Have you ever just woke up and started thinking about Foreign Policy?

[Wetzelbill]

Something has to be wrong with me. I woke up revved up the computer and just started thinking seriously about foreign policy. Not stuff like: "I hate Bush we shouldn't be in Iraq." I mean correlating things like paradigms. Like right now I have been thinking a lot about the Pearl Harbor and Vietnam paradigms. How our country typically shifts back and forth through those for certain periods in our policies. Basically, PH is more of an interventionist paradigm, and Vietnam is a noninterventionist paradigm. For example, after PH our country became engaged in WW2, Korea, Vietnam etc. And, after Vietnam we were more hesitant to deploy troops in bigger conflicts, because, obviously, Vietnam was a disaster. Sure we did smaller things, like Granada etc, but nothing on a bigger scale. That sort of changed when Bush, Sr. took out Noriega in Panama and drove Saddam out of Kuwait, then ended up his presidency by sending troops to Somalia. Bill Clinton, on the other hand, stayed in Somalia, made troop commitments to Bosnia, Haiti, and bombed both Iraq and Kosovo. Much more willing to engage and intervene on a larger level than say Ford or Carter or even Reagan, who mainly did CIA type actions or smaller type invasions like Grenada. Reagan also quickly fled Beirut when we had been bloodied up there, so he made no major actions of the nature Bush and Clinton did.

Then Dubya, of course, preemptively struck Iraq in 2003. That qualifies as a major action underneath the Pearl Harbor/Interventionist paradigm.

The reason I am thinking and mentioning all of this is that I believe we are due for another paradigm shift. I think that because Iraq has been an abject failure that you will begin to see politician develop over the next few years into a more noninterventionist stance. The so-called Bush Doctrine of preemptive strikes may be officially dead once he is gone. So you may see an America less engaged militarily in the world. Overtly, I should add, because we will always be involved covertly. The failure of Iraq will probably make people less willing to engage in conflicts that aren't really all that necessary, if at all. I think I see that shift happening sometime in the next half decade or so.

This is good and bad, of course. No more stupid Iraq-like actions would definitely be a good thing. However, no willingness to engage in situations like the Balkan Wars is probably a bad thing. I am partly a social constructivist. I believe that values, human rights and morality has a place in foreign policy. So I believe in altruism. That our deployment in Bosnia to stop ethnic cleansing was the moral thing to do. (any neo-liberal actions notwithstanding) I believe we should be engaged more in the Darfur region of Sudan, for example. I think if we become unwilling to engage in those type of conflicts out of pure fear, or whatever, we aren't truly maintaining our moral standing in the world. Which right now isn't much, admittedly. I do believe we have certain responsibilities morally, both domestic and in foreign affairs. Refusing to intervene in those problems probably is not the best thing for our country and the world. So this next paradigm shift, may just be another bad consequence of this presidency. At least in certain instances.

And, I haven't even had my coffee yet. Paradigms... damn... what am I thinking?

[LaurenG]

1. Unfortunately Wetzelbill

I have. Since 911 it has been an ongoing obsession. I only hope that you're right about a paradigm shift because it is WAY overdue.

[Wetzelbill]

3. tough to say

my gut says we will have one, but the "War On Terror" leaves an open-ended, perpetual war for perpetual peace, strategy that is widely accepted among decisionmakers yet ludicrous. You can never underestimate the ability of our politicians to screw everything up. Bush may have a lasting legacy in FP as such a screw up that it's possible nobody wants to engage another country for fear of ended up like him. The big exception is John McCain. Heavily militarized and says some of the most bone-chilling stupid things about foreign policy I have ever heard. If he was to become president, who knows what he may end up doing? He's not as dumb as Bush, but he's pretty dangerous, I would expect no shift if he was in office.

Yeah, 9-11 has made politics in general an obsession for me. It's difficult not to be curious about foreign policy since then. And, once you start thinking about it... it sucks you in.... like vile, vile crack. :)

[bluestateguy]

2. Not in a long time

I would not be able to share the details of the dream I had last night on this board. But she made my last night's sleep very enjoyable indeed.

[Wetzelbill]

4. oh lucky you!

