Learning from Ike

By Scott Horton

Readers of this space know that “I like Ike.” He stands for a set of political values that hardly seem present within the American Executive today, but that reflect as direct a line of descent as can be found from those of Abraham Lincoln. Ike on the domestic front is a social conservative, whose values would definitely seem out of step now. But Ike in the arena of foreign affairs was a cold-blooded realist who balanced ideals and values very ably with a sense of what military arms and diplomacy each could accomplish. There is no doubt that Ike made some mistakes, even some serious ones, but he nevertheless stood for a proud, confident, generous and noble vision of America. But the topnote of that blend certainly is realism.

The current issue of National Journal features an article by Jonathan Rauch that should be mandatory reading for everyone engaged in foreign affairs discussion today. We are a country in urgent need of a course correction, and the Eisenhower vision offers essential elements for a better course. As Rauch writes:

Eisenhower's attitude put him at odds with the hawks of both his time and ours; anyone speaking as categorically against preventive war today as he did in 1954 would be derided by mainstream Republicans as a "defeatocrat," waiting for America's enemies to gather strength and strike first. But the victor of World War II was assuredly no dove. He made clear his theoretical willingness to use nuclear weapons, he sent U.S. marines to Lebanon, and he said, “We do not escape war by surrendering on the installment plan.” The best way to see Eisenhower is as neither hawk nor dove but, so to speak, as a reptile: a cold-blooded realist.

In his day, realism dominated the councils of Washington. Today it is notably underappreciated, underrepresented, and misunderstood. When politicians reach for foreign-policy models, they cite practically every president except Eisenhower. That is a pity. The brand of realism he practiced, with its studied under-reaction and its easygoing unsentimentality, has never been more relevant than it will be in the post-Bush cleanup that is about to begin.

Eisenhower's realism was less a clear set of policy prescriptions and more of an attitude for how to engage with issues:

Realism, in its Eisenhowerian form, is not a doctrine or a policy prescription. Any roomful of realists, if you can find a roomful, will contain as many policy opinions as there are people. A better way to think of realism is as an attitude grounded in a theory. The attitude emphasizes restraint, indirection, and suspicion of sentimentality and idealism. The theory is about where peace comes from.

It started with a career soldier's sense of the utility of weapons and warfare:

More important than what Ike did, however, is what he did not do. At least three times in his first term—by his biographer Stephen E. Ambrose's count, five times in 1954 alone—leaders within or outside the administration urged him to use nuclear weapons against China. Eisenhower steadfastly refused. He did muse publicly that nuclear bombs were as usable as “a bullet or anything else,” but talking was as far as he would go…

No less important was his rhetorical restraint. Bush has at every turn played up warnings of danger and reminded the country it is at war. Eisenhower, in more-dangerous times, did the opposite.

What would Ike do? It's clear enough that Ike never would have gotten the country into Iraq, nor would he today be taunting Iran and Syria. Rauch is correct. Americans today are disgusted with the Neocon hawks, whose every pronouncement now appears a lie and whose war calculus has brought the greatest army in the world's history to the brink of meltdown. Simultaneously they distrust doves—concerned that they lack the stomach for conflict when it may be necessary for defense and global stability. But what lies in between? Rauch says that it's the pragmatic realism of Eisenhower. I think he's correct. And it's a point of near convergence. There are differences between Eisenhower's realism and that of Truman and Kennedy, the Democratic presidents who furnish the bookends to his administration. But from our present perspective, those differences are trivial. From our present perspective, this appears a near golden age of foreign policy consensus. Which is what Washington should strive for today.