American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 1
American Power and the Legacy of
Washington: Enduring Principles for
Foreign and Defense Policy
Paul O. Carrese
It is commonly said that America entered
uncharted seas after the Cold War, as the
superpower with unrivaled military,
economic, and cultural might, and also said
that the war on terrorism further swept us into
a new era -- a global hegemon, yet beset by
shadowy threats and unique burdens. When
we ponder the course America should chart it
is less common, however, to consult our
founding principles and first centuries of
experience. Harvard‘s Stanley Hoffman
opened the way to reconsider this longer view
when, after the 2001 terrorist attacks and a
decade of theorizing about a paradigm to
explain the post-Cold War world, he
suggested that new constructs from ―the end
of history‖ to a ―clash of civilizations‖ in fact
obscured our understanding of the enduring
politics of nations and the actual demands of
statecraft.1
Moreover, while partisanship and
rival schools always have marked American
debates on foreign and security policy,
disputes over the war on terrorism now recall
the rancor of the Vietnam War era. This is
partly due to the dangers, burdens, and
confusion of our new situation, but our
tendency to reduce international affairs to
doctrines -- realism, liberal-internationalism,
democratic peace, postmodernism, or blends
thereof – often yields not candid deliberation
but contests between armed camps.
A pause from current anxieties and
entrenched quarrels to reconsider George
Washington‘s statesmanship in founding
Professor of Political Science, US Air Force
Academy. I am grateful to Dr. Susan Carrese, Dr. Paul
Bolt, and Ambassador Roger Harrison for comments.
Views expressed are the author‘s and not those of the
Air Force Academy or US Government.
1
Stanley Hoffman, ―Clash of Globalizations,‖ Foreign
Affairs 81:4 (2002): 104-15.
American foreign and security policy might
help us to chart a grand strategy more
consonant with the better angels of our history
and national character, and with our
justifiable interests. America was the first
deliberately founded regime in history, and it
would be odd to think that her subsequent rise
to global dominance in both ―hard‖ and ―soft‖
power somehow justifies amnesia about her
original aims. Another of her great statesmen,
in the midst of our most terrible crisis, defined
her as dedicated to propositions about liberty,
equality, the pursuit of happiness, and the rule
of law – not, primarily, to global empire,
global commerce, global democracy, a
national security state, or a global balance of
power. Indeed, much of Lincoln‘s greatness
lay in a strategy of rededication to the
principles of America‘s founders, including
great care in balancing the necessities of
defense and military power with the higher
ends they should serve. He knew that novel
challenges required him to think and act
anew, but he also knew America was
grounded in principles of natural justice and
religious truths about the humility yet dignity
to which mankind is called -- however much
we fail to abide by these.
A half-century ago Hans Morgenthau
urged America to revive the realism of its
founders, especially Washington and
Hamilton, to guide our foreign policy in new
circumstances and to transcend both
isolationism and Wilsonian internationalism.2
Morgenthau eloquently advocated his own
favored theory of international affairs, but his
reconception of Washington as simply a
realist did not stick. Washington more
2
Hans Morgenthau, ―The Mainsprings of American
Foreign Policy: The National Interest vs. Moral
Abstractions,‖ American Political Science Review 44
(1950): 833-54. See also Joseph Cropsey, ―The Moral
Basis of International Action,‖ in America Armed, ed.
Robert Goldwin (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963), 71-
91, and more recently Dmitri Simes, ―Realism: It‘s
High-minded . . . and It Works,‖ The National Interest
74 (Winter 2003/04): 168-172.
American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 2
typically labors under another, graver
misreading: that his Farewell Address (1796)
and other writings avow isolationism or
passivity. Fortunately, several scholars in the
post-Cold War era have explained why
uncertain times call for revisiting this
statesman who rarely favored ―isms‖ or
doctrines, but who offered sound principles
on right, might, and diplomacy that long were
cited as the guiding ideals of our republic.3
We should expand our thinking and assess our
current options by recovering the practical
wisdom and distinctive American principles
found in the Declaration of Independence,
The Federalist, and the Constitution – all of
which both reflect and inform Washington‘s
statecraft.4
Washington closed his career as founder
with advice to ―Friends, and Fellow-Citizens‖
that he hoped would endure – offering for
―solemn contemplation‖ and ―frequent
review‖ principles he thought ―all important
to the permanency of your felicity as a
people.‖5
Leading statesmen and thinkers did
3
See especially David Hendrickson, ―The Renovation
of American Foreign Policy,‖ Foreign Affairs 71:2
(1992): 48-63; Patrick Garrity, ―Warnings of a Parting
Friend,‖ The National Interest 45 (Fall 1996): 14-26;
Matthew Spalding and Patrick Garrity, ―Our Interest,
Guided by Our Justice,‖ in A Sacred Union of Citizens:
George Washington’s Farewell Address and the
American Character (Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield, 1996), 91-139; Walter McDougall,
Promised Land, Crusader State: America’s Encounter
with the World since 1776 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1997), and ―Back to Bedrock,‖ Foreign Affairs 76:2
(1997): 134-146.
4
Henry Kissinger argued, a decade into America‘s
status as lone superpower, that we must recover the
study of history and philosophy as essential to a clear
national strategy and to genuine statesmanship, in Does
America Need a Foreign Policy? Toward a Diplomacy
for the 21st
Century (New York: Simon & Schuster,
2001), 283-88.
5
―Farewell Address,‖ in George Washington:
Writings, ed. John Rhodehamel (New York: Literary
Classics of the United States, 1997), 962, 964;
hereafter cited parenthetically as W. Washington‘s
writings are quoted as in the originals, with spelling
and emphases retained. Another useful one-volume
consult his Farewell Address up through
Henry Cabot Lodge during the First World
War and Morgenthau in the Cold War. In
recent decades a consensus has deemed it
irrelevant, as isolationist or out-dated. Some
also consider Washington just a front for his
bright aides Madison and Hamilton. Even
brief engagement with the Address, however,
sheds light on current dilemmas; deeper study
shows that he revised every argument,
hoping, as if a latter-day Thucydides, to distill
advice for the ages.6
A recent reappraisal
finds him ―a leader who sought explanations
and explainers all his life, and who mastered
both what he was told and those who told
him.‖7
His deeds and words are no cookbook
of recipes for today, since the main lessons of
the Address and the career informing it are
architectonic, not specific: America must base
its security policy on principle and prudence
rather than power or popularity, and prize a
decent republican politics over conquest or
glory. The Address marked the second time
Washington had relinquished near-absolute
power, when such ambitious and talented men
usually grasp for more. This led his
countrymen to rank him with an ancient
Roman renowned for leaving power after
saving his country: he was the American
Cincinnatus. He recalled the best of the
Republic, not the Empire, for while
Washington rose to fame through military
command he appraised power and security as
means to higher ends. Principles of personal
and civic virtue guided his policies and
edition is George Washington: A Collection, ed.
William B. Allen (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988).
