Prodigal Son

As is often the case, I repost here for your enjoyment and edification by Dr. Benjamin Wiker in “To The Source” of a cause for hope in these dark times.  God is still on the throne and intellectually honest men and women can still find Him.

For all too many years, eminent novelist and biographer A. N. Wilson was a self-satisfied atheist, a proud member of the British unbelieving intelligentsia, along with Richard Dawkins and expatriate Christopher Hitchens. But no more.  Andrew Norman Wilson has come home.

I still remember the taste of ashes in my soul reading A. N. Wilson’s biography of C. S. Lewis. It was filled with the kind of meticulous spite that can only be mustered by someone entirely bent on chipping away at a larger-than-life figure until he is largely unrecognizable, riddled with pock marks and imperfections. I sensed that I was not getting a representation of Lewis, but rather, a glimpse of the atheist Wilson himself and his thinly disguised contempt for so great a Christian apologist.

Looking back on it, I would dare to suggest that what animated Wilson’s spiteful treatment was a deep anger and frustration that Lewis, his intellectual superior, could waste his talents on something so infantile and obviously inferior as Christianity. If he was that evidently smart, why couldn’t Lewis—like Wilson—see that the whole God thing was a sham?

Wilson just couldn’t understand, and so in writing about Lewis, he searched under every psychological rock to find evidence that Lewis’s great intellect had been deformed by some hidden twist in his soul, and bent unnaturally to the defense of Christianity.

This Easter found that same Mr. Wilson in church among the faithful, singing the praises of the Risen Christ, a believer once again, a man who had experienced the heady thrill of casting away all belief in God thereby freeing himself from all ultimate claims, and then gradually, humbly recognized how small-minded and trendy his whole anti-God phase had been. Looking back on it all, Wilson wondered, “Why did I, along with so many others, become so dismissive of Christianity?”

“Like most educated people in Britain and Northern Europe (I was born in 1950), I have grown up in a culture that is overwhelmingly secular and anti-religious. The universities, broadcasters and media generally are not merely non-religious, they are positively anti.

To my shame, I believe it was this that made me lose faith and heart in my youth. It felt so uncool to be religious. With the mentality of a child in the playground, I felt at some visceral level that being religious was unsexy, like having spots or wearing specs.

This playground attitude accounts for much of the attitude towards Christianity that you pick up, say, from the alternative comedians, and the casual light blasphemy of jokes on TV or radio.

It also lends weight to the fervour of the anti-God fanatics, such as the writer Christopher Hitchens and the geneticist Richard Dawkins, who think all the evil in the world is actually caused by religion.”

What ultimately changed Wilson’s mind? There was no dramatic, sudden conversion experience; just a slow, sure recognition that atheism rang hollow. Life was too deep, too rich for mere materialism.

“My own return to faith has surprised no one more than myself. Why did I return to it? Partially, perhaps it is no more than the confidence I have gained with age.

Rather than being cowed by them [the anti-religious smart-set], I relish the notion that, by asserting a belief in the risen Christ, I am defying all the liberal clever-clogs on the block: cutting-edge novelists such as Martin Amis; foul-mouthed, self-satisfied TV presenters such as Jonathan Ross and Jo Brand; and the smug, tieless architects of so much television output.

But there is more to it than that. My belief has come about in large measure because of the lives and examples of people I have known—not the famous, not saints, but friends and relations who have lived, and faced death, in the light of the Resurrection story, or in the quiet acceptance that they have a future after they die.

The Easter story answers their questions about the spiritual aspects of humanity. It changes people’s lives because it helps us understand that we, like Jesus, are born as spiritual beings.

Of Human Traffic

Download Samantha Power's Report on Gary Haugen and IJM from the Jan. 19, 2009 Issue of The New Yorker

In all the world there are only a few courageous organizations that actually take on the hard problems and stick with it until something happens. International Justice Mission is one of them and Gary Haugen, IJM’s president is an admirable and noble man.

A Conversation with Gary Haugen from International Justice Mission on Vimeo.

“When good people do what they can, then there’s great triumph over evil.”

There are 27 million people enslaved in the world today – most of them women and children. Is there any hope for overcoming this human rights crisis? International Justice Mission President Gary Haugen answers common questions about slavery – and shares how we can fight this crime and others that victimize the global poor.

