As a card carrying twenty something, I would characterize my personal foreign policy views as favoring "smart intervention."

There's no doubt that my generation has witnessed some profoundly ugly side effects that resulted from an aggressively interventionist foreign policy; but on the other side, a case could be made that the relatively non-interventionist 90's allowed ideologically driven enemies an opening to hit us hard.

To me, it's the paradigm of conspiracy theories and religious fear mongering that must change in order for terrorism to stop being a security threat to the US, and that will not happen until the populace is better educated and more financially comfortable. To that end, US support for moderate groups, educators and legitimate businesspeople within these countries should be a priority.

China is another story altogether, but I'm unconvinced that their transition to first world superpower will be as smooth as everyone thinks.

Sir,

As a twentysomething, I can offer the following:

First, growing up in a world post-9/11 has taught us that situation, context, and history matter. Not to say they didn't before bin Laden, but it was easier to understand the Berlin wall without knowing the ins and outs of the Yalta Conference. I would argue that today's foreign affairs are a constant discussion of "ancient hatreds," "centuries of history," and the like (consider Israel/Palestine, Rwanda, Darfur, et cetera). In this regard, they depart from the past.

Second, the interconnectedness of the world (I can hear Friedman and Krugman perk up) is constantly reinforced as events unfold. The seizure of $1bn worth of hard drugs in a shack in Guinea earlier this year, the Greek fiscal crisis, and separatist movements in far-removed countries such as Indonesia are all relevant to our politics.

Both of these lessons actually instill a message a bit more nuanced than what you proposed. Perhaps it's only an individual opinion - and since I'm an Africanist, a particularly uncommon one - but I'm taught that the United States cannot and should not act like the bull in the china shop. An intervention here can lead to a terrorist threat from there (substitute Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan and Somalia/Nigeria/Indonesia as you will). However, that does not mean isolationism. It means acting slowly and with careful measure. It means being taking a flexible (not mercurial) stance open to compromise as interests change and events redefine the problem. And most of all, it means serving not only the ruling party's domestic groups but also the nation's long-term interests.

How might the rise of study abroad programs during this generation's formative years impact that?

Might it cut against isolationist tendencies? I see a strong preference against military intervention as obviously correct, but am not sure it will lead towards isolationism.

To the extent that this generation is more internationally aware than others, it could be quite internationally focused.

A big caveat, of course, is that while study abroad is increasingly common, it's still a minority of students and, I assume, skewed socio-economically.

Still, it's not unreasonable to guess that those studying abroad will have a disproportionately large impact on the country's foreign policy for a variety of reasons.

Walt
@wfrick

As a 19-year-old Brazilian, I'm very optimistic in the long term on the international system, but fairly pessimistic in the short term. The problem is there are still too many Cold War people running governments. They don't have the same view as we (or most of us) have on most matters.

As for American teens, it really would be best if the US were less interventionist and arrogant, for that is what causes most problems for their foreign policy (i.e. Anti-americanism)

Internationalism/cosmopolitalism should be the rule in a globalized world, not nationalism. The latter hinders development and cooperation between countries, in a selfish, artificial, shortsighted and reckless growth.

One major issue for us twenty-somethings- a group I will be forced to leave in about half a year- is the perception of democracy. One of my (our) earliest foreign policy memories was the collapse of the Berlin Wall/Tiananmen Square in 1989 followed by the end of the Cold War and the rise of Pax Americana a few years later. These events inculcated our generation with the notion that the American system of democracy was poised to become the world's- and that American hegemony would be smoothly applied everywhere.

This view only intensified during the height of Bush triumphalism in 2003-5 with Iraq and the 'color revolutions', and is only now being challenged somewhat. I'd argue that most millenials nevertheless have a strong sense of democracy's universality and superiority over other systems of government.

Well, I'm just barely a member of the generation you identify, but that list of formative foreign policy experiences checks out about right.

My impression as a kid from the '90s was that America could pretty much run the world, but that we would have to use force a lot to do it. I remember watching coverage of the '98 embassy bombings, and those made a pretty strong impression on me. I also remember Desert Fox and the Kosovo War.

But in the run-up to the Iraq War I started to feel differently, and once I realized that was going to be a mess, I definitely became more anti-interventionist.

I wouldn't say I'm isolationist. I also don't think that becoming anti-interventionist would bring us back to the blissful '90s and economic growth - the financial crisis pretty much soured that. I've come away with things with the impression that the prosperity and worldwide dominance the US enjoyed in the '90s was extremely historically contingent, rather than a 'normal' state of affairs. I have an extremely anti-utopian bent that makes me very skeptical of liberal internationalism and neoconservatism, or really any foreign policy agenda seeking to recreate the '90s.

