Are Americans becoming more isolationist? That appears to be the top-line conclusion from a fascinating new poll released this week by the Pew Research Center and my organization, the Council on Foreign Relations, called America’s Place in the World 2013. In the survey, 52 percent of Americans said that the United States should “mind its own business internationally,” the highest percentage since the question was first asked in 1964, and up from just 30 percent a decade ago.

Similarly, 80 percent of Americans agreed with the statement: “We should not think so much in international terms but concentrate more on our national problems and building up our strength and prosperity here at home.” This is again a record number, and one that has increased fairly steadily over the past half century. It is certainly easy to conclude from numbers like these that America is turning inward.

But I read the poll quite differently. Instead of a cry for withdrawal, Americans want to engage the world in ways that make the United States stronger at home, and reverse the long, insidious decline in living standards for many Americans. The most surprising result in the poll was that — despite continued weak growth, rising inequality, high unemployment and stagnant wages — fully 77 percent said that increasing trade and business ties with the rest of the world is a good thing for the United States. Two-thirds say they see more benefits than risks from engagement in the global economy.

The message is very clear: Americans do not want to withdraw from the world, but rather embrace it in ways that bring greater benefits to more Americans. In the face of rising economic challenges and fierce international competition, the public is not calling for withdrawal but rather for measures that increase the gains from globalization. That was the core recommendation of the CFR Independent Task Force on U.S. Trade and Investment Policy, on which I served as co-project director, which called for “a pro-America trade policy that brings to more Americans more of the benefits of global engagement.”

An equally fascinating insight from the poll is that achieving that goal of more broadly shared benefits from globalization may require a re-thinking by America’s elite more than by its broader public. Alongside the general public opinion survey, Pew surveyed nearly 2,000 members of the Council on Foreign Relations. CFR members are, by any reasonable definition, an elite, representing those with distinguished records of success in business, finance, politics, government, law and other fields. (Full disclosure – while I am employed by the Council on Foreign Relations and work with CFR members in many different capacities, I am not a “member” of CFR.)

On most questions asked in the survey, the public is not markedly more isolationist than CFR members, which is a surprising result. Both are similarly concerned about discouraging terrorist attacks and preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and are similarly cautious over policies aimed at improving living standards in developing nations and promoting democracy. CFR members are more worried about climate change (57 percent vs. 37 percent of the public), but the public is actually more keen on strengthing the United Nations (37 percent vs 17 percent for CFR members) and promoting human rights abroad (33 vs. 19).

Where the differences are stark, Pew notes, is that “many of the public’s domestically oriented goals are not shared by most members of the Council on Foreign Relations.” Fully 81 percent of Americans believe that “protecting jobs of American workers” should be a top foreign policy concern vs. just 29 percent of CFR members. And only one-in-ten CFR members is worried about reducing illegal immigration, compared to half of the general public.

The poll does not try to explain those big gaps, but the reasons are fairly easy to deduce. CFR members are generally not concerned about losing their jobs to overseas competition – indeed they mostly fall into a social class that has prospered from globalization. Nor would they be much concerned over competition for jobs from unauthorized immigrants, which affects primarily low-skilled, low-wage Americans. It is possible that slightly different wordings would have elicited different responses. “Protectionism” is such a discredited term, for example, that if the poll had asked instead about “expanding jobs for American workers,” CFR members might have been more enthusiastic. But there is clearly a great divide here.

I found one question particularly fascinating. When asked whether it was a good for the U.S. economy if foreign companies set up operations, not surprisingly 96 percent of CFR members agreed. But 62 percent of the general public also favors such foreign investment, presumably for the jobs and higher wages it brings. Going the other way, however, 73 percent of CFR members also thought it was also good for the U.S. economy if American companies move abroad; an equal number of the general public disagreed, saying this would hurt the U.S. economy. Again, the difference is not surprising. As my former Financial Times colleague (and now Liberal member of the Canadian Parliament) Chrystia Freeland has written so eloquently, the new elite is global and mobile, whereas most Americans are not.

The poll results represent a clear challenge to those who have benefited greatly from globalization to help in spreading those benefits more widely. It is not a cry from an American public that wants to reject the world, but rather a plea from many who want to be fully included.

“First, we need to couple immediate federal spending on public assets with substantial, credible deficit-reduction measures that are scheduled to take effect later on. Such a ‘barbell’ approach to fiscal policy would require that Republicans acknowledge the value of additional stimulus while the unemployment rate is high, and that Democrats see how Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security could be preserved and strengthened through certain cost-saving measures over time,” he says.

Read the full Bloomberg article here.

“It made my day… I and my friends expected war if Romney won.” – Sima, a businesswoman in Tehran

“President Obama will press for human rights and democracy to leave his marks in history…Also, the re-election reinforces the drive for peace rather than wars in the region especially with regards to Iran.” – Jasim Husain, a former MP and economist in Bahrain

“He changed nothing during his first term and he won’t improve things in the next four years.” – Umm Omar, a thirty-four year-old resident of Damascus said of President Obama

There’s an old saying that the one you know is better than the one you don’t know…we know Obama, but not Romney.” – Hassan Gunnay, a twenty-two year-old from Sirte, Libya

“Your re-election gives you a second important chance to achieve peace in the Middle East…The future of the Middle East hinges on finding a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” – a statement quoted King Abdullah of Jordan as saying in a letter to Obama.

“Washington’s policy will remain the same. Obama can’t do anything; he lacks the will,” Abu Ismail, a beggar who lives in Damascus

“Obama is closer to Egyptians and the Arabs…Romney, I think, is farther from us.” – Mohamed Samir, 30, a financial systems consultant in Cairo expressing his relief that Obama was reelected

“Everyone thought Obama would help us, but he always sides with Israel…We don’t like him.” – Ahmed Abdeen, a twenty-seven year-old manager at a home-appliance shop in Ramallah

“We hope this victory for President Obama will make him free more to make the right decision to help freedom and dignity in Syria and all over the world.” – SNC spokesman George Sabra on the sidelines of an opposition conference on the Qatari capital of Doha

The World Next Week podcast is up. Bob McMahon and I discussed what the lame duck Congress will do now that President Barack Obama has won a second term; Greece’s vote on a yet another austerity package; and California’s upcoming auction of carbon pollution allowances.

