Based on some very sophisticated principles. Do more, think big, pedal to the metal, get moving. It is adopted after what is seen as a period of under commitment. The other mode is retrenchment. Retrenchment is based on the other principles, do less, think harder, put on the brakes, slow down. It is a policy that merges as a result of overcommitment. Maximalism was the response of american president s to the big cold war crises, to the impoverishment and weakness of western europe and its vulnerability in the 1940s, to a series of pressures and challenges in the course of the cold war but we also see it in the ambitious policies that followed the cold war, the first president bush toured german reunification responding to the invasion of kuwait, the policies of the clinton and administration in the balkans and of course the most ambitiously of all the response of the second bush of administration to september 11. In all of these the president has wanted a big package of measures with dissatisfied with the way it was trending and wanting to shake up the status quo and commit new resources, his own prestige and political capital. It is a moment like that occasioned kennans description of the stone in a beehive. It produces a frenzied policy debate and often maximalism policies. Not always and i will come back to that. Retrenchment is what follows the maximalism policy party. After they maximalism comes the retrenchment policy. Retrenchment is the downsizing that followed the korean war, the vietnam war and the cold war briefly and then the wars in afghanistan and iraq. It is a time when foreignpolicy shrinks and its aspirations, shrinks and the resources available. The armed forces are curtailed, the foreign assistance is cut back and there are new principles in foreignpolicy identified. It is such a crude oversimplification and then i even put it in the book but i will tell you that as a very rough kind of rule of some the 40s, 60s, 80s into thousands or maximalist decades. The 50s, 70s, 90s and 20 teens are retrenchment decades. Its so neat i thought people would say how full grade crude if you put this so i didnt do it but its a pretty close approximation. What is it that produces this alternation . It is that president s find it extremely hard to change course. They tend to overdo it and they get into trouble. It is not that president s dont understand the risks that they are maximalist policies expose them to. Actually i think they are keenly aware of those risks and they understand the pitfalls of what they are doing and try to introduce correct its aunt compensations. I will give you two examples. John kennedy was instinctively a maximalist, committed to activism but very aware of the risks that would be created by maximalist policies and eager to limit those risks. Richard nixon was a retread chair but he was very aware of the risks created by retrenchment. He was worried that the cause of pulling back the United States would as he put it go down the drain. Both of them try to introduce correctives. They tended not to be very successful at that. One theme of policy tends to dominate the other and because of the overdoing of results returned to him and president s come in to correct the excesses of maximalist president s. When retrenchment president s overdo it maximalist president s come and to correct their errors. These are changes of direction when president s become too sure of themselves. They are convinced that their policy will be able to avoid the pitfalls that are obvious but they dont. Is. That is the simple description of its. Its can involve an awareness or a threat that was tolerated a few years earlier but my example for that live we that president clintons conviction that the Ethnic Violence is unacceptable by the mid90s were in a few years earlier american policy policymakers said we have no dog in the fight. Of a few elements of the maximalist pattern that are a little less obvious to reduce that struck me as quite characteristic of each maximalist period its that i looked at. First, i will mention five. First is the conviction other countries cannot had very much to the solution of the problem the United States has identified. They are thought not likely to contribute much because they are weak weak, disoriented, said disorganized, parochial that is the characteristic you point of the american maximalist president to try to get their hands on some problem of others can contribute. As part of the Marshall Plan. With the weakness of other countries that United States had to take a leadership role. With the recent secretary of defense talkedabout us a distaste for old europe that the american policy makers and still would have recognized. Second, a closely related with the multilateral mechanisms are adequate to problem solving. I will give you one that i like Hillary Clinton at the end of the copenhagen and Climate Change conference in 2009 said she had not seen anything so bad the bandaged since her eighth Grade Student council. Of good blind or very characteristic of american attitudes. Third, it halfway measures you have to try to solve a problem fully so you dont have to return leading problems to return to them down the road. This is a classic example the attitude of dean acheson and as american troops were beginning to move north on the Korean Peninsula he thought stopping halfway would be unstable and satisfactory or unsustainable. Trying to solve the problem fully. You get that attitude again and again. You could not be satisfied with what they consider to be a solution of international