My comment: I do concede that for many it is too early to look at the candidacies of the White House aspirants. However, when we consider what is lacking in our politics today, I can easily go for someone who has a fair enough knowledge and personal experience of foreign cultures. The next President will have the undaunting task of repairing US's relations with other countries, particularly those in Europe and Russia. And the person who best fits that mold (minus Al Gore) is Barack. THat is the experience we need to look at, IMO
=================================================
Why Are We So Lousy at Foreign Policy?
By Ernest Wilson
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times asked a question last week worthy of further consideration: “Why are we so lousy at foreign policy?” He points to two basic reasons – one is America’s failure to understand nationalism abroad.
Kristof’s first reason for lousy foreign policy is that all super powers sometimes get clumsy in their exercise of power. Reminds me of a former teacher, Karl Deutsch, who used to say “Power is the ability not to have to learn.” Whether it was the Romans or the French, big empires get willfully ignorant and woefully arrogant.
Second, particular to the U.S., “We don’t understand the world.” (Duh!) “The US may owe its existence to prickly nationalist troublemakers like Sam Adams, but…we are obtuse about the appeal of prickly nationalist troublemakers elsewhere. Like George III, we empower our enemies.” (www.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/ columnists)
Kristof is on to something here. We have a particular blind spot when it comes to nationalism in its various forms. From the Congo to Vietnam, American foreign policy mandarins kept confusing nationalism with communism. Ho Chi Minh and Patrice Lumumba become blank canvases on which policy makers could paint the face of their favorite bugaboo. Today, nationalists are called terrorists instead of communists. Of course the two can overlap, and some nationalists are also terrorists and/or communists. But the biggest problems we set for ourselves come from pushing nationalists (and local run-of-the-mill power-seeking politicians) to become precisely what we fear most—think Castro in Cuba, whom our policies helped push even further down the road to hard-core communism. More recently, Bush policies have helped turn Iraq into what one Marine general described to me last year as a “terrorist-making factory.”
The current bunch of ostriches in office seem particularly prone to underestimating the power of local politics, local history and local nationalism. They treat nationalism with obvious disdain and dismiss as naïve anyone who dares point out that not everyplace is Wyoming or suburban Washington. But as Dorothy said, “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” (Even some of our more ‘progressive’ foreign policy types also confuse Kansas or Cambridge or Dupont Circle with the rest of the world.)
I used to think we were up against willful ignorance and wanton arrogance. I wonder if there’s more to it – they have seen the future and they don’t much like it, and will do anything and everything to stop it. Cheney & Bush don’t like the spread of democracy that gives other people the right to speak on their own behalf. They don’t like the spread of local media that gives local people the capacity to speak up for themselves. They don’t like the spread of social networks and NGOs that empower people to challenge old hierarchies. Maybe Rummy-Cheney really do get the big picture after all, but just don’t like what they see – Chinese and Venezuelans and Iranians growing more assertive and prickly abroad and their first reaction is to topple the leaders they don’t like. Maybe they figure they can return these black, brown and yellow upstarts back to their ‘proper’ place.
Perhaps it’s a final generational-cum-ideological spasm. – “We couldn’t smash ‘em like we wanted in the 60’s in ‘Nam, nor in the first Iraq fight. Now we’ll whip their butts once and for all.”
I don’t know, maybe it’s an old white guys thing...too much multi-culti at home and abroad for Cheney-Bush to deal with all at once. But let’s hope this latest spasm of willful ignorance, wanton arrogance, and reactionary nativism is coming to an end. Lest we like George III continue to empower our enemies.
americaabroad.tpmcafe.com |