The highlights:

• After two years of campaigning and more than $6 billion spent on ads, events, and strategists, Election 2012 yielded—the status quo. President Obama gets a second term, Democrats hold onto the Senate, and Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives. Now the two parties must confront the issue they have been kicking down the road for the past year: the approaching “fiscal cliff.” Economists predict that going over the fiscal cliff could shave up to five percentage points off the U.S. gross domestic product. You don’t need to be a PhD to know that would be bad. That doesn’t mean that the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue will find a reasonable compromise, however. The next two months will be rocky.
• The Greek parliament meets next week to vote on a new austerity package. The argument for pulling the belt a little bit tighter is that it will unlock a fresh influx of aid to keep the Greek economy going. But even if Greek parliamentarians vote for belt tightening, many economists still don’t see how Greece will remain part of the eurozone over the long term. A “Grexit” from the eurozone would send shockwaves not just through Europe but through the entire international financial system.
• Hurricane Sandy prompted considerable talk about the need for the United States to confront the reality of climate change. While Washington, DC prefers to ignore the issue, California is set to hold the nation’s largest ever auction of carbon pollution allowances as part of its cap-and-trade program. The auction will not be a game changer by itself. But it does highlight how action at the state and local level can be a way to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases while national and multilateral efforts continue to falter.
• Bob’s Figure of the Week is 31. My Figure of the Week is Barack Obama. As always, you’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out why.

For more on the topics we discussed in the podcast check out:

The U.S. Congress returns for a lame duck session: USA Today writes on the consequences of re-electing a divided Congress. CNN reports that Speaker of the House John Boehner predicts a temporary solution to postpone spending cuts. Reuters predicts that the lawmakers will wait until the February or March deadline to resolve the debt-limit debate. Bloomberg claims that the Republican House will only be more motivated to push for a smaller government.

Greek parliament votes on critical budget: Bloomberg Businessweek outlines the proposed budget and identifies its supporters and opponents. The New York Times reflects on the consequences of the austerity package. USA Today describes the extent of the protests taking place in Greece. Reuters reports on the sentiments of Greek civilians participating in protests.

California auctions carbon pollution allowances: The Washington Post comments on the change in state policy on climate and energy issues. The Los Angeles Times outlines the specifics of the auction as well as California’s cap-and-trade system. Reuters describes the auction’s potential financial impact on Californian businesses. Bloomberg Businessweek warns that a rule change in California’s carbon market may cause potential carbon bidders to reconsider.

There is an idea that is dear to the hearts of every candidate that ought to be discarded, at least until the U.S. electoral map shifts dramatically from what it has been in recent years: that the victor walks away with a “mandate” for action. The reality is that presidential and congressional elections no longer produce a mandate for much of anything. The sooner we drop that notion, the sooner our elected officials can get on with the messy business of actually governing a divided country.

Webster’s defines mandate as “an authorization to act.” Whichever presidential candidate wins this election, he will not have a clear authorization to act, because a nearly equal number of voters will have cast their ballots for the other guy. The outcome in Congress is unlikely to be any more decisive. To claim a mandate from such a narrow victory is to torture the word.

The temptation for political leaders is obviously great. U.S. campaigns have become such grueling and expensive endurance contests that politicians can be forgiven for thinking that victory must be the final word. But after once again sifting through a record barrage of advertisements, speeches, and debates, the voters keep delivering the same message – that they don’t believe either political party has all the right answers. They keep sending Republicans and Democrats to Washington in almost equal numbers in the so-far futile hope that their representatives will get the hint and figure out how to start working together.

The right response to a narrow victory is for both sides – winners and losers — to acknowledge that voters are asking for a bit of both, for the best ideas from each party to address the serious challenges facing the United States. The wrong response – though sadly the more likely one based on recent evidence – is that the losers double down to overturn the result the next time around, and the winners try to use their narrow majority to squeeze through divisive measures while they still cling to power.

This election will not produce any mandate, but with a touch of humility on each side it could produce a chance for more sensible and effective government, something this country badly needs.

“In the United States, you have a new elected president every four years. But here we are living with a king and the same prime minster for forty-two years.” – Yousif al-Muhafdah, a Bahraini human rights activist on Friday

“The behavior of the Syrian popular forces  is very similar to that of the Iranian Basij, therefore it is assumed that Iranian forces are present…If we are talking about the transfer and sharing of experience [between Iran and Syria] then it is only natural that such a thing should exist, but we are focusing on the fact that there are no Iranian forces present in Syria.” – Muhammad Reza Naghdi, commander of Iran’s Basij volunteer paramilitary force, said Wednesday according to the Iranian Students’ News Agency

“I guess they saw us as bad guys then, and they see us as the bad guys now…Our reasoning doesn’t sell movie tickets, I assume.” – Abbas Abdi, one of the 1979 Iranian hostage-takers, after watching a bootleg copy of Argo

“Five minutes after, contrary to what the skeptics say, I think a feeling of relief would spread across the region…Iran is not popular in the Arab world, far from it, and some governments in the region, as well as their citizens, have understood that a nuclear armed Iran would be dangerous for them, not just for Israel.” – Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published last Tuesday with French magazine Paris Match

“This cannot be an opposition represented by people who have many good attributes but who, in many instances, have not been inside Syria for twenty, thirty, forty years…There has to be a representation of those who are in the front lines fighting and dying today to obtain their freedom…We’ve made it clear that the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition…but that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice that needs to be heard.” – U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton said Wednesday during a visit to Croatia

“We haven’t learned anything since the murder. We have here unprecedented political radicalization. We’ve gone farther than ever and now it turns out that the murder was just a stop on the way.” – Rachel Rabin Yaakov, sister of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, speaking seventeen years after her brother’s assassination

“I am going to make war on these people because the interior minister and the leaders of Ennahda have chosen the United States as their god – it is the Americans who are writing the laws and the new constitution.” – Nasreddine Aloui, a Tunisian imam, said in a Thursday night appearance on Ettounsiya television

“The current circumstances require that we bear our responsibilities. We cannot leave the country in vacuum because it may lead to chaos…National issues cannot be resolved through stubbornness and obstinacy but through dialogue that allows reaching [solutions] that fortify Lebanon amid [current] dangerous regional circumstances.” – Lebanese prime minister Najib Miqati said last Tuesday

Former New York Times correspondent and current CFR.org consulting editor Bernard Gwertzman interviewed me the other day about the foreign policy challenges awaiting whoever wins next Tuesday’s election. The interview is now up on CFR.org.

