Russia's NATO Expansion Myth

This article originally appeared in Cicero Magazine on 28 May 2014.

It has recently been argued by some that Russia’s invasion and intrigue in the Ukraine was foreseeable and a natural consequence of NATO’s broken promise to Mikhail Gorbachev and the collapsing USSR not to expand eastwards into its former domains. Russian President Vladimir Putin is, so the theory goes, reacting to a 24-year program of US/NATO eastward expansion stemming from that broken promise. This is a grievance Russia has put forward in arguments against Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the Baltic States joining NATO and again in 2008 when possible NATO membership for Georgia and the Ukraine was discussed. The ‘broken promise’ thesis was also offered to explain Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia. The claim is that this course of events, or a similar one, was reasonably foreseeable, that some predicted it, and that it is a natural consequence. You reap what you sow. The problem is that NATO did not sow these seeds.

The myth that such a promise was made has been allowed to grow by assertion, speculation and incomplete information. More and more primary sources and memoirs of the participants in the negotiations between Washington, Bonn and Moscow have become available over time. There is a rich background of study of this particular controversy by academics such as Fred Oldenberg, Mark Kramer, Mary Elise Sarotte, and Kristina Spohr, among others. From the available interviews, memoirs, written documents, agreements, transcripts and notes on the multiple bilateral negotiations—from Soviet and East German sources as well as Western—it is clear the subject of the eastward expansion of NATO into former East bloc states was never discussed as a stand-alone issue and no such agreement or promise was given by Washington to Moscow. At a recent Council on Foreign Relations event, for example, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said U.S. negotiators never agreed to such a thing at the time.

The closest the participants ever came to directly tackling the issue was at the very beginning of the negotiations quickly following the collapse of Eastern European governments and the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. West Germany’s Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher—more concerned with German issues than the larger Cold War—was concerned Moscow would take a hard line and wanted to make a pre-emptive offer to smooth their feathers—before the issue had ever been formally discussed between East and West—that a unified Germany would not be a member of NATO, but rather either neutral or a member of another strictly European organisation, the OSCE. Interestingly, Genscher became Chairman of the OSCE in 1991.

If NATO expansion was as vital an issue to Russia then as is claimed today, Moscow would and could have insisted on a clear statement of it in writing.
However, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl did not endorse even this view. It would essentially mean West Germany leaving NATO. The U.S. and UK also disagreed. NATO without West Germany would have significantly weakened the organisation, making it an almost solely an Anglo-American affair after France all but exited in 1966. The official West German, U.S. and UK positions in negotiations with Moscow never included Hans-Dietrich Genscher’s idea. NATO’s eastward expansion was only discussed in clear text in the context of German reunification—namely whether NATO troops would be allowed on former-East German soil. NATO took the position that they had to be, as it would make no sense to have unified Germany as a full member with security guarantees for only half the country. Moscow agreed in the 1990 Treaty on Final Settlement with Respect to Germany that, yes, reunited Germany would remain in NATO, but no NATO troops should be moved into former East Germany until after all Soviet troops had departed. NATO was held to and kept this promise. Arguably, as NATO’s security blanket now also covered eastern Germany, it already represented an eastward expansion of NATO—by way of agreement with Moscow.

If NATO expansion was as vital an issue to Russia then as is claimed today, Moscow would and could have insisted on a clear statement of it in writing. It certainly would and should have wanted more than verbal assurances given during ongoing and evolving diplomatic negotiations. Of course some argue this away by claiming Moscow was outsmarted or outmanoeuvred by George HW Bush and Helmut Kohl and that the Soviets were under pressure to move quickly because of the impending collapse of Eastern European governments. Such a vital point must surely have been apparent to the Soviets. That former East bloc states may want to join the alliance one day was not so far outside the realm of possibilities. The idea had occurred to the U.S. State Department and Hungary and Poland were already discussing NATO membership in February 1990.

