Essay by Ian Shapiro on Nieman Watchdog

On Nieman Watchdog: Questions the Press Should Ask

Containment as a basis for national security
COMMENTARY | September 04, 2007

Yale scholar and author Ian Shapiro proposes that containment, the strategy designed by George F. Kennan in the 1940s to deal with the Soviet Union, be implemented today to cope with the new challenges of terrorism. He sees it as a way for the U.S. to establish a rational, respected, effective foreign policy.

By Ian Shapiro

A huge problem confronting the U.S. in Iraq is the perception that we lack the will to stay the course. If enough people believe that it’s only a matter of time before we pack up and leave, this has a knock-on effect in the present. Insurgents have every incentive to wait us out, and, at home, the addition of scores of new American fatalities each month seems all the more tragically pointless.

This difficulty is compounded by our need to depend on allies whose own politics might make them just as fickle. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is widely known to be cooler than was Tony Blair about his country’s involvement in Iraq. Even as Downing Street was denying that Brown’s July visit to Camp David involved unveiling plans for a British withdrawal, The Times of London reported that one of his aides was sounding Washington out “on the possibility of an early British military withdrawal” and the departure from Basra that has since taken place. If the other side believes you are going to fold, why won’t they up the ante?

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