Many of the issues the next president will face overseas are predictable: Afghanistan, China, Russia, Syria, climate change, and so forth. But as I told Bernie:

The one lesson for all presidents is that you can expect foreign policy to throw up challenges that you’ve never dreamed of on Inauguration Day. That’s what happened to George W. Bush with 9/11, and it happened with Barack Obama with the Arab Spring. So whoever takes the oath of office on January 20, 2013 is inevitably going to face some crisis overseas that he hadn’t anticipated.

It’s pretty easy to expand the list of foreign policy issues that presidents didn’t anticipate when they were on the campaign trail. Ronald Reagan wasn’t talking about Lebanon in 1980. George H.W. Bush wasn’t talking about the collapse of the Soviet Union or the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1988. Bill Clinton wasn’t talking about Haiti and Osama bin Laden in 1992.

That leads to a question: what are the foreign policy issues that we aren’t talking about today but that nonetheless will end up consuming a big chunk of the next president’s time? Feel free to offer your ideas in the comment boxes below.

The World Next Week podcast is up. Bob McMahon and I discussed the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy; next week’s presidential election; and China’s change in leadership.

The highlights:

• Hurricane Sandy unfortunately lived up to its billing as a megastorm. New York City and New Jersey were especially hard hit. It could be weeks before power is fully restored to the region. Rebuilding what was destroyed will take much longer. While that construction takes place, debate over climate change is likely to heat up. Even if one rejects the scientific consensus that human behavior is partly responsible for climate change, rising sea levels are a reality. They pose a threat to people—like many New Yorkers and New Jerseyites—who live in low-lying coastal regions.  Where to rebuild and how to prepare against more large-scale floods in the future will raise questions that are both politically difficult and economically expensive to answer.
• How Hurricane Sandy might influence the outcome of next Tuesday’s presidential vote has been a hot topic among election aficionados. Some experts speculate that the storm helps President Obama by giving him an opportunity to appear presidential and pushing Governor Romney out of the news. Other experts argue with equal passion that the storm benefits Romney because bad news of any sort always hurts the incumbent. Poll watchers will be looking to see if the aftermath of Sandy depresses turnout in eastern Pennsylvania, which happens to lean Democratic, potentially (and unexpectedly) throwing the Keystone State into the Republican column. We will find out who (if anyone) is right in just five days.
• The Chinese Communist Party is preparing to meet in Beijing later this month for its eighteenth party congress. The meeting is expected to formalize the presumed transfer of power to China’s new leader, Xi Jinping. He will have to deal not only with continued speculation about his health—he disappeared from public view for a while back in September—but also the health of the Chinese economy and polity. Chinese economic growth remains impressive, but it is running well below the ten percent annual growth rates of just a few years ago. Meanwhile, rumblings about the corruption of China’s political elite and the vast gap between the country’s rich and poor continue to grow.
• Bob’s Figure of the Week is Riyad Hijab. My Figure of the Week is 11.6 percent. As always, you’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out why.

For more on the topics we discussed in the podcast check out:

The U.S. Northeast recovers from Superstorm Sandy: The New York Times describes the extent of the devastation in the New York region and beyond. The Wall Street Journal details the damage caused by the storm and the slow recovery efforts. NPR writes on the challenges of restoring the affected areas of the U.S. power grid. The Washington Post compares Sandy to Katrina and remains optimistic about economic recovery from the storm.

U.S. presidential elections (finally) take place: The New Yorker argues that Sandy will play a political role in the upcoming election. Businessweek suggests that the federal government’s handling of Hurricane Sandy may help Obama on Election Day. Nate Silver predicts that the Republicans won’t win a majority in the Senate, despite Romney’s rise in the polls.

China appoints new leadership: The Los Angeles Times describes how the Chinese Communist Party is seeking public support and creating an illusion of civilian participation.  CNN’s Global Public Square writes that the secrecy of the Chinese Communist Party makes it impossible to predict the course or political leanings of the new leadership  The Economist urges Xi Jinping to break from China’s past and install democratic reform. Al-Jazeera writes on the increasing pressure on the new leadership to implement changes in Chinese society.

The final presidential debate last night shed some light on the two foreign policy paths that the United States might walk for the next four years. For all the sturm and drang of campaign rhetoric, on the biggest issues discussed—the U.S. role in the world, relations with China, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and how to deal with terrorism—there is not too much daylight between these men. But even so, as I’ve written before, there are sources of disagreement—including national defense budgets, democracy promotion, foreign aid, and U.S.-Russian relations that are evidence of their divergent outlooks.

First, to recap, neither President Obama nor Governor Romney emerged as an absolute winner Monday night.  On points, one might award a higher score to Obama for substance, and for rebutting Governor Romney enthusiastically. On the other hand, the governor may have won on style given that his main task for the campaign was to look presidential alongside the commander in chief—and he easily cleared that bar. He was reassuring and communicated a reasonable outlook that did not recall the neoconservative stance of George W. Bush, whose foreign policy disillusioned many voters. President Obama sought to paint Romney as an inconsistent amateur, but the governor did not bite and stayed cool.

The major source of disagreement was over Romney’s characterization of a Middle East—and indeed a world—“unraveling before our eyes” in a rising tide of tumult and chaos, a trend he attributed to failed U.S. leadership.  He described a Middle East ablaze—with over thirty thousand civilian casualties in Syria, with Egypt in the dangerous hands of Islamists, with Libya at the mercy of armed gangs, with Mali controlled by al-Qaeda, with Iran “four years closer to the bomb,” and with Israel alienated from the United States. President Obama repeatedly challenged this portrayal, arguing vehemently that the Middle East and the world were better off than four years ago as Iran stands more isolated than ever under crippling sanctions, as Libyan and Egyptian civilians live in new democracies, as al-Qaeda’s core leadership remains decimated, and as Israel and the United States are joined at the hip on security.