» Download video transcript here .

Q & A Gary Haugen

President/CEO of International Justice Mission (IJM)

I read the article in The New Yorker, but I’d like to know more about IJM’s Christian identity. IJM is made up of Christians who want to be authentically engaged in the struggle for justice, not as an abstraction, but involved in a real struggle on behalf of real people who are victims of horrific abuse and violence.IJM sees itself as part of a long and encouraging history of people who were engaged in the struggle for human rights and justice, and engaged in a very authentic way — so authentic that for most it cost them their lives; and they were motivated in that struggle by their Christian faith. I saw this in my own life when I worked with Bishop Tutu in South Africa. Other examples include Dietrich Bonheoffer opposing the Nazi regime and paying the ultimate price in Germany, and Martin Luther King, Jr. here at home in the Civil Rights era. IJM likewise is made up of Christians who want to be authentically engaged in the struggle for justice, not as an abstraction but involved in a real struggle on behalf of real people who are victims of horrific abuse and violence.

But Christians haven’t always been on the side of justice. I can understand people’s skepticism depending upon their own experience of the Christian faith and their own familiarity with the struggles of history. Unfortunately, there are Christians who are actually on the side of oppression, who are actually disengaged from the struggle for human rights; they’re on the wrong side. Name your struggle for justice; you can probably find Christians on both sides of the equation. But I think those Christians who opposed human rights found themselves on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of their Christian tradition. And so we’re interested in bringing forth the best part of the Christian tradition in our era, which we believe would be on the side of justice.

How does IJM interface with non-Christians, or with those of other religions or spiritual traditions? At IJM, though we are motivated by our Christian faith, we are interested in building a platform of common ground that allows the maximum number of people to get on board in opposing issues that everyone agrees violate basic human rights. And I believe that the victims of human rights abuses are not so interested in parsing the philosophical or theological niceties of our various motivations; what they’re interested in is whether or not we are willing to actually do something to help them. We cannot engage this struggle without people of good will from diverse backgrounds, philosophies, traditions, and so we need all the help that we can get. At IJM, we hope that we can be authentic about our Christian faith while at the same time not having that be an obstacle to others who share the same objective of helping the people who are victims of abuse. We find that most people who have a different faith than ours are not upset by the fact that there are Christians who care about human rights and are trying to do their best to fight injustice. No, they tend to be upset with those Christians who are disengaged, or those who try to manipulate their involvement for some other purpose.How do those you help or collaborate with regard your faith-based motivation to seeking justice? The vast majority of the victims that we serve don’t share our faith, and most of the people we find ourselves collaborating with – like local police and officials – also do not share our faith. And we find that most people who have a different faith than ours are not upset by the fact that there are Christians who care about human rights and are trying to do their best to fight injustice. No, they tend to be upset with those Christians who are disengaged, or those who try to manipulate their involvement for some other purpose. Let me put it in context: I don’t think Jews suffering through the Holocaust were upset that there were a tiny, tiny minority of Christians who actually stood up and did the right thing. They’re rightfully enraged about Christians who did nothing, Christians who did the wrong thing, or Christians who acted like they were doing the right thing but were actually doing it for a pernicious purpose.

In 2009, do you feel that the call to justice has changed? Does it look different today than it did in past decades or centuries? In the Christian tradition – and especially as it connects theologically to the Hebrew tradition – the call to the work of justice is thousands of years old. It is deeply rooted in the Hebrew Prophets who in many ways have issued the most clarion calls in the Christian and Hebrew scriptures. What does change from time to time is the nature of assaults upon the dignity of the human being, and then the various things that make it hard for Christians to be on the side of justice. In one era it might be that they’re a small powerless minority and so there’s not much that they can do, or they’re a part of power and they’ve been corrupted into the culture that’s actually perpetrating some of the abuse, or they’re completely isolated from the abuse because they’re living in some bubble of prosperity or alienation from the community where it’s taking place. So, there are various boundaries of compassion, selfishness, or fear that Christians have to transcend in various eras. In every area you find that Christians are trying to struggle against injustice. They’re almost always talking about their forbearers who in other times and other places were doing the same thing, and they’re trying to find inspiration and direction in that.

