Friends, are we seeing a trilogy by accident here? I think so ….
Gilbert Doctorow, PhD, with US and Belgian passports comments on the Foreign Affairs article. Gil is an astute watcher of international affairs, particularly US-Russia relations. He gives us his immediate impressions after having just read the Foreign Affairs tome by Robert English and the NYT article by Boykewich. Note that neither of these two articles is written by the usual crowd. Are they floated out to test the mood of the country? I think so …
Sharon
Lalibreblogs
March 18, 2017
Clearing space for a new foreign policy: the Establishment begins to stir
In this essay we consider why Foreign Affairs has just published an article on U.S. policy towards Russia that trashes the positions of all their featured contributors these past several years
Clearing space for a new foreign policy: the Establishment begins to stir
by Gilbert Doctorow, Ph.D.
On March 10, the online edition of Foreign Affairs magazine published an article by Robert English, a professor of international relations at the University of Southern California, that all readers should look up to stay abreast of the fast evolving realignments within the U.S. foreign policy establishment and to see better where we may be headed, even as many of his supporters are giving up too early on Donald Trump’s commitment and ability to change direction away from promotion of regime change and permanent warfare as the world’s sole policeman to a policy of détente and years of peace ahead.
See https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/2017-03-10/russia-trump-and-new-d-tente
The fact is that no about-face on US foreign and defense policy is possible without substantial support from the US political class. We are not a dictatorship; we do not have an authoritarian system where the boss in the White House calls all the shots. The fight over foreign policy direction goes on in the public arena, and there have to be two sides in the ring with their dukes up. If Trump were to impose a new, radically different position without the ground being prepared in Congress, in the foreign policy community and through them in the broad public, he would be instantly thwarted and well on his way to impeachment.
[Continue Reading]