If we had an ‘Article of the Month Club,’ this would be your reading and we’d all be making up bullet points to discuss it. Read it and tell me what you think.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
19 Comments
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I figured that a magazine titled The Economist would be more interested in economic matters. There is already a blog(and magazine) titled Foreign Policy.
There’s a symbiotic relationship between economics and politics – how did Don Lucchesi put it in Godfather III?
Yippie Kai Yay, m-f’ers…
Foreign Policy is also a magazine. The Washington Post publishes it. Do you see any problems with that? I do.
Short version:
There is plenty to discuss at a site like The Economist, but I’d be surprised and dismayed to find a healthy debate here.
Surprised I could get, but dismayed?
A pretty sober assessment of Obama’s foreign policy so far. The building of alliances in Southeast Asia is symbolized by Hillary Clinton’s weighing in on the territorial dispute over the Spratly Islands, which will determine whether the Straits of Molucca are an international trade route or terminate in a Chinese territorial sea. What this means is that the US and Vietnam are now allies, as is the US and Indonesia, and the US and the Philippines.
Bullet points:
America’s wrong turn
Obama resisted temptation to isolationism by engaging:
Conciliatory tone and strong action
UK sees US as still indispensable
Strong America in the world benefits America at home
– end of bullet points
The threats as non-state actors and militaries (and I would include mercenary companies and transnation corporations), proliferation of nuclear, biological, chemical weapons (starting with the US), and regional or world wars do indeed affect the national security of the US. Let’s focus our national security policy (and not just our military policy) on that. And let’s take away one of the strategic drivers of conflict — the competition for fossil fuel resources and uranium.
Agree with your comment TarheelDem. Seems to me there’s quite an isolationist streak among progressives (in the blogosphere at least) prps as a reaction against the neocons. Not helpful, imo. “The threats as non-state actors and militaries (mercenary companies and transnational corporations) … ” yes indeed. Bushco acted in concert with those, hence it was easy for him to advance goals of plunder and breaking down the rule of law. going against them, working towards a global rule of law, that’s more difficult.
I understand that isolationist streak. There is an understanding that:
(1) A large military with little to do will look for something to do to justify its existence.
(2) The US national security strategy of forward basing looks very much like imperialism designed to provide cover for US-based trans-national corporations.
(3) The national security importance of oil is a self-reinforcing reality. The military runs on petroleum-based products; therefore, you have to use the military to secure large potential amounts of petroleum.
(4) There is also an autarkic streak that result from the wage deflation resulting from free trade agreements that reinforces isolationism.
(5) There is an argument that says when you have a country in which as many firearms as people are widely distributed, do you think some other power would like to face an insurgency of 50-100 million people?
(6) It has been 63 years since US national security institutions have been looked at comprehensively, and there is known to be huge waste in the current national security institutions.
(7) Foreign adventures and their blowback have threatened civil and human rights domestically. We no longer are an open society.
Excellent points. and yes, I sympathize with isolationism as well as understanding it.
The Palestinians have ever so much to look forward to:
‘Next week he will inaugurate a new bout of direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians, chaperoned by Egypt’s president and Jordan’s king.’
Egypt and Jordan as chaperons? You might think their kids are throwing the party for old friends, which excludes the Palestinians. I’d like to see others in the mix, like Turkey, to generate a little sense of perspective and determination. The Economist article is a typical wish dream. The US-centric view obscures vision.
What it means is that European neo-cons – the Economist is a notoriously right wing mag – are very comfortable with Obama, and by extension, much of what passes for progressivism in the US. US progressives can’t understand why their counterparts abroad have long since stopped cheering for Obama, and regret ever having done so.
What is missing is any analysis of why European, Chinese, Indian, Iranian etc. states might have legitimately different interests and strategic objectives than the US – which is largely about making the world safe for US global corporate exploitation and non-renewable resource depletion.
All opposition to US self-interest is depicted as terrorism, islamofascism, narcistic European complacency etc. Anti-US movements develop and gain strength because supposedly “legitimate” non-US states nevertheless cravenly support US corporate interests whether because of bribery or ideological capture. Any states which don’t are demonised and driven to extreme measures to maintain their national sovereignty.
The US not only spends as much on their military as the rest of the world put together, it also maintains bases in over 100 supposedly sovereign countries to ensure those countries pursue policies favourable to US Corporate interests. US progressives have little awareness and apparently little problem with this.
What the hell is the US doing in Iraq or Afghanistan? Al Qaeda have long moved elsewhere. US military occupation only perpetuates an environment for its re-generation all over the globe.
It is Israel, not Iran, which is leading the middle eastern arms race, and the US which is proliferating its military attitudes and culture world-wide. The signs that this is leading to unbearable strains for the US economy is a sign of hope, not despair. The sooner the US is forced to de-escalate its arms race, the better.
