So the big push for World War Z is clearly afoot.  The second trailer for the film was released a week ago: 

 

So this trailer isn't all that different from the first trailer, which means my qualms about the film version of Max Brooks' masterpiece remain.  Still, that airplane sequence at the end was well executed, and offers some promise. 

But then we get to the Entertainment Weekly cover story -- out today -- about the long, laborious process of getting World War Z from page to screen.  It's a good article that details the myriad screenwriters involved, the location difficulties, and the reshoots.  One definitely gets the sense of how Brad Pitt warmed to the subject matter over time.  Hell, in the EW article he referenced All The President's Men as his template for the story -- which, if you've read World War Z, you know isn't the craziest comparison. 

Which is great, until we get to this long quote from Pitt at the end of the story explaining how the final version of the movie has changed from his original conception: 

At the time, I was really interested in a more political film, using the zombie trope as a kind of Trojan horse for asking, 'What would happen to sociopolitical lines if there was a pandemic like this? Who would be on top? Who would be the powerful countries and who would be the most vulnerable?

We wanted to really explore that, but it was just too much. We got bogged down in it; it was too much to explain. It gutted the fun of what these films are meant to be.

Excuse me, I need to go do this for a while:

 

Here's the thing -- the very reason that World War Z the book is better than every other zombie novel ever written is the global scope and the reasonably realistic take on the politics of a zombie apocalypse.  There is action galore in the book, but there's something more as well.  The politics that "bogged down" the movie?  That is the fun!  

Will I go see World War Z?  Probably out of sheer professional obligation.  But let's be clear -- based on the evidence to date, the odds seem very likely that the movie version of World War Z will be a garden-variety big-budget disaster flick.  It's not gonna be great. 

While Pitt plans a trilogy of films, methinks this World War Z would have worked even better as a miniseries  for HBO or FX.  Too bad.  Should some shameless huckster desire to procure the film version of Theories of International Politics and Zombies -- which is all about the politics -- then they should contact Princeton University Press. 

Am I missing anything? 

It's that time of the year again, when the Great and Good and Rich converge to Davos, Switzerland for the realpolitik starfucking World Economic Forum.  The coverage of this event gyrates wildly between bland pronouncements from attendees and world class snark from the Not as Great and Good and Rich that are not invited to attend.  I will certainly confess to my own contribution to the snark pile. 

As someone who casually curses way too much to ever score an invitation, I nevertheless wonder if some of the critiques of Davos are just a bit overhyped.  Take Timothy Noah, who blogged the following at The New Republic yesterday:

There is no better example of social and economic policy discussion as an idle pastime for the rich than the World Economic Forum at Davos....

Ian Bremmer, who chairs Davos’s Global Agenda Council on Geopolitical Risk reports in the Huffington Post that the unifying theme this year at Davos is, yes, “the increasing vulnerability of elites.” Keep in mind as you read what follows that Bremmer is not a parodist:

We're seeing leaders of all kinds, in the developed and developing world, in politics as well as business and media, answering to constituents who grow more dissatisfied... and information-rich. Look at the riots in India over the recent rape scandal, the U.S. Congress' abysmal approval ratings, or the phone hacking scandal at News Corp. Corruption, special interests, or a lack of transparency will spell trouble for leaders. The same goes for a widening gap between rich and poor.

....if I’m reading Bremmer right, Davos sees inequality mainly as a problem bearing down on elites. The blighters simply won’t shut up about living in mud huts (or enduring weak rape laws, a dysfunctional legislature, corporate malfeasance, etc.) while the rest of us hit the slopes.

Now, much as I'd love to snark along with Noah, I don't think he's entirely reading Bremmer right, and I also think he's making a categorical policy error.  To be fair to Noah, Bremmer's geopolitical risk report does have a section on the problems with too much transparency that does read a bit too much like a pity party for the elite ("in developed democracies, scandals involving leaders can distract whole nations for weeks on end, while more important business remains undone.")

That said, I don't think this is my FP colleague's main point.  His primary thesis is that tectonic shifts in domestic politics are imposing increasing political constraints on what political elites can do to ameliorate policy problems:

In 2013, this breakdown of international coordination will go increasingly local: in such a world, governments will focus more on their domestic agendas, which will create new risks in and of itself. Most importantly, the growing vulnerability of elites makes effective public and private leadership that much more difficult to sustain. Leaders of all kinds are becoming more vulnerable to their constituents, generating more reactive and short-term governance....

Welcome to ‘the new local,’ where governments are more shackled by regional concerns and their domestic constituencies—at the expense of tackling larger-scale global issues that need collective leadership to solve.

Now I'm on record as thinking that Bremmer overstates the collapse of global governance.  That said, if one accepts his premises, then the ability of leaders to address policy problems is more constrained.  Whether you think this is a problem or not depends on how much faith you have in public policy elites -- and public policy in general -- to compensate for the vicissitudes of the marketplace. 

Stepping back, however, I'm not sure inequality is as big of an issue as either Bremmer or Noah think it is.  What we presumably should care about at places like Davos is poverty reduction, which is not necessarily correlated with inequality reduction.  And the dirty secret of the post-crisis global economy is that global poverty reduction is proceeding quite nicely, thank you very much. 

The primary problem with the current state of the global economy is that the biggest losers are unskilled and semi-skilled laborers in the developed world.  That's an issue -- but it's one that I don't think developing country atendees at Davos are gonna care too much about.  

Pop quiz:  which administration has been more enthusiastic about joining international treaties, George W. Bush or Barack Obama? 

The Obama administration has been slow to submit new treaties to the Senate, and only nine have been approved so far. In contrast, the George W. Bush administration secured Senate approval of 163 treaties over eight years. These included not only bilateral treaties but also multilateral agreements on many important subjects, including human rights, atmospheric and marine environmental protection, the laws of war and arms control.

That paragraph comes from John Bellinger III, Bush 43's former State Department legal adviser.  Now, one obvious pushback to this is that Obama has had to deal with a sovereigntist caucus in the Senate that is even more rabid than it was under Bush.  Bellinger acknowledges the obvious, but then goes on to argue that fault also lies with the Obama administration: 

 It isn’t enough to blame Republican opposition to international agreements, which certainly has risen among the party’s senators in recent years. That trend only makes it more important that President Obama work harder to gain Senate support for treaties in his second term....