Ultimately, power and money matter more than the strength of our values, we don't know enough about or have the capability to socially engineer foreign lands, humanitarian and ideological missions distract us from the real threat of great power politics, and ultimately, no matter how great things are going, sh*t happens, so better conserve your strength and willpower for when it does...

Drez,

Interesting post, as always. I guess I'm among the few 20 somethings decided to go at it on his own rather than fall back into the nest and maintain overtly idealistic pursuits to face cold reality.

As such, I think you're onto something about being anti-interventionist, but I think my generation has seen the rise of the Bush Doctrine, and that has exhausted a good portion of my generation's appetite for being the world's de facto police man. There is something troubling about being the only nation willing to plunge into a war in Iraq without many of its more powerful allies that has alienated the hell out of my generation.

I feel as though the future will bring a more concerted attempt at multilateralism with the big stick ideology being the fall back. In typing this, it probably isn't much different than what's occurred since 2003, but with less hubris and hopefully a genuine attempt to at least get our more powerful allies on the same page and commitment level.

Whats struck me about my generation is how truly idealistic it still is. Being that I'm in my late 20's, its kind of odd to still have so many peers who think the world functions on rainbows, sharing, and being special. So it might be that things may shift to the opposite spectrum of the bush doctrine with much the same results, but with more hugs and sharing.

I hope my generation gives rise to some realists...

I think, like many of the others here, that anti-interventionism, but not isolationism, is where our generation appears to fall. I think we have a high appreciation for the effects of things intended as positives, which essentially comes down to foreign aid and building strong relationships, while military intervention doesn't look like it works very well. I would add that I personally like the idea of nation building, but in light of the experiences you mentioned above, it doesn't seem very viable.

Don't you teach in a school crawling with 20 somethings? How do you not know anything about your students' opinions? Maybe you should pay more attention to them.

Being in my early twenties and Irish, I'm extremely pro E.U. I'm not old enough to remember the years prior to the so called "celtic tiger" but I know that without the euro we'd be in a far worse recession then we were in the eighties. I started using the internet as it became widely available and in many ways grew up with it, and I think that the rise of a common "internet culture" has interesting implications for international relations in the future.

I am 32, so I guess I no longer qualify as a "twentysomething." However, I am not all that far removed. I too came of age during the 1990s, the economic boom time and Monicagate. I think it was a "Holiday from History" and a terribly superficial time.

9/11 happened when I was 23, but it has actually not changed the overly idealistic tempermane of my generation. This is unfortunate.

I admit, I am probably not normal. I read Kissinger's Diplomacy for fun (and even sought out and bought his 400 page undergraduate thesis on the Meaning of History, full of Spenger, Toynbee and Kant references).

That said, I believe in a unipolar world order. This is not simply because I am jingoistic and/or naive. I believe quite strongly that subterranean forces bubble up to the surface. I think pride, envy and fear makes rational policymaking a task more akin to Sisyphus than to anything else.

Globalization is a massive phenomena and has reulted in a large scale political awakening and mobilization. However, it in no way means "Westernization" or even worldwide tolerance.

By contrast, it often results in inciting great fears and great hatreds as it highlights civilizational divergences (Huntington was on to something even if he was not 100% correct).

No, we still live in a world of "realism." Its a grimy world where idealism is necessary to keep one from losing faith, but it is also a world that must be viewed soberly.

America is, in a relative sense, the grand stabilizer of the world. America's power position, notwithstanding its flaws and morally challenged decisions of the past, is a necessary component to avoiding a breakdown of order into an era of neo-Middle Age anarchy.

Again, this is not an absolute statement, as there are examples of America pursuing destabilizing policies. But look at the world of the early 21st Century. Though there is much to be happy about, there are some extraordinarily dangerous trends that are plain to see for those watching.

The non-proliferation regime is dead (or at best taking its last, gasping breaths). "Superempowered" individuals can now wreak the level of carnage it used to take armies to unleash. A couple of nuclear attacks, even if unlikely, would be major gamechangers that would so transform the American psychology, we might not ever recognize it again.

Uncertainty about rising powers (ie. China) also necessitates vigilance. This is the first time America has seen the rise of a Superpower that at one time in its history has already been one.