One important question should be asked: Why would NATO agree not to expand NATO eastwards? In 1990 the world held its breath at the prospect of the end of 45 years of Cold War. The United States and its trans-Atlantic partners had come out on top. Many in the Bush administration saw the job now as to help Gorbachev hold the situation together so that it did not descend into violent chaos. However, it would be extremely naïve to believe that the U.S. and its allies would agree to leave everything east of the Oder-Neisse Line alone, especially when they had finally won the Cold War. To do such a thing would fly in the face of 45 years of fighting a battle for democracy, capitalism and freedom against a communist vision of collectivism, oppression and stagnation. Why would NATO agree to forgo the fruits of victory? There is no written provision addressing NATO expansion contained in any of the agreements or communiques stemming from any of the negotiations. Those, such as Mikhail Gorbachev and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Americans such as former Defence Secretary Robert McNamara and former US Ambassador to the USSR Jack Matlock, who assert such a promise was made have no concrete evidence to point to. They rely on retellings of flawed memories or the myths built from an assertion over time, all refuted by primary-source evidence. No such promise was ever made.

Regardless of the truth, the Russian government asserts, and many Russians undoubtedly believe, that such a promise was made and has been broken by NATO and the US specifically. Many others outside of Russia also believe it as an article of faith. Many want to believe it because it conforms to their Weltanschauung—worldview. With such cases, the truth is—sadly—unhelpful. Regardless of what was not promised, no less a personage than George Kennan asserted in 1998 that NATO expansion was unnecessary, that with the USSR gone there was no longer any threat and US support for continued expansion placed Russia up against a wall. Russia had to struggle to rebuild itself in a new post-Soviet image with a new role in Europe. Unable to join NATO or the EU, it watched as its former foe swallowed up more and more of its former satellites and crept into its ‘near abroad’. A reaction was to be expected. If this view is true, Vladimir Putin maintains a lingering Cold War imperialist mindset. Putin must see the 1990 negotiations, not as the final testament and rites of a dying empire, but as a sort of Neo-Potsdam Conference in which the Oder-Neisse Line was still being maintained, just with open borders, friendlier relations and looser control over satellites. Perhaps he considers it a bit like a much wider and more severe Polish or Prague Spring. He believes Russia was promised something by the US—that it would leave its near-abroad alone. He must also still believe Russia has a right to and should maintain dominance over its bordering states, as in the time of the Czar and Stalin after him. He does not believe these nations have a right to independent self-determination.

Putin must refuse to believe that Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Georgia and now the Ukraine determined themselves they wanted to join NATO and/or the EU. For Russia, it can only be that America—and its partners Britain and France—conned or cajoled these states into coming over to their side of the ‘Iron Curtain’. For Putin, there is only Russia and the US and every other state is just a piece on the game board. If this is all true, it is understandable why Vladimir Putin wants to believe the US promised to leave Eastern Europe to him and Russia in 1990. This thinking also portrays some wishful thinking on America’s part, hoping against hope for the ‘end of history’ and the ‘peace dividend’. It is true that NATO was conceived to collectively confront the Soviet threat, now gone. However, to believe that the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact meant that NATO was no longer necessary because the last great evil had been defeated portrays naïve thinking and perhaps the doomed repetition of history.

The West still has not learned some lessons. We believed WWI was the ‘war to end all wars’. It was not. We believed the same at the end of WWII in 1945 and again at the end of the Cold War in 1990. While threats from Islamic terror and atomic rogue states have been exaggerated over the last 15 years, the history of the 20th century shows that America and Europe still need NATO. The world is still a dangerous place in which collective security remains necessary. In fact, looking at individual European military forces and defence budgets, collective security under NATO is all they have. None maintains a fighting force capable of mounting any sizeable operation without US support. History always returns. As with the dominant narrative of the Cold War, this thinking also leaves out the agency and will of other states besides the US and Russia. If the Cold War is truly over, then the Baltic and Eastern European states such as the Ukraine are not anymore just pawns or peons or customers to be convinced or coerced into choosing one side or the other. Even if such a promise had been made between NATO and Moscow 24 years ago—and it was not—they do not have the power to make decisions for these other countries today. They are sovereign, independent nations.

