Political Resources
Foreign Policy
The drive to dominate countries is rooted in and reinforces the drive to dominate individuals.
Articles/Essays/Op-eds
When the C.I.A. Messes Up, Daniel Immerwahr, June 10, 2024.
“Its agents are often depicted as malevolent puppet masters—or as bumbling idiots. The truth is even less comforting….
The C.I.A.’s trail of havoc, he feels, stems not from the ineptitude of its officers but from the audacity of its mission. Superintending global politics is a vast undertaking, requiring both a deep understanding of many places and the sort of hubris that makes that deep understanding difficult. And, because Washington has been insulated from the worst consequences of its mistakes, it has rarely been forced to learn from them. In the end, the C.I.A. has the power to break things, but not the skill to build them.
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The heart of the issue is the United States’ determination to control global affairs. This is not a secret desire but a point of pride. Joe Biden has spoken of the need for the U.S. to remain at the “head of the table.” One can argue about whether the United States has led well, or whether others would do worse. But a clear-eyed reckoning must acknowledge that “leadership” never meant just bold ideas and stern resolve. It also meant scheming generals, poison vials, and Albanians parachuting to certain death.”
This Prophetic Academic Now Foresees the West’s Defeat, Christopher Caldwell.
American leadership is failing:… .( In“The Defeat of the West”. IEmmanuel Todd believes American imperialism has not only endangered the rest of the world but also corroded American character…. But parts of his case involve deeper, long-term cultural shifts perennially associated with prosperity. We used to call them decadence.
In an advanced, highly educated society like ours, Mr. Todd argues, too many people aspire to the work of running things and bossing people around. They want to be politicians, artists, managers…. “In the long run, educational progress has brought educational decline,” he writes, “because it has led to the disappearance of those values that favor education” … as its young people drift from demanding, high-skill, high-value-added occupations to law, finance, and various occupations that merely transfer value around the economy and in some cases may even destroy it. ...
As Mr. Todd sees it, the West’s decision to outsource its industrial base is more than bad policy; it is also evidence of a project to exploit the rest of the world. But ringing up profits is not the only thing America does in the world — it also spreads a system of liberal values, which are often described as universal human rights…. Mr. Todd warns that a lot of the values Americans are currently spreading are less universal than Americans think....
traditional cultures have a lot to fear from the West’s various progressive leanings and may resist allying themselves on foreign policy with those who espouse them.... Mr. Todd does believe that certain of our values are “deeply negative.” He presents evidence that the West does not value the lives of its young. ....
The larger threat to the Western order is the hubris of those who run it. Fighting a war based on values requires good values. At a bare minimum it requires an agreement on the values being spread, and the United States is further from such agreement than it has ever been in its history ... Until some new consensus emerges, President Biden is misrepresenting his country in presenting it as stable and unified enough to commit to anything. [read more]
How Russia Went from Ally to Adversary, Keith Gessen.
The dominate-and-surrender paradigm on the global stage
In early December of 1989, a few weeks after the Berlin Wall fell, Mikhail Gorbachev attended his first summit with President George H. W. Bush... Gorbachev unveiled what he considered a great surprise. It was a heartfelt statement about his hope for new relations between the two superpowers. “I want to say to you and the United States that the Soviet Union will under no circumstances start a war,” Gorbachev said. “The Soviet Union is no longer prepared to regard the United States as an adversary.”... Bush did not react... Perhaps it was because to him, as a practical matter, the declaration of peace and partnership was meaningless. As he put it, a couple of months later, to the German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, “We prevailed and they didn’t.” Gorbachev thought he was discussing the creation of a new world, in which the Soviet Union and the United States worked together, two old foes reconciled. Bush thought he was merely negotiating the terms for the Soviets’ surrender... [read more]
Oppenheimer, Wade Lee Hudson.
