Booklist |Geoffrey Hale, So Near Yet So Far

Americans love to make fun of Canada–but the political and economic realities are very different.  A deep, academic analysis of the US/Canada bilateral relationship–including “single point diplomacy” and other features of this complex relationship.  David Borys reviews the book for the Academic Council on the UN System:

Geoffrey Hale takes on the monumental task of analyzing Canadian-American relations in his book So Near, So Far: The Public and Hidden Worlds of Canada-US Relations. In this 2012 publication, Hale offers us a window into the vastly complex and multi-layered aspect of the relationship between Canada and the United States (US) through the examination of four distinct themes: political-strategic, trade-commercial, cultural-psychological, and institutional-procedural.  He then applies this thematic framework in a well-balanced examination of three broad policy clusters: policies related to homeland security and how they affect economic integration and interdependence, management of trade disputes, and the evolution and partial coordination of energy policies. As Hale readily admits, however, many of these clusters overlap involving both national and regional government bodies on both sides of the border in the ‘intermesticity’ of Canada-US relations. Needless to say, the character of the relationship is what makes it truly unique and unlike any other bilateral partnership.

via ACUNS – Review of “So Near Yet So Far”.

Stewart Patrick on Machiavelli

A fine summation of the merits of Machiavelli:

Wicked stuff. And yet Machiavelli is no sadist. Unscrupulous means are justified only if they serve one specific end, in the words of Kenneth Waltz, preserving “your power in the state and your state among others.” He does not advocate mindless violence or gratuitous cruelty—not because he is squeamish, but because they are counterproductive. Machiavelli thus counsels prudence as a core element of princely leadership.

What is most scandalous about The Prince—no less so now than when it was written—is Machiavelli’s apparent endorsement of the principle that “the ends justify the means”, however cruel and harsh these means be. As the author himself explains, “In all men’s acts, and in those of princes especially, it is the result that renders the verdict when there is no court of appeal”.

And then this advice:

Machiavelli’s contributions to the tradition of political realism are enduring. They include his admonition to take the world as it is, rather than it should be; his recognition that power and self-interest play a paramount role in political affairs; his insight that statecraft is an art, requiring political leaders to adapt both to enduring structures and changing times; and his insistence that the dictates of raison d’état may conflict with those of conventional morality. It is this last contention—that the public and private spheres possess their own distinct moralities—that remains so jarring today.

via Commentary: Machiavelli: Still Shocking after Five Centuries | The National Interest.

Fox, Meet Hedgehog

So you really want to study grand strategy? Transfer to Yale University. The legendary course taught by three notable scholars–one of whom was  BYU Kennedy Center Book of the Semester speaker–sounds interesting:

That said, Grand Strategy is neither a purely theoretical exercise, nor is it a Great Books course. As Gaddis put it, the teachers try to connect the material with current issues, such as Syria’s civil war. The class is taught by Gaddis, historian Paul Kennedy, diplomat-in-residence Charles Hill, and other prominent faculty. And it is a master class in every sense: Henry Kissinger himself has been known to make an appearance. It would be hard to imagine a more appropriate staff to teach Grand Strategy without bringing back Pericles of Athens from the dead.

Speaking of Pericles, I asked Gaddis to give a glimpse into his class, using Thucydides’ work on the Peloponnesian War (first published in 431 BCE) as a basis. I wanted to know what the book teaches us about strategy. Gaddis replied, “A lot.”

“It teaches how small powers [Corcyra and Corinth] can suck big powers [Athens and Sparta] into devastating conflicts,” he said. “It teaches the difference between planning and reality, such as Pericles’ strategy for defending Athens when the plague broke out. It teaches leadership, the management of empires, crusades conducted where you don’t have the means to sustain them. Many of the same kinds of issues that confront us today confronted the Greeks 2,500 years ago … [they] are not going to go away tomorrow.”

via Fox, Meet Hedgehog | Symposium Magazine.

