America’s response to a suspected Russian missile strike on Poland this month is an example of how to operate. Ignoring the kamikaze clamor to invoke NATO’s collective self-defense clause, Joe Biden and his allies quietly analyzed the facts and found they came from Ukraine. There was no jumping to conclusions or precipice. Silencing the evergreen Washington hawks should be a rule of thumb for the way America does business.
This goes against the grain of course. America’s most belligerent president, Teddy Roosevelt, suggested that the United States speak softly and carry a big stick. What stood out was the first half of Roosevelt’s saying, because it was so at odds with the character of a nation that even then aimed to remake the world in its own image. Wanting others to be like you is an aggressive impulse, however well-intentioned.
A United States that rules as much by omission as by commission will therefore be difficult to sustain. The guide to how America should act is written in recent failures and less famous successes.
From Vietnam to Iraq, the United States is at its worst when trying to impose results on others. The tendency to see the world in black and white often prevents the United States from seeing the reality in front of it. The Vietnam insurgency was not a domino in a communist board game. It was an anti-colonial struggle. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was not an Al-Qaeda partner. It was just another rogue regime. Afghanistan, of all places, was never going to be reshaped in the image of another.
This oft-repeated failure to see the world on its own terms undermines America’s ability to reshape it. This is why Ukraine offers such a valuable case study. Biden’s foreign policy to-do list was only about China, not Russia. The US president did his best to assuage Vladimir Putin’s paranoia by hosting a self-serving summit in Geneva months after Biden took office – and months before the Russian invasion. The goal was to remove Moscow from the list of concerns so that America could complete its pivot to Asia.
It didn’t work as expected. The unintended impact of Putin’s assault on Ukraine has been to bring out America at its pragmatic best – reacting to hostilities rather than initiating them. Although Biden would be wise to avoid the infamous phrase “lead from behind”, that’s what the United States has done. The war is openly led by the Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskyy. America played the role of chief quartermaster, intelligence provider and diplomatic cheerleader. The terms of the end of the war will also be set by Zelenskyy, although in practice the United States will have a decisive say.
It is too early to judge the full impact. But Ukraine’s successes so far have been based on America’s calm and steady determination. These are the qualities of an effective modern superpower. They are very different from the bombastic ones of the Dangerous Nation exhibited in warmongering dreams. Russia’s “special military operation” is perhaps unique. But America’s response has generic features that should apply more broadly. Two of them stand out.
The first is that America’s partners prefer it that way. They rarely worry that Washington is too soft. Their concern is about the overreach of the United States. The same goes for the global swing vote in continents like Africa and South America.
Much angst has been generated by the South’s apparent indifference to Russian aggression by abstaining from the UN and refusing to comply with US sanctions. To treat them as insensitive or irresponsible is a misreading. The rest of the world remembers the US invasion of Iraq and the missteps after 9/11. The US bill for its reckless behavior is still being paid. No country, however, will resent America’s conscientious and reckless support of Ukraine’s right to exist.
The second is that the United States should recalibrate its approach to China. Biden’s strategy is to frame the world as a struggle between autocracy and democracy. It makes people nervous because it feels like the kind of Manichean framing that has led America into wars of choice. This signals that Washington is eager to do something even if the situation demands less.
The history of great power mistakes is often about confusing proactivity with control. In fact, acting preemptively is often the quickest way to lose control. George W Bush, like Putin, is living proof of this. An economic decision-maker once said, “A plan is worth no plan. In foreign policy, it is rather the opposite that occurs. Biden had no plan for Ukraine. The fear is that America has a plan for China.