Integrated Power and Truman Democrats Posted by Michael Signer

There's a new national security plan out from the Center for American Progress by Larry Korb and Bob Boorstin called Integrated Power.  Every progressive should study this road map not just through post-9/11 foreign policy but also through the political problems that have bedeviled a party since Vietnam -- how to recapture the energy, spirit, drive, and courage, internationally-speaking, of Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy.

The book is especially important in light of a debate we were having over here at Democracy Arsenal about just how we can go about rebuilding progressive strength on security.

A little background first.  A few weeks ago, I put up a post here synthesizing some values of "Truman Democrats" -- the new group of Democrats (of which I am a Principal) who have formed to try to reinvent the engaged, robust internationalism of Democrats past.  The piece said that six values should frame the underlying theory of an American left re-engaged on the international front:  American exceptionalism, acceptance of the use of force, hegemony, community, liberal-mindedness, and democracy.

There was a fair amount of reaction to the piece.  Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote it up at TPM Cafe, saying it "provocatively summarized" the "best nextgen foreign policy thinking I know."

Women's rights in Iraq - Where is the Support? Posted by Anita Sharma

The editorial “Off Course in Iraq," published in the New York Times on July 20 was particularly disheartening. After being disillusioned about the invasion of Iraq and U.S. failures at efforts to reconstruct and bring peace to the country, I thought that at least my efforts working with Iraqi women in the new political system may prove to be a one bright spot in the otherwise dark and dangerous days of the post-Saddam era.

It seems now that even the hollow justification for the intervention in Iraq—to free people from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, and in particular the women of Iraq—is just an excuse reminiscent of invading because of the Saddam’s nuclear arsenal. In question is the insertion of sharia law into the new constitution. Although there are supposed to be separate provisions depending on your religion, women would be stripped of their right to choose their own husbands, inherit property on the same basis as men and seek court protection if their husbands tire of them and decide to declare them divorced.

The Iraqi women that I’ve worked with during the past two years say that one of their biggest fears may now become a reality. Since Saddam fell a courageous group of women have braved assassination attempts, kidnappings, and other hardships to work to ensure women’s participation and representation in Iraq.

And they were successful—the interim constitution set aside 25 percent of its seats for them and women were named to key ministry positions and took up posts throughout government agencies. Indeed in his February 1, 2004 op-ed in the Washington Post, then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz announced the U.S.commitment to Iraqi women with a special allocation of $27 million for women's programs.

He goes further in his op-ed by saying, "In the end, it will be up to Iraqis to fashion a democracy that suits their circumstances. One of the critical tests of an Iraqi democracy will be whether it empowers women to enjoy the benefits of freedom and prosperity without sacrificing their religious faith. This is an issue that concerns everyone, not only women. A government that does not respect the rights of half its citizens cannot be trusted to safeguard the rights of any.”

Is this just lip-service? Or will be shake our heads and say it is a pity—Iraq has been “liberated,” but its women enslaved.

Framing: Cure-all or Hype? Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Framing--the art of effectively using language as political rhetoric--has garnered new interest with last Sunday's NYT magazine cover story by Matt Bai.  While the article pointed out the Republicans' successes and the Democratic steep learning curve--this desire to understand a cognitive linguistic perspective has been helpful for liberals.

Much of what Lakoff writes is ponderous, and politics is often uncontrollable,  DNA coded telegenic appearance or the economy, for example.  But framing shouldn't be seen as a simple recipe .  Rather, framing is a technique...done well it provides the alchemy between ideas and politics.  In academia this is similar to the tension between theory and practice--each one informs the other and the key to successful influence is how the relationship between them is organized.

Liberals like lots of data, but don't spend as much energy on conveying ideas.  Our problem is not one of analysis (facts) but of synthesis (marketing).  Conservatives have built a rhetorical empire with marketing. As many have noted elsewhere, the truth behind the ideas is often not important.  So now our government is being run by a bunch of right-wing Toastmasters--thirty years in the making--while we've been yukking it up at wine bars and over sprocket spewing PHD dissertations.   The liberal challenge is not unfixable, but it will take a plan and some time. The framing discussion has jump started this process.  This is good.

