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'Carebots' are the mooted solution to the ageing crisis and staff shortages—but empathy and compassion are irreplaceable.

Cook Political Report editor-in-chief and publisher Amy Walter grew up in a bipartisan household. Her mother was a Democrat, and her father was a Republican, a dynamic that her mother said primed Amy for a career in political journalism. Amy joined David to talk about running a contentious congressional campaign at just 25 years old, the importance of approaching interviews with empathy and curiosity, diminished trust in American institutions, and what—if anything—the Ohio special election results mean for the future of the Democratic Party.
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One morning in 2017, journalist Frank Bruni woke up to altered vision— he had lost sight in his right eye during the night. As he grappled with this new reality, he began reevaluating his expectations, priorities, and outlook on life. He joined David to talk about how his lost eyesight taught him to approach others with empathy and savor meaningful moments, his thoughts on the politicization of Covid-19 and how President Biden is doing so far, and his new book, "The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found."
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Abdul El-Sayed is a public health expert, former Health Commissioner of the City of Detroit, progressive activist, and former Michigan Democratic gubernatorial candidate. He joins David to talk about how his Egyptian-American heritage shaped his appreciation for democratic ideals and institutions, his career in medicine and what he learned as a practitioner, and why he supports Bernie Sanders' progressive agenda. His forthcoming book, Healing Politics: A Doctor's Note on Treating the Insecurity Epidemic, diagnoses our country's epidemic of insecurity and the empathy politics we need to treat it.
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Many people are familiar with Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations (WoN), But Smith's ethical thinking was just as important. In fact, it was The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS), published 27 years earlier, on 12 April 1759, that made him famous.Just The Wealth of Nations, this book marked a complete break from the thinking of the time. Ethics had until then been widely assumed to be based on God's will (or the clerics' interpretation of it); or something that could be deduced through abstract reason; or even something that could be felt through some 'moral sense' like touch or vision. Replacing this speculative thinking by scientific method, Smith argued instead that morality stemmed from our human nature as social beings, and our natural empathy for others. By observing ourselves and others, he said, we could discover the principles of ethical behaviour. Ethics was a matter of human psychology, stemming from how we form judgements about ourselves and others, and the influence of customs, norms and culture upon it.This scientific approach to ethics was a sensation. It was very much in line with the Scottish Enlightenment, which sought to apply observation and scientific method to the study of human affairs. Old hierarchies were breaking down; industrialisation was eclipsing Scotland's feudal past; radical thinkers like Francis Hutcheson and David Hume were pushing new boundaries, and religious pluralism was creating a more active debate on virtue and morality.Smith's book explained that morality is rooted deeply in human psychology, especially the empathy we have for our fellow humans. By our nature, we understand, and even share the feelings of others. Wanting others to like us, we strive to act such that they do. Even if there is no one else around to see how we behave, we are still impelled to act honestly, says Smith, as if an 'impartial spectator' is judging us all the time, setting the standard by which we rate ourselves and others. And under this imaginary eye, every choice we make helps us appreciate that standard more clearly and act more consistently in accordance with it. It is as if an invisible hand is drawing us to act in ways that promote social harmony.TMS is mainly a descriptive account of human moral action. It examines how people actually make moral choices, and the pressures on them to do so. It also provides a guide on how we can cultivate our morality, emphasising the importance of self-reflection and self-improvement. Smith's radical scientific approach in TMS and WoN provided a foundation for the subsequent development of psychology, sociology, and economics, establishing them as distinct subjects of academic enquiry. And its suggestion that self-interested actions—wanting to be liked by others, or exchanging things we value less for others' things we value more—could produce a cooperative social and economic order, continues to have a central place in liberal thinking.All this makes the themes in The Theory of Moral Sentiments just as relevant today as they were in 1759. Through self-reflection, we can make better moral choices. Through our empathy with others, we can foster understanding and create a more peaceful society. Through an appreciation of our shared feelings and interests, we can live and work and collaborate together for the mutual benefit of the whole of humanity.

In this 300th year after the birth of Adam Smith, much of the focus has been on Smith's economics, as recorded in The Wealth of Nations (1776). But Smith's ethical thinking was no less profound. Indeed, it was The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) that made him famous.Like The Wealth of Nations, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) was a complete break from the thinking of the time. Ethics had until then been widely assumed to be based on God's will, or the clerics' interpretation of it; or something that could be deduced through abstract reason; or even something that could be felt through some 'moral sense' like touch or vision. Smith, by contrast, argued that morality stemmed from our human nature as social beings, and our natural empathy for others. This replaced speculative thinking by scientific method. Smith maintained that by observing ourselves and others, we could discern the principles of ethical behaviour. It was a matter of psychology: how we form judgements about ourselves and others, and the influence of customs, norms and culture upon those judgements. This scientific approach was very much in line with the Scottish Enlightenment, which stemmed in part from the exchange of ideas between Scotland and England following the 1707 Act of Union, and sought to apply observation and scientific method to the study of humankind. Old hierarchies were breaking down, with industrialisation replacing Scotland's old feudal lifestyles, and with religious pluralism, leading to a more active debate on morals and virtues. New thinkers, like Francis Hutcheson and David Hume, were role models for Smith's intellectual radicalism.TMS argues that morality is rooted deeply in human psychology, especially the empathy we have for our fellow humans. By nature we understand, and even share the feelings of others. We want others to like us, and we strive to act so that they do. Even if there is no one else around to see our actions, we are still impelled to act honestly, as if an 'impartial spectator' is judging us at all time, setting the standard by which we judge ourselves and others. Every choice we have to make helps us see that standard more clearly and act according to it more consistently. All of which leads us, as if drawn by an invisible hand, to create a harmonious social order.TMS is primarily a descriptive account of human moral action. It examines how people actually make moral choices, and the pressures on them to do so. But it also provides a guide on how we can cultivate our morality, emphasising the importance of self-reflection and self-improvement.It is no exaggeration to say that TMS laid the foundations for the subsequent development of psychology, sociology and economics, helping establish them as distinct subjects of scientific enquiry. His idea that self-interested actions—wanting to be liked by others, or exchanging things we value less for others' things we value more—had a profound effect on the rise of liberal thought. Smith's approach is just as relevant today as it was in 1759. Through self-reflection, we can make better moral choices. By sharing the feelings of others, we can foster understanding between individuals and groups and create a more peaceful humanity. By understanding our shared interests we can live and work and collaborate together for the mutual benefit of us all, both in economics and in life in general.

