One also expects “elegance” in its “architectural,” structural make-up. Ease in stating the problem, great difficulty in getting hold of it and in all attempts at approaching it, then again some very surprising twist by which the approach, or some part of the approach becomes easy, etc. Also, if the deductions are lengthy or complicated, there should be some simple general principle involved, which “explains” the complications and detours, reduces the apparent arbitrariness to a few simple guiding motivations, etc. These criteria are clearly those of any creative art and the existence of some underlying empirical, worldly motif in the background—overgrown by aestheticizing developments and followed to a multitude of labyrinthine variants—all this is much more akin to the atmosphere of art pure and simple than to that of the empirical sciences.
—Von Neumann on the qualities of a good mathematical proof*
THE END OF the Long War has also brought an end to the usefulness of the strategic paradigm that structured so much of American policy during the more than three score and ten years of U.S. involvement in the larger world, from the reversal of his own isolationist policies by President Woodrow Wilson in 1917, to the proclamation of a Wilsonian “New World Order” by President George Bush in 1990. That paradigm was formed by the cluster of understandings about the American purpose in the world, the threats the United States faced in that world, and the strategies to be employed to achieve those purposes and respond to those threats. These understandings continue today to provide the partly conscious model by which Americans grasp world events. This model has roots in American continental expansion westward, in the idealistic imperialism of Theodore Roosevelt, and the haunting cadences of Abraham Lincoln. It only came to life, however, once the United States was brought face-to-face with an attack by a great power whose involvement with the dynamic of state changes in Europe juxtaposed a competing paradigm that was threatening and invigorating. On March 12, 1917, Germany sank the U.S. merchantman Algonquin on the high seas; on March 18, she sank three more American merchant vessels; on April 1, the Aztec, another merchantman, went down. These attacks—and not the more famous sinking of the liner Lusitania two years earlier—propelled the United States into armed conflict, and the Americans have been endeavoring to “make the world safe for democracy” ever since.
A paradigm such as this does more than provide a model for describing events: it offers an explanatory worldview within which each new phenomenon can be fitted without altering the entire scheme. There will be zones of disagreement, of course, but the overall understanding is largely accepted by all parties to the debate. In the present chapter we shall study various new proposals for the American role in international affairs that describe themselves, or are described by others, as new “paradigms.” I think it can be shown that each of these is actually more of an implementing “policy”—like containment—than a new worldview, and also that each of the policies is really simply an application of the current paradigm, often even a repetition of a position within that paradigm that has appeared at an earlier period. Policies are distinguished by their pursuit of particular objectives, the identification of a particular threat, and their proposal of a particular strategy. For example, the purpose of containment was to defeat international communism. The perceived threat was communist aggression in Central Europe and in Asia on the one hand and threats of subversion in the formerly colonial states of the Third World on the other. The strategy employed was nuclear deterrence and conventional defense in the First World and military assistance augmented by covert aid to surrogates in the Third World. Alternative policies, like the liberation of communist clients and the rollback of the Soviet occupation of Central and Eastern Europe, or, at the other extreme, acquiescence and appeasement, were frequently proposed. These alternatives were not incompatible with the Wilsonian worldview, but after debates that look, in retrospect, less closely divided than they perhaps were, these alternative policies were decisively rejected by a series of administrations from both American political parties, Large elements of these parties actually preferred such alternatives but they were never able to fundamentally alter the policy of containment over a period of four decades and nine administrations. There were occasional departures from the rough guide I have just sketched, but even with these apparent departures U.S. policy was remarkably consistent over this long period.
But with the Long War won, why do we need a structuring paradigm at all? Why not simply make decisions on an ad hoc basis, recognizing that, in any case, these decisions will not be randomly made or irrational, but will be guided by our best judgments as to what appears to increase American power and freedom of action? The answer lies in the relationship of strategy to law. Legitimacy, not merely power, was what the Long War was fought over. Until that fundamental question could be settled, conquest and defeat alone could not end the war. Legitimacy is the ground of law; it arises from consistent practices and tacit acceptance and gives law its authority. A United States that cannot explain why it seeks the enlargement of democratic practices among all states—and yet supports the suppression of the Algerian elections that would have brought Islamic fundamentalists to power—will not be able to rally a worldwide consensus in favor of democratic enlargement. A United States that can offer no reason why Russia should be treated as a successor state for the purposes of the Soviet Union's Security Council seat but as a dissolved state for the purposes of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty* will perhaps have its way in such matters for a time, but only so long as our power can compel assent. It is better, even from the perspective of our power—in the long run—to write the rules, though they may sometimes be applied against our wishes, than to abandon rule following in favor of policies that have no more general appeal than that we want them followed, at least for the time being.
We can extend our influence beyond our temporary hegemony if we take this moment to craft a system of rules with our allies that is compatible with our basic understanding of state responsibility. Yet without some general understanding of our strategy in the world, we cannot begin to even draft such rules.
What are some of the candidates for this new paradigm? I will describe five general approaches and attempt to place various contributions from the recent literature on this subject within them. This is especially hard to do because these proposed paradigms are really nothing of the sort: rather, they are simply policies in service of the old paradigm that guided our behavior during the Long War. As a result, there is much overlapping among writers as they stray from a particular position that is comprehensive and internally consistent because they recognize that, as a practical matter, something more fundamental is pulling them away from a doctrinaire consistency. I put proposals in categories in order to ease the reader's understanding of what options are on the table for today's leadership, not because I am dealing with a series of clear-cut manifestos. On the other hand, it is also important to realize that the proposals that are proffered to become a new American paradigm for our behavior in the world are so far short of this advertising that no leader, no matter how nearsighted, is likely really to rely on them to master the challenges that have arisen in the backwash of the end of the Long War. This basic impracticality is sometimes hidden in the persuasive, reassuring prose of editorial writers and the aggressive debating of political candidates who do not have the responsibility of day-to-day decision making but are confident that things would run more smoothly if they did.
One might label these five approaches as (1) the New Nationalism, (2) the New Internationalism, (3) the New Realism, (4) the New Evangelism, and (5) the New Leadership. Each of these general programs has a distinct paramount goal for U.S. policy; each proposes a particular strategy to achieve that goal; each reflects a perception of a crucial threat to U.S. interests to which the proposed paradigm is responsive.