Kagan why the world needs america

This is the first time I'm ever called and amazed to get through and I'm happy to have the opportunity to be on your program. Thank you very much. I think absolute power corrupts absolutely. We have shown that we're not adverse to using torture and every other evil means known to man to further our causes. And there has to be a bit of a balance of power out there. And, you know, the United States is not adverse either to illegally invading other countries. I think we went into Iraq and Afghanistan for oil basically.

That's been pretty well documented. And everything, every pretense was put forth to the American people to convince them it was otherwise. JOSEPH And I think, even back to the Vietnam War, which some have argued in documentary films like "Zeitgeist" and Aaron Russo's "America: Freedom to Fascism" that a lot of the wars were created just for the banksters and the big money makers to sell arms to both sides.

We have made our mistakes. We have acted in ways which violate our own moral consciences. There's no question about it.

We've been hypocritical. You know, the American people are like every other people, with our flaws and our virtues. I would be happy to have a balance of power with France, Britain, Germany, a democratic India, a democratic Brazil. Where I begin to get a little worried is when talking about having an equal balance of power that includes China and Russia.

And I think that would not be either in our interest or in most of the world's interest. REHM Here's an email from David in New Hampshire who says, "I don't believe maintaining the enormous defense budget is a guarantee of national security or that cutting the budget necessarily weakens us.

We spend billions on outdated weapon systems that the military no longer wants or needs. Let's spend wisely. Put our military efforts where they are truly needed. I mean, the first thing to be said is as a historical matter the United States is not spending a larger percentage of its overall GDP on defense than it has in the past. Right now, we spend roughly 4 percent, probably heading to under 4 percent. You know, in the Eisenhower years, it was 15 percent.

In the Reagan years, it was 18 percent. So I don't think we're spending, you know, more than is normal on our budget. The question is, you know, how much can we cut before we begin to undermine our ability to maintain this world or to the benefits so much? And that's what I'm concerned about. He's senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution. He's a columnist for the Washington Post. And you're listening to "The Diane Rehm Show.

Good morning, George, you're on the air. For your guest, I would like his comments about the fact that, well, number one is that the military spending is a lot bigger than he's talking about. And there's different ways of looking at it.

We've gotten very clever over the years of how we hide a lot of pieces of military spending, but it's a huge number. And we should be cutting it back just as much as we cut anything else back. GEORGE But in the future, as we look to the future, doesn't he think that economic stability is just maybe more important than military strength as we go forward?

And if we don't do something about being smarter about how we use military and cutting back how much money we spend on it versus the rest of the world, we're going to be in trouble because financially it's going to rule the day.

And behind China, which we've already been concerned about, that could be the biggest weapon of the future, will be a financial one. KAGAN Well, there's no question and, you know, I'm asked today about the military budgets, I'm talking about the military budget, but that's only one element of American power.

And it's absolutely essential that we get our economic situation in order and we begin to have new growth which, by the way, it looks like we're starting to have now, things begin to pick up. That's a critical element of power. So when people say we need to cut the defense budget in order to solve our economic problems, I just don't think the figures work.

So I do believe we must address our economic problems and I'm fairly confident that we will. REHM You know, what concerns me, and here you are as a senior advisor to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, why is there so little debate about foreign policy issues in these over and over and over presidential debates we've heard? There has scarcely been a word. KAGAN I have to say, however, that if you look at these debates -- and I've watched some of them -- the journalists doing the moderating don't ask too many questions.

I mean, thank you for devoting an hour to foreign policy today, but I did not see many questions on foreign policy. And I think that's because the journalists think the American people aren't interested in it.

Now, I think they should be more interested in it. And it's the job of journalists, as well as politicians, to talk more about an issue that's of really vital importance. REHM But, you know, I've seen candidates come forward with their own comments whether a question is asked or not.

REHM You, as a candidate, can control what you say, even if you can't control what you are asked. And let me just say, Governor Romney, who I've been advising, has a full foreign policy and defense strategy that he's put out, a white paper of many pages, that deals with a lot of these issues. I think the journalists ought to ask him questions about the things that he's already laid out.

He's talked about the defense budget. He's talked about the Middle East and the Arab Spring. He's talked about Russia and China in these documents that he's put out, in his statements that he's put out, in speeches that he's made. But, you know, you've still got to get the people to ask you the questions. I'm just an advisor. I'm here on my own capacity. But he has made it very clear that he would like to keep the defense budget at at least 4 percent of GDP. He would like to expand our Naval capacity.

