Seinfeld fans no doubt recall a 1994 episode called “The Opposite.” George Costanza realizes that life is filled with choices, and he always foolishly chooses the wrong one. It occurs to him that the answer to his problems, therefore, is to make a decision — then do the opposite. As Jerry tells his friend, “If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.”
It’s surprisingly effective. George even comes up with a counterintuitive pick-up line — “My name is George. I’m unemployed and I live with my parents.” — which works.
Michael Fullilove writes in the Financial Times that “The Opposite” seems to serve as a model for the Bush administration’s foreign policy, particularly on Iraq, because “it is the opposite of every foreign policy the world has ever met. ”
The Costanza doctrine is most closely associated with President George W. Bush and his first-term confidants: the wild-eyed neo-cons and the dead-eyed ultra-cons. But there is a wider group, which includes most presidential candidates and many of Washington’s foreign policy elite, who are not fully paid-up subscribers to the doctrine but went along with it nonetheless. Allied governments in London, Madrid and Canberra also signed up.
In “The Opposite”, George breaches the most fundamental laws in his universe – for example, the age-old principle that “bald men with no jobs and no money, who live with their parents, don’t approach strange women”.
Similarly, in its geopolitical incarnation, adherents to the Costanza doctrine cast aside many of the fundamental tenets they learnt at staff college or graduate school.
The comparison holds up frighteningly well — except the doctrine was far more reliable on a fictional television show.
Fullilove runs down some of the tenets the administration has followed by doing the opposite of what a sensible foreign policy tells leaders to do.
First, military and diplomatic resources are finite and should be directed towards your greatest priority. An example of the opposite approach would be for a country that has been attacked by a non-state terrorist group to retaliate by removing a state regime that had nothing to do with the attack.
Second, take care not to weaken your intimidatory powers through poor military performance. Aim for short, sharp victories (such as that in the 1991 Gulf war) that get your adversaries worrying about the extent of US power. The opposite would be to launch a war of choice involving the drawn-out occupation of an Arab country – the kind of thing that gets your allies worrying about the limits of US power.
Third, you get by with help from friends. Although the powerful are sometimes tempted to go it alone, international support helps determine the perceived legitimacy of an action, which affects its risk and costs. Building this support requires discussion and compromise. The opposite would be to spurn real negotiations, slough off your allies, bin multilateral agreements you do not like and declare that you are not bound by the rules that govern everyone else.
Fourth, state-building is hard. Few of the international efforts at state-building since the cold war’s end have succeeded. Luckily there are numberless reports identifying lessons learnt. The alternative would be to do the opposite of what those reports recommend, for example by deploying insufficient troops and dismantling any extant national institutions such as the army.
Fifth, democracy is a blessing that requires patient nurturing. The opposite approach would be to seek to impose democracy by force of arms on a population traumatised by decades of vicious and totalitarian rule.
Sixth, politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. If two dangerous states are struggling for dominance of a strategic region, maintaining a balance between them may be the least worst option. The opposite would be to emasculate one of them, thereby greatly increasing the relative power of the other.
Finally, historians often cite the need for prudence in international relations, quoting the physician’s dictum: “First, do no harm.” The opposite would be: “Don’t think too much, just chance your arm and see what happens!”
As I recall, George’s successful strategy was short-lived. Eventually, reality caught up with him and he lost the girlfriend, the job, and the apartment. He came to realize that rejecting knowledge, experience, and common sense, to intentionally pursue the opposite, could only work for so long before it all crashed.
When do you suppose the president will learn the same thing?