This is a great debate and it has given me a better appreciation of what various sides are saying in it. However, both of the debaters are basically united in their outlook of "unipolarity": the idea that there must be a global hegemon to police the world order, and if it's not the US then someone else will play the role. Ergo, for the U…
This is a great debate and it has given me a better appreciation of what various sides are saying in it. However, both of the debaters are basically united in their outlook of "unipolarity": the idea that there must be a global hegemon to police the world order, and if it's not the US then someone else will play the role. Ergo, for the US and the "free world" to be safe, we must engage in a never-ending crusade to stop the "bad people" all over the world.
Who you really need to have on the next debate of this topic, or to write an article on the subject, is someone who supports genuine realism in foreign policy; that is, who accepts that the brief "unipolar, moment" of the US post-Cold War is over and we need to relearn how to deal with a highly multi-polar world that has been the norm throughout human history.
In lieu of an article on FP, I recommend this one from Compact: https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-false-religion-of-unipolarity/. This article describes exactly the ideas conveyed by both debaters. One debater is only slightly more realistic than the other, but both make out China to be someone we need to be preparing for war with. Why? Have we been so stupid in the past as to make this unavoidable? US foreign policy has been absolutely stupid for sure, but I hold out hope that an older tradition of thought might be revived in time to avoid what might still be avoided.
It would take real humility, however, to admit (1) that we've brought a lot of grief on ourselves and the world through bad foreign policy (i.e. who made China who it is today?); and (2) that we are no longer the hegemon and we need to learn how to work with others again. I'll just point out that the United Nations had been conspicuously absent in everything that's been happening in the last 5-10 years.
This is a great debate and it has given me a better appreciation of what various sides are saying in it. However, both of the debaters are basically united in their outlook of "unipolarity": the idea that there must be a global hegemon to police the world order, and if it's not the US then someone else will play the role. Ergo, for the US and the "free world" to be safe, we must engage in a never-ending crusade to stop the "bad people" all over the world.
Who you really need to have on the next debate of this topic, or to write an article on the subject, is someone who supports genuine realism in foreign policy; that is, who accepts that the brief "unipolar, moment" of the US post-Cold War is over and we need to relearn how to deal with a highly multi-polar world that has been the norm throughout human history.
In lieu of an article on FP, I recommend this one from Compact: https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-false-religion-of-unipolarity/. This article describes exactly the ideas conveyed by both debaters. One debater is only slightly more realistic than the other, but both make out China to be someone we need to be preparing for war with. Why? Have we been so stupid in the past as to make this unavoidable? US foreign policy has been absolutely stupid for sure, but I hold out hope that an older tradition of thought might be revived in time to avoid what might still be avoided.
It would take real humility, however, to admit (1) that we've brought a lot of grief on ourselves and the world through bad foreign policy (i.e. who made China who it is today?); and (2) that we are no longer the hegemon and we need to learn how to work with others again. I'll just point out that the United Nations had been conspicuously absent in everything that's been happening in the last 5-10 years.