Examples from the trenches:

One of the reasons Lakoff's instruction has been so helpful for Democrats is that it gave their problem a name.  Being able to talk about what is happening is empowering.  In psychology, this technique is called  "naming the behavior" and in itself provides a helpful way to move a discussion forward into a new frame.  When I was a court mediator one of the lines I oftened used with litigants was "may I share an impression with you?" I would then--given their permission-- point out how we were jointly botching the prospects for a fair dialogue and possible common agreements. It was remarkably successful in jolting the conversation back to a more balanced terrain.  It seems like this type of verbal intervention could be very helpful for liberals--whose comfort zone includes unashamed appeals to the common good and the public interest.

Back to Lakoff. After election 04, the Dems had him out more than once for intensive sessions on framing techniques.  I remember a conversation I had with a Democratic staffer last February--after one of these sessions.  She told me that her boss--brimming with inspiration--had assigned Lakoff's book "Don't Think of an Elephant" to all the office staff.  A great intention, but very few Hill staff have the time and energy to read something that doesn't directly relate to constituents or immediate duties.  So the conversation stopped right there. 

Contrast this with the zillion follow-up opportunities for conservative staff --outsourced to their institutional ecosystem: yoda-like mentoring, communications training, practical internships, philosophical education and, finally JOBS! Now, why can't the DNC create follow-up tracks, organized regionally for relevant themes and content--for all liberal Hill staff? Cognitive Linguists could be on hand but the real value would be shoring up relationships and building communications skills.

Liberal Hill staff are a highly underutilized resource. They aren't systematically kept in a system that builds ideas and frameworks for understanding them. To my mind, Hill staff make great translators between theory and practice...as they have spent time massaging the relationship between ideas and politics. ( My favorite staff and Members are those idealists who have been knee-capped by the process.  They mend their worldview and become pragmatic dreamers. The best kind of leaders.)

Consider this hypothetical: If the minority leader had been a conservative and lost his election last November, a gaggle of fellow believers, funders, elected officials and movement operatives would have chartered a new "non partisan" think tank down on MacPherson Square and exported the staff there.  In contrast,  we lose our people to the four winds.

National Security is an issue area ripe for reframing. One present challenge for liberals is to stop the Bush administration's absconding with the Grand Strategy of  Democracy.

As Jonathan Chait notes in his excellent article "The Case Against New Ideas":

The idea of spreading democracy may be a powerful one, but we shouldn't forget that it's an adhoc rationale for the Iraq war--hastily put forward after Bush's primary justification, weapons of mass destruction, fell apart.  If Bush believed in democracy-promotion as a central goal of the war, he didn't trust the public enough to make that argument.

Well, now the public no longer trusts the president.  This is a good opening for liberals to step in and take back this issue. What to do in Iraq presents a case study for reframing democracy as a Grand Strategy.

Americans recognize that the use of military force is not the only or the best way to help create a stable, democratic, and prosperous Iraq.  But by the same token, they are not convinced that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq will solve the problems there.  Advocacy that focuses on bringing the troops home may fail to engage or galvanize this “persuadable middle” of the public precisely because these Americans intuitively understand that the military dimensions of the challenge in Iraq are only part of the picture.  Like most Americans, they want to do what’s right in Iraq, and they mistrust policy proposals that seem to treat troop withdrawal as an end in itself, without paying sufficient attention to the larger context.

Liberals threaten to divide into two camps: "out now" and "stay the course".  This is a false division.

