The netroots’ foreign policy calculus

Matthew Yglesias responds to Gideon Rose's critique of the netroots critique on the foreign policy community (discussed here). The highlights: Rose would, I think, like to make this a conversation about expertise and professionalism. But I'm not, and I don't think anyone in the blogosphere is, against expertise and professionalism. The question is whether some of our country's self-proclaimed experts -- and media proclaimed experts -- really deserve to be considered experts. What, for example, is the nature of Michael O'Hanlon's expertise on the broad range of subjects (his official bio lists him as an expert on "Arms treaties; Asian security issues; Homeland security; Iraq policy; Military technology; Missile defense; North Korea policy; Peacekeeping operations; Taiwan policy, military analysis; U.S. defense strategy and budget") upon which he comments? Obviously, it would be foolish to just let me speak ex cathedra as an "expert" on the dizzying array of subjects on which I comment, but it seems equally foolish to let O'Hanlon do so, especially since his judgment seems so poor. I made a stab at a systemic difference between think tank people and professionals in the public sector, but Rose raises some convincing points to the effect that this dichotomy isn't as sharp as I wanted it to be. Still, we can certainly talk about specific individuals -- particularly individuals who seem to be unusually prominent or influential -- and whether or not they really deserve to be held in high esteem. What's needed isn't less expertise, but better expertise and above all more honest expertise. After wading through all this, I'm somewhat sympathetic to Yglesias' point. If one believes in the utility of markets to correctly align incentives, then a price should be paid when foreign policy community experts screw up. Nevertheless, I have three cavils: 1) While O'Hanlon and Pollack haven't lost their jobs, is it correct to say that they've paid no price for their past errors? Beyond blogospheric ridicule, I'm willing to bet that far fewer people paid attention to Pollack's Iran book than his Iraq book, for example. Bloggers would counter that they are still appearing in the NYT op-ed page and Meet the Press; I would counter that if those interventions are accorded less weight by the audience, then a price has been paid. The netroots might want to exact their pound of flesh, but these guys' reputation has suffered (especially after today's New York Times op-ed). Inside the beltway, this loss of reputation is significant. 2) Is it correct to extrapolate from Pollack and O'Hanlon's errors on Iraq to an indictment of the entire "foreign plicy community" on all foreign policy questions? That seems to be what Atrios, Greenwald, and Yglesias in his earlier posts were attempting, and that's an awfully big leap. Greenwald, in particular, is making critiques that go way beyond individual analysts. During the latest contretemps, Greenwald wrote: The Number One Rule of the bi-partisan Foreign Policy Community is that America has the right to invade and attack other countries at will because American power is inherently good and our role in the world is to rule it though the use of superior military force. Paying homage to that imperialistic orthodoxy is a non-negotiable pre-requisite to maintaining Good Standing and Seriousness Credentials within the Foreign Policy Community. Let's excise some of the adjectives and rephrase the wording a bit: The number one rule of the bi-partisan foreign policy community is that America can invade and attack other countries when vital American interests are threatened. Paying homage to that orthodoxy is a non-negotiable pre-requisite to maintaining good standing within the foreign policy community. I suspect that anyone who accepts the concept of a "national interest" in the first place would accept that phrasing. As a paid-up member of the Foreign Policy Community (FPC), I certainly would. And I also suspect that Greenwald would not accept this formulation -- it would contradict both his pacifism strict non-interventionism and his very strange definition of imperialism. Indeed, I'm not ntirely sure that Greenwald would accept the concept of "national interest," period. Does this mean, as Greenwald implies, that there is no debate within the FPC? Hell no. There can and should be vigorous debates over what constitutes a "vital national interest," whether force should be used multilaterally or unilaterally, what other policy tools should be used, etc. That's not a small zone of disagreement. Indeed, as Chris Sullentrop pointed out in March 2003, Pollack's Threatening Storm rebuked an awful lot of the Bush administration's approach to Iraq. 3) A plain truth needs to be said: if, in the fall of 2002, O'Hanlon, Pollack, and the entire Brookings staff had