Gary, what do you say to those who would categorize IJM as a group of well-meaning cowboys? Well, cowboy can mean different things to different people. If it means that you are doing risky things out of an excess of enthusiasm, then I do think we’re up against a bit of a problem because we are trying to intervene in situations of great violence in a very committed way. We acknowledge that there are risks associated with confronting perpetrators of grave violence. There are risks when we accompany the witnesses who have to testify against their perpetrators. There are risks when we provide safety for victims of abuse who are threatened by retaliation from perpetrators. So then the question becomes: Are we irresponsible about that? And I don’t think you could call us a group that is eager to bear the consequences of stupid mistakes, but actually highly experienced professionals who know the real costs of those mistakes and the preparation that’s necessary to prevent them. After you rescue many, many victims of abuse, the yearning arises to prevent it from happening to others in the first place; and then you realize that there’s a structure in society that is supposed to prevent the weak from being abused by the strong – and that structure is law enforcement, rule of law.

Gary, what do you mean by structural prevention? After you rescue many, many victims of abuse, the yearning arises to prevent it from happening to others in the first place; and then you realize that there’s a structure in society that is supposed to prevent the weak from being abused by the strong – and that structure is law enforcement, rule of law. IJM sees that the long-term and sustainable future of human rights and dignity for the poor is to be guaranteed by the structure of law enforcement, backed by the State, and protecting the poor person and his or her property and thereby preventing them from being abused; so that the global poor will never know what it means to be a slave. That for us is structural prevention.

Quiet Moves on the Russian Front: The Great Game Continues

Stratfor

February 10, 2009

It appears that quite a few pieces in the U.S.-Russian game moved this past weekend and Monday at theMunich Security Conference. Though the public negotiations between U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov were tense, both men left the meeting with favorable remarks about the U.S.-Russian relationship. But there was another powerful American present in Munich, and not by coincidence. Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was at the conference to accept an award for his past role on the international stage — yet Kissingerʼs principal role on that stage appears to be ongoing. The Obama administration virtually subcontracted Kissinger to deal with the Russians, long before the presidentʼs inauguration took place.  Kissinger has a long and intriguing history with the Russians. He is a Cold War veteran who understands what Russia wants and what it is willing to trade to get it — an essential skill for any successful negotiations, and something the Russians respect.

Kissinger quietly visited Moscow on behalf of Barack Obama in December, meeting casually with President Dmitri Medvedev and secretly with the real dealmaker, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Now he has returned to the negotiating table in Munich. But Kissinger has never been recognized formally as part of Obamaʼs plan.  This is because Kissinger isnʼt formally part of the U.S. government, and as a Republican from the Nixon administration he is despised by many Democrats.

But there have been many meetings of late that affect the Russians. Bidenʼs meetings with Russian officials in Munich concerned the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I). U.S. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus recently toured the Central Asian states to broker a deal on new routes to Afghanistan, without taking into account the larger deal on the table with Russia. And U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is being as active as one would expect the secretary of state to be. The members of Obamaʼs public team are taking on different issues,

Book Review: What’s So Great About Christianity

In an earlier post I mentioned the excellent work of Dr. Dinesh D’Souza, a Christian apologist and debater who is constantly at work to define and defend the faith as it must be seen in our times. D’Souza, author of “What’s So Great About America,” has now released his new book, “What’s So Great About Christianity.” This is a must read for anyone interested in the current clashes between atheism and theism and the debates it produces. I’m reprinting here a review of the book by Stephen Barr, a particle physicist for Bartol Research Institute at University of Delaware. Dr. Barr earned his undergraduate degree at Columbia University and his graduate degrees at Princeton and has been known as a distinguished scholar for many years. Stephen Barr has two books of his own in publication which are germane to this subject, and which we will review at a later posting. Suffice it to say that Dr. Barr’s review of this Dinesh D’Souza book is credible by any definition of the word. And what follows here amounts to high praise.

_______________________________________________________

There is a great deal of ignorant nonsense in circulation about Christianity’s historical role. It is said that Christianity has been peculiarly intolerant, that it has been hostile to scientific inquiry, that it has been blind to social evils like slavery, that it has been oppressive to women, that it has stood in the way of political and economic progress, that it is superstitious. The bill of indictment grows ever longer. What is most galling to those who know some history is that most of these accusations are not merely inaccurate, but the very reverse of the truth. And what is so refreshing about Dinesh D’Souza’s book, “What’s So Great About Christianity”, is that it meets all of these accusations head-on and decisively refutes them. In our day Christianity is subject to an uncompromising, root-and-branch attack. D’Souza gives an equally uncompromising defense. Uncompromising in the good sense that he does not compromise with falsehood. He does, however, take the arguments of his opponents seriously — seriously enough to give them good answers.

