President Obama’s recent commencement speech at West Point (full transcript here) provoked a variety of reactions, but one frequently heard claim is that the President is trying to do too much in terms of diplomacy, stretching too thinly the U.S.’s limited supply of diplomatic capital.
For example, Shannon Tiezzi at The Diplomat argues that President Obama is once again ignoring his much-vaunted pivot to Asia in favor of embroiling himself in the Middle East. The speech, Tiezzi asserted, showed that the administration’s diplomatic efforts are overstretched, and that “the Asia-Pacific region still plays second fiddle to more traditional areas of U.S. concern.”
These criticisms come in the wake of Secretary of State John Kerry’s involvement in the failure to secure a deal at peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The collapse of the talks, some say, confirms allegations that Kerry overestimates his capabilities as Secretary of State. Senator John McCain has called Kerry a “human wrecking ball.” Kori Schake argues that Kerry must “prioritize,” and that
"Many countries in the region argue that if only the United States would put a little effort and attention to the problem, if it would lean just a little on the Israelis over whom we have such enormous leverage, there could be justice for Palestinians, thus removing a major obstacle to public support for the United States throughout the region."
By the sound of the pundits and foreign policy wonks, general agreement exists in the foreign policy community that Kerry and Obama have bitten off more than they can chew. However, on Monday, the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (T.R.I.P.) project at the College of William & Mary published the results of the most recent snap poll. Though a small number of individual I.R. scholars write blogs or publish in policy journals like Foreign Policy or Foreign Affairs, the snap polls are an innovative way to provide systematic evidence on the views of I.R. scholars regarding contemporary policy issues. These snap polls aim to connect academia to the policy world by identifying and communicating opinions of scholars in the academic I.R. community.
On the most recent snap poll, scholars were asked if “heavy diplomatic involvement by the United States in Ukraine, Syria, the South China Sea, and Iranian nuclear talks hampered U.S. efforts to facilitate Middle East peace talks.” This question has direct relevance to President Obama’s speech: if the U.S. has too much on its plate in terms of diplomacy, then it would be counterproductive to lean even more heavily on the already overstretched diplomatic tools available to U.S. policy makers.
In fact, there is broad consensus amongst I.R. scholars. Of the respondents, 71.4 percent of scholars reported that heavy diplomatic involvement by the U.S. around the world did not hamper U.S. efforts to facilitate Middle East peace talks. Only 16.8 percent of scholars answered “yes” (11.8 percent responded “don’t know”).
Often, the academic community faces allegations of liberal bias. These range from memoirs about a conservative academic being met “with enmity, suspicion, and a refusal to engage in reasoned debate” to Senator Rick Santorum’s famous response to President Obama wanting every American to go to college: “what a snob.” So, perhaps liberal professors are blindly following the president in foreign policy. If this were the case, one would expect a much larger ratio of “yes” answers among conservatives. The following chart shows responses to the snap poll question broken down according to political ideology and gender:
Variations are underwhelming, and consensus is again strong: 18.8 percent of conservatives replied that the U.S. is stretched too thin diplomatically, whereas 16 percent of liberals also agreed. That difference, 2.8 percent, is minuscule. Gender played a bigger role in responses than ideology, with women more likely to say that the U.S. is overstretched. But even amongst women, 60.7 percent replied “no.”
T.R.I.P. also conducts more substantive polls every few years. One question asked on the larger 2011 T.R.I.P. poll was “how much influence, on a scale of one to ten, will the U.S. have on the world in 2020.” An answer of 10 means that the scholar thought the U.S. would be very influential in 2020. Broadly, scholars who think the U.S. will be more influential in 2020 are less likely to say that the U.S. is overstretched diplomatically. Even amongst those with the gloomiest opinions of the U.S.’s future effect on the world overwhelmingly answer “no.” Only 16.6 percent of those who said the influence of the U.S. would be from 1 to 2 and 23.2 percent of those who responded with answers from 3 to 4 said that the U.S. was overstretched diplomatically.
Despite frequent criticism that the administration needs to focus on a smaller number of diplomatic initiatives, there is actually an overwhelming consensus amongst I.R. scholars, irrespective of gender, ideology, or predictions of the future of U.S. power. The takeaway is that even though there are certainly plenty of critiques to be made of the president’s foreign policy, there is agreement amongst I.R. scholars that diplomatic multitasking is not one of them.
Matthew Ribar is a Research Assistant at the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (T.R.I.P.) project and an undergraduate student in the William & Mary-University of St. Andrews Joint Degree Programme. He can be reached at mkribar@email.wm.edu.
Photo: Graduating cadets at West Point listen to President Obama. Pete Souza, White House Photographer.
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How Much Diplomacy is 'Too Much'?