A lot of people in my age cohort, I think, are unable to conceptualize the tragedy of politics (they should read their Thucydides and Machiavelli more than their Chomsky).

They think there is always a "technical" solution that will can be offered or that if one shows enough "respect" to others that all divides can at some level be bridged.

History does not, in my estimation, validate those premises.

Chalk me up as a neo-Kissingerian, balancing serious, but forceful diplomacy with a willingness (though not necessarily the actuality) to pursue assertive military postures as advanced by the right.

I find most twentysomethings to be really stupid and have little to no sense of history (i.e. repackaged 1970s economic policies = hope and change).

I'm 28. I don't think "the current generation of millennial twentysomethings will develop a worldview about international relations that transcends party and clique."

If I could make some blanket statements:

"1) An early childhood of peace and prosperity -- a.k.a., the Nineties;"

We don't remember much about foreign policy from this time period, except that everything we did, we were good at (Bush 41 kicked ass in the Middle East, Clinton kicked ass in Eastern Europe. We don't remember that Iran-Contra thing and don't know who Ollie North is)

"2) The September 11th attacks;"

The most significant thing that happened to us, since many of us we're in college. We learned that we were ignorant about what was going on in the rest of the world, and, more importantly, we learned that our politicians and military were ignorant about what was going on. This made us more engaged with the outside world, not more isolationist.

"3) Two Very Long Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq;"

Iraq is our Vietnam, except it's easier for us to tune it out since we can change the channel to something else and we're not going to get drafted. So it makes us skeptical of our government, but not as angry as the anti-war protesters in the 60s.

We have no frame of reference for Afghanistan, but we believe we're supposed to be there. We are amazed that we're not doing better there since we seem to have allies there and we have thrown so much money at it.

"4) One Financial Panic/Great Recession;"

We don't see this as a foreign policy issue. We don't understand it. Some of us choose to blame the other political party for it.

"5) The ascent of China under the shadow of U.S. hegemony. "

We think that China's rise is inevitable because we don't think about Japan, we can't imagine going to war with them, since we were only taught about WW2, not WW1, and we expect that, at worse, it will be a "Cold War" where we will eventually win. We're worried slightly about our economy, with the more informed of us angry that older generations aren't paying their share of taxes for entitlement programs that they're counting on.

You are missing:

6) Guantanamo Bay

This is a separate issue from Iraq and Afghanistan for us. It has a good chance of extending our parents' culture war to our generation and to foreign policy, since apparently some of us approve of torture.

7) Environmental issues.

We think of the environment as part of foreign policy, since we believe that we can get a renewable energy policy that will allow us to have more power overseas (e.g., not to stop trading with Saudi Arabia, but to have more bargaining power in the Middle East). We are angry with the older generation for not taking this seriously. Another area where culture wars could come into play.

I'm curious to hear from twentysomethings in the comments -- what are the foreign policy lessons that you can draw from your upbringing?

1. Connectivity. The world is a lot smaller now. Some disenchanted guy in Paris can join online forums with guys from Germany, Algeria, Yemen, and Egypt to bitch about "anti-muslim aggression" and share videos. He can then get an invitation to go to Yemen, where he trains in a course run by guys from Egypt using downloaded manuals and electronic storage, all so he can carry out a terrorist attack in a third place.

2. The China Model of Negotiating Trade Deals. It's quite simple - negotiate trade deals on the basis of self-interest without the use of force as coercion, with none of this pro-democracy propaganda. Seems to work well for the most part, although if you bring too many of your nationals into the trading partner country, it can cause tensions.

3. The Power of Balancing in East Asia. As China has grown in influence and importance, making claims on the South China Sea, some of the other countries are moving closer to the US. Including Vietnam, in spite of the war nearly 40 years ago.

4. The Two-State Peace Process between Israel and the Palestinians is a fool's errand. They've been trying to work out agreements on this since I was four years old, and while I was too young to really understand Camp David at the same, I've gotten to witness the failures later on.

Then again, I'm looking at this through my own irony-drenched Gen-X eyes.

I'm curious about that. Baby Boomers tend to get stereotyped as greedy, materialistic, and shallow - the first television generation growing up in affluence. Millenials like myself tend to get stereotyped as being constantly online and texting (with a 0.00009 second attention span), while we still live with our parents at age 25, and generally have pessimistic views about how much money we'll make compared to our parents.

But what's the stereotype of the Gen-Xers? The only one I've heard is that they're slackers.

I am definitely in the group you mention, having hit the quarter-century mark just this last March.