President Obama must devote more energy to securing Senate approval for pending treaties, both by using the presidency’s bully pulpit to explain the benefits and by directing administration officials to pay more attention to the concerns of individual senators. Despite increasing Republican hostility toward treaties, the president should still be able to persuade between 12 and 15 pragmatic Republican senators to support treaties that give concrete rights to Americans and American businesses or that promote important American interests.

The president should begin with the Law of the Sea Convention, which enjoys strong support from all branches of the United States military and from the American business community. He almost certainly could have gained Senate approval of this important treaty during his first three years in office but inexplicably waited until the maelstrom of the 2012 election year to push for it.

Over at the Monkey Cage, Erik Voeten looks at the political science of this and concludes that Bellinger has a valid point.  The reason that Obama has been lethargic on treaties?  The opportunity cost of the effort: 

The idea that it is indeed hard work to pass treaties is supported by a recent working paper by Judith Kelley and Jon Pevehouse. Passing a treaty isn’t a simple matter of tallying the votes. The Senate’s agree and consent process takes away legislative time and political capital that could be used for other, perhaps more valuable, legislation. This opportunity cost theory yields some interesting and counterintuitive hypotheses. Presidents should become less likely to advance treaties when their approval ratings are high and when their party controls the Senate because that is the time when they can pass more valuable legislation on domestic issues. Kelley and Pevehouse find strong support for these patterns in their analysis with data from 1967-2008.

I suspect that Bellinger is correct that the Obama Administration could have persuaded a few Republicans to switch sides on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities if it had expended more time and capital on the treaty. This is not just about Republican opposition but also about priorities in the Obama Administration, which have, rightly or wrongly, been more on the domestic side.

One could argue that this logic also applies to Obama's cabinet selection process on foreign affairs.  With Susan Rice, Chuck Hagel and John Kerry, the White House strategy appears to be, "hey, let's float the name, see if anyone gets upset, and see if the nominee can push back effectively before bothering to actually nominate the person." 

Now from a pure logic of politics, this strategy makes some sense on some foreign policy matters.  As embarrassing as it was that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities did not get ratified by the Senate, it doesn't change much.  There is no effect on domestic law and the U.S. takes a marginal hit on the global stage.  Even on cabinet appointments, one could be truly bloodless and argue that Susan Rice's Value Over Replacement-Level Policy Principal wasn't that high.  The fiscal cliff negotiations matter a lot more. 

Still, politics is art as well as science, and there's something just a little bit chickens**t about the Obama White House's tactics.  Politics isn't only about winning -- sometimes it's just about making the effort.  And the truth of the matter is that when it comes to dealing with Congress, this administration hasn't made the effort.  By my recollection, during its entire first term, the only international relations piece of legislation that got the full court Obama White House press was the New START treaty with Russia.  Now given what was going on with the economy, one could argue that the administration had the right set of priorities.  But one way to help jumpstart the global economy would be a series of potentially significant foreign economic policy moves -- including the ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention, by the way.  And I'd feel safer about my bet with Phil Levy if I knew that the Obama administration was willing to get some skin in the game when it came to foreign policy and Congress. 

Letting peple like Susan Rice or Chuck Hagel twist in the political wind is, well, cruel.  So I hope that in its second term, the White House cares enough about foreign policy to actually engage Congress rather than throw up their hands and say, "crazy Republicans, what can you do?"  Actually, President Obama, you could do one whole hell of a lot if you made an effort. 

Your humble blogg -- [Wait, screw that, you should be feeling pretty proud today!! -- ed.] 

Your proud blogger will be watching tonight's foreign policy debate despite his near-certainty that it's not going to be all that illuminating or informative. He has no choice, as he has a prior commitment to watch the damn thing. 

Now, in preparation for the debate, I could encourage you to read some excellent preparatory posts by Walter Russell Mead or Spencer Ackerman, or this essay on American incolvency in grand strategy by Michael Mazarr -- but that's no fun. 

I could suggest following one of the foreign policy debate drinking games out there -- see the National Journal or Duck of Minerva, for example -- but these drinking games look exceptionally dangerous. Drink when Obama mentions bin Laden? Really? Or when Romney says "resolve"? No one would be upright after the first twenty minutes. 

No, I think the only responsible thing to do is to suggest my own debate drinking game. The idea here is to sort the possible answer such that a true "black swan" event would have to occur for the participant to risk alcohol poisoning. 

So, in that spirit: 

THE OFFICIAL 2012 FOREIGN POLICY DEBATE DRINKING GAME

Take a sip of your drink if....

1. Either candidate makes a geographical mistake (like insisting that the West Bank borders Syria or something like that). 

2. Obama says "I'm the commander in chief." 

3. Romney says that the U.S. Navy is the smallest it's been since 1916 (a dubious claim).

4. Romney accuses Obama of turning the United States into Greece.

5. Anyone on the stage (including Bob Schieffer) mentions Australia, New Zealand or Canada.

Finish your drink if....

1. Either candidate mentions the benefits of trade with China.

2. Either candidate says that Latin America is a crucial strategic region for the United States.

3. Obama says that there's some wiggle room in the 2014 withdrawal date for U.S. combat forces for Afghanistan.

4. Romney says that that there's no wiggle room in the 2014 withdrawal date for U.S. combat forces for Afghanistan.

5. Anyone onstage acknowledges that China has pretty much stopped intervening to keep its currency undervalued. 

Finish your bottle if....

1. Romney says anything positive about the United Nations.

2. Either candidate says that the United States needs to push hard for democratization in Saudi Arabia. 

3. Either "Africa" or "Doha round" are mentioned.

4. Either candidate blasts Israel for keeping its currency severely undervalued. 

5. Obama accuses Romney of a "speak loudly and carry a magic wand" doctrine. 

DRINK YOURSELF TO OBLIVION IF AND ONLY IF....

1. Bob Schieffer asks the candidates what they would do in case of zombies. 

Now I'm pretty sure that if you follow these rules, you'll enjoy tonight's debate without regretting that enjoyment tomorrow. 