These states, their governments and their people control their own relations and chose to be members of NATO, the EU, the OSCE, and etcetera. After all, this freedom is what the US claimed to be fighting the Cold War for. It is within the Western rhetoric of freedom, independence and democracy. It was not the US or Europe who overthrew the Russian puppet government in the Ukraine in some Cold War-esque covert action—it was the Ukrainian people taking to the streets to demand change as they have several times over the last decade. To say that the US and its allies should have predicted and it was foreseeable that expanding NATO and considering Ukrainian EU membership would lead to a backlash from Russia is to ignore the individual will of Ukrainians, Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians and reduce what they want to a secondary consideration. Anyone who claims this future was predictable based upon a false version of the past should be seriously questioned. Vladimir Putin believes Russia is entitled to control its neighbouring states as in the days of the USSR and the Russian Empire. It is not entitled to, no matter what it falsely believes it was promised 24 years ago.

Bush's Freedom Agenda: Claiming Victory Without Victory

November, 2013.

The claim put forward by some (Raz, 2011; Daily Beast, 2011) that U.S. President George W. Bush’s ‘Freedom Agenda’ contributed to the ‘democratic wave’ that engulfed the Middle East and North Africa in the aftermath of the Arab Spring is one that is prima facie hard to prove. A deeper examination of this tall claim shows there is, in fact, little basis to support it at all. In this essay I describe what the Freedom Agenda is, who is putting forward this claim and why it should be viewed with scepticism.

President Bush followed a policy course that ignored or contradicted the tenets of his own Freedom Agenda as much as it promoted it, making any claim that it had the designed or desired effect questionable. Additionally, it is also questionable that there has been a democratic wave resulting from the Arab Spring judging by the results thus far. It is far too early to begin to make assertions about the causes or outcomes of the Arab Spring at all, let alone that U.S. policy contributed to it. The contributing factors and causes of the Arab Spring will be debated for many years into the future, but the Freedom Agenda should not seriously be considered a major factor among them.

The Freedom Agenda
According to President G.W. Bush’s White House, the Freedom Agenda promotes freedom and democracy in the world as alternatives to ‘repression and radicalism’ (White House Press Office, 2007). It asserts that besides the moral imperative to promote freedom, international democracy provides increased security for America and its allies at home. As evidence of President Bush’s support for the agenda, the White House exhibited a long list of political activists and dissidents from oppressive states Bush met with between 2003 and 2007; touts the creation of a $1 million U.S. government legal fund to support the defence of captive dissidents; a presidential ‘Freedom Defender’ award for activists or NGOs who strongly commit to ‘defending liberty and courage in the face of adversity’; and another ‘Diplomacy for Freedom’ award for the U.S. ambassador who does most to promote the Freedom Agenda (ibid.). It mentions the doubling of funding for ‘Democracy, Governance and Human Rights’ and for the National Endowment for Democracy. It includes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of the struggle against anti-democratic forces, as well as diplomatic efforts to support movement toward freedom and democracy in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan (ibid.).

Bush’s 2007 Prague Speech (White House, 2007) is the President at his rhetorical best when speaking about his Freedom Agenda. Before an audience including the national leaders of several former Soviet satellite states and political dissidents from many different nations, Bush spoke about the courage of Eastern Europe facing the Nazis and enduring the ‘long darkness’ of the Soviet Union. He calls their democratisation a ‘triumph of freedom in the battle of ideas’. He claims the post-9/11 struggles of America and its allies against Islamic extremism in the War on Terror are an equal struggle in the battle of ideas and that freedom and democracy are not only a moral imperative, but also the greatest weapon in this struggle. He goes on to hold that America is pressing for democratic reform in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, among others. Bush acknowledges that democratic change may lead to violence, but that it is necessary and preferable to pursuing stability and asserts that fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq are caused by extremists attacking democratic reform and freedom. He puts forward America’s wars in the Middle East as proof that the Freedom Agenda is eliciting a response from these extremist opponents who fear freedom and democracy.

