The Role of US Presidents in US Foreign Policy
Austrian Institute for International Affairs - oiip
The Role of US Presidents in US Foreign Policy –
A Conversation with Walter Russell Mead
Inhouse-Seminar
February 23, 2016
Vortragender: Walter Russell Mead (Bard College)
Moderation:
Heinz Gärtner (oiip)
Venue:
oiip, Berggasse 7, 1090 Vienna
Participants:
30
Summary:
Katharina Hämmerle
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The Role of US Presidents in US Foreign Policy
Austrian Institute for International Affairs - oiip
Zusammenfassung
Zum Anlass der US-Präsidentschaftswahlen am 8. November 2016 wollten Heinz Gärtner (oiip,
Universität Wien) und Walter Russell Mead (Bard College, New York) in einem Gespräch die Rolle des
US-Präsidenten in der amerikanischen Geschichte und Außenpolitik behandeln. Deswegen
konzentrierten sie sich nicht auf die kommenden Wahlen, sondern auf die Konzepte der USPräsidenten und deren Außenpolitik, welche Walter Russel Mead in seinem einflussreichstem Buch
“Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World“, das 2002 den Lionel
Gelber Award für das beste Buch in englisch über internationale Beziehungen gewonnen hat,
erläutert.
Abstract
On the occasion of the US presidential election on November 8, 2016, the talk between Heinz
Gärtner (oiip, University of Vienna) and Walter Russell Mead (Bard College, New York) wanted to
revisit the role of US presidents in American history and foreign policy. In order to that, they did not
focus on the upcoming presidential elections, but on the concepts of US presidents and their foreign
policy, which Walter Russell Mead explains in his most influential book “Special Providence: American
Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World” that won the Lionel Gelber Award for the best book in
English on International Relations in 2002.
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The Role of US Presidents in US Foreign Policy
Austrian Institute for International Affairs - oiip
Why these concepts, why not others?
Mead says, that he started writing the book “Special Providence” in the 1990s and he did not know
what would be the outcome of it. He was observing disputes that the US was having politically over
an intervention in the Yugoslav Wars. When he was growing up, back in the days of the Cold War,
American foreign policy was simply defined by two alternatives: Hawks and Doves. Before that,
Americans talked mainly about internationalists/interventionists and isolationists. Regarding
Yugoslavia, many people that would have been Hawks in the Cold War, were actually Doves and the
other way around. So in the Post-Cold War Era it looked to Mead as if these categories were no
longer valid. He was trying to understand why and what was happening.
In order to understand this, Mead started doing something that, at this time, not many people in the
field of foreign policy did, which is to read in America’s history. He tried to understand the history of
American foreign policy and the different concepts that people brought up. To Mead it seemed as if
the intellectual history of American foreign policy
was undiscovered. So he started looking for
concepts and after years he finally ended up with
four
main
concepts:
the
Hamiltonian,
the
Jeffersonian, the Wilsonian and the Jacksonian.
The first clear concept that came up, Mead says, was
the Hamiltonian based on Alexander Hamilton. In
the 1790s, the Americans were starting a country
and tried to figure out what government they should
have, what their foreign policy should be like. Hamilton thought, that the American foreign policy
should adapt the world’s most powerful state’s principals: British principals, whose key to success
was trade. In order to that, they needed a strong navy and a strong federal government to promote
trade and to protect American merchants. That would make America strong in the international
system and enable to defend its interests and its citizens. As examples for Hamiltonian thinking,
Mead names Daniel Webster and Teddy Roosevelt.
Then, Mead says, he found out that not everybody agreed with these ideas and he came up with the
Jeffersonian concept based on Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was a great antagonist of Hamilton. In
British politics at this time, the government was taxing the people in order to pride the people to
help the government to stay in power. So Jefferson thought, the same would happen in America, if
they adapt the British foreign policy. He even accused Hamilton of wanting to reestablish the Royalty.
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The Role of US Presidents in US Foreign Policy
Austrian Institute for International Affairs - oiip
The main thinking was, if America gets too engaged in foreign policies, it ends up destroying their
policy at home. Mead adds, that Anti-war movements, for example, use Jeffersonian logic.
Mead sums up, that now he had the Hamiltonian extroverts and the Jeffersonian introverts, but that
still didn’t explain everything. Than the missionary impulse came up to his mind. Americans really
want to change the world. They want to promote democracy and human rights. The more he looked
at America’s missionary tradition, the more it was clear to him, that it is deeply rooted, how America
was thinking about the world and intervention. He came up with the Wilsonian concept based on
Woodrow Wilson. After Mead, the key elements in the Wilsonian thinking are, that war is caused by
bad government and injustice. If there would be democracy around the world, there would be peace.
As an example for a Wilsonian thinker, Mead names George W. Bush.
