Richard Haas writes a short explanation of everything that is wrong with American foreign policy in this month's Foreign Affairs. Needless to say, I have some real problems with some of his analysis.

Haas writes:

The twentieth century started out distinctly multipolar. But after almost 50 years, two world wars, and many smaller conflicts, a bipolar system emerged. Then, with the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, bipolarity gave way to unipolarity -- an international system dominated by one power, in this case the United States. But today power is diffuse, and the onset of nonpolarity raises a number of important questions.

Actually, it wasn't a 'unipolar' moment. It was an interregnum, a chance to reorder things in a positive way that Bill Clinton pissed away.

Haas also writes:

U.S. primacy is also being challenged in other realms, such as military effectiveness and diplomacy. Measures of military spending are not the same as measures of military capacity. September 11 showed how a small investment by terrorists could cause extraordinary levels of human and physical damage. Many of the most costly pieces of modern weaponry are not particularly useful in modern conflicts in which traditional battlefields are replaced by urban combat zones. In such environments, large numbers of lightly armed soldiers can prove to be more than a match for smaller numbers of highly trained and better-armed U.S. troops.

This is the nature, immutable, of warfare. Strategy--nothing more, nothing less. Deal with it. Our enemies are.

Again, Haas:

Charles Krauthammer was more correct than he realized when he wrote in these pages nearly two decades ago about what he termed "the unipolar moment." At the time, U.S. dominance was real. But it lasted for only 15 or 20 years. In historical terms, it was a moment. Traditional realist theory would have predicted the end of unipolarity and the dawn of a multipolar world. According to this line of reasoning, great powers, when they act as great powers are wont to do, stimulate competition from others that fear or resent them. Krauthammer, subscribing to just this theory, wrote, "No doubt, multipolarity will come in time. In perhaps another generation or so there will be great powers coequal with the United States, and the world will, in structure, resemble the pre-World War I era."

But this has not happened. Although anti-Americanism is widespread, no great-power rival or set of rivals has emerged to challenge the United States. In part, this is because the disparity between the power of the United States and that of any potential rivals is too great.

Horseshit. It's already happening. We're just not paying attention. Besides, this is the measure of an interregnum--not a world order. See post-Vienna 1815 to 1871 and then reorganization by the Germans and Italians that lasted until 1871-1914. See also 1945-1989. Those were 'World Orders' shaped by their founders for a specific purpose. What is now emerging is multi-polarity par excellence, even if Haas thinks that's not what we're seeing. It's just a hybrid version with many more actors than in the past.

Again, Haas:

The fact that classic great-power rivalry has not come to pass and is unlikely to arise anytime soon is also partly a result of the United States' behavior, which has not stimulated such a response. This is not to say that the United States under the leadership of George W. Bush has not alienated other nations; it surely has. But it has not, for the most part, acted in a manner that has led other states to conclude that the United States constitutes a threat to their vital national interests. Doubts about the wisdom and legitimacy of U.S. foreign policy are pervasive, but this has tended to lead more to denunciations (and an absence of cooperation) than outright resistance.

This is rubbish. One example is Ukraine and NATO expansion. A vital, vital Russian interest if ever there was one, but only peripheral to us. And we ignore this at our serious peril.

And more:

A further constraint on the emergence of great-power rivals is that many of the other major powers are dependent on the international system for their economic welfare and political stability. They do not, accordingly, want to disrupt an order that serves their national interests. Those interests are closely tied to cross-border flows of goods, services, people, energy, investment, and technology -- flows in which the United States plays a critical role. Integration into the modern world dampens great-power competition and conflict.

What this means is that the post-1945 era is still somewhat operable and I imagine--thought I am not 100% certain--reformable, if we could get some great powers to buy in instead of rattling sabres all the fucking time.

But Haas makes some good points as well. Like this:

A second cause is U.S. policy. To paraphrase Walt Kelly's Pogo, the post-World War II comic hero, we have met the explanation and it is us. By both what it has done and what it has failed to do, the United States has accelerated the emergence of alternative power centers in the world and has weakened its own position relative to them. U.S. energy policy (or the lack thereof) is a driving force behind the end of unipolarity. Since the first oil shocks of the 1970s, U.S. consumption of oil has grown by approximately 20 percent, and, more important, U.S. imports of petroleum products have more than doubled in volume and nearly doubled as a percentage of consumption. This growth in demand for foreign oil has helped drive up the world price of oil from just over $20 a barrel to over $100 a barrel in less than a decade. The result is an enormous transfer of wealth and leverage to those states with energy reserves. In short, U.S. energy policy has helped bring about the emergence of oil and gas producers as major power centers.

One of the dirty little secrets most in Washington won't talk about. Our policy in the Middle East is a part of the problem, right down to oil imports, not a part of the solution. Of course, as Haas also notes:

The war in Iraq has also contributed to the dilution of the United States' position in the world. The war in Iraq has proved to be an expensive war of choice -- militarily, economically, and diplomatically as well as in human terms. Years ago, the historian Paul Kennedy outlined his thesis about "imperial overstretch," which posited that the United States would eventually decline by overreaching, just as other great powers had in the past. Kennedy's theory turned out to apply most immediately to the Soviet Union, but the United States -- for all its corrective mechanisms and dynamism -- has not proved to be immune. It is not simply that the U.S. military will take a generation to recover from Iraq; it is also that the United States lacks sufficient military assets to continue doing what it is doing in Iraq, much less assume new burdens of any scale elsewhere.

