Edward Haley, the W.M. Keck Professor of International Strategic Studies, has returned to the classroom following sabbatical during the spring semester as a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., where he completed his forthcoming book, Strategies of Dominance.
Haley had worked on the book for a year by the time he arrived in Washington. Originally a straightforward comparison of the foreign policies of George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, Haley's analysis of current U.S. foreign policy shifted significantly after consulting with other scholars and meeting with government and foreign affairs officials, he recalls. "Being in Washington," he said, "allowed me to obtain information I simply wouldn't have if I had been working from Claremont."
Discussions with scholars, members of the intelligence community, and policymakers and a great deal of additional research convinced him that "The Post-Cold War strategy of the Clinton and Bush 2 administrations was badly mistaken. America primacy, bandwagoning, American exceptionalism, globalization, economic sanctions, coercive diplomacy: All were wronghorribly, horribly wrong."
An expert in international relations, Haley says he lays the blame equally at the feet of Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush. "They're peas in a pod," says Haley. "They both believe that democracy can be spread worldwide, that the U.S. should promote that outcome, and that globalization is equally advantageous for all countries," he says. "They're both 19th century liberals. The only difference? Bush 2 was eager to intervene abroad, and Clinton extremely reluctant. Beyond that it's impossible to tell their foreign policies apart."
With Strategies now in his editor's hands, Haley is back in the classroom at CMC for the fall semester, and serves as acting director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights while Center director John Roth, the Edward J. Sexton Professor of Philosophy, is on sabbatical at the U.S. Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Washington, and assistant director Jonathan Petropoulos is at Cambridge for the year. Haley plans to schedule guest speakers to address human rights issues. If funding allows, the Center hopes to organize a student study trip in spring to Washington, D.C., to conduct research at the Holocaust Museum and at human rights organizations. "It would be similar to the student study visit in Krakow and the concentration camps last year, coordinated by the Center," he says. Haley also will take advantage of a new Mellon Foundation grant given to The Claremont Colleges to promote international understanding.
"The Claremont Colleges are reaching out to universities in other countries," he says, "with initial exchanges with faculty and students in the Middle East."