If Secretary of State Antony Blinken's Wednesday address in Washington is any indication, any hopes that the thousands of freshly dug graves across Ukraine and Russia might be giving rise to introspection or regret that diplomatic overtures could have staved off the war, are bound to be dashed. In a speech titled, "The Power and Purpose of American Diplomacy in a New Era," Blinken set forth a vision of U.S. foreign policy that is both exhaustingly familiar and deeply concerning because it indicates, at the very least, that our chief diplomat has very little understanding of what traditional diplomacy actually means. The sense one takes away from the speech is that Blinken believes it to be analogous to edict, fiat, and ukase.Blinken's conception of diplomacy does accurately reflect one thing: the Biden administration's policy of waging a two-front cold war against the two principal authoritarian powers, China and Russia, as laid out in the 2022 National Security Strategy. Whether, by ratcheting up tensions with the two continental Eurasian powers, the policy has succeeded in making America and its allies in Europe and Asia safer, remains an open question.Blinken, addressing (probably some) future members of the American (and international) foreign policy policy elite at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, noted that the students today are facing a vastly transformed international landscape than when he launched his own career at the dawn of the post Cold War era in the early 1990s.The promise of that era has now passed. According to Blinken:…Decades of relative geopolitical stability have given way to an intensifying competition with authoritarian powers, revisionist powers…Beijing and Moscow are working together to make the world safe for autocracy through their "no limits partnership."Today, he went on, far from the sunlit uplands of the Clinton era, we inhabit a world where " democracies are under threat." And the threat is twofold. Externally there is of course Russia and China. But there is a second threat. And that one is closer to home, one that is emerging "from the inside by elected leaders who exploit resentments and stoke fears; erode independent judiciaries and the media; enrich cronies; crack down on civil society and political opposition." Reading Secretary Blinken's speech, it is hard to believe that there was a time, within Blinken's lifetime even, that Democrats like President John F. Kennedy counseled cooperation, even dialogue and empathy, when turning to deal with one's adversaries. It is indeed, given the party's transformation in recent years, difficult to contemplate there was once a president who asked us to temper our self-regard, cautioning that "no government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue."But no more. Antony Blinken has seen the enemy and it is us (and the Russians and the Chinese, and probably the Hungarians and most definitely the North Koreans, and if they keep heading down the 'wrong' path, Poland might get thrown into the mix, but not yet, not with the war still on.) What to do? The answer is simplicity itself: Permanent vigilance in the service of the "international order." For when "the Beijings and Moscows of the world try to rewrite – or rip down – the pillars of the multilateral system; when they falsely claim that the order exists merely to advance the interests of the West at the expense of the rest – a growing global chorus of nations and people will say, and stand up to say: No, the system you are trying to change is our system; it serves our interests."Sentiments such as these aren't necessarily alarming if they're uttered (and they are) by the kind of students in the audience at SAIS today — after all, they're young and idealistic. What's frightening is that they were uttered without irony by the nation's chief diplomat — even if he is a product, as this one is, of both Harvard and Marty Peretz's New Republic. The bigger problem with Blinken's address, aside from it being both astoundingly naive and self-serving, is that is reveals a mindset unalterably opposed to the practice of actual diplomacy which in turn has led to a disdain both for negotiations and for the concepts of national interests, reciprocity and empathy — all of which had been used to keep the peace between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the first Cold War. Blithely ripping up that playbook in favor of a maximalist doctrine that seeks to confine into permanent obloquy states that view their own interests differently from those of Washington would seem a mistake. But it's a mistake diplomats from both parties seem intent on making.

A protest vote in Michigan against President Joe Biden's handling of the war in Gaza dramatically exceeded expectations Tuesday, highlighting the possibility that his stance on the conflict could cost him the presidency in November.More than 100,000 Michiganders voted "uncommitted" in yesterday's presidential primary, earning 13.3% of the tally with most votes counted and blasting past organizers' goal of 10,000 protest votes. Biden won the primary handily with 81% of the total tally.The results suggest that Biden could lose Michigan in this year's election if he continues to back Israel's campaign to the hilt. In 2020, he won the state by 150,000 votes while polls predicted he would win by a much larger margin. This year, early polls show a slight lead for Trump in the battleground state, which he won in 2016 by fewer than 11,000 votes."The war on Gaza is a deep moral issue and the lack of attention and empathy for this perspective from the administration is breaking apart the fragile coalition we built to elect Joe Biden in 2020," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a progressive leader who has called for a ceasefire in Gaza, as votes came in last night.Biden still has "a little bit of time to change this dynamic," Jayapal told CNN, but "it has to be a dramatic policy and rhetorical shift from the president on this issue and a new strategy to rebuild a real partnership with progressives in multiple communities who are absolutely key to winning the election."Rep. Ro Khanna, a prominent Biden ally, told Semafor the vote is a "wake-up call" for the White House on Gaza.The "uncommitted" option won outright in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb with a famously large Arab American population. The protest vote also gained notable traction in college towns, signaling Biden's weakness among young voters across the country. "Uncommitted" received at least 8% of votes in every county in Michigan with more than 95% of votes tallied.The uncommitted campaign drew backing from prominent Democrats in Michigan, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and state Rep. Abraham Aiyash, who is the majority leader in the Michigan House. Former Reps. Andy Levin and Beto O'Rourke, who served as a representative from Texas, also lent their support to the effort."Our movement emerged victorious tonight and massively surpassed our expectations," said Listen to Michigan, the organization behind the campaign, in a statement last night. "Tens of thousands of Michigan Democrats, many of whom [...] voted for Biden in 2020, are uncommitted to his re-election due to the war in Gaza."Biden did not make reference to the uncommitted movement in his victory speech, but reports indicate that his campaign is spooked by the effort. Prior to Tuesday's vote, White House officials met with Arab and Muslim leaders in Michigan to try to assuage their concerns about the war, which has left about 30,000 Palestinians dead and many more injured. (More than 1,100 Israelis died during Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks last year.)The president argues that his support for Israel has made it possible for him to guide the direction of the war to the extent possible, though his critics note that, despite some symbolic and rhetorical moves, he has stopped far short of holding back U.S. weapons or supporting multilateral efforts to demand a ceasefire.Campaigners now hope the "uncommitted" effort will spread to other states. Minnesota, which will hold its primaries next week, is an early target."If you think this will stop with Michigan you are either the president or paid to flatter him," said Alex Sammon, a politics writer at Slate.Meanwhile in the Republican primary, former President Donald Trump fended off a challenge from former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. With 94% of votes in, Trump came away with 68% of the vote, while Haley scored around 27%.

