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STREAMING LIVE TODAY: G. John Ikenberry, Daniel Deudney, and Dimitri Simes on The Next Global Ideological Battle
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My colleague Michael Lind will be hosting a live panel discussion at 12:30 pm EST with Princeton University/Woodrow Wilson Institute Professor G. John Ikenberry, John Hopkins Professor Daniel Deudney, and Nixon Center President Dimitri Simes on Ikenberry and Deudney's article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, "The Myth of the Autocratic Revival: Why Liberal Democracy Will Prevail."
I was supposed to moderate this event, but had to pull out this morning because I have a turbo-charged zinger of a cold and have lost my voice.
I encourage you to watch what promises to be a terrific discussion featuring some of the sharpest minds looking at Robert Kagan's thesis that the next big divide is between absolutists and authoritarian autocrats on one side and liberal, democratic governmetns on the other.
--Steve Clemons
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Reader Comments (4) - post a comment
Get well soon, Steve!
Nice to see that you went to the discussion, Steve - and your
question re. unitary executive / absolutism was excellent. You
may say that Robert Kagan`s, John Yoo`s, and Carl Schmitt`s
America actually is on the Chinese/ Russian authoritarian side
here (like Japan, italy, Spain, and Germany 65 years ago).
If authoritarianism is so bad (and it is), then, from an American -
and even a broader Western perspective, the most urgent
challenge is not how to transform these authoritarian regimes
into liberal democracies, but rather: How to firmly bring America
back into the democratic fold?
Prosecution of the neocon absolutists in the former
administration may be one step... Getting rid of the dangerous
Unitary Executive theory is another important step.
I don't have the patience to sit through these orations but on the topic of executive privilege the MSM (and many blogs) are concerned with what Obama, the new decider, will decide on many issues, particularly war-related. The congress has become the very type of rubber-stamp institution we always ridiculed in places like China. The US, as Paul implies, sets a bad example in this regard.
During the Vietnam war (for all the good it did) we had senators who actually had a non-CW voice, including: Morse, Gruening, Kennedys, Fulbright, etc. But now it's: When will Obama reduce US forces in Iraq and how many will he send to Afghanistan, the current two military quagmires? What will the new Decider decide?
We knew what was coming in Iraq when the Democratic senate (unlike the House) eschewed any constitutionally-required discussion of the "strategic framework" which was actually a treaty. They did this, keeping it as an executive matter, so as to give Obama the wiggle room he now seems to be exercising in maintaining troops in Iraq.
So, for the US, it's limited democracy at home as well as in world bodies -- they make a nice pair. Presidential executivism and American exceptionalism -- they go together like love and marriage. ooops.
One response that i would like to rebound to Robert Kagan's thesis is that how would Robert Kagan refute the fact/thesis that the Nato's eastward expansion on the pretext of defending the ideological basis of democracy, has been actually paving the way for the promotion of the western autocratic- totalitarian military clout in the east.
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