Rick Perry’s dramatic entrance into the Republican presidential race has triggered within a few short weeks a remarkable amount of invective, clucking, and alarm on the part of leading critics. Perry, we are told in worried tones, cannot and must not win the presidency: he is too Texan, too Christian, too “extreme,” and altogether too provincial. Never mind that these concerns issue mainly from a Northeastern liberal-leaning commentariat that is amazingly inward-looking in its definition of worldly wisdom. The central fear seems to be that Perry is another George W. Bush – in a word, a cowboy.
It has been interesting to watch the word cowboy become a term of abuse, politically, over the last decade. Critics often described Bush’s foreign policy approach, in particular, as reckless, unthinking or bombastic – a case of “cowboy diplomacy.” My guess is that the vast majority of people employing this term have never met an actual cowboy. Real North American cowboys are often very deliberate and measured when they speak, but they do tend to have limited patience for being pushed around - a combination of qualities as useful in foreign policy as in life.
To be sure, President Obama is no “cowboy.” He instinctively scolds and shifts blame, splits every difference, appears peevish when criticized, views himself as a kind of international community organizer, and places tremendous faith in the power of endless talk - especially his own. Elite transatlantic liberal opinion continues to view this overall approach, self-referentially, as the height of sophistication, regardless of its practical failures. Many foreign governments however - whether friendly or otherwise - are less impressed, viewing it basically as a sign of weakness. Notice that Obama’s one undisputed international success, the killing of Osama Bin Laden, was achieved through an uncharacteristic reliance on aggressive interrogations and unilateral military action without permission from anybody. If a Republican president had engaged in this sort of act, no doubt we would have heard much more hand-wringing about the dangers of a rootin’-tootin’ approach to counter-terrorism. But then that’s cowboy diplomacy for you.
Here’s a crack at what the genuine version of cowboy diplomacy would look like: not reckless, but measured, backed up by strength, unwilling to tolerate insult, and ready to act with force and decision when necessary. So far as we can tell, this seems to be Rick Perry’s inclination. Searching through the Texas Governor’s statements on U.S. foreign policy, including his speech a few days ago to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, we find that he has suggested the following:
1. The United States should be thoughtful before undertaking military interventions…
2. …and similarly thoughtful before abandoning them.
3. President Obama’s exit timeline for Afghanistan risks undercutting military and political progress in that country against the Taliban.
4. The concept of nuclear abolition is completely unrealistic.
5. The supply of multilateral and legalistic pieties in world affairs tends to be much greater than the true demand for them.
6. The U.S. should support Israel against terrorism and stop trying to micromanage territorial revisions within the Middle East.
7. There is no need for an American president to strike an apologetic tone overseas.
8. A president should focus internationally on supporting America’s friends and defeating America’s adversaries.
9. “As the 10th anniversary of the attacks of 9-11 approach, we must renew our commitment to taking the fight to the enemy, wherever they are, before they strike at home.”
10. At the same time: the United States should not “fall subject to a foreign policy of military adventurism. We should only risk shedding American blood and spending American treasure when our vital interests are threatened.”
I’m not sure how all of the above suggestions play with Perry’s critics, but by my count that’s ten for ten. If this is cowboy diplomacy, let’s have more of it.
As it happens, Perry and other Republicans already have multiple good examples of past GOP presidents who both embodied and practiced authentic cowboy diplomacy. The two best models to work from are Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.
Reagan was a Sunbelt foreign policy hawk, comfortable with the use of force internationally. He pushed the Soviet Union into dramatic international concessions, weakening it irrevocably through a strategy of deliberate and relentless pressure across the board. At the same time, he was usually very careful about entangling the United States in direct, protracted, or half-hearted military interventions overseas. He obviously believed the U.S. system of government to be a model for the rest of the world, but his foreign policy centered on supporting America’s friends and opposing its enemies, above all else.
Theodore Roosevelt built up the U.S. Navy, seized control of the Panama Canal, and pre-empted European interventions within the Caribbean. Simultaneously - and contrary to his reputation as a bombastic Rough Rider - he behaved, once in the White House, with remarkable tact and care when it came to the exercise of U.S. power and diplomacy overseas. He worked to balance competing great powers against one another through skillful diplomacy, and refused to make strategic commitments that he could not keep. As president, he strengthened America’s international and military position while genuinely trying to avoid war. The exercise of such a firm but ultimately prudent foreign policy was all the more impressive in TR’s case, since it was sometimes in tension with his personally combative instincts. Plus, he gets extra credit in the annals of cowboy diplomacy for having worked as an honest-to-God cowhand in the Black Hills of Dakota.
Both TR and Reagan emanated a rock-solid belief in their country’s greatness, together with a willingness to protect America’s interests abroad by whatever means necessary. Both were also admirably shrewd and careful when it came to major decisions for war or peace. This is the genuine model of cowboy diplomacy, one in the best Republican traditions, and one that Perry seems to favor.
If Perry can describe his own distinct version of cowboy diplomacy, it will help both him and the country. It will also help the GOP. Certainly, the main focus of popular and political attention right now is on the economy, which under the circumstances is entirely appropriate. Still, this does not mean that Republican voters or even most tea party supporters are “isolationist,” as the press likes to suggest. The average GOP primary voter is increasingly skeptical of nation-building exercises abroad but nevertheless supportive of strong military defenses, core U.S. alliances, robust counter-terrorism, and American leadership as opposed to decline or defeat internationally. The candidate who strikes this exact balance and tone most convincingly on foreign policy and military issues will gain an edge in the upcoming primaries and lead Republicans in the right direction. A tough-minded yet deliberate approach to questions of military intervention will also stand Perry in good stead if he wins the nomination and faces Obama next fall. Specifically, it will help differentiate the Texas Governor from George W. Bush, while reassuring swing-state independent voters that Perry is the right kind of cowboy.
Perry has an excellent opportunity this month, in a number of televised debates between GOP presidential candidates, to clarify his foreign policy views so as to rally Republicans while undercutting his detractors. Critics who dismiss him as either a lightweight or unelectable are kidding themselves. Perry is a tough, shrewd, disciplined campaigner who has shown in multiple winning efforts that he can take a punch as well as deliver one. If the U.S. economy keeps sputtering, then a plausible Republican challenger for the White House will have a very good chance of unseating Obama – and Perry is entirely plausible. For over ten years he has successfully governed a state that is in itself the equivalent of a large, diverse, and prosperous nation. He is also a conservative, which is to say, he does not share the approved left-liberal assumptions about social issues, foreign policy, or the government’s proper role in the economy. Liberals have acquired a very boring habit of characterizing people who don’t share their precise assumptions as “extreme.” But this is a big country, and voters will draw their own conclusions about the various candidates, fully aware of regional and ideological biases within the coastal chattering class. Perry’s inclination in the face of baseless attacks appears to be the right one in any case: grin, don’t flinch, and turn the challenge back around. If critics want to call Perry a cowboy, he should respond just like the hero did in Owen Wister’s classic Western, The Virginian:
“When you call me that, smile.”
Colin Dueck is associate professor of public and international affairs at George Mason University, and the author of the forthcoming book Hard Line: The Republican Party and U.S. Foreign Policy since World War II (Princeton, October 2010).
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