Perhaps the greatest proponent and Bush-era official who has publicly cited the Freedom Agenda the most as a factor in the Arab uprisings is Elliot Abrams, a Deputy National Security Advisor to G.W. Bush. As early as February 2011, with the Arab Spring only in its third month, Abrams was making media rounds promoting the Freedom Agenda as a factor in the revolts and called for the Obama administration to push for freedom and democracy in the region (Raz, 2011). Abrams criticises President Obama as a state-centred Realist for rejecting the Freedom Agenda by continuing to focus on and attempting to negotiate with Middle Eastern dictators in preference to supporting a dialogue with their peoples striving for freedom and cited ‘slow and unenthusiastic’ Obama administration policy in support of protestors in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria as examples (Abrams, 2011). Abrams and his allies believe that President Obama should have supported the uprisings by seeing them as the will of the people and engaging with them, even if that means regime change, as opposed to solely diplomatically engaging with their embattled dictators (LaFranchi, 2011).

As Muammar Qaddafi’s regime was falling in Libya in October 2011 under the pressure of a NATO air campaign, President Bush’s National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice held that the Bush administration, “pursued the Freedom Agenda not only because it was right but also because it was necessary. There is both a moral case and a practical one for the proposition that no man, woman or child should live in tyranny . . . In the long run, it is authoritarianism that is unstable and unrealistic.” Rice predicted a positive ending to the revolts and cites the Freedom Agenda as a contributing factor to the uprisings (Daily Beast, 2011).

In summary, the Freedom Agenda developed by President G.W. Bush and his national security team holds that pursuing international democracy, reform and freedom are a moral and security imperative for the United States and its allies in a battle of ideas against oppression and extremism and should be pursued in preference to a policy of maintaining stability by engaging with dictators and heads of state, though accepting that this course may lead to increased tensions and violence. U.S. diplomacy, accompanied by military force where necessary, is the tool to be used to pursue the agenda. From the outset of the Arab Spring, the policy’s architects have asserted that the Freedom Agenda was a factor in triggering the uprisings.

Contradicting the Agenda
The most significant evidence to undermine the claim that Bush’s Freedom Agenda contributed to the Arab Spring uprisings is that it was not adhered to as claimed. Though the Freedom Agenda can be seen as Bush’s legacy and signal foreign policy agenda (Miniter, 2007), Bush and his national security team created policy that contradicted the Freedom Agenda as much as followed it. It does not follow that the agenda was a cause of the Arab Spring if it was not followed in practice.

The administration holds out discussions on democratic reform and increasing freedoms with the leaders of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, among others, as proof of pursuing the agenda (White House Press Office, 2007). Pervez Musharraf seized power in Pakistan in a 1999 military coup and subsequently banned his opponents from participating in elections, initially appointed all members of National Assembly, and threatened politicians with criminal investigations if they were critical (Bennett Jones, 2002: 274). Despite continuing moves to consolidate his power and to amend the constitution, this undemocratic behaviour was met only with assurances that ‘private messages’ were being sent to Musharraf by the administration (Carothers, 2003: 85). Pakistan was given $600 million in U.S. aid by the Bush administration in 2002 (ibid.). Musharraf’s decision to support President Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq garnered a further $3 billion from the United States in 2003 (Bennet Jones, 2002: 3), with many more millions to follow until he stepped down in 2008. By way of comparison, according to a 2007 White House ‘Fact Sheet’ on the Freedom Agenda (White House Press Office, 2007), in 2008 President Bush, at the height of his Freedom Agenda legacy-building, budgeted $1.5 billion for all Democracy, Governance and Human Rights projects and $80 million for the Endowment for Democracy. If money translates into support, the administration’s support for Pervez Musharraf was almost twice as strong as its touted commitment to democracy and freedom.

