Blogging the World
Over at New Atlanticist, I argue in “American Elections and UK Relations,” against the notion that Americans or Europeans should expect much to change in our international relationship simply because there will soon be a new occupant in the White House. Instead, as always, events and the perceived interests of the actors involved will dictate the outcome.
In “Don’t Know Much About Foreign Policy,” I address Cernig‘s concern that Americans are largely uninterested in world affairs with a Seinfeldian not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Certainly, we as a nation will ahve less in the way of gravitas, to borrow a word form the book of the Democrats… since Sarkozy, for one thinks Obama and ’empty suit’.
Sarkozy is right of course, but that’s almost secondary to the perception, which is sure to be in the minds of other world leaders as well.
This is quite historical really. I’ve always told me students that going back throughout most American history, we’d prefer to be isolationists.
I think it’s because with a lot of Americans, there’s a sense that we could close ourselves off to the rest of the world and only be a little bit worse for wear (not all Americans, obviously, but many – and particularly so before 9/11).