The United States needs a comprehensive, creative strategy and the support of other nations if progress is to be made on key political, economic, and security aspects of rebuilding Iraq.   In contrast to today’s failed policies, the new strategy must be farsighted and collaborative; it must unfold on multiple, interconnected tracks that account for the complexity of peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction; it must rely on a full range of tools, not just military force; and it must enable American troops ultimately to withdraw without fear of destabilizing the new Iraqi state.  How can advocates communicate most effectively with the American public and policymakers about such an approach to U.S. engagement in Iraq?  What ideas and stories, messages and messengers might advocates employ to engage the “persuadable middle” of the American public in a new national dialogue about Iraq – a dialogue that includes but is not limited to strategies for phasing out our military presence there?  What ideas and messages might enlarge the space for debate about this highly charged set of issues, so more people are invited into the discussion and a broader public consensus can be created around responsible and effective American policies?

How to Build Back Better: Working on Tsunami Recovery Efforts in Indonesia Posted by Anita Sharma

Thanks Heather, for that warm introduction, and hello to everyone at Democracy Arsenal! I’ll do my best to fill Heather’s shoes while she and her family journey on America’s highway en route to a reunion and a fun-filled summer vacation! Ahh summer vacation, I can’t much recall what that feels like right now because I left the nation’s capitol on a frigid, but sunny, February afternoon and have been in the warm tropics of Indonesia since then. And you’ll have to forgive me if it takes a little while to get back to U.S. foreign policy as I’ve been working fully on a tsunami relief project with the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

As Heather said, I’ve been in DC for some time, and like many of our bloggers, contributed to the Kerry-Edwards campaign. I also worked in Iraq and Jordan with IOM as “major hostilities” finished,” and Saddam fell, beginning in March 2003 until the United Nations headquarters was blown up in August 2003. I stayed in Jordan until the beginning of 2004 when I resumed my job at the Woodrow Wilson Center and became fully involved with the campaign. We all know how the elections turned out, and that, combined with being in Australia the day after the tsunami and experiencing the outpouring of relief support, prompted a major job and location change.

For five months I’ve been in Indonesia, trying to help repair the devastation of coastal Aceh caused by the tsunami. When I first arrived the magnitude of the problem seemed overwhelming. Although trite, the best analogy I gave people back home was to think of a nuclear bomb and how entire areas were completely leveled. The massive 9.3 earthquake caused a tsunami originating in the Indian Ocean just off the western coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The subsequent tsunami devastated the shores of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, South India, Thailand and other countries with waves up to 30 m (100 feet). Anywhere from 200,000 to 310,000 people died as a result of the tsunami, with more than 130,000 people killed in Aceh alone. Although I arrived after most of the bodies that hadn’t been swept out to sea had been collected, the destruction and the needs of the more than 500,000 people displaced were palpable. To put that number in context, half a million people is a population roughly equivalent to the cities of Baltimore, Islamabad, Oslo, or Beirut.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, IOM provided life-saving relief items and health care. Our reconstruction activities are now in earnest as we, like so many other aid organizations, are working to in the words of UN Tsunami Special Envoy President Bill Clinton, to “build back better.” As we attempt to rebuild communities by providing shelter, meet health needs and promote livelihood activities, the question is not whether we can do this, but how. Interestingly in this disaster response, the challenge is not financial. Recently released figures from the UN put total worldwide pledges at about 6.7 billion dollars. (Of this, about 1.9 billion dollars in pledges have been converted into commitments.) Private donations, mostly through non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the Red Cross, U.N. relief agencies and all other channels, amounted to an additional 4 billion dollars. Taken together, the estimated total is over 10.7 billion dollars! Though it seems like a lot, and it is, how these agencies work together, and with the Indonesia government, is critical.

One thing I spend a lot of time thinking and working on is how to get people out of tents, make-shift homes, or host families and into homes of their own. The disaster damaged or destroyed approximately 116,880 homes. While reconstruction work has now started, sufficient numbers of homes will not be rebuilt or repaired in the next few months. The concern right now is how can the international aid agencies, with so much money in their coffers turn, to their donors (in many cases individuals like you and me who saw the aftermath on TV and opened their pocketbooks) and admit that one year after the disaster people may still be living in awful conditions? Sometimes I wonder who the aid agencies are most concerned about—the Acehnese living in squalor or the journalists who will report back on the dearth of rebuilding, and the resulting wave of criticism of “why haven’t you done more?” I’ll get back to why and the difficulties associated with our work in the next posting.