We are indeed a heterogeneous group as one of the above commenters states. However, we do have a lot that differentiates us from older people.

1) Tolerance. Our generation is not necessarily more socially liberal, but libertarian with a live-and-let-live way of looking at the world. A lot of my peers are opposed to homosexuality or drug use in their own lives, but would shrink at the prospect of actually punishing a gay person for being gay or a pothead for getting stoned.

2) Interconnectedness. As another commenter mentioned, we are connected to the rest of the world in ways that have never been possible before. In middle school a friend of mine sent out a video of a power plant being bombed in Belgrade during the Kosovo offensive. It's no longer possible for us to just become isolationist and shut out the world even if we wanted to (which we mostly don't).

3) Ideology. We not only grew up in the roaring 90s and the exploding 00s, we also grew up during the heat of the culture wars, and by and large, we're not impressed. It takes more than a catchy slogan to motivate people of my generation to gravitate to an idea, you'll have to appeal to them on a deeper level. Not that we're immune to ideology, you'll just have to use more than buzzwords to sell them.

As far as the other issues go, liberal young people have been buzzed up recently, but there are plenty who are also quite conservative, if for no other reason than it's how they were raised. I wouldn't imply a particular partisan bent to us just yet.

As a 22 year old Graduate Student studying History any Political Science I may have a contribution.

Many have mentioned the world is more interconnected than ever before, but what is most striking is the sheer amount of information that is readily available. I know some people that spend hours a day on wikipedia just clicking links. People who are not necessarily well educated.

Since we have easily acquired out own pool of knowledge we find it completely unacceptable when our government doesn't seem to know more than us. We have rejected Bush-era interventionism and the flag-waving nationalism of the immediate post-9/11 world (even if we participated). At the same time we still think we can be a force for good. With all this knowledge we can't become isolationist as we're still idealistic enough to want to help. We also want consistency in our foreign policy; what applies to Kazakhstan should apply to Nauru and the UK.

Despite our large knowledge base we are economically clueless. This fact we'll never admit as we keep passionately arguing our favorite rhetoric.

We are also reactionary. I've seen people gravitate to authors just because they argue that what we're doing is wrong. Examples of this are Derrick Jensen and Daniel Quinn for fledgling environmentalists or Dambisa Moyo in reaction to large-scale aid campaigns

Someone earlier mentioned that we want "smart intervention" or intelligent intervention"

I would agree with many of the commenters. As someone whose formative years occurred during the Bush Administration's unique combination of hubris and incompetence, I would definitely characterize myself as anti-interventionist. I have seen that, repeatedly, war is not as straight forward as many would have it. It has unintended consequences, costs money, and yes, people die. For this reasons I am highly ambivalent to, say, attack Iran.

Apart from initiating conflict, I think that US should play a prominent role on the international stage. Participating in international organizations, the UN etc.

I agree with the first post in that, at least for the politically aware of my generation, "smart intervention" is the most logical lesson to draw from the past two decades.
Those who would argue for isolationism and the occasional use of force to keep the masses in their place as a response to our current struggles should remember that it was this approach, in the late nineties, that got us started on the path towards where we are today. A more attentive approach could have allowed us to foresee the rise of militant Islamists as well as the consequences of our abrupt disengagement from Afghanistan, among other things. Also, the maintenance of military-to-military contacts with Pakistan, rather than just pulling back and launching cruise missiles everywhere, could have made the current Afghan war much easier.

For those who would argue that our current interventionist approach to foreign policy is best, there is the financial crisis to bring them back to earth. Our foreign commitments are extremely expensive, and it is unrealistic to expect an all-volunteer force to survive in the long-term perpetually fighting two tough wars.

In sum, it is my hope that, using the lessons learned in my lifetime, America can develop a "happy medium" approach to foreign affairs involving constant engagement and sporadic intervention.

"Heterogeneous Indeed" covered some of the key issues well, but I'd add one more to the mix. My generation (I had just gotten to college when 9/11 occurred) also is well aware of the long term aspect of numerous issues, of which I would include the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Great Society/Civil Rights, Iraq and Afghanistan. And while that's given us an appreciation for how hard it is really change things, it has also put into our heads the concept of "nudge", which President Obama is a believer in and which I think has become a very acceptable concept among millenials. Make small changes that do add up -- gradual change is acceptable if the general direction is acceptable. To summarize: There is a validity in making small changes to keep progress going.

