Albright prescribes foreign policy remedy in ‘Memo to the President Elect’

August 1, 2008

By David Evans.

“As president you can rally democratic forces without seeming to recreate the crusader mentality associated with your predecessor. The way to do that is by strengthening regional institutions and by urging democratic friends within the developing countries to take the lead. You should be honest in stating that political liberty is no guarantee of prosperity and that free elections are just the beginning of the democratic process. Democracy promotion fits well with efforts to alleviate poverty and also improve the climate for global peace. This is the right agenda for you to set and will help you in addressing a broader challenge: how to inspire the world to join with you and our country in a common cause.”

Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright has carefully prescribed a remedy for the nation’s current foreign policy ills in Memo To The President Elect: How We Can Restore America’s Reputation And Leadership (HarperCollins: NY; 2008). “True threats to civilization come from ideas that are both powerfully seductive and profoundly wrong,” she writes. “Such ideas compress all of life into a simplistic pattern that identifies a supposed source of evil against which to unite, and creates a flattering self-image for those otherwise unsatisfied with their lot.”

Secretary Albright continues, “You will assume power at a moment when America has lost influence while others have gained it. For the first time in history, our leadership is needed in the world but in many places not wanted. Any efforts you might make to lay out a plan for organizing the globe will meet resistance — and understandably so. Given the events of the past eight years, we can hardly dictate to others what they should think, feel, and fear; we should suppress our impulse to scold; your first responsibility is closer to home — to heed what we do and stand for, and what norms we set for ourselves.”

Strong historical perspective informs Memo To The President Elect. America’s dynamism and flexibility are displayed in a brief comparison of leadership after the world wars. After the first, “inward and backward looking men” would not acknowledge change. Steeped in nostalgia, they dreamed of an imaginary past in which the world stood still and America was isolated from it. After the second, leaders with “a capacity to adjust to new information” emerged, even though “the significance of events was steeped in ambiguity,” as Dean Acheson put it.

A decade of insecurity in the 1950s was lessened by the election of JFK, who “understood that America must practice effective diplomacy on every continent. An early supporter of independence for colonies in Africa and Asia, he was considered a hero in such places as Algeria, Kenya, and Indonesia…. Kennedy’s eloquence seemed to exemplify an America sure of its direction and skilled in the art of bringing others along,” Albright writes.

A former National Security Council member and U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Albright sees Iraq as a tragic blunder, noting our neglect of our allies and our over-reliance on the military. She presciently observes that freedom has more than one meaning. While Americans equate freedom with democracy, “Arab populations relate it to their own sense of personal and cultural identity.” Thus, talk of a democratic transformation was viewed as a threat to independence. “Iraq was avoidable. It has warped many aspects of U.S. foreign policy while devouring resources that could have been invested more wisely elsewhere,” Secretary Albright notes.

She wisely observes, “If you were to put an Iraqi doctor, a Palestinian schoolteacher, an Israeli farmer, a Lebanese businessperson, an Iranian student and an American GI in the same room, you would likely discover that they see right and wrong differently, but with equal logic given the contrasts in where they live and in what they have experienced. To acknowledge this is not to fall into moral relativism — as ideologues might suggest — but rather to take the first step toward a coherent diplomatic approach to the Middle East.”

Chapters are devoted to background on diplomacy in the Middle East, Asia, Russia and South Asia. Each contains useful insight, and a vital poverty reduction program by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto is nicely summarized. Especially commendable is the chapter on New Foundations, which quotes one economic historian (Kevin O’Rourke, Europe and the Causes of Globalization, Dublin, Trinity College): “Contrary to popular belief, the most impressive episode of international economic integration which the world has seen to date was not the second half of the twentieth century, but the years between 1870 and the Great War.”

Secretary Albright captures the absolute primacy of diplomacy in observing, “In that era, political stability and technological change caused trade to expand and capital markets to become integrated to an unprecedented degree. This was particularly the case in Western Europe, where Great Britain and Germany were major trading partners and Lloyd’s of London insured the German merchant marine. These cozy arrangements nevertheless failed to check nationalist passions, leading to a level of destruction that was also without precedent. World War I was a disaster for business interests in all of Europe — except for the manufacturers of armaments and tombstones.”

The reviewer will profile historical and contemporary peacemakers in future editions of Grassroots Press.

Written by David Evans · Filed Under Reviews | Leave a Comment