Rationality in foreign policy is over-rated:
In his magisterial account of the role of culture in international relations, American academic Richard New Lebow argues that rationality is just one of the factors (and is actually one of the weakest) involved when countries engage with each other. If nations were rational actors, history would have been quite different. Since time immemorial, countries have engaged in reckless wars and destructive behavior utterly at odds with what we would assume to be rational.
This is because honor, fear, and logic also play a part in international relations. Of these, honor is the least understood but amongthe most powerful factors. We underestimate it at our peril.
The Chinese, for all their purported rational, long-range thinking (because of their ancient civilization, as if indivudual Chinese rulers are born with thousands of years of experience despite living no longer than anyone else), are growing prone to acting in ways that don't make sense in a rational framework:
Modern Chinese leaders have broad domestic appeal when speaking about China’s honor and its newfound prestige and status. Many Chinese citizens might detest their government—not unlike other discontented citizens across the globe—but they have a profound emotional bond to their land, culture, and sense of identity. The Chinese dream of its regenerated status is a powerful one, and Chinese politicians would be fools not to appeal to it.
Foreigners would similarly be making a great mistake if they tried to create a highly rational model for how China will behave.
This is not a problem unique to the Obama administration, but it may be worse with it given their apparent lack of contact with real people:
There are many ways to learn about the bleaker aspects of human nature. One would be to run a pizza shop, or regularly to have to clean a public restroom. Perhaps giving close attention to the text of Thucydides might give a more abstract lesson. Also, the Old and New Testaments offer plenty of examples of the fallen state of man.
Obama apparently did not get the message. What is the common denominator of his failed foreign policy initiatives (reset with Russia; a new, kinder, gentler Middle East; supposed breakthroughs with China; outreach to Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela) and his domestic catastrophes (Obamacare, deficits, huge debts, chronic unemployment)? In a nutshell, he does not seem to know much about human nature, whether in the concrete or abstract sense. Obama never held a menial job or ran a business. In lieu of education in the school of hard knocks, he read the wrong, if any, seminal texts.
The problem with a thug like Vladimir Putin is not just that he does not respond to “outreach” and “reset,” but rather that he interprets such loud magnanimity as weakness. And when sermonizing and lectures are added to perceptions of American impotence, the impression of timidity leads further to contempt, and ultimately to a devilish desire to humiliate and disabuse a naïf Obama of his moral pretensions. And what of the world watching all this? Unfortunately, it is more likely to enjoy viewing a strong rebuff of utopian idealism than a weak embrace of it. ...
On the home front, Obamacare is imploding largely because interested parties are acting in predictably human ways that escape Obama and his elite technocrats.
Whether at home or abroad, President Obama and his team act on theories of international, group, and individual behavior that rely on Composite People acting as models predict they will.
In real life, real people make decisions. Decisions of war and peace are no different. And if it doesn't make sense to our rulers, that's their fault.
UPDARE: Hey, why don't people speak of Egyptian long-range patient thinking based on their ancient roots?