6
For correspondence and successive drafts, see W,
804–6, 938–948, 950–51, 954–56, 960–61. Spalding
and Garrity defend Washington‘s authorship in detail;
Sacred Union of Citizens, 46–57. See also
Washington’s Farewell Address, ed. Victor Paltsits
(New York: The New York Public Library, 1935).
7
Richard Brookhiser, Founding Father: Rediscovering
George Washington (New York: Free Press, 1996),
139; see ―Morals‖ and ―Ideas,‖ 121–156.
American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 3
counsel, to a degree that Americans
alternately admire and find hard to believe.
Familiarity with Washington‘s career
makes it hard to deny that he was the real
thing, his credibility demonstrated in decades
of deeds and words devoted to liberty,
constitutionalism, and political moderation.8
The Address encapsulates a comprehensive
approach to foreign policy, security, and war,
but both his words and his specific deeds are
best understood when viewed in light of each
other. Indeed, as befits the words of a
statesman, one can glean from the Address
and the career informing it a handy set of
guidelines -- five broad, overlapping
principles for strategic thinking: first, the
priority of a decent republic, rooted in natural
justice and guided by transcendent truths
about humankind; second, the subordination
of military to civil authority, and avoidance of
either militarism or weakness; third,
balancing liberty and security through a
complex, moderate constitution that divides
responsibility for foreign and defense policy;
fourth, the need for statesmanship within such
an order, especially an executive balancing
deliberation, prudence, and flexibility in both
grand strategy and tactics; and, fifth,
balancing interest, independence, and justice
in foreign affairs through prudent recourse to
just war principles and the classic right of
nations. Washington was a practical man of
policies and action, but he insisted these be
chosen in light of sound principles and
informed judgment. Those seeking concrete
ideas on pressing issues may think these
principles vague or useless. He knew,
8
For broader studies see Brookhiser, Founding Father;
Patriot Sage: George Washington and the American
Political Tradition, ed. Gary Gregg and Matthew
Spalding (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 1999); and my
essay ―Liberty, Constitutionalism, and Moderation:
The Political Thought of George Washington,‖ in
Bryan-Paul Frost and Jeffry Sikkenga, eds., History of
American Political Thought (Lanham, MD: Lexington
Press, 2003), 95-113, including the sources
recommended therein.
however, that republics typically falter on
strategic thinking, instead seizing on short
term problems, adopting favored doctrines of
the day, or following popular impulses. For
Washington, sound judgments of the moment
require candid deliberation guided by
fundamental principles, especially when
facing great challenges. He doubtless would
admit that we face massive, new problems
today -- ballistic missiles and catastrophic
weapons, terrorist exploitation of modern
technology, the cultural and economic
pressures of globalization, and the envy and
mistrust accompanying our extraordinary
political and military might. He might remind
us, however, that for over two decades he
defeated a superpower and managed an
international coalition, forged trust among
members of his own federation, and navigated
ruthless great power politics – all with vastly
fewer resources at his disposal than America
can marshal today.
Sober judgment indeed will be needed to
chart a course through the opportunities and
threats facing America in this complex era.
How should we conceive our role in world
affairs, given our power and principles? How
should we define our security and interests,
our force structure and alliances, our
commitments to collective security and
international regimes? Is America the
―Empire‖ that post-modern theorists and
liberal internationalists deem a threat to the
world, and that ―America First‖ conservatives
deem a threat to itself?9
Washington‘s
9
For a range of recent viewpoints see Andrew
Bacevich, American Empire: The Realities and
Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2002); Joseph Nye, The
Paradox of American Power: Why the World’s Only
Superpower Can’t Go It Alone (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002); Robert Kagan, Paradise and
Power: America and Europe in the New World Order
(New York: Knopf, 2003); Ivo Daalder and James
Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in
Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings
Institution, 2003); and the retrospective from
Fukuyama and Huntington to Zakaria and Bush,
American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 4
principles on republicanism and constitutional
complexity, and on balancing interest and
justice in foreign and defense policy,
transcend the doctrines and quarrels of the
moment to restore a larger, enduring horizon.
He has been caricatured as incompetent at
strategy, while in fact his example recalls a
Clausewitzian grand strategy that links
security policy and larger moral and political
aims – a perspective obscured today by our
faith in technology and technological
thinking, and by the dynamism and drive for
novelty in the worlds of policy, the media,
and academia alike.10
At its peak
Washington‘s thought recalls the sober,
humane, and complex republicanism of
Thucydides, equally aware of the realties and
necessity of war and of the imperial
temptations to which democracies, and
ambitious leaders, are prone. After surveying
the principles evident in specific episodes and
writings of his statesmanship, I offer some
more particular lessons that his republicanism
and principled prudence might suggest for
current challenges and debates.
1) Eyes on the Prize: A Decent Republic,
Natural Rights, and Providence
Washington could suggest that his advice
be consulted down the ages because he had
proven that his deeds and words rested on
principles. He first rose in stature in Virginia
America and the World: Debating the New Shape of
International Politics, ed. James Hoge and Gideon
Rose (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press,
2003).
10
On Washington and Clausewitzean grand strategy
see Donald Higginbotham, George Washington and the
American Military Tradition (Athens, GA: University
of Georgia Press, 1985), 5, 114, 117, and Mackubin
Owens, ―General Washington and the Military Strategy
of the Revolution,‖ in Patriot Sage, 61-98. In general
see Paul Kennedy, Grand Strategies in War and Peace
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991), and
John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A
Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National
Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press,
1982).
and beyond for his exploits and published
journal as a colonial officer in the French and
Indian War, and he was elected to Virginia‘s
legislature in 1758. In the turbulent 1760s he
defended the Americans‘ rights to liberty and
self-governance, and in 1774 attended the
First Continental Congress. He justified
himself to a loyalist friend: ―an Innate Spirit
of freedom first told me‖ that the acts of the
British government ―are repugnant to every
principle of natural justice.‖ Indeed, they are
―not only repugnant to natural Right, but
Subversive of the Laws & Constitution of
Great Britain itself,‖ and the King‘s ministers
are ―trampling upon the Valuable Rights of
American‘s, confirmed to them by Charter, &
the Constitution they themselves boast of‖
(August 24, 1774; W, 157). He supported
strong measures in Congress, and after the
battles at Lexington and Concord in 1775
Washington attended the Second Congress in
carefully chosen attire: his Virginia uniform.
Several principles forged in that crisis directly
address our 21st
century concerns. The
founders did not know of terrorism, but they
knew of pirates and other outlaws. They
therefore justified their rebellion with legal
and philosophical principles publicly stated,
and formed a professional military force
reporting to a duly elected and organized
civilian government. The Declaration of
Independence carefully justifies a war to
protect basic natural rights and constitutional
government, as a last resort; it also specifies
unacceptable forms of warfare concerning
civilians, property, and prisoners. This spirit
of constitutional republicanism informed
Washington‘s General Orders of July 9, 1776,
ordering the Declaration read to the troops so
that they might understand ―the grounds &
reasons‖ of the war (W, 228).