I would agree with you professor that formative experiences inevitably define generations, defines the whole meaning of saying "back in the day". Although I am now in college in the states I am from and grew up in Venezuela which means that for the last 11 years I have known only 1 president and his so called revolution, and I can tell you that the political storm there has totally defined my generation. Considering that venezuela had been for many decades an ally of the U.S in the region (at least compared to what it is now) it has been life changing experience to see the transformation to: socialism, anti-americanism and all the other fun stuff like seeing people leave the country such as me because of the insecurity, political instability, horrible business environment etc. around 60% of my graduating class from high school now lives abroad in the U.S, E.U, Canada other Latin countries.

At the same time i was in manhattan when september 11th went down. remember the years of "Mr. Danger" as Chavez used to call Bush I must say that one of the moments i have lost the most faith in the U.S was when that man was reelected. I hope americans realize that if as they say their country stands for democracy and freedom with foreign policy like the one during those years they are no exactly making it easy for other countries look to them as a model to follow and sort of makes it easy for people like Chavez to take shots at the U.S. Plus following the financial meltdown and ensuing worlwide economic troubles it foreshadows how hard it is going to for my generation of Venezuelans to try to win back the country on banner of capitalism and non anti-americanism....

I thing for any of the "foundational" things you mentioned, the Millenial generation is actually split based on socio-economics or age.

(1) Prosperous 1990s -- great for middle class kids old enough to remember it. If you are (a) working class/poor, it was a time of plant closures and welfare reform, so a time of increasing economic insecurity that is a big mistake to not recognize. Or (b) a young millenial (born in the early to mid-1990s) who doesn't remember anything prosperous or otherwise about the decade.

(3) Two Long Wars - there has been a lot of debate and a lot of pain but the divide between young and old and middle class and poor is wide. The younger among us were not really part of the debates and would only know of the "horrors of war" through the news which has been so thoroughly sanitized that coupled with the length may have had the effect of desensitizing many.

(5) The China boogie-man has so many to compete with I don't this is as important to the average Millennial as it maybe to the cognoscenti. In any given day we are told to be afraid of the (Muslim) extremists, gays, socialist-communist-fascist-nazis, Europeans, Indians, Mexicans, our general slide on all things concerning economics, academics, and well-being, environmental degradation, bat fungus, climate change etc., etc. etc. -- all communicated as if they were the same level of threat, equally legitimate, and equally insolvable. Lacking a context for much of this, either Millennials are doomed to live in utter fear of everything (some undoubtedly do) or have a take-a-number kind of attitude to the threat-of-the-hour.

I don't know how the balance between the young and old and middle class versus the poor will play out. The one thing I am certain of is that isolationism is not part of the Millennial lexicon. Even the most hardcore xenophobic, bible-thumping, ultra-patriotic (nationalistic) Millennial does not blink at buying a pan made in China to cook Mexican peppers and Canadian tomatoes in Spanish olive oil while wearing a shirt made in India, pants made in Honduras, and shoes in Bangladesh after seeing a Pakistani doctor (at the free clinic) -- and posting the whole experience on Facebook for the Brazilian exchange student they knew in high school to read.

1. ) "The end of history" that was the 90's left a major impact on my generation, especially looking back after this past decade. We see that the U.S. can play a very helpful role in the world, or a role that is cripples all parties involved. I am commonly told by my friends from various other countries about how back in the 90's they and all their friends looked up to America and trusted us, but how their trust in the U.S. has been greatly damaged due to the reckless actions we've taken this past decade.

2.) As I was only in 7th grade when the september 11th attacks happened, I couldn't fully understand the meanings and motives behind it. I only fell pray to the general Jingoistic upwelling that happened directly after it and knew that someone had to pay for this transgression. After having studied more deeply our history in the Middle East, one can see how our interventionist policies had come back to haunt us.

3.) The wars in the middle east have been even more taxing, I still believe we were right to go into afghanistan, and believe we should continue to stay there to help stabilize it. Though I think we should focus on improving the economic and political situation there if we want to succeed militarily as well, after all Somalian pirates don't become pirates because they think Jack Sparrow is BAMF!!! No, they do it because they have no other means to provide for themselves. Similarly, an opium farmer or insurgent in afghanistan do not do these things because they want to, they do it because it is the only means to provide for themselves and their families.

I believe my generation has learned from the recent past and the distant past (Post WW1 and post WW2 in how the economic situation is one of the main determinants to cause people to do these things, i.e. WW1 war reparations lead to WW2, and the marshall plan brought forward a liberal and progressive europe that has been a very stable region since) about how war can cause more problems than its worth and that the best way to get people to come around is economic incentives. If the populace of a region is starving and the government isnt cooperating, the best thing to do is to hold that economic carrot (Modern day Marshall Plan) in front of that region's populace.

