10:37AM
WPR's The New Rules: U.S. Must Engage With World Beyond Security Threats
Monday, November 21, 2011 at 10:37AM
Thanks to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and the two wars they spawned, it seemed like the near entirety of President George W. Bush’s two terms in office were characterized by efforts to define, harness and exploit fear. Despite living in the most peaceful, prosperous and predictable period in world history, Americans became convinced that they faced an unending era of war, impoverishment and chaos. That muddled mindset put us painfully out of touch with the rest of the planet.
Read the entire column at World Politics Review.
tagged Africa, China, Iran, LATAM, Long War, Middle East, US | in WPR Column | Email Article | Permalink | Print Article
Africa, China, Iran, LATAM, Long War, Middle East, US | in WPR Column | Email Article | Permalink | Print Article 
Reader Comments (5)
Excellent insights. Although I have over the years embraced almost all of your optimistic World strategies I have never been able to cross over the Obama bridge. His lack of leadership looks like we will have to live with major Defense reductions which your insights warn will have serious consequences. The next twelve months will be filled with much uncertainty!
Excellently put.
However the fault does not only lie with the American foreign policy establishment / American administrations, it also lies in the American people. The American people are no longer willing to take risks and engage with the rest of the World, the American government merely reflects that thinking.
Consider how Americans live in the developing World. They increasingly live in secluded estates with all the creature comforts obtainable in America, movement is severely restricted due to real and perceived security threats. Consider American embassies around the World: they are fortress like structures, cut off from the local environment.
The World increasingly sees America as being aloof, soft and scared - and, this unfortunately isn't far from the truth.
It will take a change of mindset for America to engage normally with the rest of the World.
Just need to add this.
Engaging the World constructively and building a foundation for future prosperity requires money, zeal and confidence. America had these in abundance in the wake of the Second World War. It lacks them today.
I'm not an American, but I get a feel that Afghanistan, Iraq and the rise of China sapped your confidence, your belief in yourselves. You are also dealing with a much different World than you are used to dealing with.
I think this decade will be spent adjusting to the new realities. You foreign policy elite haven't quite internalised the challenges of dealing with a $4 trillion dollar economy India and a $2 trillion dollar economy Brazil. So you instinctively grasp for you perceive to be your competitive edge - your military. It is the wrong tool.
The War on Terrorism silliness needs to stop in Africa. There is a complex interplay of ethnicity, corruption, poverty, illiteracy and poor governance at work here. If you don't really know who or what you are fighting, then you are either shadow boxing or sowing the seeds of further instability.
What everyone agrees on is that Africa has the World's largest population of unemployed / unemployable youth. Attacking the symptoms (terrorism) will not and cannot erase the problem, no matter how many drones you send.
Please send your Commerce Secretary over to Africa (if you have one). We haven't seen him/her for the past ten years! We are tired of hearing from Gen. Carter Ham about how the latest group "might have links to Al Qaeda". We've lost more than 10,000 people to terrorism and other random acts of violence since 2001 and we know that once the textile mills of Northern Nigeria started closing down, violence and terrorism began to rise.
Maduka: It doesn't help that many wealthy Americans live that way IN AMERICA!
My impression is also that the USA is caught between the posttraumatic 9-11 shock, the fear facing the rise of China and its financial crisis.To illustrate this I want to give an example:
In my region we always had the Bavarian-American friendship festival---once a year. Germans and Americans, Gis , civil staff and normal Americans were sitting together with the German poultaion and having some nice beers. We celebrated the German-American friendship. After 9-11 everything changed. The festival was cancelled, you couldn´t have any contact with Americans without permission, the American hotel Edelweiss was moved within the concrete walls of the US Army military base--like Maduka said: The Americans were hiding behind concrete walls and some sort of fortress and were loosing the contact to the people.It even got much more paranoid: Some American Gis were badly drunken at the local disoteque and beat up a young Turkish guy ehich became angry and shouted: "I´ll send you Al Qaida". The next day the US State Department issued a travel alert for Americans not to visit this region anymore because of this ridiculous incident.At the beginning the poulation reacted with sympathy for the Americans, but after this event they are now making jokes about Americans.For most Germans Americans lost their selfconfidence and are paranoid cowards. I think this example tells you very good how things have changed.Hopefully the Americans will regain their selfconfidence and hopefully the 9-11 posttraumatic shock will easen.