The presidential campaign is coming down to the wire, and that means talk of lipstick and swine have elbowed more serious matters out of the way. Candidates won't be able to dodge the tough questions for long, though. The first debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, which will be held at the University of Mississippi on Sept. 26, will focus on foreign policy. And while pigs and pit bulls have filled the headlines, behind the scenes the Bush administration has recently made several policy tacks that will hand a new set of challenges to the next president.
According to Zbigniew Brzezinski, a professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and a former national-security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, the candidates will have to address the fact that America faces a new era in global politics. He's just coauthored a book with President George H.W. Bush's national-security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, entitled "America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy" (Basic). He recently talked to NEWSWEEK's Andrew Bast about the global political awakening that's currently underway, the crop of new Bush administration policies and the agenda for a new administration. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Why do we need to have discussion about American foreign policy now? Zbigniew Brzezinski: There are two reasons. One, because we are in a historically new era, and we have to rethink some of the basic assumptions that have guided us over the last several decades. Secondly, because the current Bush administration has made such a mess of things—has so undermined American global standing and has so weakened, in effect, American power, reduced American influence and undermined American moral standing—that a critical look ahead is needed.
What defines this historically new era?
The fact that the world is now politically awakened is a totally new reality. It means that we're dealing with a humanity worldwide that is politically activated and interactive, responding to stimuli from all sorts of places, imitating each other's upheavals or revolutions, watching the U.S. on television and both admiring and resenting it. As a consequence, traditional power, which was often applied to politically passive societies, is no longer omnipotent. On top of that, for the first time there are global challenges that transcend national traditional state boundaries and don't fit into traditional interstate politics. I have in mind of course climate, environment, ecology, plus such things as the quest for human dignity derived from a rejection of injustice and inequality in the human condition.
What's an example of this political awakening?
Look at the manifestations of political unrest around the world. They have so much in common. Whether it be the upheaval in Kyrgyzstan, or the riots in Egypt, or the political demonstrations in Bolivia or the recent ferment over Tibet, you have a sense of almost a contagion of imitation involving populist unrest.
With regard to the political scene in the U.S., what's your response to the recent news that U.S. Special Operations forces are now striking with impunity inside the borders of Pakistan?
I think they have done this elsewhere, as well. I think it's troublesome. I am worried about the tendency to overmilitarize the problem that we face in Afghanistan and, by extension, in Pakistan. I'm afraid this may get us bogged down for many more years after the already painful misadventure, the painful war of choice, the unnecessary war in Iraq.
To that end, Bush has decided to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq and sending some to Afghanistan?
Getting troops out of Iraq makes a lot of sense. For almost two years now I have advocated systematic talks with all the top Iraqi leaders across the entire political and ethnic-religious spectrum to jointly set a date for disengagement. I don't think that just putting more troops in Afghanistan is the best remedy. The Afghans—and I happen to know a little about Afghanistan—have a historically rooted aversion to foreigners with guns on their soil.
This summer American diplomats floated the possibility of opening a diplomatic presence
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an "interests section"
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in Tehran. Do you see that as a shift for the Bush administration?
If they went ahead with it, then it would certainly be a shift. But currently I see no evidence that they are going ahead with it. And I don't know whether the president has excluded the other alternative that you mentioned.
What should the U.S. presidential candidates be talking about in the run-up to November?
Speaking purely in terms of foreign policy, clearly the first issue pertains to the interrelated set of crises ranging from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the Iraq War, the tension and antagonism with Iran and the deteriorating conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Beyond that, a very important issue the next president will have to address is the need for a serious effort to genuinely shape joint policy, as well as share burdens with the Europeans. The U.S., by itself, cannot deal with global problems. And also now we have to add a new problem, namely, how to deal with Russia.
Historically, during presidential elections, how serious of a foreign-policy discussion do candidates undertake on the campaign trail?
Only to the extent that it has an impact on domestic political attitudes. That is understandable, as their task is to win the elections, not to engage in a public-policy debate over foreign policy irrespective of political consequences.
Is there much of a difference between the two candidates on foreign policy?
First of all, there are circumstances in which sometimes it is important to stand for national unity in the face of a crisis. I would have liked to have seen the two candidates stand together with the president when the crisis in Georgia erupted so that the issue would not be subject to partisan debate. But beyond that, I think it does make a difference as to the basic sense of the historical moment that a candidate espouses. My sense is that Obama has a more sensitive—both intuitive and rational—grasp of how much the world has changed and how much America's role has to be redefined. McCain is an admirable individual whom I know and like but whose entire experience is in the previous century and who I don't think is as much in touch with the dynamic change that is taking place.
In this historically new era as you describe it, what is the first thing that must be done when the new president takes office?
There are a few items in the book. I could give you a whole list. I think just changing the message that America emanates. America stood for something in the past, and that was very attractive to the world. We have to regain that.