Mead explains, that still something was missing. He starts explaining the next concept with America’s
intervention in WW2. He says, that before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the US was nowhere close
entering the war. But then after December 7, 1941 the public opinion changed overnight. America
wanted to and did fight back with ferocity. Mead asked himself, where this ferocity came from. As an
answer to this question, he came up with the Jacksonian concept based on Andrew Jackson, which is
mainly about a defensive nationalism. Mead says, that Jacksonians think, when America is attacked,
you must respond with everything you have got. They are not interested in foreign policy, only in
defending themselves.
When we look at Jeffersonians and Jacksonians, they seem to have a lot in common (unilateralist,
nationalist etc.). So what is the main distinction between them?
Mead says, that normally with his students, he uses a simple graph, which helps to clarify the
concepts:
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The Role of US Presidents in US Foreign Policy
Austrian Institute for International Affairs - oiip
In order to this, the main distinction between the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian concept is idealist vs.
realist.
Hamiltonians and Jacksonians fall in the same category of realism. Which further distinction can be
made?
Mead says, that the distinction is mainly made between globalist and nationalist. Hamiltonians
believe that the American national interest is best served by the construction of a broad global order.
On the other hand, the Jacksonians are largely indifferent to this vision of a global trading order. They
are nationalist.
So the Hamiltonians are globalist and realist. Which American president would best fit into this
concept?
After Mead, George H. W. Busch was very much a Hamiltonian. Also when you see presidents talking
about the WTO, for example, that is often a Hamiltonian agenda.
There is one part of the Wilsonian concept that has not already been talked about: the
international institutions and multilateralism. George W. Bush was not really interested in
international institutions, like the United Nations. So was Bush only half of a Wilsonian?
Mead explains, that there exists a kind of an inner tension in the Wilsonian thinking. On the one hand
it is about the promotion of democracy, universal values and rights, etc. On the other hand it is also
about international law and international institutions. If international institutions have antidemocratic powers in decisions-making places, a Wilsonian thinker has to sacrifice one of the two
halves of the agenda to the other. This is a tension within the Wilsonian project. Mead says, George
W. Bush was only one of a number of American presidents, who has at various times come up against
it.
What would be the distinction between the Wilsonian multilateralism and the Hamiltonian
multilateralism?
Mead says, that usually coalitions exist, where one single administration works with both. The Bill
Clinton administration, for example, had a Hamiltonian and a Wilsonian multilateralism. It was
basically a globalist administration.
Mead thinks, that the Hamiltonians fundamentally believe, that trade and commerce are the cutting
edge of liberalism. They are the key to building a liberal world order that matches with the American
interest. While Wilsonians would argue, that principal values like human rights and moral, are the
key to a liberal world order.
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The Role of US Presidents in US Foreign Policy
Austrian Institute for International Affairs - oiip
In the book “Maximalist: America in the world from Truman to Obama” by Stephen Sestanovich,
he says, that there exists a pendulum swinging back and forward. If you have a maximalist
president with an offensive military engagement, this president is always followed by a more
restraint one in regard of foreign policy. Does that mean, that there is going to be a maximalist
president next time?
Mean does not think, that we can make those kinds of predictions. Human beings are a little bit more
unpredictable than we would like. He says, that in some ways this work draws on John Gaddis’ book
“Strategies of Containment”, a history of Cold War that arguments, each administration developed
one and sometimes more than one approach in order of changing circumstances. Gaddis adds
something to the concept of the swinging pendulum. He connects it to whether there are limited ore
unlimited resources, whether a president is Keynesian or not, whether the president was or was not
worried about the costs that come in hand with war. After Mead, the point that Gaddis makes and
that Sestanovich’s work backs up is, that presidents, which thought, they were operating under
resource constraints, often made smarter strategic decisions.
In his book “Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America’s Grand Strategy in a World at Risk”, Mead
plays around with Joseph Nye’s concepts of hard, soft and smart power. He adds other attributes.
What are these additional concepts of power?
Mead says, that he wants to explain the one concept, that he thinks has the most use and the one
that also Kissinger picked up on: the idea of sticky power. He starts explaining it with the example of
Germany’s economic dependence on Britain in the late 19th and early 20th century and goes on with
China and America nowadays. Mead compares sticky power with a beautiful shiny spider’s web,
which you cannot resist touching. But once you have touched it, you cannot get out. The more you
grow, the more powerful your economy becomes, it is at a price of dependence. You become
integrated into a global system.
Joseph Nye also developed the concepts of transformational and transactional power. How would
this fit into the categories of Hamiltonian, Jeffersonian, Wilsonian and Jacksonian?
Mead thinks, that in some ways Nye is talking about leadership style more than about substance. A
transformational president can end up with a very small legacy and a transactional president can end
up with a very big legacy. As an example for a transformational president he names George H. W.
Bush and George W. Bush for a transactional president.
Mead concludes, that in the schools of “Special Providence”, politicians are not either or. Someone
must not follow one concept and leave the other ones behind. Mead compares this with a musician,
who plays the violin, which got four strings (the four concepts) and he uses them all. He needs to
understand the qualities of each.
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The Role of US Presidents in US Foreign Policy
Austrian Institute for International Affairs - oiip
(Walter Russell Mead, Heinz Gärtner)
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