Saudi Arabia provides an even clearer example of the Bush administration contradicting its Freedom Agenda. Unger’s House of Bush, House of Saud (2007) documents the long, close relationship between the Bush’s and the Saudi royal family. Despite these strong ties and influence, Bush has little to exhibit as far as real freedom and democratic reform is concerned. Much as with Pakistan, the Bush administration exerted little pressure other than to privately discuss democratic change with the al-Sauds (Carothers, 2003: 87). Initially following the 9/11 attacks and terror attacks in Saudi Arabia itself in 2004 and 2005, it was argued by advisors inside and outside the Kingdom that democratic reform may be needed to quell unrest within the Kingdom (Fattah, 2007). This liberalisation fit in well the Bush’s agenda. However, only very small changes occurred: laws oppressive to women were eased a bit; half the seats in local councils were opened up for democratic elections; and restrictions on public protest were relaxed (ibid.). By 2007, the moment of reform had passed. Petitions for establishing constitutional monarchy continue to be rejected. Though royal family members often mention reform in speeches, little is actually being done (ibid.). Restrictions have in fact tightened again since the Arab Spring, especially in areas such as media and free speech (AFP, 2011). What democratic reforms have been made in the Kingdom during Bush’s era and since have been small, cosmetic and, in some cases, been fully reversed (Fattah, 2007). In fact, Saudi Arabia lands on Freedom House’s Worst of the Worst list as among the world’s most oppressive societies in every year of President Bush’s term and since, frequently receiving the lowest rankings possible in ‘Freedom’, ‘Civil Liberties’, and ‘Political Rights’ (Freedom House, 2001-2013 inclusive).

Bush has a bit more to show for Egypt, but not much. In 2002 the administration decided against increasing the massive military aid Egypt receives from the United States because of Hosni Mubarak’s persecution of Egyptian activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim (Carothers, 2003: 92). Nonetheless, Mubarak still received nearly $2 billion in U.S. military aid that year, though the Bush administration did reduce annual military aid to Egypt by several hundred million dollars every year until he left office (Sowa, 2013). Egypt is yet another state that, if, as with Pakistan, money translates into support, the Bush administration supported nearly twice as much as it supported freedom and democracy. According to Pressman (2009: 162), the Egyptian regime, as in Saudi Arabia, just ‘tinkered at the margins’. The 2005 presidential election in Egypt was a democratic farce, featuring widespread vote-tampering, state media remaining a Mubarak propaganda tool, and the arrest of his main opponent, Ayman Nour (ibid.). When the Muslim Brotherhood did much better than expected in parliamentary elections, the regime responded with arrests and crackdowns on Islamist and secular parties and vote-tampering in later rounds (ibid.). Though the Bush administration did take some small actions against Mubarak’s anti-democratic excesses, in the round the United States remained his largest foreign donor and supporter.

Besides saying one thing and doing another in Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the reputation of American democracy promotion in the region as a whole suffered during the Bush administration. While America ignored the oppressive and anti-democratic policies of allied dictators and monarchs such as Musharraf, the al-Saud’s and Mubarak, it pushed democracy in states it attacked and invaded. Though Bush claimed to be for democracy in Afghanistan following the toppling of the Taliban, the U.S. campaign depended upon tribal warlords and the Northern Alliance, reinforcing Afghan tribalism to further military goals and sent the message that the U.S. would support warlords over democracy promotion (Hassan and Hammond, 2011: 537). The democratic Karzai government it built after the fall of the Taliban has little authority outside of Kabul and the diversion of resources to the Iraq effort further weakened its power and legitimacy (Carothers, 2003: 88).