In fragile states, democracy needs, even more, strengthening in times of pandemics as citizens and institutions are exposed to increased vulnerabilities. In some cases incipient dialogue and reconciliation networks may break down as social groups turn inward as a self-protection reflex, cultural barriers might exclude women and other marginalized groups from receiving healthcare, and armed groups might exploit the situation to increase their influence. In addition to the extraordinary effort of medical personnel providing life-saving health services, governments, civil society, and citizens alike need to do their part.
Trust in institutions is key to citizens' compliance with measures that restrict individual liberties. Extraordinary measures, such as declaring a state of emergency, restricting movement, and mobilizing emergency funds, come with an increased need for government leadership and responsibility. The government's response needs to be measured and expenses appropriate, though. More than ever, the executive branch of the government should allow parliamentary control over policy implementation, because lack of proper and functional oversight mechanisms may lead authorities to abuse—or be seen as abusing—their powers.
As multiple priorities will compete for limited resources in the coming weeks and months, political parties should build political consensus not only on ways to manage the current health crisis but also on a path to socio-economic recovery over the coming months.
Strengthen social solidarity. The distribution of resources to treat medical cases—and to protect communities at large—should be and viewed as being fair; a sense of inequity can lead to deteriorating social cohesion due to perceptions that some regions or ethno-sectarian groups are getting more than their fair share. Encourage cross-group networks of solidarity that complement government efforts.
Demonstrate effective leadership and communication. Political leaders have a duty to make tough decisions, but also reassure citizens and inspire those in the frontlines of the fight against the coronavirus. Leaders should explain the strategy, and show empathy, letting experts tackle medical and legal details. The government should communicate often, with "one voice," and with clarity. Always tell the truth—misleading information or manipulated statistics tend to avenge quickly, especially in an age when everyone can easily share information using smart devices. Also, keep in mind that preexisting socio-economic and political issues will not disappear during this time; constituents still need access to services, jobs, safety, etc.
Media and citizens need to exercise good judgment and critical thinking to avoid creating panic and inflicting unnecessary suffering on the already stressed population. Deliberate disinformation is meant to sow confusion, distrust between social groups, between citizens and their government, and lead eventually to doubt that democracy can delivery in times of crisis.
Have a positive outlook—acknowledge the effort and give hope. People need inspiring models, and strong characters are forged in difficult times. Moreover, fragile countries need positive stories of challenges to overcome together to spawn a sense of resilience and pride. All should praise the hard work and commitment of first responders and try to instill the same values of self-sacrifice, discipline, and resilience across the public sector and the society at large. Last but not least, decision-makers should project hope and explain how the country and the society will be transformed and made stronger, how it will be more cohesive, through a rediscovered sense of common purpose.


Credit: Ibrahim Naji

Democracy (General), Countries: Iraq

Welcome to the new Responsible Statecraft website! If you're a new reader, we're delighted that you are checking us out and we hope you find the content engaging and enlightening. If you're a long-time fan of "realism and restraint," we know you'll find plenty here of interest. If you're a skeptic or even a critic of our work, we hope we can persuade you to consider the arguments here for a more sensible and successful foreign policy for the United States.
Here are three reasons why the content you'll find at Responsible Statecraft is so valuable.
First and foremost, U.S. foreign policy has been underperforming for decades. Instead of pursuing policies that made Americans more secure, more prosperous, and advanced core U.S. values, leaders from both political parties have repeatedly acted in ways that undermined each of these goals. They have waged long, costly, and unsuccessful wars based on dubious justifications and sustained by wishful thinking instead of hard-headed analysis. Ideologically-driven efforts to expand a U.S.-led order without limits have exacerbated great power tensions and unwittingly helped provoke a tragic conflict in Ukraine.
Responsible Statecraft is must-reading because it offers clear alternatives to the policies that have repeatedly failed, based on time-honored principles of realism and restraint.
Second, Responsible Statecraft and the Quincy Institute are committed to restoring a better balance between defense and diplomacy in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. The United States needs a strong defense, but it also needs well-funded, well-trained, and highly competent diplomatic institutions. Its leaders need to use that capability as often and as seriously as they employ the mailed fist.
Some of America's greatest foreign policy triumphs — the Marshall Plan, the creation of the Bretton Woods institutions, the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty, the peaceful reunification of Germany, etc. — were won not on a battlefield but across a negotiating table, yet that lesson seems to have been lost on recent administrations. During the "unipolar moment," U.S. leaders tended to issue ultimatums, ratchet up sanctions, or reach for the sword, instead of engaging in the hard bargaining and empathy that can resolve conflicts without recourse to force.
At RS, we endeavor to showcase the work of staff and outside contributors — journalists, academics, former government officials and military — that seek this alternative vision.
Third, public policy is more successful when alternatives are widely and openly debated. Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. foreign policy establishment (aka "the Blob") has embraced a set of orthodoxies that were rarely questioned no matter how often they failed. Those who embrace these ideas are rarely held accountable for the unhappy results that their decisions produced and top officials never seemed to learn from past mistakes. As Walter Lippmann once warned, "when all think alike, no one thinks very much."
RS and Quincy think differently. We are committed to publishing alternative perspectives on contemporary U.S. foreign policy, grounded in serious scholarship and a realistic understanding of the forces that shape state behavior and global outcomes. RS represents no special interests or political party but exists to give a platform for a wider range of discussion even when consensus remains elusive. Policymakers, pundits, and the public need to know that there are alternatives and be encouraged to weigh the pros and cons carefully. Open and honest debate makes it more likely that we will choose the right approach and makes it easier to identify and revise policies that aren't working as we hoped.
We now face an unprecedented set of global challenges, all of them occurring at once. We need ideas and approaches that are informed by past experience but are not mired in outdated conventional wisdoms. Responsible Statecraft is dedicated to providing these perspectives. Our impact is growing, requiring the new, dynamic platform you see today. I'm proud to be part of their team, and that's why you should keep reading. Enjoy!