And again, this gets back to the issue of world order. We need to have a strong Naval capacity to keep the sea lines of communication open for world trade and also to make sure that the Chinese, in places like the South China Sea or in the Indian Ocean, don't begin to throw their weight around too much.

And the president has said the same thing. More of your calls when we come back. REHM And welcome back. We'll go now to Huntington, W. I absolutely love your show. CHAD My question was, Robert, you said that in the future that you wanted to see more of an economic cooperation with China and yet maintaining a military dominance so that way China cannot then in Southeast Asia or Asia entirely dominate countries such as India, possibly even Australia and everything.

Then do you see, in that kind of a scenario or possibly an absolute in our future, strengthening ties, possibly even becoming full allies with countries such as India? KAGAN Well, we've certainly moved a tremendous amount in that direction beginning under the last couple years of the Bush Administration and continued under the Obama Administration. I think, you know, India is a very independent country. If you go to India, the Indian people are fiercely independent so they don't want to be dependent on the United States.

But they do want a much closer strategic relationship with the United States. So yes, I think India's a crucial part of that. KAGAN And of course, one of the so-called rise of the rest when people talk about how other countries are coming up, one of them is India. And people sometimes say, well, that means the United States is getting weaker. But I think India's growth is a benefit to the United States. I would, you know, I would be in favor of reorientation of the relationship in the region that was much closer to India allowing India greater role in Afghanistan, which they want by the way.

And we've been a little bit beholden to Pakistan, I think, more than we should. REHM Do you think that that relationship can continue in sort of parallel if we move closer to India? KAGAN Look, the answer for Pakistan is to get its own economic house in order, to move into the modern world and to stop sort of defining itself as its opposition to India.

I mean, in a way all the Pakistani identity is about being opposed to India. They need to move on. I can assure you that India's identity is not wrapped up in being opposed to Pakistan, 'cause they have moved on. They are succeeding in the modern world. And I think Pakistan needs to focus more on its internal issues, both developing its democracy and also its economy.

I mean, even the IEA sic -- you know, the International Atomic Energy Association agency thinks that they are -- believes that they are. Most of our allies believe that they are. The question is how are they going to proceed? Can they be slowed down by economic sanctions? Will they at least limit their program to capability rather than developing a weapon?

KAGAN But I'm concerned that the Iranian regime right now believes that getting a weapon is the key to their staying in power, is not only the key to their security in the region, but the key to their holding on to power. I'm not sure that Israel would have the ability to take out a nuclear program that Iran has with any certainty.

And of course the potential costs for Israel are very high depending on how Iran decides to retaliate. So I would rather first of all, continue pressing with sanctions, which are abiding, I believe, the Iranians and then to have an international effort to address this problem and not have Israel try to do it by itself.

KAGAN I do believe that if the decision to take military action comes -- and by the way any president might make that decision, it could be Barack Obama in a second term, it could be the next president -- that certainly the United States has a far greater capacity to address that problem. But I don't in any way minimize what the potential fallout from such an action might be. It's going to be a very difficult and complex affair with all kinds of ramifications afterwards.

And the American people are not angels, you know, we are a mixed bag just like everybody else. And there have been many periods throughout our history where we have not, in fact, supported a democracy. We've supported the overthrow of some democracies, for instance, in Guatemala, which I'm sure is what the Tweeter is referring to. Sometimes it's done it actively. Sometimes it's done it merely by being itself.

And there was a shift of policy. It began in the Carter Administration really when the issue of supporting our friendly dictators became a little bit more neuralgic. And even the Reagan Administration wound up a bit adopting the Carter Administration's approach. And we've had a much greater affect, I think, since then in terms of supporting democracy overseas. I can't tell you how many years I have been calling and never been able to get in. This is just incredible.

JOHN Okay. Love your show. My comment is way back in the s President Eisenhower, former General, said, beware of the military industrial complex. And now I see that after ten years of the military industrial complex bleeding this economy dry to support wars in Afghanistan and Iran sic , suddenly they're all coming out and saying, oh, my god, we cannot cut back on the military.