In today's paper the New York Times has two long stories on the two largest countries in the world: one on China and one on India. What's interesting is that both stories talk about the tensions between national and regional governments -- but their interpretation of the behavior of these local governments is very different.

Let's start with China, where Andrew Jacobs notes that political paralysis at the national level combined with the economic slowdown is causing regional governments to double down on their debt-driven growth:

Local governments, alarmed by a slowdown they fear could lead to mass unemployment and the kind of sluggish growth that can dent political careers, have decided to take matters into their own hands. In recent months, a number of cities have proposed extravagant infrastructure projects they hope will be financed in part by newly liberalized bank loan policies.

Tianjin claims $236 billion will be spent in the petrochemical, aerospace and other industries. Xi’an, home of the famed terra cotta warriors, plans to invest tens of billions of dollars on nine new subway lines. In Guizhou, one of China’s poorest provinces, officials said they hoped to funnel $472 billion into tourism-related development.

In Changsha, the provincial capital of Hunan, officials brag of 12.9 percent growth as they spend billions of dollars on a new subway system, a ring road, an intercity rail line and a pair of bridges to knit together its transportation system.

“We haven’t felt any impact from the crisis in Europe,” said Liu Maosong, chairman of the Hunan Economics Association and an adviser to the Changsha government. “Our guiding philosophy is ‘investment, investment, investment.’ ”

Even if many such projects turn out to be wishful thinking, economists have expressed alarm that municipalities are still chasing debt-financed growth. “It almost scares me to death,” said Mao Yushi, a prominent economist. “Local governments are using the people’s money for investment, but when they can’t repay the banks, the financial system will snap.”

And Liao Jinzhong, an economist at Hunan University, worries that much of the spending is misplaced. “What we really could use is a functioning sewage system,” he said, speaking from his sixth-floor apartment in a crumbling faculty building that has no elevator.

Mr. Liao said he gave frequent lectures at the local party school about the dangerous fixation on propping up growth figures at all costs. He said officials often congratulated him on his frank views.

“But then they admit they can’t change the way they do things,” he said. “Given that the whole system is oriented toward bolstering the careers of officialdom, I just don’t see things changing any time soon.”

Interesting... so because of the political incentives that exist within the Chinese Communist Party, provincial and urban leaders have an incentive to prime their pumps to seek advancement.

Now let's turn to India, where Jim Yardley notes that -- wait for it -- seeming paralysis at the national level and a sagging national economy are causing unaffiliated leaders at the regional and local level to muse about things like forming a third party and compete at the national level. Yardley notes that the likelihood of success is low. What's interesting, however, is the question of why these local leaders are so popular:

Regional bosses, once in decline, are becoming kingmakers again: the squat, sleepy-eyed Mulayam Singh Yadav, who oversees the powerful Samajwadi Party, is even publicly musing about himself as a future prime minister.

“The incentive for every single party from the opposition to the allies is to send a signal that the Congress can’t govern,” said Pratap Bhanu Mehta, president of the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. “That’s the election plank.”....

“Indian politics will have to live with bargains and negotiations with regional parties,” Ashutosh Varshney, a political expert, said in an e-mail interview. “A third front may or may not emerge, but both national parties will have to negotiate and bargain. That also means that India will find it harder to make firm assertions of power on the international stage, à la China. Its power will grow, but more gradually.”....

In the meantime, India’s regional leaders will continue to press for advantage. Ms. Banerjee is planning a huge demonstration in New Delhi on Monday against the government’s new economic measures. Even as [Bengal Chief Minister Ms. Mamata] Banerjee is often criticized for being intemperate and unpredictable, her influence is undeniable: this week the American ambassador, Nancy Powell met with her privately, just as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton made a point of visiting her during a trip to India in May.

Other regional leaders are also increasingly powerful national figures. Nitish Kumar, the chief minister of the state of Bihar, has hinted that his regional party could join any coalition that granted his state special status. Naveen Patnaik, the chief minister of Orissa, has expressed support for a third-front coalition. Jayalalithaa, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, has also spoken suggestively about a new political alliance.

Most of them have won political support by delivering economic growth and, to varying degrees, improved government. This is one reason that even as India’s politics is again fragmenting, some analysts believe that the country’s economic modernization can continue. In recent years, as policy logjams paralyzed the central government, many international and domestic business leaders shifted their focus to negotiating with individual state leaders.

So, if one buys both of these stories, there's an interesting contrast. Both countries appear to be dealing with feckless national leadership and a slowdown in their national economies. In China, regional leaders are pursuing reckless "growth now" policies that could harm the national economy in the long run. In India, it's the competent economic leadership at the regional level that's bailing out a dysfunctional national government (emphasis added).

The thing is, I don't know if I completely buy Yardley's story on India. I've read enough on China to know that Jacobs' assertion about bad regional policy seems to be pretty accurate (not to mention the out-and-out distortions in economic statistics coming from China's provinces) I wish he had pushed a little bit deeper to see exactly how these regional political bosses had delivered better economic growth. If they did it using variants of what China's leaders did -- short-term measures that accelerate growth now at the expense of growth later -- then what's interesting is that regardless of regime type, local leaders can make life hell for national economic policymakers. If, on the other hand, India's regional leaders have done a genuinely better job at governing, then it's a really interesting story.

What do you think? Psst... in this case, by "you," I mean India experts.

In a futile determined effort to expand his public intellectual brand, your humble blogger was on the Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC for about an hour this AM.  It was a veeeeery interesting experience.  Now, I know that some readers of this blog aspire to poison me and take my place on the FP masthead punditry themselves.  So, as a public service, this is what happens when you go on a Sunday morning talk show:  imagine the Law & Order chunk-CHUNK! going after each paragraph:

WEDNESDAY:  I receive a polite email from one of Melissa's segment/booking producers, who we'll call "M", asking if I want to be on the show this Sunday.  Having never done this kind of punditry before, and having my previous obligation for the weekend cancelled, I accept. 

Immediately after accepting, I experience two contradictory emotions.  First, the fear builds that they will email back the same day and say, "uh, we just re-checked our Rolodex, and.. [laughs] we have no idea who thought you merited being on television."  At the same time, I realize I'm going to have to watch the rest of the prime-time Republican National Convention speeches.  At which point I let loose a strong of profanities [What if had been the DNC instead?--ed.  The same number of profanities would have been released.]