Ian Vásquez


We don't know the day he was born, but Adam Smith was baptized on this date 300 years ago. Since then, the ideas of the man widely considered the father of modern economics have changed the world and remain as relevant as ever.
As a central figure of the Scottish enlightenment, Smith is best known for The Wealth of Nations, a work in which he challenged the world's prevailing economic system. Smith opposed privileges imposed by law, including trade protectionism. He further called mercantilism—a doctrine that argued that to accumulate wealth, countries must export more than they import—"absurd."
A keen observer of reality, Smith explained that "What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it off them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage." For instance, Smith asserted that good wine could be produced in Scotland, but he calculated that its cost would be 30 times that of good wines that could be imported from other countries.
Smith took a dim view not just of protectionism, but most any attempt on the part of the authorities to direct the economy. The true origin of wealth is explained by a counterintuitive concept based on another of Smith's observations: The pursuit of self‐​interest in the marketplace, not mere benevolence or a plan imposed by rulers, ultimately produces prosperity and improves the welfare of others.
But Smith, a professor of moral philosophy, understood that people are complex and not just materialistic.
"How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it."
So he wrote in his first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. According to Smith, empathy arises from interacting in society, which also makes people want to be loved and want to deserve it. Experience, not intellectual reasoning, gives rise to moral sentiments and attitudes such as benevolence.
How do we reconcile self‐​interest with sympathy for others? For Smith, there is no contradiction. In the free market, one can only act with the interests of others in mind since exchanges are voluntary.
As Smith tells us in his "Lectures on Jurisprudence," such exchange is based on "the natural inclination everyone has to persuade." He adds, "The offering of a shilling, which to us appears to have so plain and simple a meaning, is in reality offering an argument to persuade one to do so and so as it is for his interest."
Smith believed justice is a pillar that is essential to the functioning of society. Where justice exists, even the impersonal exchanges of an ever‐​expanding marketplace are characterized by collaboration and respectful treatment of the other. These exchanges also encourage benevolence; according to Professor Smith, even a beggar who receives monetary charity ultimately depends on the market.
In his writings, Smith was concerned for the happiness of the poor, who at the time comprised almost the entire population of Scotland and the world. He opposed empires, slavery, and the mistreatment of indigenous people overseas. Since his death, as the world has liberalized, global poverty has plummeted, wealth has soared, empires have fallen, chattel slavery has been officially abolished, and human rights have been extended to a growing portion of the global population.
As long as humans celebrate moral and material progress, so should they celebrate Adam Smith.
Note: This article is based on a version that was originally published in El Comercio (Peru) on June 13, 2023.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February of last year, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan raised suspicions in Washington for his decision to maintain relations with the Kremlin. In a characteristically unsubtle move, Khan also visited Moscow shortly after the war began. He returned to Islamabad with a chip on his shoulder.


"What do you think of us? That we are your slaves and will do whatever you ask of us? We are friends of Russia and we are friends of the United States," Khan told a crowd of his supporters. "We are friends of China and Europe, we are not part of any alliance."


Little did Khan know that these words may have helped bring about the end of his political career. According to Pakistani diplomatic cables published by the Intercept, U.S. officials reacted to Khan's stance on the war by subtly encouraging his opponents to remove him from power.


While it is doubtful that the United States was the sole or primary actor in the events that would land the prime minister in jail and lead to a military crackdown on the country's political system (a state of affairs that remains in place today), the cables reveal that opponents of Khan were informed of U.S. anger over Khan's statements on the Ukraine War and may have moved to oust him with the expectation of being rewarded with closer ties by Washington.


Most of the reactions to this breaking story have understandably focused on the Cold War-like aspect of what seems to be brazen interference in another country's internal affairs. However, what is in danger of being overlooked is something more fundamental to how so many in D.C. conceptualize foreign policy as a whole.


While it is hardly surprising that Washington would leverage its influence to support a soft regime change of sorts in Islamabad, what is remarkable is the desire to punish a country far away from Europe and the conflict raging in Ukraine for daring to take an "aggressively neutral" stance (the State Department's terminology, according to the cables) on what to them is a regional conflict far away from their core security concerns.


