LOSING THE LONG GAME
The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East
By Philip H. Gordon
ISOLATIONISM
A History of America’s Efforts to Shield Itself From the World
By Charles A. Kupchan
Barring some variant of an “October surprise,” the upcoming presidential election seems unlikely to turn on questions of foreign policy. Not without reason, Americans are preoccupied with challenges here at home: the coronavirus pandemic, an economy in shambles and turmoil stemming from a reawakening to the persistence of endemic racism. Then there is the daily circus-cum-outrage of the Trump presidency. Given all of this domestic tumult, America’s role in the world figures as something of an afterthought.
It shouldn’t. Having made a hash of things over the last several decades, our self-described Indispensable Nation is looking pretty dispensable, not to mention confused and adrift. So there is a pressing need to understand how things went wrong and how to make them right. Each in different ways, this is the task that Philip H. Gordon and Charles A. Kupchan set for themselves.
Currently a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, Gordon belongs to that select circle of individuals who are well known and respected within the narrow world of policymakers though largely unknown beyond its confines, and his is a policymaker’s perspective. “Losing the Long Game” recounts American efforts over the past seven decades to get rid of annoying regimes in the greater Middle East and to install in their place something more to Washington’s liking. Gordon’s detailed and comprehensive narrative contains few if any revelations but his criticisms are devastating. He begins with the C.I.A.-engineered coup that overthrew Iran’s Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 and concludes with unsuccessful efforts to mobilize proxy forces to oust Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Sandwiched between are chapters devoted to Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt and Libya.
It is a story of unbroken disappointment and outright failure, invariably yielding unintended and usually undesirable consequences, which cost far more than expected and typically make matters worse for everyone. Certain common themes emerge from his account, among them “magical thinking,” “wishful thinking,” “happy talk” and a deep yearning to get “on the right side of history.”
The policy process that Gordon describes is shot full of willful naïveté. In debates, proponents of regime change promise cheap and easy success. Dissenters are marginalized. Columnists and commentators lend a hand by playing up threats and pooh-poohing risks.
Once the United States deposes the evil dictator or captures the enemy capital, complications arise. Surprises accumulate and costs skyrocket. But civilian officials, senior military officers and friendly journalists are always at hand to offer assurances that things are looking up. Of Afghanistan, Gordon writes, we “turned so many corners that we seemed to be back in the same place we started.”
As a good policy wonk, Gordon concludes with a compendium of common-sense lessons learned. My favorite: “Americans Don’t Know Enough About the Middle East.” You have to wonder how many times Washington needs to screw up before we finally “know enough.”
If “Losing the Long Game” has a shortcoming, it’s Gordon’s reluctance to probe deeply into motive, and so his book will be of interest primarily to people inhabiting (or ambitious to find a place in) the world of policymaking. But given this record of abject failure, why does Washington’s penchant for regime change persist? Why, for example, is ousting the rulers of Iran even today deemed a good idea in some quarters? Gordon rejects the possibility that this pattern of American behavior, which of course extends beyond the Middle East, can be attributed to “some form of American malevolence.” What then is the explanation? Wonkish answers are unlikely to suffice.
Charles A. Kupchan is also a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and like Gordon served as a national security official in the Obama administration. But as a professor of international affairs at Georgetown, Kupchan has one foot firmly planted in academe. “Isolationism” is a scholarly book, albeit written by a scholar keen to influence the formulation of basic policy.
Kupchan sets out to “provide readers a go-to volume for understanding American isolationism.” His overarching purpose, “to refurbish isolationism and rehabilitate its reputation,” will strike many readers as quixotic. After all, the very term evokes an intensely partisan response, hardly conducive to reasoned discourse.
For establishment liberals, isolationism is synonymous with feckless irresponsibility, an abiding sin to which the American people are said to be prone. Whenever isolationism rears its ugly head, it must be denounced and resisted. On the other hand, dissenters on the radical left or anti-interventionist right classify isolationism as a fiction, devoid of value in describing actual behavior. Viewed from this perspective, the idea of isolationism serves chiefly as an excuse to avoid confronting uncomfortable truths.
Kupchan stakes out a third position: Even before achieving independence and continuing to Pearl Harbor, American leaders consciously pursued a “grand strategy of isolationism” and it proved to be a whale of a success. During that time, the United States expanded territorially and commercially, brutally pacified the Native American population, fought several wars, built a dynamic industrialized economy and acquired a maritime empire of colonies and protectorates. This extraordinary set of developments, which Kupchan recounts in exhaustive detail, qualifies as isolationism in his estimation because as the United States was busily accruing wealth and power, policymakers steered clear of European quarrels.
Until 1898, Kupchan writes, “Americans repeatedly turned their backs on opportunities to expand beyond North America.” While nominally true, that claim glides past the large fact that within North America, the United States was seizing a vast expanse stretching from sea to shining sea. After 1898 came a lunge into the Caribbean and a leap across the Pacific. If Washington’s policymakers were indeed pursuing a coherent strategy — as opposed to simply demonstrating a knack for opportunism — that strategy’s defining feature was not isolationism but a shrewd preference for plucking low-hanging fruit.
“Americans pursued such expansion in the service of isolation,” Kupchan writes. But this confuses posture with purpose, akin to interpreting President Trump’s occasional nods toward Jesus as evidence of genuine religiosity.
Several factors combined to facilitate America’s rise to power: security that cost nothing, weak neighbors, abundant resources, political leaders with a keen eye for the main chance and, when required, utter ruthlessness. Attaching a label of isolationism to that narrative of ascent serves no purpose.
Kupchan correctly identifies America’s entry into World War II as a turning point. Yet describing its new grand strategy as liberal internationalism involves oversimplifications on a par with labeling what went before as isolationism. “The era of liberal internationalism,” he writes, “was about running the world and transforming it through American power and purpose.” The correct term for such aims is imperialism.
Since 9/11, according to Kupchan, the United States has pursued “a grand strategy of inconstancy and insolvency.” I leave it to others to determine if the combined efforts of the Bush 43, Obama and Trump administrations qualify as a strategy. That inconstancy and insolvency have resulted I have no doubt. Nor do I question the imperative of changing course.
As a corrective, Kupchan sensibly advocates a “middle ground between running the world and running away from it.” But what is to be gained by identifying that middle ground as a variant of isolationism? Why not instead argue for policies based on realism and restraint, pragmatism and prudence?
The overarching theme of United States policy since the beginning is not isolationism. It’s American exceptionalism, which can indeed be malevolent, employed to justify either running the world or ignoring it. To understand why the United States does what it does in the world, begin with our conviction that we are history’s Chosen People. Scholars and wonks alike should take note.
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