THURSDAY:  I talk with M again, who runs down the planned topics with me -- the RNC, the DNC, the state of the election, and gun violence.  Immediately I have a slight quandry -- my expertise is in international relations, not electoral politics.  Do I dare to think I can play in the sandbox for a Sunday morning talk show?  At which point my inner media whore screams, Gollum-like, "YES!!  WE WANTS TO BE ON THE TV!!!  IT'S OUR PRECIOUS!!" 

This is, as near as I can determine, the First Commandment of Televsion Punditry -- you have to be secure enough in your abilities to chat with authority about issues outside your intellectual wheelhouse. 

FRIDAY:  To make my inner media whore proud, I start reading up on gun violence statistics.  I also read as much commentary as I can about the Republican National Convention.  Whatever intelligence I gain from the former I lose by reading the latter.   

SATURDAY:  Full disclosure:  Melissa and I were political science colleagues at the University of Chicago back in the day, so I'm familiar with her style and her politics.  That said, I haven't been a regular watcher of her MSNBC show, so I tune for the first half-hour in to get a sense of the roundtable.  Clearly MHP leans juuuuust a little to the left.  This raises an identity issue -- am I supposed to be  wearing the hat of "defender of conservatism"?  It's not a role I've been comfortable with as of late.  Or am I gonna wear the "dispassionate, snarky observer of the political scene"?  I feel much more comfortable with that hat on.  In all likelihood, it's going to be a little from column A and a little from column B.

LATER ON SATURDAY:  If you're going to be on roundtable for radio/television, there's a 98% chance you will need to do a "pre-interview" with a producer so they have a sense of what you're going to say during the conversation.  So I have that conversation with M, during which I learn that the topics have been jiggled around a bit and all those minutes hours of sketchy detailed online research into gun violence stats won't be worth much.  Instead, we'll be talking gay marriage.  Which is fine, I will rally with yet more Wikipedia-surfing intense study of primary texts.  And, of course, that segment will be moved as well.  So, the Second Commandment of Television Punditry is that the schedule will always change.

EVEN LATER ON SATURDAY:  The MHP show is classy -- they took care of all the flight/hotel/car service logistics.  So by Saturday night I found myself in a comfortable midtown hotel with a lovely view of Central Park.  Surfing the web furiously to research for Sunday AM, I see that some fireworks broke out on MHP's Saturday show after I switched off to pack.  Melissa was responding to the panel's most conservative participant making a point.  Ruh-roh. 

To prep, I take notes on each of the "blocks" or segments that I'm supposed to weigh in on.  I'm a professor and an academic, and therefore alwasys feel better with notes. 

SUNDAY MORNING PRE-SHOW:  I get to 30 Rock on time, which means I'm the first panelist there.... or so I think.  In actuality, the two female panelists -- NYU's Cristina Beltran and the Center for American Progress' Aisha Moodie-Mills -- are in makeup.  As they enter the green rom, I quickly comprehend that I am in deep trouble, because I am not nearly as pretty.  As the clock ticks towards 10 AM, and no one comes to get me, I am petrified that I have been typecast as the splotchy-faced redneck surrounded by urbane alluring panelists.  Before this scenario can play out in even weirder directions inside my head, however, M sends me to makeup.  They apply as enough powder to my face to fuel at least two Dunkin' Donuts franchies -- but it works .  My family later informs me that I looked good, so many, many thanks to those professionals at MSNBC. 

SUNDAY MORNING, 10 AM-11 AM:  OK, having done my first hour of Sunday morning chat -- which you can watch here, here, here and here -- I have learned the following effects on one's senses when three cameras and numerous klieg lights are pointed in your general direction:

A)  Time speeds up.  Seriously, that hour flew by.  Every time I was feeling like we were getting to a good part of the conversation, we hit a commercial break. 

B)  Almost all prep work is useless.  I knew exactly what I wanted to say in response to the first question asked, and I did that competently.  After that, whatever good punchy things were in my notes might as well have been left back at home for all the use they were to me.  Part of the issue is visual -- you don't want to be looking down at your notes.  Another part of the issue, which I've blogged about before, is the academic weakness of trying to directly answer the question. 

C)  Really, cameras can make you stupid.  If you mangle your words during an ordinary conversation, or even when giving a speech, you can take a moment and regroup.  If you mangle your words during a panel show, you become acutely aware that you're screwing up, which compounds the problem.  Another panelist will be happy to enter the breach.  On at least two occasioons, I had written down a better answer than the one that came out of my mouth during the program. 

SUNDAY MORNING, 11 AM:  I  need to get to the airport to come home, but I find two pieces of critical feedback from the experience worthwhile.  The first was the thumbs-up that Moodie-Mills and her partner give me as I exit the green room.  The second is an anonymous  email I soon find in my inbox: 

Drezner........Why are you such an idiot? Your appearance on MSLSD was laughable and embarrassing. It's really sad and embarrassing how you liberal bedwetters continue to be brainwashed by your worthless president. Why can't you clowns form a coherent thought on your own? Exactly, because you buffoons are mindless robots programmed by your worthless president. Barnum and Bailey have nothing on you clowns. What do you call a basement full of liberals? A whine cellar. Keep up the good work loser................

Why, it's... it's a troll!!  I've made it!!  I'M A REAL PUNDIT NOW!!!!!

Dear Governor Romney,

Congratulations on securing the GOP nomination and earning a roughly 50/50 shot at becoming president in January 2013.  It was an ugly primary fight, but you're passed it and have been consolidating your right flank.  Politically speaking, nicely done. 

Now, I know you want this campaign to be about the economy, the economy, and the economy, but can we talk about foreign policy for just a little bit?  Because if you don't talk about international relations, your advisors are gonna continue to bitch and moan to the press, like they did this week to Rich Oppel at the New York Times and Eli Lake at Daily Beast.  