Grading the Speech | Obama at the UNGA 2013

Grading opportunities for political speeches abound during the General Assembly’s fall sessions. Consider President Obama’s speech, delivered on 9/24/13.

Writing in the New Republic, John B. Judis gives the President high marks, calling it his most important and “significant foreign policy statement since becoming president.”

That represents a return to Obama’s earlier diplomacy and a repudiation of the idealism and interventionism of the last few years. To be sure, Obama did devote part of his speech to America’s commitment to “the hard work of foreign freedom and democracy” and “supporting the principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” but he foresaw doing so by “asserting principles” rather than by intervening in other countries. And if what he meant by “asserting principles” was his criticism of the Egyptian military for measures “inconsistent with inclusive government,” then the authoritarian rulers need not fear an American tongue-lashing. He did urge the United Nations to be prepared to intervene to prevent atrocities within nations, but by assigning this task to the United Nations, he denied the United States a leading role in doing so.

In all, Obama laid out in his U.N. speech a foreign policy that backs away from the policy he embraced in early 2011 during the first months of the Arab Spring. That clearly reflects the lessons Obama took from his failure to win support in Congress or internationally for an attack on Syria. “The United States has a hard-earned humility when it comes to our ability to determine events inside other countries. The notion of American empire may be useful propaganda, but it isn’t borne out by America’s current policy or public opinion. Indeed, as the recent debate within the United States over Syria clearly showed, the danger for the world is not an America that is eager to immerse itself in the affairs of other countries, or take on every problem in the region as its own.”

via Obama’s United Nations Speech Was His Most Significant | New Republic.

Stewart Patrick of @CFR breaks it down, as well, and likes the inclusion of idealistic language:

But the most striking aspect of Obama’s speech was less such particulars than its ethical and moral tone. In the president’s mind, world peace depends on the global advance of liberty, equality and justice. And “though there is no straight line to progress, no single path to success”, he left no doubt that, in his mind, the world is on the right track.

Others, such as Isaac Chotiner writing in the same publication, see the UN speech as showing Obama’s “greatest rhetorical weakness.” And the NPR Truth Squad looks for political lies and mistruths in the talk. And Uri Friedman sees inconsistencies in US Mideast policy-all from the speech.

Idealism or Realism When It Comes to Syria?

Should the US engage militarily in Syria? A soldier’s thoughtful consideration:

One unanticipated effect of my service in Iraq has been the running debate in my head about what justifies our involvement in future conflicts. I’m not naïve enough to ignore the widespread perception that the conflict I served in was an unnecessary mistake – a strategic blunder made by policy makers who expected quick victory, but which instead devolved into a nearly decade-long slog of bloodletting. Sometimes the wars we get involved in are worth the cost, and sometimes they aren’t. Anecdotally, at least, it seems the majority of Americans think that mine wasn’t.

I often agree, and with the heavy heart of a man who has watched other men die, I’m far more hesitant to support military action these days. It wasn’t always this way.

via Part 1: Idealism or Realism When It Comes to Syria? – NYTimes.com.

Israeli Diplomats Mock Iran’s President Online – NYTimes.com

Not everyone loves Rouhani’s overtures. Israel competes with Colbert, Borowitz, and the Onion:

A message posted on the official Twitter page of the Israeli Embassy on Tuesday morning drew attention to a parody LinkedIn account for President Hassan Rouhani. The mock résumé of Mr. Rouhani’s career, filled with sarcastic asides, described him as “President of Iran, Expert Salesman, PR Professional, Nuclear Proliferation Advocate.”

via Israeli Diplomats Mock Iran’s President Online – NYTimes.com.

 

As Brazil Snubs the U.S., Who Loses? – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com

As Brazil Snubs the U.S., Who Loses? A discussion among Oliver Stuenkiel, Julia Sweig, Mauicio Snatoro, Eric Farnsworth, and Joao Augusto de Castro Neves on what may have been no big deal–but could also portend something more.

via As Brazil Snubs the U.S., Who Loses? – Room for Debate – NYTimes.com.

