Not since the end of the Cold War have I witnessed such an intense, exhaustive, and heated debate among foreign policy scholars. The conflagration took place this morning at the Washington office of the German Marshall Fund. The hotly contested issue: Is Tom Hagen, consigliere to the Corleone crime family, a realist or a liberal internationalist? John Hulsman and Wess Mitchell argued that Tom was the latter: Hagen’s problem is he thinks Sonny is the problem, not the other families. More than anything else, Tom yearns for a return to a “Sicilian Bretton Woods” where everyone sits around and negotiates peacefully. When the war of the five families breaks out, Tom’s major concern is about how the conflict will hurt business. Robert Kagan disagreed. After his return from Hollywood (and what sort of liberal would allow a horse’s head to be left on someone’s bed?), Tom urges Don Corleone to make the deal with Sollozzo the Turk-let us organize the drug trade. In fact, the consigliere is a realist. But what sort of realist? A Kissingerian realist? Such was the nature of this morning’s discussion of the new book by Hulsman and Mitchell, The Godfather Doctrine: A Foreign Policy Parable (Princeton University Press, $9.95). And at 96 pages and the cost of a beer or two, it definitely sounds worth the read, just to have a debate over how far one can take the actions of Sonny and compare them to a certain past president.The authors readily admit the analogy only goes so far. But, as Wess Mitchell noted, “when you boil it down, the typology still holds.” Don Corleone is the declining hegemon. Sollozzo the Turk is not a superpower but a tool of other nefarious regimes. He is an opportunist, likened to Ahmadinejad. When Tom Hagen warns Sonny that the war against Tattaglia and Sollozzo can spiral into a war against all the families, Sonny welcomes it. He fails, in Hulsman’s words, “to differentiate between primary and secondary threats.” And the war does cost a lot in terms of manpower and resources. Enter Michael, who sees a way out through his venture in Las Vegas. He negotiates, offering a chance for the other families to benefit (but only to a certain extent). “He negotiates?” scoffed Kagan. “His first ‘negotiation’ ended with his putting bullets in the heads of the cop and Sollozzo.” And of course he concludes by eliminating the heads of the five families. So much for being an integrator. “Michael is unsatisfied with just killing Tattaglia and Sollozzo. What Michael wants is total security,” a very American notion. Kagan is quick to remind us the movie doesn’t exactly have a happy ending. It is a tragedy. Michael has put power and security ahead of his family, thereby losing his family. This is not exactly an ideal foreign policy position to have. And on and on it went. Predictably, with three men debating the foreign policy virtues of The Godfather (and 20 or so other guests in attendance), the conversation became almost entirely immersed in the intricacies of the movie and its tremendous sequel and what to make of the flashback at the very end. The point is, post 9/11 and certainly post-Cold War, there are competing foreign policies that, to a certain extent, can be likened to the Corleones. One is brash, one is reactionary, one is (maybe) a realist. Kagan thinks of Michael as Nietzchean. Tom is reactionary, says Hulsman. He is about preserving the old order. Amazingly, there was agreement on two points. One: Fredo does not deserve a foreign policy. And two: The Godfather Part III is an abomination.
