At the United StatesNaval Academy in annapolis, and served as senior fellow at the council on Foreign Relations in new york. A contributor to such publications as the new york times, the washington post, wall , newsweek,nal, time the london observer. Professor mandelbaum served for 23 years as the associate director of the Aspen Institute congressional project on American Relations with the former communist world. He serves on the board of advisors also the Washington Institute for near east Foreign Policy near east policy. A washingtonbased organization sponsoring research and public discussion on american policy towards the middle east. Born in 1946, professor mandelbaum is a graduate of yale college. He earned his masters degree at Kings College cambridge university, and his doctorate at harvard university. Professor mandelbaum is the or coauthor of numerous articles and essays, and 15 books, the nuclear question, the United States and 1976,r weapons 1946 to and the Nuclear RevolutionInternational Politics before and after hiroshima, the nuclear future, reagan and gorbachev, which he wrote in 1987. The global rivals, the fate of nations come the search for National Security in the 19th and 20th century and i will skip down to democracys good name, the risks and rise of the worlds most popular form of government. The frugal superpower, americas Global Leadership in a cashstrapped era. In that used to be us, how america fell behind in the world we invented and how we can come in 2011. Ch he wrote the road to global prosperity was written in 2014, and the book we are going to be centering on tonight, Mission Failure america and the world in the postcold war era. He is also editor of 12 books. I give you, dr. Michael mandelbaum. [applause] thank you very much. Thank you all for coming, and i want to thank Robert Rollin for inviting me. Im going to speak this evening about my recently published book , Mission Failure america and the world in the postcold war era. Published by Oxford University press, available in fine bookstores everywhere. Any book store that carries it is by definition a fine bookstore. It is also Available Online for those of you who arent who are inclined to make your purchases that way. Bookoing to talk about the in three parts. First, i will give you an overview of the book. Then, i will go into a bit of detail on some of the episodes and questions that i address. And finally, i will say a little bit about what this all may mean in light of the current president ial campaign, which seems impossible to avoid, no matter how hard one might try. Let me start with an overview. This is a history of American Foreignpolicy between the years 1993 and 2014. American foreignpolicy as i see it during that time can be summarized in five propositions. The first proposition is that this was an unusual, arguably period in the history of American Foreignpolicy. You might even say was an unusual and even perhaps unique of allin the history great powers. What made it distinctive was despite the appearance of terrorism, this was an unusually , almost unprecedentedly peaceful period. Specifically, it was peaceful in the sense that the United States faced no serious security threats from any other powerful country. The normal business of International Politics, at least since the ancient greeks, rivalry among the strongest powers was suspended. Disappeared. Ave withof the need to cope powerful adversaries such as germany and japan in world war ii, and the soviet union and the cold war, the United States had an unusually wide latitude to choose which foreign policies they wanted to carry out in the world. To the second proposition. With this unusual freedom, with this unusual choice, the United States chose to engage in what is sometimes misleadingly called nationbuilding. Because thedingly, enterprise that the United States embarked on around the twod really consisted of separate but closely related projects. One indeed was nationbuilding. That is to say, trying to create a sense of Community Among disparate peoples. But the other thing that the United States attempted, related but distinct, was state building , attempting to establish the institutions of modern economics and governance in places where they were lacking. In these really are two different things. Nationbuilding, creating a sense is psychological, cultural, and emotional. State building is institutional. And the United States undertook both. That is to say, the Main Business of American Foreignpolicy during this p was missions of transformation. Individual americans went abroad to try to convert individual foreigners to christianity. In the late 20th century and the earliest 21st century, the American Government went abroad to try to convert entire nations to modernity, to modern politics and economics. Proposition, this effort at transformation is common to the postcold war american policies towards china, bosnia,omalia, haiti kosovo, afghanistan, iraq, and the wider arab world. None of these places of the American Government start out intending to engage in a mission of transformation. But that is where the United States ended up in every single case. In these cases are the subject of Mission Failure. You can see from this list of this book is at least in one important sense and exercise in what academics call revisionist history. Revisionist history takes exception to interpretations that are widely accepted. And here, the interpretation to which i take exception is the common and not unreasonable belief that the terrorist attacks on new york and washington, d. C. Of september 11, 2001 marked a major important watershed and turning point in the history of American Foreignpolicy. Now, it is true that those attacks were mightily consequential. They did have a powerful impact on the United States. Those attacks, the United States engaged in three wars that it would not have otherwise fought. The war on terror, the war in afghanistan, and the war in iraq , each of which is the discussion of extended discussion and analysis in Mission Failure. But even in the interventions undertaken after september 11, United States found itself engaged in trying to transform the internal politics and economics of the countries involved. The fourth proposition is this. All of these missions of transformation have the same outcome they all failed. Hence the title of the book, Mission Failure. And they fail for the same general reason. They failed because in spite the immense wealth and power of the United States during this period, the United States did not have the power, nor does any outside country have the power to create a sense of National Unity and National Belonging in a Foreign Society or by itself, to construct the institutions of modern Economic Management and governance in another country. Now, nations do get built and states do get built all the time. Lots of countries have equipped themselves with a sense of National Community and with modern institutions. So,the impetus for doing the major effort, the on the parthas been of the societies themselves. You can order out for democracy like a pizza. And outside powers simply cannot outant you cant order for democracy like a pizza and outside powers cannot simply implant the institution. In all cases, the missions failed because the local side he, the local political culture, the local experience, the local values were not