the toughest part of judging someone's over-all record is determining what baseline to use for comparison and deciding how to weight the various issues. For the baseline, I try to imagine a neutral, empty-suit kind of president who would simply go along with sum total of the political and technocratic advice he was getting.
Re Russia, I don't have strong knowledge or opinions in that area, but I would agree with your general assessment. The question then becomes one of what another guy would have done and how important missile defense is. On the former, my hunch is "about the same." On the latter, this is obviously hotly contested stuff, and as always, TWT. Personally, I wouldn't have made it such a high priority. But if one would, then your assessment seems fair.
Re NK, Afghanistan, and China, I stand by my earlier assessments.
As for the general issue of priorities, finally, I think proliferation issues are huge. They play into a lot of the cases we've been discussing, obviously, and the simple fact is that there is no consensus at the moment, even among professionals, about what the country should do in this area over time. We sorely need better intellectual work in this area; I'm not at all happy with any of the received wisdom that's out there, in any of the camps. There should be some discussion of this kind of stuff in FA over time; hopefully, at least some of it will be good.
tb@boom.com |
