OP-ED IN THE CARIBBEAN BUSINESS MAY 15, 2008 BY RAFAEL HERNANDEZ COLON GOVERNOR OF PUERTO RICO (1973-1976, 1985-1992) WHY OBAMA?
Mainstream politics, now defined by the code words “Washington” or “inside the beltway”, have ensnared the United States for the past forty years. In the bipolar world of the cold war and in the unipolar world in the after math of the cold war, this did not have serious consequences for the nation. The Bush administration, which from the sweep of history will be seen as the administration which the U.S. had at the time that the world transitioned from unipolarity to non polarity lead the nation into the war in Irak at the expense of the ideological or cultural soft power necessary to lead in the world. This has been a serious setback for the United States. Politics as usual Clinton or McCain will not do after Bush if the U.S. is to rise up to the challenges it face in leading the world.
Joseph Nye, the political scientist, has pointed out that in the international level the U.S. plays out its interests in three interconnected chessboards: military power, economic power, and ideological or cultural soft power. The U.S. military present in one form or another in 100 countries around the world dominates at every level land, sea, air, space. The U.S. spends more than the next fourteen countries combined, accounting for almost 50 percent of global spending. Its economy is the world’s largest: 14 trillion. It accounts for one quarter of the world’s output. Its research and development are unmatched, as are its higher education institutions. It is the worlds most competitive economy, but others are catching up.
New world and regional powers are on the rise. Over the past few decades, countries all over the world have been experiencing rates of economic growth that were once unthinkable. The distribution of power is shifting, moving away from U.S. dominance. Although, we are not entering an anti-American world, we are entering into a post-American world, one defined and directed from many places and by many people.
The flawed foreign policies of the Bush administration, which I have criticized from this column from the very beginning, have frittered away the ideological or cultural soft power which the U.S needed to exercise its leadership in the world disorder that is emerging. This has happened while the world has transitioned into what Richard Haass, the President of the Council on Foreign Relations, calls the age of non polarity. As the 21st century unfolds the world is being increasingly dominated, not by one or two or even several states, but rather by dozens of actors possessing and exerting various kinds of power. Nation-state have lost their monopoly on power. Power is now found in many hands and in many places.
The U.S. must get its political house in order so that it can lead within the present world context. The 2008 primaries and the general election will be a watershed in U.S. history. From the wellsprings values and political of American Democracy, the American people will have the opportunity to correct the dysfunctional politics that afflicts the nation.
The system, as Fareed Zakaria editor of Newsweek International notes, has been captured by money, special interest, a sensationalist media, and ideological attack groups. The result in ceaseless, virulent debate about trivia politics as theater and very little substance, compromise, or action. A can-do country is now saddled with a do nothing political process, designed for partisan battle rather than problem solving. Progress on any major problem health care, Social Security, tax reform will require compromise form both sides. It requires a longer-term perspective. And that has become political. It rest not just with the United States at large but with Washington in particular.
The United States faces a choice as Zakaria says: it can stabilize the emerging world order by bringing in the new rising nations, ceding some of its own power and perquisites, and accepting a world with a diversity of voices and viewpoints. Or it can watch as the rise of the rest produces greater nationalism, diffusion, and disintegration, which will slowly tear apart the world order that the United States has build over the last 60 year.
McCain’s world view is stuck back in the days of the cold war substituting Islamic radicals for communists as the enemy. Clinton is trapped into not looking weak a cold war confrontational mind set. Obama is precisely the type of leader that the U.S. needs to guide it in the post American world. He is free from mind sets of the past and can relate better than any other to those that the U.S. must engage with due respect in order to bring about a world built on cooperation not on confrontation. He can elicit from the American people in this election the mandate to build such a world.
The world is changing, but it is going the United States’ way. The nation that are rising are embracing markets, democratic government (of some form or another), and greater openness and transparency. The United States has a window of opportunity to shape and master the changing global landscape, states Fareed Zakaria, but only if it first recognizes that the post--American world is a reality and embraces and celebrates that fact.
In order to seize this opportunity the United States must be lead by a new generation which brings with it the passion for change in strategy and attitude. This is the generation that Obama leads bring into government with a mandate for change in specific policies such as energy or climate change.
Business as usual will not do in the unipolar world, because the Bush administration has done away with the ideological and cultural soft power assets the U.S. had. In order to regain the high ground, just military, or economic initiatives will not do. Recapturing ideological and cultural assets takes a longer time, more patience, more prudence and diplomacy. It is a long term proposition more suitable to the idealism of new generations who will live to enjoy its fruits or suffer its failures, than to those who have held power in the past.
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