Hello! And welcome to another edition of Inside The Newsroom. Today’s guest is… Stephen M. Walt, professor of international affairs Harvard University’s Kennedy School, columnist at Foreign Policy magazine and author of several books on foreign affairs. I saw Stephen speak in person at LSE a few weeks ago and, after hearing Stephen talk on whether the U.S. could have a successful foreign policy again, I had to get him on the pod. The timing couldn’t have been better as it came days after Donald Trump sporadically decided to withdraw troops from northern Syria, leaving his Kurdish allies to be butchered by Turkish forces. Stephen and I took it all the way back to the early 2000s to figure out where the U.S. went wrong, and what events led to the U.S. still being at war with the Taliban in Afghanistan 18 years later. Below is a post-game of everything we covered. Enjoy 🤓
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Can the U.S. Still Have a Successful Foreign Policy?
The simple answer to this complicated question is yes. Measuring how successful foreign policies are can be put down to a) whether the U.S. (or any country for that matter) has made another country a safer and more stable place b) whether the U.S. has made more friends than enemies after its operation and c) whether its enemies are stronger or weaker.
Some say the last time the U.S. had a successful foreign policy was when the Cold War ended back in 1991, but since then things have largely been a failure. Starting with Bill Clinton when he took over the reins in 1993, carried on by George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and now hopelessly continued as we speak by Donald Trump, both Republicans and Democrats have got it wrong.
And that’s exactly where a common misconception lies. The Republicans are often perceived as the party that supports war and the military, and rhetoric in speeches and debates often supports that theory. But when it comes down to real action, the past two presidents from each party have increased the number of troops in war zones, and have all been lousy in looking after its veterans. That said, surveys have shown that in more recent times, younger veterans tend to lean Republican.
That brings us to the worst U.S. conflict of the modern era, a war that is still going on after 18 years: the war in Afghanistan.
The Unwinnable War
It came as a shock to me that the war in Afghanistan was still going on. I thought it was done and dusted and that U.S. troops were there to maintain stability. But that’s not the case and the war in Afghanistan has slowly become a deadly quagmire.
Since Bush invaded Afghanistan in 2001, and seemingly wiped out the Taliban within months, he went for another bite of the cake and invaded Iraq in 2003. By doing so, Bush transferred the majority of his military’s power and resources more than a 1,000 miles west to eliminate Saddam Hussein, and left open the possibility for the Taliban to return to Afghanistan after hiding out in safe havens across the border in Pakistan.
After 18 years of war, thousands of lives lost and hundreds of billions of dollars spent, the U.S. is still trying to ‘win’ the war in Afghanistan. But the fact is the Taliban haven’t been vanquished and remain a threat to the U.S. and its allies, even more so after Trump cancelled secret peace talks with the group in September. The Taliban have warned that more U.S. lives would be lost as a result.
Stephen M. Walt for Foreign Policy
Realism vs Idealism
So how did the U.S. get into this Middle Eastern mess via Bush, make no apparent progress under Obama and, well, have all of its credibility shattered under Trump? It remains in this quandary because it has consistently sided with idealism, instead of realism.
As we discussed earlier, when Bush thought he’d steamrolled through the Taliban in Afghanistan, he went for the jackpot in Iraq to remove Hussein, but as his military jumped from one country thousands of miles away to another, the inevitable game of Whac-A-Mole began. Then Obama announced he’d withdraw troops from the region, reversed his decision, then went ahead with his plan until there were just less than 10,000 troops in the country at the end of his presidency. And then we have Mr. Trump, who has never experienced realism in his life, and opened the door to a bloody Turkish invasion of northern Syria and killing thousands of Kurdish allies in the process.
Idealism trumped (pardon the pun) realism in all of these cases, and explains why the U.S. is still in a conflict with the Taliban, the rise and fall of ISIS, and potential rise again of the Islamist group.
Stephen M. Walt for Foreign Policy
Why Do Countries Go To War?
As I wrote back in July after I interviewed author Sebastian Junger, there’s something in the brain that keeps humans engaging in war. I was always taught that wars were fought over for money or religion, which is true, but what I wasn’t told was that going to war has positive psychological effects. Wars bring people together, create a sense of unity, and can provoke human qualities that often lie dormant in ordinary life, such as courage and self-sacrifice.
It seems that the emotion of war has gotten the better of U.S. foreign policy for the best part of the past two decades, preventing economically and politically stable nations to be built. Instead, a series of power vacuums were created that see no end in sight. Peace depends on creating societies rich with opportunities and democracy. The fact that so many nations fail to do this makes our future prospects of peace look very bleak.
Last week…
#56 — Jamil Smith (Rolling Stone) on voter suppression and the life of congressman Elijah Cummings
Related podcasts…
#51 — Jason Kander (Democratic Party) on PTSD and how the U.S. has neglected its veterans
#44 — Sebastian Junger (Tribe, The Perfect Storm) on why countries go to war
Job Corner
Each week I’ll feature a selection of new journalism jobs. This week, Cal Matters has a number of cool positions including…
#57 — Stephen M. Walt (Harvard University)