| 摘要 | Editor’s note: The next president is in for a rough welcome to the Oval Office given the list of immediate crises and slow-burning policy challenges, both foreign and domestic. What should Washington do? Why should the average American care? We’ve set out to clearly define US strategic interests and provide actionable policy solutions to help the new administration build a 2017 agenda that strengthens American leadership abroad while bolstering prosperity at home.
What to Do: Policy Recommendations for 2017 is an ongoing project from AEI. Click here for access to the complete series, which addresses a wide range of issues from rebuilding America’s military to higher education reform to helping people find work.
Note: Thanks to the tireless efforts of editor Phillip Lohaus, a series of bipartisan working group meetings was transformed into a polished report on the imperative of American leadership.
Download the PDF or read the report in its entirety below.
Download the report: PDF | Kindle | iBooks
Download the Report one-page summaries: Freedom | Prosperity | Security
A strong, bipartisan commitment to global leadership has informed America’s foreign policy since we emerged from World War II. Today, however, the global architecture the United States has conceived, built, and maintained is in jeopardy. No one nation rivals the US on paper. But through both traditional and nontraditional means, nation-states and nonstate actors alike are presenting new challenges to international security that, if not addressed, will threaten the security, prosperity, and freedom of the United States and its allies.
At the same time, some Americans are questioning both our capacity to lead on the world stage and the wisdom of doing so. US engagement abroad, at its core, has always been about helping the American people, protecting US interests, and advancing US values. But ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, coupled with an uneven economic recovery, have led some at home to reassess the costs, effectiveness, and benefits of American global leadership.
In light of both the growing external challenges to, and the internal skepticism of, American global leadership, we set out in 2014 to determine whether the benefits of robust internationalism still outweigh the costs. We incorporated a diverse range of people from different parties, ideologies, and generations to develop a new consensus on America’s role in the world.
This report reflects the fundamental consensus of our project’s members that American global leadership is just as crucial to the security, prosperity, and freedom of the American people today as it was 70 years ago. US foreign policies must adapt to keep pace with the twisting dynamics of an ever-changing world but should be rooted in and united by a continued commitment to vigorous international engagement.
The security of the United States and its people is our first responsibility and serves as the raison d’être for active US engagement abroad. Although different circumstances require different approaches, active global military leadership is always a prerequisite to success. In the security realm, not only does US engagement—including the forward deployment of US troops—deter aggression, but in the event of conflict, it also enables the US to meet threats far from its shores quickly and in time to prevent losses that would be costly to regain. America’s allies across the globe also help identify and address challenges at their root, provide crucial support during periods of conflict, and contribute to the general stability of the international system. Committed, democratic partners allow the US to achieve its security goals for mutual benefit; the building of such partnerships should be a priority, therefore, of US foreign policy.
US engagement abroad, however, constitutes far more than just military action. Military force is but one tool of international engagement and should never be the first option. Too often, we tend to overlook America’s crucial hand in waging peace, dampening rivalries, and helping to resolve conflict. We similarly tend to underappreciate the importance of some of the bedrock tools of international engagement including American diplomacy, foreign assistance, economic assistance, people-to-people programs, and public-private partnerships. These tools all help to ensure that military force remains an option of last resort.
The vibrant international economic system represents one such historic, yet often overlooked, achievement that strong US global leadership has made possible. Recognizing the growing link between the American domestic economy and foreign markets, US policymakers saw an opportunity after World War II to increase the welfare of those at home and abroad through the formalization of a rules-based, nondiscriminatory international economic system. America led the effort to establish key economic institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the organizations that would evolve into the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. In doing so, we helped create a global economic order that has enabled many hundreds of millions—in the US and abroad—to climb the ladder of opportunity.
Undeniably, some countries now seek to exploit this open and increasingly integrated economic system. Forced localization policies, intellectual property theft, and economic and cyber espionage are but a few examples of foreign activities that undermine US competitiveness. Alternative economic models in which growth is not predicated on economic liberalization are gaining traction in places like Africa. Only dynamic US leadership in the international economic realm can ensure that the global trading system remains an uncorrupted and accessible engine of wealth for the people of the United States and the rest of the world.
The disparate aspects of American global leadership are, in fact, intimately connected and often mutually reinforcing. The genius of America’s approach is that, no matter how one rearranges the pillars of American global leadership, the end result is positive.
