Comments on: Stand and Deliver!

By: Boyd

Boyd — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:49:27 +0000

Mr Friedman confuses me. Are Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and North Korea problems to solve or conditions to manage? He argues both mutually exclusive positions.

By: Brett

Brett — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:59:16 +0000

Five biggest foreign policy problems:

1. Midwifing a new international-level system of energy and technological use away from the traditional petroleum use and politics in order to avoid severe climate change issues.

2. Minimizing our exposure to the problems of other states in an increasingly hyper-connected era.

3. Determining a plan for dealing with the combination of massive international migration flows and a worldwide religious re-awakening (particularly in the Islamic countries, but also in the Christian populations of the Global South) with regards to ourselves and the rest of the Developed World.

4. Maintenance of regional hegemony in Latin America.

5. China - in the sense that we need to figure out how we're going to balance any rising Chinese claims to regional hegemony in East Asia, as well as determine what role the US ought to play in response to what will probably be an inevitable effort on their part to build global political connections, including into our relative backyard (Latin America).

By: charles austin

charles austin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:16:58 +0000

Top 10 greatest foreign policy problems:
10. The European Union (The triumph of hope over experience)
9. Iraq (Huge resource drain, still far from stable)
8. Venezuela (Fortunately, Chavez isn't terribly bright)
7. Noth Korea (Nasty, brutish and short -- but still effectively a proxy of China)
6. Afghanistan (Bombing them into the stone age was supposed to be funny, not factual)
5. Mexico (Crumbling right before our eyes, and on our border)
4. Iran (At some point, their empty threats will cease to be empty, and then what?)
3. Pakistan (In afterburner reverse right now)
2. Russia (It's a long game)
1. China (It's a very long game)

By: PD Shaw

PD Shaw — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:54:57 +0000

I'm close to agreement with Anderson, but with the countries reversed. Iran and Pakistan present our greatest foreign policy challenges because they constitute nuclear regimes controlled by unstable, radical or easily radicalized governments in a volatile part of the world in which few unadulterated options exist. Afghanistan is important because of Pakistan; Iraq is linked somewhat to Iran. I don't believe piracy in and of itself is a significant foreign policy issue at all. Inquiring minds what to know Dave's top 4-5 foreign policy challenges. I can't believe nukes, given their destructive capacity and America's inherent double-standard on who can have them, aren't worth top 5 treatment.

By: Anderson

Anderson — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:42:47 +0000

Finally, are Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Pakistan the countries that present our greatest foreign policy challenges? That leaves me dumbfounded. I don’t believe that any of those are even in the top five. Nor do I believe that China, Russia, or Israel are our greatest challenges.

I guess this presents the obvious question, what *are* our greatest foreign-policy challenges?

Iraq and Afghanistan seem to present themselves, but I don't see how Iran and Pakistan don't tie naturally into those issues.

So, bring on Schuler's Top 5!

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:09:59 +0000

Treating the great swath of territory around the world not comprised of states in any meaningful sense as though the areas on the map were states doesn’t make them into states.

If more of the people making foreign policy grasped this seemingly obvious concept, the world would be a better place.

By: The Glittering Eye » Blog Archive » At OTB: Tom Friedman on Foreign Policy

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:57:52 +0000

[...] my foreign policy blogging at OTB today I comment on Tom Friedman’s column on foreign policy in the modern age of [...]