Most of you already have forgotten all about the Olympics, but here at Undip, we already have London 2012 fever!  After all, who doesn’t want to see Jimmy Page balance his guitar on top of his walker while some eighteen-year-old in go-go boots mangles Whole Lotta Love?

Oh wait — that already happened.

All kidding aside, I’d like to share a few final thoughts on what arguably were the most discussed — and controversial — Olympics since Berlin 1936. First, let’s take a look at the winners.

1.  The Chinese government. Like it or not, the ChiComs pulled it off.  It was, in many ways, a spectacular show.  Despite some problems, embarrassments, and even a few unscripted moments, the Olympics that Hu Jintao and company wanted were the Olympics they got.  And most of the world bought their message hook, line, and sinker.

2.  Usain Bolt. The Jamaican sprinter not only captured three golds, but he managed to make Jacques Rogge cranky.  That alone made it a good Olympics.  Bolt looked particularly good when, a day after Rogge whined about his “antics,” a Cuban taekwondo athlete kicked an athlete in the face — and Bolt donated $50,000 of his prize money to earthquake relief as a “thank you to the Chinese people.”

3.  Michael Phelps (and his mom). Put it this way:  the Intertubes are still buzzing about the 100m fly.  Debbie Phelps will be the unexpected breakout star of the Olympics.

4.  Clean air. Does it matter whether the Chinese got lucky (rain at just the right moments) or actually knew what they were doing?  In the end, the pollution became a non-story.  And athletes who acted like it mattered — the American cyclists showing up in masks, the Ethiopian marathoner who passed on competing — looked foolish.

5.  Lopez Lomong. The Sudanese lost boy turned American flag bearer may not have won his race, but he had a gold medal moment.  Kudos as well to the American athletes who chose him for the job.

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When it comes to foreign policy, George W. Bush has managed to become the Bizarro Nixon.

Think about it.  As Rick Perlstein notes in Nixonland,

[Nixon] explained [his] strategic rationale:  I do not want to give the impression to the eight hundred million people of Communist China that they have no choice but to cooperate with the Soviet Union.” . . . China and Russia, as rivals, might someday compete for America’s favor by directing North Vietnam to reach a negotiated settlement.

Nixon understood that, in an era of waning American power (in the sense of a declining economy and the end of  overwhelming American military superiority), he needed to prevent a Soviet-Chinese rapprochement.  He recognized that, with U.S. troops pinned down in Vietnam, diplomatic audacity would have to replace more conventional projections of power.  Triangulation was the key:  play the Chinese off the Soviets, play the Soviets off the Chinese, and use both to secure as many American foreign policy goals as possible. He also realized that he couldn’t achieve any of this without making certain compromises — Taiwan in the case of the Chinese, the illusion of missile superiority in the case of the Soviet Union.

Contrast that with Bush, who seems determined to alienate as many countries as possible.  He damns Russia for Georgia, China for a whole bunch of things, Iran for nukes, Venezuela for Chavez, and so on.  The idealist in me appreciates his moral stances (even if it is wildly inconsistent with his Administration’s own human rights practices).  But the realist recognizes that he’s succeeding in isolating the United States to a degree almost unprecedented in our history.

So here we are, thirty-odd years later, once again in an era of waning American superiority.  American troops are pinned down, this time in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The economy is in steep decline, except this time it is China rather than Japan challenging us.  Our capacity to project American power is at best limited and at worst non-existent.

But instead of using diplomacy to protect American interests by making limited concessions to those who would like nothing better to contest our position in the world, Bush’s actions are driving other countries to unite against us.

What’s the opposite of triangulation?  Pointillism? Whatever it’s called, even Nixon would have recognized it as both foolish and profoundly dangerous.

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So President Bush met with the foreign-language press on Wednesday.  They had a contest to see who could do a better job of mangling the English language.

Now calm down.  I’m kidding of course. President Bush can mangle English better than anybody.

In any case, we have a special edition of the Diplospeak Translator today:  it’s one part DT and one part Bushisms.  The latter are underlined.  And as is usually the case, we bring you only the choicest cuts:

DUBYA: As you all know, the itinerary is South Korea, Thailand and then China. China will be a mix of — South Korea will be all diplomacy; get a chance to see my friend, the President; a good discussion about common issues. I’ll see the Prime Minister of Thailand for a nice dinner.