The presumption among leaders in the U.S. foreign policy establishment is clear: States with less geopolitical influence have to follow Washington's lead on major global crises, whether it benefits them or not. Pakistan's neighbor India, by contrast, has charted a remarkably neutral stance over the course of the war by balancing opposition to border revisionism with a clear-eyed determination to maintain its long-standing military ties with Moscow. But New Delhi knows that its much greater power on the world stage gives it some protection from the wrath of Washington.


Smaller countries do not share this privilege. Meanwhile, it is hard to see why Pakistan's views regarding European affairs even matter to Washington any more than, say, an Eastern European country's formal stance on the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Bulgaria, to use one example, would not be expected to declare a strong position on the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean.


But the U.S. foreign policy elite, so monomaniacally fixated on Ukraine, believes it is of vital importance that everyone else adopt its priorities. This assumption is not only dangerous to many of Washington's partners in various regions around the world; it is also dangerous to the grand strategy of the United States itself. By taking regional conflicts and unnecessarily globalizing them, the risk of spreading instability through the interdiction of vital raw materials or manufactured goods increases. Trade networks adversely impacted by sanctions can thus undermine developing economies. Smaller countries, whose interests must be more narrowly defined, are always going to prioritize regional concerns over the more globally-oriented positions of the major world powers.


The most likely explanation for this behavior on the part of Washington is an attempt to shore up a dedicated "international community" that it can use to blunt the ambitions of revisionist powers like Russia and China. The problem with this approach, however, is that it breeds resentment and an even greater desire for pressured countries to break out of the U.S. orbit. This helps explain why an increasing number of states are considering dropping the dollar as the default global currency. When there are multiple options available, the least invasive one is usually considered the safest.


Thankfully, a better approach is possible. A great power that can compartmentalize various regions and not assume all that its smaller compatriots must adopt its priorities is one that will actually have an advantage over its rivals in the contest for influence abroad. The more the United States allows its smaller partners to pursue their own paths, the less threatening it will seem and the more desirable a partner for voluntary association it becomes.


This was a major part of why the United States once had so much more global goodwill compared to traditional European powers, as it leveraged its geographic isolation with its economic power to be comparably less threatening than most of its rivals. If Washington is truly serious about showing the world the danger presented by the ambitions of Beijing and Moscow, then U.S. policy should be less threatening to the sovereignty of others than that of its rivals.


As the relative power of 'middle power' countries increases, many regionally anchored states will increase their autonomy of action and so greatly expand their ability to diverge from great power expectations. As this trend accelerates, their ability to choose partnerships will tilt more towards reliability and mutual respect rather than simple deference. In this polycentric and, yes, multipolar world, massive overreaches into a partner's domestic policy are far more likely to create backlash than truly constructive long-term results.


To bring about this turn of thought and increase the amount of strategic empathy in a blinkered U.S. foreign policy establishment, perhaps it would be wise to consult the words of George Washington's farewell address, which sounds notes quite similar to Imran Khan's speech about Pakistani foreign policy:



"Nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."



Many countries today find themselves in the same uncertain place as the early United States once did. The U.S. foreign policy apparatus would do well to remember that.

A senior Democratic lawmaker recently said that its easier to back Israeli government policy, in many instances at the expense of the Palestinians, because pro-Israel lobbyists have a relatively more influential presence on Capitol Hill. "The Palestinians have very legitimate claims" and have been "subject to brutal injustice," Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a meeting with constituents on October 23. But he added, pro-Israel groups — including J Street and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) — make many members of Congress reflexively pro-Israel simply because it is "the path of least resistance." While polling shows that most Americans consider themselves pro-Israel, their support is not entirely unconditional when it comes to how the Israelis are waging the war against Hamas in Gaza.A recent survey of likely American voters found that 61% support the call for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where weeks of intense bombing by the Israel Defense Forces have caused widespread devastation. Despite this widespread support, only 14% of the U.S. House of Representatives have come out publicly in favor of a ceasefire.But pro-Israel groups make significant campaign contributions, visit members of Congress frequently, and pressure them to back the activities of the Israeli government, critics who spoke with RS say. Rep. Himes held an online meeting to discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict with constituents on October 23, led by the Connecticut chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. According to a recording of the event obtained by Responsible Statecraft, when asked about his tendency to reflexively begin his statements with support for Israel, Himes responded with several answers, one of which addressed the near-constant presence of pro-Israel lobbyists:"[I]n this office, I get 6-8 visits a year by AIPAC, which is a fairly right-wing pro-Israeli group, and J Street, which is a left-leaning pro-Israeli group. I have never had a visit — never once, I've been doing this for 15 years — by a pro-Palestinian group. And again, I'm not criticizing anybody, I'm just sort of explaining the facts as they appear. And I think, therefore, the path of least resistance for an awful lot of members of Congress is to be reflexive the way you were concerned about. And the reason I would love to talk more about that is because, you know, the Palestinians have very legitimate claims, and in times and places have been subject to brutal injustice, and yet there is nobody telling their story."Himes pointed to the influence of AIPAC to help explain the lopsided support for Israel in congress: "AIPAC has been doing this for 60 years. They come in and they sit in the office, and they say, you know, 'Here's three things that we would really like you to consider doing, are you going to do it?' And I'm not saying AIPAC is good or bad, I'm just saying that I know what is effective in educating members of Congress, and honestly it breaks my heart that there isn't a Palestinian group that comes in and says, 'Look, let us tell you what our aspirations are, let us tell you some stories, let us tell you what the settlers are doing outside of, you know, Ramallah.'""I'd be curious to know what he means by 'path of least resistance,'" Foundation for Middle East Peace President Lara Friedman told Responsible Statecraft. "Does he mean, 'this is the path that gets me rewarded in terms of campaign support,' or, on the other hand, 'how I avoid other possible negative consequences like someone giving massive support to my primary opponent?'"Rep. Himes has not traditionally received much financial support from pro-Israel groups. However, last year saw the most campaign spending by pro-Israel donors of any congressional cycle in the last 30 years. Amid this wave of money, the largest contributor to Himes' campaign committee in 2022 was AIPAC. The group has recently clashed publicly with several critics in Congress, ranging from Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.) to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). Next year, AIPAC-affiliated groups are expected to spend upwards of $100 million on primary elections in an effort to oust Democratic lawmakers they view are insufficiently supportive of Israel or too vocal about Palestinian rights. The influence of this campaign spending is well-known among congressional insiders. "Any member of Congress knows that AIPAC is associated indirectly with significant amounts of campaign spending if you're with them, and significant amounts against you if you're not with them," former Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) told The New Yorker in 2014. "When key votes are cast, the question on the House floor, troublingly, is often not 'What is the right thing to do for the United States of America?' but 'How is AIPAC going to score this'"?In his congressional votes and public statements, Rep. Himes has charted a course in between his party's biggest supporters and biggest critics of Israel. He explained during the Oct. 23 meeting his reasons for not supporting the calls for a lasting ceasefire. "Unless somebody can convince me that there is an alternative mechanism for bringing these terrorists that perpetrated this grave, grave crime against Israel… to justice, I will not do that," Himes said in reference to Hamas's attacks on October 7. Yet the congressman also opposed the move to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) for her advocacy on the issue."My theme has been two-fold," said Himes, "which is that we will support Israel in the face of this disgusting attack, and number two, that we need to make sure that the Israeli response is moderated, that they abide by the laws of armed conflict, that they come off of their rhetoric of leveling Gaza, of a siege, and that everything be done with an eye towards what is right from a humanitarian standpoint."The eight-term congressman attended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to a joint session of Congress in 2015 where he bashed President Obama's diplomacy with Iran and received a standing ovation. But Rep. Himes had harsh words for the controversial leader during the Oct. 23 constituent meeting."This problem will not go away until there is a two-state solution," he said. "Very sadly, the current Israeli prime minister has been doing pretty much everything he can to make that an impossibility. And, of course, that's a part of the reason why the rage and anger rose to the levels that it did" prior to Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks. More than two months after the attacks, members of Congress are increasingly voicing concern about Israel's bombardment of Gaza and President Biden called Israel's bombing campaign "indiscriminate," positions that appear to have become more acceptable weeks after the call in which Himes referred to pro-Israel positions as the "path of least resistance."Friedman credits that shift, at least partially, to growing engagement by voters concerned about the civilian death toll in Gaza."Constituent engagement matters, especially since the Gaza war started," said Friedman. "Members are now talking about ceasefire and other things we didn't hear in the first few weeks. Members are starting to show a bit more empathy and concern for what is happening in Gaza."Rep. Himes' office did not respond to requests for comment.