After watching the feature film, “Oppenheimer,” I viewed the PBS documentary, “The Day After Trinity,” and the documentary about its production on the Criterion channel. I then did some research on the issues these films raise.
The backdrop for the decision to bomb Hiroshima was America’s apparently unusual demand for unconditional surrender from Germany and Japan. [read more]
Putin and the Power of Collective Action from Shared Awareness, Otto Scharmer.
...Pointing out these shortcomings in America today is just as popular as it was in 2003 to criticize the US invasion of Iraq (which, like the invasion of Ukraine, was conducted on false and fabricated pretenses). No one wants to hear it. Because it’s part of the collective Western blind spot: our own role in the making of the tragedy that is unfolding in Ukraine.... Why is US foreign policy perpetually unable to respect the security concerns of another major nuclear power that has been invaded by Western forces more than once (Hitler, Napoleon) and that in the 1990s went through another traumatic experience: the collapse of both its empire and its economy (guided by the advice of Western experts)? READ MORE
Globalization is a game changer for America, Hector Garcia, May 18, 2012.
...The U.S. will not retain global preeminence by desperately hanging on to vestiges of its glory nor by the divisive communication rampant in government, the media and society at large.
The hope and optimism, for which Americans have been known, will erode if this culture of unrestrained confrontation and self-indulgence continues to take root... READ MORE
U.S. democracy is in grave danger, a new Economist report warns, Amanda Erickson.
"Democracy is in under siege around the world, according to a new report by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
The annual Democracy Index tracks the health of the world's governments. And the results for 2017 are depressing. In 89 countries, democratic norms look worse than they did last year, the report's authors write. Just 4.5 percent of the world's residents live in fully functioning democracies, down from 8.9 percent in 2015.
That precipitous drop is thanks, primarily, to the United States..."
Threat to Democracy, Fareed Zakaria interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin and Jon Meacham.
Amanpour & Co. with Christiane Amanpour. Fascism and Human Rights interviews.
April 7, 2022: Scroll to: Bosnia-born Dunja Mijatovic--the human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe and Author Jason Stanley talks about fascism and the dangerous spread of autocracy. November 11, 2023: A new report says U.S. democracy is backsliding. A look at why and the dangers of polarization.
Interview with Masha Gessen begins at [10:40:42].
Fareed Zakaria: Columns.
The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare, Thomas Homer-Dixon.
“The U.S. is becoming increasingly ungovernable, and some experts believe it could descend into civil war. What should Canada do then? [. . .] Once a hardline doctrine is widely accepted within a political movement, it becomes an “infrastructure” of ideas and incentives that can pressure even those who don’t really accept the doctrine into following its dictates. Fear of “true believers” shifts the behaviour of the movement’s moderates toward extremism. Sure enough, the experts I recently consulted all spoke about how fear of crossing Mr. Trump’s base – including fear for their families’ physical safety – was forcing otherwise sensible Republicans to fall into line. [. . .]” [read more]
Diversity of opinion not an impediment to effective democracy, Hector E. Garcia.
[. . .] there are millions of Americans who are more familiar with a much more recent history. They know more about the values that have been in practice over the last five decades, after the nation experienced unprecedented affluence and became the sole Super Power, seemingly indispensable to the world.
These are two broad classifications with many nuances in-between but the distinction should be made because of the large proportion of citizens and leaders who now fall into the second category. What the latter often convey is that the formula for the success of Americans was based on principles such as: winning-is-the-only thing, looking-out-for-number-one, elitism and entitled consumption of cheap products and simplified information [. . .]
Optimizing Globalization Will Become Possible with a New Paradigm, Hector E Garcia.