DIPLOSPEAK TRANSLATOR:  I really like the Thai food.  Especially those chicken on a stick thingies.  Chinese, not so much — except the King Kong Chicken.

DUBYA: Relations with the three nations that I have just described are good, strong. My trip will help advance them, the relations.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Jim Hoagland wants to “blow up” the G-8 and replace it with a G-3:

Predictable suggestions that this body be expanded to a G-13 or a G-20 go in the absolute wrong direction. More expansion will destroy any opportunity for informal, effective consultation by world leaders. They will be talking for the press releases, not for each other. Such proposals should be put forward only as cover for a more sensible proposition: The United States, the European Union and Japan should quietly form a G-3 that would operate in the shadows of the much larger talk shop.

Oh boy would that be a good idea incredibly stupid thing to do:  alienate everybody except Japan, the one country without the capacity to help us militarily.

The French, Brits, and Germans would be angry because their three votes would be reduced to one, not to mention the fact that the EU would be represented by whichever country happens to hold the Presidency  (right now, that would be France, but come January it would be the Czech Republic, whose economy currently ranks somewhere between 31st and 40th largest, depending on your source).

The Russians, who already disdain us (as we do them), would get even madder.

The Chinese, Spanish, Brazilians, Indians, and Koreans would have brand new reasons to be annoyed with the arrogance of our foreign policy.

The Canadians and Italians would be upset at being kicked out of the one club where they are somewhat relevant.  And of course, we would look like the big bully once again.

I’m no fan of the G-8.  I think it’s the wrong grouping for the wrong reasons.  I agree with Hoagland that it’s not a very useful construct.  Every two years these (mostly) guys get together and set out an ambitious agenda on a given problem or set of problems, which they then trumpet as a breakthrough.  Two years ago, it was Africa, debt, and development (thanks largely to Bono and Blair).  This time, it’s (again) climate change and the rapid rise in commodity prices.  But if the past is prologue, they’ll negotiate until the last minute, issue a communique, and then… go home.  Little else ever comes of these “breakthroughs.”  And that doesn’t even get to the fact that the host country has to establish a miniature police state to make the event happen.

Part of the problem, as Hoagland notes, is that the G-8 really doesn’t have a clear definition of membership.  That is in part a consequence of the dumb decision to admit Russia in the post-Cold-War-end-of-history euphoria of the 1990s (I would not be the first to call this one of Clinton’s dumber ideas).  But it also is a product of the fact that the G-8 (with that one exception) has remained a static body while the world has changed.

So what is the G-8?  To put it in Jim Collins’ Good to Great terms, what is its hedgehog concept?  Is it a gathering of the world’s largest economies?  If so, what’s Russia doing there?  Is it the world’s largest democratic economies?  Again, Russia disproves that.  Furthermore, Spain (which by some (but not all) accounts has surpassed Canada in terms of nominal GDP), India, and Korea have just as much right to a place at the table as the Canadians.

I also have a hard time understanding why China is excluded when Russia remains at the table.  It’s either the world’s biggest economies or it’s the world’s biggest democratic economies.  Right now it’s a ridiculous hybrid.

Instead of maintaining the status quo or arbitrarily growing the club to include/exclude certain countries, why not draw a line that gives countries aspiring to membership a clearly delineated criteria for membership?  From now on, The G-xx will include

1. only those economies whose annual GDP is equal to US$1 million or greater;
2. only those democratic economies whose annual GDP is equal to US$1 million or greater; or
3. some other equally arbitrary criteria that is clear to outsiders.

Doing this might create incentives for economic growth and perhaps even democratic governance.

Of course, the problem is deciding whose standard to use.  If we were to use the first criteria listed above, would the membership be ten (using World Bank numbers) or twelve (using those of the IMF)?  That explains one of the real reasons the group hasn’t changed:  everyone is terrified of making somebody else angry.

I recognize none of what I’m proposing is new:  as Hoagland notes, there are numerous proposals to expand the group to a G-13 and even a G-20.  But instead of coming up with a bad idea to fill a column, let’s acknowledge the truth of the matter:  the time has come to revise G-8’s mission statement or abolish it altogether.

Of course, the chances of this happening are almost infinitesimal — if it takes these guys months to negotiate a statement on debt relief, imagine how long this project would take?

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