Beyond this rhetoric, neither politician addressed the question of what, in practical terms, the United States can do to steer events in the turbulent Middle East or how much leverage over internal developments in these countries the United States truly possesses. Even where the candidates concretely disagreed, it was not always clear what a new President Romney would do differently if elected. This reflects in part the particular topics chosen. (It was not exactly wide-ranging—there was virtually no mention of Africa, Europe, Latin America, Asia outside of China, or the challenge of global development, much less climate change). But it also reflects the innate pragmatism of both candidates, and the fact that the differences are subtle (but sometimes important).

But on four issues, President Obama and Governor Romney offered starkly different visions:

• National Defense: Whereas Obama plans to decrease military spending to 2.9 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), Romney advocates increasing that proportion to 4 percent, despite winding down two wars. This difference led to one of most memorable exchanges of the evening, when Romney claimed we’d be left with fewer ships than since 1917 under Obama’s plan, which prompted the president to remind him we also have fewer bayonets and horses, since technology changes, and that the United States today relies more heavily on aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. The president also pointed out that Governor Romney proposes a military budget increase that the Pentagon has not requested, and that the United States already spends more than the next ten (thirteen as a matter of fact) countries combined on total military expenditures.
• The “Freedom Agenda”: Governor Romney clearly suggested that he would more vigorously pursue neo-Reaganite democracy and human rights promotion (as evidenced by his criticism of Obama’s response to the Green Revolution in Iran, the Arab Spring, and his call for a “comprehensive approach” to fight extremism). However, differences may prove more rhetorical than real if Romney is elected and faces trade-offs between strategic interests and ideology.
• Russia: President Obama mocked Romney for calling Russia “our number one geopolitical foe” and for subscribing to Cold War nostalgia. Romney deflected the criticism  insisting that the administration “reset” had been naïve about Putin—and that under a Romney administration Moscow would face not “more flexibility” but “more backbone.”
• On Foreign Aid: Romney pledged to make foreign aid more conditional—and consistent with U.S. foreign policy priorities. The governor added that he would target aid more toward the  private sector and foreign entrepreneurs.

Outside of those four issues, striking similarities emerged:

•  The U.S. Role in the World:  Romney argued that the United States must be strong enough to lead the world, defend freedom, and secure world peace. Obama largely agreed, noting that the United States remains the “indispensable” nation. Neither candidate is straying from the talking points of American exceptionalism.
• Terrorism and violent extremism. Both candidates supported drone strikes, and agreed on the need for a more comprehensive approach to extremism. President Obama, in response to Romney’s calls for the latter, effectively said: “We’re already doing that”­—and pointed to outreach efforts to help disadvantaged or oppressed women and educational assistance to give young potential extremists other breadwinning options.
• Afghanistan: Romney clarified that under his command troops will exit Afghanistan by the end of 2014—basically reflecting Joe Biden’s strategy. Like President Obama, Romney agreed that the Afghan military and government must face pressure to be self-reliant.
• Pakistan: Romney expressed the same frustrations and anxieties U.S. leaders have experienced for years—but agreed with the president that the United States cannot divorce itself from the troubled ally. His diagnosis of Pakistani fragility and the danger of loose nukes appeared indistinguishable from President Obama’s. But the governor was silent on how to cajole the Pakistani government into a more reliable alliance, or on how to assist the fragile central government consolidate security within its borders.
• Israel: When Israel surfaced in the discussion, the two men competed to express more passionate commitment to Israeli security, without offering distinct strategies.
• Syria: Governor Romney again criticized the administration for inaction and impotent deference to the United Nations, but, when pressed, the candidate shied away from the notion of a no-fly zone, much less U.S. boots on ground. His criticism ultimately boiled down to Obama’s failure to organize and arm the opposition more vigorously. Obama retorted that the United States is doing just what the governor suggests—but needs to be deliberate and cautious to avoid arming al-Qaeda, with which Romney then agreed. Still, the president had no new initiatives to offer here to stem the growing bloodshed in the Syrian civil war and its flood of refugees.
• Iran: Both candidates agreed that Iran must not acquire nuclear weapons, both described military action as last resort, and both called for “crippling sanctions.” Obama argued that the current round of sanctions is devastating Iran’s economy but Romney countered that the sanctions need to be tighter, directed at oil, and even called for the Iranian regime to be indicted under the genocide convention (but interestingly not the ICC). But no real difference emerged over the two candidates’ red lines. Obama definitively stated that the United States will not allow Iran to acquire breakout capability.
• On China:  Obama and Romney agreed that China must “play by the rules” and competed to show how tough they had been on China’s unfair trade practices.  Obama referred to his administration’s complaints at the World Trade Organization over Chinese steel and tire exports. Romney was more forceful and again pledged to label China a “currency manipulator” on day one, prosecute Chinese international property right theft and address counterfeiting. But Will Romney risk a trade war, given that China is holding large dollar reserves?

I have a suggestion for everyone who writes about international trade: it is time to bury, once and for all, the concept of a “trade war.” The phrase is so ubiquitous that it will be awfully hard to abolish; I have probably been guilty myself from time to time. Indeed, it is almost a reflex that every time the United States or some other nation takes any action that restricts imports in any fashion, reporters and editorial writers jump to their keyboards to warn that a trade war is looming. But it is a canard that makes it far harder to have a sensible discussion about U.S. trade policy.

No sooner had President Obama and Mitt Romney finished their latest round of “who’s tougher on trade with China?” in their final debate Monday night than the New York Times – to take one of many possible examples – warned that “formally citing Beijing as a currency manipulator may backfire, economic and foreign-policy experts have said. In the worst case, it could set off a trade war, leading to falling American exports to China and more expensive Chinese imports.”

But what exactly is a “trade war”? To take the U.S.-China example, the notion seems to be that, if the United States restricts Chinese imports, China will respond by restricting imports of U.S. goods, in turn leading to further U.S. restrictions and so on and so on until trade between the two countries plummets.

