The Beliefs of the Blob - Christopher J. Fettweis (Foreign Policy Research Institut - Elsevier)

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The Beliefs of the Blob

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orbis.2022.12.006Get rights and content

Abstract

The conventional wisdom of US foreign policy has at its core a set of widely held yet underexamined beliefs. Together, these notions constitute the essence of what has become tendentiously known as “the blob,” or the official mind of US national security. Debates and analyses can proceed more productively if foreign policy beliefs, rather than the people who hold them, are moved to the center of analysis. The blob is a mindset, not a group of individuals—one that is based on a few basic assumptions about the world and the United States’ place in it. This article describes what those beliefs are and how they influence US foreign policy.

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Section snippets

Beliefs and International Behavior

As long as people run countries, beliefs will explain behavior of states. In their simplest form, beliefs are ideas that have become internalized and accepted as true, often without much further analysis.

Belief #1: The United States Is the Indispensable Nation. It Must Lead the World.

The first, most basic blob belief is that the United States is not a normal country in a normal time. And to the extent that it is abnormal, of course, it is better. Americans have always combined a feeling of divine providence with a mission to spread their ideals around the world and battle evil wherever it lurks. It is this sense of a destiny, of history’s call, that most obviously separates the United States from other countries. It would not occur to the lead diplomat of other counties to

Belief #2: The World Is Dangerous

The second major blob belief concerns the security environment in which the indispensable nation finds itself. Although the evidence regarding international conflict and violence may indicate that the world is a more peaceful place than ever before, few in the blob agree.

Belief #3: Our Rivals are Realists

Former US National Security Advisor John Bolton gave voice to one of the iron rules of perception in international politics when he said in June 2020 that “other world leaders are hardcore realists.”²⁴ Indeed, for members of the blob, the other is always a “realist.” We have principles that drive our decisions, but they act almost exclusively in pursuit of their interests. This is particularly true for any state with which we have even a mild...

Belief #4: Robust US Engagement Mitigates Global Turmoil

The world wars supposedly taught future American grand strategists two lessons: First, without active US involvement, the Old World will descend into chaos; and second, it is an illusion to believe that the United States can remain aloof from such chaos. ...

Belief #5: Credibility Is a Valuable Asset Worth Fighting For

During a press conference in August 2012, President Barack Obama famously (or infamously) noted that his administration had been very clear to the Assad regime in Syria that “a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized.” If that happened, he said, it “would change my calculus. That would change my equation.”

Belief #6: Dictators Should Not Be Appeased

Our national obsession with credibility contributes to the final central belief of the blob. Of the many apparent lessons people learned from World War II, none is more important to the official mind than those relating to the Munich conference of 1938. The common narrative goes like this: British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain led an allied coalition that backed down in the face of Adolf Hitler’s demand to annex part of Czechoslovakia. This appeasement, or irresolution in the face of...

Looking to the Future

Better policy will not come by replacing the professionals with amateurs but rather by improving the profession—by asking those devising and executing US foreign policy to examine their most basic beliefs. Policymakers, like everyone else, have little time to contemplate the assumptions upon which their worldview is built. But if they do not, if they instead carry on under the impression that their underexamined beliefs reflect international reality, then the United States will careen from

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