Bridoux (2011: 558) points out that in Iraq, the Bush administration did not begin to focus on democracy promotion until it became apparent that the main justification for the war, Saddam’s alleged WMD, did not exist and this is exhibited by the fact that U.S. civilian and military pre-war planning and the initial interim administration in Iraq and the U.S. military command were focussed solely on immediate security and humanitarian needs, not long-term ‘nation-building’ or democracy promotion. Democracy promotion became a reserve justification when the actual security justification fell through. It also calls into question Bush’s assertion of the ‘moral imperative’ (White House Press Office, 2007) to pursue democracy when it is used for politically expedient purposes. Bush’s claim (White House Press Office, 2007) that Taliban and insurgent attacks on coalition troops in Afghanistan and Iraq are attacks on freedom and democracy brought on by the enemy’s fear of them is also questionable. After all, the U.S. and its allies showed up in their neighbourhood and began to impose it upon them, not the other way around.

The U.S. seemed, to many, to be targeting its enemies in the Middle East with the ‘threat’ of democracy, but not its friends. The different treatment shown to friends and foes in the Middle East and North Africa generated the criticism that U.S. freedom and democracy promotion was really a tool for punishing or destabilising opponents rather than being truly concerned with granting them to local populations (Pressman, 2009: 160). Bush administration policy, in the words of Carothers (2003: 94), “wrapp[ed] security goals in the language of democracy promotion and then confus[ed] democracy promotion with the search for particular political outcomes that enhance those security goals.” The Bush administration supported the 2006 elections in the Palestinian Territories as an early show of support for democracy promotion, yet also was clear what they wanted the result to be. However, Hamas won a landslide victory, leaving Bush to attempt to put a positive spin on it (Kessler, 2006). Elections in Lebanon since the 2005 ‘Cedar Revolution’ led to more seats for Hezbollah in the national assembly (Dakroub, 2005). Democratic elections in Egypt following the Arab Spring allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to initially gain control of Egypt. The same protestors who toppled the dictator Mubarak in 2011 toppled the democratically-elected Mohammed Morsi in 2013. Democracy promotion and elections have not always achieved U.S. goals, created lasting stability nor made the U.S. safer as the Freedom Agenda claimed it would. It has, at times, had arguably the opposite effect.

In summary, the Bush administration pursued a policy course that was just as contradictory to its own Freedom Agenda as it was supportive of it. The relationships with some of the very states—Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt—that it cites itself (White House, 2007; White House Press Office, 2007) as proof of following the agenda also offer proof it did not. The unequal application of the Freedom Agenda between friends and foes also called the commitment into question and damaged the reputation of U.S. democracy promotion. A policy that was not truly followed cannot be cited as successful in achieving its goals or if it did so, it did so incidentally. Where the U.S. and its allies have established democratic governments—Afghanistan and Iraq—they also did much to weaken them and were only able to do so following military action. These governments did not come to be through indigenous agitation for freedom and democracy brought on by the Freedom Agenda. In the case of Iraq especially, the Bush administration turned to democracy promotion as a major goal only after its initial justification for the war turned out not to exist. The bases offered for promoting the Freedom Agenda—moral imperative, long-term stability, and increased security for the U.S.—have also been shown to be questionable as, when it was followed at all, it has arguably not dependably provided those things or not more so than the alternative policies it criticised and was supposed to offer improvements over.

Too Early to Predict Anything, Let Alone a ‘Democratic Wave’
It is too early to predict or draw any serious conclusions as to the causes, effects and consequences of the Arab Spring. Arguably, it is still going on. Battles in Syria are still raging. The revolution in Egypt continues with the deposition of Mohammed Morsi by the military following demonstrations as large as those against Mubarak (Maqbool, 2013). Protests may flare up again in any number of countries in the region. Any real academic analysis of the Arab Spring cannot take place until all of the facts are known or until it appears to reach some sort of conclusion. Anyone who attempts to do so prematurely risks getting it wrong and being overcome by events, as those who have been asserting since 2011 that the Freedom Agenda contributed to the Arab Spring have been. It is hard to know what next month will bring in the region, let alone claim the events have been a triumph for any policy or any party involved.

