Sunday, December 05, 2010
The Frugal Superpower
On NPR this morning:
First sensible advice from an "expert" in recent memory.
Bravo! ¶ 9:10 AM
Michael Mandelbaum, professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, says:
"China is certainly becoming richer and will become more powerful and will become more influential in East Asia, but I don’t see China becoming a global power or assuming the kind of global responsibilities that the U.S. bears anytime soon. I believe the kinds of military interventions that the U.S. has conducted over the last two decades — in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan — are going to be discontinued. Because those military interventions, although initiated under two administrations for differing reasons, they all landed us with the expensive, difficult and frustrating task of nation building."
Administration officials keep saying they need to invest in countries like Afghanistan to make sure they don’t fail and become breeding grounds for terrorists. Mandelbaum argues the U.S. just can’t afford it.
"It's just too expensive. I don’t think we can do nation building on the cheap, and, in fact, there’s some question of whether we can do it at all."
First sensible advice from an "expert" in recent memory.
Bravo! ¶ 9:10 AM
