A Quote by Robert C. O'Brien
For decades, conventional wisdom in the United States held that it was only a matter of time before China would become more liberal, first economically and then politically. We could not have been more wrong - a miscalculation that stands as the greatest failure of U.S. foreign policy since the 1930s.
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The United States is only one superpower. Today they lead the world. Nobody has doubts about it. Militarily. They also lead economically but they're getting weak. But they don't lead morally and politically anymore. The world has no leadership. The United States was always the last resort and hope for all other nations. There was the hope, whenever something was going wrong, one could count on the United States. Today, we lost that hope.
As economic globalization gathers momentum, China and the United States have become highly interdependent economically. Such economic relations would not enjoy sustained, rapid growth if they were not based on mutual benefit or if they failed to deliver great benefits to the United States.
Meanwhile, the U.S. debt remains, as it has been since 1790, a war debt; the United States continues to spend more on its military than do all other nations on earth put together, and military expenditures are not only the basis of the government's industrial policy; they also take up such a huge proportion of the budget that by many estimations, were it not for them, the United States would not run a deficit at all.
The United States has weakened itself with Iraq; Iranians feel victorious - they feel capable of filling the void. I think from the very outset the nuclear issue has been secondary to the more strategic outlook, in which the United States has, since 1991, pursued a policy that it cannot permit any country in the region to become too powerful and challenge American hegemony.
With regard to the more moderates, I have spent 20 years as a United States Marine. I'm a little more realistic when it comes to some of these foreign policy, defense policy issues, some of the things we do overseas. And so I really feel like I can connect to the more moderates.
In the 1990s and 2000s, the liberal story shaped not only the foreign policy of the United States and its allies, but also the domestic policies of governments across the world, from South Africa to Indonesia.
We have for decades now, and I've dealt with the Russians for 35 years, we have from time to time been able to, even though we have different interests, to align them. That alignment has become more and more difficult under Putin. You see that in Ukraine, you see it in the Middle East. To an extent where he actually defines Russian success as thwarting the United States.
China in particular is an absolutely fascinating place to be. Culturally and politically and economically it's becoming more and more relevant. If you look at how China is perceived in different parts of the world, you can recognize it's very dynamic. It's also challenging what it thinks of itself.
Conventional wisdom is invariably out of date. Because in the time it has taken to become conventional - to become what everyone believes - the world has moved on. Conventional wisdom is a remnant of the past.
We borrow 40 cents out of every dollar that we spend. We borrow most of it from countries like China. They have become major creditors of the United States and have more power over our economy than we want them to. So dealing with this is not only the right thing economically, it's certainly right from a moral viewpoint.
Many people in the United States happen to believe that United States policy is wrong in Vietnam and the Vietcong are correct in wanting to organize their country in their own way politically. This happens to be pretty much the opinion of western Europe and the other parts of the world.
The reason I made women's issues central to American foreign policy, was not because I was a feminist, but because we know that societies are more stable if women are politically and economically empowered.
If I were to look at foreign policy, I would say John McCain has been wrong on just about everything over the last four decades.
When the United States first went into Afghanistan in 2001, it devastated the Taliban and Al Qaeda in a matter of weeks using only a few hundred C.I.A. and Special Operations personnel, backed by American air power. Later, when the United States transitioned to conventional Pentagon stability operations, this success was reversed.
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