It is inevitable in any war — even a proxy one — that identical actions by the "enemy" and by your own side will be portrayed as wicked in the first case, moral and justified in the second. In much of the U.S. establishment and media however, belief in the innate righteousness of U.S. actions is so deeply-rooted that it can become a serious danger to the successful conduct of Washington policy. Why? Because it blinds American policymakers to the likely consequences of their own actions.The latest example of this involves the scheduled meeting between President Vladimir Putin and North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un. Most Western analysis has focused — probably correctly — on the likelihood that this will lead North Korea to provide Russia with artillery shells, of which North Korea has enormous reserves and considerable production capacity.The fighting in Ukraine seems to be moving towards a long-term war of attrition, and in such a war, levels of ammunition will play an absolutely central role. This is not an issue of the wickedness of the Russian invasion and the righteousness of support for Ukraine. It is a matter of hard military logistics.In return, Russia will at the very least help Pyongyang's cash-starved economy with subsidized energy. Depending on the scale of North Korean ammunition supplies to Russia, it is, however, very likely that Russia will agree to supply advanced missile technology in return.This would be a very serious step. While North Korea has possessed the capability to make nuclear weapons since at least 2006, its ballistic missile technology has developed much more slowly, limiting the range and accuracy of its arsenal. If North Korea with Russian help develops a significant number of nuclear missiles capable of striking the continental United States, this would mark an important shift in the military balance of power in North East Asia. At the very least, it would strengthen the North Korean regime considerably. In the worst case, the desire to prevent this from happening at all costs could propel a U.S. administration into some hideously dangerous preemptive military action.This anticipated deal between Russia and North Korea has led to predictable expressions of outrage from U.S. officials and journalists. So we must ask: What exactly did the Biden administration expect to happen as a result of its own actions? This spring, Washington brought intense pressure to bear on the government of South Korea to supply Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, though Seoul had made its reluctance to do this extremely clear. In the end, a compromise was reached whereby South Korea would not supply Ukraine directly, but would "lend" 500,000 artillery shells to replenish U.S. stocks — thereby allowing the U.S. to transfer a similar number to Ukraine.You do not have to be a Russian sympathizer to see this as a distinction without a difference. Did nobody in the CIA, Pentagon, or State Department warn the White House that this would likely lead to a deal on weapons supplies between Russia and North Korea, and see the potential negative consequences for U.S., South Korean, and Japanese security? This does not mean Washington could not or should not support Ukraine. However, if Washington wished to do this while avoiding broader negative ramifications globally, then there are only two possible paths to follow. First, refrain from certain actions (like the attempt to universalize sanctions against Russia) that have tended in this direction. Second, pursue talks with Russia — such as what took place at the height of the Cold War — aimed at formal or informal agreements that would rule out certain international actions by both sides, such as procuring weapons and ammunition from other countries in regions of high local tensions. Despite this Cold War precedent, all proposals for such talks have been howled down with accusations of "cowardice" and "treason."This is what the great American Realist thinker on international relations, Hans Morgenthau, meant when he wrote that it is a fundamental duty of statesmen to cultivate the ability to think themselves into the shoes of their opposite numbers — not to agree with them, but to understand how they are likely to behave in a given situation, so as to be able to craft your own policies accordingly. As Morgenthau also wrote, blind national self-righteousness is the greatest single obstacle to the cultivation of this ability.In the case of North Korea, this attitude long predates the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The description of North Korea as a "rogue state," endlessly repeated by an uncritical media, has helped to lock in this attitude until attempts by analysts to understand the conflict from the perspective of Pyongyang become completely impossible. Blind hostility to North Korea extends to relations between North Korea and its neighbors — which in addition to South Korea are, it may be remembered, China and Russia, but not the United States. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia drastically reduced its economic relations with North Korea and generally played a constructive role in cooperating with Washington to constrain Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development. China has maintained trade with North Korea, and this has undoubtedly played a key part in preserving the North Korean state; but Beijing has also used its economic influence to punish overly inflammatory actions by Pyongyang and has put pressure on the recalcitrant regime to engage in disarmament talks.Yet instead of recognizing this – and in consequence recognizing the consequences for America and South Korea if Moscow and Beijing were to move to actual full-scale support for North Korea – the overwhelming U.S. establishment and media response has been to blame Russia and China for not joining the U.S. in strengthening sanctions against North Korea even further. No understanding at all has been shown of the fears of both countries that an implosion of the North Korean state would create a massive crisis on their own borders.The U.S. failure to predict the likely — even inevitable — consequences of the U.S.-South Korean ammunition deal was bad enough. Much worse could be the consequences of the Biden administration's action last month in pulling South Korea into a much tighter security relationship with Japan as well as the United States — a grouping that Beijing will no doubt see as a threat to its interests and a probable future U.S. tool for the containment of China. Once again, has nobody in the U.S. foreign and security establishment warned the administration that the result is likely to be stronger Chinese support for Pyongyang?On the Korean peninsula, in Ukraine and everywhere else, developing the capacity to understand the motivations and predict the actions of other states requires that U.S. policymakers look honestly at the U.S. record and how America is likely to act and react in given circumstances. This includes self-awareness about the history of the Monroe Doctrine and U.S. determination to exclude any potentially hostile alliance or even influence from countries close to America's own borders — even if this means supporting or bringing to power some extremely vile local allies. Thus if American diplomats complain to their Chinese counterparts about Beijing's relationship with Kim Jong Un, the Chinese might reply wo men de wangba dan. This is (I am told) how you say "our son of a bitch" in Chinese; and it is an ancient Chinese principle most famously stated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. If U.S. policymakers remembered that aspect of their own history and policies, we can begin to develop a capacity for strategic empathy, and avoid increasing the dangers on the Korean peninsula, which Lord knows are dangerous enough already.

