Strategy, not tactics, is next president's top job

By chance, in the withering summer heat, I came across an article by Dr. Henry Kissinger in the Harvard Gazette of last May. In an era when Gen. George C. Marshall, who was Ike's trusted aide during World War II, is little referenced, the piece is called "Reflections on the Marshall Plan."

Oddly enough, it made me think of where we are today in our foreign policy - a hodgepodge of nibbles and quibbles, invaders and crusaders and revolutions and circumlocutions, from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan.

The omniscient Kissinger, now in his 90s, nevertheless recalled brilliantly how, once the war was over, it was Marshall who offered a "clarion call to a permanent role for America in the construction of international order."

Although these memories may seem long ago and far away to many Americans cemented in our ephemeral modern world, they can lead to understanding the anomie, confusion and sense of being lost America feels today.

Gen. Marshall's world, you see, was one of "strategy," of a powerful nation able and wanting to mobilize its capacities in a plan of action designed to achieve a high-level goal, while "tactics" were the means employed to gain those objectives. Since the Vietnam War and into the present, America has been dominated by tactics, without guidance by any strategy.

Think of Barack Obama. Poor guy, he came to power faced with the disastrous results of a half-century of directionless tactics. Petulant Republicans can caterwaul all they want about "not looking back," but when you're faced with an economy in crisis, a bunch of losing wars that nobody understands and a world that wonders where you are, it just ain't gonna be easy. And it hasn't been.

Yet today, despite everything, we can speak of President Obama as a truly successful leader. For instance:

• He has gotten Iran to agree on a treaty to halt the development of a nuclear bomb for an agreed period of time; and despite the expected gripes of those same conservative Republicans who've always hated him, this is a good, responsible and necessary agreement. If carried through intelligently, it could well achieve the strategic goal of bringing Iran back into the community of nations.

• He has opened relations with Cuba in the cautious hope that the century-plus of anti-Americanism practiced there since the Spanish-American War of 1898 can be overcome by modernism and by better will on both sides. If only because Cuban socialism was such a disaster and because Fidel Castro himself is so ill and out of the picture, this is likely to eventually work for both countries.

• He has tried hard to pull the U.S. out of the devilish tactical swamp of the Middle East's geopolitics and wars and bring American soldiers home. This overwhelmingly popular central promise of Obama's first campaign in 2008 has only partially been fulfilled, but no one can doubt the president's intentions.

In addition to these tactical more-or-less accomplishments, history will show that Barack Obama addressed key elements of modern concern not dealt with by previous presidents - everything from climate change to prison reform to retooling American values to inspire a waiting world. "We will speak out for freedom and for universal values," he said in a speech Tuesday, reflecting hope for the strategist lobby.

But because of the formidable challenges facing him upon his ascension to the presidency, Obama could not really be expected to devise a coherent strategy, say, like Ike's for fighting World War II or JFK's Alliance for Progress for Latin America. From the beginning, Obama's administrations were tormented by daily, if not hourly, demands, with no spare time for planning for strategy. And the results?

Ambassador Chester Crocker, professor of strategic studies at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, has characterized the failures we face as nothing less than sweeping. Tracing problems back to the early post-1945 years, "as decolonization swept the globe of most empires," he wrote in a revealing article in the journal Survival last winter that, "Today, the international system is in a rudderless transition." He sees a "world adrift."

Thus, the major job of the next American president will be to take the pulse of the American people. In their hearts, do they want a nation that leads the world and establishes and imposes American values? Do they seek a leader of empire? Or do they want to continue as a tactical nation that has, for more than half a century, reacted to the world only on a case-by-case basis, and without notable success?

What man or woman is the political "doctor" who can take that pulse and analyze its beat? That is the crucial, though as-yet unasked, question of this election.

Georgie Anne Geyer can be reached at gigi_geyer@juno.com.

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