The closest historical example is the reaction to the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariff act of 1930, which raised the average U.S. tariff on imports to historically high levels. As trade historian Douglas Irwin of Dartmouth has shown persuasively, Smoot-Hawley did not cause the Great Depression, and probably did not even exacerbate it very much since trade was a tiny part of the U.S. economy. But Smoot-Hawley did result in Great Britain, Canada and other U.S. trading partners raising their own tariffs in response. Irwin suggests that the higher tariffs were probably responsible for about a third of the 40 percent drop in imports between 1929 and 1932, and perhaps a slightly higher percentage of export losses. And the new trade barriers put in place took many decades to dismantle.

With imports and exports today comprising roughly a third of the U.S. economy, and the few remaining tariffs mostly in the single digits, the consequences of similar tit-for-tat tariff increases today would be far more severe. But what are the chances of such a “trade war” actually occurring? Pretty close to zero, for two big reasons.

First, in 1930, there was no World Trade Organization, no North American Free Trade Agreement, no European Community/Union – in short, no rules to prevent countries from jacking up tariffs or imposing quotas whenever governments felt domestic political pressure to do so. Today, such unilateral action is largely forbidden. Indeed, the tit-for-tat measures we have seen in the U.S.-China trade relationship have all been taken within the framework of WTO rules. When the Obama administration curbed purchases of Chinese steel in 2009 under the “Buy America” provisions of the stimulus, for example, China responded with an “anti-dumping” case which led to tariffs on imports of U.S. steel. But the United States challenged that action in the WTO, and just last week the WTO ordered China to lift the duties. No trade war – instead the phrase “see you in court” comes to mind.

Secondly, almost every nation in the world seems fully aware of the dangers of aggressive protectionism. One of the striking things about the Great Recession– which resulted in global trade volumes plunging by more than 12 percent in 2009, the biggest drop since World War II – is how little of the protectionism that is permitted under WTO rules actually occurred. Chad Bown of the World Bank has documented the surprising low level of new trade barriers imposed during the recession and its aftermath.

The danger of competitive currency devaluations – which are not clearly covered under WTO rules – is a greater threat than tariffs. This is one of the reasons that Romney’s pledge to label China a currency manipulator could be playing with fire, particularly after more than seven years in which the value of the renminbi has been creeping up steadily against the dollar. And his suggestion that the United States would impose tariffs in response is just silly – it would be a blatant violation of WTO rules and would quickly be slapped down as such. Again, however, no trade war – just an unfavorable WTO decision with which a Romney administration would quickly comply.

The real questions about trade restrictions should be practical ones – are the gains to the economy worth the costs? Generally, the answer is no, because free competition is a good thing for consumers and competitive businesses. But sometimes protecting a viable domestic industry temporarily against a flood of low-priced imports makes sense, which is why the WTO has rules permitting temporary safeguards. Sometimes foreign subsidies make fair competition impossible, which is why the WTO permits tariffs against dumped or subsidized imports. Such actions raise prices for U.S. consumers, but may still on balance bring benefits to the U.S. economy.

The “trade war” threat stifles reasonable debate, because every trade action – however modest — is assumed to cause a self-destructive over-reaction by trading partners. So I hereby pledge to abolish the phrase from all my future writings on the subject. I hope others will do the same.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney meet tonight in Boca Raton, Florida to debate foreign policy. Both campaigns see the third and final debate as their best opportunity to reach the public before Election Day. The two candidates will be speaking to voters who expect to hear affirmations of U.S. leadership but who are also skeptical of foreign entanglements in the midst of tough economic times and after more than a decade of war.

Although the harsh rhetoric on the campaign trail sometimes suggests otherwise, Monday night’s debate won’t pit fundamentally different visions of American foreign policy against each other. Obama’s and Romney’s views are broadly similar. Both men are internationalists with a strong pragmatic streak; they largely agree on the chief threats the United States faces overseas. The imperatives of the debate, however, will push the two candidates to stress their differences far more than their similarities.

The six topics that moderator Bob Scheiffer has selected for discussion—one for each of the debate’s six fifteen-minute sections—focus primarily on the Greater Middle East. Obama and Romney largely agree on U.S. objectives in the region: stopping Iran from going nuclear, supporting Israel, turning security responsibilities over to the Afghans by 2014, encouraging the ouster of the al-Assad government in Syria, and dismantling al Qaeda and its affiliates. Their differences are primarily over details, tactics, and tone. One potentially significant difference is whether the United States should seek to deny Iran a nuclear weapon, as Obama has argued, or even a nuclear capability, as Romney has contended.

The one country outside the Greater Middle East that the candidates will discuss is China. Romney has accused Obama of failing to vigorously challenge predatory Chinese trade practices and has pledged to label China a “currency manipulator” once in office. A scrap over currency practices might not leave time to discuss an equally important issue, China’s growing military power in Asia.

Several critical foreign policy issues didn’t make the cut for the debate. Mexico isn’t on the agenda, even though growing drug-related violence there could have a substantial consequences for the United States. Neither is defense spending nor U.S.-Russian relations, despite the fact that Romney pledges to increase the defense budget substantially and argues that Russia constitutes America’s “number one geopolitical foe.” Other topics not slated for discussion include climate change, the Eurozone crisis, foreign aid, Africa, Venezuela, and global health.

Will Monday night’s debate determine the election? Probably not. Presidential debates seldom move public opinion much or for very long. This tendency is especially likely to hold now because voters are far more worried about jobs and the economy than about foreign policy.

Finally, a historical irony: tonight’s debate comes on the fiftieth anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s televised address to the nation that the Soviets had begun installing nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba. That crisis took the world to the brink of nuclear war. Its anniversary is a solemn reminder of the stakes in foreign policy.

This article is also posted at PBS Newshour.

President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney meet tonight in Boca Raton, Florida to debate foreign policy. Both men hope that what they say will move voters in their direction. But that’s not always how debates go. Here are five memorable moments from past debates when presidents took on foreign policy.

1976: Gerald Ford entered his second debate with Jimmy Carter hoping to regain momentum. He ended up doing the opposite. Ford ended an answer about his policy toward the Soviet Union by saying: “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.” The perplexed moderator gave Ford an opportunity to revise his remark, but he only dug a deeper hole, insisting that Yugoslavians, Romanians, and Poles didn’t consider themselves dominated by the Soviets. Ford said after the debate that he was arguing that the Soviets couldn’t crush Eastern Europe’s indomitable spirit. But the political damage had been done.

