The Tragic Event in Eastern Mediterranean

Any comments would be welcomed. This is from blog in the New York Times which makes a parallel with an event of 1947, that if not ironic tragic.

Stephen M. Walt | FOREIGN POLICY

Stephen M. Walt | FOREIGN POLICY

The Obama Doctrine

Remember when Charlie Gibson asked Vice President candidate Sarah Palin about the Bush Doctrine, well the Bush Doctrine which had outlined preventive war as foreign policy option for the United States is over. President Bush outlined this argument at the Commencement speech he delivered at West Point Military Academy on June 1, 2002, months prior to the Iraq war. A Frontline documentary titled "the evolution of the Bush Doctrine" best reviews the policy and its effects.

It's not insignificant that President Obama chose the same forum to outline bis approach to foreign policy for the United States one that relies more on diplomacy and one that takes into account the limits of American power in view of the financial crisis and the two wars. This new Obama Doctrine that was outlined at this year's West Point graduation has many elements of Andrew Bacevich's argument of the "Limits of Power".

Many have argued that this is just a continuation of the Bush Doctrine by different means while others find this just to be a naive version that leaves America vulnerable.

Shall We Dance?

When Deborah Kerr (Anna Leonowens) asks Yul Brynner (The King of Siam) "Shall We Dance" in the 1956 film The King and I, the ambivalent encounter between West and East turns into a romantic dance of the literate school teacher and the exotic king. In a sense this 1956 film incorporated many of the high culture assumptions of enlightened colonialism and the civilizing nature of free markets and free societies which pushed sleepy exotic backwaters into industry and prosperity.

The romance depicted in film didn't not materialize as the romantic dance with the school teacher turnout to be a dance with the currency markets. A dance that destroyed the Thai Baht in 1997 and with it the economy of Thailand and effected most of the economies of Southeast Asia. Since 1997 Thailand the modern incarnation of the peaceful Siam, has been a society teetering at the edge of the abyss. In the past two weeks the country has fallen into bloody chaos.

There is growing popular anger on a global scale stemming from the economic crisis that is testing the interest articulation ability of political systems. As the political structures are failing political violence increases and the instinctual response of the state to maintain power results in the use of disproportionate power that only a state is capable off. In our "Flat World" what had been advantages at the time of economic growth are becoming detrimental at a time of financial contagion. From the Tea Party in the US, which is still using electoral means, to the demonstrations in Greece, to the violence and death in Thailand, this is all part of the same process at varying degrees with two constant variables: there is an economic cause; and there is a test of political structures.

Shall We Dance? A Polka, a Tango or a Syrtaki?

Accountablty, Populism and Political Expediency

Paul Krugman in his last three columns has been trying to effectively distance the European Debt crisis from the American shores. (We're Not Greece, A Money Too Far, The Euro-Trap)This is the same Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman who was widely recognized for his criticism of the Bush administration and its free-spending and reckless approach that would bring the US economy to an Argentinian end. (Our Banana Republics, Passing it Along, (2003)). Krugman's apparent memory loss or argument reversal, takes place at a time that accountability, populism and political expediency proliferate. From the populist pronouncement of new British Prime Minister David Cameron announcing a pay cut and a pay freeze for his ministers to the lack of accountability of the great disaster of the Gulf Oil spill not by BP but by American citizens who still are not willing to make drilling corporations accountable because it might cost them as consumers at the pump.

The Art of Compromise

I spend a great deal of my lectures in distinguishing for students the difference between zero-sum and mutual gain as ideological approaches that define actors in the political arena. Today's nomination of Elena Kagan by President Obama and the resignation of Gordon Brown, are examples of political leaders that have chosen to compromise as a tactical maneuver in a strategy toward mutual gain. President Obama and Gordon Brown could have taken a zero-sum process dictated by narrow political interests instead chose what they perceive to be the greater good.

Happy Mother's Day

First of all on this inaugural post I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Mothers' Day. The idea of this blog is to create a forum as to continue and to initiate discussion on political and social issues that we have at times taken up from time to time. As the title of the blog indicates, we are all living the chronicles of the flat world, as the distinction between the local and the global is quickly disappearing. Just looking at some of the events of this past week one can quickly conclude that these perceived international and global events have immediate and local consequences whether you live in New Orleans or in La Paz. The inability to limit the scope of the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the failed terrorist attack at New York's Times Square, the social and political unrest in Greece, the Stock Market glitch that caused billions of dollars to be gained and lost, in a matter of 16 minutes, or the inconclusive British elections are all connected in a world that's increasingly linked though technology, economy, markets, communication, and environment.

In today's New York Times, Thomas Friedman refers to the Root Canal Politics as he believes that these events are not only connected, but they have deep social and generational causes. While co-columnist paul Krugman argues that in the case of the European Debt crisis things are not as interconnected as many believe A Money Too Far

As you read these lines and you think of these issues or you want to bring up something else, whether you are in Santo Domingo or in Boston please remember to check back at 400Fenway