This will be an ongoing problem for you, because an emerging meme is that your campaign has remarkably little policy content.  Your campaign didn't handle immigration terribly well, for example. Indeed, on foreign policy, you've actually been a bit more forthcoming than on other policy dimensions.  The thing is, what you've said in recent months has prompted... er... well... either mockery or derision.  No one knows whether you're the second coming of neoconservatism or a more realpolitik foreign policy leader.  This lack of certainty is making a lot of people itchy. 

One of your consistent themes has been to bash President Obama because "his positions in foreign policy have not communicated American strength and resolve."  The thing is, if you can't even control your own foreign policy advisors from blabbing to anyone and everyone who writes about foreign policy, well, then you're not really communicating strength and resolve either, are you? 

We agree that this election should primarily be about the economy.  But I suspect we also agree that voters need to be comfortable with a presidential candidate as a commander-in-chief and a foreign policy leader.  After four years, President Obama has carved out a record that is not without blemishes but is pretty clearly above the bar in terms of foreign policy competence.  The burden is on you to demonstrate that you can be above the bar as well.  So far, all you've demonstrated is that you might be better at foreign policy than Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, or Rick Perry, which is a really low bar.   

President Obama has made a hash of his policy towards Israel and Palestine.  Relations with Pakistan, Russia, India and Canada have cooled off considerably since the Bush years.  America's relationship with Latin America and Africa seems uncertain at best.  Cybersecurity remains an inchoate mess. On foreign economic policy, it's not clear at all that Obama can get the G-20 to agree on anything and the Doha trade round is dead, dead, dead.  There's clearly room for improvement, and American foreign policy benefits from a vigorous marketplace of ideas.  So show some leadership, get your team in line, and articulate a foreign policy vision that goes beyond the vague nostrums of "An American Century." 

Seriously, get it together.

Sincerely,

Daniel W. Drezner

I've gone on record as saying that presidential campaign promises on foreign policy don't count for all that much.  Over the past few weeks, however, there have been some rumblings coming from the Romney campaign that are worth considering. 

First, there was the matter of Richard Grenell.  The Romney campaign hired him to be its foreign policy spokesman, then asked him to stay silent on a foreign policy conference call (one that didn't really cover its participants in glory, by the way).  Grenell then resigned, implying that he felt pressured to leave because his being gay ruffled some social conservatives (which the Romney camp denies). 

Second, there is the question of Romney's hostility towards Russia, and the way that clashes with what his foreign policy advisers have saidon the subject:

Interviews with Republican foreign policy experts close to his campaign and his writings on the subject show that his stance toward Russia reflects a broader foreign policy view that gives great weight to economic power and control of natural resources. It also exhibits Mr. Romney’s confidence that his private-sector experience would make him a better negotiator on national security issues than President Obama has been.

Mr. Romney’s views on Russia have set off disagreements among some of his foreign policy advisers. They put him in sync with the more conservative members of his party in Congress, who have similarly criticized Mr. Obama as being too accommodating to Russia, and generally reflect the posture of some neoconservatives....

Some advisers close to Mr. Romney, who declined to be quoted or identified by name, say Russia is a good illustration of his belief that national security threats are closely tied to economic power — in this case stemming from Russia’s oil and gas reserves, which it has used to muscle European countries dependent on energy imports. 

They also cite his tendency to view foreign policy conflicts as zero-sum negotiations.  Mr. Romney, an accomplished deal-maker at Bain Capital, views his negotiating skills as an advantage he holds over Mr. Obama.

It's juuuuust a little disturbing to hear that Romney's foreign policy worldview sounds an awful lot like what Donald Trump was saying a year ago.  Oh, and that, by implication, Romney's concept of "economic power" is total horses**t as well.

Just as intriguing, however, is the fact that Romney's advisors are chatting to the press about these gaps between their views and Romney's.  Now, in theory, "Romney foreign policy advisor" can be cast a wide net, from someone who talked to the campaign once to someone in the inner circle.  Still, if you peruse David Sanger's Sunday NYT essay, it's hard not to see that the foreign policy fissures in Camp Romney run deep:

“There are two very different worldviews in this campaign,” said one adviser who aligns more often with Mr. Bolton. “But as in any campaign, there are outer circles, inner circles and inner-inner circles, and I’m not sure that anyone knows if the candidate has a strong view of his own on this.” Another adviser, saying he would be “cashiered” if the campaign caught him talking to a reporter without approval, said the real answer was that “Romney doesn’t want to really engage these issues until he is in office” and for now was “just happy to leave the impression that when Obama says he’ll stop an Iranian bomb he doesn’t mean it, and Mitt does.”

As both Michael Crowley and Erik Wemple note, the fact that these guys are talking to Sanger -- and stressing things like not providing any input for Romney's idiotic 2010 anti-New START op-ed --  does not reflect well on the campaign. 

Would any of this really matter in a possible Romney presidency? 

Mostly, no. Campaign statements on foreign policy are broken pretty easily, and campaign rhetoric melts quickly in the face of foreign policy realities.  I suppose one could argue that the Romney campaign's disorganization on these questions do not speak well about the campaign's discipline and management.  That said, I seriously doubt that one's ability to run an efficient campaign translates into the ability to run foreign policy.  Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign  was not exactly the most disciplined of the bunch -- but she's been a very capable Secretary of State. 

The one way in which this might be interesting is whether someone like John Bolton winds up as Secretary of State.  Based on his United Nations ambassador days, and based on the near-delusional level of megalomaniacal egotism displayed in Bolton's memoirs, I'd argue that his appointment would make a difference in foreign policy outcomes. 

The loudest signal emerging from the noise of Romney's foreign policy team is that Bolton's influence might be larger than I would have suspected.  The fact that Grenell was Bolton's spokesman at the UN, and that his Russia views sound like Bolton, are distressing signals.  The fact that one of Romney's concrete budgetary criticisms of the Obama administration this week was that, "[i]n 2010, 17 federal government agencies gave $7.7 billion to more than 25 United Nations programs, billions of it voluntarily," sounds... Boltonish. The fact that all of Romney's foreign policy factions are gabbing to the press and, er, people like me further suggests that the divisions run deep. 

It's still May, and so I suspect that these kerfuffles are noise that will eventually dissipate.  Still, consider this to be a marker if, a year from now, you see post after post entitled, "Yes, I'm Afraid Secretary Bolton Did Say a Dumbass Thing Today." 