 

The Path to Radical Conservatism, Procedure in the Senate

Politics and bloc dynamics are at play in the fight for the future of the Republican party. But deeper issues include a struggle among different “types” of conservatism:

Mainstream conservatives trying to figure out how to extract their party from the hole their more extreme colleagues are digging for them face a major hurdle: the dependence of the national Republican Party on the votes of besieged whites, especially white Southerners. Another signal of the intransigence of this core Republican constituency was a little noticed development last week: the announcement that two Republican members of the House bipartisan immigration reform group, Representatives John Carter and Sam Johnson, both from Texas, had quit the reform effort. They joined Representative Raúl Labrador of Idaho, who left in June. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida is the lone, and presumably lonely, Republican on this ad hoc committee, which was once split evenly between the parties.

via How Did Conservatives Get This Radical? – NYTimes.com.

Meanwhile, Senators Cruz and Lee illustrate the application of this political reality in a context that is shaped by parliamentary procedure:

The congressional dynamics at play here are complicated and hard to communicate to a general public that’s not versed in parliamentary procedure, leaving Cruz and Lee calling on voters to call their senators to ask them to block “cloture,” or limiting debate on the budget bill in the Senate. Except it’s not even a proper budget bill but a continuing resolution to maintain current levels of spending for the next two and a half months. Calling for GOP senators to “in effect, filibuster the House-passed continuing resolution in the Senate,” as Roll Call described it, could shut down the government when the fiscal year ends on September 30 at midnight, if the Senate cannot pass a budgetary extension before then.

“If you caught Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) or Mike Lee (R-Utah) on the Sunday talk shows, you would quickly realize that these two have absolutely no idea what they are doing,” concluded conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin. “Lee’s and Cruz’s insistence that they are the ones ‘fighting’ is belied by the facts. They are actually intent on running into a concrete wall again and again to prove their political machismo. For many Republicans this isn’t bravery but stupidity.”

via How Unpopular is Ted Cruz Right Now?

For the U.N., Syria Is Both Promise and Peril – NYTimes.com

The UN faces a crisis of credibility at present, and the Syria conflict will provide the latest and most important test. Inspectors are back in Syria; will this mirror the failures that occurred in Iraq?

For the West, one lasting lesson of the Syria crisis should be that the politics of national security today require a legitimacy that must be earned, in practice as well as principle. It is no longer enough to justify military intervention by pointing to a crime against humanity. In the wake of misbegotten wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, American and European leaders must now also demonstrate that an intervention has a plausible chance of improving the lives of those in peril, as well as advancing the security of those going to war in the name of peace.

For Russia, China and other nations that reflexively oppose Western-led interventions, the test of legitimacy is no less acute. For if they persist in blocking United Nations action where action is justified, they will hasten the day of the organization’s irrelevance. Just as few states or peoples want the Security Council to be a rubber stamp for unilateralist American policy, so, too, will it lose credibility if it serves as a shield behind which unspeakable outrages can take place in the name of safeguarding sovereignty.

via For the U.N., Syria Is Both Promise and Peril – NYTimes.com.

What do Syrians Think about the Conflict?

This project answers attempts to answer the main question about what Syrians want in this confusing and ongoing conflict.

The Syrian Dialogue project is an initiative by a group of Syrians from inside and outside Syria that aims to provide a platform for sharing and debating the views of “the silent majority” in Syria

Most of the politically active Syrians speak or act on behalf of two extreme sides of the Syrian crisis, driven by their emotional systems where fear, ambitions or anger determine personal or collective group choices and actions. The center, on the other hand, is generally more flexible, prudent, realistic and pragmatic. It is also, we believe, probably the largest segment of the Syrian people. Therefore it is crucial that this group of Syrians is empowered with a platform to help it participate in the shaping of the narrative of the crisis and in helping present moderate proposals for ending the complex crisis.

In phase one of the project, we follow a complex methodology to try to answer a basic, yet unanswered, question:

What’s on the minds of the Syrian people? What are their worries? What are their aspirations? and what are their priorities?

via Syrian Dialogue.