Who Has Ego Enough To Want The Job?

The job of Secretary of State, that is. Given the way the world is today a person would need an ego as big as that of a person aspiring to the presidency. Even bigger perhaps since in the event of failure the SecState would be expected to fall on his or her sword to protect the president from the splash over of debacle.

Whoever wants the job had best get a grip on this. Failure in one or more critical foreign policy areas is highly likely.

All the usual intractable problems remain. Israel and the Arab states aren't going to suddenly allow peace to break out. Absent a revolt on the part of its much abused citizens, Iran is going to keep on keeping on in the international troublemaking department;

It is doubtful to the max that North Korea, with or without the presence of the Dear Leader, is going to emerge from its isolated yet ambition laden mountains. The mandarinate of China is not going to drop its desire for regional hegemonic status nor its capacity to operate on the global stage--usually to the disadvantage of the US.

Russia will tack and turn, hem and haw, blow warm winds of peace and cold blasts of threat in its government's need to be seen and treated as a Great Power. The Kremlin's capacity for mischief should never be underestimated. Nor should its will and ability to operate in conjunction with the US be overestimated.

The long neglected continent to the south of us will become an increasingly important area of concern given the number of hostile regimes which have emerged courtesy of the democratic process. The old stand bys of Cuba and Nicaragua have been joined in the anti-American camp by Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Paraguay Several of these unfriendly governments have been establishing increasingly close relations with Iran (and Iran's surrogate Hezbollah), Russia, and China.

The "War on Drugs" will continue to rip Mexico into increasingly bloody ribbons. (One day last week the Mexican newspapers reported thirty-two drug related killings with an off-handed coolness bred of long familiarity.) Coupled with the social dislocation being inflicted by the return of now-unemployed illegal aliens from the US, the drug based violence has the potential to escalate into large scale, wide-spread armed domestic political discontent.

On the continent of collapsing states, Africa, the noise of failed pseudo-states will grow, Both Congo and Zimbabwe are excellent candidates for collapse. Nigeria may look robust but is riddled with tribal, sectional, religious, and socio-economic fractures while run by a collection of rascals only slightly less inept and corrupt than the predecessor military junta. Kenya, the land of the president-elect's male progenitors, looks calm at the moment but the lingering aftershocks of the recent political violence bode well to be the fore shocks of the next, larger round of killing.

The Kenyan situation will be exacerbated by the lingering death of Somalia and the refugee streams that Islamist fueled war is creating. The spill-over from Sudan is also unhelpful for the cause of Kenyan stability.

The Islamist/jihadist actions in North Africa can only grow in the months to come. None of the target states is inherently stable and all have significant sections of the population for whom the message of Islamism rings loud and clear.

Some of the growing international problems which will demand the undivided attention of the next SecState are of recent fabrication. The term "fabrication" is used intentionally and advisedly since both the current global economic situation and the "global warming" crisis are of human manufacture. The first is obviously such. The second is the creation of agenda-driven power-seeking politicians combined with a scientific basis which is far more ambiguous than the MSM (or the same pawing-the-ground-for-power politicos) are willing to admit.

Then there is the most recently fabricated "crisis." This one must be very close to the president-elect's heart given that he takes great pride in having introduced Senate Bill 2433, the Global Poverty Act. This piece of preposterous economics and airy-fairy thinking would impose what might best be called "reparations" on the prosperous states in order to transfer their wealth via the UN and subsidiary contractors to the impoverished nations.

Even if the worst case prognostications of writers on the Right are proven incorrect, the principle of wealth transfer would be established as a (disastrous) precedent. The transfer of wealth would do little if any good for the recipients as decades of foreign aid have proven.

Complicating already complex realities is the drive to address matters through the UN. The Security Council and, to an even greater degree, the General Assembly, have demonstrated a remarkable capacity to fail. Both bodies have failed to effectively address issues which arise under the single most important justification for the UN's existence--keeping the international peace. The repeatedly evidenced inability of the UN to operate effectively in the maintenance of peace has been mirrored in other areas too numerous to dilate upon in a single post.

To expect a body of over 190 sovereign states riven as it is with regional, economic, religious, cultural and historical differences, not to say passionate conflicts, to deal rationally, objectively, and disinterestedly with global problems of economics, environment, and ideologically based conflict is to expect the utterly impossible. From a historically based perspective of realpolitik, the UN has a utility equivalent to mammary glands on a bull.

In short, if the US is to deal effectively with the problems confronting it internationally as well as to regain the status and prestige it enjoyed before the current administration blew these vital bases of diplomatic influence in the neocon ninnie orgasms of regime change, it must create new frameworks of international cooperation. Time honored but potentially now obsolescent multilaterial entities such as NATO must be closely reexamined in the light of US interests as they exist today and into the near- and mid-term future.

New frameworks of international collaboration are not enough. The next administration must develop a more effective way of viewing the world. Using the old lenses of the Cold War is not a viable option. It is essential to realistically imagine a world in which the US can survive and flourish. To do this, it is necessary to define US national and strategic interests. Along with this, it is critical to define those values espoused by Americans that are tantamount to national interests.

Only by undertaking this process of defining both interests and core values will it be possible to establish a view of the world and new mechanisms of relations which avoid the chronic whipsawing between idealism and realism which has been a leitmotif of US foreign policy for decades. It has been and remains too easy and too appealing to define a "value" as an "interest." For example, deterring or at least detecting and defeating a surprise attack upon the US is a paramount national interest. Free trade is both a national interest and a national value. Free speech is a value which rises to the level of national interest. Gender equality is a value, but questionable at best as a national interest.

The US must take a long, hard look at the basics of foreign policy. We need a basis of policy which takes proper and accurate account of interests and values--and which does not confuse the two. We need to revisit long standing multilateral agencies to see if these meet the needs of our national interest effectively. We may well need to formulate new mechanisms of cooperation.

We also need to remember that the basic dynamics of international relations have not changed. Nor are they going to change. Diplomacy will still continue to exist in two forms. Either coinciding national interests are identified and built upon or coercion is employed. Coercive diplomacy, it must be recalled, always rests ultimately upon a state's will and ability to use armed force in support of policy.

Most importantly, we and whoever would be our next Secretary of State must keep in mind two foundational realities of diplomacy and international relations. All state actors are selfish. That is the most basic consideration of all. The second foundation is just as real and just as likely to be ignored: The Law of Unintended Consequences governs all interactions between states as surely and irrevocably as the Law of Gravity governs the relations of planets.

The Geek has one question. Given all of this, just who in hell wants the job?