control. With saddam hussein. Forth. The american Attention Span is very sure thats what you have to solve problems quickly general marshall at the time spread that a deal when he said to the aids and that helped design the Marshall Plan is passed to working in three years at this much time that the American People will give us. The large searches are always expected to have a very short fuse that is why they have to be big. Guilty conscience most of the president s who have been responsible for our biggest unsuccessful military operations of the past 60 years news they had done too little to prevent them beforehand. I am thinking of harry truman, Lyndon Johnson johnson, before the vietnam war this is one of the things we can talk about Lyndon Johnson fought off the advisers and as things got worse he had it to yield. Then george w. Bush whose attitude toward terrorism before september 11th was a source of anxiety for him. But the clothes with a few similar words about retrenchment and how it works. All the stone in the be dash all but many people say dont we have to rethink retrenchment . Seventy will probably ask if we scrap that it tends to last a long time. Generally locker vanda maximalist surge that preceded it. I dont think were on the road to a new policy necessarily. My parallel five points about retrenchment quickly American Foreign policy debate never has a isolationist component there is always the element in the party responsible for the previous maximalist excess that is isolationist. Id like to talk about the democrats in the 70s a and mcgovern republicans today also isolationists because of the association with the previous access. Second comer retrenchment in false the strong president ial control much stronger than maximalist policies our strong policy eisenhower and nixon and president obama has exercised very strong control over the policies he has wanted to pursue. Squarely in the eisenhower and nixon tradition in that respect. Third, president s try to find after a period of excess what they think of as a sustainable policy. A very common formula for the longhaul. You hear that from the nixon from the first president bush from the administration and of course, from president obama and his advisers. This is clearly necessary after a period of excess and for a time there strongly supported retrenchment president s tend to get reelected. Then call to your attention and to set up the policy for the long haul and criticism they do not do enough. And today. Of retrenchment president s find it hard to understand they do support frustrated by the critics to do more with the tools of special interest in fact, they lose control of the center very characteristic ultimately to give up retrenchment. They say all the of while they are pursuing the most toughest activist policies that can be sustained for the long haul. That is the retrenchment conception. We got a feel for the president s but they show up for rhetorical leadership. You say this a president obama the he is surprised people by his poor use of what we call bubbly pope with the difficulties of creating support for a Foreign Policy of retrenchment but it should not be so hard to understand if i give you this list of president s you will not see a televising public speaker of them. Jerry ford, nixon, carter ford, nixon, carter, first president bush. These are inarticulate president s for a reason i dont entirely understand that the can guess. Retrenchment president s tend to me that way. What is better knack symbolism or retrenchment . It is hard to have a favorite with both so routinely screw up. [laughter] both maximalist and retrenchment has significant achievements 2. Two that they undermine. Digging in to American Foreign policy has shown me and i hope you when you dig into the book yourself how hard it is to draw the line between good policy and policy and access. I have an evenhanded a answer. If we want to dirty enough for retrenchment to know what not to do do to learn enough from maxim was some to know what we do need to do and most important and most hopeless to understand when it is necessary to change course the interpretation of this period is the discontinuity rather than continuity the source of american success we could change course and getting a president has been harder and in fact, enable us again and began on the right track. I have grown skeptical of the ability to find a good policy for all seasons. Plan for space a decade after decade. In fact, i am convinced when you have found that policy that will be good for the long haul it is about time you get ready to change direction. Thank you very much. [applause] that is a wonderful overview. May i ask the first question . Of course. You are the dean. It was a rhetorical question. [laughter] i has been in that three administrations and i would say one of the things i have observed is the first part of the administration is spent in the foot of a distancing from the other candidate. Meanwhile there is a learning curve that comes as being president that might to be fundamental to govern in san American Foreign policy. That brings president s more to a Common Ground than they would have during a campaign. I guess my question is if you think the act of governing and also of the different conditions under which president s have become president s with the existence or absence of a mandate, how do you think these factors come together to influence the tendency to being maximalist or retrenchment . That is a fabulous question because it dismayed a opportunity to Say Something i did not put it