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\author{Greg Hudson}
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Keenan's ``The Failure in Our Success'' blends a conversational style
with a subtlely widening argument to produce an effective editorial
presenting his argument in favor of a more flexible approach to
foreign policy.  Although I find his arguments unconvincing, his
presentation of them is excellent.

Keenan presents his opinion in a conversational style, often framing
arguments and counterarguments in dialogue form.  Without directly
involving the reader, he gives his opponents human voices similar to
his own, conjuring the image of a public debate.  Were he to argue
directly against the reader, Keenan's editorial might come across as
unnecessarily confrontational; as it is, his commentary carries a
friendly tone.  He gives his audience advice, and contrasts that
advice with the advice of others, rather than telling his audience
that they should change their minds.

The strength of Keenan's argument comes from his conversational tone
and from the way he generalizes from the specific case of the
US-Soviet Cold War to our approach to foreign policy and from there to
the alleged American tendency to categorize when it is best not to.
At the same time, he makes a temporal shift from what we did in the
past to our situation in the present to what we should do in the
future.  This organization makes Keenan's argument easily
understandable, and therefore more effective.

Keenan makes three related points in his editorial: first, that we
should not have held out for the collapse of the Soviet Union, but
instead should have negotiated with them as soon as we had made it
clear that expansionism was not in their interests; second, that we
cannot replace good judgment and sound principles with wide-ranging
policies; and third, that we should try to lead the world by setting a
good example rather than exerting military pressure.

To support his first point, Keenan has to argue with apparent
success---thus the title of the editorial.  He does this by pointing
out the costs of the Cold War, and claiming that these costs were all
because we were ``too timid to negotiate'' about the future of Europe
with the USSR.  He is forced to concede, however, that he can only
speculate about the possible benefits of negotiation: ``The other
course remained hypothetical.''

To support his second point, Keenan again brings up opposition
arguments; in this case, the argument that we must have a grand
strategy because of the political complexity of the post-Cold War
world.  He then notes that the lack of an ``all-absorbing focal
point'' for foreign policy is nothing new in American history, and
tries to apply knowledge from similar, previous time periods by
speculating about what a statesman from such a period would think.  He
claims that we can simply stay away from many foreign conflicts (ones
that do not ``really threaten your interests''), and as for the rest,
there is no single design which will apply to all of them.

Keenan does not present much evidence in favor of his third point,
that we are more effective by acting as an example than we are by
exerting of military power.  He does bring up an appeal to authority,
in the form of a John Quincy Adams quote, in favor of staying out of
foreign wars which do not conern our influence.  For the most part,
though, Keenan seems to be stating rather than arguing his opinion in
the last three paragraphs of his essay.

While Keenan's commentary is very eloquent, I disagree with all three
of his conclusions to varying extents.  I am not convinced that
broad-ranging negotiation with the USSR was worth trying, or that we
should discard the idea of development a broad foreign policy, or that
we as a country are most effective by presenting an example.

Could we have avoided the Cold War by negotiating with the USSR after
three years of containment?  I am skeptical.  All foreign negotiations
in this world take place in an atmosphere of tremendous dishonesty; as
there is no authority to enforce the conditions of a treaty on either
country which signed it, there is very little room for large-scale
compromise among enemies.  Moreover, the Soviet Union had no reason to
give up the territory it controlled in Eastern Europe; I don't think
simply asking the USSR to yield these territories could have avoided
the ``40 years of Communist control in Eastern Germany,
Czechoslovakia, and Hungary'' which Keenan cites as a cost of the Cold
War.  Indeed, the Soviet Union did not cease its expansionist tactics
after the 1940s; while the USSR avoided direct military confrontation
with Western democracies, it continued to support Communist
revolutions in small countries such as Cuba and Nicaragua.

As Keenan said, however, all that is over and done with, and we can't
ever be certain who was right.  To address his second conclusion,
then, should we make no effort towards developing a broad foreign
policy?  Keenan claims that no ``vast common denominator'' can tell us
how to approach each situation in the world, and he is certainly right
that no set of if-then rules can govern every aspect of how the US
reacts to every possible situation.  But that doesn't mean we
shouldn't develop policies regarding some aspects of most situations.
Recent events, especially regarding the situation in Bosnia, show that
one of the greatest sources of disrespect for American influence is
our inconsistency, and it would do us well to develop a set of rules
for when we will consider the use of military force justified.
Certainly, we don't want to be trapped by such rules, so they cannot
apply without exception, but they can act as a good starting point.

Finally, there is the assertion that ``it is primarily by example,
never by precept'' that we exert useful influence on the rest of the
world.  It's true that the Communist revolutions of the past several
decades have been replaced by human rights insurgencies in the wake of
the Soviet Union's collapse, but based on the course of events
following the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe, it seems to me that
emerging democracies do not look to great powers like the United
States for examples, but to other smaller countries such as Sweden or
Great Britain.

Certainly it is true that the United States can exert influence
through precept only at tremendous cost.  Going to war is never a good
solution, even if it is occasionally the best solution.  I am not
arguing that we should try to change the world through military power;
on the contrary, I am just as skeptical that we can be the world's
police force than that we can be a shining beacon of democracy.

Of all the means available to us, I think it is our economic position
that affords us the greatest potential to influence the world, and it
is our economic foreign policy that we focus the most attention on.
Conquered countries can raise new armies, but trade can cause lasting,
constructive changes.

While I disagree with the conclusions of Keenan's commentary, I
reiterate in closing that it is a very fine example of presentation.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with Keenan, his article is
understandable, forceful, and yet pleasant to read.

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