It’s a little more complicated than that. The US maintains bases in South Korea and Japan to ensure that if they are attacked the US will quickly be involved. That used to be the case with bases in European countries until the end of the Soviet Union. Today in Europe it is the former Soviet satellite countries that seek US installations as a tripwire should Russia carry out aggression. In addition there are bases that are primarily logistics assembly stops or refueling stops.
globalsecurity.org in its piece on the US European command has a pretty good summary of those different purposes:
For a lot of countries, having the US spend the most for defense frees them to not have as large defense expenditures, allowing them to compete with the US economically.
I agree it is more complicated than my polemical summary, but a convenient by-product of all these bases, whatever their overt purpose, is that host Governments know that they had better not step too far out of line with US interests – a la Iran, Venezuela or Cuba – despite the presence of Guantanamo.
For some poorer countries, such bases can represent much needed income/employment, for others, an insurance policy against aggression by a neighbour. However what they most certainly do not provide is a guarantee of local Sovereignty should some US corporate want access to local oil, gas, rare minerals/metals, consumer markets etc. There is a price to be paid for the strategic protection those bases can provide.
Effectively, host Governments are absorbed into the US sphere of influence, host economies are opened up for (sometimes very unequal) competition from US corporates, and host societies are opened up to US media/propaganda, films, consumer values, ethos and icons.
Mostly it is a pervasive process, not altogether benign or malign, with outright US military intervention in the form of coups or funding of ultra right political parties the exception rather than the rule. Political influence buying has come on a long way since the overthrow of Allende, and need not be as obvious or blatant.
But the one thing all methods have in common is a completely blindness to the possibility that nation states have rights, as sovereign nation, to pursue policies which may not be in the US interest, which avoid full incorporation into foreign dominated markets, and which do not pay homage to the imperial gifts of “free” markets, “free” politics or a commodification of their societies.
The Economist exemplifies those attitudes in Europe. It would never be cited as an example of progressive or balanced reporting in Europe, and is in many ways the house magazine for global corporates. That it can be so cited in the US shows how great the Gulf between the US and the rest of the world has become – at least as far as progressive politics is concerned.
Bernard de Voto wrote a classic history of the Manifest Destiny period called The Course of Empire. In it he describes how from broad policy to individual action there was the agreement that the US was and ought to be an empire, like Greece, like Rome, like Britain, like France, like Spain. That cultural strain is hard to lose without creating a deep popular anxiety.
What is different from the period de Voto describes is transnational corporations that seek to be empires of their own. And can buy influence, now not just from the US but from Switzerland, the EU, Japan, the Gulf emirates. The Economist is part of the infrastructure of those transnational corporations; it is how they posture to each other. It is how the conventional wisdom for the trans-Atlantic business community gets broadcast. When I say it is a sober assessment, I am saying that compared to the US press or the US business press, it is a sober assessment and a good view of Obama’s foreign policy–whether you like that policy or not.
A favorite saying: “When you have a new paradigm, everyone starts at zero”. The UK and the US continue to operate with 19th century gunboat diplomacy; the Chinese use a 21st century economic outreach to gain the same goals, e.g.oil. While we continue to flush our future down the drain in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Sudan, Iran(?), the Chinese are expanding their influence without threats or firing a shot.
Obama would never have been able to run much less win if he were not willing to continue the Military/Industrial empire, regardless of where it is leading us.
When you are in a hole, the first step should be to stop digging…
Um, no.
This is half-assed foreign-policy centrism.
I thought it was a good sensible article. Another one from across the pond also caught my eye – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/29/andrew-rawnsley-obama-second-term
money quote from said article: “My money is still on Obama winning a second term and probably handsomely. And if he doesn’t? He has already accomplished more in half a term than many presidents manage to achieve in two.”
I would first suggest this as complementary reading.
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LH28Df01.html
Obama may or may not be aiming at being a transformational president at home, but in the international context he clearly wears his “competent manager” hat.
I agree with Tarheel Dem and others that the English and European right are perfectly happy to have Obama continue to pursue a policy of American military hegemony. It makes life in London, Paris and Berlin a lot easier in several ways.
Unfortunately, I think our current strategy is basically “keeping the lid on.” In our current international environment this may be the worst-best plan. It might be the only one available to us, really, but still not have a good chance of success and not have a lot of upside. It would seem that successful execution of our current strategy would postpone major international catastrophes, but I’m not sure what else it accomplishes.
It would be different if we could get China to sign on to a carbon limitation regime, or Israel to stop creating bantustans, Afghanistan to be a functional state or Iran to stop being Iran, but we are not in a good place to accomplish any of these goals. All that any of these antagonists need to do, after all, is stymie our efforts. And there is precious little we can do to pressure them enough that they have to change. Then, when we and they have all kicked the ball down the road and suddenly something goes wrong, the egg is on Obama’s face and the US probably foots most of the cleanup bill.
As for Iraq, it will be a major success if we can avoid major bloodshed there. Leaving 50K troops is wise. Unfortunately, the US media is so invested in misreading and oversimplifying reality, that even if we do succeed in this, there will be no credit to go around. It will pass without comment.