What is America's number one geopolitical foe?

Last month, Mitt Romney called Russia America's number one geopolitical foe, sparking people to ask if such a thing really existed. It sounded like Romney was trying to bring back the Cold War or his understanding of foreign policy hasn’t evolved since then.

The number one geopolitical challenge to the United States right now is the sour, partisan, retrograde politics in Washington itself. The United States remains by far the most influential country in the world, but this position is ours to lose. The key is for our country to stay true to its core values of education, openness, and liberty. The pursuit of happiness is also an American virtue that underscores the fact that perfecting our country will always be an unfinished project. But when America innovates and embraces education, it can’t be beat. When America promotes a free and open playing field, it’s second to none. The longer-term constraint on U.S. foreign policy choices will be the dual challenge of U.S. debt and accommodating views from emerging powers.

That means the United States needs to get its fiscal house in order and work to update the rickety institutions of global governance. But that doesn’t point to a clear external strategic foe.

Zbigniew Bzezinski seems to agree: http://www.saisreview.org/2012/04/04/574/

Tags: GEF, diplomacy, education, politics

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Comment by David Harold Chester on November 9, 2012 at 9:20am: Whilst the ideal of democracy tends to find expression only through the ballot box, the U.S. American concept of it should extend through to fair governence to, for and from the people. Unfortunately it does not!

So it seems to me that the first thing that needs to be set in order is the way that the representatives in the U.S. American Sennet and in the House of Representatives are to work, without being so badly influenced by the big coperations as to be selfishly motivated rather than more truly typical of their state bodies and constitutent members.

The electorial system doesn't help. By having a set of electors (or an electoral college) for each state, the views on the majority are able to supress those of smaller groups, whose opinions surely should be expressed at the national level, without necessarily having the casting vote. Good government is not simply about majority rule, but includes the needs of the minority including the poor, whose limited education and inability to better express their needs and opinions should not be a stumbling-block to their progress.

But it is mostly against the way that money is being used to influence the government decision-making that the ideal of democracy fails. What is surely needed is a constitution which does not allow big-business any influencial part in how the government works, where contracts are placed nor where some advantage is to be gained for bribes, promises or advanced information.

It is my personal belief that the financial problems described above are not at the heart of the matter, for even if each bank was free to issue its own currency in amounts for which loans and repayments can be reasonably expected to proceed, that the limits put on equallity of opportunity by the ownership and withholding of useful sites of land are really the cause of such a poor ability to make progress. Speculation in land values not speculation in debt and promises should be the criterion for providing everyone with an equal chance.

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