Character Still Counts

New Year!. . . 16 days into it already and not a single post. Some of you probably thought I’d fallen off the face of the earth. Not so, just swamped with other things. Still, here I am, back on the job and with some new things to offer at that!

Yesterday evening our President said farewell to the nation. None of the bitter rancor of the Clinton years, none of the long, sappy speeches, none of the nonesense. May I predict that all the Whitehouse furniture and appointments will still be intact after he leaves? President Bush, rather than sarcasm or taking a parting shot, which he could easily have done, chose to focus upon the extraordinary character of the American people, who he has served these past 8 years. He spoke about a 60-year-old doctor from California who lost his son, a Marine, in Iraq, and had requested an exception in order to be inducted into the military medical corps, and about a young Marine who had charged into the fight to save 3 other soldiers, at his own peril. There was the highlight of a former inmate who started a faith-based program to keep people off drugs and out of the crime scene. The specifics aren’t important, they were just the people he thought of, probably because he and Mrs. Bush were having dinner with those people right after the speech.

The remarkable thing about President Bush’s speech was the setting of the stage that occurred earlier in the day. Less than six minutes out of LaGuardia airport with 150 passengers, two pilots and three flight attendants on board, an Airbus A320 headed for Charlotte N.C. suddenly shook and caught fire. Amid the multitude of split second decisions he was making, the pilot keyed the intercom mic and said, “brace for hard impact.” Passengers said his voice was calm and reassuring. My friends who are pilots tell me two things:

1. The first thing you do when you’re in the air is start looking around for a place to set down in case something happens.

2. In the first ten minutes or so a complete power loss is almost certainly going to be disastrous. YOu don’t have enough speed or altitude to pick a good place, and unless a miracle occurs, you’re likely to crash.

And yet, Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III, Sully to his friends, brought his plane to rest in the middle of the Hudson River, not far from 42nd Street in a water landing that was nothing short of miraculous. The crew cleared the plane immediately through the emergency exits, hustling passengers onto ferry boats that had come to rescue within minutes. There was no panic, very few injuries and some passengers hardly got wet. Captain Sully refused to don a life vest, made two full sweeps of the aircraft’s passenger cabin to be sure everyone was last to leave the planefor safety on the shore.

Commuter ferries operating in the area moved immediately to help passengers as they exited the sinking aircraft, and took them to shore. Rescue boats arrived only minutes later. Police, firefighters, paramedics and just plain folks were among the heroes of the day.

All this underlines, albeit in advance of the speech, what President Bush wanted to say about the exceptional character of American citizens. We are a diverse people from all kinds of backgrounds and ethnicities. And yet none of that matters when there’s an emergency. We cross a broad spectrum of social and economic strata. And yet no questions are asked when the need presents itself. We are sometimes divided by politics, religion, or the lack thereof. And yet, when there’s a life to be saved it is the emergency that takes precedence.

Last night on his radio broadcast Hugh Hewitt spoke of and read a very powerful editorial from Time Magazine referencing another aircraft crash, this one occurring in January of 1982. Written by Roger Rosenblatt, “The Man In The Water” is an incisive and beautifully written comment on the exceptional character of people who put others before themselves. I link it here because it reminds us well of the great need we have to teach character not only to our children, but to those adults among us who have grown up in and are products of the “me first” generation.

Had I been President Bush I might have found it much more difficult to resist a few one-liners, a zinger or two aimed at the folly of political process that so often gets in its own way. But he was too classy for that. It is this kind of class, and a nation framed in freedom by its founders that produces people of extraordinary, exceptional character. Like our president, today I am glad to be an American citizen.

Medvedev’s Well-Timed Speech

So we begin.  The inimitable Joe Biden warned us, did he not, that “this guy, this young president, will be tested.”  The day after elections, Russia’s President, Dmitri Medvedev releases an already-written speech.  Stratfor’s analysis is crystal clear.