The same General Orders provide for
chaplains and religious services, and call upon
the ―blessing and protection of Heaven;‖
indeed, Washington hoped every officer and
enlisted would live ―as becomes a Christian
American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 5
Soldier defending the dearest Rights and
Liberties of his country‖ (W, 228). After the
war his major writings always cite the
guidance of transcendent ideals but in more
careful, non-sectarian language, broadened to
embrace the rights to religious liberty for
which the war also had been fought. Still,
Washington did not separate republicanism,
justifiable and limited force, and divine
guidance about decency and honorable
conduct. The radical direction of the French
Revolution by the mid-1790s confirmed these
views, given its replacement of Christianity
with a religion of reason, progress, and
ferocious republicanism. The famous
exhortations in the Farewell Address to instill
religious faith as well as moral and
intellectual virtue thus defy the categories of
recent American disputes about church and
state. He tempers the utility of piety and
morals with genuine appreciation for them:
―Of all the dispositions and habits which lead
to political prosperity, Religion and morality
are indispensable supports‖; ―A volume could
not trace all their connections with private and
public felicity‖; just policies are
―recommended by every sentiment which
ennobles human Nature‖ (W, 971, 972–73).
This endorses neither a secularist wall of
separation between faith and government nor
the sectarian view that America is a Christian
nation; similarly, a republic should neither
ignore the mutual influence between
governmental and private morality nor adopt
religious zealotry in its policies, at home or
abroad. Throughout his career he balanced
respect for Christian churches and Biblical
religion with a modern republican‘s
enlightened tolerance.11
These were ideals
worth dying for, but military and security
11
See the 1783 Circular to the States (W, 516-17), and
as President his 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation and
letters to religious minorities: Proclamation, October 3,
1789, and to Roman Catholics, March 15, 1790, in
Collection, ed. Allen, 534-35, 546–47; to Hebrew
Congregation, August 18, 1790 (W, 766–67).
measures were neither ends in themselves nor
a replacement for a decent republican politics
at home and abroad.
2) Civil-Military Relations, and Necessary
Defenses, for a Republic
Throughout his decades in public life,
from colonial Virginia to establishing a sound
national constitution by the 1790s,
Washington noted the dangers of either
militarism or weakness. He established the
republican principle of civil-military relations,
which many nations of the world still do not
enjoy. Although he drew upon British
practice, both America and the world chiefly
should thank Washington for demonstrating
that a professional military is both necessary
to protect liberty and can be safe for it
through subordination to laws and civil
authority. This reflected his basic political
moderation: real liberty is ordered liberty,
securing self-government and political
decency under law. Indeed, John Marshall,
the great Chief Justice of the United States,
served as a young officer under Washington
and argued that without his character and
principles the American cause would have
failed in the war‘s darkest hours.12
Washington resisted temptations of power
when the war prospects brightened, and when
President under the Constitution. After the
victory at Yorktown in 1781 an American
colonel suggested he should be king, perhaps
a tempting offer for a general admired by his
army, and who—like a Caesar, Cromwell,
Arnold, Napoleon, or Musharraf—was
ambitious and proud. The temptation might
strengthen given the great disorder in
Congress: Washington long had proposed
reforms about supplies, equipment, and pay
for his men. Still, he immediately expressed
―abhorrence‖ and ―astonishment‖ to learn of
12
John Marshall, The Life of George Washington:
Special Edition for Schools, ed. Robert Faulkner and
Paul Carrese (Indianapolis, IN.: Liberty Fund, 2000
[1838]), 75. Hereinafter cited parenthetically as LGW.
American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 6
―such ideas‖ in the army: ―Let me conjure
you then, if you have any regard for your
Country, concern for yourself or posterity, or
respect for me, to banish these thoughts from
your Mind‖ (W, 468–69).
After more than two centuries enjoying
this principle, Americans tend to forget that
our civil-military relations have not been
trouble-free, and that Washington‘s high
standard is not easily met. A concern arose in
post-Cold War America that the military is
isolated from the civilian population it serves,
especially that it is politically conservative.
However valid this may be, regaining the
perspective of Washington clarifies that
America recently has become one of the first
republics in history to define citizenship as
requiring neither military nor any other
national service. Many analyses of a civilmilitary
gap, or demands that the military
adopt the individualistic and egalitarian trends
of the wider society, similarly misunderstand
the need for a distinct military character,
professionalism, and education, both for
military missions and to inculcate an ethic of
the rule of law. Washington‘s example also
sheds light on modern debates about the
strictly professional versus professionalpolitical
models of officership offered by
Huntington and Janowitz. More recently
some scholars have argued that the military
and its distinct services are semi-autonomous
interests pressing elected officials for money,
personnel, capabilities, and security policies;
others argue that elected civilians have a
constitutional duty to challenge and manage
top officers and the armed services – on
everything from tactics to force structure -- to
ensure that larger political objectives are
served.13
Familiarity with Washington
13
Compare Peter D. Feaver, Armed Servants: Agency,
Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2003) with Eliot
Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and
Leadership in Wartime (New York: Free Press, 2002).
For Higginbotham the model of Washington and
George C. Marshall blends professionalism and
reminds us of the stakes involved for our
constitutional republic, and recommends a
balance between the functional and political
models of officership. He was no wall-flower
as General, but he always respected civilian
authority; conversely, as President he selected
and then closely supervised the generals
fighting Indian tribes in the northwest
(replacing St. Clair with Wayne) and the army
that suppressed the Whiskey Rebellion (see
LGW, chs. 29, 32).14
From early in the revolution Washington
had urged Congress to establish executive
offices and procedures for supplying the
army, and for managing revenue. When these
finally were adopted by 1781 the
improvements in everything from
transportation to readiness were crucial to the
Yorktown campaign (LGW, 259-260).
Simultaneously, he upheld discipline and civil
authority during two troop mutinies in 1781
over pay and supplies, dealing moderately
with the first but severely with the second
(LGW, 245–48). Trouble arose again in 1783
when the peace process threatened to disband
the army before being paid. An anonymous
letter at headquarters in Newburgh, New York
summoned officers to discuss a threat of
mutiny against Congress; Washington
denounced that meeting but called an official
one at the officers‘ meeting house, the
Temple of Virtue (W, 490). His extraordinary
speech warned that ―sowing the seeds of
discord and seperation between the Civil and
Military powers‖ would undermine ―that
liberty, and . . . that justice for which we
contend‖ (W, 495–500). His final appeal was
to both reason and emotion: ―let me conjure
you, in the name of our common Country, as
you value your own sacred honor, as you
republicanism in a way that transcends Huntington‘s
categories; Washington and the Military Tradition,
114-138.
14
See Ryan Barilleaux, ―Foreign Policy and the First
Commander in Chief,‖ in Patriot Sage, 141-164, at
144-150.
American Defense Policy, 8th
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respect the rights of humanity, and as you
regard the Military and National character of
America,‖ to reject civil war (W, 498–500).
