Last night I attended a discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations featuring CFR fellow Stewart Patrick and his new book.  The Best Laid Plans takes a look at the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations’ efforts to establish international institutions in wake of the Second World War.

I’ll have more on the book once I read it, but I wanted to highlight last night’s discussion, which focused on the lessons that the Obama Administration could learn from that time.  In particular, I wanted to share something Patrick said last night that is the best summation of neoconservatism that I’ve ever heard:

Neoconservatives are Wilsonians who don’t believe in international instutitutions.

John Bolton, white courtesy phone please.

As Patrick noted last night, Roosevelt and Truman wanted to build international institutions that would support and strengthen American exceptionalism, not operate separately from it.  That involved an act of hubris as significant as any undertaken by the Bush Administration, but it was done in a way that actually ceded significant American power in return for which international organizations (IOs) largely followed the U.S. line.

Over time, however, those institutions, particularly the United Nations, have evolved away from that standard — to the point that for many Americans, the UN and other IOs represent part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

The neoconservatives’ answer to this development was to attack or ignore the institutions and champion American “ideals,” often at the cost of international cooperation and comity.  The neocons also proposed new institutions, such as the League of Democracies, to replace the UN.  Of course, such organizations are merely an attempt to create a more exclusive club open only to those who would accept their brand of exceptionalism.

The Obama Administration has made it clear that it will move in a different direction, one that emphasizes cooperation rather than confrontation.   But much as his predecssors did, Obama will soon learn that good intentions do not always produce good results.  Although UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has expressed his desire to work more closely with the Obama Administration, there is only so much he can do to rally other nations behind him.

The irony, of course, is that the very institutions designed by the U.S. to ensure that its views would triumph — the Security Council veto, the General Assembly, the then-Commisison on Human Rights (now the Human Rights Council) are the main obstacles to greater U.S.-UN cooperation (and to a more effective UN).

During the Bush Administraiton, many felt that was a good thing. But it’s important to remember that the UN also opposed the U.S. intervention in Kosovo, leading the Clinton Administration to work around it and through NATO.  In fact, many analysts have pointed out that the Bush Administration adapted the Clinton argument on Kosovo in justifying its own intervention in Iraq.

Obama’s challenge will be to walk the fine line between those who believe that the United States should always defer to the UN and those who think the U.S. can do fine without it.  That’s not going to be an easy task, even if Bolton and other exceptionalists are out of power.  The first time American interests clash with those of the UN, he will have to decide whether to choose a similar path as Clinton and Dubya, or to find another way to engage the UN and encourage its cooperation/participation.

And that may be one of the biggest challenges he faces, certainly greater than Iraq and perhaps as daunting as the economy.

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