Developing...

Last Wednesday Thomas Friedman wrote a very silly column in which he called for Michael Bloomberg to enter the presidential race because he had an annoying experience at Union Station he thinks the United States needs a real leader: 

[W]ith Europe in peril, China and America wobbling, the Arab world in turmoil, energy prices spiraling and the climate changing, we are facing some real storms ahead. We need to weatherproof our American house — and fast — in order to ensure that America remains a rock of stability for the world. To do that, we’ll have to make some big, hard decisions soon — and to do that successfully will require presidential leadership in the next four years of the highest caliber.

This election has to be about those hard choices, smart investments and shared sacrifices — how we set our economy on a clear-cut path of near-term, job-growing improvements in infrastructure and education and on a long-term pathway to serious fiscal, tax and entitlement reform. The next president has to have a mandate to do all of this.

But, today, neither party is generating that mandate — talking seriously enough about the taxes that will have to be raised or the entitlement spending that will have to be cut to put us on sustainable footing, let alone offering an inspired vision of American renewal that might motivate such sacrifice. That’s why I still believe that the national debate would benefit from the entrance of a substantial independent candidate — like the straight-talking, socially moderate and fiscally conservative Bloomberg — who could challenge, and maybe even improve, both major-party presidential candidates by speaking honestly about what is needed to restore the foundations of America’s global leadership before we implode.

The Twitterati and blogosphere reaction to Friedman's argument tended towards the scathing, and now we're beginning to see the responses elaborated to op-ed length.  This smart essay, for example, makes the very trenchant point that in a political structure with so many veto points , so much political polarization and so many entrenched interests, the ability of any one leader to reform the system on the scale that Friedman proposes  is next to impossible: 

A system with as many checks and balances built into it as ours assumes — indeed requires — a certain minimum level of cooperation on major issues between the two parties, despite ideological differences. Unfortunately, since the end of the cold war, which was a hugely powerful force compelling compromise between the parties, several factors are combining to paralyze our whole system.

For starters, we’ve added more checks and balances to make decision-making even more difficult — such as senatorial holds now being used to block any appointments by the executive branch or the Senate filibuster rule, effectively requiring a 60-vote majority to pass any major piece of legislation, rather than 51 votes. Also, our political divisions have become more venomous than ever....

A system with as many checks and balances built into it as ours assumes — indeed requires — a certain minimum level of cooperation on major issues between the two parties, despite ideological differences. Unfortunately, since the end of the cold war, which was a hugely powerful force compelling compromise between the parties, several factors are combining to paralyze our whole system.

For starters, we’ve added more checks and balances to make decision-making even more difficult — such as senatorial holds now being used to block any appointments by the executive branch or the Senate filibuster rule, effectively requiring a 60-vote majority to pass any major piece of legislation, rather than 51 votes. Also, our political divisions have become more venomous than ever....

We can’t be great as long as we remain a vetocracy rather than a democracy. Our deformed political system — with a Congress that’s become a forum for legalized bribery — is now truly holding us back.

Congratulations to present Thomas Friedman -- for effectively refuting past Tom Friedman. 

The New York Times' Roger Cohen files an optimistic column today, arguing that predictions of American decline are premature.  I tend to agree with Cohen's sentiment but not his logic because, well, it's God-awful.  Here's the key bits:

Perhaps the most successful U.S. chief executive of the past decade is stepping down this month. Samuel Palmisano of I.B.M. has presided over a remarkable transformation of the technology giant, extracting it from the personal computer business and shifting it toward services and software to power a “Smarter Planet.”

In a fascinating interview with my colleague Steve Lohr, Palmisano said the first of the four questions in his guiding business framework was, “Why would someone spend their money with you — so what is unique about you?” At root, business is still about getting money out of your pocket into mine. By being unsentimental in making I.B.M. unique, Palmisano ensured a lot of money flowed the company’s way.

Profits followed. The stock price surged. Warren Buffett, who knows which way the wind blows, recently acquired a stake of more than 5 percent. I.B.M. has been re-imagined, not least in the way it has shifted from being a U.S. multinational to a global corporation powered by rapid expansion in growth markets like India and China.

The question arises: If an American colossus like I.B.M. can be turned around, can America itself?  (emphasis added)

A small aside:  if Cohen's logic is correct, then the 2012 election is over and everyone should vote for Mitt Romney.  This kind of ruthless turnaround is exactly what Romney did while at Bain.  While his track record can be disputed, there's no doubt that he was willing to be ruthless to increase profits.  So, whether he knows it or not, Cohen is making the argument that a turnaround specialist like Romney would be just the ticket for the United States, transforming America's political economy into a leaner, more efficient engine for progress. 

The thing is -- and this is kind of important -- governments are not corporations.  I cannot stress this enough.  There's the obvious point that in democracies, legislatures tend to impose a more powerful constraint than shareholders, making it that much harder for leaders to execute the policies they think will be the most efficient. 

There's also the deeper point that it's a lot harder for governments to be "unsentimental" when it comes to the provision of public services.  It's a lot harder for states to eliminate the functions that are less efficient.  Frequently, demand for government services emerges  because of the perception that the private sector has fallen down on the job in that area.  This means that the government has been tasked with doing the things that are difficult and unprofitable to do.  It is precisely because these government outputs are often so hard to measure that Newt Gingrich's claims about Six Sigma sound pretty laughable.  Even libertarians who want the government to reduce its operations drastically will acknowledge the political risks and costs of trying to execute this plan. 

To be fair, there are some policy dimensions where this analogy holds up better.  Cohen implicitly argues that America's willingness to jettison costly and inefficient foreign ventures -- cough, Iraq, cough -- is an example of this kind of turnaround strategy.  Fair enough.  Even on foreign policy, however, it's hard to execute this kind of ruthless efficiency.  Israel is prosperous enough to not need the $3 billion it gets in U.S. aid.  Good luck to anyone trying to cut that.  Africa is not a vital strategic areas of interest for the United States, but I suspect AFRICOM isn't going anywhere.  I've been a big fan of getting the United States out of Central Asia, but critics make a fair point when they observe that the last time the United States tried this gambit, Al Qaeda took advantage of it. 

