That Foreign Policy Debate We're Not Having

Part of the problem is what it's called. Because foreign policy is not "foreign," it's geopolitics. The underlying essential dynamics of geopolitics deeply affect domestic politics. In the flows of energy and capital and products and people, in our military budget, in our environment, and in flash-point electoral politics. When there is debate, we end up debating symptoms -- illegal immigration from Mexico, a surge in Iraq -- rather than systems.
There's the question of fast-emerging China, which increasingly builds the products we buy, affecting our manufacturing base and balance of trade. And which increasingly finances our debt, giving us the money to buy our oil and making our financial system vulnerable in still more ways than we are grappling with today. At least China is getting some attention. Thanks to its hosting of the Olympics, of course.

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