THE WORLD VOTES WITH AMERICA
By Vartan Oskanian
September 25, 2008
Americans shouldn’t be surprised that those of us in Europe and beyond
are as interested in the outcome of the US presidential elections
as they are. While only 20 percent of US news program content is
devoted to foreign events, the majority of major international press
outlets begin with news about the US. This contrast will most probably
be apparent during the upcoming debates between Barack Obama and
John McCain. Unfortunately, we fear that foreign policy issues will
receive superficial treatment at worst, and at best, simply reactive,
familiar responses in line with the short-sighted policies of the
last eight years.
Americans might be surprised that this time around the world thinks
it is not the best commander-in-chief they should be electing, but
the best diplomat-in-chief. Americans need not assume that every
administration will find war inevitable. It is not who will make the
best war that they should be worried about, but who will make the
best peace.
This is the appropriate standard to be hanging on the person who is
to lead the world’s most interconnected and influential country. In
other words, this American election is and should be about foreign
policy. And even if it is true that Americans vote their pockets in
presidential elections, their pockets, too, are directly dependent
on foreign policy.
Every American president from Woodrow Wilson to George W. Bush
has invoked national security as the reason to engage in military
conflict. But because national security is indivisible, straightforward
physical security is inevitably joined to economic security.
In this age of globalization, economic security is more a function
of foreign policy than traditional fiscal and monetary policy. If
anyone doubted the truth of that, just think of the Iraq war, oil
price volatility, sovereign funds, the outflow of US jobs and the
inflow of migration. These are just a few intertwined challenges that
affect the individual American’s incomes even more than they engage
Washington think tanks.
Only an effective, credible foreign policy will ensure America’s
physical and economic security. That effectiveness depends on a strong
economy and a just and enlightened foreign policy. The dilemma of the
next American president will be to tackle in a balanced way both of
the elements in what has become a vicious circle: For the US to be
effective abroad, the American economy must be strong, but to have
a strong economy, foreign policy must be sound. It must be part of
the change that American presidential candidates are promising and
the change they must deliver.
That which has transpired during these last months proves that the
world is not the same. First, there were the alarming events here in
the Caucasus. Then, a financial crisis farther-reaching than before,
hurricanes more frequent than ever before, a US-Russia schism wider
than before, and the dangers of weapons proliferation like none before.
Unfortunately, the institutions charged with resolving these
crises are themselves at least partially responsible for them. An
unsupported Kyoto protocol, an unwise NATO expansion, a politicized
UN, a traditionalist IMF and World Bank with a failed Doha Round –
these are all indications that the way the planet is being governed
is wrong and post-World War II institutions must be re-examined and
remade. Since the US was founder, co-founder or godfather to most if
not all those institutions, the US has a huge role in the rethinking
that must take place. And without its active participation, that
rethinking cannot take place.
The new American president’s first and greatest challenge will be to
put in place a new, sound, credible foreign policy, a policy that
recognizes the need to form a new world order, with new inclusive
and nondiscriminatory international institutions that promote a
common peace and shared prosperity, not continue to fight old wars,
on old battlegrounds.
In the past 400 years from the Peace of Westphalia, to the Concert
of Europe, World War I, World War II, the world has gone through
at least four, perhaps five significant transformations. After each
major war and conflict, a new system emerged, new mechanisms and new
institutions were created to regulate state relationships. The end of
the Cold War was the exception. The very institutions that contributed
to the defeat of the USSR remained the main pillars of the so-called
new world order. That was tolerated at the time of the collapse, when
Russia and China were weak. Today’s Russia and China are not. Insisting
that those same institutions, particularly those dealing with security,
operate the way they used to is neither realistic nor sustainable.
The Cold War – longer than the others, with more money spent, with a
great many casualties through proxy wars, and with nuclear weaponry in
place – was a serious war. But because it ended without a shot being
fired, we have been more complacent, less careful, less thoughtful,
less clever – less strategic and farsighted – about the critical
post-war period.
We have left the dangerous post-conflict process to evolve on its
own. That has meant almost by-default an expansion of a security
alliance which was born to contain an assertive, expansionist,
aggressive empire which no longer exists. Today there are voices
that call for band-aid solutions – leagues of democracies that would
arbitrarily freeze labels onto today’s friends and allies and exclude
dissenting voices. These reactionary proposals are not solutions,
but untenable formulas for a future that is only imagined in terms
of a divided past.
The world community requires and deserves better. And the world
community wants to be involved in the creation of a better world order.
In some ways, this is a repeat of a play that takes place every 100
years. A century ago, after the first European flare-up of the 20th
century, it was the Europeans who wanted to continue to shape the
world in its old form, and it was the Americans who pioneered their
own, new vision of old geopolitical relationships of power.
America’s strength and influence stretched throughout the century that
has been called the American Century. From the League of Nations to
the Helsinki Final Act, American idealism and future vision shaped
the world.
Today’s America remains strong and influential. But because it is
not dominant, is has not found its own new comfortable role, nor
allowed others – also strong, with their own imagined new world –
to express theirs.
So now, it is America’s turn to be attentive to what Europe is
saying and recognize that cosmetic refurbishing existing structures
is insufficient. It is time, with America’s indispensable leadership,
to define a new order for an interdependent world.
This then is an appeal to the American people. Make foreign policy
a priority – for your sake and ours.
Vartan Oskanian was foreign minister of Armenia from 1998 to April
2008. He is the founder of the Civilitas Foundation in Yerevan,
which addresses foreign policy, democracy and development issues in
the Caucasus.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
