With Condoleezza Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the Realist side, it should come as no surprise that the Bush administration’s national security apparatus itself viewed international policy matters through realist lenses prior to the attacks of September 11.

Clarke’s Liberalism

An underlying theme in Clarke’s criticism is that Rice and her colleagues promoted a traditional agenda that reversed some of the non-traditional efforts begun under the Clinton administration. Although he never identifies the divide as an academic one, the assertions in his book clearly imply such a conclusion. Clarke places himself in contrast to Rice, subscribing principally to liberalism.

Clarke is an advocate of both a multilateral approach to international problems and a transnational vision of world politics. During the administration of President George H. W. Bush, and especially during the Clinton administration, Clarke was the NSC officer in charge of global issues—often non-traditional matters dealt with predominantly in a multilateral/institutional framework. In fact, Clarke was one of Madeleine Albright’s contacts in the White House while she was US Ambassador to the United Nations. Clarke and Albright were instrumental in the multilateral elements of US policy toward Somalia and Haiti, and in the essentially non-policy toward Rwanda. While many might take issue with the implementation of “assertive multilateralism,” it was crafted by the likes of Lake, Albright, and even Clarke. Indeed, one of Clarke’s strongest criticisms of the current presidential administration’s approach to the problem of terrorism focuses on the failure to use soft power resources through multilateral frameworks to curb anti-US violence. As he writes, “Rather than seek to cultivate a unified global consensus to destroy the ideological roots of terrorism, we did in fact lash out in a largely unilateral and entirely irrelevant military adventure against a Muslim nation. Just as many nations thought we would, America pointedly snubbed the counsel of Arab friends and NATO allies, and sought security through the use of military muscle. It has left us less secure.”

His transnational understanding of foreign affairs stems from his years of service in the NSC. His different assignments in the past decade left him preoccupied with networks as actors in international relations, and not simply Al Qaeda. As he notes in his book, he was obsessed with all kinds of terrorist, organized crime, and cyber networks. In his book, he specifically discusses his personal involvement in the attacks on Somali war lord Mohammed Farah Aideed and Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar. These were non-state actors involved in non-traditional security matters. With regards to terrorism, moreover, he talks about how he expanded investigations into what seemed like small, benign nongovernmental organizations. He was concerned with such transnational actors because they were part of his global issues portfolio: terrorism, international crime, critical infrastructure protection, peacekeeping, and developing states headed toward failure.

But with the transition from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration came a clash of paradigms that pitted Clarke’s liberal perspective against Rice’s realist perspective, with definite consequences for US security. According to Clarke, Rice believed that the NSC was not the appropriate forum for addressing issues like terrorism, domestic civil defense, and critical infrastructure protection.

Clarke’s failed attempt to discourage Rice from tinkering with the counter-terrorism team in the NSC highlights their different worldviews. As he unsuccessfully argued to her: “This office is new, you’re right. It’s post-Cold War security, not focused just on nation-state threats. The boundaries between domestic and foreign have blurred. Threats to the United States now are not Soviet ballistic missiles carrying bombs, they’re terrorists carrying bombs. Besides, the law that established the NSC in 1947 said it should concern itself with domestic security threats too.” Rice’s response was to downgrade Clarke’s position by excluding him from the cabinet-level NSC Principals Committee and to suggest that he “should figure out how to move some of these issues out to some other organization.”

Despite being moved from the Principals to the Deputies level, Clarke continued his attempts to warn the Bush administration of the imminent threat posed by Al Qaeda. In May 2001, four months after his initial request to address the NSC, Clarke was finally given an opportunity to address the Deputies Committee. To his dismay, he ran into strong resistance from Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. According to Clarke, Wolfowitz argued, “You give bin Laden too much credit. He could not do all these things like the 1993 attack on New York, not without a state sponsor. Just because FBI and CIA have failed to find the linkages does not mean they don’t exist.”

Clarke’s advocacy, according to his recollection, fell on deaf ears. Prior to September 11, terrorism was simply not on the national security agenda. The NSC had its own agenda by the spring: opting out of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol, and confronting Iraq. Clarke viewed these issues as “vestigial Cold War concerns.” In other words, traditional realist issues became the concern of the Bush administration while equally important, if not even more important, liberal issues were discounted.

Opening Our Minds to a Paradigm Balance

Realism is an important school of thought. It provides a straightforward understanding of global events. But its vision is narrow. World politics in the 21st century is not just the story of great power rivalries. While power politics, arms control, and strategic resources must surely remain issues of national importance, so too must terrorism, political economy, human rights, and the environment—all of which have implications for national and international security. Expanding the agenda also requires expanding the playing field. International relations can no longer be thought of as the exclusive realm of states. Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network teach us that much.

Comprehending the complexities of world politics in this post-September 11 era, however, requires far more than just a superficial acknowledgement that more issues and more actors are involved in international relations. Policies—both foreign and domestic—must be re-oriented to accommodate the changing trends and technologies. For starters, leaders and statesmen must grasp on a day-to-day basis that soft power is the resource that gets you more bang for your buck. That is, in today’s world, leaders can accomplish far more in international affairs by attracting others to their positions than they can by coercing them into tolerating their policies. Goals are more easily met and accepted by promoting them through legitimate institutions rather than by forcing them on others out of the barrel of a gun. To be fair, hard power matters. But soft power must be recognized as hard power’s significant other.