What would the world look like without American global leadership? It is difficult to say, partly because we take so many of its benefits for granted and its dividends are dispersed. But global politics abhors a vacuum, and American retrenchment is sure to create one. There is simply no guarantee that whoever might fill our space would have the capacity, the inclination, or will to keep the world safe, markets open, and people free. If anything, an increasingly brazen China, revanchist Russia, volatile North Korea, and ruthless Islamic State collectively underscore the need for more, not less, American leadership abroad.
We believe that the ideas contained in the pages that follow offer a coherent, digestible and refreshing way to think and talk about American global leadership in the modern era. We must not wait for events to remake the case for American global leadership. We must make that case ourselves today.
Click here to view the interactive map of America’s involvement around the globe
Must America be proactively engaged around the world to protect its people’s security, prosperity, and freedom? Since the beginning of World War II, the general consensus has been that the answer is yes, though from time to time, public opinion and American policy have been less hospitable to that consensus.
Curious as to whether America’s interests and ideals would suffer if its engagement with the rest of the world decreased, we set out almost two years ago to determine whether and how international engagement improves the lives of all Americans. Under the auspices of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the American Internationalism Project (AIP) gathered together a diverse group of policy leaders to determine if the traditional consensus still holds and to address the arguments of those who want America to pull back from the world.
The project’s membership is intentionally diverse, including individuals from both political parties and with a wide range of ideological outlooks. Our goal was not to rationalize particular policies, whether military, political, or economic. Rather, we began with simple inquiries about the basic needs and values of our citizens and how those needs and values were affected by America’s posture in the world. United by the question of what approach is best for the American people, we quickly arrived at a consensus that, in today’s world, America’s interests continue to be best secured when it maintains an active and engaged foreign policy.
Not long after we began our project in 2013, the Pew Foundation reported that a majority of Americans wanted the United States to “mind its own business internationally,” the highest number responding this way since the survey began 50 years ago.[1] This shift in public opinion expressed an inward turn by people who wondered why it is our responsibility to be “the world’s policeman” and was a response to appeals by some political leaders and commentators to “focus on nation-building here at home.”[2]
Elected officials in both the Republican and Democratic political parties seized on this shift in opinion to call for reductions in the defense and diplomatic budgets, an end to trade deals and democracy promotion, and a reevaluation of America’s postwar role as guarantor of international security. That was in 2013. As our conversations have continued over the following two years, world events have highlighted just how much is at stake when America pulls back.
In Europe, Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula while conducting an undeclared war in eastern Ukraine and challenging NATO’s air defense systems. In East Asia, the Chinese collective dictatorship is flexing its muscles by building an advanced, modern navy; attempting to solidify its expansive claims over international waters by building artificial islands with bases on them; and otherwise engaging in territorial disputes with Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines; conducting cyberattacks against Western governments and businesses; and protecting the nuclear-armed dictator of North Korea.
In the Middle East, the ongoing Syrian civil war has taken a devastating toll in lives and refugees and provided space for the terrorist army of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to invade Iraq; conquer key cities such as Ramadi, Fallujah, and Mosul; and threaten Baghdad. This terrorist safe haven in Mesopotamia has become a training academy for foreign jihadists, who already are turning their attention back to the West. Regardless of one’s opinion about the recent nuclear agreement, few doubt that Iran’s theocratic state will continue to threaten stability and American interests throughout the Middle East or that deep American engagement will be necessary to monitor the agreement. In Afghanistan, the Taliban is preparing to retake lost territory after an American withdrawal. And in Africa, tens of thousands have been displaced and thousands have been killed as Boko Haram attempts to impose its version of Sharia across swaths of Nigeria.
As our discussions went on, we concluded that American engagement alone is not sufficient to protect the security, prosperity, and freedom of the American people. To achieve those goals, America must lead. We believe that proactive, persistent, and powerful US leadership best serves the interests of the American people and that this is true in the three spheres of interest: national security, economic prosperity, and freedom promotion. “World events have highlighted just how much is at stake when America pulls back.” Leadership does not have to mean going it alone. When many Americans read the newspaper and ponder the state of world affairs, they wonder: Are these problems our problems? Will they always be? Are they our problems alone? Surely others are equally, and even more directly, affected by turmoil abroad.
These are sensible questions, but the old ways of addressing them have gone stale. Those who support a robust American foreign policy have too often fallen back on axioms wrought by leaders of the past. If a case is to be made for American leadership, that case must be relevant and convincing to Americans today.
The chapters that follow reflect the consensus of our three working groups, each composed of Democrats, Republicans, and independents and of conservatives, liberals, and moderates. Their findings reflect a broad consensus about the significance of US leadership across the realms of international security, economics, and freedom and make the case for why that leadership is still crucial to the American people.