There's been a lot of bragging in the 2012 primary about candidates that have "real world" business experience, and how that translates into an effective ability to govern.  That logic is horses**t.  Being president is a fundamentally different job than being a CEO -- because countries are not corporations. 

I have a long essay in The Spectator (U.K.) on the state of foreign policy thinking among the GOP 2012 presidential candidates.  Here's me not pulling my punches:

During the 2008 US presidential election cycle, the respected journal Foreign Affairs invited the leading presidential candidates from both parties to outline their views of world politics. All of them responded with essays that, one presumes, they at least read if did not write. This year, ahead of next year’s elections, Foreign Affairs has proffered the same invitation to the leading Republican aspirants. To date, they have all refused or not responded. This parallels the trend of not talking about international affairs in their endless series of presidential debates: mentions of Afghanistan and Iraq are reported to be down 65 per cent from 2008.  

One could argue that these candidates are denying Americans an opportunity to understand their thinking about international relations. Having investigated the policy platforms of the Republican field, however, I have concluded that most of them have done Americans a huge favour. The Grand Old Party candidates’ current thinking on foreign affairs is a noxious mixture of cowardice, belligerence, ignorance — and, unfortunately, political savvy.  

Read the whole thing.  Two additional thoughts.

1) The Spectator left a few things on the cutting-room floow because of space constraints.  For example, the essay fails to mention Jon Hunstman.  In my original essay, he did get mentioned in a foootnote after I had slammed the field for the umpteenth time, explaining: 

To be fair, former U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman has demonstrated a superior command of foreign policy issues.  He's also polling so badly that he failed to qualify for CNN's October 18 debate.  Tim Pawlenty was another candidate who bothered to address the Council on Foreign Relations on global matters; he withdrew from the race in August of this year.

The other thing that got excised was my point that foreign policy and national security used to be a very important compnent of presidential elections: 

[A]s an international relations specialist, I find the state of the state of the GOP foreign policy debate to be utterly depressing, but as a political scientist, I'm unsurprised.  Still, as an American citizen, this state of affairs is disconcerting on multiple levels.  We are not that far removed from elections in which foreign affairs and national security were the crucial issues in a campaign.  Gerald Ford sabotaged his 1976 campaign when he insisted that there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.  Both Michael Dukakis and John Kerry doomed their campaigns by appearing weak and vacillating on national security. 

2)  I haven't overtly talked about my own personal political beliefs since the blog moved to FP, but this seems to be an appropriate time to bring it up and then never speak of it again.  When I've published essays like this before, I find liberals write "even conservative Dan Drezner..." while conservatives often deploy terms like "academic elitist" or "RINO." 

In my case, at this point in time,  I believe that last appellation to be entirely fair and accurate.  I'm not a Democrat, and I don't think I've become more liberal over time.  That said, three things have affected my political loyalties over the past few years.  First, I've become more uncertain about various dimensions of GOP ideology over time.  It's simply impossible for me to look at the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the 2008 financial crisis and not ponder the myriad ways in which my party has made some categorical errors in judgment.   So I'm a bigger fan of the politics of doubt during an era when doubt has been banished in political discourse. 

Second, the GOP has undeniably shifted further to the right over the past few years, and while I'm sympathetic to some of these shifts, most of it looks like a mutated version of "cargo cult science" directed at either Ludwig Von Mises or the U.S. Constitution (which, of course, is sacred and inviolate, unless conservatives want to amend it).  Sorry, I'm not embracing outdated concepts like the gold standard or repealing the 16th Amendment.  Not happening. 

Third, David Frum wrote something in New York Magazine that touches on the issues I just discussed, but also articlates something that has been nagging at me for a few years now: 

The conservative shift to ever more extreme, ever more fantasy-based ideology has ominous real-world consequences for American society. The American system of government can’t work if the two sides wage all-out war upon each other: House, Senate, president, each has the power to thwart the others. In prior generations, the system evolved norms and habits to prevent this kind of stonewalling. For example: Theoretically, the party that holds the Senate could refuse to confirm any Cabinet nominees of a president of the other party. Yet until recently, this just “wasn’t done.” In fact, quite a lot of things that theoretically could be done just “weren’t done.” Now old inhibitions have given way. Things that weren’t done suddenly are done.

Also, things that weren't said are now being said.  Or, to be more precise, things that use to be said but ignored are now being taken seroiusly by the GOP's leading lights.  Newt Gingrich endorses the notion that Obama has a "Kenyan, anti-colonial" worldview.  Mitt Romney claims Obama has been apologizing around the world and no longer believes in American exceptionalism.  Herman Cain is [Remember your mercy rule!!--ed.].... Herman Cain.  There's good, solid partisanship -- a vital necessity in this country -- and then there's unadulterated horses**t.  Too much of the GOP's rhetoric on Obama reads like the latter to me. 

So for those reasons, I really am a Republican in Name Only at this point.  And I say this for the GOP's benefit.  The next time someone writes, "even the Republican Dan Drezner has said...." GOP partisans should feel perfectly entitled to link to this post and call me a RINO.  Because it's true. 

Centrist pollster Douglas Schoen has an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal that reports on some polling his firm did of the Occupy Wall Street protestors: 

The protesters have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies. On Oct. 10 and 11, Arielle Alter Confino, a senior researcher at my polling firm, interviewed nearly 200 protesters in New York's Zuccotti Park. Our findings probably represent the first systematic random sample of Occupy Wall Street opinion.

Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda....

What binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education—is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, intense regulation of the private sector, and protectionist policies to keep American jobs from going overseas.

Sixty-five percent say that government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement—no matter the cost. By a large margin (77%-22%), they support raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, but 58% oppose raising taxes for everybody, with only 36% in favor. And by a close margin, protesters are divided on whether the bank bailouts were necessary (49%) or unnecessary (51%).

Thus Occupy Wall Street is a group of engaged progressives who are disillusioned with the capitalist system and have a distinct activist orientation.

Now there are two ways to look at this data.  The first, as many sympathizers with the movement have done, is to impugn the pollster's politics, his methods, and the ways in which he's inferring broad political generalizatiions from the data. 