Humanity is experiencing great trauma during the current phase of globalization. According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE; 2019), “Globalization is… the growing interdependence of the world’s economies, cultures, and populations, brought about by cross-border trade in goods and services, technology, and flows of investment, people, and information.” The human factor is included significantly in the PIIE definition—cultures, populations and flows of people. The human factor has been the least considered in current and early stages of globalization. That factor causes the most resistance and fear. Where and how are we looking for solutions? We keep focusing on areas where we have invested the most—economy, technology and physical science, while increasingly disregarding human dignity and human agency (Haque, 2018). This article proposes that we can address these inconsistencies in globalization if humanity evolves to greater maturity through a paradigm, which reveals cultural interdependence as a priority on par with economic and technological interdependence. Such a paradigm is Cultural Complementarity, which can harness cultural synergy to complement the achievements already in place and to reduce fear and divisiveness and their resulting excess and crises.
The Opportunity Pact, Hector Garcia.
"ECONOMIC DEMOCRATIZATION -- the wide distribution of opportunity and resources -- has always been feared by privileged groups. Their fear is grounded in scarcity; if such distribution takes place, there will not be enough for everyone. For some Americans, that fear has come to focus on the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA, in this view, is a package of concessions granted to needy Mexicans. As a consequence, they view NAFTA as a give-away rather than as a historic opportunity.
In fact, NAFTA can provide the legal spark that will help speed the process of democratizing the global economy [. . .]” [read more]
Opposition to NATO Expansion, Stan Resor.
On June 26, 1997 a group of 50 prominent foreign policy experts that included former senators, retired military officers, diplomats and academicians, sent an open letter to President Clinton outlining their opposition to NATO expansion. They said, “We, the undersigned, believe that the current U.S.led effort to expand NATO, the focus of the recent Helsinki and Paris Summits, is a policy error of historic proportions. We believe that NATO expansion will decrease allied security and unsettle European stability... Because of these serious objections, and in the absence of any reason for rapid decision, we strongly urge that the NATO expansion process be suspended... In Russia, NATO expansion, which continues to be opposed across the entire political spectrum, will strengthen the nondemocratic opposition, undercut those who favor reform and cooperation with the West, bring the Russians to question the entire post-Cold War settlement, and galvanize resistance [to arms control treaties] [. . .]”
On February 21, 2022, after Russia had invaded Ukraine, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman published "This Is Putin’s War. But America and NATO Aren’t Innocent Bystanders" in which he reported:
ALSO:
On May 2, 1998, immediately after the Senate ratified NATO expansion, I called George Kennan, the architect of America’s successful containment of the Soviet Union. Having joined the State Department in 1926 and served as U.S. ambassador to Moscow in 1952, Kennan was arguably America’s greatest expert on Russia....I asked for his opinion of NATO expansion. [He answered]:“I think it is the beginning of a new cold war. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever... Don’t people understand? Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime [. . .]”
Putin Wants a Clash of Civilizations. Is ‘The West’ Falling for It? (behind paywall), The New York Times, March 11, 2022, Thomas Meaney.
“"[. . .] The more we hear about the resolve of the West, the more the values of a liberal international order appear like the provincial set of principles of a particular people, in a particular place.
Of the 10 most-populous countries in the world, only one — the United States — supports major economic sanctions against Russia [. . .] Nor do non-Western states appear to welcome the kind of economic disruptions that will result [. . .]
The rest of the world is concerned not only about wider economic immiseration but also about the global escalation of a conflict between two ‘civilizations” that share the preponderance of the world’s nuclear weapons between them.”
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Ezra Klein Interviews Fareed Zakaria.
Transcript: March 4, 2022
Fareed Zakaria Has a Better Way to Handle Russia — and China
The case for thinking strategically, not ideologically, about great power conflict.
I’m Ezra Klein, and this is “The Ezra Klein Show.”
It is eerie knowing that you have lived through the end of an era and that you’re now witnessing the birth of another. For most of my life, foreign policy has not been dominated by great power conflict. And that is a defining characteristic of that period. There have been crises. There have been wars. There have been horrors. But America was too strong and other countries too weak to really worry about world wars or even cold wars, to see the world as this great power chessboard.
