My Christmas Wish

by: Hasslington

I know that to some this will sound like the whiny whimpers of a "loony leftie," but, given that my wife is from Britain, and given that I lived and worked there for several years (and would be happy to do so again some day), it's natural that we travel to Europe somewhat frequently. This does not put me in a position to pontificate endlessly regarding everything "European," but it does mean that I am in the position of being able to say with assurance the following: I cannot tell you exactly how far a little good will can go with one's friends and allies, but I can tell you that it can go a surprisingly long way. I can also tell you that it's time again for American foreign policy leaders to grasp that concept.

Very, very few Europeans expect the United States to "sell away the farm," so to speak. And very few expect us to take their advice every time they give it (despite what right-wing radio hosts suggest "lazy European whiners" wish us to do "for them"). What the vast majority of our friends and allies DO expect is that we listen to their viewpoints and take them into consideration in more than a cursory, compulsory manner.

So much of this has to do with tone, which the Bush Administration has bizarrely failed to realize. If we say "yes" occasionally to ideas originated by our friends and allies, then saying "no" to other suggestions--which, realistically speaking, we'll obviously still have to continue to do--isn't such a difficult thing for others to stomach. (It's a lot like just about any healthy adult relationship, really.) And if we say "no" in a manner that is respectful and collegial, it doesn't hurt our international standing--it might even gain us more respect amongst our friends (and some adversaries), which could pay off handsomely down the road, in any of a number of ways.

But there's a problem, and it is this: even now, on the eve of 2009, a lot of otherwise fairly intelligent Americans don't care about our international standing--and have the arrogance, born of insularity, to suggest that we needn't ever think about it. Yet international stances and actions reverberate, and accumulate, in this international world. That's reality, no matter what ueber-provincialists insist on believing. (Thankfully, the ueber-provincial crowd is shrinking in numbers.)

We Americans are, after all, necessary leaders on the world stage, which the vast majority of Europeans I know accept and even appreciate (again, despite what insular right-wingers suggest). Given this fact, increasing numbers of Americans of all political stripes need to accept the notion that we have not only the rights but also the responsibilities that come with being world leaders, which means that we need to become more internationally savvy in a hurry. And in this increasingly international world, world leaders cannot afford to be constantly dictating their will; if they make that mistake, history shows us that after a while they get isolated by those allies to whom they dictate (it's human nature, really), no matter how powerful those world leaders are. Then their affluence and influence drains, and....

So we need to be more cooperative with our friends and allies (though not beholden to all of their wishes, of course), and we need to simultaneously keep innovating on the homefront--in a number of senses, economically and otherwise--as well. We cannot afford to only do one or the other, which might have been an option several decades in the past, but is certainly not one, or at least not an acceptable one, now.

Winston Churchill once said that what was special about the United States was (and remains, by the way) that "...America always eventually gets it right." He was giving us the needle by using the word "eventually," but he was correct in the sense that when the U.S. goes astray (as all countries do), it tends to find its equilibrium again, at least eventually. That most certainly does not happen in every country around the world. Most every European I know appreciates this aspect of the U.S., which is why they are so often befuddled by the obvious anti-pragmatism of the ostensibly "pragmatic" Bush/Cheney years. (As far as misleading advertising goes, the present administration's attempts to pass off their brick-brained agenda as realistic and pragmatic is amongst the most "wowser!" of their many "wowser!" moments.)

But starting in 2009, we might--might--be getting it right once again. In order to do that, we need to understand that the process of being pragmatic in the twenty-first century needs to take some different forms than it might have taken the last few decades. We'll have to wait and see if we get there rapidly. I'm in an optimistic mood: today, at least, I'm thinking that we will.