From a Local Us to a Global We

 The Era of Exclusive National Self-Interest is Over

I was startled to hear Henry Kissinger, on a recent Charlie Rose program, suggest that the world’s countries can no longer afford to conduct foreign policy based solely on their own self-interest.  Globalization has progressed so far and the world has so dwindled in size, that every nation’s interest is now entangled with that of every other country.   From issues of global finance to rogue nuclear bombs to global warming and pandemic flu, we are now in a new era.  If the new world order has not yet arrived, it is certainly on its way.

Transformational Diplomacy Is at Hand

While former Secretary Kissinger did not quite say, “We must now think as one,” he came very close to it.  Even key Bush administration figures have changed their thinking radically in the past few years, and these changes came because raw experience on the ground fighting terror in Iraq and Afghanistan forced them to shift their approach.  Condoleeza Rice in the State Department has been calling for transformational diplomacy and the emphasis in that department is now on planning and implementing good governance.  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has also given speeches in the past year in which he declared that the sharp divisions between war, peace, diplomacy and development are no longer useful.  The goal is now to stabilize governments in troubled areas around the globe.

Failed States Endanger Everyone

Failed states present one of the most difficult challenges to peace in the twenty first century. From Somalia, where pirates attack ships because it is so lucrative, to raging war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where rape is a prime weapon, to the genocide in Darfur/Sudan, to the corrupt government in Afghanistan, installed by the U.S. after the fall of the Taliban, all of these states present ominous threats to the safety and security of  surrounding states, as well as to the western world, and they threaten the lives and health of millions of innocent women and children caught in the crossfire.

 The Desperate are Frightened, Hungry, Sick and Violent

The problems are deep and vast.  Millions of people desperate for the basics of life:  food, clean water, a roof over their heads, electricity, roads, sanitation, reliable government services that are not riddled with corruption, a money supply free from inflation.  In short, they long for a chance to make it in the world, a chance to survive and thrive without fear of being slaughtered, raped, tortured or dying of disease or starvation at a very young age.

How to Engage People Directly in Designing their Own Futures?

The question is how to engage the peoples of these failed states in the creation of their own futures. What kind of lives do they want to lead? What do they not have now that they long to have? What’s missing for them? Someone needs to ask them instead of assuming for them. Ask the people of Somalia and Congo. Ask the people of Zimbabwe.  Ask the ordinary people in Afghanistan–what do you want and how can the people of the world work with you such that all of us have lives that ennoble and honor us, and no one is left out? 

Fareed Zakaria points out that this is a time of opportunity when new approaches to global problems can be invented and new opportunities by the scores for creative action are presenting themselves.  Zakaria is a global thinker and we are going to need many more people like him in the years ahead.

It may be that we have reached a crossroads  in 2009. Perhaps we, in the U.S., have rejoined the community of nations.  We are ready, I believe, to become responsible global citizens at last. 

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