Palmerstonian Moment?

Posted 50 weeks 6 days ago by GregRLawson

Here is the story commented on,
http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article....

The current President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas (and former Bush Administration official) wrote this insightful piece. As opposed to Charles Krauthammer's famous "Unipolar Moment" (or Era as he later amended), we now are entering a time of hedging and balancing where we will be able to have (and need, in contradiction to the unilateral tendencies of Krauthammer) allies, just maybe not in a fully formalized way (through a full fledged NATO engagement for example). Differing threat perceptions will necessitate flexibility in allies. A friend one day may oppose you the next and vice versa. Almost as if there will be no permanent friends or enemies.

Of course, has it really ever been any other way? Seems to me this is the way history has predominately been. Sure, for a period here and there, we may think we have a "permanent" friend and ally, but at the end of the day, interests usually speak louder than pronouncements on paper. NATO worked when it had an obvious threat to counterbalance as with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Now it is more of a a tool in toolkit. Useful at times, onerous at others. It served its purpose well and will still be of substantial worth occassionally, but like the UN, it won't be what American policymakers (or likely European ones either) really had hoped it would be in the heady days when multilateralism seemed the only way of the future.

I think Haas is right, foreign policy will be much tougher in the future. In the abscence of overwhelming power (also to mean staying power, not just firepower), America will need to be dexterous with its diplomacy. Of course, part of being so diplomatically skillful will be still be appreciating when and where to apply different forms of power (financial, military, and moral) in an appropriate form and intensity.