Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Foreign policy

This is going to give cg the jibblies, but Walter Russell Mead has a Foreign Affairs piece (fully available online) where he details the effects of religion on American foreign policy. Rather than freak out, he advises skeptics to consider the strong emphasis evangelicals put on social justice and the prospects for a more humanitarian orientation to foreign policy. I continue to believe that Mead's Special Providence is the single best volume for understanding American foreign policy. His argument that the intermixing of four separate schools of thought/interest is what results in policy will not appeal to the wild-eyed among you, but everyone else will find much of value.

In the same issue of Foreign Affairs, John Mueller writes a piece that claims to explain why the USA has not seen another attack within its borders.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The words "religion" and "American foreign policy" in the same sentence definitely gives me the jibblies. I will attempt to read the article when I'm in a happy place, like after drinking good wine or while petting a kitten.

Speaking of, www.kittenwar.com is a good antidote to online articles with frightening subject matter (mentioned in a recent Colbert Report).

Tripp said...

Kittenwar is very funny.

Brack said...

So, can we now add the fundies to the list of puppetmasters? I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the next meeting of The Junta when the delegate from the Southern Baptist Convention makes a Motion to Fix the Time to Adjourn, to which the rep. from the the Z.O.G. or perhaps the Freemasons will raise a point of order . . . just like '61, when they froshed the Vatican rookie!

Ahhh, T. Doesn't it take you back to the glorious days of the Model UN?

Seriously though, the Carnegie Council has some interesting pieces on religion and politics (including good number focusing on foreign policy issues).

http://www.cceia.org/themes/religion/resource.html

Tripp said...

Hee hee, I can just imagine the back and forth between the various Illuminati.

What I most remember from the Model US was being Mozambique and pissing off the rest of the Front Line States by trying to move towards more peaceful relations with S Africa.

Carnegie Council is new to me, thanks.