May 31st 2014, 2:41:34
I thought this was an interesting article:
http://www.theatlantic.com/...p;utm_source=facebook.com
"The press bears part of the blame. When politicians and pundits write an op‑ed or go on TV to offer opinions about the crisis of the day, they are rarely asked to reconcile those opinions with the ones they offered on a different crisis the day before. Moreover, foreign-policy debates are frequently segregated from domestic-policy ones, so commentators who propose increasing the defense budget or sending more foreign aid are seldom asked to explain which domestic programs they’d cut, or which taxes they’d raise, in order to find the money."
Later on:
"Where might a renewed focus on interests and priorities lead America’s foreign-policy debate? Toward Asia. However thuggish Vladimir Putin’s behavior is in his own backyard, Russia is in economic decline and lacks the capacity even to dominate eastern Europe, let alone to shut America out of Europe as a whole. Iran, as a Persian Shia middle-rate power widely hated for its role in the slaughter of Sunni Arabs in Syria, has little chance of achieving regional hegemony in the Middle East. The country in today’s world with the greatest capacity to threaten America’s core historic interests is China, which is converting its extraordinary economic dynamism into both military might and soft power. It is China, not Russia or Iran, that could block America’s access to key overseas markets, thus imperiling American jobs, and that could dump America’s debt, thus destabilizing the American economy. It is China, not Russia or Iran, that is developing the technology to mount a serious military challenge to the United States."
My only criticism would be the article entirely ignoring non-state actors, but that is a very different debate.
http://www.theatlantic.com/...p;utm_source=facebook.com
"The press bears part of the blame. When politicians and pundits write an op‑ed or go on TV to offer opinions about the crisis of the day, they are rarely asked to reconcile those opinions with the ones they offered on a different crisis the day before. Moreover, foreign-policy debates are frequently segregated from domestic-policy ones, so commentators who propose increasing the defense budget or sending more foreign aid are seldom asked to explain which domestic programs they’d cut, or which taxes they’d raise, in order to find the money."
Later on:
"Where might a renewed focus on interests and priorities lead America’s foreign-policy debate? Toward Asia. However thuggish Vladimir Putin’s behavior is in his own backyard, Russia is in economic decline and lacks the capacity even to dominate eastern Europe, let alone to shut America out of Europe as a whole. Iran, as a Persian Shia middle-rate power widely hated for its role in the slaughter of Sunni Arabs in Syria, has little chance of achieving regional hegemony in the Middle East. The country in today’s world with the greatest capacity to threaten America’s core historic interests is China, which is converting its extraordinary economic dynamism into both military might and soft power. It is China, not Russia or Iran, that could block America’s access to key overseas markets, thus imperiling American jobs, and that could dump America’s debt, thus destabilizing the American economy. It is China, not Russia or Iran, that is developing the technology to mount a serious military challenge to the United States."
My only criticism would be the article entirely ignoring non-state actors, but that is a very different debate.