such as to support what the United States was trying to create or install. That is to say, in all of these failed missions, the United States led the horse to water, but could not make it drink. Which brings me to the fifth and final proposition the od, the era inperi which the United States could and did concentrate on missions of transformation, the period with which Mission Failure deals is now at an end. Its at an end because defining condition no longer obtains. That defining condition, as you will recall, is the absence of serious security challenges to the United States. But that is no longer true. The United States does face serious security challenges now. Europe, and the middle east. I will have more to say about those challenges later in my remarks. Now to the second part of the talk. The missions of transformation began at the outset of the Clinton Administration, with its initial policies towards china and russia. The Clinton Administration came into office announcing that it would not permit american trade with china unless the autocratic communist government of china improved its practices on human rights. Unless it honored human rights, as it certainly did not. This was the socalled policy of linkage access to the American Market would be linked to improved Chinese Government performance on human rights. Now, if the policy had succeeded, it would have transformed china, politically. The Chinese Government that honors and respects human rights , political, economic and religious, would be a vastly different kind of governments than the one that held power in 1993 and holds power now. Because the chinese regime flatly rejected the policy of linkage. Told the Clinton Administration that it would not remotely comply with what the Clinton Administration wanted it to do. And after the policy was announced, the administration got messages of unhappiness from the American Business community, which was worried about being denied access to a supremely important market. Abandonedinistration the policy of linkage and the of transpiration and reversed course 180 degrees, having come into office, asserting denying trade with the United States was the way to make it a more liberal, free, and open political system, the administration turned around and announced that the way to promote western political values in china was to have more trade with the chinese. Russia, the american efforts to foster democracy and free markets initially met with some success. Firstas because the postcommunist leader of russia, boris yeltsin, was committed to democracy and free market economics, and welcomed american help in installing them. Have a kind ofes rough and ready market economy, although with a great deal of government control, a lot of monopolies, and riddled with corruption. And it started on the path to democracy. They were green shoots of Democratic Politics peeping through the russian tundra in the 1990s. But they were uprooted, democracy was crushed by gelsons successor, vladimir putin. The failure of democracy in russia was not and is not the responsibility of the United States. The failure came about for two major reasons. One is the russian political tradition, which doesnt have a scintilla of democracy. No russian had ever had any experience with free elections or with the protection of liberty. Soil for democracy in russia was pretty barren. The second reason that democracy disappeared was the enormous Energy Reserves the russia has, and the huge revenues that the russian government was able to obtain by selling them. Putin andil revenues, only managed to enrich himself and his cronies, that managed also to stay in power with popular consent, or at least, indifference, because after he and his coterie had taken their share, with a regarded as their share of the oil revenues, there was enough left to distribute among the russian people. And with the sharp rise in Energy Prices during putins first term as russian president , there was a lot to distribute. Russian standards of living rose becamedent and putin hotter. Russia became a kind of political system similar to those that are found in the oil exporting states of the persian gulf. It became a kind of petro state, and a petro state is a country whose politics and economics are dominated by the sale of energy. Make oned states did serious mistake with russia. Expanding theas american centered Atlantic Military Alliance nato eastward to include first former communist countries, and ultimately, former Union Republics that is provinces , over soviet union itself russian objections, including the objections of the most liberal, prowestern, proamerican russians who felt that they would be undercut in russia by this policy. And despite the fact that various western officials had verbally promised various soviet and russian officials that this would not happen, that nato would not be extended eastward. Withpolicy and, in concert a number of other policies to which the russians took exception, turned the russian elite and ultimately the russian people against the west and the United States. Nato expansion and its sequels made russian Foreign Policy almost reflexively antiamerican and antiwestern. Or led to the circumstances at least contributed to the circumstances in which russia invaded ukraine in 2014. Period putting a final in the cold war era. The Clinton Administration also notably engaged in what came to be called humanitarian intervention in somalia, in haiti, in bosnia, and in kosovo. And humanitarian intervention rates an entire chapter in Mission Failure. Humanitarian intervention counted as an innovation in American Foreignpolicy. In these humanitarian interventions, the United States was using military force not for the familiar purpose of protecting American Interests, but rather, to promote american values. In particular, to defend beleaguered peoples against oppressive and predatory governments. That ins worth noting all four places, the military aspect of american policy succeeded. The United States did succeed in removing the offending government. It was the Political Part of the american policy that failed. And this was a pattern that repeated itself after september 11. In all of these instances where the United States use military force, narrowly defined, was successful. The military did its job with dispatch and effectiveness. When it came, however, to the Political Part of the american policy, there was failure everywhere. In the places that were the object of humanitarian intervention, the United States promised not only to oust the incumbent governments, but also, to bring democracy and prosperity. It did none of these things in any of the four places. Events ofthe september 11, 2001. On newid, the attacks york and washington did have a substantial impact on the United States and on American Foreignpolicy. As i noted, it pushed the United States into three conflicts that it would not have been part of without these attacks. The war on terror, the war in afghanistan, and the war in iraq. I treat each of them at length in Mission Failure. In afghanistan, the familiar pattern repeated itself. American military powers kabul,ed in driving from the capital, the taliban regime, which is given shelter and encouragement to the organization that launched the attacks on the United States, namely, al qaeda. The taliban retreated to pakistan, where they received money, safe