Where US foreign policy slacks, Rest of the world gains

I have always suspected that globalization will give Americans a brutal awakening, present them a vicious façade of inside-out economic and political reality and a fair sense of perception from outside – that will clue them in on how deviant are they from the mean and how unsustainable is their global leadership positioning.

Parag Khanna – the foreign policy strategist, Obama campaign - excerpts

“Where the Pentagon has missile programs, the European Commission has reform programs. They’ve got their boots on the ground in the form of well-heeled diplomats who are in the ministries of every country from the Baltics into the South Balkans and Albania, all the way out to Azerbaijan. They are actually inside the ministries, fixing these countries basically from the inside out. And the reason these countries become members of the European Union, and you wake up one morning and there’s yet another member and you didn’t hear a shot fired, is because that works. Europe works.

Let me give you two more quick examples, because they’re the two most important ones in the whole world: Russia and China. America talks about missile defence, [which has made] Russia feel threatened and therefore block NATO expansion. Has Russia ever been able to block EU expansion? No, because the EU isn’t doing anything threatening.”

That sure should be real enough to shatter American strategic smugness ...