So yes, smart intervention from now on, with emphasis on multilateralism and economic benefits to get what we want, while pulling back and staging down some of our military bases abroad and centralizing them in the various regions while strengthening our alliances with our allies.

4.) I think the "great recession" has caused many in my generation to look at more liberal economic policies, as "free market" policies and de-regulation coupled with Reaganomics has proven to be inadequate at providing Americans a better standard of living, and really has only helped the super rich get even richer, while causing the middle class to shrink. I also think many are wary of globalism as they watch more and more manufacturing and technical jobs being shipped overseas to people who make less than a dollar an hour and working in atrocious conditions. This in turn makes us wary of corporatism and "bigness" in general.

5.) As for China, I dont think their ascent is going to go as planned. After all, Japan was also supposed to overtake us, the USSR was supposed to defeat us, and yet...here we are still. China has many problems to face at home, environmental catastrophes that make the Gulf coast look like the garden of eden, poor social security net, inflation in home prices, ever increasing class inequality with hundreds of millions still living in poverty, and an increasingly jingoistic and male population due to the teachings of the cccp. And thats just for domestic issues, abroad, the rest of Asia is wary of China's rise. Especially with recent events, such as the south china sea incident. In all likelihood, this will drive many of the asian nations into our security net and we'll try a policy of containment if China continues with its almost fascist government. If it becomes more democratic, I believe that we will welcome it into having an increasing role, while still trying to stack the cards in our favor, just not nearly as hard as otherwise.

And as others have said, our generation is much more tolerant and ready to welcome those different than ourselves, this will lead to pushing through gay rights and many other socially liberal agendas, including legalizing pot. I attribute this to the internet and how connected it has made the world.

After reading the comments above it seems that there is a lot of agreement on whats wrong with the current approach to foreign policy, for the most part I'm in agreement also.

One overriding theme that i have noticed when discussing foreign policy with my peers is the skepticism towards all of the political parties and their motives, it seems to me that with the democratization of information the old methods of spinning the party line and keeping the faithful in check doesn't work quite as well any more.

As for the isolationist/interventionist argument i think the 2 wars we are still involved in (those troops still in Iraq are not there for shits and giggles) will put paid to any of us wanting to promote democracy through force, however globalization and the ease of distributing information (Death of Neda Agha-Soltan) means that we will never slip back into the isolationist policies of the 1930's.

For some perspective on the rise of China relative to the US i look at Britain, in the 40+ years since it lost the last of its empire it has gone through some difficulties, but nothing out of line with the rest of the developed world, its military spending is a fraction of what it was relative to GDP, so would it really be that bad if some of that 20 something % were to be spent on domestic policy? I'm sure the boomers would change their stance on interventionism pretty quick if we stopped their medicaid checks...

Actually, this is the best thread Dan has had on his blog in quite some time: smart, honest and revealing. My compliments to contributing posters.

I encourage Dan to think about ways to further engage this audience.

When I was growing up I naturally believed that America was the best country in the world, partly because I was born here in America. The wars in Afghanistan/Iraq and the Great Recession have greatly shaped my view of U.S. foreign policy.

The war in Iraq has taught me that soldiers can not win wars on their own. There needs to be a long term strategy after the battle plan has already been established, which was strikingly missing in the war in Iraq. In the world, the U.S. has an armed forces that is unparalleled, however I feel we are lacking in state and nation building forces. We can not fight another war and just assume that the indigenous people will then decide to turn their country around and create a Jeffersonian democracy.

The war in Afghanistan has showed me that the U.S. can not afford to put U.S. lives at risk and then make another "Forgotten War". I think the Bush administration should have put all of it's focus on Afghanistan or at the least not forget about it. The lesson for the future I take from the war in Afghanistan is to never invade a country that has a successful history of expelling invaders and that "forgetting" about a war is incredibly costly.

The Great Recession affected my belief in U.S. foreign policy because it made me think that the U.S. has to be more wise economic in it's foreign policy. By means am I an isolationist but I do think the U.S. does need to sit on the bench more when something critical happens in the world and not always be the quarterback. We have to let other countries be that quarterback. However, I don't see this happening soon because the American people have gotten used to America being the quarterback in world affairs. The sports analogy may not work but it's the only one I could really think of.

Also, is this the first time in U.S. history that a recession has hit us during wartime?

