put forward by them is to be regarded as one of the mainstreams of the American political thought; this means that their proposals require a thorough and detailed study.
Igor Istomin
Notes
1 Abelson D.E. A Capitol Idea: Think Tanks and US Foreign Policy / D.E. Abelson - Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006. P. 33-35.
2 Branegan J., Tumulty K. Not a Golfing Buddy
3 Tumulty K. The Transition: What Change Will Look Like (http://www.time.com/time/nation/ article/0,8599,1858701,00.html).
