Foreign Affairs is rarely a huge issue in a Presidential Race. This time around it looks like it will be. WHAT IS THE RIGHT FIT FOR THE U.S. HOW CAN WE BE A SUPERPOWER WITH FEWER RESOURCES AND A MORE CONFLICTED WORLD?
In Superpower: Three Choices for America's Role in the World Eurasia Group president Ian Bremmer explains the increasingly directionless and prohibitively expensive foreign policy of the United States- a policy that remains based on conditions of military, and economic dominance that are fast slipping way despite its still being a superpower.
Super Power Defined. According to Bremmer,a "superpower" is a country that can exert enough military,political,and economic power to persuade nations in any region of the world to take important actions they wouldn't otherwise take BUT that power is limited such that multiple fronts deplete both military and economic reserves.
In such a case picking one's battles is essential.
The book offers an analysis of the ways in which the US, since the end of the Cold War, has stumbled from crisis to crisis without a clear strategy. This is particularly true for US foreign policy in Eurasia and the Middle East.
Bremmer argues that ordinary Americans too often base their foreign policy choices on allegiance or opposition to the party in power. He suggests that neither party is being realistic any longer. Both mouth the rhetoric that creates situations like that which allowed a neocon dominance of the Bush administration to take us into a war in Iraq which has destabilized the Middle East in historic fashion.
Bremer outlines three options regarding what sort of country America should be and how it should use its superpower status,in order to strengthen the nation's commitment to a more coherent strategy in the world:
Indispensable America: argues that only America can defend the values on which global stability increasingly depends. In today's interdependent,hyper-connected world,a turn inward would undermine America's own security and prosperity. Indispensable America is the most costly option requiring a very large military and a willingness to use American economic power to influence foreign governments (via foreign aid and military assistance). However,failing to protect US values and basic freedoms across the world presents the greater risk. This is what got the U.S. into Iraq with the aim to recreate that nation as an American client state and as a certain source of oil.
Moneyball America: acknowledges that Washington can't meet every international challenge. The priority must be to focus on opportunities and to defend US interests where they're threatened with the possibility of a big payoff without huge risk or investment. Without imposing its values on anyone,the US should help its allies in ways that make America more secure and prosperous. This is best represented by the George HW Bush commitment to the limited and paid for mission in Kuwait, the first Gulf War.
Independent America: asserts that it's time for the US to declare independence from international burdens. Instead,Americans should lead by example – in part,by improving the country from within and tapping into its own latent potential. Bremmer suggests that this is where America is headed in no small part because the public has had it with interventionism. The losses incurred are too great and the benefit too small, if it exists at all. Eisenhower, Reagan, and Clinton all embraced a model that is party Independent America and Party Moneyball America.
Bremmer is not suggesting isolationism. He is setting aside the notion that the U.S. is Superman. Investing the kind of money, human resources, and energy that Afghanistan (after the first 18 months when the original mission was complete which Bremmer regards as Moneyball Move) and Iraq represent in investment in the U.S. economy, in American development that could have been a game changer here; or consider how those resources could have been used in securing borders or developing more effective intel; or how our infrastructure might have been reshaped.
In Polling done by the Eurasia group, only the over 60 demographic chooses the Indispensable America model. Those under 35 choose Independent America with the middle aged choosing Moneyball America.
Overall
28 Percent- Indispenable
36 Percent- Moneyball
36 Percent- Independent
WHICH OF THE THREE DO YOU REGARD AS THE MOST REALISTIC AND MOST EFFECTIVE CHOICE FOR THE FUTURE?
For More on Bremmer's thinking see:
http://www.businessinsider.com/....
or the June 1 Edition of Time, page 28.
Where do you want to see the U.S. go? Take this quiz and find out:
http://time.com/....
This Diary has been Cross-Posted at Yabberz at http://yab.bz/...