A Clear-Eyed Focus on Our Interests: A Guide for the Next President

[Valin]

War On The Rocks:

Today’s principal foreign policy challenge is distraction. Take a look at what the next occupant of the White House needs to focus on.

Stephen D. Krasner and Amy Zegart

February 11, 2016

 

The 2016 presidential campaigns have touched a nerve — we live in a foreign policy age of high anxiety. Americans worry deeply that the United States is declining, the Middle East is unraveling, Europe is stumbling, terrorists and repressive autocrats are winning, and cyber threats are multiplying. As Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo put it during one of the recent Republican debates, “Sometimes it seems the world is on fire.”

 

In a threat environment this complex and uncertain, the risk is that leaders will focus on the wrong things, allowing more important foreign policy challenges to fester and grow. That’s exactly what is happening. The one thing all presidential candidates have in common is a fixation with the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIL). In the Republican and Democratic debates this month, ISIL received far more attention than anything else, garnering nearly 60 mentions. Russia, by contrast, received just 16 mentions, nuclear dangers had seven, cyber threats got three, and Pakistan — arguably one of the most dangerous places on earth, with mobile, questionably secure nuclear weapons, a serious domestic Islamist insurgency, and a long-running border feud with its nuclear-armed Indian neighbor — got no attention at all.

 

For the past two years, we have convened a bipartisan group of Hoover and Stanford scholars to better understand foreign policy challenges and develop a strategy for the next administration — whomever wins — to address them. Our conclusion: U.S. foreign policy needs to get back to basics. A smart national security strategy starts with three guiding principles and focuses on three key strategic challenges: Russia, China, and “black swan” threats comprised of biological, nuclear, and cyber dangers.

 

The first guiding principle is that the United States should be unapologetic about pursuing its economic and security interests and more tempered in pursuing its ideals. Interventions against horrific regimes to foster democratic reforms have bred more horrific violence and destabilizing political vacuums, from Tripoli to Damascus. America has always stood for universal freedoms, but we have pursued those freedoms in different ways at different times. * When it comes to democratic interventions, history has spoken loudly: Democratization in the Middle East has failed, whether led from above, on the ground, or behind. It is time the United States take a more prudent course that prioritizes the stability and security that most directly promote our interests.

 

(Snip)

 

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* Don't Necessarily Agree. IMO they are taking a short term view. Still well worth the time spent reading

 

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