June 6, 2014
President Obama’s recent commencement speech at West Point (full transcript here) provoked a variety of reactions, but one frequently heard claim is that the President is trying to do too much in terms of diplomacy, stretching too thinly the U.S.’s limited supply of diplomatic capital.
For example, Shannon Tiezzi at The Diplomat argues that President Obama is once again ignoring his much-vaunted pivot to Asia in favor of embroiling himself in the Middle East. The speech, Tiezzi asserted, showed that the administration’s diplomatic efforts are overstretched, and that “the Asia-Pacific region still plays second fiddle to more traditional areas of U.S. concern.”
These criticisms come in the wake of Secretary of State John Kerry’s involvement in the failure to secure a deal at peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The collapse of the talks, some say, confirms allegations that Kerry overestimates his capabilities as Secretary of State. Senator John McCain has called Kerry a “human wrecking ball.” Kori Schake argues that Kerry must “prioritize,” and that
"Many countries in the region argue that if only the United States would put a little effort and attention to the problem, if it would lean just a little on the Israelis over whom we have such enormous leverage, there could be justice for Palestinians, thus removing a major obstacle to public support for the United States throughout the region."
By the sound of the pundits and foreign policy wonks, general agreement exists in the foreign policy community that Kerry and Obama have bitten off more than they can chew. However, on Monday, the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (T.R.I.P.) project at the College of William & Mary published the results of the most recent snap poll. Though a small number of individual I.R. scholars write blogs or publish in policy journals like Foreign Policy or Foreign Affairs, the snap polls are an innovative way to provide systematic evidence on the views of I.R. scholars regarding contemporary policy issues. These snap polls aim to connect academia to the policy world by identifying and communicating opinions of scholars in the academic I.R. community.
On the most recent snap poll, scholars were asked if “heavy diplomatic involvement by the United States in Ukraine, Syria, the South China Sea, and Iranian nuclear talks hampered U.S. efforts to facilitate Middle East peace talks.” This question has direct relevance to President Obama’s speech: if the U.S. has too much on its plate in terms of diplomacy, then it would be counterproductive to lean even more heavily on the already overstretched diplomatic tools available to U.S. policy makers.
In fact, there is broad consensus amongst I.R. scholars. Of the respondents, 71.4 percent of scholars reported that heavy diplomatic involvement by the U.S. around the world did not hamper U.S. efforts to facilitate Middle East peace talks. Only 16.8 percent of scholars answered “yes” (11.8 percent responded “don’t know”).
Often, the academic community faces allegations of liberal bias. These range from memoirs about a conservative academic being met “with enmity, suspicion, and a refusal to engage in reasoned debate” to Senator Rick Santorum’s famous response to President Obama wanting every American to go to college: “what a snob.” So, perhaps liberal professors are blindly following the president in foreign policy. If this were the case, one would expect a much larger ratio of “yes” answers among conservatives. The following chart shows responses to the snap poll question broken down according to political ideology and gender:
Variations are underwhelming, and consensus is again strong: 18.8 percent of conservatives replied that the U.S. is stretched too thin diplomatically, whereas 16 percent of liberals also agreed. That difference, 2.8 percent, is minuscule. Gender played a bigger role in responses than ideology, with women more likely to say that the U.S. is overstretched. But even amongst women, 60.7 percent replied “no.”
T.R.I.P. also conducts more substantive polls every few years. One question asked on the larger 2011 T.R.I.P. poll was “how much influence, on a scale of one to ten, will the U.S. have on the world in 2020.” An answer of 10 means that the scholar thought the U.S. would be very influential in 2020. Broadly, scholars who think the U.S. will be more influential in 2020 are less likely to say that the U.S. is overstretched diplomatically. Even amongst those with the gloomiest opinions of the U.S.’s future effect on the world overwhelmingly answer “no.” Only 16.6 percent of those who said the influence of the U.S. would be from 1 to 2 and 23.2 percent of those who responded with answers from 3 to 4 said that the U.S. was overstretched diplomatically.
Despite frequent criticism that the administration needs to focus on a smaller number of diplomatic initiatives, there is actually an overwhelming consensus amongst I.R. scholars, irrespective of gender, ideology, or predictions of the future of U.S. power. The takeaway is that even though there are certainly plenty of critiques to be made of the president’s foreign policy, there is agreement amongst I.R. scholars that diplomatic multitasking is not one of them.
Matthew Ribar is a Research Assistant at the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (T.R.I.P.) project and an undergraduate student in the William & Mary-University of St. Andrews Joint Degree Programme. He can be reached at mkribar@email.wm.edu.
Photo: Graduating cadets at West Point listen to President Obama. Pete Souza, White House Photographer.
