Please, a discerning presidential debate on foreign policy

When Mitt Romney and President Obama debate foreign policy Monday evening, they need to admit the US faces wholly new challenges that require a national consensus on the core values that can drive US responses.

By the Monitor's Editorial Board / October 21, 2012

The crew of a US Coast Guard cutter retrieves supplies dropped by a parachute into the fast-melting ice of Arctic Ocean. The US faces new challenges of national security, a topic likely in Monday's presidential debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney.

Reuters

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In their Monday-night debate focused on foreign affairs, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney probably won?t be asked this question posed 20 years ago by President George H. W. Bush after the end of the cold war:

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What is the new world order?

Yet that question has dogged the three presidents since 1992 once they became America?s top diplomat and commander-in-chief.

That?s because the often-simple certitudes of past conflicts between nation-states have been overtaken by what Defense Secretary Leon Panneta calls a ?blizzard? of security challenges ? from mass slaughter in Europe or Africa to terrorist attacks on US soil to covert cyber attacks from abroad.

Even Katrina-like hurricanes, Mexican drug cartels, and Somalian pirates are now a prime focus of the Pentagon. So too is the possibility of a foreign ship loaded with weapons sinking in the unfrozen Arctic waters off Alaska or the threat of China to cut off exports of a vital industrial mineral.

It has become difficult to know where is the ?front? in confronting an adversary or even to know what an adversary is. And the distinction between domestic and foreign issues has become blurred. Threats can be networked across the globe by small, nonstate actors. A few unmarked ships, for example, can drop iron dust on a patch of ocean, altering the weather pattern over the United States.

Yet when presidential candidates run today, they want to offer voters even greater certainty in their approach to foreign policy. Why? Simply because today?s world offers a ?blizzard? of challenges and voters seek even more certainty for themselves and their country.

Security planners have tried for years to come up with new concepts for these challenges, such as more preventive action against potential threats. Most concepts have so far had a short shelf-life. And each new president has had to improvise once in office.

Mr. Obama, for example, has adopted many of the policies of his predecessor, such as the use of military tribunals and the active promotion of democratic reform, after criticizing them as a candidate. He has even had to change his own approach, such as his hope early-on of negotiating with Islamic fanatics.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/-nZtMBdBexA/Please-a-discerning-presidential-debate-on-foreign-policy

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