into my talk but it is quite important to. One of the reasons we think of American Foreign policy to have continuity because we tend to to stink when president s run against predecessors it is just political hot air and the requirement but this was a surprise writing the book how much actually president s often implement the more radical view that day, teetoo office. They come to office. The maximalist president s to have the theory are in the school committee, reagan , kennedy but it is just that. Also the rich ranchers and nixon and eisenhower when eisenhower say . To more years of harry truman route would have had communism in america. Actually thought that that there was this type of retrenchment so there are issues that president s pullback from campaign rhetoric. The case of the president who beats up on china and then sees the of light that is a could one. But broadly speaking i am struck how often rhetoric in up dictating wealth. When he was running the famous is its the economy stupid a very strong critique of the Bush Administration policy which she did i implement for two or three years by he repudiated the first bush passivity in the balkans no dog in that fight approach. And the need for a new direction. Two examples there with their own instincts imagining himself to be teethirty then september 11 turned his head around. Just one further thought, those president s who do that who were taken by surprise are ones who dont have a lot of Foreign Policy experience or taken by surprise by a crisis that they have to cope with. That was true of johnson who pointed to put it the economic side. It was a true jimmy carter. He found himself pushed to abandon it retrenchment and almost did. But just to come back to that answer i think the surprising things that uc looking at the alternation from administration to administration is how much president s read with shape how they act after words. We will open it up to our experts group. I will ask you because you are next to the microphone then you could go up after birds. The next best thing after being said stephen. Think you for the engaging discussion. I have two short questions. Is all of your cases of cyclical history contained in one particular period with the United States is dominant. Can you imagine a time when maybe this will not happen if china surpasses the evidence states and not just economic gdp but power generally that this will change the nature a. M. To the second question. A tiny question. Postwar there has been consistency with strategy with retrenchment and maximalist had a strategy against supremacy or dominance but the difference was to operational lies this not on the cheap. Is a real strategic difference or tactical . It is a related question. Thank you. I think the question of what are the sources of the maximalist policy of reduced economic power almost answers itself. You cannot really sustain the same kind of maximal with some on a diminished resources phase that you can with the United States is the dominant role dominant power in the world. There is no doubt with the strategic adjustment. What i would add to that over the past decades nevertheless has created a Foreign Policy dna that these to the same Foreign Policy principles and instincts driving policy makers. Close in in talking about maximalism but one is the suspicion that others just dont have the commitment to world order or problem solving with the appropriate scale. The conviction that Hillary Clinton put this in once per our countrys often stand on the sidelines when we need International Leadership and they are deterred by geography and culture and all the things that would lead dictate to any Foreign Policy. Everything pushes them to not contributing. That tends to make americans convinced the leadership is a crucial ingredient to get things right to. With multilateral problem solving tends not to work very well. You indeed to have somebody being fed up process manager. You could save for some policy makers under obama with the view that maximalism light to the management of the process even with the absence of the power that makes industrial grade maximalism working in the past. And of might just be have accrued in simpleminded the strategy are. To the note your competitor. With the principles that guide american policy. But the resources that they could commit to the cause. I agree but the difference of commitment of resources says fundamental. I tend to think of Foreign Policy schools we dress them up with a strategic sophistication but there is the school of more and less. If you are a the school of less. If it is the school of more points two different ones. That makes nisi the uh policies of the post cold war period as different from each other. The yearly period in the second half of the first Bush Administration and the school of last started but the school of more began to you gain steam and then the school of war was really in control with a second Bush Administration. The lead to a pate death of a to retrenchment period into the middle phase the debate to we need to do more or can we stick with less . We will have that debate and that will shape the role the United States takes. It will involve a lot of complexity but a lot is reducible to more verses less. I am grateful for your earlier question. Spinnaker after answering again . Alaska a nuance. As the school of less for the school of more in bride turns it says easier disputed from premier yet crimea blaming the west for a regime that has had been in somalia and haiti and kosovo. My question is do you think all