Leaders in Glass Countries Shouldnt Throw

Stones

Many people probably think the explosive events in Ferguson,

Missouri, are a purely domestic issue and have nothing to do with American foreign
policy or the U.S. position in the world. That position is understandable, insofar as
these events are first and foremost about race relations inside the United States itself,
which are largely a product of Americas particular history. At a minimum, what has
been happening in Ferguson (and the protests that broke out in New York and
elsewhere following yesterdays news that a grand jury decided not to indict the police
officer responsible for the death of Eric Garner) reminds us that race remains a deeply
problematic issue here especially in the context of law enforcement and criminal
justice. Not surprisingly, most commentators have focused on what this problem says
about America and what the United States needs to do to address it.
Yet what has been happening in Ferguson and in race relations in the United States
more generally does have some noteworthy foreign-policy dimensions. That is also

unsurprising, because Americas internal condition inevitably affects its image in the
world and the influence it can wield. When the U.S. economy is in trouble, it limits
what the United States can do on the world stage. If the federal government is
gridlocked or hamstrung by pointless political grandstanding (see under: Benghazi)
the United States will act with less energy and wisdom abroad. And if minorities in the
U.S. population are still marginalized, discriminated against, and treated as less-thanequal, then Americas full potential will be unrealized and its moral authority will be
compromised in the eyes of many foreign observers.
With that insight in mind, consider the following connections between Ferguson and
foreign policy.
For starters, lets acknowledge that there is a trade-off between ambitious U.S. efforts
to transform other parts of the world and the ability of government institutions to
improve the lives of Americans here at home. I dont think more social spending would
eliminate racism or solve all the problems in places like Ferguson, but Americans
would almost certainly be far better off if we hadnt wasted $3 trillion+ in our
misguided Iraqi and Afghan adventures. For example, spending some of that money on
much-needed infrastructure here at home would have created a lot of jobs including
in places like Ferguson and boosted the overall productivity of the U.S. economy.
Similarly, an unrealistic and overambitious foreign-policy agenda distracts U.S.
officials from problems closer to home. When U.S. President Barack Obama has to
spend weeks worrying about Ukraine, Syria, the Islamic State (IS), Jerusalem, the
Senkaku Islands, Afghanistan, Iraq, T-TIP, Ebola, Boko Haram, South Sudan, etc., etc.,
it inevitably crowds out time he can devote to crucial domestic issues. Similarly, when
the attorney general has to spend hours, days, and weeks adjudicating fights over NSA
law-breaking or the status of Guantnamo, that means less time trying to figure out
how to reform a deeply flawed criminal justice system.
This obvious point is not an argument for an isolationist foreign policy. Top U.S.
officials should pay attention to world events and use Americas considerable power to
protect vital U.S. interests. But we ought to recognize that there is a trade-off between
our ambitions abroad and our capacity to build a better nation here at home. Even the
president of the Council on Foreign Relations has figured that one out (though he
mostly wants to fix the homefront so that America can still wield a big stick abroad).
But remember: When a big social issue like Ferguson suddenly appears on your TV
screen, it is at least in part because weve been devoting so much attention and so
many resources to problems in distant lands, instead of focusing first and foremost on
the needs and challenges that our fellow citizens still face.

But thats not all. Ferguson also reminds us that a byproduct of the overblown war on
terror has been a steady militarization of local police forces, whove been using
counterterrorist funding and surplus weapons programs to add firepower to local
policing units. The problem, as we saw in Ferguson, is that this sort of equipment
and the tactics that come with it can be counterproductive when dealing with
volatile social situations. The militarization of local policing didnt create racism or the
sort of attitudes you see exhibited in a video like this one, but they didnt help either.
In other words, weve imported the war on terror into our own law enforcement
institutions, and Ferguson is to some extent one of the consequences.
Ferguson also struck a blow to Americas image as the global standard-bearer for
equality, human rights, and opportunity. The treatment of black Americans has long
tarnished our national mythology of the melting pot, and with it the smug belief that
America is the ideal model for the rest of the world. This latest episode reminds us that
the country still does not live up to the ideals that it likes to preach to others. Just as
the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina and the 2008 financial meltdown showed
the world that the United States was not infallible, the Ferguson fiasco reminds others
that Washington doesnt have all the answers when it comes to deep social divisions
either.
And Ferguson also provides a valuable (and humbling) lesson on the topic of nationbuilding. Think about it: The United States has been wrestling with the problem of
race for over two centuries, and fought a bloody civil war over that very issue. Slavery
was abolished 150 years ago, and while significant progress has been made since then,
Ferguson is just another sign that the country still has a long way to go. Yet a little
more than 10 years ago, U.S. foreign-policy elites from both political parties blithely
assumed that the United States could topple governments in Iraq and Afghanistan and
then quickly set up new institutions that would handle deep ethnic, sectarian, or tribal
divisions in a just, equitable, and effective manner. And despite how that effort turned
out, they repeated the same error in Libya in 2011.
What could they have been thinking? The United States hasnt been able to fix its racial
divisions in a century and a half, but we thought we could settle some equally deep
divisions in a few years in foreign countries that we barely understood. Ladies and
gentlemen, this is the very definition of hubris.
More than 25 years ago, I wrote that external conditions impinge on U.S. power;
internal conditions generate it. This is still true today. Because Uncle Sams position
in the world is still so favorable, and because local powers will do more to contain
serious threats if America doesnt insist on doing most of the work itself, the United
States can afford to take a relaxed view of most international developments.
Ironically, one lesson of Ferguson is that the United States might be more secure, more

prosperous, and more just in short, a healthier society if it paid more attention to
events at home and devoted less effort and energy to quixotic crusades abroad.
Scott Olson/Getty Images News
Posted by Thavam