Leaving aside the question of whether there ever really was an "American World" to predicate a "Post-American World," Fukuyama's generally on that "man, we gotta make our society actually work 'cause other folks is catchin' up"-boilerplate steez that's pretty de rigeur nowadays, what with our society not really working and other folks catchin' up as they is. Very little new or interesting--which isn't necessarily too huge a criticism, as the problems faced are well known, as are many reasonable solution--but here was an interesting tidbit:
The critique was that real men and real foreign policy professionals don’t do this kind of nation building or deploy soft power, but rather deal with hard power with military force.But, in fact, American foreign policy has to be preoccupied with a certain kind of social work today. Opponents of American power around the world—the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran, as well as populist leaders in Latin America like Hugo Chavez, Rafael Correa or Evo Morales—have succeeded in coming to power because they can offer social services directly to poor people in their countries.
Here's where one of the real shames of the transition. BHO pledged to double foreign aid to $50 billion. In recent weeks, he's said that may have to be one of the things on the chopping block in light of the financial Gotterdammerung. Crying shame, that, 'cause wouldn't it be interesting if'n we could stroll into Pakistan with maybe 2/3 the current military aid, putting the other third into building them... say... water purification systems?
More later...
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