those studies about the hegemonic problem that as the president was prophesies seeing and what is your verdict is someone who has studied these indepth about the discussion of the crisis with the history of maximalism. There is no doubt american maximalism and or is a lot of people. It has a very irritating component to its. Americans are often adept to. But i am not so sure that is the real force for president putin new challenge to set post cold war order. A colleague of mine ask their brilliant question and recently said president putin is so committed to use the idea of nato enlargement with the hostility of the United States and require the countermeasures and said ask yourself if the Baltic States had not been taken into dado and putin decided i dont need craig b. I think that answers itself also. There is no doubt the American Post cold war order was ambitious. Americans just to start with thought despite the instincts of most european governments they did it for reasons that i mentioned earlier. If he left the question open , instability is the inevitable basalts and threats to the peace. So the ambitious concept of what president obama it today quoted the first president bush called europes holding and free. That was a concept you could reconcile interest to create a stable order to everyones interest. That has been very broadly supported quite a successful project but it has its detractors say in president putin has touted himself the past several of the order. It is hard to articulate all the elements and they have a mystical quality but i think it is a challenge tuesday ambition of the order event in that respect you are right to. An attempt to get to in order that would last. Involved about how european politics my guess is that the order of proof prove and precision than half war supporters of russian van we now see but that is the process that is contentious. We are experiencing that contention now. Should i recognize people or will you do it . Could you say a little bit about how other the dues have responded with a Global Public goods with retrenchment and their view of the u. S. Two things tend to be characteristic of retrenchment. A conviction that our allies need to do more so there is a lot of lecturing and me reading that goes on to tell others they have to carry more of the burden. That was true under eisenhower, under nixon. In some ways of the less true under obama because the United States was not focused as much on its allies that gets me to a second to part of a retrenchment, reaching out to adversaries. That is another characteristic of retrenchment that tens tends to be the ingredient of the success of policy for a time then it tends with the efforts of the fed are but they stall in the late fifties. Of the was a and the intelligent was reinvigorated by subsequent administrations. You get a characteristic to me and demand for more effort from allies who feel that this set of policies wont work very well. The classic case is japan in the 1970s was troubled by the app reach to china. Troubled five the of pull back of American Power in the pacific. Those were difficult relations pitch in in but a pattern that you will see again with the we are can ally is to support or provided where they felt retrenchment challenges that support so you see that in east asia among the newer allies in Eastern Europe to say it is not enough to be in nato bubbly the to have forces deployed, a more regular rotation of air units in the baltics, im your Contingency Planning to provide for responses to calling for greater american commitment you had that in the fifties and at the end of the 50s i believe the secretary of general of nato said you have been too nice to american allies. But what you need to do is. Congratulations on in your important to. Ukraine. You mentioned the chief for the retrenchment president with the indexation of the a cappella head of rule for the current president what literally has shaken the foundations for parole board to order especially europe. With memories of the thirties where the borders have been redrawn on a similar idea. How does the crisis affects the future debate here in the United States with the next president ial cycle . Thank you. That was a really interesting question to which because it involves the future i will be really cautious one could be quickly embarrassed by a forecast that turns out to be completely false. But i will give you two quick answers. I would be rather skeptical of the idea of the crisis over the ukraine will generate a maximalist response that those responses typically has been to a challenge that american president s regard as the most fundamental Security Threat that they face. I think president obama is already saying he does not want to deal with it in that way. However i think there is no doubt the crisis will refocus american attention on europe and more on allies that has been the case. If you want to do criticize the Obama Administration for the prior days it has had you could say it has paid more attention to the middle east and east asia with its rhetoric can conceptualization of problems and less of europe that will have to involve a certain amount of rebalancing. You can see already a more energetic defense of the trade pact with europe which just a few weeks ago people said was totally dead it would be pointless he may not yet push it but he has reallocated as a Foreign Policy commitment and you will see the same with nato. With the 2016 debate the Campaign Year is not as far off as we might is an open question how president ial candidates