He then stumbled in reading a letter from
Congress: ―Gentlemen, you will permit me to
put on my spectacles, for I have not only
grown gray, but almost blind, in the service of
my country‖ (W, 1109; see note 496.12). The
once-rebellious officers, some in tears,
unanimously reaffirmed allegiance to civil
authority.
The main doctrinal manual of the U.S.
Army today opens with ―Washington at
Newburgh: Establishing the Role of the
Military in a Democracy,‖ finding there ―the
fundamental tenet of our professional
ethos.‖15
Principled to the end, he disbanded
the army once the peace treaty was official.
After a last Circular Letter to the states
recommending national reforms, and final
orders to the army with more political advice,
he resigned before Congress in December
1783 (W, 547–48). Jefferson wrote to him:
―the moderation & virtue of a single character
has probably prevented this revolution from
being closed as most others have been, by a
subversion of that liberty it was intended to
establish.‖16
3) A Constitutional and Moderate Path to
Foreign and Defense Policy
The Clausewitzian character of
Washington‘s approach to foreign and
security policy, placing particular forces and
policies in a framework of larger political
aims, is evident in his commitment to
15
The Army, Field Manual 100–1 (Washington, D.C.:
Department of the Army, 2001). See also Douglas
Johnson and Steven Metz, ―Civil-Military Relations in
the United States,‖ in American Defense Policy, ed.
Hays, Vallance, and Van Tassel, 7th
ed. (Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 495–96.
16
Jefferson to Washington, April 16, 1784, in The Life
and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed.
Adrienne Koch (New York: Modern Library), 791. See
Marshall‘s tribute, LGW, 301.
founding a constitutional order.17
He was the
most important leader in the constitutional
reform movement from 1783 to 1789, both in
his public acts and by quietly encouraging
Madison, Hamilton, and other framers. He
had defended Congress at Newburgh as an
―Hon[ora]ble Body‖ not to be distrusted
merely because ―like all other Bodies, where
there is a variety of different Interests to
reconcile, their deliberations are slow‖ (W,
498-99). His subsequent 1783 Circular to the
States emphasized the need for a stronger
federal government and executive power, and
by 1787 he endorsed a complex federal
government of separated powers that shared
enough functions to keep one another in
balance. The Circular formulates clear
convictions on these issues -- announcing his
retirement from public life, then urging
constitutional reforms to secure and
perpetuate liberty. He noted that a general
should abstain from politics, but it was ―a
duty incumbent upon me‖ to address these
issues since, in ―the present Crisis‖ of affairs,
―silence in me would be a crime‖ (W, 516–
18). The third of four ―pillars‖ he proposed
for national reorganization was ―adoption of a
proper Peace Establishment,‖ which included
―placing the Militia of the Union upon a
regular and respectable footing.‖ The
common good required that state militias have
―absolutely uniform‖ organization,
equipment, and training – a complex system
of defense that prevented militarism through
17
See Peter Paret, ―Clausewitz,‖ in Makers of Modern
Strategy: from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed.
Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1986), 187-213, arguing that Clausewitz adopted
Montesquieu‘s theory of the complexity, or spirit, of
politics. Gordon Craig and Felix Gilbert, ―Reflections
on Strategy in the Present and Future,‖ ibid., 869-70,
praises Washington and The Federalist for grand
strategic thinking akin to Clausewitz‘s formulation that
―War is the continuation of politics by other means.‖
American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 8
citizen engagement, while providing an
effective national capability (W, 524).18
From 1787 to 1789 Washington risked his
reputation to establish a complex, effective
constitutional order, by serving as president of
the Philadelphia Convention; helping to
reprint The Federalist in Virginia; letting his
name be used in state ratification debates;
and, serving as the first President under the
new Constitution. Still, even with the
Electoral College‘s unanimous support he
returned to office reluctantly. He knew from
the war that effective statesmanship,
legislative deliberation, and popular opinion
did not always harmonize. He nonetheless
was a strong, moderate, and faithfully
constitutional executive, justifying decisions
with principles and working patiently with an
increasingly divided Congress. He sought to
quell the partisanship gripping America by
calling his countrymen to the enduring
interests and higher ends that united them, in
both domestic and foreign matters.
The great themes of Washington‘s
presidency were that executive power was
safe for republicanism, and that constitutional
government, not populism or parties, should
guide the way through domestic and foreign
trials. He established the principle that
presidents should recruit the best talents and
characters for offices, from a range of
political and regional viewpoints: his cabinet
included the rival views of Hamilton and
Jefferson; his ambassadors included John Jay,
Gouvernor Morris, and John Quincy Adams;
he replaced General St. Clair after the
18
In May 1783 he had sent Congress ―Sentiments on a
Peace Establishment,‖ which mixed a small
professional army with larger state militias; he also
recommended forts, arsenals, a navy, coastal defenses,
and a military academy but noted the political and
economic limits to defense requests. See Writings of
George Washington, ed. Fitzpatrick, 39 vols.
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1931-44), 26: 374-398; Higginbotham, Washington
and the Military Tradition, 124-25, 129-130;
Barilleaux, ―Foreign Policy,‖ 156-57.
disastrous campaign in the Northwest
Territory. His adherence to separation of
powers dictated respect for the legislative
dominance of Congress: the President should
recommend a few measures, mostly
concerning core Article II powers of foreign
and security policy. Similarly, the executive
should use the veto power with care, on
constitutional and not policy grounds; he
qualified this only with a veto late in his
second term over a core presidential power,
the size of the army. The executive and
Senate should collaborate on treaties while
maintaining separate roles and judgments: the
House had no role, given ―the plain letter of
the Constitution‖ and his knowledge of ―the
principles on which the Constitution was
formed‖ (W, 930–32). Dear to him was the
principle that the President represents all the
American citizenry, its common principles
and highest ideals, and not one party, region,
or doctrine. This was especially so regarding
war and foreign affairs, as is evident in his
firm but patient conduct during both terms.
Washington‘s general principle guiding
foreign and defense policy is moderation,
understood as the sober balance among ideas
or actions advocated by Montesquieu – the
modern philosopher most keen to instruct
statesmen in practical judgment. This quality
made Montesquieu the most cited philosopher
in America in the 1780s and 1790s (e.g., in
The Federalist), and later provided
Clausewitz a model for capturing the
complexity of war and strategy. Such
moderation is familiar to us today in the more
obvious elements of Montesquieuan political
science, the complexity of viewpoints and
balancing of interests inherent in separation of
powers and federalism.19
This same spirit,
however, also animates Washington‘s
endorsements of liberal learning and
19
See Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, ed. Anne
Cohler, Basia Miller, and Harold Stone (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989 [1748]) Preface; Bk. 29
ch. 1; Bk. 9 chs. 1–3; Bk. 11 chs. 5, 6, 8, 20.