The people of my generation, lets say within their 20s, have become accustomed to unparalleled military and humanitarian activism on the part of American foreign policy. It actually leaves a broad spectrum of default impressions/positions, if you will, for people of my generation, such as preemptive hawkism, humanitarian interventionism, and then the complete oppositional response, isolationism.

Lessons:

1. Too much concentration of power by any one state can be negative if 'stupid interventionists' - ala the Bush gang - become blinded by it and believe they can 'create reality'

2. Gorbachev's 'perestroika' should have been followed by a western 'perestroika' - When was the last time a western politician told his people 'new thinking' was needed?

3. Conservatism made sense during the Cold War - it doesn't anymore. Society has simply become too diverse and multicultural. This needs to be accepted and embraced.

4. Globalisation has facilitated global problems. These require global solutions - the current state-centric international system is maladapted to this new reality

5. Economics ain't no science!

Millenials huh. Are they still using that phrase? In any case I have to say that you got it wrong for this one at least. If anything, the past ten years (which have made up all of my significant political thought) have given me an ever increasingly international outlook and a sense that we can't simply ignore a crisis just because it doesn't threaten us yet.

To summarize the basics of it:

1. For myself (and probably many others) Russia isn't a threat but rather a sometimes irritating fellow nation.

2. China is a challenge but not necessarily a bad one.

3. War has gotten even messier than it once was if such a thing is possible. Also we shouldn't use force without carefully considering the risks.

4. Diplomacy is hardly a dirty word.

5. While politically I'm more to the left I personally have a great deal of irritation with Democrats as well as Republicans.

6. I'm something of an EUphile.

I'd like to give a european view about all this.

first off, for us europeans a lot changed. I turned 18 when the euro was introduced. i remember many people complaining about this at first, but in the end it has been a wonderfull change for all of us. having one currency for the euro-zone made many things much easier and cheaper. travelling to other europan countries has become as easy as going to the next city. it made europe smaller and more interconnected.
the european union itself has changed much as well. it has become much more important but in the same time is too far away from the average european. people are more aware of the policies being made but feel as if they have absolutely no say in it. it feels too elitist. at the same time that europeans are coming closer together, nationalist movements are gaining ground. many regions are claiming a greater say in national policies and some even want to break from their country. look at belgium (my home and the heart of europe). many belgians (not me) want to split the country, which is exactly the opposite of what a growing europe wants.

secondly the european view of US has changed many times. i grew up in the ninetees with nothing but a good view towards the US. then came Bush and u could feel the growing distrust. 9/11 followed soon after, and even if people here were in shock same like americans, we could understand the reasons behind the attack and felt like americans willingly didn't want to see those reasons. we followed to afghanistan which at the time felt like the right thing to do, but we refused to go to iraq because it felt wrong from the second it was proposed. i personally feel very proud that we didn't follow the US in that war. it was wrong for all the reasons and the way US media reacted against us not joining the coalition just proved our point (remember freedom fries and old europe). we very much had the feeling that people in the US were ignorant about other cultures and history. as if you don't know anything from the world outside your borders.
we learned a lot about the US from around 2002 to 2006. we learned especially that there is something seriously wrong with the US media. that they fed lies and spins to the american people without any objectivity at all (which they still do, watch FOX) . criticising was unpatriottic.
with guantanamo, abu graib, 150000 death iraqis, no osama with chainball, etc as a result, it is now even more clear that the US should not play global police. not when you lack respect and knowledge for cultures far older than your own. and nobody asked you to do it anyway.

after the truly hated Bush, there was the real change (at least that's what the ad said) with obama. u can laugh with me and criticise obama for his cairo speech, but that speech truly touched me. i am not an arab, but many of my friends are (there are many in europe), and after all those years of seemingly heading towards a clash of cultures that speech wiped it all away. i felt like i could start trusting the US again. Hillary nor Mccain could have reInstalled european trust in ths US but Obama did. he's something fresh and new instead of more of the same. so right now i feel quite positive about america and our future together in the globalised world.