Another recent development, and why it’s fascinating to be here at the moment, is the potential for peace in Aceh. If the agreement, to be signed on August 15, goes through, it may end one of the world’s longest-running conflicts where more than 12,000 people died since 1976. According to negotiators, the agreement calls for Indonesian troops to largely withdraw from the province and for the rebels to demobilize by the end of the year. Brokered by Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president who chaired the talks, the memorandum of understanding covers issues such as human rights, amnesty and security arrangements. While international aid has been permitted to the tsunami hit areas of Aceh, access to the hinterland and economic development in the province has been hampered by restricted access and continual fighting between the GAM and Indonesian military.

The peace deal, if successful, is likely to smooth the way for reconstruction efforts throughout the province. Interestingly I could potentially be working to assist not only the tsunami survivors, but also those who have lived through three decades of war. Of course, there are skeptics. Several times the warring sides came close to peace but this time there is additional grounds for optimism. The cloud of the tsunami may have a silver lining in that after years of martial law, and then emergency rule, Aceh was forced to open its doors to outside help and the international attention to the province has shone a spotlight on the brutal, but much ignored, conflict.

Since we began work in Aceh, everyone has said that for recovery and reconstruction to be effective, fighting in the region must end. It will be quite amazing if this actually does come to pass.

I realize that my post has run on a bit long without me being provocative or particularly insightful. I wanted to first give you my thoughts on the scope of the problem and what it’s like being at the center (though I am myself but one of the multitude of aid workers) of such a complex and crucial set of issues. I do hope to use the air-time graciously given to me by Heather to get deeper into the challenges of reconstruction: like building fast versus sustainability; how coordinating aid agencies is like herding cats (in this case many fat cats with big pockets); the changing political landscape of Indonesia, its own battles with terrorism; the evolving U.S.-Indonesia relationship and the perception of America by young Indonesians. Again, apologies for the long posting and I welcome your thoughts!

Iraqi Women Re-veiled/More on Hersh Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Latest word is that Iraq's draft constitution will roll back the rights and freedoms of women in the name of Shaaria (Koranic law).   The draft provides that family law matters like marriage, divorce and inheritance would be governed by religious law based on the sect to which the woman's family belongs. 

This would require Shiite women to get their families' permission to marry and give men, but not women, liberal rights to divorce.   This would replace a body of law that has for the past few decades been among the region's most progressive in its treatment of women, according them freedom to marry who they please and requiring judicial oversight of divorces.   

Iraqi women are understandably up in arms, taking to the streets to protest.  There's still a chance that public and international outcry may lead to revisions in the draft before its adopted.

Apropos of all the discussion about the Bush Administration's meddling in the Iraqi electoral process, its worth remembering that letting countries alone to set up their own democracies can open the door for infringement on principles we hold dear, even to the point of undermining what we see as precepts fundamental to democracy. 

That brings me to some interesting line-drawing questions that the Hersh article raises.   I doubt there would be much objection to the U.S. supporting, for example, the women's groups that are protesting these new provisions.   But if those groups backed someone for elected office, that equation might change.   

The perception of American interference in a fledgling democracy is obviously unacceptable.   But what does that mean for the reality of what we do and don't support?

Among the critics of the Administration that Hersh cites is the National Democratic Institute, a body that devotes a major portion of its program to helping develop political parties overseas.  NDI's criteria for who to support include things like "policy positions,"  "democratic commitment," and "level of internal democracy."   These may not be overtly political, but they sure are close.  I suspect that a strong case might have been made that according to NDI's written standards, Allawi might have merited the organization's support.   Other groups Hersh talks about like NED and IRI do similar kinds of work.

One could argue that that the difference is that NDI, NED and IRI are all private groups, so that there activities aren't the work of the U.S. government intervening in a foreign sovereign democracy.  But all 3 groups are primarily supported by the USG, and are known to be so by the groups they work with overseas.