American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 9
institutions ―for the general diffusion of
knowledge‖ from his First Annual Message in
1790, to the Farewell Address, to his final
Annual Message in 1797, it being ―essential
that public opinion should be enlightened‖
(W, 972, 750). He repeatedly proposed a
national university and military academy, and
when Congress declined he privately
endowed schools and educational funds;
Washington and Lee University is one result
of this commitment (W, 982-83). The
intellectual confidence he worked to develop
allowed him to consult a wide range of
intelligent advisers, and then to rely upon one
over another as he saw fit.20
He tried to
perpetuate this ideal of wide consultations and
balanced judgment among a new generation
of military and civilian leaders. Fashioning
sound foreign and defense policies requires
proper deliberation and judgment, within and
across constitutional branches, about
particular situations -- a complex, messy
process in a constitutional republic, but a path
of political moderation and sobriety that
avoids extremes of doctrine or of momentary
passion.
4) Executive Power, Prudence, and
Flexibility in Statecraft and Tactics
Washington‘s complex, political approach
to formulating foreign and defense policy
included a chief executive who balanced
consultation, prudential judgment, secrecy,
speed, and flexibility in both grand strategy
and tactics. The arguments in The Federalist
on the necessity of such an office to secure
republican liberty employ the theories of
Locke and Montesquieu, but they draw
distinct shape and weight from Washington as
General and citizen-founder. Indeed, many
scholars and statesmen have admired his
balance of executive toughness and
20
Higginbotham notes that Washington and George
Marshall shared the unusual quality of seeking out
diverse views from their aides, in Washington and the
Military Tradition, 76-78, 121-22.
republican principle as embodying an ideal of
the prudent statesman traceable to
Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and
Plutarch. A recent analysis of the qualities of
strategic sense he displayed as a general and
field commander -- marrying long-term
objectives with constant short-term
adjustments – could just as well describe his
later record as a civilian chief executive:
He always kept the political object foremost in
his considerations. He always seemed to
examine his alternatives in terms of the whole
strategic picture. Learning from his early
mistakes, he constantly adapted his strategy to
the circumstances. Recognizing the defects of
his tactical instrument, he never asked too
much of it.21
Several scholars cite Washington in
rejecting any restriction of ―strategy‖ to
Napoleonic annihilation or Upton‘s
bureaucratic war machine, arguing, as one
puts it, that ―Washington‘s military career
provides a model of leadership and strategic
and tactical expertise.‖22
As General he
eventually discerned the blend of tactics,
campaigns, and geopolitical alliances that
could deny victory to his superpower
opponent, while ensuring an American
victory that would provide geographic and
political independence. He had to keep an
army in the field during dark years of conflict,
and forge a French alliance without
succumbing to their ambitions, until he could
maneuver the British into fatigue or a
spectacular defeat. His understanding of the
21
Mackubin Owens, ―Washington and the Strategy of
the Revolution,‖ in Patriot Sage, 98.
22
Albert T. McJoynt, ―Washington, George (1732-
99),‖ in International Military and Defense
Encyclopedia, ed. Dupuy (Washington, D.C.:
Brassey‘s U.S./Maxwell Macmillan, 1993) 6: 2932-34;
see also Dave Palmer, The Way of the Fox: American
Strategy in the War for America, 1775-1783 (Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press, 1975). Compare the treatment
in Russell Weigley, ―American Strategy from Its
Beginnings through the First World War,‖ in Makers of
Modern Strategy, ed. Paret, 408-443 at 410-413.
American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 10
enemy, potential allies, and resources in the
American character and domestic materiel
dictated that he control his passion for
reputation and honor, so as to retreat or fight
as this strategy required. Marshall, drawing
on Plutarch, compared him to two Romans
who fought the great Carthaginian general
Hannibal – Fabius, who harassed and
retreated, and Marcellus, who attacked: ―He
has been called the American Fabius; but
those who compare his actions with his
means, will perceive as much of Marcellus as
of Fabius in his character‖ (LGW, 467). A. T.
Mahan, the founder of American strategy
studies, credits Washington with seeing the
decisive importance of naval power; he might
have done better to include him when
analyzing principles of grand strategy or
praising such exemplars of a strategic sense as
Lord Nelson.23
Washington‘s development of practical
judgment would be merely Machiavellian if
the aims were immoral or amoral, or if the
ends were thought to justify any means. The
pattern throughout his career, however, was to
avoid either amoral expedience or an
impractical moralism. The widespread
rediscovery in the 20th
century of Aristotelian
ethics has restored such traditional ideas
about political conduct as ―statesman‖ and
―prudence,‖ which one scholar defines as long
reserved for those ―who have exercised the art
of ruling with sufficient excellence to earn the
gratitude of their contemporaries and
posterity.‖ Recent figures like Washington,
Lincoln, and Churchill exhibited ―moral
wisdom‖ in the face of extraordinary political
emergencies, guided not by abstract moral
principles alone but by prudence understood
as ―the mediating process and personal virtue
through which they connected the moral ends
23
Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power
Upon History, 1660-1783, 12th
ed. (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1944 [1890]); on Washington, 342-43, 364-65,
387-89, 397-400; on grand strategy, 7-10, 22-23; on
Nelson, 23-24.
they pursued with their everyday actions and
policies.‖24
Thus, as general and President
Washington employed realistic modes of
intelligence and covert operations while
stopping short of ruthlessness.25
On larger
matters Tocqueville praised his ability to
discern a sound policy in the 1790s when the
French Revolution and Europe‘s great power
contest unleashed a storm of ideas and
passions upon the American body politic. A
statesman‘s hand at the wheel was needed:
The sympathies of the people in favor of
France were . . . declared with so much
violence that nothing less than the inflexible
character of Washington and the immense
popularity that he enjoyed were needed to
prevent war from being declared on England.
And still, the efforts that the austere reason of
this great man made to struggle against the
generous but unreflective passions of his
fellow citizens almost took from him the sole
recompense that he had ever reserved for
himself, the love of his country. The majority
pronounced against his policy; now the entire
people approves it. If the Constitution and
public favor had not given the direction of the
external affairs of the state to Washington, it
is certain that the nation would have done then
precisely what it condemns today.26
The same spirit informed Washington‘s
policy on the popular protests to a federal tax
on liquor that blossomed into the Whiskey
24
Alberto Coll, ―Normative Prudence as a Tradition of
Statecraft,‖ in Ethics & International Affairs: A
Reader, ed. Joel Rosenthal (Washington, D.C.:
Georgetown University Press, 1995), 58-77 at 75. On
Lincoln and Churchill see Cohen, Supreme Command;
on Washington, see especially LGW, 465-69, and
Brookhiser, Founding Father, passim.
25
Stephen Knott, ―George Washington and the
Founding of American Clandestine Activity,‖ in Secret
and Sanctioned: Covert Operations and the American
Presidency (New York: Oxford University Press,
1996), 13-26; see also 27-57.
26
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed.
Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2000), Vol. 1, pt. 2, ch. 6,
220.
