What Should We Do While Bob Kagan Waits for Democratic Transformation? Posted by David Shorr

The recent first-year assessment of Obama foreign policy by Robert Kagan in World Affairs Journal has prompted a meaty discussion of how (and whether) US foreign policy has been reoriented by the new administration. The heart of Kagan's argument is that Washington is now reaching out too much to powers outside the United States' circle of democratic friends and not enough to our allies. Nina Hachigian's rejoinder is that if the United States stubbornly denies our inability call the shots in today's world, we'll be hamstrung in promoting our interests.

Readers who want to dig deeper can see how Greg Scoblete and Daniel Larison continue the discussion of Pax Americana, but I want to focus on Bob's insistence that we work only with democratic regimes. Haven't we had enough focus on righteousness and purity, rather than trying to solve real-world problems? As Nina points out, you can pursue engagement and cooperation while simultaneously being forthright about values and standing up for principles of democracy and human rights. On the other hand, if we stick to a Cold War-division of the world into two camps and only work with democratic nations, we'll get nowhere in dealing with climate change, the global economy, or nuclear proliferation. The spread democracy will be driven by people in their own countries -- who should and do have our moral support -- and won't conform to American wishes or timelines.

I thought we learned this lesson during the last administration, most of us any way.

Comments

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It’s hard to see how one can come the conclusions you spelled out in your article when Obama has proven himself to be the most anti-American of presidents. One of his primary reasons for running for this office was to try to change America in ways that would render it unable to decisively impact the world. He actually believes all the trite leftists theories about what ails the planet having a root cause in the US trying to impose its will on other nations in various ways, the primary one being military force. You are seeing something in Obama that is not there and never will be.

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