 It has taken me a long time to write a follow up to my first post on Bizarro World. That is because once you begin to think about the strange inversions in which the persecuted are made out to be threats, and the comfortable are made out to be threatened, it is hard to not see it. Our entire world seems reversed and inverted, those who are most subject to violence are made into violent threats, and those who are most comfortable have made the threats to their comfort our central concern with the claims of cancel culture. Bizarro world would be one of those "descriptive theories" that Althusser talks about, something that stops thinking because it seems to be such an accurate description of what one is thinking about. I have decided to approach the topic by breaking it up, by trying to grasp the specificity of the different reversals, following what I did earlier with the inversion of the relation of workers and capitalists to that of the relation of human capital and job providers I would now like to examine the way in which margins and mainstream have also become inverted, and what that inversion means for both terms in question, the dominant culture and the marginal subculture. In doing so I would like to start with a particular philosophy, or spontaneous philosophy, that characterized my life as a young teenager. As a nerdy kid interested in comic books, science fiction, and other things, I fostered the belief, shared by many of my kind, that our rather minor marginalization made us sympathetic to the marginalization of others. This was helped in large part by the fact that many of the dominant comic books when I was growing up, such as the X-Men, Spider-Man, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, were all in some sense allegories of oppression and exclusion. With respect to the first in the list, the idea that the X-Men stand in for an oppressed minority, complete with the conflict between Professor X's integrationist philosophy and Magneto's more militant position, is so entrenched in its reception that it ceases to be subtext (even if it is not true). Comic books were at least in the eighties, both in their culture and in their content, stories of the misunderstood, the maligned, and the excluded. One could raise two questions about this mythology. The first has to do with the allegorical distance of framing the stories of marginalization and exclusion through such science fiction content as genetic mutation, or, in other contexts, alien visitors or androids. In some sense these science fiction elements set up the necessary allegorical distance to make the stories palpable as entertainment. The condition of possibility is the condition of impossibility, however, in that the detouring of exclusion and marginalization through such allegories as the "mutant menace" always made it possible that some readers would miss the point. That people actually did is demonstrated by the twitter posts that ask in all sincerity "When did X become political?" where the X in question is some bit of pop culture such as X-Men or Star Trek that was always steeped in political subtexts. Such posts miss the point, but the possibility of missing the point is inscribed in the text in question and is a necessary condition of its popularity. Of course there are comics, television shows, and books that bridged this allegoric divide, more directly connecting the fictional exclusion of mutants and aliens with the actual history of oppression, but they are to some extent exceptions. There is something awkward, however, when the history of imagined exclusions confronts the real history of discrimination. There are the moments when we realize that the Nazis were an actual political ideology, and not just bad guys that seem ready for the four color word of comics. Second, and more importantly, one could argue that the marginalization I felt at the time was slight and temporary, I was (and remain) a white cis male, after all, and being bullied after school, or made fun of in the back of the bus, is nothing compared to what other adolescents face, nor does it really deserve a place in the ongoing history of persecution and discrimination. However, becoming an outcast of sorts, a nerd, and later a punk, can be understood as a becoming minor in Deleuze and Guattari's sense. For Deleuze and Guattari majority and minor are not simply quantitative matters, but the relation between constant and variable. As Deleuze and Guattari write, "Majority implies a constant, of expression or content, serving as a standard measure by which to evaluate it. Let us suppose that the constant or standard is the average adult-white-heterosexual-European-male-speaking a standard language. It is obvious that "man" holds the majority even if he is less numerous than mosquitos, children, women, blacks, peasants, homosexuals, etc. That is because he appears twice, once in the constant and again in the variable from which the constant is extracted."Since we are speaking of comic books, it is worth noting that superhero comics themselves illustrate this majority, not just in the proliferation of various prefixes appearing before the world "man"," bat, super, iron, spider, etc., man is the constant, the norm, but in the fact that white and male is the unstated norm from which the first "black," "Asian," or gay superhero takes their meaning. Marvel comics in particulr does not bother to create new characters and superpowers it is enough to add "-woman" or "she" to Spider or the Hulk to create a new character. The deviations appear meaningful because the norm is assumed. While this is true of comics, and begins to illustrate the limits of the social justice dimension I alluded to above, I think that becoming a comics nerd is itself a kind of becoming-minor. To quote Deleuze and Guattari again, "Minorities, of course, are objectively definable states, states of language, ethnicity, or sex with their own ghetto territorialities, but they must also be thought of as seeds, crystals of becoming whose value is to trigger uncontrollable