thirdly i would like to say something about the middle east hypocrisy.
understand that here in belgium our media is objective and not afraid of criticising. i truly believe the general public here has better understanding about the israeli/palestinian conflict than the US public has.
i remember arafat, peres and clinton shaking hands at camp davids. i didn't know much about it at the time. my interest came when the second intifada broke out. i was 18 or 19 at the time and seeing guys my age trowing stones at tanks didn't make it difficult for me to pick a side. i've followed the conflict very much after and studied its history. let it be clear that i am 100% behind the palestinian people. what they live through is apartheid and i cannot support it. a giant wall ... i think that about says it all. but where most people put the blame on the US, i do not. we europeans are just as much part of it as the US. we support Israel economically, culturally and sportive wise. they're special partners to the EU and even participate in the songfestival. if israel is part of europe than where are the palestinians? i'm pretty sure about 70% of europeans oppose all this and would prefer to put pressure on israel instead of supporting it. sadly our political leaders don't do what the public requests on this issue. it has only worsened the last decade with no end in sight. i can assure you that anti-israeli feelings will continue to rise. we have a completely different public opinion about this than the US public has no matter what our politicians might say.

fourth: asia & africa
i am very positive about china and asia as a whole. i've travelled there a couple of times and what i always feel is that asia is getting ahead of us instead of bhind us. if you visit tokio, bangkok or singapore, it feels like you've entered the future. of course there is still much poverty in asia, but i truly have a good feeling about it. i think china will be a stabilising factor in global politics. it's not up to the US nor the west to meddle in asian business; what asia needs is a EU-like organisation (i don't really know much about ASEAN and what that's about), but a single curency could do wonders over there i think. especially in south east asia. in general my feelings on asia are nothing but positive. they WILL pass us on technological and other areas. the only question is when.
as someone from african descent, i even support what the chinese are doing in africa. who are the europeans to say it is wrong to buy from dictators without saying anything about human rights? the europeans put the dictators at their throne in the first place. the chinese buy and in return invest in infrastructure. the west buys and in return complains (but does nothing) about human rights. so in my eyes they have a more realistic worldview than "us".
i don't pretent to know what the international world should do for africa. i'm part african and i've been in africa. the poverty and underdeveopment hurt your eyes, but the positiveness of the people touch your heart. some say it's time for africa to step up, others say it's time the international community takes the control back in their hands (many neokolonists here). maybe a combination of both will help, but all i know is that i haven't seen much positive happening there the last 20 years.

in the end i think there is a bright future ahead. international relations are improving and the world has become a much much smaller place. we are the internet generation we are connected

what i'd like to see happen during the next 20 years is a new UN security counsil (no vetoes), a US military that stays home, one country for both israelis and palestinians to live in together and a wellthought general plan for africa (stop dividing and conquering) as a whole.

voila, that's what came to my mind i could go on and on, but i should actually be working :)

A lefty-leaning 25 twentysomething here, and I've got to echo a lot of what my peers have been saying. The three things that stand out most about me:

1) The world is messy, and sometimes not acting is better than acting. I'm not purely an isolationist, but I'm very wary about intervening. Having seen how muddy foreign intervention can be (whether diplomatic or martial), I do think that even a big power like the US still has to: pick its fights carefully, be sure that you can actually do good by picking the fights you do pick, and pick fights for practical -- not ideological -- reasons.

2) The world isn't black and white, and it isn't even shades of gray: is a big, 16.7 million color, RGB mess. This kind of ties to #1. Ideals are nice things to have, but it seems that it's often more useful if you're an old-fashioned, practical Machiavellian.

3) Wars have to suck to be effective, and it sucks to have to have an effective war. COIN operations still have a spotty record of success, so we still only know one way to wage a war that more-or-less settles the matter that started it: big, ugly, murderous, destructive, horrible, and total. Nobody wants to do that, and nobody should want to do that; but Vietnam taught us (and the rest of the world that's smaller than us) that you've got to go all-in on the first hand and every other hand if you really want to win a war. And that sucks.

...I disagree. I may be an exception, but I am more of a jingoist than an isolationist. I cannot stand the idea of falling behind China.

This question comes up a lot in the U.S. grand strategy discussion group at Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (http://www.ypfp.org/discussion-groups/grandstrategy). Formative experiences vary widely depending on generation and have profound effects on the population. Coming to political awareness in the era of the Cuban missile crisis or the Mei Lai massacre causes people to look at the world and America's place in it very differently than if they have no memories of the Cold War at all. U.S. grand strategy is the aggregate of 300 million perspectives, and as U.S. demographics change and the list of common formative experiences moves forward on history's time line, U.S. grand strategy evolves in response.

I feel like the movers and shakers of our generation will no be isolationist. There is no way for us to be. We live online with more direct knowledge of the world outside our borders. Sure, we do not understand what it is like to live in those other places, but we know people our age there. This knowledge will make us far less reliant on military action. We prefer diplomacy.