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.After the Russians occupied the provinces and partsof Georgia as well, American and European political leaders outdidthemselves in vague warnings and threats to Moscow to back offthough they never threatened military action or a boycott of Rus-sian oil and gas.The warnings were no more than wrist slaps, suchas keeping Moscow out of the World Trade Organization, dump-ing Russia from the G-8, and suspending its membership in variousfor-show NATO groups.Russian leaders eventually removed theirtroops from Georgia proper, but the rhetoric on both sides pointedtoward overreach and trouble.There are many additional opportunities for the demons.OurSunni friends in Saudi Arabia could awaken one day to a revolutionamong their Shiites, and then see what happens to oil prices.Presi-dent Obama will also have to muse on the prospect of civil war in apost-Castro Cuba and an Islamist revolution against the Mubaraksin Egypt.President Obama could also be the first to respond to 292 Power Rulesa series of environmental disasters caused by global warming.Andone can only imagine what the demons would demand in the eventof new terrorist attacks on American soil.The demons create ideological and political imperatives ornecessities.Necessity admits of no serious discussion.It simply hasto be.Necessity makes victory in Iraq look as easy as the conquestof Panama and transforms centuries of Vietnamese culture andhistory into a manageable square on the strategic chessboard.Ne-cessity leads presidents and their advisers to establish dangerouslyunachievable goals that greatly exceed our power, that may or maynot represent the wishes of the people they re intended to help, andthat justify engulfing us in quagmires from which arrogance alonepromises to extract us.Defeating Hitler and Hirohito in World War II was a true ne-cessity, but how best we could do this was up for debate.Contain-ing Soviet communism was also a true necessity, but the places andthe means should have been debated and often weren t.Defeatingthe terrorists is a new true necessity, but how to distinguish amongthem and combat them needs to be freely examined, and that s al-ready hard to do.Necessity removes choice.The core problem here is not our democracy or our ideals or ourpower.It is ourselves.In part, leading Democrats and Republicansmishandle the politics of foreign policy.Most Democrats adhere tofundamental liberal beliefs about the value of negotiations and coop-eration with other states.At the same time, however, they calculatethat this will sound too soft to mainstream America.So, they alwaysseem as if they are torn between their beliefs and their politics, cre-ating the impression that they were for something before they wereagainst it, and against it before they were for it.They convey uncer-tainty about what they ll do, and the public senses this and then losesconfidence in how the Democrats would manage national security.By contrast, the Republicans exude nothing but conviction aboutbeing aggressive, standing up to any possible adversary, and paint- Necessity, Choice, and Common Sense 293ing the world in simple black-and-white.They are forever proclaim-ing that they would never allow America to be pushed around in theworld.And though they have little regard for careful formulations ofproblems and difficulties, and though the public senses this as well,mainstream America appears to like the Republicans conviction.Thus it has more confidence in the GOP than in the Democrats onthe handling of international affairs.In part, moderates are reluctant to fight for reasonable portrayalsof problems and what we can do about them, or for choice, whichthey know to be the essence of a good foreign policy.The moderatesknow that good policy requires an open and honest review of thefacts.They know that the effective use of power requires being ableto push a range of buttons until some are found to work.Yet mod-erates don t fight for choice.Instead, they allow extremists to twistwhat is good and special about us our ideals and our democraticpolitics into a denial of choice.We cannot conduct an effectiveforeign policy if we allow necessity to crush choice.The foreign policy community of experts and officials does notappear to be as alarmed as I am by the demons and the necessitiesthey create.This community is less concerned with what derailedgood policy in the past or what might do so again in the future, andmore focused on what a good foreign policy should now be.That sfine as long as that new policy both makes sensible use of Ameri-can power and is capable of doing battle with the demons.Most foreign policy experts are pushing for a new grand strategyto replace the old containment strategy.They are disposed towardbig ideas and toward wedging all the pieces snugly together intothat one big, neat theory.They re not enamored of loose ends orunintended consequences, which call their expertise into question.To their credit, most contribute value, perspective, and insights, al-though not without drawbacks.The neoconservatives rightly remind Americans of the irredeem-able and irreconcilable evil out there.But then they paint almost all 294 Power Rulesforeign opponents (and some of their domestic ones as well) with asimilar brush.As for past enemies such as Russia and China, the neo-conservatives peg them as future enemies as well.As for America sallies, particularly the European ones, the neoconservatives portraythem as mostly worthless in that they lack any useful military powerand are averse to the use of force.Their list of enemies and unwor-thy allies is so extensive as to leave little room for allies and for theexercise of power other than the threat and use of military force
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