Stratfor – Nov 6, 2008

On Wednesday, as the entire world took in the idea of having Barack Obama as the next U.S. president, one of the greatest challengers to American power, Russia, decided to make itself immediately clear on its views of the current U.S. administration, Obama’s election and the global U.S. agenda.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev gave his long-awaited first State of the State address (the equivalent of the U.S. president’s State of the Union address) on Nov. 5. The speech was much more than a nationalist appeal liberally sprinkled with Soviet-era rhetoric; it was a declaration of Russia’s return to the ranks of the world’s great powers. In effect, Medvedev not only tossed the gauntlet for Russia’s rivals in the West, but he also is not waiting around to see how they respond.

It must be understood that Medvedev — while he is certainly coming into his own under the sponsorship of his mentor, former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin –- did not write this speech himself. The author is the Kremlin’s gray cardinal, Vladislav Surkov, who has played the role of backroom dealer, enforcer, planner and puppet master for Putin for most of the past eight years. Surkov does not control Putin — far from it -– but in many ways is the brains behind much of what happens in the Kremlin these days.
It was Surkov who recommended that Medvedev’s speech, originally scheduled for Oct. 23, be postponed. Ostensibly, the delay was meant to allow Russia more time to deal with its deepening financial crisis, but in reality, Surkov wanted to know which presidential candidate the Americans were going to elect. The speech was already written. In fact, according to Stratfor sources, two speeches had been written — one for each possible outcome of the U.S. election. In waiting for a clear picture on whom Moscow would be dealing with in Washington, Russia underscored the central role the United States plays in the international system, and that Moscow views Washington as its main counterweight.  Unlike many previous State of the State addresses, Medvedev’s Nov. 5 speech contained few veiled threats or simple proclamations. Instead, it announced hard actions, including the following statements:

• Russia will deploy Iskander short-range ballistic missiles to Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave sandwiched between NATO and EU states Lithuania and Poland, in order to directly target the fledgling U.S. ballistic missile defense installations slated for Poland and the Czech Republic. (The Iskanders’ limited range will allow them to put only the Polish site at risk.)
• Russia will return to a more Soviet-style system of term limits in order to more firmly entrench the power of the Putin team.
• Moscow will not even consider negotiations with the lame-duck administration of President George W. Bush, preferring instead to wait for President-elect Barack Obama’s team, which Moscow thinks will be easier to manipulate (whether or not this proves true).
• The United States is to blame not only for Russia’s war with Georgia, but also for the global financial crisis.
• Russia will not make any concessions on its international position; the United States can take it or leave it.

All in all, these statements bear a degree of boldness that has long been present in Russian propaganda, though not necessarily backed up by any particular actions. Russia’s goal is simple: Use the three-month U.S. presidential transition period to impose a reality on the regions Moscow considers of core interest, presenting soon-to-be President Obama with a fait accompli. Most of Russia’s efforts will focus on Ukraine, but attention also will be spread throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia, as well as the Baltics, Belarus, Poland and the Czech Republic.

These states are already nervous about Obama’s ability to stand up to Russia’s new swagger, especially since he has never outlined a firm stance against Moscow and will be embroiled in other critical affairs, like Iraq and Iran. Now, Medvedev has told these states outright that Russia is about to act while the Americans can’t. He is playing on the states’ fears to push them into making a choice: Continue to depend on the United States (whether its support comes through or not), work with Moscow, or get crushed in the process.

Rhetoric Aside: Reality Shock Sets In

Barack Obama/White Sox Baseball Card 2006

It has been, to say the least, a remarkable week, and the conclusion to a most remarkable, most engaging political campaign, perhaps the longest one in American history.  Many things can be said about this campaign, and I won’t use time or space here for “sour grapes” statements.  Several things have happened  that demand our attention, I’d like you to note the following remarks:

• Looking back at previous elections I can recall a time not too long ago when one of the major concerns for both parties was the malaise and lack of voter turnout.  Pundits pinned their prediction to the possibilities of low turnout favoring one candidate and high turnout favoring the other.   In this election, though, more voters turned out from every conceivable sector of our population than ever before, far exceeding  the expectations of even the most optimistic pundits.  America spoke and she spoke loudly.