American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 11
Rebellion of 1794.27
Still, his highest
achievements of prudence and principled
power involved the crises of foreign affairs
and war in his second term. Voices of all
persuasions, including both Hamilton and
Jefferson, saw these clouds on the horizon in
1792 and pleaded that he postpone his wish to
retire. He shelved the draft of a farewell
address he had asked Madison to prepare; he
again was the unanimous choice in the
Electoral College. After navigating a stormy
second term he asked Hamilton to re-draft a
parting address, but, ever moderate, he
insisted that his increasingly partisan aide
include ideas from the initial version by
Hamilton‘s once partner, now bitter rival,
Madison.
5) Balancing Interest, Independence, and
Justice: Just War and International Law
Washington wanted rival views joined in
his Farewell Address to affirm the balanced
thinking and shared principles nearly lost in
the partisan 1790s. Tocqueville describes this
―admirable letter addressed to his fellow
citizens, which forms the political testament
of that great man‖ as the basic charter of
American foreign and defense policy.28
As
President his main policies sought an
adequate federal army and navy; peace with
Indian nations and defense of existing
American settlements by force if necessary,
but not expansion; and, protection of the
republic from European great powers but also
from two rival doctrines about relations with
them. In light of more recent disputes
between doctrines of international relations it
is telling that he adopted neither the realism
of Hamilton nor the liberal internationalism or
idealism advocated by Madison and Jefferson
in germ, later by Woodrow Wilson more
27
See Brookhiser, Founding Father, 84-91, 97-100; W,
789, 829, 870–73, 882–84, 887–893, 922.
28
Tocqueville, ―The Manner in Which American
Democracy Conducts External Affairs of State,‖ in
Democracy in America, Vol. 1, pt. 1, ch. 5, 217.
fully. Washington did not face globalization,
or the temptation of Pax Americana, or
postmodern relativism and pacifism; but, it is
noteworthy that he neither embraced nor
overreacted to the doctrines of realpolitik or
perpetual peace of his day.29
The two great crises of Washington‘s
presidency stemmed from the upheaval of the
French Revolution and the radical democratic
theory France sought to impress upon the
world. His two measures to shield America
from such storms brought partisan attacks --
his 1793 Neutrality Proclamation and 1795
treaty with Britain (the Jay Treaty). He knew
these policies would offend the revolutionary
French republic and its zealous supporters in
America. Amidst charges of monarchism and
of groveling to Britain he defended his
―system‖ as maintaining America‘s true
independence and a just peace. His Seventh
Annual Message (1795), and letter to the
House rejecting its request for Jay Treaty
documents (1796), defended the Framers‘
principle that foreign policy should bow
neither to popular passions nor abstract creeds
but should be debated by the branches
somewhat insulated from popular opinion, the
Senate and President. Indeed, despite his
reservations about the Treaty he pressed to
ratify it in part to quell disorder from the
kinds of partisan clubs that had stoked civil
and international war in France, and the
Whiskey Rebellion in America. The
―prudence and moderation‖ which had
obtained and ratified the Treaty sought an
honorable peace as the basis for America‘s
future prosperity and strength. These
29
Compare Karl-Friedrich Walling, Republican
Empire: Alexander Hamilton on War and Free
Government (Lawrence, KS: University Press of
Kansas, 1999) with Robert Tucker and David
Hendrickson, Empire of Liberty: The Statecraft of
Thomas Jefferson (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1990); see also Madison‘s essay ―Universal
Peace‖ (1792) in James Madison: Writings, ed. Jack
Rakove (New York: Literary Classics of the United
States, 1999) 505-508.
American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 12
―genuine principles of rational liberty‖ would
prove essential to ―national happiness;‖
having been ―[f]aithful to ourselves, we have
violated no obligation to others‖ (W, 920–22,
930–32; LGW, chs. 30-32).
The Farewell Address, published in
September 1796, encapsulates and elevates
the principles Washington had stood for
during his entire career.30
It was printed
without a title in a newspaper to avoid the
self-importance and air of demagoguery that a
speech might suggest; its common title was
bestowed by a newspaper editor. It opens by
invoking republican virtue and civic duty;
patriotic devotion to the common good;
gratitude to Heaven for America‘s blessings
and prayers for continued Providence; and,
the need for prudence and moderation to
sustain such goods. He pledged ―unceasing
vows‖ that his country and the world would
enjoy the further blessings of Heaven‘s
beneficence, Union and brotherly affection,
perpetuation of a free constitution, and
wisdom and virtue in government. He further
prayed that the happiness of a free people
would be so prudently used as to gain for
them ―the glory of recommending it to the
applause, the affection, and adoption of every
nation which is yet a stranger to it‖ – an
invocation of the widely held view that
American was unique among the nations and
in history (W, 963–64). Only after further
advice on perpetuating the Union and the
constitutional rule of law, on moderating
partisan politics, and on ensuring both
religion and education in the citizenry (W,
964–72) does Washington raise his final
30
Classic studies are Samuel Bemis, ―Washington‘s
Farewell Address: A Foreign Policy of Independence‖
(1934), in Bemis, American Foreign Policy and the
Blessings of Liberty (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1962), 240-58, and Felix Gilbert, To the
Farewell Address: Ideas of Early American Foreign
Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1961), 115-136, esp. 124-136. I am indebted to the
studies by Garrity, Spalding and Garrity, and
McDougal cited in note 3 supra.
counsel -- that America should seek both
independence and justice in foreign affairs.
Washington‘s maxim ―to steer clear of
permanent Alliances‖ is among the bestknown
ideas of the Address (W, 975). That
said, many accounts of his foreign policy
mistakenly cite Jefferson‘s later maxim about
―entangling alliances,‖ which fosters the
erroneous view that the Address launches a
doctrine of isolationism.31
Washington had
for years criticized the French Revolution and
its effects in America for imposing visions
and doctrines when knowledge of human
nature and practical realities supported more
moderate views. His main principle was that
a secure, independent nation should surrender
to neither interest nor abstract justice,
passions nor fixed doctrines, but must balance
and find moderation among these human
propensities. In this prudential spirit, he
obliquely refers to the circumstances of the
1790s that suggest America should not be a
―slave‖ either to hatred of Britain or adoration
of France. He cites no names, presumably to
avoid offense but also to state a general
principle: ―a predominant motive has been to
endeavor to gain time to our country to settle
and mature its yet recent institutions, and to
progress without interruption, to that degree
of strength and consistency, which is
necessary to give it, humanly speaking,
command of its own fortunes‖ (W, 973, 977).
His main concern was that a nation be
independent enough to act wisely and justly;
the fundamental principle was to be able to
―choose peace or war, as our interest guided
by our justice shall Counsel‖ (W, 975). He
long had advocated provision for ―the
national security;‖ Theodore Roosevelt
31
Joshua Muravchik contrasts ―Washingtonian‖
isolationism and ―Wilsonian‖ internationalism in The
Imperative of American Leadership: A Challenge to
Neo-Isolationism (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press,
1996), 20-21, 210; see Patrick Buchanan‘s similar
misreading in A Republic, Not an Empire: Reclaiming
America’s Destiny (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 1999;
2nd
edition, 2002).
