Recurring Problems Of American Foreign Policy
This article by David Sands in the Washington Times illustrates the recurring nature of many problems of international security. The United States has bargained with a number of nations of Central Asia -- notably Uzbekistan -- in order to use their territory to conduct operations in Afghanistan. Uzbekistan was a natural strategic ally, since it has been dealing with its own Islamic militant movement with ties to Al Qaeda and has long tried to use the West as a counterweight to Russian interference in its affairs. But Uzbekistan is not a natural ally ideologically, as it is led by a dictator whose brutality and mismanagement of the economy have, in part, made possible the rise of the Islamic movement that threatens his rule.
Longer term, the United States is faced with the problem that by allying itself with such dictators, it will come to be as hated by Islamic militants as the dictators themselves. This is hardly a new problem. Jeanne Kirkpatrick identified it in her 1979 essay "Dictatorships and Double Standards" (more here), a critique of Carter foreign policy that argued in favor of American alliances with ideologically unlikely right-wing authoritarian regimes because those regimes had, over time, drifted towards democracy (whereas their alternatives had not). The State Department officials quoted in the Sands piece have, oddly enough, unwittingly embraced the Kirkpatrick formulation, when they argue that the U.S. can influence the dictators they are now allied with for strategic reasons in the direction of human rights and democracy. That remains to be seen, of course, but it's not a new problem.
[Posted at 21:13 CST on 02/13/02] [Link]