Though each of our working groups focused primarily on one aspect of national interest, they all concluded that American leadership exists not as three independent strands but as an interdependent whole. A strong defense, for example, is not the full answer to questions about America’s place in the world. But without it, our continued prosperity and freedom cannot be assured. It is unlikely that any country other than the US could lead in each of the three realms and even less likely that it could lead across all three to the benefit of so many. America’s leadership is unique and proffers distinct and irreproducible benefits for both Americans and the rest of the world.
Consider the impact of American global leadership and engagement on economic prosperity here at home. The benefits—such as stores packed with low-cost, foreign-made goods, low interest rates for automobile and housing loans, ease of international trade and travel, and so much more—are significant. Free trade lowers the price of goods at the shopping mall; opens foreign nations to American businesses, products, and services; and admits the United States to the global supply chain that brings new products, new jobs, and additional economic growth to our shores. A recent study by the University of Pennsylvania on the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement, for example, found that the agreement made American companies more profitable and more competitive. Although some manufacturing jobs were relocated to Mexico, many more would have been relocated to China had the agreement not been signed.[3]
Free trade agreements also provide America with opportunities to promote democratic and free market values around the world in a way that also benefits Americans. Labor standards, for instance, were improved as part of the trade agreement with Colombia. This is a boon to the American consumer and worker. Trade, after all, gives us markets, goods, services, and jobs.
World War II is ancient history to many Americans, who take for granted that we can sell Fords abroad and buy Toyotas and Volkswagens at home. American engagement with the world after World War II not only has fostered trade among past enemies, it has also facilitated the creation of many jobs at home as foreign manufacturers increasingly recognize the value of producing here, where they sell.[4] Japan and Germany, the third- and fourth-largest economies in the world, are just two examples of adversaries turned into diplomatic and military allies and economic trading partners through American military strength, democracy promotion, and economic investment.
South Korea provides another compelling example. Adjusted for inflation, American aid in the years after the Korean War totaled some $35 billion. A half-century ago, when the first aid arrived, South Korea was an impoverished military dictatorship. Today, the US exports more than $38 billion in goods to South Korea each year. We have earned back our initial investment many times over.[5] American commercial, diplomatic, and military relationships contributed to South Korea’s eventually becoming the successful democracy and ally that it is today, one that helps shoulder security burdens in its part of the world.
America’s flourishing nonprofit sector works with governments and international organizations to improve public health, sanitation, infrastructure, and human rights.[6] The day-to-day business of American engagement has helped quintuple the number of democracies in Africa, substantially reduce and treat cases of HIV/AIDS, cut African child mortality by nearly one-third, and reduce polio from 125 countries in 1988 to just 3 today.
“The big picture,” says Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general for polio, emergencies, and country collaboration at the World Health Organization, is that “it could never have been done without the United States.”
Whether the risks flow from the AIDS pandemic, the former prevalence of polio, or the recent Ebola outbreak in an increasingly interconnected world, these efforts obviously benefit Americans, too. The first duty of any government is to protect the sovereignty, life, and property of its citizens. By helping others develop free, healthy, and prosperous societies, America has enhanced its own prosperity and security. For the 70 years since the conclusion of World War II, America has pursued this objective through a strategy of forward deployment. American pilots, sailors, and soldiers have secured the global commons of air, sea, and space. They have prevented the domination of the most important regions of the world by a single hostile or hegemonic power.
This outcome is no small accomplishment. The strategy of forward deployment deters aggression, spurs development, and enables US forces to respond quickly to natural disasters and national security crises alike. The fruits of this strategy are so numerous, so much a part of the world we experience on a daily basis that we take them for granted. The most obvious benefit of global leadership and forward deployment is that America can meet an enemy on its ground rather than ours.
“By helping others develop free, healthy, and prosperous societies, America has enhanced its own prosperity and security.” American internationalism can surely be credited with the fall of the Soviet Union and global communism. The post-Soviet world is freer, more democratic, and far wealthier than the world of 1945 or of 1991. This did not happen overnight: America influenced and helped shape the rules of international commerce over many decades, and those rules were and are underpinned by economic institutions conceived in America and defended by the US military. Guided by our founding values of freedom and equal economic opportunity, America’s prestige, clout, and diplomacy enabled us to favorably influence the development of international norms in ways that were also advantageous to our national security interests. The fall of the Soviet Union allowed us to expand this approach to parts of the globe that had never before known freedom.