If we are going to work on articulating a new vision for the role the U.S. ought to play in seeding democracy around the world, these lines are ones we will need to figure out where to draw.

Whither the Naval Reserve? Posted by Suzanne Nossel

I was having lunch yesterday with a member of the naval reserve.  I asked whether she was at risk for being called to serve in Iraq.  She replied that there seemed to be little chance, since ships weren't involved in the conflict, and few people she knew from the navy had been called up.

Given all the discussions we've had here (and here, here, and here) about the personnel crisis confronted by the military, this came as a surprise.  After all - as she and I discussed - the naval reserve has got plenty of specialists in everything from intelligence to piloting airplanes to maintainance to medicine to food service.  These are servicemembers whose skills should be fairly readily transferrable to the Iraq conflict and other pressing needs around the world. 

Some quickie research suggests that the naval ready reserve is mobilized at a level significantly below the other services.  The naval ready reserve stands at 142,000 of which just 3290 (just 2%) were deployed as of July 13.  By contrast, of the 327,000 in the army ready reserve, 62,000 are deployed worldwide (about 19%).  The Marine Corps has 57,300 in its ready reserve, of which 9022 are mobilized (15%).

According to this analysis, the navy has been working hard to make its forces better equipped for contemporary warfare, including counter-terrorism missions.   It states: "In their civilian careers, many [naval reservists] have established expertise in such fields as computer technology, security operations, business practices and foreign languages."

Call me crazy, but before we start recruiting people who we would ordinarily have rejected as unfit for service, extending tours to the point where real hardships are felt, and talking about a draft, why aren't we tapping into this existing reserve?   I am sure that - given their training, skill sets and civilian obligations, greater mobilization of the naval reserves is no panacea.  But I am curious why the numbers are so low, and whether it might not make sense to dig a little deeper here.

Addendum:  To the commenters who are replying "a sailor in Iraq?  you are crazy." What if any questions does this raise about maintaining a half-a-million strong force (active duty plus reserves) that is suitable for duty only at sea?  What role are these questions playing in the current debates on force realignment?

Democracy in Iraq, through the Looking Glass Posted by Michael Signer

On the Sy Hersh piece in The New Yorker about the Bush Administration's manipulation of Iraq's emerging quasi-democracy, I was trying to think of a metaphor or allegory for the neocons' continuing obliviousness to the failure of their theories to create the right reality, and was failing.  Maybe it's the heat.  The index in Richmond is 110 right now, and it's almost impossible to walk outside -- all the more reason to empathize with our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So, to recap.  Hersh's piece is here.  Eric Alterman's angry synopsis and expansion is here.  Laura Rozen's coup de grace is here. 

Hersh's piece exposes that while the Administration was, like Socrates in Aristophanes' The Clouds, producing gaseous clouds of rhetoric about Democracy, it was simultaneously engaging in old-style ward politics that would make Richard Daley blush.

The Administration, Hersh reveals, was hosting a small civil war between weirdly hypocritical neocons who were willing to produce a counterfeit of democracy at any cost, and those who thought America should allow transparent elections to go forward, and let the chips fall where they may. 

On the one hand was a clutch of insiders who wanted to rig the elections against pro-Iranian Shiites -- with the goal of reducing Iraq's formal connections to this member of the Axis of Evil. 

On the other hand was a number of pro-democracy NGO's, as well as the more sensible duo of Richard Armitage and Colin Powell -- who argued that democratization would suffer both substantively and image-wise if it was so overtly manipulated, if transparency, well, disappeared. 

Here's Hersh's summary of the debate:

The main advocate for channelling aid to preferred parties was Thomas Warrick, a senior adviser on Iraq for the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, who was backed, in this debate, by his superiors and by the National Security Council. Warrick’s plan involved using forty million dollars that had been appropriated for the election to covertly provide cell phones, vehicles, radios, security, administrative help, and cash to the parties the Administration favored. The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor resisted this plan, and turned to three American non-governmental organizations that have for decades helped to organize and monitor elections around the world: the National Democratic Institute (N.D.I.), the International Republican Institute (I.R.I.), and the National Endowment for Democracy (N.E.D.).