We need more military, when it's exactly the opposite. We've got economies that are intertwining each other. If you engage other countries economically, they have no reason to go to war because they're going to lose money by going to war. You know, history actually suggests that that's not as reliable as we might hope. I mean, the best example that people always bring up is the economic relationship between Great Britain and Germany prior to World War I. They were tightly intertwined economically, mutually dependent.

KAGAN And in fact there was a famous book, nobody remembers it anymore, by Norman Angel called "The Great Illusion," sold two million copies back in , making precisely the point that the caller's just made. So the caller's in very good company in terms of famous people making this argument that because nations had become so interdependent economically that they couldn't go to war. It would be foolish. It would be economically insane to go to war. And yet, four years after that book was a best seller the most advanced countries in the world went to war with one another and did destroy each other's economies by the way.

They wouldn't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. But China's form of capitalism is heavily dominated by the state, with the ultimate goal being preservation of the ruling party. Although the Chinese have been beneficiaries of an open international economic order, they could end up undermining it simply because, as an autocratic society, their priority is to preserve the state's control of wealth and the power it brings.

They might kill the goose because they can't figure out how to keep both it and themselves alive. Finally, what about the long peace that has held among the great powers for the better part of six decades? Many people imagine that American predominance will be replaced by some kind of multipolar harmony.

But multipolar systems have historically been neither stable nor peaceful. War among the great powers was a common, if not constant, occurrence in the long periods of multipolarity in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. The 19th century was notable for two stretches of great-power peace of roughly four decades each, punctuated, however, by major wars among great powers and culminating in World War I, the most destructive and deadly war mankind had known up to that point.

The era of American predominance has shown that there is no better recipe for great-power peace than certainty about who holds the upper hand. Many people view the present international order as the inevitable result of human progress, a combination of advancing science and technology, an increasingly global economy, strengthening international institutions, evolving "norms" of international behavior, and the gradual but inevitable triumph of liberal democracy over other forms of government -- forces of change that transcend the actions of men and nations.

But there was nothing inevitable about the world that was created after World War II. After the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, British control of the seas and the balance of great powers on the European continent provided relative security and stability.

Prosperity grew, personal freedoms expanded, and the world was knit more closely together by revolutions in commerce and communication.

With the outbreak of World War I, the age of settled peace and advancing liberalism—of European civilization approaching its pinnacle—collapsed into an age of hyper-nationalism, despotism and economic calamity. The once-promising spread of democracy and liberalism halted and then reversed course, leaving a handful of outnumbered and besieged democracies living nervously in the shadow of fascist and totalitarian neighbors.

The collapse of the British and European orders in the 20th century did not produce a new dark age—though if Nazi Germany and imperial Japan had prevailed, it might have—but the horrific conflict that it produced was, in its own way, just as devastating.

Would the end of the present American-dominated order have less dire consequences? A surprising number of American intellectuals, politicians and policy makers greet the prospect with equanimity. There is a general sense that the end of the era of American pre-eminence, if and when it comes, need not mean the end of the present international order, with its widespread freedom, unprecedented global prosperity even amid the current economic crisis and absence of war among the great powers.

American power may diminish, the political scientist G. If all of this sounds too good to be true, it is. The present world order was largely shaped by American power and reflects American interests and preferences. If the balance of power shifts in the direction of other nations, the world order will change to suit their interests and preferences.

Nor can we assume that all the great powers in a post-American world would agree on the benefits of preserving the present order, or have the capacity to preserve it, even if they wanted to. Take the issue of democracy.

For several decades, the balance of power in the world has favored democratic governments. In a genuinely post-American world, the balance would shift toward the great-power autocracies. If they gain greater relative influence in the future, we will see fewer democratic transitions and more autocrats hanging on to power.

The balance in a new, multipolar world might be more favorable to democracy if some of the rising democracies—Brazil, India, Turkey, South Africa—picked up the slack from a declining U. Yet not all of them have the desire or the capacity to do it.

What about the economic order of free markets and free trade? People assume that China and other rising powers that have benefited so much from the present system would have a stake in preserving it. Unfortunately, they might not be able to help themselves. The creation and survival of a liberal economic order has depended, historically, on great powers that are both willing and able to support open trade and free markets, often with naval power.

If a declining America is unable to maintain its long-standing hegemony on the high seas, would other nations take on the burdens and the expense of sustaining navies to fill in the gaps? Even if they did, would this produce an open global commons—or rising tension?

China and India are building bigger navies, but the result so far has been greater competition, not greater security.