Indeed is about all I can say to that.

But here Haas annoys me again:

Globalization reinforces nonpolarity in two fundamental ways. First, many cross-border flows take place outside the control of governments and without their knowledge. As a result, globalization dilutes the influence of the major powers. Second, these same flows often strengthen the capacities of nonstate actors, such as energy exporters (who are experiencing a dramatic increase in wealth owing to transfers from importers), terrorists (who use the Internet to recruit and train, the international banking system to move resources, and the global transport system to move people), rogue states (who can exploit black and gray markets), and Fortune 500 firms (who quickly move personnel and investments). It is increasingly apparent that being the strongest state no longer means having a near monopoly on power. It is easier than ever before for individuals and groups to accumulate and project substantial power.

I hate this word 'Globalization." It's a one size fits all absolution elites use for all the ills of the world and for that which they are too lazy or afraid to explain. It's a dispensation for irresponsibility on a massive scale.

Nonpolarity will also increase the number of threats and vulnerabilities facing a country such as the United States. These threats can take the form of rogue states, terrorist groups, energy producers that choose to reduce their output, or central banks whose action or inaction can create conditions that affect the role and strength of the U.S. dollar. The Federal Reserve might want to think twice before continuing to lower interest rates, lest it precipitate a further move away from the dollar. There can be worse things than a recession.

The solution to this and much more of what ails us is a return to what Agha and Malley say: "Ultimately raisons d'etat can prove as dependable as trust. Sadly, this is a principle America, in its zeal to transform, has forgotten. We will rue the day we forgot this--mark my words. Reciprocity is also a key ingredient we've minimized. Of course it's easier to bomb than do the hard work of real diplomacy.

Here's one good example of us just abdicating any kind of realistic engagement that Haas buys in on:

Iran is a case in point. Its effort to become a nuclear power is a result of nonpolarity. Thanks more than anything to the surge in oil prices, it has become another meaningful concentration of power, one able to exert influence in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian territories, and beyond, as well as within OPEC. It has many sources of technology and finance and numerous markets for its energy exports. And due to nonpolarity, the United States cannot manage Iran alone. Rather, Washington is dependent on others to support political and economic sanctions or block Tehran's access to nuclear technology and materials. Nonpolarity begets nonpolarity.

Horseshit. Cut a deal. The Iranians will take it. Of course, if you can't think of a solution, think up a model for the problem:

Still, even if nonpolarity was inevitable, its character is not. To paraphrase the international relations theorist Hedley Bull, global politics at any point is a mixture of anarchy and society. The question is the balance and the trend. A great deal can and should be done to shape a nonpolar world. Order will not just emerge. To the contrary, left to its own devices, a nonpolar world will become messier over time. Entropy dictates that systems consisting of a large number of actors tend toward greater randomness and disorder in the absence of external intervention.

Oh, so physics is the answer? Please. I really hate it when people use 'models' to describe anything, especially international relations.

Alas, Haas is not completely without his senses:

The United States can and should take steps to reduce the chances that a nonpolar world will become a cauldron of instability. This is not a call for unilateralism; it is a call for the United States to get its own house in order. Unipolarity is a thing of the past, but the United States still retains more capacity than any other actor to improve the quality of the international system. The question is whether it will continue to possess such capacity.

At this point, sadly, we don't. But now we come to the real problem he's been dancing around for a while:

Energy is the most important issue. Current levels of U.S. consumption and imports (in addition to their adverse impact on the global climate) fuel nonpolarity by funneling vast financial resources to oil and gas producers. Reducing consumption would lessen the pressure on world prices, decrease U.S. vulnerability to market manipulation by oil suppliers, and slow the pace of climate change. The good news is that this can be done without hurting the U.S. economy.

It doesn't fuel non-polarity--it fuels anarchy and enemies when we disavow any responsibility to engage people in the region and bomb them instead. Like, duh!

And now, we turn to Homeland Security:

Strengthening homeland security is also crucial. Terrorism, like disease, cannot be eradicated. There will always be people who cannot be integrated into societies and who pursue goals that cannot be realized through traditional politics. And sometimes, despite the best efforts of those entrusted with homeland security, terrorists will succeed. What is needed, then, are steps to make society more resilient, something that requires adequate funding and training of emergency responders and more flexible and durable infrastructure. The goal should be to reduce the impact of even successful attacks.

Homeland security, as presently conceived, is a sad and dangerous joke; its a giant patronage machine for an emerging authoritarian state. It should be abolished, not strengthened.

One last inanity before my head explodes:

Resisting the further spread of nuclear weapons and unguarded nuclear materials, given their destructive potential, may be as important as any other set of undertakings. By establishing internationally managed enriched-uranium or spent-fuel banks that give countries access to sensitive nuclear materials, the international community could help countries use nuclear power to produce electricity rather than bombs. Security assurances and defensive systems can be provided to states that might otherwise feel compelled to develop nuclear programs of their own to counter those of their neighbors. Robust sanctions -- on occasion backed by armed force -- can also be introduced to influence the behavior of would-be nuclear states.

We already have a very successful program--Nunn-Lugar--and all it requires is political will and more funding.

I can't go on. Finish the essay if you wish. I'm done.