Amitai Etzioni Notes

The Dilemma of American Terrorists

Should terrorists with American citizenship, preparing to strike in places such as Yemen or Somalia, be treated differently than other terrorists? Should security considerations allow the government to violate their constitutional right to be tried in an American civilian court? If they cannot be captured and brought before an American judge and jury, should our courts at least be involved in reviewing their case before they are taken out by a drone or a special-forces team? Or, at the very least, should the courts review the criteria according to which American terrorists are targeted?

Read the rest at The National Interest.

The Chinese Are Coming!

In one of those breathless reports about the dangers posed by the rising China, the New York Times informs us that the Chinese have reached the Caribbean beaches. Behold what they dared to do: they built “a brand new $35 million stadium” in the Bahamas. You’re not alarmed yet? “The tiny island nation of Dominica has received a grammar school, a renovated hospital and a sports stadium. . . . Antigua and Barbuda got a power plant and a cricket stadium, and a new school is on its way.”

The Times adds that “the Chinese have flexed their economic prowess in nearly every corner of the world. But planting a flag so close to the United States has generated intense vetting—and some raised eyebrows.” The term “planting a flag” is revealing. It implies that the nation behind these gifts is seeking conquest. Flags are usually planted to indicate that this is now our territory. Google “planting a flag” and the first image that jumps up is that of Iwo Jima. The Russians made this kind of claim on the ocean floor beneath the North Pole. So far, though, there are no signs that China has territorial ambitions in the Caribbean.

Read the rest at The National Interest.

Why Occupy May Day fizzled

Occupy Wall Street called on the masses to skip work and school on May 1, and to close their wallets. All this was supposed to amount to a general strike, if not an American Spring. Some even talked about bringing down capitalism. But the small demonstrations in many American cities and in other cities across the world had little effect.

Rush hour on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, supposed to be a major center of protest, flowed. In Los Angeles, two blocks were closed by the authorities in anticipation of possible disruptions. Reports were that protesters in New York did not shut down traffic, as they planned to do.

Read the rest at CNN.

The Fantasy of Zero Nukes

Nowhere is President Obama’s tendency to confuse speech making with policy making more evident than in his treatment of nuclear weapons, the greatest threat to both U.S. security and world peace.

The main hot spots are well known: North Korea, Iran and Pakistan. Instead, the president has focused for the last three years on Russia. President Obama believes that the best way to deal with WMD is to lead by example. He holds that, as the United States and Russia recommit themselves to nuclear disarmament, other nations will be inspired to either give up their nuclear arms or refrain from acquiring any. It is a policy Keith B. Payne fairly labeled “nuclear utopianism.”

Read the rest at The National Interest.

GOP: Fewer Bikes, More Cars

Transferring funds reserved for bikeways and walkways to highways is not an April Fools' Day leftover, but a move under consideration by the Congress of the United States of America. The 20-year-old Transportation Enhancements program currently mandates that a small fraction, about 2 percent, of federal transportation funding be reserved for building bike lanes and pedestrian walkways, but critics of the program argue that scarce resources should go toward funding highways and bridges for vehicles. They argue that fixing crumbling bridges, improving road conditions, and reducing congestion on highways should be prioritized over "frivolous" programs in which they lump beautification projects in with bike paths.

Read the rest at The Huffington Post.

When to Intervene

Does the responsibility to protect doctrine allow for the toppling of regimes? A recent Clinton Global Initiative panel discussion refocused the debate about the conditions under which one nation is justified in intervening in the internal affairs of another nation.

Michael Gerson, a George W. Bush speechwriter and Washington Post columnist, made a strong case for intervening only when our national interests are involved. I agreed but argued for an exception, what might be called a moral minimum. I suggested that indeed if our interests are not significantly affected, we should stay out, both because otherwise we undermine the most elementary foundation of the international order—the Westphalian norm—and because once we march in, we tend to leave behind a sociological mess when we finally find an exit.

Read the rest at The National Interest.

Mars can wait. Oceans can't

While space travel still gets a lot of attention, not enough attention has been accorded to a major new expedition to the deepest point in the ocean, some 7 miles deep -- the recent journey by James Cameron, on behalf of National Geographic.

The cover story of the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs lays out the "Case for Space." "60 Minutes" recently ran a story about the dire effects on Florida's space industry of scaling back our extraterrestrial endeavors. Newt Gingrich gained attention earlier this year by calling for building a permanent base on the moon. And President Obama has talked of preparing to eventually send Americans into orbit around Mars.

Read the rest at CNN.

In Defense of Drones

Rarely has a critic made a stronger case for the program he is opposing than David Rohde’s brief against drones. Mr. Rohde—a Pulitzer Prize winner and widely read reporter—told NPR that there is one element of the Obama foreign-policy doctrine of multilateralism, transparency, and a focus on direct threats that “undermines that whole approach”: the lascivious use of drones.

Rohde told NPR in March that there has been an “extraordinary” increase in the use of drones by the Obama administration. It is five times larger than it was during the Bush era. Bush had forty-four strikes; Obama, by now, 239. However, if one takes into account that we are dealing with terrorists and insurgents in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and the Horn of Africa, among other places, over three years, one may wonder if the number is not rather small.

Read the rest at The National Interest.

The World America Didn't Make

Robert Kagan’s book, The World America Made, is refocusing the debate on whether the United States is declining as a global power—and speculation about whether other powers will step in to assume the responsibility for sustaining a liberal, rule-based international order. Kagan is known as a brilliant conservative observer, and even President Obama is reported to be reading this tour de force of U.S. foreign policy.

Most of the debate about the book is centered on the question of whether the United States is indeed declining and if China is ready to buy into the liberal order. But more attention should be dedicated to the question of whether there is such an order in the first place…

Read the rest at The National Interest.

Obama’s New Old Defense Strategy

When President Obama unveiled his military budget earlier this year, it was clear that he was essentially putting a new defense strategy on the table. The Pentagon’s plan called for the ranks of the active-duty Army to be reduced from 570,000 to 490,000 troops over five years. The Marine Corps, meanwhile, was supposed to shrink from 202,000 to 182,000. At the same time, drones were a high priority in the budget—not surprising, given that Obama has ordered about five times as many drone attacks as his predecessor. According to Robert Haddick, writing at Foreign Policy, “the Pentagon intends to keep its ability to maintain continuous drone surveillance over 65 spots on the globe, with the capability to surge that to 85 if necessary.”

Read the rest at The New Republic.