That’s changed [. . .] (Posted in Political/Foreign Policy)
This Is Putin’s War. But America and NATO Aren’t Innocent Bystanders, Thomas L. Friedman.
“[. . .] But, with all of that said, America is not entirely innocent of fueling his fires… In my view, there are two huge logs fueling this fire. The first log was the ill-considered decision by the U.S. in the 1990s to expand NATO after — indeed, despite — the collapse of the Soviet Union [. . .]” [read more]
The End of American Crusaderism? The Interpreter.
“We may, someday soon, look back with puzzlement at the time in which Americans believed their country was so innately superior, so ordained with special virtue — so exceptional — that it was their right and responsibility to dictate affairs overseas.
There have been indications for years that belief in American exceptionalism is declining. Now, the latest report from a four-year study by the Eurasia Group Foundation, tracking American attitudes on foreign policy matters, suggests that exceptionalism could end outright — and, with it, perhaps even the era of America as global crusader [. . .]” [read more]
The Lie of Nation Building, Fintan O’Toole.
“The great question of America’s twenty-year war in Afghanistan was not whether the Afghans were fit for democracy. It was whether democratic values were strong enough in the US to be projected onto a traumatized society seven thousand miles away. Those values include the accountability of the people in power, the consistent and universal application of human rights, a clear understanding of what policies are trying to achieve, the prevention of corrupt financial influence over political decisions, and the fundamental truthfulness of public utterances. In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the American republic was fighting, and often losing, a domestic battle to uphold those values for its own citizens. It is grimly unsurprising that the US could not infuse them into a very foreign country.” [read more]
Did Making the Rules of War Better Make the World Worse? Dexter Filkins.
“Why efforts to curb the cruelty of military force may have backfired… In Arkin’s view, the covid-19 pandemic brought the 9/11 era to an end: two decades of misdirected resources bookended by displays of official incompetence. Arkin argues that the time is overdue to pull back—to close some of our overseas bases and bring home many of the troops [. . .]” [read more]
The Dangerous Politics of ‘We Will Not Forgive’, Esau McCaulley.
“[. . .] Here is a radical and seemingly untenable proposal: We meet hatred with forgiveness and even sometimes love. Could not American grief lead to displays of grace? What if, in response to tragedy, we declared war on the human despair that is a breeding ground of terrorism and steered far more aid money and efforts to helping the poor and refugees? We could display, in the very places where terrorists recruit, that we care about the disinherited. We could show that America is a friend and not an enemy to the hurting people of the world [. . .]" [read more]
Is Biden normalizing Trump’s foreign policy?, Fareed Zakaria.
"[. . .] After almost eight months of watching policies, rhetoric and crises, many foreign observers have been surprised — even shocked — to discover that, in area after area, Biden’s foreign policy is a faithful continuation of Donald Trump’s and a repudiation of Barack Obama’s [. . .]" [read more]
Diplomacy is back, Wilfried Bolewski.
“I. The end of post 9/11 military interventionism. With the sudden retreat and mismanaged withdrawal of Western forces and the debacle of the botched evacuation of civilians from Afghanistan, the post 9/11 era of international military interventionism (including Libya, Syria and Yemen) is nearing its end of a (minimal domestic and international) foreign policy consensus... The crux of this intervention as a foreign policy tool is that it ties humanitarian compassion and motivation to the unquestioned and uncorrected delusion of military control and dominance... This strategic moral diplomacy or alterity diplomacy is a process of communication that should be practiced to facilitate social interaction between all human beings who have differences,.. Successful diplomacy can only be judged relative to the situational, contextual, timely, and structural constraints and expectations felt by the actors and institutions involved and the general public. The emphasis is on inclusive relationship building, durability, sustainability and general acceptance of outcome. Successful diplomats do not create winners or losers, but a compromise solution acceptable to all concerned.” [read more]
The Biden Doctrine, Sahil Kapur, on Washington Week.
