![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Oct. 25th, 2018 05:41 pmInterview With Richard Burt: The Dangers of Withdrawing from the INF Treaty
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/interview-richard-burt-dangers-withdrawing-inf-treaty-34177
"...
Heilbrunn: But Bolton’s idee fixe, and Trump’s “America First” rhetoric, would suggest that this is fully consonant with their vision of American foreign policy—of an unfettered, unilateralist power that has no permanent alliances anywhere in the world and can act as it wishes, wherever and whenever it pleases, to stop someone it deems an adversary. Isn’t that really the Dick Cheney view of the world? Bolton and Trump essentially are not isolationists; they’re unilateralists.
Burt: I agree very much that they are unilateralists. And the United States always has to retain the capability to act unilaterally if necessary. But in an era when Chinese power is growing, and the Russians are resurgent, and there are other powers emerging in the international landscape, I think that the United States needs allies and partners more than ever before. It is the one key advantage we have over both the Russians and the Chinese. So this strategy of unilateralism, in my judgment, does not reflect a clear understanding of what our interests are in what is emerging as a truly multipolar system. On the one hand, we can't be a liberal hegemon as we tried to be after the Cold War; we don't have that capability. On the other hand, to move to the other end of the spectrum and be completely unilateralist also creates a new range of very serious risks...
...
( Read more... )
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/interview-richard-burt-dangers-withdrawing-inf-treaty-34177
"...
Heilbrunn: But Bolton’s idee fixe, and Trump’s “America First” rhetoric, would suggest that this is fully consonant with their vision of American foreign policy—of an unfettered, unilateralist power that has no permanent alliances anywhere in the world and can act as it wishes, wherever and whenever it pleases, to stop someone it deems an adversary. Isn’t that really the Dick Cheney view of the world? Bolton and Trump essentially are not isolationists; they’re unilateralists.
Burt: I agree very much that they are unilateralists. And the United States always has to retain the capability to act unilaterally if necessary. But in an era when Chinese power is growing, and the Russians are resurgent, and there are other powers emerging in the international landscape, I think that the United States needs allies and partners more than ever before. It is the one key advantage we have over both the Russians and the Chinese. So this strategy of unilateralism, in my judgment, does not reflect a clear understanding of what our interests are in what is emerging as a truly multipolar system. On the one hand, we can't be a liberal hegemon as we tried to be after the Cold War; we don't have that capability. On the other hand, to move to the other end of the spectrum and be completely unilateralist also creates a new range of very serious risks...
...
( Read more... )
