There are times when the Washington Post’s David Ignatius is a funnier comedy writer than Dave Barry. Take this sentence in his most recent column:
The world was looking for generous, confident leadership when the virus hit; instead, a self-obsessed America went into retreat.
I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. What evidence is there for that? Other than wishful thinking and nostalgia for a U. S. hegemony that hasn’t existed for 70 years. Or take this one. What are the two most pressing foreign policy challenges? I’m guessing you would not pick the two he does:
But when it comes to big issues such as the Iran nuclear agreement and the Paris climate accords, the United States stands awkwardly alone.
Those are the big issues. My bad. I would have thought they were the wars threatened between India and China, China’s threats to Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines, or the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. He’s appalled that other countries have interests of their own or that they are able to apply more force in their immediate environs than we are in their immediate environs:
The global power vacuum invites mischief. The war between Armenia and Azerbaijan has escalated over 10 days of fighting. Armenian leaders initially hoped that U.S. diplomacy could produce a cease-fire; now, they look to Moscow. Turkey has been pressing for regional dominance through allies in Libya, Syria, Iraq and now Azerbaijan. The U.S. response has been late and muddled, and Turkey has taken full advantage.
Russian President Vladimir Putin presses ahead with his campaign to avenge past reversals. Even as Russia conducts aggressive cyberattacks, Moscow shamelessly proposes to write new rules for cyberspace. Thankfully, U.S. companies such as Microsoft still try to enforce global norms, independent of Russian and Chinese attempts to set the framework. The Trump administration is mostly missing in action.
The United States’ self-isolating diplomacy has been on display with Iran, too. The Trump administration quit the nuclear agreement in 2018, and then last month demanded that other signatories join in “snapback†sanctions. That effort failed, like an August demand to extend a U.N. arms embargo. Even Washington’s closest allies rejected the U.S. approach, and Iran got an undeserved win. “The U.S. is isolated and embarrassed,†boasted Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
concluding:
If America were a stock, would you buy it or sell it? I would be a buyer, especially when our stock is trading so far below its real value. But any sensible analyst would say that this underperforming asset badly needs a change in management and a thorough restructuring to regain its competitive position.
My answer would be that for the last several generations the U. S. has been playing a strong hand poorly while other countries, particularly Russia and China have been playing relatively weak hands quite well for the last ten or twenty years. Remediating that will require rebuilding the U. S. industrial base, insisting that the supply chains of publicly-held companies do not subsidize countries that see themselves as our competitors. Bar U. S. companies that engage in offshoring or make substantial use of H1-B workers from bidding on federal contracts. We also need to reduce the ability of our elected officials, their families, and their major political donors from benefiting from influence peddling but that’s another subject.
Rely more on U. S. economic might and a lot less on invading or threatening other countries.
The Post’s real point in the article, every article?, is that the current administration is impotent and dysfunctional.
So bad in fact, that even old chuckling Joe couldn’t stumble any worse.
We will need to be much more directly involved in telling US companies how to behave than we ever have done before. Still think we wold have a better chance of success if we worked together with other countries also having China issues.
Steve
Both of Mr. Ignatius’s “big” questions were stalking horses for pursuing French and German policy objectives without any cost to France or Germany. The Paris accord in particular was a tool that could not achieve its objectives because of the exemptions for the greatest new sources of carbon emissions. It was basically a cudgel to beat over the head of the U. S.—there’s a distinction between dealing with whatever risks carbon emissions impose and the Paris accords.
Do I think that enlisting the support of other countries in achieving our foreign policy objectives is a good idea? Yes! Do I think we are? No! Do I think we have? No! That’s a bipartisan failure.