Leaving the Cold War Behind
Leaving the Cold War Behind
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was widely praised when she announced during her confirmation hearing, “The time for diplomacy is now.”
Of course, the time for diplomacy was actually three years ago, and the Bush administration seems set on repeating the errors that plagued its unsuccessful first-term diplomatic efforts.
The Defense Science Board Task Force, a Pentagon advisory group, last year specifically criticized the Bush administration for developing their diplomatic strategy using the prism of the Cold War. As Sydney Blumenthal explained:
The Bush administration, according to the Defense Science Board, has misconceived a war on terrorism in the image of the Cold War — “reflexively” and “without a thought or a care as to whether these were the best responses to a very different strategic situation.” Yet the administration seeks out “Cold War models” to cast this “war” against “totalitarian evil.” However, the struggle is not the West vs. Islam; nor is it “against the tactic of terrorism.” “This is no Cold War,” the report insists.
Which makes it more than a little disturbing that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice briefed State Department employees yesterday on how she plans to model her diplomatic strategy after American policy during the Cold War. She said past diplomatic success was “just a matter of harvesting good decisions” made by Cold War architects like Dean Acheson and George Kennan, and described how “we are now in a similar period.” “That is the basis of our foreign policy,” she said, “it’s a foreign policy based on the heart of who we are.”
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WOW! A clear voice in the vastness of Blogotopia! Welcome and go at it!! Thanks, Nico.
February 1st, 2005 at 4:43 pmIt appears that speech was a bit too hot for the State Department. It’s now down.
February 2nd, 2005 at 12:21 pmOnce in a rare while, tectonic historical change occurs with the span of only few days. The dramatic fall of the Berlin Wall heralding the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union, was one of those watershed moments. And for many Americans, the events of the last 10 days of January, with the Rice confirmation, the Bush second inaugural, and the Iraqi elections, represent a democratic tide sweeping the Middle East, a sea change the whole world is watching.
Sometimes, though, dramatic changes in the global balance of power and riches slip by almost without notice. And for the United States, the signs of silent upheaval come not from Iraq and the terror threat of radical Islam. Instead, while all eyes here were focused on Iraq, other January developments in Europe and China may augur more dramatic change and a more difficult future for American global leadership…
For more, see:
- “On the Wrong Side of History”
For more background on the changing global landscape and myopic Bush foreign policy, see:
- “The End of the Unilateral Moment: Five Global Challenges for a New American Internationalism”
February 2nd, 2005 at 1:54 pmhow long will it take for Condi (pronounced Kizzy) to slip and call Bush ” massa”? She is a shining example of the Bush propaganda machine who would “miss cast” critical appointees who meet his only criteria,” don’t say anything that you haven’t been told to say and don’t tell what you know… ever”.
February 2nd, 2005 at 5:54 pmNico, thank you for the link to the Strategic Communications report. It’s unsettling, to say the least. Personally, I think its recommendations for a ’strategic communications’ component in all ‘public diplomacy’ with a heavy emphasis on a ‘government-private sector partnership’ is a very very dangerous idea.
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