And all of these achievements have been affordable. The money that our government spends on the military is a small percentage of the US economy. It is impossible to quantify the treasure and blood that were saved or the wars and crises that did not occur because of the investments we have made in global engagement, preparedness, and leadership. In recent years, too, many have lost their understanding of deterrence and have come to see our military merely as a tool of battle rather than a deterrent to it. That understanding must change.
Long-term US engagement with Colombia has had many ups and downs over the last several decades. But today Colombia is enjoying unprecedented stability and has reached a comprehensive disarmament agreement with its most dangerous rebel army (the FARC). This progress is due mostly to the Colombian people. But Colombians also credit the United States for its crucial governance assistance, its pressure to improve human rights and reduce law enforcement brutality, and its human and financial investment in Colombia through a multiyear US assistance program (“Plan Colombia”). The decrease in violence, increase in the rule of law and the end of the FARC insurgency all seemed unimaginable a decade ago. Not only Colombians benefited from this progress; Americans have gained, too. In 2000, US exports to Colombia totaled about $3.6 billion. In 2014, not only was there a bilateral free trade agreement in place, but those exports also totaled $20.1 billion.
America’s experiences with Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Colombia suggest a theory and a strategy: stability is the precondition of commerce and culture. Though the fruits of our efforts may not have been apparent at the outset, America’s leadership in stabilizing the international order has benefited our people and people throughout the world. “Without America,” writes economist Tim Kane, “world economic output would not have grown from $5.1 trillion to $70.2 trillion in 70 years . . . and child mortality would not have been cut by two-thirds.”[7] Without America, in other words, who would have stepped up to help create the conditions for such enormous economic growth and human development?
Indeed, without America, in good times and bad, our world of Internet commerce, “sharing economies,” GPS systems, mobile devices, flat-screen TVs, studies abroad, low-cost travel, and access to fresh fruit at any time of the year would not exist. These everyday facts should make real our understanding of the benefits of American internationalism.
Throughout the course of our project, as we have said, ongoing international developments have convinced us that disengagement is not a realistic option if we are to protect our citizens and our national interests. The rise of ISIS, increased Russian assertiveness, and changing security dynamics caused by China in East Asia make the present a very dangerous time and certainly one of the most complicated and chaotic periods since World War II. America is uniquely positioned to counter these threats and also stands to lose the most should they remain unchecked.
Over our history, political support for American engagement waxes and wanes. Why? Perhaps it is because the benefits of internationalism are dispersed while the costs, especially in wartime, are focused and visible. It has always been this way. Periods of doubt about the desirability and effectiveness of international leadership have repeatedly occurred. The enduring nature of the debate over America’s proper international role is all the more reason to find new ways of engaging the public and reminding it of the benefits of our leadership.
The authors of the chapters that follow address the three crucial areas of American leadership: security, prosperity, and principles of freedom. While they do not agree on every position, and certainly do not share all the same political views, the authors nonetheless unite to conclude that the benefits to Americans from global leadership by our country are undeniable and imperative—and that, in today’s interconnected world, the United States could not withdraw even if it wanted to do so. The vacuum created by America’s absence would quickly be filled by other powers whose motivations, values, and security interests are not likely to align with our own.
We hope this report launches a series of discussions and inquiries regarding the costs and benefits of American leadership. Not enough has been done to make the case to the American people for America’s continued international leadership role.[8] What we need is a well-articulated plan for international engagement that resonates from Washington to Main Street and back.
We believe we make such a case and offer such a plan in these pages. We hope that America’s leaders—and, most importantly, the American people—can find in these pages new reasons to reassert America’s characteristic confidence and purpose to preserve and reform an international system that has brought so much good to so many people for so long a time.
American leadership is critical to the security, stability, and prosperity of both the world and the American homeland. In recent years, however, US international leadership has increasingly been challenged in both spheres. Abroad, the international order is under attack from multiple sources: from nonstate actors such as al Qaeda, ISIS, Hezbollah, and others, to regional rogue states such as Iran and North Korea, a nationalist Russia challenging the sovereignty of neighboring states, and an increasingly ambitious China. Whether the aims of these countries or nonstate actors are hegemonic, terroristic, or just opportunistic, only vigorous international leadership from the United States and its allies will adequately address the challenges to the international order that each presents. No other country would, or could, fill America’s shoes as the underwriter of international security should the US choose to step back.
At the end of World War II, the United States supported the creation of a new global political, military, and economic order. America played a central role in founding the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank). In the years that followed, Washington concluded a series of bilateral and multilateral alliances, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), designed to reassure allies and deter potential aggressors. In the decades that followed, the United States played an essential role in nurturing and sustaining the international order that it helped build. That order has helped keep us safe and has allowed us to prosper.
