A New Paradigm

Way back in the early 1990s, when the Cold War came to a close, I began telling anyone who would listen that we needed a new foreign policy paradigm. In the early days of World War II and the days shortly following the war, the Allies (the U.S., Great Britain, France, etc.) met to determine what would be the overall paradigm for how the war would be fought and how the peace would be assembled after the war. Most notably we have the Atlantic Charter and the Bretton Woods Agreement which laid the foundations for the post-war economic and political systems. By establishing this paradigm, the Western powers were able to steer a common course towards the future. We need to repeat this process for the post-Cold War world.

I was recently listening to the Hugh Hewitt program and he was talking about Thomas P.M. Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map. I knew immediately this was a book I needed to read. I found a copy at the local Half-Price Books and dove in. The more I read, the more this takes on the form of the new foreign policy paradigm that I have been calling for since the early 90s. Now it is given that when I "call" for a new foreign policy paradigm, practically no one listens -- after all, who am I? But policymakers need to be listening to Dr. Barnett. What he espouses needs to be the next foreign policy paradigm. The Pentagon's New Map is a must-read!

While I was not as wide-sweeping as Dr. Barnett when it comes to defining the lenses through which we must look at the world before us, I have at least put together the rudiments of a foreign policy that would fit nicely with Dr. Barnett's Core-Gap thesis. It is my conviction that U.S. foreign aid must be changed to promote the expansion of globalization wherever possible. In the 1990s I was saying we needed to champion the exporting of Democracy to any nation who would have it. But now I see there is a need to take it beyond just political change.

Even today, most foreign aid takes the form of monetary transfers. We open the American purse and pour out largess to whomever we deem fitting. Our motives have been mostly good, but often times we have inadvertently helped dictators to line their own pockets. It should be the policy of the United States to offer a more practical form of foreign aid. For instance, "Kreblakistan " is a fictional third-world country buried deep in Barnett's Gap -- a so-called "lesser included." The U.S. should send an evaluation team to Kreblakistan to evaluate what type of aid would most benefit Kreblakistan's populace and economy. Teams of experts would them move into Kreblakistan to begin forming training academies to train indigenous Kreblakistanis in road construction, waterway management, mining technology, organizational management, or whatever areas are determined by the evaluation team. This way the U.S. would be teaching the local populace how to fix and maintain their country -- giving them a talented workforce -- in other words, training them how to "go fishing" instead of handing them a halibut.

This form of foreign aid would not only training the future workforce, but it would also avoid lining corrupt officials' pockets. While I understand that corruption is a tricky weed to kill, this type of aid would limit its growth. I think it is also important that this type of foreign aid be implemented in such a way as to avoid making any serious changes to the indigenous social and cultural morays. We're not going into to the world to make the world into our own image -- little America Juniors -- but to help the lesser includeds become more productive members of the global economy, thus raising their standard of living and growing their economy.

While these lesser includeds are being brought into the fold, America would be able to begin planning for its future. Many of the American trainers sent throughout the world might have similar opportunities within the U.S. This would allow us to make use of their skills while training them for the future U.S. economy. Back in the homeland, we would be shifting our economy and workforce to better benefit from expanded globalization.

I haven't worked all of the kinks out of it, but I think it might be worth further review. What do you think?