The Foreign Service Journal, May 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2014 41 The American Way of War Except in the early days of the republic, “the American Way of War” has centered on achieving a “crushing” military victory over an adversary, the distinguished military historian Russell Weigley argued 40 years ago. He noted the paradox that although Americans generally view themselves as peace-loving, they have been capable of engaging in the most devastating kind of warfare, aimed at total victory and the complete elimination of enemy threats—or even the enemies themselves. Rather than seeing war as part of an ongoing political and diplomatic process, as Carl von Clausewitz counseled, Americans have tended to see war as an alternative to diplomacy. So instead of waging war until we have achieved certain limited ends and then negotiat- ing a peace, which is the way most wars have been waged histori- cally, the United States insists on unconditional surrender, regime change and the total defeat of the adversary—not only Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, but far lesser threats like Serbia, Iraq, Libya and Syria. In addition, the Cold War produced some lingering bad habits. Because that long conflict had such a substantial military compo- nent, and because countries on both sides of the East-West divide built up a substantial military arsenal as a result, it became tempt- ing to view every strategic challenge, then and now, through that same strategic lens. As the saying goes, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” We instinctively look to our military to address global prob- lems, whether or not the military hammer is the appropriate tool for the task. Our soldiers constitute one of the best-trained fighting forces the world has ever seen, but they are asked to do too much. Our diplomats, in contrast, struggle to find adequate resources. Our soldiers are stretched too far; our diplomats are too few and too poorly prepared for the challenges we face. Now, as U.S. forces return home from two of our country’s longest wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is an urgent need to reassess strategic priorities and capabilities. What international role should the United States play in the 21st century? How, and with what tools, should we engage the rest of the world? What role does America’s still-unrivaled military power play, and how can U.S. leaders better use the formidable non-military elements of American power and influence? And how can we resurrect diplomacy from the musty archives of the past and make it more relevant to the present and future? International diplomacy remains one of the least studied and most misunderstood elements of foreign policy. Scholars and practitioners have produced a substantial body of literature on international economics and military strategy, but they have not done the same for diplomacy and statecraft. The Learning/Practice Gap Even at the professional level, diplomacy is undervalued, underanalyzed and under-resourced. Although diplomatic training occurs at the Foreign Service Institute and in diplomatic academies around the world, this is mostly confined to foreign language and area studies with a thin veneer of “how-to” instruc- tion for junior diplomats. Few American diplomats have ever enrolled in a course on diplomacy, either before or after entering the Foreign Service. Even as they rise to the highest levels, they are expected to learn “on the job” rather than as part of a rigorous program of profes- sional preparation. Contrast this with the professional training their military counterparts receive all the way through their careers. The problem is not all with government: the academy deserves blame, too. There is growing concern among scholars about what has been called the “cult of irrelevancy”: the reality that academic research is too often abstract and theoretical, written by academ- ics for other academics. To illustrate the gulf that has developed between the worlds of learning and policy, a recent poll showed that of the 25 international relations scholars who produced the most important scholarship over the past five years, only three had ever held policy positions in the U.S. government. Reinventing Diplomacy To address these shortcomings and begin bridging the gap between policymakers and academics, the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas has launched a major new global initiative called “Reinventing Diplomacy”—one Rather than seeing war as part of an ongoing political and diplomatic process, Americans have tended to see war as an alternative to diplomacy.