At this crucial juncture, America faces a choice: continue to lead and work with its allies to preserve current international institutions and change them to meet the new threats and challenges of our time or risk the security and economic strength that has resulted from decades of US international leadership. Over the course of many discussions, we have concluded that international leadership aligns with America’s enduring interests and objectives and that the long-term risks of an inward-looking America overwhelm the short-term benefits.
Enduring US interests and objectives
For the better part of a century, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, the United States has fostered security and stability at home and abroad through the pursuit of a relatively consistent set of policy aims.
First and foremost, the United States has acted through the use of highly capable armed forces to protect the American people and to defend the country. The need to “provide for the common defense” was set out in the preamble to the Constitution as one of the central responsibilities of the federal government. Since World War II, the United States has responded to threats as far from America’s shores as possible through highly capable armed forces and through diplomatic initiatives geared toward reducing, managing and countering threats. Early, active involvement has been essential to preventing crises from becoming conflicts and for dealing with threats before they grow and spread. Moreover, the unquestioned strength of America’s military capabilities—and the demonstrated will to use them—have provided deterrence to aggression from potential adversaries. “History shows that America and the world are more prosperous and secure when the US exercises leadership.”
Second, to promote shared interests and shared values, as well as to protect its allies, the United States has developed a network of treaties and alliances with like-minded countries. In addition to America’s own efforts, its allies have multiplied its strength and have helped maintain global and regional security. Australia, for example, has recently played a major role in promoting security in Southwest Asia, including peacekeeping operations in East Timor and the Solomon Islands. France launched military operations against al Qaeda in Mali, and Japan has been an important and growing source of development and security assistance in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world.
Third, the United States has promoted and protected global public structures that have become as crucial to America’s national security and prosperity as they are to nations across the globe. These include open markets and free trade, international standards for the environment and human rights, and many of the structures that underlie cyber and information technologies. Participation in international organizations not only provides America with the opportunity to shape and influence the evolution of international standards, but it also facilitates trade and reduces the likelihood that misunderstandings between great powers will lead to military conflict.
Fourth, the United States has acted over decades to ensure access to the global commons—that is, the sea lanes through which trade flows—in peacetime and protect them in wartime. Defending freedom of navigation on the high seas has benefited not only the United States but also nations the world over. The free flow of goods, services, and information resulting from the broad acceptance of these norms has facilitated global economic development, opened up markets to US goods and services, and ensured that US traders and businesses can compete on a level playing field.
A fifth objective is less frequently discussed but nonetheless represents an enduring American aim: for the past century, the United States has sought to preserve an equitable balance of interests across Eurasia. Ensuring a stable security environment across the Eurasian land mass not only has economic benefits for the United States, but it also helps prevent the outbreak of conflicts that, because of its alliance obligations, could draw the United States into great-power wars.
Finally, the United States has acted for the common good by providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. Indeed, the United States has historically led many international relief efforts through its own resources and expertise both civilian (for example, the Agency for International Development) and military (the US Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard), through the United Nations and other multilateral entities, and through civil society nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the charitable generosity of the American people. Humanitarian assistance and economic development are not only morally right things to provide and encourage, but they also create a world that is more stable and secure.
Those who call for the United States to retreat from its traditional international role explicitly or implicitly assume that the United States should trim the goals that it seeks to achieve. They argue that if the United States pulls back from leadership, it will entangle itself less in the world’s problems. The historical case for this line of argument is flimsy—often, the United States has been pulled into foreign conflicts specifically because it tried to disengage, not because it engaged too much. (The Korean War and World War II are just two examples.) But if the benefits to the security of the both the homeland and the international order of American leadership are clear, why do so many question the value of engagement?
Why US international engagement is being questioned
Although the case for US international leadership, and the principles behind it, is strong, critics who argue that the costs of international involvement outweigh the benefits, both at home and abroad, are reacting primarily to two recent developments in American history.
First, more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan eroded the willingness of some Americans to support future major military operations. Some doubted the wisdom of the war in Iraq, while others questioned the effectiveness of US national security institutions in waging the wars once they had been launched. For some, the seeming inability of the United States to formulate and implement an effective strategy has raised larger questions about the efficacy of US military intervention in general.
Second, the Great Recession and the unequal distribution of the gains from the subsequent recovery have produced a mixture of anxiety and pessimism about America’s role in the world. A growing number of Americans question why the United States is expending limited resources when many continue to struggle at home. Others see the North American energy boom as an opportunity for the United States to disengage from its overseas commitments, particularly in the Middle East.[9]
The public still supports American international engagement when they see |
