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.

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Nightmare Portends the Future? Two days after Election Day I awoke from a terrible nightmare.  A torturer had just cut off my legs and was forcing me to walk on the stubs of my legs. I woke up screaming.  Who was my torturer? Why this dream? Why now? In August 2001 I experienced repeated waves of doom that something dreadful was coming.

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 Calming The Fearful Mind: A Zen Response to Terrorism.  Thich Nhat Hanh. Parallax Press: Berkeley, CA, 2005. On An Idyllic Fall Day In September Seven years have passed since those haunting days in September 2001 when the airplanes hit the twin towers in NYC and Washington DC. As I sit here on this idyllic summer afternoon, it could even be today, and thousands could be going to their deaths.  In fact, in Afghanistan right now, they are. For terrorism is not over. To read the newspapers  it has barely gotten started.

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