marched on the White House and then immolated themselves in protest over the possibility of going to war in Iraq, it would not have made the slightest bit of difference in halting the war. This goes double if the AEI or Heritage staffers had done it. In the fall of 2002, you had the following political situation: a) A president with a 70% approval rating; b) A Republican-controlled House and a Senate that was barely controlled by the Dems; c) A Democraic Party that was haunted by what had happened to Senators who voted against the 1991 Gulf War (two words: Sam Nunn); d) A military that had made its recent wars (Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Gulf War I) seem quick and merciful; e) A sanctions coalition in Iraq that seemed to be fraying; f) Fresh scars from the 9/11 attacks; g) An adversary that elicited little sympathy from anyone -- especially the American people.The moment George W. Bush decided he wanted to oust Saddam Hussein, the debate was effectively over. Nothing the foreign policy community did or could have done affected the outcome (Pollack is a possible exception -- The Threatening Storm did play the role of "useful cover" for many Democrats, but if it wasn't Pollack's book it would have been something else). The members of the "foreign policy community" were not the enablers of Iraq, because no enabling was necessary. The good news is that conditions (a) through (f) no longer apply. So, contra the netroots, I don't think what happened in the fall of 2002 will happen again with, say, Iran. UPDATE: Ilan Goldenberg has an interesting post at Democracy Arsenal about distinguishing experts from "experts" when it comes to the Middle East. Atrios is thoroughly unimpressed. Kevin Drum makes some interesting points in this post. This point augments what I wrote above: Sure, the war skeptics might have been afraid to go against the herd, but I think that was just an outgrowth of something more concrete: a fear of being provably wrong. After all, everyone agreed that Saddam Hussein was a brutal and unpredictable thug and almost everyone agreed that he had an active WMD program. (Note: Please do some research first if you want to disagree with this. The plain fact is that nearly everyone ? liberal and conservative, American and European, George Bush and Al Gore ? believed Saddam was developing WMDs. This unanimity started to break down when the UN inspections failed to turn up anything, but before that you could count the number of genuine WMD doubters on one hand.) This meant that war skeptics had to go way out on a limb: if they opposed the war, and it subsequently turned out that Saddam had an advanced WMD program, their credibility would have been completely shot. Their only recourse would have been to argue that Saddam never would have used his WMD, an argument that, given Saddam's temperament, would have sounded like special pleading even to most liberals. In the end, then, they chickened out, but it had more to do with fear of being wrong than with fear of being shunned by the foreign policy community.It's also worth pointing out that some foreign policy community-types did argue that a WMD-enabled Saddam would be deterrable. It's just their their writings were pretty much ignored in the debate about Iraq. ANOTHER UPDATE: Robert Farley responds to all of this here. YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Oh, dear, I appear to have upset the mighty Atrios: "Dan Drezner is very serious and we should be listening to him. He's been right about so many things, and he's got the number of that patchouli stinking Greenwald." Aside from impugning my track record, I'm not entirely sure what Duncan's trying to say. If, as Robert Farley suggests, I might have mislabeled Greenwald as a pacifist (not that there's nothing wrong with that), then I apologize. The thing is, I'm not entirely sure how else to categorize the views he expresses in his post. [Perhaps "non-interventionist" is a more accurate term--ed. See my change above.] Regardless, this poem is awesome. EVEN ANOTHER UPDATE... YES, I"M REALLY INTERESTED IN THIS TOPIC: More on this debate from Rick Moran, Michael van der Gali?n, and Brian Ulrich. FINAL UPDATE... OR IS IT?: Gideon Rose follows up on his original post here. You should read the whole thing, but this part does stand out: [Netroots critiques display] a mindset inimical to foreign policy professionalism. If you don?t see the world in its full context, if you know the answers before you ask the questions, if you consider anybody who disagrees to be a contemptible idiot or traitor, then whatever you?re doing, it isn?t serious policy analysis. Large sectors of the right have gone down this route in the last generation, and now many on the left are joining them. FINAL UPDATE: Greenwald responds here -- I'll have my response up shortly. My response is here.