• I can recall a time not too long ago, when the general talk among ordinary people was of the ilk that it “didn’t really matter who we vote for because the candidates are really both the same.“  I never really believed that then, but I must say, I haven’t even heard a hint of that kind of talk this time.  Everyone knew what the issues were, everyone was engaged, everyone voted.  And for whatever reason they voted, whether it was an honest appreciation of Mr. Obama’s stated policies and plans for the country; or a personality contest in which Mr. Obama simply looked so much better than his opponent or even a race-based decision, the lowest common denominator; America spoke and Barack Obama was elected president of the United States on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008.

• Despite the nightmare scenarios of “hanging chad” situations in Ohio and Virginia, and apart from the retaining, by both parties, of literally tens of thousands of lawyers, put in place and made ready for litigation in the case of a close count, or even worse, a tie, one thing stands congratulatory above all else.  As the world watched and marveled, the American system again participated in, and presided over an orderly and smooth transition of authority and power.  And that, my friends, is a truly unusual thing.  Think of the nations where such a transition cannot possibly occur, and you will catalog the hot-spots and oppressive regimes all around the world.  Think of the few nations in which such a transition is a possibility and you will list a small group of nations who stand stable alongside us, even if in disagreement over politics and policies.

The popular vote gave Mr. Obama a solid majority, but nowhere near a landslide. His electoral majority was decisive. Most significantly, the Democrats now control both houses of Congress and in the Senate are close to – but not quite at – a filibuster-proof majority. They decisively control two branches of government. Indeed, it is likely that they will be able to appoint one or even two justices to the Supreme Court in the next four years, controlling that as well. We must not let the importance of this one fact escape us:  Mr. Obama will have more political power, more control over the strategic and tactical direction of the federal government on his first day in office than most presidents ever achieve.

The crucial question will be whether it makes a difference.  I have long thought that the presidency, although more powerful than just about any position on Earth, is still subject to the whims and wiles of many other factors worldwide.  This is particularly true in the case of foreign policy.  Mr. Obama is about to learn that ideology and personalities are of secondary importance to the external forces that limit, shape and constrain the American president’s options.

The change between the government of the United States elected in 2004 and the government that will take power in January, 2009 is as dramatic a shift in personalities and ideologies as has ever occurred in the American system. The issue will be how much wiggle-room Mr. Obama will actually have, particularly in foreign policy.

Consider: President-elect Obama has pledged to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, although his time frame is unclear. If he does withdraw them, he will have to deal with Iranians sooner rather than later, as they will want to move into any power vacuum left in Iraq. If the Iraqi government is unable to govern, or parts of it are under Iranian influence, obviously Iranian influence in Iraq will surge. This of course will deeply concern Saudi Arabia, which has been frightened of Iranian power since the Iranian revolution.  Like it or not, Saudi Arabia still controls OPEC and, going in, much of the oil needed to run this country.

Mr. Obama will face the choice of either leaving the Saudis to their own devices or containing the Iranians. The strategy he has said he would follow would be to negotiate with the Iranians. He would have to reach an understanding with them that would create a neutral Iraqi government and allow the United States to withdraw, yet have a credible guarantee from Iran to respect Iraqi neutrality and keep it as a buffer zone. What can the United States offer Iran that matches the importance of Iraq to them?

That will be the point at which President Obama will first show whether he can carve a new path or whether he will be trapped in the same reality the Bush administration has faced, lo these past five years.

Reality Checks Rhetoric (opus 3)

Not so much because I can’t figure out who to vote for — that was decided for me some time back — but just as a measure of knowing what to expect after January, I’ve been very interested in these reports from Stratfor, the company I get much of the intel I use to stay on top of international affairs.  George Freidman is a very astute fellow, and his analysis on the current state of political affairs is quite informative, a healthy dose of reality amid all the rhetoric.  I understand that these articles are more technical, a break from the lighter-hearted stuff I’ve been posting lately, but I believe the times demand that we be more informed and better equipped than ever before.  I’m posting successively in 4 parts, and this header will be the same on each one.

