Like many dynamic alpha males, it is common knowledge the Barack
Obama has a hard time admitting he’s in the wrong. But after the shellacking (his
word) the Democrats took in the mid-terms even the tetchy President managed to
stammer to the White House press corps that yes, mistakes had been made.
This amounts to a colossal understatement. In the worst result since 1938,
Democrats lost 60-plus seats in the House of Representatives and their governing
majority. While they managed to hang on to that majority in the Senate, in truth
losing six seats there is another calamity ; in the next electoral cycle Democrats will
have to defend two times the number of seats as Republicans, and in electorally
perilous terrain such as Ohio, Nebraska, and Montana. This was the cycle that
played to their strengths ; with its passing further losses in two years in the upper
chamber are almost a foregone conclusion. There is no getting away from the fact
that this was a first-class electoral catastrophe for a team that just two years ago
was talking about being the architects of a fundamental realignment of American
politics that would last for decades. What in the world happened ?
First, Obama made the mistake that validates me receiving a classical
education : he forgot about the overriding importance of hubris, of flying too near
the sun too soon without understanding the genuine nature of his triumph ; anyone
with a passing knowledge of the Greeks should not wonder that he almost
immediately fell to earth.
All new administrations have problems with this, invariably assuming their
victory portends the beginning of a new Augustan age. To some extent this is
entirely understandable ; after all, despite sometimes fearsome odds the new team
will have seen off all challengers, electing their man leader of the most important
country in the world. For the men and women around Obama this was even more
true than usual ; his brilliant campaign did fire the imagination of the world,
allowing an obscure first-term Senator from Illinois to beat back the fearsome and
highly successful Clinton and GOP campaign teams. Is it any wonder that having
miraculously overcome these long odds the new White House would find in their
improbable and inspiring triumph the clarion call of a new time ?
But of course this was a gross misreading of their mandate. For the centerleft
Obama repeatedly kept failing to understand that the enduring political culture
of America is on the center-right. The 2010 mid-term exit polls make this
startlingly clear : 41% of those voters polled identified themselves as conservatives,
39% as moderates, and only 20% as liberals. These numbers, while a little worse
than Obama’s banner year of 2008, do track consistently with the general national
mood over the past several decades.
I myself am a good example of the misread. President Bush had so messed
up the economy, both due to profligate spending as well as lax financial oversight,
just as the neocons had so decimated American foreign policy in Iraq and
Afghanistan, that I simply had to vote for Obama, not installing the laughably
unqualified Sarah Palin one heartbeat away from the presidency. Many Americans
not on the left agreed with me at the time ; but that does not mean that any of us had
become convinced liberals. Rather, in time honored Jeffersonian fashion, it was
well past time to throw the bums out.
Ignoring this reality and ploughing ahead with his center-left agenda, the
President made Health Care reform the centerpiece of his first 18 months in office.
For most Americans, in the grip of the worst economic calamity since the Great
Depression, this seemed to be missing the point. Rather than entirely focusing on
the parlous economy, creating a huge new entitlement program horrified
independent voters, who value fiscal sanity beyond all else. For what Obama
settled for on Health Care is an extension (at the cost of around another ruinous $1
trillion according to the Congressional Budget Office) of the current dysfunctional
system to more Americans, rather than bending the cost curve of an unaffordable
entitlement as was initially advertized. So, from an independent voter perspective,
rather than dealing with the aftermath of the Great Recession, Obama’s team, like
an alcoholic swearing to give up the stuff after just one more bender, instead were
hell-bent on adding to the country’s economic woes.
They deserted the president in droves. When elected, a full 56% approved of
Obama ; the number now stands at 38%, a precipitous 18 percent fall in just two
years. In the mid-terms, independents voted for Republicans by 55-40%, an
astronomical 33% swing in just the four years since 2006, when the Democrats
retook the Congress. Clearly the love affair is over.
Beyond losing the vital center, the Health Care debate (and more
importantly the manner in which the law was rammed through the Congress
through the use of dubious parliamentary tactics) enraged Obama’s enemies to the
point that the whole process became the genesis for the Tea Party, the first organic
American political movement to burst on the scene since the New Left in the late
60’s.
