Kagan's big picture

Political scientist and international policy specialist Robert Kagan is pursuing a demanding schedule this week -- promoting his new book while advising the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, on foreign affairs.  Kagan has become one of the most prolific and influential voices in US international affairs and diplomacy; his new book is a yeoman-like attempt to refine Washington's approach to the post-Bush era.  But perhaps the United States could stand to focus a bit less on grand strategy, and a bit more on understanding foreign societies.

In his latest tome, The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Kagan argues the United States will remain the predominant global power for the foreseeable future, but that other rising nations will lead to a return to great power rivalry.  The protagonists will largely divide into two separate camps, democracies and autocracies; he urges the United States to leverage its traditional advocacy of pluralism, economic liberalism and human rights to strengthen its global position. 

Kagan's future

As such, the 21st century world envisioned by Kagan looks rather like 19th century Europe following the collapse of the Congress of Vienna system in 1848.  The United Kingdom was the strongest power, but found itself unable to avert several major continental wars.  However, this 'realist' vision is leavened by a dash of traditional US Wilsonianism -- particularly the emphasis on strengthening cooperation between democracies.  Of course, Kagan also retains a bit of Bush-era Manichaeism: the 'war on terrorism' must continue “as long as the threat persists”.  Bush's policy of Carthago delenda est, directed at a nebulous tactic rather than a particular enemy is, for Kagan, still a viable long-term approach.

As this example suggests, there is nothing altogether novel about Kagan's vision or policy recommendations.  Indeed, as the title suggests, it is essentially couched as a rebuttal to Francis Fukuyama's own work of grand strategy, the End of History and the Last Man.  Fukuyama predicted in 1992 that the end of the Cold War would precipitate the rapid conversion of the rest of the world to liberal democratic systems, a prediction that turned out to be, at the very least, somewhat premature.  Yet Fukuyama abandoned his semi- utopian vision long ago, which makes it a bit of a 'straw man'.

'Lazy policymaking'?

Of course, Kagan's vision of the future could easily turn out to be right.  But even if it is, it may not be an effective blueprint for policymaking.  The Bush administration’s foreign policy has been couched in a series of compelling, but ultimately flawed or inapplicable, strategies of democratisation.  This failure was largely due to Washington's unwillingness or inability to understand the nature of certain societies abroad -- most notably Iraq.  Intellectual gymnastics comparing the likely course of democratisation in Iraq to the post-war experiences in Germany and Japan were dubious in 2002-03 -- and seem ridiculous now -- but made sense according to the broad theoretical vision articulated by Fukuyama.  In international affairs, getting the big picture right is often less important than understanding and managing the details.