McCain’s Foreign Policy Stance

By George Friedman

John McCain is the Republican candidate for president. This means he is embedded in the Republican tradition. That tradition has two roots, which are somewhat at odds with each other: One root is found in Theodore Roosevelt’s variety of internationalism, and the other in Henry Cabot Lodge’s opposition to the League of Nations. Those roots still exist in the Republican Party. But accommodations to the reality the Democrats created after World War II – and that Eisenhower, Nixon and, to some extent, Reagan followed – have overlain them. In many ways, the Republican tradition of foreign policy is therefore more complex than the Democratic tradition.

Roosevelt and the United States as Great Power

More than any other person, Roosevelt introduced the United States to the idea that it had become a great power. During the Spanish-American War, in which he had enthusiastically participated, the United States took control of the remnants of the Spanish empire. During his presidency a few years later, Roosevelt authorized the first global tour by a U.S. fleet, which was designed to announce the arrival of the United States with authority. The fleet was both impressive and surprising to many great powers, which at the time tended to dismiss the United States.

For Roosevelt, having the United States take its place among the great powers served two purposes. First, it protected American maritime interests. The United States was a major trading power, so control of the seas was a practical imperative. But there was also an element of deep pride – to the point of ideology. Roosevelt saw the emergence of the United States as a validation of the American experiment with democracy and a testament to America as an exceptional country and regime. Realistic protection of national interest joined forces with an ideology of entitlement. The Panama Canal, which was begun in Roosevelt’s administration, served both interests.

The Panama Canal highlights the fact that for Roosevelt – heavily influenced by theories of sea power – the Pacific Ocean was at least as important as the Atlantic. The most important imperial U.S. holding at the time was the Pacific territory of the Philippines, which U.S. policy focused on protecting. Also reflecting Roosevelt’s interest in the Pacific, he brokered the peace treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and increased U.S. interests in China. (Overall, the Democratic Party focused on Europe, while the Republican Party showed a greater interest in Asia.)

The second strand of Republicanism emerged after World War I, when Lodge, a Republican senator, defeated President Woodrow Wilson’s plan for U.S. entry into the League of Nations. Lodge had supported the Spanish-American War and U.S. involvement in World War I, but he opposed league membership because he felt it would compel the United States to undertake obligations it should not commit to. Moreover, he had a deep distrust of the Europeans, whom he believed would drag the United States into another war.

The foundations of Republican foreign policy early in the 20th century therefore consisted of three elements:

Reality Checks Rhetoric (opus 2)

Not so much because I can’t figure out who to vote for — that was decided for me some time back — but just as a measure of knowing what to expect after January, I’ve been very interested in these reports from Stratfor, the company I get much of the intel I use to stay on top of international affairs.  George Freidman is a very astute fellow, and his analysis on the current state of political affairs is quite informative, a healthy dose of reality amid all the rhetoric.  I understand that these articles are more technical, a break from the lighter-hearted stuff I’ve been posting lately, but I believe the times demand that we be more informed and better equipped than ever before.  I’m posting successively in 4 parts, and this header will be the same on each one.

Obama’s Foreign Policy Stance

By George Friedman

Barack Obama is the Democratic candidate for president. His advisers in foreign policy are generally Democrats. Together they carry with them an institutional memory of the Democratic Party’s approach to foreign policy, and are an expression of the complexity and divisions of that approach. Like their Republican counterparts, in many ways they are going to be severely constrained as to what they can do both by the nature of the global landscape and American resources. But to some extent, they will also be constrained and defined by the tradition they come from. Understanding that tradition and Obama’s place is useful in understanding what an Obama presidency would look like in foreign affairs.

The most striking thing about the Democratic tradition is that it presided over the beginnings of the three great conflicts that defined the 20th century: Woodrow Wilson and World War I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and World War II, and Harry S. Truman and the Cold War. (At this level of analysis, we will treat the episodes of the Cold War such as Korea, Vietnam or Grenada as simply subsets of one conflict.) This is most emphatically not to say that had Republicans won the presidency in 1916, 1940 or 1948, U.S. involvement in those wars could have been avoided.

Patterns in Democratic Foreign Policy

But it does give us a framework for considering persistent patterns of Democratic foreign policy. When we look at the conflicts, four things become apparent.

