The Foreign Service Journal, September 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2021 79 His chosen subtitle hints at an important subtheme—namely, that since 1989, things have gonewrong for theUnited States at least as often as they have gone right. ing U.S. approaches—including President Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the engagement side and President Donald Trump’s maxi- mum pressure campaign on the other. Yet he still faults the United States for being “too restrained for too long in using non-military instruments of power” to better the odds of achieving our goals. Next, the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. While distinctly different in Gates’ view, both suffer from a similar original sin, which might be character- ized in general terms as the United States biting off more than it can chew. In the case of Afghanistan, Gates describes the ways in which the initial decisive military success gave way to stalemate and then failure when the strategic goals were changed to include the essentially unachievable: building a democracy from scratch in a place that had never had it and using a U.S. military designed for waging war, not for doing post-con- flict reconstruction. As for Iraq, in contrast to Bush 41’s limited political aim in the first Gulf War—to push Iraq out of Kuwait—and his disciplined decision to stop once that aim was achieved, George W. Bush reached problematically for the stars from the start. Says Gates: “My focus here … is on President Bush’s decision to build a better, democratic Iraq after overthrowing Saddam Hussein; the failure to recognize the magnitude of that challenge; the overreliance on the military to carry out the task; and the failure to recognize and then remedy the weakness of our nonmilitary instruments of power that were so essential to even attempting such an effort.” While he may spend more time on U.S. failures, Gates is also dutiful in por- traying some signal successes. Colombia is a notable one, with lessons learned for possible future U.S. ventures in helping rescue teetering states from the brink. He identifies six key conditions on which strategic success will depend. Among these: the presence of a strong, coura- geous and competent local counterpart; the existence of at least minimally func- tioning local institutions; bipartisan sup- port in the U.S. Congress; and, critically, a strictly circumscribed U.S. supporting role. Where and when these conditions do not hold, Gates advises, we had best go back to the drawing board. Another is the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), President George W. Bush’s successful strategic initiative to confront the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. PEPFAR, says Gates, “was bold and practical.” Its evident success “improved the lives of tens of millions in Africa, won America friends and admir- ers among ordinary people as well as elites and governments.” Such success, says Gates, should serve as a model for the future use of nonmilitary instruments in pursuit of U.S. national interests. Russia and China get special billing, of course, as top-tier strategic chal- lenges for the United States. In the light