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Discussion on a Grand Strategy of Democratic Solidarity
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Overview
Throughout the history of U.S. foreign policy, American leaders have been forced to weight support for democratic values against realpolitik calculations of national interest. Most recently, the Biden Administration has adopted a foreign policy that places democracy and human rights at its center, with many discussing a possible “Summit for Democracy.” Yet questions remain as to the best means of incorporating support for democracy into American grand strategy, especially related to issues that demand cooperation with authoritarian regimes.
Dr. Hal Brands and Dr. Charles Edel lay out 8 pillars crucial for defending the world’s democracies from rising authoritarianism and discussed their forthcoming article in The Washington Quarterly, “A Grand Strategy of Democratic Solidarity,” with discussant Dr. Kori Schake and moderator Abraham Denmark.
Selected Quotes
Hal Brands
“The time for this is right because democracies are increasingly threatened by illiberal influences within their borders and also by autocratic regimes, principally China and Russia, that are increasingly ambitious in their efforts to change world orders.”
“The historical irony here is that after the Cold War, the strategic premium on democratic solidarity seemed to decrease because the democracies were so utterly dominant and because the world’s remaining autocracies often seemed like they were destined for historical oblivion. It became relatively common I think to believe that globalization and liberalization and economic integration were going to tame and ultimately transform autocratic regimes.”
“A strategy focused on cooperation with democracies, if it is paired with efforts to fortify American democracy itself, can help mitigate that damage, by showing that America can still provide principled leadership on behalf of a liberal world order.”
Charles Edel
“Democracies can forge productive, if somewhat mercenary, relationships with illiberal countries even as they cultivate—at the heart of the strategy, as Hal talked about—geopolitical and ideological unity of the democratic community. The fact that NATO was an alliance explicitly rooted in shared democratic values didn’t prevent it from including necessary partners such as Portugal or Turkey at certain points during the Cold War. Similarly, the United States can pursue democratic solidarity while also cooperating with partners such as Singapore or Vietnam today.”
“Too early of a summit of democracies could backfire if democratic states are economically dependent on China, think of Indonesia and Malaysia for instance. Yet, the approach that we took to advocating for, seeks to focus instead on a more flexible approach that prioritizes concrete cooperation over high-profile public signaling […] it allows more reticent members to participate selectively at first and hopefully expand their involvement over time.”
“Democratic perfection at home has never been a prerequisite for democratic leadership abroad. If we think of Truman, when he spoke to congress in 1947, the U.S. was still practicing state-sponsored segregation in large parts of the country. During the Cold War in fact, an ideological struggle against the Soviet Union created the exact pressures for the United States to improve its own democracy and thereby decrease the perceived hypocrisy of its diplomacy.”
Kori Schake
“The first thing I really like about Hal and Charlie’s article is that they don’t treat the international order as though it’s a status thing, in fact they outline the metric that should show us whether it’s succeeding or failing, and I want to quote it from the article, ‘Its measure of success should be progress in expanding democratic collaboration against concrete problems.’”
“They didn’t mention the West’s self-congratulatory hypocrisy, the times where we pretend we are doing this, but are not. The reason I think it’s significant is because it looks to me like a lot of the way our authoritarian challengers are picking up ground in opposition to this idea is by playing the gap between what we say we are going to do and our actual risk tolerance. The most egregious example might be President Obama on Syria—drawing a red line that we wouldn’t honor. There are a dozen examples from the Trump administration as well […] The Chinese and the Russians are really good at delegitimizing the liberal international order by playing into those gaps with their own interventions.”
“We are treating democratic difficulties as fixed constraints on ourselves and the other strongest powers in the international order, but we’re expecting countries like Indonesia and Malaysia or smaller middle-way countries that run much greater risk than we do of countering China to make big brave choices before we do.”
Speakers
Hal Brands
Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a Bloomberg Opinion columnist.
Charles Edel
Senior Fellow at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney
Kori Schake
Hosted By
Indo-Pacific Program
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Canada Institute
The mission of the Wilson Center's Canada Institute is to raise the level of knowledge of Canada in the United States, particularly within the Washington, DC policy community. Research projects, initiatives, podcasts, and publications cover contemporary Canada, US-Canadian relations, North American political economy, and Canada's global role as it intersects with US national interests. Read more
Global Europe Program
The Global Europe Program is focused on Europe’s capabilities, and how it engages on critical global issues. We investigate European approaches to critical global issues. We examine Europe’s relations with Russia and Eurasia, China and the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Our initiatives include “Ukraine in Europe” – an examination of what it will take to make Ukraine’s European future a reality. But we also examine the role of NATO, the European Union and the OSCE, Europe’s energy security, transatlantic trade disputes, and challenges to democracy. The Global Europe Program’s staff, scholars-in-residence, and Global Fellows participate in seminars, policy study groups, and international conferences to provide analytical recommendations to policy makers and the media. Read more
History and Public Policy Program
The History and Public Policy Program makes public the primary source record of 20th and 21st century international history from repositories around the world, facilitates scholarship based on those records, and uses these materials to provide context for classroom, public, and policy debates on global affairs. Read more
Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy
The Center for Korean History and Public Policy was established in 2015 with the generous support of the Hyundai Motor Company and the Korea Foundation to provide a coherent, long-term platform for improving historical understanding of Korea and informing the public policy debate on the Korean peninsula in the United States and beyond. Read more
Kennan Institute
The Kennan Institute is the premier US center for advanced research on Eurasia and the oldest and largest regional program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Kennan Institute is committed to improving American understanding of Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and the surrounding region though research and exchange. Read more
Kissinger Institute on China and the United States
The Kissinger Institute works to ensure that China policy serves American long-term interests and is founded in understanding of historical and cultural factors in bilateral relations and in accurate assessment of the aspirations of China’s government and people. Read more
Latin America Program
The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action. Read more
Mexico Institute
The Mexico Institute seeks to improve understanding, communication, and cooperation between Mexico and the United States by promoting original research, encouraging public discussion, and proposing policy options for enhancing the bilateral relationship. A binational Advisory Board, chaired by Luis Téllez and Earl Anthony Wayne, oversees the work of the Mexico Institute. Read more
Middle East Program
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