It is also too early to say that there has been a ‘democratic wave’ at all in the Arab Spring. Freedom House has called Tunisia the ‘Arab Spring’s pivotal democratic example’ (Walker and Tucker, 2011) and is arguably where the revolt began and where there have been signs of real democratic reform. However, in neighbouring Libya, it took NATO military intervention to topple Muammar Qaddafi. Some armed militias still, two years on, refuse to give up territory. Fighting still grips all of Syria where the regime and rebels are locked into an effective stalemate as foreign Jihadists join in and America and its allies wrangle with Russia, Iran and China over intervention there. Despite protests and minor concessions, there has been no real democratic change in places such as Iran, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait. Egyptian protestors overthrew the dictator Mubarak in 2011, but then also overthrew his democratically-elected successor Morsi in 2013. The transition there begins anew with Morsi in the court dock along with Mubarak. In some Arab and North African states, there has been no change at all.

Though many protestors and activists clearly have and will continue to call for increased freedom and democracy and many who have never been politically involved before have taken to the streets to take up the cause, there has not yet been a ‘democratic wave’ if one judges that by the state-by-state results of the Arab Spring thus far. The Middle East and North Africa region is still overwhelmingly not free and democratic (Freedom House, 2013). This being the case, it is hard to argue that the Freedom Agenda contributed to a ‘democratic wave’ resulting from the Arab Spring if there really hasn’t been such a wave as yet. Nonetheless, as above, it is still far too early days to judge what caused or will become of the Arab Spring.

Conclusion
The Bush Freedom Agenda has not contributed to a ‘democratic wave’ resulting from the Arab Spring. The Bush administration deviated from the agenda as much as it adhered to it. Some of the same evidence it puts forward to show its support for the agenda shows equally it did not support it. The administration’s goals in applying the agenda were arguably not met in practice. It is questionable if there has been a ‘democratic wave’ at all thus far following the Arab Spring, though it is still too early to form real conclusions yet as to the causes and consequences of the uprisings. The Arab Spring continues today in many places. However it should be clear that a policy agenda that was only partially or haphazardly followed and has arguably not brought about the goals it sought to achieve in an event that is not yet over cannot be credited with achieving anything.


BIBLIOGRAPHY
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It's Congress That Counts

This article originally appeared on The Truman Doctrine on 10 October 2012.

With both conventions and the first debate over, the presidential campaign season is moving ahead at full speed. At the heart of this election is the state of America’s economy and who presents the best vision of where to go from here. Republicans make the argument that the President should have done better over the last four years and hasn’t earned reelection. Democrats counter this by pointing out the depth of the 2008 crisis inherited from President Bush and the obstructionism of the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. Who is really to blame for this mess?

To go back to eighth grade government class, the U.S. Constitution mandates our government consists of three branches—legislative, executive, and judiciary. All laws involving government revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives. The Senate approves international treaties. Congress regulates business and commerce, naturalization, currency, postal service, roads, promoting arts and sciences, patents and trademarks, declaring war, and funding and regulating the military. The President is the Commander in Chief of the military, negotiates international treaties, appoints ambassadors, judges, and agency heads, and must report to Congress in a State of the Union. That’s it. The U.S. Constitution is nowhere near as long a document as the political claims based upon it.

The founders set out the legislative branch first in Article 1 and devoted twice as many sections to comprehensively setting out its duties and powers than those covering the executive branch. Despite what our elected leaders may say, the President is not primarily responsible for drafting or passing domestic legislation. A President may use the prominence of his office as a ‘bully pulpit’ to suggest, influence, and work with partners to cajole Congress into passing items from a legislative agenda. But it is Congress’ job to enact legislation.

Yet many Americans have come to believe that the President is truly the most powerful person in the country and even the world and is to blame for everything that ails the nation. Any disappointing economic or employment data is his fault. The failure to push through Congress a platform or legislative agenda offered before election is equivalent to a lie or betrayal. If business isn’t growing, roads and bridges aren’t being built, or government services are not serving citizens well, the President is blamed. This is actually quite dishonest.

