By: Alexander Urwin

“We often say how impressive power is. But I do not find it impressive at all” 

These were the words of President Lyndon B. Johnson as he addressed a group of students at John Hopkins University in 1967, in the middle of America’s engagement in Vietnam. He was lamenting the “waste of war” in pursuit of the “works of peace,” albeit in an often contradictory address. In revisiting that speech for a graduate class on American foreign policy, and holding it alongside President Carter’s commencement address to Notre Dame a decade later, I was struck by the transferability of the dilemmas facing both presidents to the present day. As President Biden reconciles the end of America’s presence in Afghanistan with the need to restate what it means to be American in the world today, he could do worse than return to these two remarkable texts. 

Before we reach Johnson and Carter, though, it is worth reiterating the historical context. Out of the revolutionary birth of America came a unilateralism built on self-interest, itself based on the fragile foundations of a new republic in a world of intensely competitive European powers. President Washington warned against “entangling alliances,” while John Quincy Adams warned his infant country against going abroad “in search of monsters to destroy.” That is, America has always wrestled with its role in the world. It was only in the aftermath of the Second World War that, having intervened to protect the security of freedom and democracy in both Europe and Asia, presidents truly countenanced the idea of America as the world’s policeman. Now, with the power and opportunity aligned, America went out into the world in earnest. 

By 1967, and despite his claimed unwillingness to be impressed by power, Johnson was so taken with America’s expansive role that he justified the ongoing conflict in Vietnam “because we have a promise to keep,” based on American support for then-South Vietnam dating back to 1954. Indeed, from a base of power and opportunity had come an overt moralism, as Johnson proclaimed “we must fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny.” Where he went further, noting “we must deal with the world as it is, if it is ever to be as we wish,” he could have been setting out a doctrine for those who would follow him. 

In understanding these sentiments and this post-war shift, it becomes a straightforward step to understand how and why successive American presidents found themselves locked in a Middle East ‘forever war.’ Yet despite this all too relatable overreach, Johnson does seem to be searching for a more peaceful solution, built on development, on sharing American “abundance,” and on the cooperation of the “prestige of [the] great office” of the UN Secretary General. He was certainly prescient in his conclusion that “this will be a disorderly planet for a long time.” And while his own actions may have fallen short of this maxim, his predecessors could have done and would do well to honour his promise: “no nation need ever fear that we desire their land, or to impose our will, or to dictate their institutions.”

At this point, it is useful to turn to Carter at Notre Dame, a speech that could easily have been given by Biden and should, indeed, be an important point of reference as a post-Afghanistan foreign policy is sketched. Where Johnson seems unable to fully reconcile the ongoing engagement of the American military in Vietnam with his desire for the “works of peace”, Carter benefits from an additional ten years of reflection. While more space would be needed to chart the gap between rhetoric and reality, there is much to admire in Carter’s declaration that “it is a new world, but America should not fear it.” And while he has certainly not abandoned designs on shaping that world—America’s persistent power and belief in the example of democracy would have made such a move virtually impossible—he is eschewing conflict for a “policy based on constant decency in its values and on optimism in our historical vision.” 

To Carter, “constructive global involvement” was the only approach that makes sense in a world in which America can “no longer expect that the other 150 nations will follow the dictates of the powerful.” When considering what that looked like, Carter built his vision on five guiding principles. The parallels to today are remarkable. Indeed, with some updating, Carter’s five principles could quite easily become Biden’s. Most notably, there is a commitment to human rights as a fundamental tenet of foreign policy, a desire to strengthen the bonds between democracies in what we might today call multilateralism, and a recognition of the importance of nuclear non-proliferation. Peace in the Middle East remains an admirable ambition, even if the Biden administration has not yet shown willingness to make it a defining pillar of their term in office. And where Carter talks of engaging the Soviet Union to halt the strategic arms race and build a relationship based on “reciprocal stability, parity, and security,” China is the obvious contemporary substitute. Where Carter saw development as a focal point for joint American-Soviet efforts and as a bridge between the two blocs, Sino-American climate cooperation surely presents today’s comparative opportunity.

Johnson concluded his speech by asking “have we, each of us, done all we can do?” It is likely a question that every president finds themselves dwelling on throughout their time in office and, tenfold, on exit. For Biden, whether that moment comes in three years or in seven, he could do worse than to bear that question in mind. As he begins to pick up the pieces of the Afghanistan withdrawal and set the terms for America’s engagement with the world in the years ahead, it is imperative to resist a doubling down with the ‘America First’ unilateralism of Washington, or John Quincy Adams. The Second World War did happen, America does have the power and the opportunity to go out into the world and shape it, and with this power and opportunity comes remarkable responsibility. In my view,, the persistent coherence  of Carter’s five principles today  and over the last forty years makes them a good place to start.