Farewell to Realism: Reviewing "Power Rules" by Leslie Gelb

Well, I finished Leslie Gelb's “Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy” this morning. This was a book that I bought with eager anticipation, and liked less and less the more I got into it. Indeed, while I was generally predisposed to Mr. Gelb on the basis of his reputation and his deep experience, I have to admit that he simply lost me in the last two chapters of the book. Far from restoring common sense and realism, I find that the entire project, like so many other books on American foreign policy and national security that have emerged in recent years, is deeply unrealistic, and only serves to communicate the prejudices of the US foreign policy establishment, of which Mr. Gelb is such a distinguished and often erudite representative.

A naive reader might align Gelb's world view to that of Henry Kissinger, and to the power realism of Dr. Kissinger and Hans Morgenthau. Closer examination reveals this to be false. Although the title of the book suggests an interest in power politics, and its apparent purpose is to rebalance American foreign policy in the direction of Realpolitik, Gelb cares little to nothing about maintaining the balance of power, and demonstrates no grasp whatever of equilibrium in the realists' conceptual model. Gelb believes that American power is declining – and bewails this as an unfortunate and a reversible condition, one that will best be met if US foreign policy makers attend to his recommendations. In the penultimate paragraph of this book, he writes:

“Every great nation or empire ultimately rots from within. We already see the United States of America, our precious guarantor of liberty and security, beginning to decline in its leadership, institutions, and physical and human infrastructure, and on the path to becoming just another great power, a nation barely worth fearing or following.”

Do tell. What is wonderfully amazing here is that these are the words of a self-described moderate, who is in the process of trying to convince the leadership of his nation to adopt a somewhat less ambitious set of policies, grounded in common sense and pragmatic thinking...no grand designs or overarching principles here, thank you very much. And Mr. Gelb is of a piece with other K Street graybeards – he invokes a previous book cowritten by Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski – who have been saying much the same things about America's commitments and strategy in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. While Gelb is reasonably well balanced in his critique of past administrations' policies – none are entirely spared, not Clinton and Carter, nor Reagan or Bush the Elder. But the angriest rhetorical jabs and least objective comments are levied against the former George W. Bush administration. K Street graybeards like to be consulted, and Mr. Gelb's own war story concerning Operation Iraqi Freedom is an interesting bit of historical drama: just following the overthrow of the Baathist regime in Baghdad, Gelb attempted to form an advisory group that included the American Enterprise Institute (AEI): a neoconservative think tank – and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS): a think tank that Gelb describes as “moderate” to assist and make recommendations on the path forward. Discussions were held with Condoleeza Rice and Stephen Hadley at the White House; in the end, nothing came of this. Gelb's claim is clear: US policy was made and executed without the wisdom of the wise men in the K Street think tanks, and the disastrous results speak for themselves.

Perhaps it is this subtext, rather than any ideological affinity, that causes Gelb to invoke the memory of Nicolo Machiavelli in this book. In the earlier portions of the book, Gelb compares what he intends to accomplish this book to Machiavelli as he makes his policy recommendations and details his unprincipled principles (or maybe in Gelb's cases, they are unprinciples) to President Obama, as he addresses Obama in the second person. Now, Machiavelli's book, “The Prince” is reputed to be a kind of extended job application, an elaborate writing sample of the kind that Washington hiring managers sometimes demand of job-seeking supplicants. While Mr. Gelb is probably too old to seek an adminstration position for himself, the subliminal message to the incoming Obama Adminstration from the K Street graybeards is the only truly Machiavellian thing about this book. That message, if it could be put into words is, “We run this town. Nothing can succeed without us. If you want your foreign policy to be successful, you need to listen to us.”

While common sense and a willingness to listen to a wide range of opinions are by no means despicable in any administration that seeks a well-grounded and successful foreign policy, in the end, Gelb says nothing new, makes no bold or striking proposals, seeks no structural innovation to make the formulation and execution of US foreign policy more efficient or effective, identifies no looming trend that has not been analyzed to death in the pages of the foreign policy journals and in the K Street think tanks for nearly a generation. Gelb offers to a administration dedicated to the promise of change – more of the same old approaches recast to address many of the same old problems. Example: as an old Cold Warrior, Gelb has a fondness for deterrence, and he cites it as a praiseworthy approach several times in this book.

Now, one of the saving graces of this book is that it is attentive to past practice, and true pragmatism never throws away something that worked simply because it has grown old and out of favor. That said, one reads little in this book on how one would really apply a deterrence model to actually dissuade one's opponents from taking an action one wishes to stop. The problem here is that Gelb is committed to deterrence as a bluffing tactic - indeed he states that military power is mostly desirable when used as a threat, not as actualized force – an approach that begs the question as to what “rules” the US should adopt when faced with the necessity of backing up the threats it makes. Gelb does perhaps justly criticize the George W. Bush administration for excessive sabre-rattling, but his insinuation that US should abandon its military endeavors in Iraq and Afghanistan, but should be prepared to make its threats credible by acting them out when necessary is nothing but hollow rhetoric.

In the end, Gelb's book only underscores the demise of the realist dimension of US foreign policy and the elite class that exercises influence on that policy. He is less bullish on America than John Mearsheimer, who argues that America remains unchallenged in its latent power resources, despite its blundering abroad – but this does not convert itself to an approach that differs from Mearsheimer on any subject other than US policy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict. While this book has much to commend itself in regards to diplomatic tactics – Gelb patiently lays out his approach to power together with his critique of such common buzzwords as “smart power” and “soft power – it lacks a strategic world view consistent with the author's estimation of American decline. While it attempts to reset Henry Kissinger's “rules of the game”, it neither limits nor defines the proper sphere of American power and interest. Thus, while Gelb wryly notes that Islamic peoples do not like American forces operating within the geopolitical territory of the Ummah, Gelb fails to deal with the question as to whether or not America has or does not have legitimate interests that require the US military to stay put where it is, or alternatively, to mount a strategic disengagement to less controversial territories (and potentially return if needed). In other words, while Gelb demands that choice be restored to US foreign policy, it is the range of choices and their consequences that he is least willing to entertain in this book.

What he does envision are a range of long term policies that might be definitive of neoliberalism today: reduce dependence on military options, pull back on demands for democratization and liberalization – particularly when other interests are at stake, seek to gain greater energy independence, improve our relationship with our allies and make better use of multinational institutions. The problem is that most of these recommendations deal with the means to accomplish American foreign policy goals more effectively, rather than a consideration of the ends to be achieved. We continue to wait in vain for the savior of the realist school to appear.