“It was a huge debate,” a participant in the discussions told me. “Warrick said he had gotten the Administration principals”—senior officials of the State Department, the Pentagon, and the National Security Council—“to agree.” The N.G.O.s “were fighting a rearguard action to get this election straight,” and emphasized at meetings that “the idea of picking favorites never works,” he said.

“There was a worry that a lot of money was being put aside in walking-around money for Allawi,” the participant in the discussions told me. “The N.G.O.s said, ‘We don’t do this—and, in any case, it’s crazy, because if anyone gets word of this manipulation it’ll ruin what could be a good thing. It’s the wrong way to do it.’ The N.G.O.s tried to drive a stake into the heart of it.”

Wouldn't you know, but the neocons won in the short-term, producing an election riddled with fraud, producing the marionette of Ayad Allawi.  The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq later estimated that 10% of ballots had been stuffed. 

And then when the actual government was formed in Iraq, the enterprise spun a little more out of control.  Ibrahim al-Jafaari became Prime Minister and, in early July, "stunned Washington" (in Hersh's words) by announcing a multi-billion dollar aid package with Iran.  The whole point was to separate the Iraqi government from Iran -- not connect them.

There are, thankfully, signs of progress for a stabilizing Iraq, if Sunnis have more of a hand in the government (as it looks like they might) and if the constitution-drafting proceeds apace -- but this is despite Washington, not because of it.

So where does this all get us?  A ripe example of the ideology of this Administration.  Marx defined "ideology" as "Sie wissen das nicht, aber sie tun es," which means, "They do not know it, but they are doing it."  Here's how the political theorist Slavoj Zizek summarizes it:

The very concept of ideology implies a kind of basic, constitutive naïveté: the misrecognition of its own presuppositions, of its own effective conditions, a distance, a divergence between so-called social reality and our distorted representation, our false consciousness of it.

This is ideology, in the classic sense:  the fusion of home-schooling, faith-based reasoning, and salvationist, millenarian politics (which culminates in the emergence of the "rapture index" as something politically-engaged rightists actually care about) leads neocons to become so absorbed in the rhetoric of democratization that they think the worst kind of realpolitik is justified to produce the image (rather than reality) of Democracy. 

Where there's smoke, there's no fire -- or something like that:

I want so much to know whether they've a fire in the winter: you never can tell, you know, unless our fire smokes, and then smoke comes up in that room too -- but that may be only pretence, just to make it look as if they had a fire.

This is from Alice in Wonderland, but it kind of seems appropriate today.

Through the looking-glass, indeed.

Some Army Relief Posted by Derek Chollet

A few months ago we wrote about a study by the policy group Third Way that detailed the crisis between the demand and supply of American troop strength, calling for adding 100,000 troops to the U.S. Army.  Last week several prominent members of Congress, including Senators Joe Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, Bill Nelson, Jack Reed, Ken Salazar and Representatives Mark Udall and Ellen Tauscher proposed legislation to do just that.  Entitled the “United States Army Relief Act,” this is a bold proposal to deal with the mismatch between the forces we need and the forces we have (the press release and text of the legislation can be found here).

This drew some nice media attention for the Hillary factor – with many stories using her work on the armed services committee and future aspirations as the news hook.  But the proposal was also (apparently coincidentally) timed with the release of a new report from RAND which explains that if the current tempo of deployments continue – and there is no reason to believe that it won’t for the next few years at least – we will have “serious problems” in active duty readiness.  This also coincided with an alarming study released last week by the GAO that provides a lot of detail about the crisis in the Army Reserves – pointing out that due to equipment and personnel shortages, it will be “increasingly difficult for [the Reserve] to provide ready forces.”

