Amitai Etzioni Notes

The Fantasy of Zero Nukes

Nowhere is President Obama’s tendency to confuse speech making with policy making more evident than in his treatment of nuclear weapons, the greatest threat to both U.S. security and world peace.

The main hot spots are well known: North Korea, Iran and Pakistan. Instead, the president has focused for the last three years on Russia. President Obama believes that the best way to deal with WMD is to lead by example. He holds that, as the United States and Russia recommit themselves to nuclear disarmament, other nations will be inspired to either give up their nuclear arms or refrain from acquiring any. It is a policy Keith B. Payne fairly labeled “nuclear utopianism.”

Read the rest at The National Interest.

GOP: Fewer Bikes, More Cars

Transferring funds reserved for bikeways and walkways to highways is not an April Fools' Day leftover, but a move under consideration by the Congress of the United States of America. The 20-year-old Transportation Enhancements program currently mandates that a small fraction, about 2 percent, of federal transportation funding be reserved for building bike lanes and pedestrian walkways, but critics of the program argue that scarce resources should go toward funding highways and bridges for vehicles. They argue that fixing crumbling bridges, improving road conditions, and reducing congestion on highways should be prioritized over "frivolous" programs in which they lump beautification projects in with bike paths.

Read the rest at The Huffington Post.

When to Intervene

Does the responsibility to protect doctrine allow for the toppling of regimes? A recent Clinton Global Initiative panel discussion refocused the debate about the conditions under which one nation is justified in intervening in the internal affairs of another nation.

Michael Gerson, a George W. Bush speechwriter and Washington Post columnist, made a strong case for intervening only when our national interests are involved. I agreed but argued for an exception, what might be called a moral minimum. I suggested that indeed if our interests are not significantly affected, we should stay out, both because otherwise we undermine the most elementary foundation of the international order—the Westphalian norm—and because once we march in, we tend to leave behind a sociological mess when we finally find an exit.

Read the rest at The National Interest.

Mars can wait. Oceans can't

While space travel still gets a lot of attention, not enough attention has been accorded to a major new expedition to the deepest point in the ocean, some 7 miles deep -- the recent journey by James Cameron, on behalf of National Geographic.

The cover story of the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs lays out the "Case for Space." "60 Minutes" recently ran a story about the dire effects on Florida's space industry of scaling back our extraterrestrial endeavors. Newt Gingrich gained attention earlier this year by calling for building a permanent base on the moon. And President Obama has talked of preparing to eventually send Americans into orbit around Mars.

Read the rest at CNN.

In Defense of Drones

Rarely has a critic made a stronger case for the program he is opposing than David Rohde’s brief against drones. Mr. Rohde—a Pulitzer Prize winner and widely read reporter—told NPR that there is one element of the Obama foreign-policy doctrine of multilateralism, transparency, and a focus on direct threats that “undermines that whole approach”: the lascivious use of drones.

Rohde told NPR in March that there has been an “extraordinary” increase in the use of drones by the Obama administration. It is five times larger than it was during the Bush era. Bush had forty-four strikes; Obama, by now, 239. However, if one takes into account that we are dealing with terrorists and insurgents in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and the Horn of Africa, among other places, over three years, one may wonder if the number is not rather small.

Read the rest at The National Interest.