These points are worth considering, though looking at the precise questions asked compared to his inferences, I'm not seeing all that much conceptual stretching.  Plus, Schoen's results seem to jibe pretty strongly with a smaller New York poll of 100 protestors conducted earlier this month. 

Furthermore, consider Nate Silver's analysis of the protests that took place over the weekend across the globe.  In looking at turnout, Silver arrives at a similar -- thouugh not identical -- conclusion: 

The nascent movement known as Occupy Wall Street had its largest single day of protests on Saturday. And a funny thing happened: most of the action was far from Wall Street itself....

Over all, about 38,000 protesters — more than half of the documented total — turned out in the Western Census Bureau Region, which accounts for about 23 percent of the country’s population. On a per-capita basis, the West drew about two-and-a-half times more protesters than the Northeast, four times more than the Midwest, and five times more than the South. And it wasn’t necessarily in large cities — although places like Los Angeles and Seattle had large crowds, so did the wine-and-cheese town of Santa Rosa, Calif., and the college town of Eugene, Ore. among others.....

 

This could be due to a number of factors. Perhaps it has something to do with race, for instance. Cities where African-Americans make up a majority of the population, like Detroit, New Orleans and Cleveland, have tended to have underwhelming numbers of protesters and poorly organized Occupy groups. (There are plenty of those cities in the South, the Northeast and even the Midwest — but not really in the western United States).

Or maybe it has something to do with technology: Much of the organizational activity for the Occupy movement has taken place online, and the West Coast is particularly tech-savvy.

I suspect that more than anything, however, it reflects the politics of the protesters. Specifically, they tend to be more liberal than they are Democratic partisans. Take liberalism, subtract the Democratic Party, and the remainder might look something like Occupy Wall Street (emphasis added).

There needs to be more data, but Schoen's results don't seem out of line with the other data points. 

As the economy has been weakening, the odds of the GOP producing the president of the United States in 2013 has been increasing, which means I've been watching the debates, including last night's CNN Tea Party debate.

Last night's debate followed the same pattern as the other ones I've seen -- the ratio of domestic policy to foreign policy questions was about 80:20 -- maybe 70:30 if one considers immigration to be a foreign-policy question. International political economy is barely addressed at all, except in glancing references to China's ownership of U.S. debt. My Twitter feed has been overflowing with laments like this one during all of the debates.

Now, as a Foreign Policy Wonk in Good Standing, you might imagine that I'm pretty upset about this. International relations is half the job of being POTUS, after all, so one would expect half the debate time to be devoted to it. Goodness knows, the performance of some of the GOP candidates has given me serious pause about their ability to execute even a semi-competent foreign policy.

In truth, however, I can't get all that worked up about it, for two reasons. The first is that these debates are an attempt to influence voters -- and, to repeat a theme, the overwhelming majority of voters do not care about foreign affairs. This has been true as a general rule, even during wartime, and is even truer during a down economy. It should be noted that social policy questions have also been on the margins during these debates because this election is about the economy, the economy, and the economy. Foreign-policy wonks will begrudge the lack of globotalk -- that's what we do. I'm not going to begrudge the American people getting more time to hear candidates talk about issues that they think are the most important, however.

The second reason -- and this is more informed speculation than a statement of fact -- is that foreign-policy promises made during campaigns don't matter as much for governing as domestic policy promises. As Ron Paul reminded people last night, George W. Bush won the presidency in 2000 on a platform of "no authority in the Constitution to be the policeman of the world, and no nation-building." I think it's safe to say that's not how he ran his foreign policy.

Similarly, think back to Barack Obama's foreign-policy pledges during the 2008 primary season. He had two highlights. The first was a statement that he'd be happy to sit down without conditions and meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. That hasn't happened despite Ahmadinejad's repeated entreaties for an open debate. Obama's other highlight came when he and Hillary Clinton sparred over who would renegotiate NAFTA first. Again … that hasn't happened (and thank goodness for that).

I could go on -- Bill Clinton reversed his campaign pledge to let in Haitian refugees before he even took office. You get the point, however. Stepping back, it's hard to think of any significant foreign-policy campaign promises made in the modern era that actually mattered. I hereby challenge the commenters -- and BA and MA students desperately in search of a thesis -- to provide counterexamples.

To be clear, I'm not saying that foreign-policy issues are completely irrelevant. The contrast between Obama and Hillary Clinton on Iraq clearly affected the 2008 primary, for example. I'm hypothesizing that pronouncements about future foreign policy don't seem to matter. I suspect that this is for two reasons. First, as previously noted, voters don't care about these pledges all that much. Second, the world keeps changing, and so any new president needs to adapt to new circumstances.

In contrast, domestic policy promises made during campaigns do matter. Signal statements -- Obama on health care, Bush 43 on tax cuts -- mattered in the execution of policy. The most famous counterexample -- Bush 41 going back on his no-new-tax pledge -- proves the rule, as it cost him dearly. So what candidates say during these portions of the debates matters more.

Just to be clear, these are hypotheses and not conclusions. A cursory scan of the literature didn't turn up anything, but I'm betting someone has studied this question. I'm not sure I'm right here, and I'd welcome pushback or confirmation in the comments.

What do you think?

I'm still on  vacation -- did anything of note happen over the weekend? 

Oh, I see:  "probably the biggest thing to become law in 50 years."  Well, so long as no one is engaging in hyperbole.

I have nothing to say about the content of the health care bill, but I do wonder whether there will be any positive or negative foreign policy externalities.  FP's Joshua Keating provided one humorous example of how the passage of the bill can reframe the Obama narrative on foreign policy in a positive way. 

On the other hand, Shadow Government's Dan Blumenthal correctly points out the ways in which Obama neglected foreign policy during the run-up to the bill's passage.  This is not surprising -- presidents turn  their fortunes around through domestic accomplishments and revived economic growth, not foreign policy achievements -- but it's a reality that Obama needs to confront going forward. 

The one thing health care passage might do for Obama is add a dollop of respect for Obama's political acumen among other world leaders.  Obama just got the #1 Democratic policy concern written into law after a year of long, drawn-out negotiations, and that's not nothing.  Allied leaders might be more willing to give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt when dealing with long, drawn-out international negotiations. 

What do you think?