will position themselves with respect to Foreign Policy. Hillary clinton is in in many ways of thinking just of the presidency and of her own record of secretary of state with a reinvigoration of American Power. Will she decide to make that calling card of her campaign or a definition of Foreign Policy . Or will she tried to offer something that is more focused on nationbuilding here at home . How much will that be a critique of the obama record and how supportive will they be . And not making any forecast and secondly on the republican side is an open question whether or not republicans want to be advocating a much stronger commitment to Foreign Policy as opposed to domestic policy. It did in the Republican Party so with the caribbean crisis the outcome is still open. You could end up 2016 with the debate both candidates are position does nor activist Foreign Policy but it is entirely possible to end up with a campaign in which both nominees were in fact, offering something still more focused on the domestic front. And retrenchment debates last a long time and the outcome is not ordained for your many reasons and in some ways American Power position is less agitation and a reason to be more cautious. Could we come back to the last two questions . Professor are one to quickly ask the nature of u. S. Diplomacy at the another adds another variable of the state department to help printer these tendencies considering the fact he used to work and at the department or despite the fact. [laughter] congratulations. I come from a country from the Foreign Policy so what ever you say i imagine in the history of my country 1989 we are in trouble then the of maximalist paula site policies of karzai then obama with retrenchment. He does not get the same kind of attention and he reacts in different ways. But first i am struggling with the definition of maximalist with a Foreign Policy. Do more . Nationalsecurity and Foreign Policy economics . Have you found any trends that are more specific areas of Foreign Policy to narrow it down with the retrenchment . Second come a there are so many crisis popping up all over the world with the retrenchment mentality with the Obama Administration to you think they can handle that . The state department has the variable . Interesting question. My view is the state department generally in american policy generally once to come up with big plans, the Big Solutions it is not an accident that Richard Holbrooke was in the state department pushing for what i would say is save more activist policy the and found himself rather unwelcome in the Obama Administration and arguing for the policy based on the previous Clinton Administration before the Bush Administration before the retrenchment of the Obama Administration. But it is often through the state department when i worked in the state department in different presidencies of reagan and clinton, of course, you have different perspectives but the state department is generally for a large role for the United States with International Affairs a larger role for them. Simple as that. More complicated than that the you put it that simple and not be so wrong. Afghanistan your chronicle of your policy makes me want to repeat who said american policy does not change . Does continuity is not a source of success in afghanistan but characteristic of its. To more specifically how it maximalist responses . It depends on the challenge. That is thought to be before the president at the time but it tends to involve a pretty comprehensive approach just done military response more foreign assistance more Institution Building. If it is characteristic of maximalists some in different phases i would call your attention to one thing that is typically seen often thought to be the definition of policy at the end of world war ii and the beginning of the cold war. The Institution Building that took place at the time they ended up not being terribly important with the United States undertook the Marshall Plan for example, people said we should do that through the u. N. No. Rebuilt that but were not interested in that institution. There was a certain obvious role for imf and world banking but not relevant to this period out all. So where it came to american policy what americans had is not institutionalized. That is characteristic of maximal listen to build new institutions that are better suited to the problem at hand meeting better suited to american direction. Because students states figure that would make the tools more usable. Lets certainly hopes so. This is said period for the administration and where expected after the of mopping up of the bush war is in iraq and afghanistan to be able to pursue a less ambitious Foreign Policy agenda of where the world would be easier to manage with fewer resources. Now they find that is rather challenging assignment. This happens after they have cleaned up the mess theyve brought in to deal with. They often find that is when theyre real debates begin. That is the phase we are in now. As we talk about the president ial campaign the debate is only beginning. What the american role should be after the interlude of retrenchment retrenchment, and more, modified, if there is seriously reductivism. We have not decided that yet. I hate to say this from afghanistan but there is just going to have to be american policy making this is characteristic of the United States. We want to do things on our own time according to our own calendar if you expect the early resolution you might be disappointed but it is good for those of us that follow it it will keep