I had a weird dream that a girl I used to have a thing for was murdered. Somehow her remains or her killer were never found. Somehow I had never heard of this for years after the fact. It was a really screwed up dream. Bad stuff.

I have been having several lately. You need to give me some of your magic, I need to get on the right track again. :)

[welshTerrier2]

5. "condemned to repeat it"

first, waking up and thinking about foreign policy as your first thoughts of the day is a clear sign of serious mental illness ... at least that's what they tell me and they haven't been able to find a cure for me yet ...

it sounds like you've latched on to the pendulum that stays in perpetual motion ... we never seem to learn the lessons of history and we're always condemned to repeat them ...

it would be nice to learn about the incredible folly this whole Iraq debacle has been ... sure, we might shy away from such stupidity for 5 years, or 10 or 25 ... but i'm afraid our "national mind" will learn very little from this experience ... we'll be a little gun shy for a while but it won't last long ...

one of the reasons for this, and there are many, is that the "opposition party" has really never questioned the motives for this war ... Democrats have criticized the tactics bush is using but not the myth that he's motivated to "make the country safer" ... so the next time some warmongering jackass comes along and spreads the message of fear, we'll make the same stupid mistakes all over again ...

if we don't teach peace; if we don't expose the criminal, greedy motives of the warmongers, what chance is there for progress?

[Wetzelbill]

6. the status quo is a terrible enemy

they fall into groupthink all the time, it's amazing. It's why senators often sound the same, regardless of party. When you fail to break out of that insulated environment there begins to be a lack of opposition. Then nobody learns anything. They become oblivious to repeating history, even as they are doing it. It's really an amazing phenomenom. Not a good one, but amazing, nonetheless. You would think somebody might learn something sometime.

[welshTerrier2]

8. an inherent flaw of democracy ...

consider this ... let's say you're the only one to step out of the pack and tell the truth ... you're the one who sincerely wants to educate the public about what's really going on ... you have the courage to take the risks inherent in opposing the entrenched power ...

the problem is, if your ideas are well outside the "conventional wisdom", it becomes very hard to get elected ... it becomes much easier to paint you as a whacko ... how can a new idea, a thought outside the conventional wisdom, when first introduced be politically viable?? ... if the idea is new, and foreign, your initial group of supporters is often very small ... it takes time for new ideas to gain acceptance; in a democracy, until they do, their proponents are not likely do well in the electoral process ...

it really is a conundrum ...

[Gman]

7. I try not to

since I finished my BA in Political Science in '79! Unfortunately, I'm not always successful.

[acmejack]

9. No such shift is possible until the those who profit

from a state of continual war, yes the "military industrial complex" which has drained our national treasury are removed from control of our Government. Even now we spend obscene amounts on unreliable systems of questionable capability to address nonexistent threats, systems which fail to perform even in idealized test environments. Yet we continue to purchase and deploy these hugely expensive Edsels of the defense world.

The people driving this profit making system will continue to stir the pot. We will be at war for a long time if these people have their way. They have to have something, be it a "Cold War", a "War on Terror", or some other fear driven war requiring the redirection of huge quantities of our tax dollars into their pockets rather than programs which would benefit the people. The oligarchs direct this Country at their pleasure.

edit: usual reasons, add rest of sentence

[Wetzelbill]

10. actually the shift happens regardless

because the military-industrial complex has remained a constant, in times of war or relative peace. In fact, they may even work better in noninterventionist periods, because it allows the complex to fully exploit the system for pure monetary gain. They are able to get their cash cow projects for nothing then. During war time they at least have to produce something. In times of nonintervention they can just sit back and collect cash spent on unreliable or obsolete weapons systems. That's because in those times they are still able to latch on to the "Cold War" or "War On Terror" rhetoric to keep their pockets full. War-profiteering happens regardless of the paradigm or not. That's sort of the beauty and the sickness of the military-industrial complex. So you are right about all of that, but for purposes of the paradigm shift it doesn't matter, because the M-I complex is always in continual war, whether or not the country is. Reagan presided over a largely noninterventionist era, yet the M-I complex made bigger gains than ever at that time. Until Bush Jr, came along anyway. During Clinton's presidency, he was an actively interventionist president, yet the M-I complex didn't have the same type of financial windfall that it did when Reagan was in office.