Perilous Partners: The Benefits and Pitfalls of America's Alliances with Authoritarian Regimes

by Ted Galen Carpenter, Malou Innocent

Overview

Liberal democracies such as the United States face an acute dilemma in the conduct of foreign relations. Many states around the world are repressive or corrupt to varying degrees. Unfortunately, American national interests require cooperation with such regimes from time to time. To defeat Nazi Germany during World War II, the United States even allied with the Soviet Union, despite the barbarity of Josef Stalin’s regime.

But such partnerships have the inherent danger of compromising, or even making a mockery of, America’s values of democratic governance, civil liberties, and free markets. Close working relationships with autocratic regimes, therefore, should not be undertaken lightly. U.S. officials have had a less than stellar record of grappling with that ethical dilemma. Especially during the Cold War, policymakers were casual about sacrificing important values for less-than-compelling strategic rationales. Since the 9-11 attacks, similar ethical compromises have taken place, although policymakers now seem more selective than their Cold War-era counterparts.

In Perilous Partners, authors Ted Galen Carpenter and Malou Innocent provide a strategy for resolving the ethical dilemmas between interests and values faced by Washington. They propose maintaining an "arm’s length relationship" with authoritarian regimes, emphasizing that the United States must not operate internationally in ways that routinely pollute American values. This book creates a strategy for conducting an effective U.S. foreign policy without betraying fundamental American values.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781939709707
Publisher:	Cato Institute
Publication date:	09/07/2015
Pages:	600
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

Ted Galen Carpenter is senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. He is the author of 18 books and the editor of 10 on international affairs, including The Fire Next Door: Mexico’s Drug Violence and the Danger to America; Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America; and Korean Conundrum: America’s Troubled Relations with North and South Korea.

Malou Innocent is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. She was a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute from 2007 to 2013. She is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and her primary research interests include Middle East and Persian Gulf security issues and U.S. foreign policy toward Pakistan, Afghanistan, and China.

Table of Contents

Part One: Washington’s Questionable Cold War Allies
Chapter 1 Uncle Sam’s Backyard: Friendly Latin American Strongmen
Chapter 2 Chiang Kai-shek: America’s Troublesome “Free World” Client
Chapter 3 A Preference for Authoritarians: The U.S. Backs South Korean Dictators
Chapter 4 From Jinnah to Jihad: Washington’s Cold War Ties with Pakistan
Chapter 5 Cold War to Holy War: The U.S.-Saudi Alliance
Chapter 6 Subverting Democracy: Supporting the Shah of Iran
Chapter 7 Navigating a Quagmire: Sustaining South Vietnamese Dictators
Chapter 8 Heart of Darkness: U.S. Policy toward Mobutu’s Dictatorship in Zaire
Chapter 9 Flying Blind in Manila: Enabling Ferdinand Marcos
Chapter 10 The “Good Communists”: Tito and Ceauşescu
Chapter 11 Playing the China Card: Strategic Rapprochement with Beijing

Part Two: America’s Authoritarian Partners after 9/11
Chapter 12 Pyramid of Cards: Washington’s Policy toward Egypt from Mubarak to El-Sisi
Chapter 13 From “Golden Chain” to Arab Spring: The Sordid Tale of U.S.-Saudi Ties
Chapter 14 Janus-Faced Partners: America and Pakistan after 9/11
Chapter 15 Tangled Tales of the Silk Road: Washington and Central Asia’s Tyrants

Part Three: Concluding Observations
Chapter 16 Closing the Values Gap: Protecting Security, Preserving Values

Editorial Reviews

08/17/2015
Despite the reference to "benefits" in the subtitle, few are described in this derisive Cato Institute treatise on post-WWII American foreign policy. Senior Cato fellow Carpenter (The Fire Next Door) and adjunct scholar Innocent tear into successive presidential administrations for pursuing relationships with authoritarian regimes throughout the world. For a country claiming to be based on "peace, democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law," as Ronald Reagan put it, the actions of the U.S.—publicly and covertly—did not stay true to its founding ideals. Even Jimmy Carter, famous for his focus on human rights over the realpolitik of Nixon and Kissinger, comes under fire for not doing enough to distance the U.S. from human rights abusers, notably the Shah of Iran. The president who receives the least criticism is Bill Clinton, largely because his presidency fell after the Cold War and before the War on Terror. In the authors' opinion, the reasons given for aligning with repressive regimes were rarely vital to national interests, rather serving to justify interventionalism around the world. This lengthy read may be hard to swallow for some, but it will also be eye-opening to those confused by inconsistencies and discrepancies in American foreign policy over the last 70 years. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Thoroughly researched and persuasively argued, Perilous Partners provides a damning indictment of U.S. support for tyrannical regimes over the past 70 years. As Carpenter and Innocent conclusively show, such support rarely advanced U.S. policy goals but consistently undermined America's moral standing. Highly recommended for all serious students of American foreign policy.

Michael Klare

The American penchant for moralizing when it comes to foreign policy has benefited the world little while earning for the United States a well-deserved reputation for hypocrisy. As Ted Galen Carpenter and Malou Innocent make clear in this very instructive book, morality does have a role in statecraft. But striking a balance between values and interests requires something more than glib posturing. Their concept of ethical pragmatism provides a way to find that balance.

Andrew J. Bacevich

While Americans are still liked in most of the world, our government is often hated. Perilous Partners shows how U.S. interests are better served when we are a beacon rather than a policeman, something we don’t do well, especially in the Middle East. Instead, we just create new enemies. This book lays it all out clearly—from times past when America held the moral high ground, to now, when we have lost so much of it.

Jon Basil Utley