Apr 7, 2009
Engagement Is a Policy
Foreign Policy’s David Rothkopf:
Obama repeat[s] the mantra [...] that the goal was to “engage vigorously and consistently” and that he was “absolutely confident that if the U.S. is engaged in a consistent way that we can make genuine progress.” Clearly, early engagement is a stark and welcome contrast to the Bush administration’s attempt to make benign neglect (or in some cases, just the old fashioned negligent kind of neglect) their policy for every part of the world in which they were not actually fighting a war. But engagement is not a policy[;] it’s a tactic.
Engagement is a tactic, but it is also a policy. Engagement can be seen as a tactic insofar as it helps us accomplish discrete goals, but after eight years of Bush’s Mideast bungling, vigorous engagement itself must be our foreign policy goal. Prior to a policy of concerted and constant engagement, we will be in the dark as to what our policy ought to be, as it will necessarily have to be directed towards positions and shaped by factors that we don’t currently understand. Seeking this understanding, though, is an active process that offers one significant agency and influence. Because our policy is rooted in our evolving understanding, engagement offers us major potential to deeply influence policy long before it’s made. Obama understands the potential to shape policy processes before they begin, and so has made engagement not just a policy, but the policy of the United States.