1980: The lone 1980 presidential debate is best remembered for Ronald Reagan derailing Jimmy Carter’s criticisms by saying, “There you go again.” But Carter also hurt himself when he said, “I had a discussion with my daughter Amy the other day before I came here to ask her what the most important issue was. She said she thought nuclear weaponry.” The vision of the leader of the free world discussing matters of state with his thirteen year-old daughter unwittingly handed Republicans an applause line. They ran with it. At one campaign stop the crowd roared when Reagan joked, “I remember when Patti and Ron were little tiny kids, we used to talk about nuclear power.”

1984: Reagan looked tired and slow during his first debate against Walter Mondale. Pundits began to write his political obituary. At the second debate, however, Reagan was asked whether he still had the stamina to handle a major national security crisis. The seventy-three year-old replied: “I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” The quip brought down the house. The “Gipper” was back and Mondale’s momentum was gone.

1992: Ross Perot made news this week by endorsing Romney. Twenty years ago he made news by becoming the only third-party candidate to stand on the presidential debate stage. He made it memorable. He warned that if Congress approved NAFTA that Americans could expect to hear a “job-sucking sound going south” as companies moved to Mexico to cut costs. Perot was wrong on the merits—NAFTA ended up benefiting both the U.S. and Mexican economies. But his vivid phrase, which morphed in the retelling into “a giant sucking sound,” entered the American political lexicon as a pithy way to describe policies that cause great harm.

2008. Barack Obama looked vulnerable on foreign policy when he ran against John McCain. The Arizona senator was a Naval Academy graduate who spent six years as a POW in North Vietnam. In the first debate, McCain accused Obama of having spoken recklessly about striking al Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan. Obama coolly responded: “You’re absolutely right that presidents have to be prudent in what they say. But, you know, coming from you, who, you know, in the past has threatened extinction for North Korea and, you know, sung songs about bombing Iran, I don’t know, you know, how credible that is.” In a single sentence Obama shifted the debate from his judgment to McCain’s temperament.

Obama and Romney both aspire to land a knockout punch tonight like Reagan did in 1984. But they could end up stumbling like Ford or Carter. Either way, it may not matter. Polls show that voters care far more about jobs and the economy than they do about who has the better plan for Iran or Syria. That caveat, of course, won’t stop pundits from arguing for the next two weeks over what the candidates had to say. Only November 6 will do that.

This article is also posted at CNN’s Global Public Square.

Half of the six topics the candidates will discuss in tonight’s third and final presidential debate are devoted to the Middle East, illustrating the centrality of that region to U.S. foreign policy. While winning the debate has become the objective of this exercise, the real purpose of the debate is to inform U.S. voters about where the candidates stand on key issues, and where they would lead the country as president from 2013 onwards.

Both candidates will try to deploy as many facts and the names of as many obscure global locales to demonstrate their command of foreign affairs and their bona fides to serve as commander in chief. I would urge moderator Bob Schieffer to avoid getting sucked into games of “gotcha,” and instead try to tease out where the candidates seek to lead the country on issues that post challenges to U.S. interests and which directly affect U.S. lives and treasure. Here are eight issues I’ll be looking for President Obama and Governor Romney to address in tonight’s foreign policy debate.

The Arab Uprisings and U.S. Interests. The Middle East has been embroiled in sustained demonstrations and revolution since December 2010 when popular Arab uprisings broke out. Leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen have been forced from office, some at the urging of the United States. Are the uprisings sweeping through many parts of the Middle East good or bad for the Middle East and for U.S. vital interests in that part of the world? Just what are U.S. vital interests in the Middle East today?

The Rise of Islamist Parties. Islamist parties appear to be on the ascendance in the Middle East. Dictators and autocrats have been replaced by Islamist leaders and parties in Egypt and Tunisia. Is this a dangerous development for the region and for the United States, a welcome development, or an inevitable outcome that the United States is powerless to influence in any case? Should the United States be doing more to affect the outcomes of struggles underway in the region? Do we have friends and allies we should be supporting in countries currently struggling over their futures, or is it not our place to interfere?

Libya. Republicans and Democrats are currently locked into a fight over the events surrounding the tragic murder of four American officials in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, in Benghazi. Learning what happened on that fateful day and understanding how U.S. officials handled security in Libya is critical. But broader strategic questions still need to be answered about Washington’s Libya policies in the past and in the future: Was the U.S. intervention in Libya “the right war”? Having helped to defeat Muammar Qaddafi through military means, has the United States done enough to help secure the peace in Libya, and should we do more?

Syria. Why was it right to intervene in Libya on humanitarian grounds, but not right to intervene in Syria where over thirty thousand people have been killed so far? What made Libya the right war and Syria not? Does the United States have strategic interests in Syria? Specifically:

President Obama: You long ago called on Assad to step down, but have since focused exclusively on Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal as a red-line for U.S. action. Do you see events in Syria as an opportunity to weaken the hand of Syria’s key ally Iran? Do you intend to maintain a hands-off approach to Syria even as violence there spills over threatening Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Israel, and Iraq?

Governor Romney: You have accused the president of failing to lead in Syria and have called for arming the opposition. While everyone in the United States wants Assad to go, how would you ensure that the United States improves the situation rather than makes it worse? And how would you ensure that things do not descend into chaos if Assad were to go? Given the importance you stress on the conflict, would you considering sending American troops to Syria?

Egypt. Egypt is a pivotal country in the Middle East and the home to one quarter of all the Arab people. Is Egypt today, led by an Islamist leader, still an ally? Should the United States continue to provide billions of dollars annually to the Egyptian government, and should this continue to be military assistance, or should we provide greater economic and development assistance? Should conditions be placed on any U.S. assistance to Egypt, and if so what should they be?

Israel. How would you assess our relationship with Israel, a country you both consider a friend and vital U.S. ally? How would you say the United States has handled our bilateral relationship? President Obama: you have visited many countries in the Middle East as president but not Israel, why? Governor Romney: you recently visited the Middle East and only visited Israel: why did you not visit any Arab countries including those where American troops are based?

Israeli-Palestinian peace: President Obama: you took office and immediately identified Israeli-Palestinian peace as a top U.S. priority? Yet for the past year and a half, you have largely ignored this issue. Is that because you don’t think peace is possible or is it because you no longer think it is important to the United States? Governor Romney: Should Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts be a top priority for the United States? How would you pursue it, especially since you have been quoted saying that you see the Palestinians as “committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel”?