Given all of this, the politics of the Army Relief Act make a lot of sense: by calling for a larger army, this legislation allows key Democrats to be tough on defense while at the same time make the case for how badly the Pentagon has been managed (remember the days when the Clinton Administration was criticized for creating a “hollow army”?!?!).  This is a gutsy plan that puts the political opposition or those that defend the status quo, well, on the defensive.      

That said, some still have concerns on the substance.  Although these ideas have been endorsed by former Army generals (including two at the Congressional rollout, the former heads of West Point and the Army War College), as well as the New York Times editorial page, several civilian military experts I’ve spoken to (while sympathetic with the politics and especially the urgency of the supply-demand problem) argue that adding 100,000 troops is not the way to solve the problem.  They point to everything from the cost (at least $15 billion) to the difficulty of actually recruiting these new forces to the fact that such a move might actually hinder the Army’s continuing transformation.  Instead, they call for a troop increase of anywhere from 40,000 (which is what the Kerry-Edwards campaign proposed) to over 60,000.

I don’t have near enough military expertise to judge the merits of 40,000 vs. 60,000 vs. 100,000, but I am convinced that we need more.  And good for these members of Congress (and their friends at Third Way) for putting a serious idea on the table.         

Top 10 Questions About the Long-Term Future of U.S. Foreign Policy Posted by Suzanne Nossel

This is a pretty indulgent one - - but, hey, its mid-summer and apart from the London investigation, the smoldering of Iraq and Plamegate, things seem a tad slow.  The big event at our house is that this week my son Leo turns one.   I always thought it cheesy when politicians advocated various policies as being in the interests of "our children."   But motherhood has changed all that.  With Leo growing longer in years, my thoughts turn to the foreign policy issues that concern me most in terms of his future.  Here are 10 of the questions that most concern me in terms of the world we'll hand to Leo and his generation sometime in 2040 or s0:

1.    Will nuclear weapons still be a threat -  I grew up in the era of "The Day After" and the enduring threat of nuclear conflict between the U.S. and the USSR.  Though that threat has changed radically it hasn't disappeared and is in now in many ways harder to manage and control.  The real question, though almost to frightening to raise, is whether nukes will be used in my son's lifetime.   At the going rate, without only halting progress on non-proliferation and control of loose nukes, the answer could well be yes.

2.   Will the U.S. still be the only superpower - My hope is yes, my fear is no.  I suspect that 35 years from now the U.S. will share political, economic and military dominance with China.  If that comes true, can a polarized duality be avoided, and is there a scenario where the two countries collaborate to solve global problems?  I find it difficult to predict and will be fascinated to see how this plays out.

3.  Will terrorism be a major feature of U.S. life - There will undoubtedly still be terrorism 35 years from now, but will the terrorist threat against the U.S. be a permanent feature of life in the 21st century?  Will future attacks on U.S. soil lead us to become more like Israel - a security state where issues of life-and-death surface amid the most workaday activities like eating pizza or shopping in a mall?  My hope is that a combination of settling the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and slow but steady liberalization and economic development in the Middle East dampen Islamic terrorism to a point where its occasional flare-ups are out-of-the-ordinary enough not to impact daily life in the U.S.  This is very optimistic.

4.  Will we have faced environmental disaster - Environmental issues are not my area of expertise, and are questions we probably don't spend enough time on on this blog.   But I do worry that global warming may really catch up with us sometime in the next generation, and that we will have only ourselves (and President Bush) to blame for failing to act when we could have.

5.  Will the U.S. still be the center of economic opportunity - While I could do without some of his polemics, I do worry about Thomas Friedman's thesis in The World is Flat about eroding American competitiveness in education, innovation and technology.  Where I part ways with Friedman is his implicit notion that the competition from India and elsewhere is to be feared:  I think we ought to just be energized by the idea that the game is being played harder and faster than ever before, and work on positioning the U.S. to win.   I do worry that we're underinvesting right now in tools like broadband and wide-scale internet access and literacy that we will need to keep up.  I hope we soon have leadership that changes that.