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What is "Victory" in Iraq?

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A debate painfully absent from the discourse on Iraq is the definition of victory. Pro-war politicians, including Senator McCain, talk about “victory with honor” but avoid the difficulties inherent in defining our victory in Iraq. Although occasionally articulated but never consistently, defining victory should be our most important concern going forward. After all, doing so would seem to be the necessary condition for actually achieving victory. Since, however, no one wants to take the risk and define victory, let me take a few stabs at piecing together possible scenarios that might satisfy what Senator McCain describes as “victory with honor.”

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A U.S.-India Nuclear Deal?

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What does the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal mean?

This past week, amongst the chaos of the bailout and financial crisis, the Senate approved the pending nuclear deal between the United States and India. In the final several years of the Bush Administration, cooperation with India has been one of the administration’s key goals. This nuclear deal, which entails the transfer of technology for the development of India’s nuclear industry, signals a marked shift for U.S. policy both in terms of proliferation and regional partners.

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Round One: To a Draw

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Friday was the first presidential debate and by now there’s sure to be enough spin for both sides to present two completely different interpretations of the same, rather disappointing event. Though the theme of the night was to be foreign policy, the debate rightly gave more urgency to the current economic crisis, although it made this post somewhat more difficult to write. As with most debates, no new policy proposals came up, but we did get to see the two men side by side and were able to contrast their different outlooks and styles. Though neither candidate took the upper hand, we saw two different visions for America’s place in the world.

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The Politics of Never Saying Sorry

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I was surprised to learn this week from a radio interview that Senator McCain is ambivalent on whether or not he would meet with the Prime Minister of Spain (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/mccains-position-on-spain/), who only promised to meet with leaders who share our “same principles and philosophy,” qualifying that with his statement that he has a “clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us.”

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Lipstick on Pigs?

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Regardless of whether the next President is Obama or McCain, he is going to be confronted with difficult foreign policy challenges involving the United States’s relations with nearly every region of the world. In the Middle East there are the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition, political instability in Israel and the unsettled conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians undermines U.S. policy goals and absorbs U.S. diplomatic resources. Outside of just the Middle East, Russia’s reassertion of power in the Caucuses is having ripple effects everywhere Russian tanks can reach; though mostly in Europe and the former Soviet states. The rises of China and India in Asia have the potential to upset stability in the respective regions.

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The New Great Game

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Since the fall of the Soviet Union the United States has been incrementally increasing its influence in the former Eastern Bloc, as well as countries that have historically been considered part of Russia (whether or not that’s good is a separate issue from whether or not it’s true.) The recent crisis over Georgia is the first of what will most likely be a long and sustained reaction and attempt to reassert Russian control in its former backyard.

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Monuments to the New, New China

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When I look through both American and Chinese history, I see a common thread in our shared pre-occupation with monuments. Americans have the countless presidential monuments in D.C. as well as war memorials, not to mention our grand public works projects such as the Hoover Dam and Interstate Highway System that represent our belief in power and hope for America.

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Counting Down the Days to “New Beijing, New Olympics”

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The Olympics open in twelve days. You could say that Beijing is putting the final touches on what it hopes will be a masterpiece, a sign of China’s rising power and ascension to an important global position. Yet these preparations have cut widely and deeply into the daily lives of those who live in and around Beijing.

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Letters from Beijing: July 1st

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It’s not your Ithaca Wal-Mart. Though the form is more or less the same with the happy smiley face promising “always low prices” (though in Chinese it only promises “always fair prices”), the blue-aproned sales associates and the general brightness and cleanliness of the store

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Letter from Beijing

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Walking down the streets of Beijing is a surreal experience. There are times when it doesn’t even seem like you’re in the same country, let alone same city. On the one hand there are towers of steel and glass and deluxe shopping malls with high-powered brand names pasted on the walls, but there are also areas of poverty, where resident are just waiting for an eviction order to make way for the next shiny development.