A Consensus Shattered

WHEN THINKING about the new challenges we face, we must do more than look abroad. We have to take a closer look at ourselves-and ask the fundamental question of whether a strong national security policy can be conducted with a polity that is losing faith in its leaders and institutions.

Americans'

trust in government has been declining steadily since the 1960s, and so far the first half-decade of the 21st century has done nothing to reverse this. If anything, it has gotten worse, especially when it comes to Americans' views of the making of national security policy. With the September 11 attacks and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, they have witnessed two of the greatest intelligence failures in American history. The bloody occupation of Iraq and the inept response to last year's Hurricane Katrina disaster have cast alarming doubts about the government's competence to plan and implement policies. The revelations about domestic spying on Americans and the torture of detainees in U.S. custody have raised deep concerns about the growing power of government and the breakdown of congressional oversight over an unchecked executive branch. Add to all this the bitter partisanship and unrelenting drumbeat of scandal in Washington-from the Valerie Flame affair to the Jack Abramoff lobbying crimes-and the cynicism many have about government and its motives has only deepened.

The cumulative effect of all this? Many Americans' confidence is shaken, and their opinions of elites and the institutions they inhabit are even worse. In terms of national security policy, this means that there will be stronger resistance to taking on new challenges. There has been a resurgence of isolationism and more ambivalence among many about whether the United States should maintain a posture of assertive global leadership. Fewer Americans seem willing to accept the costs that their leaders' ambitions might require. President George W. Bush seems to sense this-which helps explain his repeated warnings against isolationism in his 2006 State of the Union address.

Recent public opinion polls reveal these trends. In a survey done by the Pew Research Center and the Council on Foreign Relations last November, 42 percent polled said the United States should "mind its own business" internationally, a figure only matched during the past thirty years by two other low points of American foreign policy, the Vietnam hangover of the mid-1970s and Bill Clinton's post-Cold War nadir of the mid1990s. Only a quarter of the public favors a strong U.S. role in the world, and just a third think that the government has done a good job protecting the country. This research shows that such doubts are shared by elites who usually show more confidence and support for internationalism. Such figures are even more startling when compared to less than five years ago, in the wake of 9/11 and the strong consensus then about America's interests and role in the world.

REORDERING SECURITY priorities will be meaningless if no one wants to follow. Just as experts earnestly argue that the threats to U.S. interests are becoming more varied and complex and deserving of greater attention, awareness and engagement, many Americans' appetite to act-or willingness to place much faith in such expert warnings-is waning significantly. Even if our strategists and leaders were more focused on other challenges, it begs the question of whether they could create and sustain the domestic support to do much about them. Many Americans are looking at future threats through the prism of the recent past and justifiably feel once burned, twice shy.

This decline in trust runs across the ideological spectrum, but it cuts deepest within the political Left. Its convulsions that began in the late 1990s (illustrated by the rise of the anti-globalization movement and division over the military interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo and the 1998 air strikes against Iraq) have only become more severe and divisive. To be sure, this reflects a great degree of anger with-and personal animosity for-President Bush. But it is more than that.

When it comes to national security issues, the Left has become splintered in a way not seen since the 1970s, when Vietnam split the Democratic party and sparked a reaction against the so-called establishment. A similar dynamic is at work today, as a new generation of liberal activists (call it the "new new Left") is raging not just against Bush, but against the insider Democrats in Washington, especially when it concerns national security issues. Many remain uncomfortable with the use of American power. When combined with a conservative movement that is itself divided-and facing its own debate about what elements of President Bush's approach toward the world should be continued after he leaves office in 2009-the result is a policymaking environment that is more embittered, confused and partisan.

In some cases, this outrage has forced sober course corrections in policies-such as the gradual scaling-back of our goals in Iraq-and taken other issues off the table-like all the talk from a few years ago of pivoting from Iraq to attack Syria. In many ways that's a good thing. As Henry Kissinger observed about his own struggles to conduct policy during another period of deep partisan division and mistrust, "ideologues have a tendency to drive societies as well as international systems beyond their capacities", and therefore the public's skepticism reflects a desire to have a foreign policy that is, well, more humble.

But the question is whether this might go too far; whether the anger and deep suspicions many have developed about the making of our national security policy will only linger and fester; whether the demands for ideological purity and the perceived political payoff of criminalizing honest policy differences will continue to grow; whether this will keep both the strategic community and the general public looking backward and make it harder to look forward; and whether, if unaddressed over the long term, such cynicism and distrust will inhibit political leaders from acting effectively to meet challenges-both existing and new.

Writing over sixty years ago, as the debate about how to shape the postWorld War II world was underway, Walter Lippmann sounded a warning that remains as relevant for our historical moment as it was for his.

[W]hen a people is divided within itself about the conduct of its foreign relations, it is unable to agree on the determination of its true interest. It is unable to prepare adequately for war or to safeguard successfully its peace. Thus its course in foreign affairs depends, in Hamilton's words, not on reflection and choice but on accident and force.

Lippmann's words still ring true. America's economic and political power remains unmatched, and it still remains the one country most capable of dealing with whatever threats the future brings. But its prestige abroad has been damaged, and the political will to act weakened. If a government and a strategic community can be so wrong and prove so incompetent, many Americans ask, why should we trust them anymore?

This is not a failure of the American people; it is the failure of our leaders. Throughout our history Americans have shown a fundamental optimism about the world and a willingness to sacrifice to make it a better place-as they did during Lippmann's era six decades ago. But mistakes matter, and so does the truth. The domestic consensus that propelled policy in the immediate wake of 9/11 has been shattered. To ensure that the United States is guided by policies derived from reflection and choice, leaders from both sides of the political aisle must work together to rebuild this consensus from both Left and Right and restore faith in government. This might not sound like the stuff of high strategy, and given the damage already done, it certainly won't be easy. But it is now imperative.

AUTHOR_AFFILIATION

Derek Chollet is a fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and author of The Road to the Dayton Accords: A Study of American Statecraft (2005).