It isn’t just the way the White House ignored their basic views of
government ; the Obama administration and its allies in Congress (such as House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi) and the mainstream media seemed to delight in belittling
the Tea Party movement, first accusing it of being wholly manufactured then
slightly changing the narrative, making these unsophisticated rubes merely the
pawns of very smart right-wing Republican businessmen. The ignorance about the
movement was matched only by liberal condescension.
This in turn merely confirmed the Tea Party rank and file’s sense that they
were not being taken seriously—that their legitimate concerns about the dramatic
growth in the size and scope of the government that Health Care reform became
short-hand for—were being belittled by a governing class who looked down upon
vast swathes of the citizenry. And they were largely right. The mixture of
incomprehension and disdain the center-left has held for the Tea Party makes for
terrible analysis and worse politics.
For the final nail in Obama’s electoral coffin concerns the seemingly
reckless expansion in the size of government, versus the correspondingly meager
results. In just two years under the Obama administration, the government’s share
of GDP has increased from 21 to 25%. New debt has totaled a mind-boggling $3
trillion in just 21 months, with the national debt on track to reach 90% of GDP.
The greatest power in the world will have become Greece. With unemployment
stuck at 9.6% (the real rate is closer to 17% when the discouraged and
underemployed are added in), with growth sagging, with the Federal Reserve
printing ever more money, it is a fair point to wonder if the course Obama has
embarked on has brought the country value for money.
So that is what has taken the President from the Olympian heights of victory
to the slough of despond in the blink of an eye ; where should he go from here ?
After the debacle, most of the smart Washington money has been on Obama
pivoting to the center, ‘doing a Clinton,’ enacting moderate legislation (for Clinton
the key issue was welfare reform) and working with the Congress, as the American
people so desperately want, getting smaller things done and rebuilding his
reputation as a post-partisan figure. On the surface this makes a great deal of sense ;
but upon closer inspection it is almost all wrong.
Instead, look for President Obama to follow the more adversarial path of
another successful Democratic President, Harry Truman. Following the 1946 midterms,
and confronted with a very similar political situation to the one Obama now
finds himself in, Truman shrewdly realized that the newly victorious Republicans
would be in no mood to compromise with him, smelling blood in the water and
believing he was soon to be turned out of office.
To avoid this fate, he instead took them on at every turn, domestically using
the veto pen and eventually winning the public relations war that it was ‘The donothing
Congress’ and not his White House that was blocking working together. At
the same time, Truman concentrated on foreign policy, looking and acting
presidential by founding NATO, enacting the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan,
while the GOP squabbled amongst themselves.
His astounding 1948 triumph, marking one of the great political comebacks
in history, was his reward. Given that Obama really is more liberal than the
centrist, southern Democrat Bill Clinton, that the enraged Republicans show no
sign of wanting to govern with the President but will instead take delight in
thwarting him, and that the President (for all the problems at the recent G-20
meeting) remains far more popular abroad than at home, a Truman strategy would
seem tailor made for him. Look for gridlock, bitter fights regarding just about
everything domestically, and a White House that increasingly concentrates on
foreign relations over the next two years.
The Joys of Foreign Policy
President Obama will not be the first chief executive to discover the joys of
foreign policy. The general reason is obvious ; even a cursory reading of the
American Constitution makes it clear that presidents simply have more
opportunities to make the running in foreign affairs, rather than in domestic
politics. The Founders designed the government so the president at worst is first
among equals in crafting foreign policy, while he is just one voice of many (if
marginally the most important) domestically. Like water flowing along the path of
least resistance, White Houses turn to foreign affairs when domestic agendas (as so
often happens after two years) stall. This was true for successful political
presidents such as LBJ, Reagan, and Bill Clinton as well.
Secondly, the emergence of the Tea Party and its curious two-headed nature
gives Obama a real chance to divide and conquer the Republican Party. There is
little doubt that the Tea Partiers supplied the GOP with much of the fervor they
successful brought to bear in the mid-terms. But, as is true for any movement so
quickly bursting on the national scene, the Tea Party contains a number of factions
that have so far uneasily worked together, without settling which school of thought
will emerge triumphant in the movement as a whole.