American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 13
praised the maxim from Washington‘s First
Annual Message that ―[t]o be prepared for
war is one of the most effectual means of
preserving peace‖ (W, 749, 791–92, 848).32
Roosevelt did not observe, however,
Washington‘s balance, for the Address also
reiterates his maxim that America must avoid
―those overgrown Military establishments,
which under any form of Government are
inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be
regarded as particularly hostile to Republican
Liberty‖ (W, 966). He thus calls America to
―[o]bserve good faith and justice towds. all
Nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with
all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct;
and can it be that good policy does not
equally enjoin it?‖ He endorses the utilitarian
maxim that ―honesty is always the best
policy,‖ but also urges America to ―give to
mankind the magnanimous and too novel
example of a People always guided by an
exalted justice and benevolence‖ (W, 972,
975). This blend of principles lies within the
just war tradition developed by classical
philosophy, Christianity, and modern natural
law and international law. Enlightenment
writers on the right of nations developed more
specific principles of war and diplomacy,
while recognizing that prudent judgment by
statesmen must govern particular cases. One
source for Americans was Montesquieu‘s
effort, drawing on the international jurists
Grotius, Pufendorf, and Vattel, to formulate
guidance for statesmen that balanced the
necessity of military power with limits to war
found in natural rights of individuals and
basic international right.33
The guiding spirit
32
See Theodore Roosevelt, ―Washington‘s Forgotten
Maxim‖ (address at Naval War College, 1897), in The
Works of Theodore Roosevelt, National Edition (New
York: Charles Scribner‘s Sons, 1926), 13:182–99.
33
Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws, Bk. 1 ch. 3, Bk. 9, Bk.
10 (especially chs. 1-6); see also Gerhard von Glahn,
Law Among Nations: An Introduction to Public
International Law, 5th
ed. (New York: Macmillan,
1986), 3, 22-25, 27-35; and David Hendrickson,
―Foundations of the New Diplomacy,‖ in Peace Pact:
of the Address thus echoes the great theme of
Washington‘s career: intellectual, moral, and
political moderation. Prudence and decency
should guide private and public life; he hoped
such ―counsels of an old and affectionate
friend‖ would ―controul the usual current of
the passions‖ and ―moderate the fury of party
spirit‖ in domestic and foreign affairs (W,
976; see also 832, 851, 924).
Republican Prudence for a Globalized
World
Our pitched battles in academia and the
public journals today between schools of
international relations, and the rhetoric
volleyed between parties and pundits about
our foreign policy since the 2001 attacks,
suggest that a call for moderation and
recourse to fundamental principles is not
dated. We should recall that Washington
steered American foreign and defense policy
through such polarization and warned against
it, and that the great authority on moderate
republicanism, Montesquieu, warned that a
free people could be as blinkered or irrational
as those under despotism: ―In extremely
absolute monarchies, historians betray the
truth, because they do not have the liberty to
tell it; in extremely free states, they betray the
truth because of their very liberty, for, as it
always produces divisions, every one
becomes as much the slave of the prejudices
of his faction as he would be of a despot.‖34
Whatever the reach and technology of our
power now, or the complexity of global
threats or opportunities, Washington reminds
us that such essential challenges remain. Still,
examples of particular policy advice drawn
from his legacy might spur greater
engagement with our founding principles
today. Just as there is overlap in these five
principles, any effort to apply them to
The Lost World of the American Founding (Lawrence,
KS: University Press of Kansas, 2003), 169-176.
34
Spirit of Laws, Bk. 19 ch. 27 (end), 333.
American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 14
situations finds that each at once informs and
presupposes the others. Moreover, such
counsels of republican prudence may seem
platitudes but are in fact difficult to practice,
since they require tempering of the jealousy
for power that always marks human affairs, at
home or abroad.
First, we should observe the great success
achieved by placing principle above power,
by sticking to moderate policies amidst
partisan claims, and, by carefully matching
means to ends. America should note that her
Founder, in his own moment of dominance,
resisted both the fog of power and the thrill of
partisanship, instead sticking to the virtues
and aims that got him there and that justified
the burdens of power. A Kantian may detect
Machiavelli in advice that honesty is the best
policy, while some realists may find it naiveté
or sheer cunning, but this maxim echoes
Washington‘s first principle –adherence to
republicanism, natural justice, and
transcendent truths about humankind. He is
sure America will be ―at no distant period, a
great Nation‖ (W, 972), but he holds to a
blend of Aristotelian teleology and Biblical
Providence: power and goodness ultimately
coincide; power only endures if founded on
virtuous aims and decent conduct; greater
power brings greater temptation to perversion
or loss of one‘s true aims. Washington‘s
other principles, and all his policies, rest on
this foundation. If such discipline brought
about the founding of America, and was at
least partially adhered to by his successors as
we rose to world power, on what grounds
should we ignore it now? Our grand strategy
must have this moral-political principle as its
lodestar, lest like most cases in human history
ours, too, loses its grandeur. What does this
mean not only for our use of military power,
but for our national desire for wealth and
global economic dominance, for our energy
policy, or how we deliberate about any such
means to these larger ends? Are our
compromises with this principle – and
Washington knew that human affairs always
require compromises to some degree --
justified by larger support for this principle
itself?
Second, his insistence upon civil
authority, and avoidance of either militarism
or weakness, implicates a range of issues
from force structure to public and private
diplomacy. Washington‘s advice to balance
the claims of republican liberty and national
defense suggests restoration of a brief period
of national service, military or civilian, for all
young citizens – a policy long debated, but
only partially engaged, by national political
leaders.35
More generally we should recall, as
the global power with vast superiority in
everything from training to weaponry and
technology, that the Romans lost their
republic to empire and that the British gave
up empire to preserve liberty under
constitutional monarchy. In the post-Cold
War era voices such as George Kennan and
Henry Kissinger invoked the Washingtonian
warnings against power and a militarized
foreign policy that had been echoed shortly
after the founding by John Quincy Adams.
Adams worried not about the temptation of
sheer power, but that moral aims might tempt
us to pursue power projection: America ―goes
not abroad in search of monsters to destroy,‖
he warned, for efforts to right all wrongs in
world affairs would change her focus ―from
liberty to force;‖ she ―might become the
dictatress of the world,‖ but would no longer
be ―ruler of her own spirit.‖36
While our
armed forces need a distinct professional
culture and full national support, we must not
35
See William Galston, ―Thinking About the Draft,‖
The Public Interest 154 (2004): 61-73.