Iran. A whole section of tonight’s debate is slated to address the issue of red-lines, Israel, and Iran. The core issue that American voters should hear about is precisely why is a nuclear Iran a threat to U.S. interests? Should such a development be prevented by any means, or are there circumstances where it might be unavoidable, even if it is “unacceptable”? Yes or no for both candidates: Are you willing to use military force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons?

A few weeks back I explored the quality of the China debate in the Presidential campaign and found it sadly lacking. The campaigns have targeted China as a critical issue, but not in a way that elevates the discourse. China-bashing television ads and debate over whose pension fund has Chinese companies in its portfolio are not going to help the American people understand who would better manage U.S.-China relations and China’s rise. As a result, I raised a number of potential issues I thought might help answer this question.

Now with the foreign policy debate just a few days away, I see that the moderator Bob Schieffer has selected “The rise of China and tomorrow’s world” as one of the five central topics for the debate. The somewhat awkward-sounding but bold title has reinforced my sense that the candidates need to be pushed out of their comfort zones to address the more strategic challenges that China is likely to present.

Here are four questions I think might help force a bigger picture debate:

• China has a seat on the UN Security Council, the world’s second largest economy, and one of the world’s largest standing armies. Yet it remains reluctant to assume a leading role in addressing global challenges. How can the next U.S. President ensure that China works with the United States and does its fair share to meet the world’s most pressing global problems?

• China’s economy is widely anticipated to become the largest in the world—surpassing that of the United States—within the next five to ten years. What difference, if any, do you expect that will make in the U.S.-China bilateral relationship and in global economic relations?

• In the past several months, a number of conflicts have flared up in the Asia Pacific between China and its neighbors. Some have blamed the U.S. pivot for emboldening actors in the region to take provocative actions. Mr. President, is this growing regional tension an outcome you anticipated or did you miscalculate?  What further steps would you take to help decrease tensions? Governor Romney, you have asserted that the pivot was oversold and under-resourced. Please explain what you would do differently as president.

• China has achieved extraordinary economic success with a one-party authoritarian system that continues to limit many of the basic human rights that we in the United States value and have fought for throughout the world. Does China present a credible alternative development model for other countries? Does this pose an existential threat to U.S. standing abroad?

Frankly, I am glad that unlike the Middle East, China is not reeling from one crisis to another, while the United States struggles to find effective policy tools. China does not provide safe haven for terrorists and it did not trigger the global financial crisis. For the purposes of the presidential debate on foreign policy, that makes China appear a second tier issue.

Still, China may well pose a far more serious strategic challenge to the United States and the global system. Chinese officials have called for the world to move away from the dollar as its reserve currency, challenged U.S. notions of good governance throughout the world, and blocked U.S. initiatives to address crises in Syria and Iran. All of this makes China an issue of paramount importance for the presidential debate. Let’s hope that Mr. Schieffer can push the candidates to take the issue and the American people seriously enough to aim for profound rather than petty.

The World Next Week podcast is up. Bob McMahon and I discussed the final presidential debate; increasing tensions between Turkey and Syria; Lakhdar Brahimi’s effort to negotiate a cease-fire in Syria in advance of the celebration of Eid al-Adha; and the World Health Summit in Berlin.

The highlights:

• President Obama and Governor Romney meet next Monday night for what has been dubbed “the Battle in Boca,” the third and final presidential debate. Moderator Bob Schieffer announced the debate’s six main topics last week. They cover familiar terrain and are heavily weighted toward the greater Middle East. So if you are interested hearing what the candidates have to say about Mexico, Venezuela, Russia, climate change, trade, or international finance, the debate is likely to leave you disappointed.
• Tensions between Ankara and Damascus have heated up in recent weeks as the civil war in Syria has spilled across the border into Turkey. Turkish officials had hoped that the uprising in Syria would quickly sweep Bashar al-Assad from power. But with the fighting dragging on, Ankara now faces the prospect that Kurds in Syria will win lasting autonomy from Damascus, in turn fueling renewed dreams of an independent Kurdistan. That outcome is a nightmare for Ankara.
• Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations and Arab League Special Envoy, is working with Iran to try to arrange a ceasefire in Syria during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which begins next week. It’s a long-shot that he can pull it off, or that if he does, that it will have much practical effect. Syria looks to be locked in a fight to the finish—and then some. Fighting is likely to persist even after Assad goes; contending factions will battle it out over which one will reign supreme.
• The World Health Summit holds its annual meeting next week in Berlin. First started in 2009, the Summit is sponsored by the M8 Alliance of Academic Health Centers and Medical Universities (list of members here) and the National Academies. The theme of this year’s summit is “Research for Health and Sustainable Development,” with a focus on “issues and possible solutions for non-communicable diseases and conditions of global concern.” Noncommunicable diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes used to be thought of as the developed world’s problem. But with widespread economic growth, population shifts from small villages to mega-cities, and changing dietary and lifestyle habits, so-called NCDs are now a problem of the rich and poor alike. Chronic diseases are a challenge not simply because they kill far more people than infectious diseases, but because they place tremendous economic and health burdens on countries seeking to care for sick populations.
• Bob’s Figure of the Week is Raul Castro. My Figure of the Week is 43 percent. As always, you’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out why.

For more on the topics we discussed in the podcast check out:

Obama and Romney discuss foreign policy in the final presidential debate: Bloomberg warns that candidates’ “China-bashing” could jeopardize U.S.-Sino relations. VOA News outlines Romney’s criticism of Obama’s Middle East policy. The Chicago Tribune argues that the two candidates have few differences in the realm of foreign policy.

Heightening tensions between Turkey and Syria: NPR writes that airstrikes and other incidents along the Turkey-Syria border are the source of tensions. BBC News details an incident last week in which Turkish jets forced a Syrian passenger plane to land in Ankara. Albawaba Business reports that flights between Amman and Istanbul are taking 35 minutes longer now that Syria prohibits Turkish civilian planes from entering its airspace. Al-Jazeera asks whether worsening relations between Turkey and Syria will affect Russian-Turkish ties. The Journal of Turkish Weekly reports that Syrian jets have continued to bomb rebels despite the call for a truce during Eid al-Adha.