For the Tea Party this is particularly true of foreign policy. There is a very
good reason why none of the 10 planks the Tea Party adopted as positions ahead of
the mid-term elections had anything to do with international affairs ; smartly, like
any rising new movement, they have attempted to focus on areas of agreement, of
what has so recently bound them together, rather than over issues that could tear
the fledgling grouping apart. For the Achilles Heel of the Tea Party movement is
foreign policy.
Here polling indicates it is a two-headed monster, gaining the strong backing
of libertarians who want to significantly curtail American commitments abroad, as
well as hawkish neoconservatives, who either believe that the world remains
unipolar, or that American leadership must be quickly reasserted as the sole
superpower in the global order (and the resulting commitments that go with this)
somehow by force of will. It is hard to imagine two less comfortable bedfellows.
While libertarians (as is the case for independent voters) worry
overwhelmingly about spending, neoconservatives make an exception for defense
expenditures. But in the words of the great Cole Porter, something’s got to give.
Soon only five items will make up 80% of federal spending : Medicare ; Medicaid ;
Social Security ; Interest on the Debt ; Defense outlays ; of the five only Defense
spending is discretionary, and can be relatively easily cut. Well, say libertarians,
that is just what we should do. This reality is inconceivable to neocons, and yet
without sharp cuts at the Pentagon there really is no chance America’s debt can be
brought under control. This is no little squabble, but rather is a stake in the heart of
the emerging Tea Party movement.
By pursuing a moderate, Truman-style foreign policy Obama can undercut
the two soon-to-be-fighting wings of the Tea Party movement, buy popcorn, and
sit back and watch them tear themselves to shreds. Take the purported Afghanistan
withdrawal timetable of July 2011 as a case study. If Obama sides with the
generals and really does not begin to withdraw troops then, the neocons will
grudgingly support him ; but staunch libertarians like Senator Rand Paul will
vehemently object, faulting both the president’s overextended foreign policy and
his fiscal insanity, as the surge there costs the hard-pressed taxpayer $1 million per
soldier per year. In all this ill will Senator Paul is sure to point his finger at his
neoconservative Tea Party cohorts as well, accusing them of being serially
unserious about America’s economic peril.
On the other hand, if Obama sides with the restive Democratic base and tells
the generals their time to mount a nation-building counter-insurgency strategy has
run out, and withdrawals begin in earnest, there will be a shriek of protest from
neocons, desperate to avoid having another American war end in strategic failure
(as did Iraq), and blaming Obama for betraying the troops in the field. In such a
case Sarah Palin, the neocon darling, is unlikely to overlook the fact that a major
wing of her own movement (led by libertarians like Rand Paul) are wildly
applauding the President’s bravery. As will be the case on so much else, this Tea
Party structural incoherence over foreign policy will recur time and again ; merely
by acting Obama has the opportunity to set these hopelessly opposed wings against
one another.
But there is one more major improbable new factor in this improbable new
political world. If Obama adopts a Truman way forward rather than emulating
Clinton, if a foreign policy pivot is on the cards, and if he uses foreign policy to
politically divide the Tea Party threat, surely he will follow other presidents in
doing more with Europe ?
Absolutely not. For the first time in modern American history, the White
House will not pivot on foreign affairs primarily to Europe. Instead, it is the fast
rising Indian Ocean Rim (IOR) plus a China that historically looks on the area as
its Western sea that will retain his overriding attention. For just as domestic
politics in America has indelibly changed, so global foreign policy realities—also
in the blink of an historical eye—have altered beyond all recognition.
The Indian Ocean Rim and the Willie Sutton Theory of International Relations
The notorious 1930s American gangster Willie Sutton was asked why he
robbed banks. His answer made eminent sense ; ‘That’s where they keep the
money.’ So it is for the Obama White House and the IOR ; increasingly that is
where the world will keep its money, where economic growth will be generated.
The notion of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), laudable as it is
to describe the game-changing quality of the global rise of the rest, must now be
honored and at the same time moved beyond. For the four economies simply have
little in common. Russia must drop out of the acronym due to its mammoth
demographic problems (due to horrific alcohol problems the life expectancy of the
average Russian male continues its free-fall), endemic corruption and that the fact
that (unlike the other three) it’s a one-trick pony ; Russian economic power has not
diversified beyond the spot price of oil and natural gas.
