Politicians’ temporary gains and permanent defeats!
Dr. Abdullah bin Musa Al Tayer
There is a conviction that politics has no morals or principles, and they cite Machiavellianism for the validity of their claim. There are those who argue that generalizations are the language of the ignorant and that whoever examines the literature on politics finds varying moral frameworks for it depending on the political circumstance. I say what others say, past and present, that a policy free from moral restrictions can achieve victories in the short term, but it is not sustainable.
Voters in democratic countries, friends, allies, and even opponents, and history ultimately punish politicians devoid of morals and principles. The most effective politicians are those who combine clarity of purpose with flexibility in decision depending on the circumstances.
They seize opportunities, but they are firm on core values that give their actions meaning and legitimacy. Good politics is morally disciplined by responsibility, and has strategic opportunism, not the other way around.
Eccentric politicians who seize opportunities by any means imagine that they are gaining influence in a chaotic world in which interests are extracted without regard to the long-term consequences.
This approach undermines trust in politics, provokes backlash, and increases the risk of Newton’s third law backlash.
The trick in international relations lies not in ruthless opportunism, but in enhancing predictability and disciplined competition to advance interests, enabling partners to cooperate, and consolidating mutual gains over time. If random and tactical opportunism in the competition between great powers is linked to unpredictability, it will be the quickest path to mass suicide and the destruction of humanity’s gains.
No one denies that the Cold War would have been capable of destroying the world had it not been for the presence of rational politicians who promoted mutual prediction; The United States and the Soviet Union, capable of destroying each other and those around them, used arms control treaties and communication hotlines to anticipate moves and avoid escalation.
Because of this non-opportunistic approach, and by enhancing the value of anticipating the other’s behavior, no direct war occurred between the two superpowers, despite many proxy conflicts that broke out between them. To compare the behavior of the poles after World War II with the period between the two world wars, it will become clear that Hitler’s continuous opportunism, and his surprise of his neighbors using deception and false promises, achieved tactical gains for him, at first, but in the end it united the opponents against him, which led to the destruction of Nazi Germany.
Bismarck’s experience in unifying Germany may be one of the important lessons for politicians. He achieved short-term victories through unethical means, and in order to sustain them, his diplomacy shifted from quick opportunism and short-term victories to a different approach to political engagement that made Germany’s friends and opponents expect his behavior and reassured of the controls with which he restricted politics, which preserved peace in Europe for decades.
Likewise, China under Deng Xiaoping (1978-1992) sought to seize economic opportunities while maintaining the ability to strategically predict, which allowed decades of growth without conflict, because it simply made enemies and friends anticipate its decisions and predict its behavior without sending emotional messages or committing behaviors that undermined confidence in it.
Unpredictability in international relations leads to sudden political shifts and threats to allies and friends before enemies and damages the credibility of countries, which accelerates strategic independence from that reckless policy and enhances global hedging. Employing commercial opportunism, for example, to achieve immediate gains has its limits. It puts pressure on weaker countries, but it is a policy that does not work with strong adversaries determined to withstand chaos. Therefore, this approach, with the political, commercial and military gains it can achieve that create headlines in the media and social networks that populists feed on, becomes a more regressive weapon that threatens the interests of the state and blocs friends and opponents against it in the future because the trust that is built with the accumulation of years can collapse in a short period, and rebuilding it is very difficult and requires a longer time.
Realism is the essence of international relations, and politics is a repetitive game with high risks. Brute power operations may work and achieve gains against weak enemies or competitors, but they are the essence of counter-alliances and strategic deterrence for strong adversaries. The matter becomes more dangerous in a world with overlapping interests, interconnected with each other, whose edges are within reach of nuclear weapons, where the American market sneezes and the rest of the economies catch a fever, as the inability to predict the partners’ behaviors is more destructive, which stimulates the arms race and restricts global trade and the flow of mutual interests.
Effective politicians seize opportunities wisely, but anchor them in predictability to build lasting security. On the contrary, those who seek every gain by any means possible risk reaping very costly tactical gains and absolute strategic defeats. The most sophisticated and sustainable strategy is not surprise, but rather turning self-control into predictable behavior, governing the decisions of friends and foes alike, for the future of humanity.
