Foreign Policy
What a Relief, Except...
The World Cup and American Exceptionalism
This year’s World Cup demonstrates, as it has in the past, a particular feature of American exceptionalism: the rest of the world cares passionately about soccer and its quadrennial championship. Americans don’t. READ MORE >>
Imagine (With Apologies to John Lennon)
For the sake of argument, imagine, if you can, an American foreign policy based on interest alone. To begin with, to use the current Wall Street phrase, it would need to overweight Latin America and underweight the Middle East. For whether the Obama administration believes it or not (in fairness, they are no worse than their predecessors, though they are no better either), crises are brewing in Latin America that pose potentially greater threats to the United States than those posed by Al Qaeda. READ MORE >>
Rolling Stone's Insight
We do not know whether the president will accept General McChrystal’s proffered resignation as Commanding General. But that uncertainty does not at all detract from the real insights to be gained from this most recent contretemps between the Republic’s Commander-in-Chief and his subordinates in the field. There is a pattern here: Consider, first, the president’s leadership for the past two months, during an environmental crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. In that light, consider his leadership in the war of counter-insurgency against Islamic extremists in Afghanistan. READ MORE >>
Well-Meaning Infidels
“When you go to protect people, the people have to want you to protect them,” General Stanley McChrystal recently told reporters. “It’s a deliberate process. It takes time to convince people.” READ MORE >>
Is China Headed for a Crash?
Anyone who doubts the role of “Black Swans” in shaping the course of human events should pause to reflect on the decade just past. 9/11 and the recent global financial meltdown are precisely the sorts of big, disruptive developments that occasionally send history careening onto unforeseen paths, leaving the reputations of prognosticators and the best-laid plans of policymakers in their wake. READ MORE >>
Welcome to Entanglements
First, Entanglements. As we sat around searching for the right word, a friend remarked that Entanglements abraded even his own frankly coarsened sensibilities. Why? Entanglements, after all, neatly summarizes the foreign policy challenges to which one administration after another has provided no adequate response. But the word also has a toxic resonance. Casting a glance backward to George Washington’s farewell address, my colleague knew the admonition against foreign entanglements, and its historical abuses, all too well. READ MORE >>