Brazil is out due to reasons of geography. While under both the Cardoso and
Lula administrations, Brazil has become a wondrous success story, balancing
social progress with macroeconomic stability, it remains a beacon of light in a
pretty dark neighborhood. Surrounded by basket cases Argentina, Venezuela, and
Bolivia, Brazil on its own cannot shift the global focus.
The same is not true of India and China. Their many differences have been
chronicled ; what has been almost entirely overlooked is that they are leading
players in the same fascinating neighborhood. For after disaggregating the BRICs
the second necessary insight in the new era is to see a region and not a concept as
the new center of global economic (and hence foreign policy) activity. It is time we
put the ‘geo’ back in geopolitics.
Quick take out a map. Trace the major players along the Indian Ocean Rim
from west to east. South Africa, finally the regional powerhouse of sub-Saharan
Africa, is a bastion of relative political stability and a treasure house of natural
resources. The sovereign wealth funds of the impossibly blessed oil and natural
gas-rich Gulf States are active investing throughout the world. India, having done
away with the shackling license Raj in the early 1990s under then Finance Minister
Singh, has a stable government, very favorable demography, and a private sector
driven economy. Rich Singapore and Malaysia serve in their traditional role as
city-states and investment centers of the rim as a whole. Australia, ever the lucky
country, is an eminently stable first-world democracy that has become a resource
entrepot for an insatiable China, virtually guaranteeing its long-term economic
success.
And I have not even talked about Beijing yet.
The IOR already accounts for 50% of all global seaborne trade, one-third of
the world’s supply of natural gas, and 60% of the globe’s oil. But as a region it has
moved beyond resource plenty over the past several decades, becoming a vital
investment and manufacturing center.
In fact even before the crisis (which merely illuminated for the dense what
had been going on for decades) IOR growth numbers were phenomenal. In the 10
years to 2006 : Australia grew on average 3.9% per year ; South Africa 4.1% ;
Singapore 5.8% ; UAE 7.3% ; India 7.8% ; China a mind-altering 10.5%. This
contrasts with the lowly growth of France (2.5%), Germany (1.7%), and Italy
(1.6%). Of course, the Great Recession has only sharpened the changing economic
reality, with India set to grow at 8-plus percent this year, and China at 9-plus
percent, all the while the west is beset with an intractable debt spiral. I am
confident I know where the ghost of Willie Sutton would be heading.
But if these are the best of times for the IOR, they are also the worst of
times. For these stunning rates of growth—which if continued can serve as the
world’s new global growth driver—are everywhere imperiled by some of the most
intractable foreign policy crises on the face of the earth. Corruption and violence in
South Africa, endemic tribal warfare and chaos up the east coast of the continent,
pirates off the coast of Somalia threatening the vital sea lanes, a seemingly
unsolvable Mid-East Peace crisis between Israel and the Palestinians that can set
the whole region alight, radical Islam imperiling Yemen and nuclear-armed
Pakistan, the soon to be septic Iranian nuclear crisis, endemic India-Pakistan
tensions over Kashmir, and the gloomy historical record of two major rising global
powers avoiding coming to blows (witness the growing Sino-Indian rivalry), all
could ruin this would-be paradise. It is not just the promise, but also the peril, of
the region that will demand America’s full time attention.
Conclusion
It is not too much to say that the future trajectory of the IOR will largely
determine the nature of the new multipolar era itself, whether it evolves in a
generally stable, prosperous and peaceful direction, or whether we once again live
in the jungle. Lost in all this very different talk is the role of Europe in the whole
process ; while far from ceasing to matter, it is also certainly true that Europe will
matter as both a power and as a concern of America far less than it has throughout
the modern era. As is painfully true in Washington, what is required of European
leaders is an intellectual pivot, before a geostrategic pivot will be remotely
possible. Gone are 500 years of western domination. Ahead of us lies the IOR,
replete with both glittering economic prizes as well as the fearsome set of
problems.
This new world will require new thinking.
