Change and Continuity in Global Politics

All of these events certainly had significant impacts on the world, or on part of the world, but focusing too much on how events like September 11th changed the world only tells one side of the story. This is exacerbated by a media and punditry that focuses often overstate the impact of political events. The other side of the story, that even world changing events are usually as much about continuity as change, does not get as much attention, but is also important. Ignoring this continuity, or focusing on the changes to a degree that precludes and understanding of the continuity is a mistake.

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Democracy Isn't the Only System in Crisis Now

The broad turmoil which this will cause for the western democracies will be serious, but it should be seen in a broader context. The next few years will be tough for the world’s major democracies, but they may be worse for the world’s non-democratic regimes. Keeping non-democratic regimes running smoothly also requires resources, economic growth and stability. However, when these are not in place, it is often more difficult for authoritarian regimes to manage the consequences and the corresponding voter anger.

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Woody Allen and America's Declining Power to Persuade

The ability to persuade foreign leaders, particularly those who are allies, to support the U.S., both in big issues such as the war in Iraq, and more specific issues such as combating terrorism in one place or not initiating conflict, is a key piece of U.S. foreign policy. The ability to persuade rests on the critical assumption that there are benefits to helping the U.S. and costs to not doing that. These costs and benefits, however, need to be moderate in nature. A foreign policy that, for example, sought to cut off all assistance to countries that did not support the U.S. on everything would be bullying and ineffective. Similarly, it is essential to recognize that sometimes allies will have legitimate interests that differ from those of the U.S.

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Twenty Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall, How We Misremember the Cold War

The Cold War was the organizing principle of American foreign policy, and had a strong influence on domestic policy as well, for almost half a century. Today, less than two decades after its end, the Cold War is poorly remembered. The equivalence which some have suggested between the threat of Jihadist terror and that represented by the USSR, and the almost ubiquitous comparisons between Saddam Hussein and Stalin from those trying to drum up support for the Iraq war are just some examples of this. These comparisons are not so much wildly inaccurate, Jihadist terror represents a real threat to the U.S., and Hussein was much worse than your garden variety dictator, but they betray an intellectual laziness and failure to understand the true nature, and, for quite a long time, power of the Soviet regime.

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Barack Obama: Our First Post Post-Cold War President

As our first post-Cold War president, Bill Clinton was faced with an entirely new content for international politics when he came into office in 1993. Now, sixteen years later, Barack Obama comes to office as our first post post-Cold War President. And while the end of the Cold War was a major international news story, the end of the post-Cold War period is much less clear or decisive. If the Cold War ended with a bang, the post-Cold War ended with a whimper (or perhaps a tweet). And now that the post-Cold War paradigm is no longer our frame for international relations, President Obama is operating in a vastly different foreign policy environment than either of his two predecessors were.

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Foreign Policy Limbo: Can Obama Get Us Out?

The major questions Obama faces with regards to cleaning up after President Bush are tactical and strategic–how to best wind down the war in Iraq, stabilize Pakistan, and staunch the global economic bleeding. There are, of course, also specific global hot spots where conflicts have been going on for decades, such as Kashmir and the Israel-Palestine conflict, where Obama will try to succeed where his predecessors have largely failed.

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Continuity or Change-Obama and Democracy Assistance

During the transition between administrations and the first few months of the Obama presidency, there has been a lot of talk — in Washington think tanks, universities and the foreign policy blogosphere — about how democracy assistance policy will be different in the new administration. The assumption for many was that the Bush administration had, if not started democracy assistance policies, then taken them to a new level of intensity which would be scaled back by a less ideological and more multilateral Obama presidency.

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The Republican Race that Wasn't →

There was one part of this election season, however, which was a real disappointment. That, of course, was the Republican primary. For pure theater, the cast of characters seeking the Republican nomination promised perhaps even greater drama than the Democratic primary. The Republican primary had a 1970s style curmudgeonly Cold Warrior, a slick and well-spoken 21st century capitalist, a charmingly reactionary evangelist, a perpetually angry former mayor of New York City whose personal life had been an ongoing soap opera for years, a very thoughtful and serious 19th century Whig, and, for good measure, a conservative southern senator who almost literally came from central casting.

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Looking Backward-McCain Style →

The Republican campaign has collapsed among a sordid and backward looking combination of incompetence, red-baiting that feels bizarrely anachronistic and almost quaint, the growing acceptance among many in the Republican establishment that Sarah Palin is about as qualified to be president as I am to play first base for the Yankees, an adolescent, but deeply disturbing attempt to fake a racially charged attack on a McCain supporter, attempts to suggest that the Democratic president is a supporter of terrorism essentially because he has an unusual name and through ugly anti-Muslim bigotry. Lastly, the dreaded October surprise that many Democrats feared would turn this election upside down and defeat Obama turned out to be a shopping spree in which Republican handlers bought Sarah Palin $150,000 worth of clothes and makeup.

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Obama, McCain and Russia's War on Georgia →

While I have lived, worked and frequently visited Georgia since 2002 and have written extensively on Georgian politics, I am not going to address the specifics of the conflict here. Instead, it might be useful to explore some of the questions which the conflict between Georgia and Russia raises for domestic politics in the US. The conflict has, appropriately, led to debate online and elsewhere about the limits, impact and attitudes of American power foreign policy. It has also, again not unsurprisingly, become an issue in the presidential race as Senator McCain has responded with blustery statements stressing Russian aggression and the need to defend Georgia, while Senator Obama has emphasized these points, but also stressed the need for partnership with Europe on this issue.

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Charlie Black: Not Just Offensive, but Wrong →

Recent comments by John McCain's advisor Charlie Black regarding the potential impact of future terrorist attacks on McCain's presidential campaign, "Certainly it would be a big advantage to him," are not just offensive and inappropriate, but indicate that the McCain campaign is increasingly out of touch with how American voters are feeling this year. Black's comments rested on the notion that somehow Americans, if they feel threatened, will naturally turn to the crusty old Republican veteran rather than the untested, liberal, anti-war Democrat.

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