Foreign Policy Frameworks are Bustin' Out All Over?
Posted by Heather Hurlburt
A thousand flowers are officially blooming in the world of progressive visions of world affairs. Peter Beinart's book is out, and his book-touring is in full swing; PPI's With All Our Might is still getting write-ups. (Sorry no links; I am writing from dial-up land chez the in-laws.) Wes Clark appears at the Daily Kos progressive web activist conference in Las Vegas; and John Kerry, Madeleine Albright, Dick Holbrooke and others sound off at the CAP/SPI annual conference in New York tomorrow.
Several of us will be posting from/about the SPI event; but I've been doing a little pre-conference thinking about what I'd like to hear. My top five are below:
1. A bigger vision for fixing the Middle East mess. Enough of dates for Iraq pullouts; what would you do afterwards; what are America's larger aspirations and challenges in the region over the next few years, and what would you do about it? How do the wretched little pieces fit together?
2. A global energy policy. Easy to say, harder to conceptualize. But now that everyone has sounded off on the domestic side of energy, let's start talking about the connecting pieces. The Middle East first, but what if anything can be done to stabilize Nigeria? To calm the waters in Latin America? To come to terms with Russia's kleptocratic brand of oil capitalism? What about demand-side partnerships with China, India and Europe? And what's a smart way to put ourselves back in front on global warming issues?
3. Democracy. Again, progressive wonks like us love to wring our hands about "reclaiming" democracy-promotion. I'm watching to see how that's done.
4. Globalization and trade. Not to get on my Rust Belt hobbyhorse, but regular folks see the world through this prism as much as any other. And we as a foreign policy establishment do tend to ignore it.
5. Terrorism. How do we conceptualize the challenge for people? And what are we going to do about it?
Additions/subtractions/corrections and weeklong commentary to follow...