Shifting Sands: Crafting US Foreign Policy Amidst Competing Interests | HISPBC Ch.1
Vložit
- čas přidán 19. 05. 2024
- Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, Russell Berman, delves into the multifaceted nature of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, highlighting the difficulties in pursuing American interests while navigating regional complexities and competing global powers. These regional complexities and competing powers necessitate the need for the U.S. to adapt its strategies in response to evolving realities such as the growing influences of China and Russia. In light of all the current uncertainty and challenges, there is still room for ambitious and effective U.S. foreign policy in the region.
Recorded August 16, 2023
Check out more from Russell Berman:
Watch "The Road to Smart Power in the Middle East" from Russell Berman here: www.policyed.org/policy-stories/road-smart-power-middle-east/video
Read "Tehran Wins Tenure" by Russell Berman here:
www.hoover.org/research/tehran-wins-tenure
Read "October 7 and American Grand Strategy" by Russell Berman here: www.hoover.org/research/october-7-and-american-grand-strategy
Be sure to visit The Hoover Institution at www.hoover.org/ and PolicyEd at www.policyed.org/
The opinions expressed in this video are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hoover Institution or Stanford University. © 2024 by the Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University.
Great lecture if you’re having trouble sleeping
Only of you have room temperature IQ. In which case you belong somewhere far from academia and policymaking. Maybe try hospitality - they always need more waiters 😊
Oil doesn’t matter anymore?
What is meant by:
human rights
woman's rights
I don't suppose these have the same meaning they did in recent history. Where do those rights come from? What is the foundation of those rights and laws? Is the foundation rock or sand ever changing? Do they come from man or God? I recall once upon a time in the US there being a belief in where rights come from agreed upon by the vast majority of the nation. I recall there was a document containing this idea and in being used for a purpose. I recall there were people asking for Divine Providence in achieving this purpose.
Now it appears many leaders of this nation no longer hold to the One whom the founders asked help from or believe He even exists at all (or in any meaningful way). The rights more and more come from man who is here today gone tomorrow like the passing of the sand at the beach. The law has become lawlessness as there is no Rock on which it stands. Revelation 18:7 - The sign of Jonah (Jonah 3:9 - turn to Christ). Joel 2:12-14
If the US speaks of values and rights yet they hold no solid meaning or source beyond the men in current power, why would anyone listen to the US? If the US merely makes up what those values and rights are, if US leadership is merely the source of what they are then aside from the US's power to enforce its values and rights on others why would they care? Values and rights have become like the many words used whose meanings change frequently. One day bad can mean evil the next cool. One day what is right is right and the next it is wrong. Whatever you build today will be washed away tomorrow if it isn't built on a firm foundation and the only one of those is Jesus Christ.
US foreign policy has become a dirty word. Why? Because of a single blunder - Iraq.
The US was rightly perceived as the ‘good guy’ for the entire 1916-2001 period. It intervened in WWII to defend itself and a humane world order. It opposed a barbaric regime over the Cold War. If defended Kuwait from Iraqi aggression. And then came 9/11.
And, in a moment of crisis, the public and the leadership both wanted heads to roll. Iraq was right there - unfinished business from the first Gulf War. The threat of biological terrorism and a viable nuclear programme (with confirmed evidence thereof). An irresistible opportunity.
It doesn’t make it any less illegal. But nobody condemns China’s aggression in the Philippine EEZ. Nobody condemns Russia’s foreign policy, which is basically summed up as wars of land conquest against Georgia, Chechnya, Ukraine. How are those ‘foreign policies’ any better?
People should aim to better educate themselves. Iraq in 2003 was likely illegal. But 2024 with Saddam in power (or worse, his son) would have been a nightmare. If today’s Middle East seems volatile…