Why have we let the U.S. Congress off the hook? The truth is plain to see from a simple read of Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. Congress is responsible for controlling and regulating all of the domestic areas of importance to the daily lives of average Americans. Their powers are specifically enumerated and they are granted the additional power to do all that is ‘necessary and proper’ to pursue these duties. You don’t have to be a constitutional scholar or lawyer to understand that. Every complaint Americans make about our society or economy falls squarely within the purview of powers granted to Congress, a system the President can only influence from the outside.

Closely tied to this misunderstanding is the acceptance by many of the idea that the President should act as the CEO of America and our government should be run like a corporation. Many Americans believe a President should have business experience. That’s certainly the argument being made by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. If this were true, this fundamental misunderstanding would be excusable. However, the truth written into the Constitution is that the power and duty to regulate and control the domestic economy, budget, and taxes rests squarely with Congress. This is a fundamental point. The President doesn’t have the power to control these things alone like a business owner. He must go to Congress, which is rather like a huge, partisan, divided board of directors, to affect any change in the domestic situation.

If a company were run by 535 directors who were divided between two camps, each possessing their own constituents and agenda, any CEO would have a very difficult time getting anything done. Real companies have perhaps a dozen directors at most, some of whom may even be related and most having worked closely together for years. The largest difference is that together they are all still striving to achieve the same fundamental goal.

The goal of any business is to create profit for owners and shareholders. The goal of Government is to protect and serve the interests of its citizens. This is inherently unprofitable from a financial perspective. So long as a firm is profiting, a CEO and board can be seen as doing their jobs. It is much more difficult for a President to succeed in the role of serving average Americans when they do not have direct powers to make the laws necessary to fulfill these duties, though they are seen as responsible for them by voters. If America is a corporation in trouble domestically, according to our Constitution it should be our board of directors—Congress– that should be fired and not the President.

The President is not a CEO and America is a country, not a business. Oddly, Americans don’t vote for Presidents based upon the areas they are directly responsible for according to the Constitution, namely national security and foreign policy. When Americans go to the polls to elect a President, their main considerations are almost exclusively domestic issues. A simple read of Article 2 of the Constitution shows that the President’s named duties are in foreign policy, international agreements, and national security. When asked about which issues most concern them when electing a President, voters consistently rank these issues somewhere in the middle or even at the bottom. His largest domestic duties are to appoint the heads of important federal agencies and federal judges. Federal agencies and judges are still beholden to laws passed by Congress.

Congress has a lower approval rating than when there were fears of communism in America; it is no wonder Representatives and Senators want to deflect voter dissatisfaction toward the executive branch. It is also much easier to place blame on one person than it is to take it up with 535 members of Congress. The disenchantment is bipartisan. Despite Congress’ unpopularity as a whole, most Americans seem satisfied enough with their own Senators and Representatives. They continue to reelect them again and again despite deeply disapproving of their performance. One take away from this is that Americans tend to like their own representatives; it’s everyone else’s representatives that are the problem.

While we’ve come to expect more from our presidents, we’ve come to expect less from Congress. They spend less and less time actually in session. More and more of their time is devoted to fundraising for reelection. While Americans’ net worth has gone down since the 2008 crisis began, Congress’ net worth has actually risen. Almost half of our Representatives and Senators are millionaires. They are overwhelmingly older, whiter, and more male than the rest of the population. We also have the most veteran underrepresented Congress since the end of WWII during a time when America has been at war in the Middle East for over a decade, creating a generation of new veterans who are struggling by many measures.

Despite America’s professed love of our Constitution, we don’t seem to pay much attention to it when it comes to who we vote for and why. If we did, we would blame Congress for the dismal state of our domestic economy and not the President. We wouldn’t keep sending the same Congressmen back to Washington over and over again and blame it all on the President. We would pay a good deal more attention to the foreign and national security experience and policy proposals of presidential candidates. We would put more emphasis on these characteristics than on business experience. We would lay blame where blame is due.

All you have to do is read the job descriptions written into the Constitution as we all learned in eighth grade government class. When voters go to the polls this November, they shouldn’t blame this President for our troubles, or any other President for that matter. Congress is responsible for this mess.