True Diversity.

• Author: Beebe, George
• Position: The Realist

In June 1963, with memories of the Cuban missile crisis still fresh, President John F. Kennedy delivered a commencement address at American University in which he posited a key goal for U.S. foreign policy: "If [the United States and Soviet Union] cannot end now our differences, at least we can make the world safe for diversity." This meant that the United States was "unwilling to impose our system on any unwilling people--but we are willing and able to engage in peaceful competition with any people on earth." Kennedy elaborated on this theme a few months later in a speech at the Mormon Tabernacle:

We must recognize that we cannot remake the world simply by our own command... Every nation has its own traditions, its own values, its own aspirations. Our assistance from time to time can help other nations preserve their independence and advance their growth, but we cannot remake them in our own image. We cannot enact their laws, nor can we operate their governments or dictate our policies. For today's American foreign policy thinkers, Kennedy's call for a world in which a diverse array of political systems can coexist and peacefully compete is well outside the mainstream. Diversity is certainly a much-cited American objective, but contemporary use of the term stresses the inclusion of a wide array of races, ethnicities, genders, and sexual orientations among our foreign policy practitioners. It is in this sense that the Biden administration proclaims its determination to be the "most diverse" in the nation's history. Such diversity in the U.S. foreign policy community helps ensure that our government officials "look like America" and consider a range of views in making policy choices. When it comes to the who in making foreign policy, inclusivity is in.

When it comes to the what in our approach to the outside world, however, inclusivity has long been out. Post-Cold War America has stood for universalism in the world, not diversity. Contra Kennedy, Bill Clinton elevated remaking Russia in America's image to the centerpiece of his foreign policy. Debates within the George W. Bush administration focused on what tactics could best realize his "freedom agenda," not whether the liberalization of foreign regimes should be America's goal. Barack Obama advanced a set of universal, globalist values thought to transcend individual nations and borders, championing the responsibility to protect peoples threatened by their own governments even if such...