“I think we are seeing a Biden doctrine come into focus on foreign policy and that begins with an emphatic rejection of the post-9/11 foreign policy consensus that the United States can and should use military power, use force to invade other countries in pursuit of exporting American democracy there. This is a Joe Biden who once believed in that when he voted to authorize the Afghanistan war, when he voted to authorize the Iraq war, and he’s come to the completely opposite conclusion that it cannot be done and it shouldn’t be done, and I think that’s why his resolve has been so steely to continue the withdrawal plan in the face of enormous criticism. That Biden doctrine also includes the idea of what foreign policy experts call soft power, using diplomatic tools, using things like economic tools and conditioning of foreign aid as a way to promote human rights and democracy in other parts of the world.”
The Foreign Policy Conversation Washington Doesn’t Want to Have, Interview with Robert Wright
“So I wanted to have a foreign policy conversation that I’m not hearing with someone who stands outside of and critiques the Washington consensus on these issues. Robert Wright is a journalist and an author. He’s the founder of one of the great enduring institutions of the blogosphere, bloggingheads.tv. He writes on science, and religion, and human cooperation, and foreign policy — particularly foreign policy — in his excellent newsletter Nonzero. I’m a subscriber to that. I urge you to be one too.
In Nonzero, he really routinely examines the assumptions that drive America’s foreign policy conversation, the interest groups that drive it, the kind of collective social dynamics of what he and others call the blob, which is the Washington foreign policy establishment. And that’s what I wanted to talk to him about — the ideas about American power that get taken for granted, the history of failure and blowback that we often ignore, and the lessons we need to learn.
Our reckoning with not just the harm we have done, but I want to say this clearly — with the good we could achieve, the good we could do is long overdue.” [read more]
We’re Living in the World the War on Terror Built, Spencer Ackerman
"How the politics of the 9/11 era produced Donald Trump.
I’m Ezra Klein, and this is ‘The Ezra Klein Show.’ My guest today is somebody I’ve known almost as long as I’ve been in journalism. Spencer Ackerman is a leading national security reporter. He’s the author of the newsletter “Forever Wars,” he’s a contributing editor at The Daily Beast, and he’s a member of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team that reported on Edward Snowden’s surveillance revelations. But now he’s out with a new book, his first book, Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump. [. . .]" [read more]
Books
Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville and Henry Reeve.
Healing the Heart of Democracy, Parker J. Palmer.
The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels. Jon Meacham.
The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, Robert B. Reich.
“a three-volume collection of speeches and writings by Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and current paramount leader of China. Presenting the official party line for China's development in the 21st century, the collection is an authoritative source on Xi Jinping Thought and a literary successor to Chairman Mao Zedong's Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung. The volumes were published in 2014, 2017, and 2020 respectively.”
The Sincere Veneer, Geoffrey Ferster.
“Seeks to explain why the vast resources that have been devoted to developmental issues in recent decades have borne so little fruit… Industry experts are far more adept at delivering exceptional rewards to themselves than to those in need.. [They] brought into being that self-perpetuating behemoth we call the Development Industry. But all is not lost, in Ferster’s view. The talent and resources are in place: what’s needed to get the “industry” back on track is a reorganization of the intellectual infrastructure that guides the system.”
Video
Fareed Zakaria: Global Public Square on CNN.
Amanpour & Co. with Christiane Amanpour. Fascism and Human Rights interviews. April 7, 2022:
Scroll to: Bosnia-born Dunja Mijatovic--the human rights commissioner for the Council of Europe and Author Jason Stanley talks about fascism and the dangerous spread of autocracy. November 11, 2023: A new report says U.S. democracy is backsliding. A look at why and the dangers of polarization.
"The Daily Show" correspondent Jordan Klepper talks with Brian Stelter about his upcoming special "Hungary for Democracy." "Reliable Sources Daily" is available on CNN+ -- CNN's new streaming service. Source: CNN.