36
George Kennan, ―On American Principles,‖ Foreign
Affairs 74 (1995): 116-126, and Kissinger, Does
America Need a Foreign Policy?, 237-240; see
―Address of July 4, 1821‖ in John Quincy Adams and
American Continental Empire, ed. Walter LaFeber
(Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965), 45 (emphasis in
original); see also Hendrickson, ―Renovation of
Foreign Policy.‖
American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 15
mistake this noble instrument for an end in
itself or as obviating more complex means to
formulate national policy – especially
political debate at home, and forthright
diplomacy and cultivation of good relations
abroad. Thucydides‘s analysis of the long
Athenian decline from hubris to disaster
buttresses Washington‘s advice that patient
diplomacy must always be equal to, or
supersede, the claims of pride and power in
making national policy. This is not to say
Washington would place a primary trust in
international institutions or law, or in utopias
of perpetual or democratic peace, but that we
should maintain perspective and balance
about our own temptations and motives as
well as those of allies and adversaries.
Third, Washington‘s specific
constitutional ideas also touch policy at home
and abroad. We should affirm a complex
structure for formulating foreign and security
policy as best for balancing liberty and
security, and vet policies through multiple
branches and actors -- seeking not the lowest
common denominator but the highest possible
consensus on means and aims. Recent
decades have emphasized the natural
tendency of executive offices to dominate
policy debates and decisions on use of force,
and in Congress to only reluctantly insist
upon full deliberation about war and
deployment of force and then to snipe about
subsequent problems or setbacks.
Washington hoped his moderate principles
would ―prevent our Nation from running the
course which has hitherto marked the Destiny
of Nations‖ (W, 976), but this presupposed
that vigilance about both necessary defenses
and the perils of war would animate all
elements of the complex political order he
founded. Abroad, if necessity demands we
engage in regime building we should
underwrite not democracy but liberal
constitutionalism – extending to new regimes
the political complexity and moderation that
we enjoy, or should enjoy, at home.37
Fourth, Washington‘s counsel that
executives should employ consultations,
prudence, and flexibility in both grand
strategy and tactics is difficult to achieve
today, since we embrace populism,
partisanship, and permanent campaigning
more than the founders ever could. Still,
those in elected office, and both the
temporary and more permanent officials
serving them, can strive to emulate the
balanced thinking of the first administration.
Such moderation also implicates the last of
Washington‘s principles, on balancing interest
and justice, but the aim of Clausewitzean
grand strategy to assess the entire moral and
political complexity of war has special
relevance for the executive. One maxim both
Thucydides and Washington might offer is to
resist the temptation to let current dominance
and superior technology narrow thinking
about when to wage war, and what the
consequences or complications might be
when the battle is long over.38
The fifth Washington principle is to
balance interest and justice through prudent
recourse to just war principles and the classic
right of nations -- a difficult ideal for a weak
and defensive power, and one that now taxes
the patience of a superpower. If we think the
grand strategy and international regimes
America built for the Cold War are no longer
relevant, what policies and tactics will satisfy
both Washington‘s high standards and the
37
Fareed Zakaria, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal
Democracy at Home and Abroad (New York: Norton,
2003), advocates liberal constitutionalism with
guidance from Montesquieu, the American framers,
and Tocqueville.
38
For Clausewitzean strategy as alert to the limits of
―total war‖ and of technology, see Andreas HerbergRothe,
―Primacy of ‗Politics‘ or ‗Culture‘ Over War in
a Modern World: Clausewitz Needs a Sophisticated
Interpretation,‖ Defense Analysis 17: 2 (2001): 175-86,
and Frederick Kagan, ―War and Aftermath,‖ Policy
Review 120 (August 2003).
American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 16
threats and opportunities of the moment?39
His counsels do not fit our typical menu of
rival doctrines, nor the recent blend of
Wilsonian zeal and realism advocated by
some after the Cold War. Does Washington
no longer fit our character and defining
purposes, or do such doctrines fail to fully
comprehend America? For example, isn‘t a
policy of non-proliferation and counterterrorism
animated both by interest and
benevolent justice -- an enlightened selfinterest
of inextricably blended motives?
Such a blend is as characteristic of American
self-understanding as Washington hoped it
would be, and perhaps we should revise our
theories to recognize the propriety of
balancing these motives in given situations,
rather than depicting ourselves as polarized or
confused.
Our challenges indeed are new in many
ways, but the highest consensus of the
founders still is the general aim proclaimed by
all American presidents and parties -- to
benefit mankind and ourselves by respecting
―the obligation[s] which justice and humanity
impose on every Nation‖ (W, 977). Each of
the doctrinal alternatives of the past century
asks us to place either too much faith in
ourselves or in international institutions and
other states; some schools suggest we now
could lead only by force, others that we could
lead only by example and principle. The
genius of Washington‘s advice is to ever seek
the proper equilibrium among these
tendencies in any given situation and for the
long haul, so as to abide by republican
principles of natural justice. He knew that
international affairs always requires
―temporary alliances‖ and engagement with
foreign nations, while trying to ―cultivate
peace and harmony‖ with all (W, 975, 972).
He might accept that the complexities of our
39
An analysis of the Bush administration‘s 2002
National Security Strategy from this larger perspective
is John Lewis Gaddis, ―A Grand Strategy,‖ Foreign
Policy, November/December 2002: 50-57.
age and our power now compel this to a great
degree, but that America still could retain
independent judgment about balancing
interest and justice if it was leading alliances
and not dominated by them. Indeed, his
advice on ―permanent alliances‖ did not
concern only alliances; the error of thinking
so is evident in Jefferson‘s reduction of this to
―entangling alliances,‖ which lends itself to
an isolationist reading. Washington‘s core
concern was in fact the blinkered thinking and
―permanent, inveterate‖ antipathies or
attachments behind such commitments (W,
973). He instead sought the independence
and flexibility necessary to find a sound blend
of the possible, the expedient, and the dutiful.
While his basic moderation might tell us
to avoid either isolationism or unilateralism, it
also would counsel that America would only
mark a Novus Ordo Saeclorum (new order of
the ages) if we heeded the classic just war
prudence that carefully balances power with
right, necessity with decency.40
Specific
debates on a preemptive strike, or a regime
change, or a humanitarian intervention always
must be pulled up to that broader calculus,
and there is no codebook in the sky that spells
out in advance just what is right or what will
succeed. Washington‘s counsels thus are
difficult and elude snappy slogans, but are
worthy of the effort – calling for both the
moral principle to stand up to evil and the
humility to check one‘s own power, to lead
alone if necessary but with allies and by
persuasion whenever possible.
Washington knew his standards were
lofty. He knew he had barely succeeded in
steering his country through international and
domestic crises. He was far from sure that the
40
Recent examples of just war realism range from
Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History
(New York: Charles Scribner‘s Sons, 1952), to Michael
Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with
Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books,
1977), to Jean Bethke Elshtain, Just War Against
Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent
World (New York: Basic Books, 2003).
American Defense Policy, 8th
ed. 17
American experiment would succeed at all.
Still, it is precisely the gravity of the threats
and opportunities facing America today that
justifies recurrence to the thought of such
great statesmen as Washington and Lincoln,
even if our novel circumstances require new
applications of their principles and prudence
to our problems.