STRATEGIC

218 Strategic Choices for a Turbulent World: In Pursuit of Security and Opportunity
in preventing the resurgence of al-Shabaab in Somalia. 20 Reestablishing
effective governance in many key parts of the world is a long-game
interest of the United States—one that will likely remain politically
unpopular in an era of fiscal strain, but must nonetheless be pursued.
Align Interests and Values
Much has been written about the importance of American values in the
making of U.S. foreign policy 21 —how interests and values ultimately
need to align, and yet the occasional necessity for interests to supersede
values in times of peril. It was Roosevelt who said, “My children, it is
permitted you in time of grave danger to walk with the devil until you
have crossed the bridge,” 22 as a signal to the partnership he would need
to forge with Stalin’s Russia in order to prevail in World War II. U.S.
presidents have made similar arguments since that time—to justify relationships
with dictatorial and corrupt regimes during the Cold War, to
maintain access to strategic locations, to ensure availability of needed
energy and commodities, and more recently to explain some elements of
the counterterror coalition that emerged after 9/11 and continues to this
day. Yet the appeal to values for political support is well established in
American political life; it is the basis of America’s claim to “exceptionalism”
in world affairs and an affirmation of our national identity. 23
Interests and values do not always align, certainly not in the short
term. When they do not, policy will be forged to find ways to improvise,
even as policymakers chastise or work behind the scenes and face
criticism from many quarters. This is particularly true of U.S. democ-
20 Seth G. Jones, Andrew Liepman, and Nathan Chandler, Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency
in Somalia: Assessing the Campaign Against Al Shabaab, Santa Monica, Calif.:
RAND Corporation, RR-1539-OSD, 2016.
21 Henry Kissinger, Years of Renewal, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999, p. 1073; Kagan,
2012; Chester Crocker, “The Strategic Dilemma of a World Adrift,” Survival, Vol. 57, No. 1,
February–March 2015.
22 Gaddis, 1982, p. 3.
23 Kissinger, 1999, p. 1073; Kagan, 2012; Crocker, 2015.