In this fall’s presidential race, Barack Obama constantly touts change from the past eight years of American foreign policy, and John McCain attempts to distance himself from the Bush administration. Yet there is a small contingent that claims the next eight years will be strikingly similar to the last.
“Continuity will remain the earmark of American foreign policy, irrespective of who wins,” said Timothy Lynch, professor at the University of London. “American primacy as both a means and an end won’t be rejected.”
Lynch and his co-author, professor Robert Singh, make the argument that the next president won’t stray far from Bush’s tactics in After Bush: The Case for Continuity in Foreign Policy, in a presentation of their study at the Hudson Institute.
Contradicting the strong rhetoric of candidates who at times say, as Obama alluded to in a speech in Germany, that America has a chance to restore its image abroad in the upcoming election, Lynch and Singh attempt to put America’s recent foreign policy actions into perspective.
“Bush has been entirely predictable in his national security response,” said Lynch. “We are claiming that he’s been very normal—that he’s done nothing much different than what we might speculate Al Gore would have done or Bill Clinton would have done had they been handed the 9/11 attack.”
History suggests continuity, the two argue. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been nine U.S. military interventions—an average of one military push every 18 months. Foreign policy, they say, is slow to change.
“America has a consistent pattern in its foreign policy of waging war on those states, or sub-state actors, that attack it, and then reintegrating that foe, or the base of that foe, into a globalized, liberalized, capitalistic global world order,” said Lynch.
The authors are skeptical of the overhaul proposed by the Obama camp, whose plans include quick withdrawals of troops from Iraq and a refocused attitude towards global diplomacy.
While the public has had difficulty discerning exactly what Obama’s true plans for foreign policy entail, Singh stated that Obama’s most likely course of action would not involve the massive strategy of change with which he has campaigned.
However, Singh noted, since Obama’s emergence into the political spotlight has been so swift, it is nearly impossible to know for sure.
“Perhaps he doesn’t know,” said Singh.
Based on their studies of American foreign policy history, the authors do leave a warning for those hoping for “change.”
“As a respectful foreigner,” said Singh, “I simply suggest that those who see him as light at the end of the tunnel at the end of the Bush years may just want to watch out that he isn’t the headlamp on the oncoming train.”
Ben Giles is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.