movements and deterritorializations of the mean or majority."Not to be too autobiographical, but I would describe my entire life as a passage through different minorities, different subcultures, comics, punk, philosophy, etc., all of these where very different territories, with different languages and cultures, but the overall movement was an attempt to evade majority, to not be the constant, a position which Deleuze and Guattari argue, is all the more oppressive because it is occupied by no one. If all of this language of major and minor seems a bit baroque, then I am reminded of a passage from Deleuze and Guattari that seems uncharacteristically direct. After a few lines that state "There is no subject of the becoming except as a deterritorialized variable of the majority; there is no medium of becoming except as a deterritorialized variable of a minority," they bring up a historical/literary example, writing, "As Faulkner said, to avoid ending up a fascist there was no other choice but to become black." This cuts through the particular neologism to make the stakes clear. Such an assertion has a lot to unpack, but I would argue here that a lot of subcultures, especially those that embrace their deviations and exclusions from the mainstream and are, it is worth saying primarily but not exclusively white, are attempts to avoid becoming fascist, to avoid being part of the majority. You cannot change the color of your skin, but you can change the color of your hair, and that seems like enough especially if it gets the same people to hate you. That is my all too glib summation of some of the politics of punk aesthetics. My main reason for bringing up this little theory of subcultures, as well as the subtext of comic books, now is that it seems to have completely exhausted itself. Comic books, or, more to the point, superheroes, have gone from the margins of our culture to the center. They are the dominant culture, have become majoritarian, and as much as one would like to think that they have carried with it their fundamental minoritarian political aspect the opposite seems to be the case. Love of mutants and other imaginary minorities has not extended to a support for actually existing marginalized groups, but has been mobilized to not only perpetuate exclusions but to become the voice of the majority.In part this happens through the politics of nostalgia, which demands that the present, the film adaptation, identically recalls the past, which in this case means that the film must resemble comics written in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, complete with the racial politics of those eras.  There have been online freak outs over the casting of Idris Elba to play Heimdall in Thor, of John Boyega playing a central role in Star Wars, of Moses Ingram appearing in Obi Wan Kenobi. These deviations from some supposed canon have all been met with vicious online hate campaigns that have led actors to shut down accounts and retreat from the digital public sphere. The demand to preserve the sanctity of one's childhood memories has led to absolute hostility towards any of the social change that has happened since one was a child. Lest this all seem incredibly minor (in the conventional sense) and all too online, I would argue that this cultural nostalgia, the demand that the present match the past, has been thoroughly weaponized into MAGA nostalgia. This hostility is not limited to changes to the canon, but is extended to include even new characters and stories that do not so much recast or change past memories but create new ones. Both Ms. Marvel and She Hulk have been "review bombed" on online review sites, hit with a flurry of negative reviews almost before they air primarily for the crime of casting a muslim woman or a woman in a comic book themed show. There seems to be an entire online niche of people who hate Brie Larson for not only playing Captain Marvel, but for speaking up for diversity in film and film criticism. We live in an age in which a film that was basically an hour and half long recruitment advertisement for the Air Force is seen by its critics as too woke, too concerned with social justice, because of its cast. All of this criticism coalesces in the online mantra, "Get Woke, Go Broke" which threatens companies and brands with boycotts for embracing "social justice."The world of comic book fans has been no less critical of those who criticize their beloved films for their artistic merits. Martin Scorsese famously declared that Marvel films are not cinema, and he has been ridiculed online ever since. It is not enough that these films, the Marvel films, be commercially dominant, being the most financially successful films that are released each year, and culturally dominant, reshaping all of popular culture in their image, they also most be loved and revered by everyone. Dissent cannot be tolerated. Blockbusters must be acknowledged as art. It is at this point that we get our bizarro world inversion of the comic book nerd. The fan of comic book movies is now something of a "sore winner," who continues to act the victim, marginalized, even in his dominance. I would argue that this "sore winner" idea is integral to our contemporary version of the majority, and even fascism to recall the quote about Faulkner. We are far from Deleuze and Guattari's image of a majority that is all the more powerful in being unstated, in being assumed, now dominance, cultural, political, and economic, focuses on its apparent marginalization in order precisely to reassert its dominance. The inversion is not just that comic books have gone  from margins to mainstream, but that marginalization has gone from being the basis of empathy to an expression of dominance. Victimhood is the language of domination. The bizarro world that we are living in is not just that what was once the obsession of a few has become the culture of many, that Moon Knight is now practically a household name, but that grievance against perceived marginalization has become the language of the majority.