First, in all three conflicts, Democrats postponed the initiation of direct combat as long as possible. In only one, World War I, did Wilson decide to join the war without prior direct attack. Roosevelt maneuvered near war but did not enter the war until after Pearl Harbor. Truman also maneuvered near war but did not get into direct combat until after the North Korean invasion of South Korea. Indeed, even Wilson chose to go to war to protect free passage on the Atlantic. More important, he sought to prevent Germany from defeating the Russians and the Anglo-French alliance and to stop the subsequent German domination of Europe, which appeared possible. In other words, the Democratic approach to war was reactive. All three presidents reacted to events on the surface, while trying to shape them underneath the surface.

Second, all three wars were built around coalitions. The foundation of the three wars was that other nations

Reality Checks Rhetoric (opus 1)

Not so much because I can’t figure out who to vote for — that was decided for me some time back — but just as a measure of knowing what to expect after January, I’ve been very interested in these reports from Stratfor, the company I get much of the intel I use to stay on top of international affairs.  George Freidman is a very astute fellow, and his analysis on the current state of political affairs is quite informative, a healthy dose of reality amid all the rhetoric.  I understand that these articles are more technical, a break from the lighter-hearted stuff I’ve been posting lately, but I believe the times demand that we be more informed and better equipped than ever before.  I’m posting successively in 4 parts, and this header will be the same on each one.

The New President and the Global Landscape

By George Friedman

It has often been said that presidential elections are all about the economy. That just isn’t true. Harry Truman’s election was all about Korea. John Kennedy’s election focused on missiles, Cuba and Berlin. Lyndon Johnson’s and Richard Nixon’s elections were heavily about Vietnam. Ronald Reagan’s first election pivoted on Iran. George W. Bush’s second election was about Iraq. We won’t argue that presidential elections are all about foreign policy, but they are not all about the economy. The 2008 election will certainly contain a massive component of foreign policy.

We have no wish to advise you how to vote. That’s your decision. What we want to do is try to describe what the world will look like to the new president and consider how each candidate is likely to respond to the world. In trying to consider whether to vote for John McCain or Barack Obama, it is obviously necessary to consider their stands on foreign policy issues. But we have to be cautious about campaign assertions. Kennedy claimed that the Soviets had achieved superiority in missiles over the United States, knowing full well that there was no missile gap. Johnson attacked Barry Goldwater for wanting to escalate the war in Vietnam at the same time he was planning an escalation. Nixon won the 1968 presidential election by claiming that he had a secret plan to end the war in Vietnam. What a candidate says is not always an indicator of what the candidate is thinking.

It gets even trickier when you consider that many of the most important foreign policy issues are not even imagined during the election campaign. Truman did not expect that his second term would be dominated by a war in Korea. Kennedy did not expect to be remembered for the Cuban missile crisis. Jimmy Carter never imagined in 1976 that his presidency would be wrecked by the fall of the Shah of Iran and the hostage crisis. George H. W. Bush didn’t expect to be presiding over the collapse of communism or a war over Kuwait. George W. Bush (regardless of conspiracy theories) never expected his entire presidency to be defined by 9/11. If you read all of these presidents’ position papers in detail, you would never get a hint as to what the really important foreign policy issues would be in their presidencies.

Between the unreliability of campaign promises and the unexpected in foreign affairs, predicting what presidents will do is a complex business. The decisions a president must make once in office are neither scripted nor conveniently timed. They frequently present themselves to the president and require decisions in hours that can permanently define his (or her) administration. Ultimately, voters must judge, by whatever means they might choose, whether the candidate has the virtue needed to make those decisions well.

Virtue, as we are using it here, is a term that comes from Machiavelli. It means the opposite of its conventional usage. A virtuous leader is one who is clever, cunning, decisive, ruthless and, above all, effective. Virtue is the ability to face the unexpected and make the right decision, without position papers, time to reflect or even enough information. The virtuous leader can do that. Others cannot. It is a gut call for a voter, and a tough one.

This does not mean that all we can do is guess about a candidate’s nature. There are three things we can draw on. First, there is the political tradition the candidate comes from. There are more things connecting Republican and Democratic foreign policy than some would like to think, but there are also clear differences. Since each candidate comes from a different political tradition – as do his advisers – these traditions can point to how each candidate might react to events in the world. Second, there are indications in the positions the candidates take on ongoing events that everyone knows about, such as Iraq. Having pointed out times in which candidates have been deceptive, we still believe there is value in looking at their positions and seeing whether they are coherent and relevant. Finally, we can look at the future and try to