Lakhdar Brahimi tries to negotiate a truce in Syria during the celebration of Eid al-Adha: The Independent reports that the UN peace envoy has asked Iran for help in arranging a ceasefire in Syria during Eid al-Adha. The Washington Post writes that around 1.4 million Muslims from 160 countries have arrived in Mecca for the hajj pilgrimage. The Khaleej Times writes that Dubai will extend the traditional four-day celebration to 16 days and celebrate with shopping promotions and 24-hour access to malls.

The World Health Summit takes place in Berlin: The World Health Summit official website lists the event’s highlighted topics and high profile speakers. The European regional office at the World Health Organization announces a commitment to stronger ties between WHO/Europe and the Summit. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides an overview of the global threat of non-communicable diseases. The New York Times warns that life-threatening sedentary lifestyles are becoming increasing global.

In advance of next week’s third and final presidential debate, the Pew Research Center is out with the results of a new foreign policy poll. Pew finds Americans split on whether President Obama or Governor Romney would fare better in foreign affairs, skeptical of where things are headed in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and open (at least in theory) to talking tough to China on trade.

When it comes to who the public thinks will fare better on foreign policy, Obama barely edges out Romney. As the chart below shows, the public gives Obama a slight edge on “making wise decisions about foreign policy,” handling Iran’s nuclear program, and dealing with political instability in the Middle East. Romney has a nine-point edge when it comes to handling trade with China.

The bad news for Obama in these numbers is that he had a fifteen-point lead over Romney on foreign policy just a month ago. Whether it’s because of events in Syria, the administration’s continually changing story about the Benghazi attack, Obama’s poor performance in the first debate, or some combination, the trend is not the president’s friend. But that can change with one debate.

Here are other poll highlights:

• Americans have become more skeptical about the Middle East. In April 2011, 42 percent of Americans thought that Arabs would benefit from the Arab Spring. Today only 25 percent do; 57 percent currently think that the Arab Spring will not produce lasting improvements in the region.

• Americans would take “more stability and less democracy” in the Middle East over “less stability and more democracy” by a margin of 54 to 30 percent. Americans also prefer to be “less involved” as opposed to “more involved” in political change in the Middle East by a margin of 63 to 23 percent.

• Support for taking “a firm stand” with Iran over its nuclear program has inched up, rising from 50 percent in Pew’s January poll to 56 percent today, while sentiment about avoiding a military conflict with Iran dropped from 41 percent to 35 percent.

• Americans are all over the map when it comes to support for Israel. A plurality of 41 percent says things are just about right, 25 percent say that the United States is not supportive enough, and 22 percent say it is too supportive.

• Support for “getting tougher” with China is up, with 49 percent embracing this position as compared to 40 percent back in March.

• The public still wants out of Afghanistan. Six-in-ten Americans say U.S. troops should be removed as soon as possible. Democrats are the most eager to hit the exits (73 percent), Republicans the least enthusiastic (48 percent), and independents in between (58 percent).

Of course, standard polling caveats apply in spades when it comes to foreign policy. Question wording is a particular problem. Support for a showdown with Iran would likely be significantly lower if Pew had asked whether the public favored war with Iran to keep it from going nuclear. Likewise, the public often lacks knowledge and context for evaluating foreign policy questions. So if Pew had asked respondents whether they supported getting tougher with China even if Beijing retaliated and some American workers lost their jobs as a result, support for the get tough option undoubtedly would have sagged.

That said, you can bet dollars to donuts that both campaigns are poring through the Pew poll and plenty of others like it as they prep their candidates for Monday night’s debate. The political incentive for both candidates looks to be to talk tough and tout American leadership but to steer clear of anything that suggests they are eager to plunge the United States into more conflicts overseas.

Presidential campaigns should come with a disclaimer: “past promises are no guarantee of future policies.” Candidates are notorious for exaggerating modest differences with opponents, then doing precisely the same thing once elected. Remember Bill Clinton, blasting George H. W. Bush for toasting the “butchers of Beijing,” later cozying up to China. Or a junior senator from Illinois, Senator Obama, who condemned George W. Bush’s “global war on terrorism,” but adopted aggressive homeland security and counterterrorism measures of his own, from extending provisions of the Patriot Act to expanding targeted killings via drone strikes.

The lesson is that the realities of governance constrain a president’s freedom of action. Fiscal realities intrude; Congress proves obstructionist; strategic imperatives force unexpected continuity; and unanticipated events upset the best-laid plans.

To hear the campaigns tell it, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have fundamentally distinct outlooks on world affairs and will take us in different directions. In reality, the two candidates are not as nearly as far apart as they pretend. By temperament, both are pragmatic and non-ideological (though the same cannot always be said for their advisers). That said, a number of subtle differences, and a few stark divisions, do exist. Below is a list of the four main similarities and eight important differences between the candidates:

First, the similarities:

Af-Pak policy: Despite criticizing Obama’s firm timetable for U.S. withdrawal, Romney agrees all troops should be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014. The only difference regards the pace of withdrawal (Romney wants 68,000 troops to remain through 2013, whereas Obama would end combat actions by mid-2013). Likewise both have concluded that Pakistan will never be an effective or trustworthy U.S. partner, given its government weakness and divergent interests. Regardless of who is president, we should expect disengagement.

Counterterrorism: Obama has been more vigorous than his predecessor, and significantly stepped up drone strikes outside of official war theaters. Besides killing Osama bin-Laden, this includes taking on al-Qaeda affiliates in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and the Maghreb. It appears that Romney would do the same.

Human rights and democracy promotion: To judge from GOP rhetoric, a Romney presidency would mean a return to the “freedom agenda” of George W. Bush. But the question remains how a Romney administration would balance democracy promotion against other U.S. interests. How would he react when elected governments take an Islamist turn or refuse to cooperate with the United States–including regarding Israel? The Internationalist predicts continued pragmatism, rather than a one size fits all policy.

The United States and China: On China, Candidate Romney’s bark may prove greater than President Romney’s bite. The Romney campaign endorses Obama’s strategic “pivot” to Asia and a U.S. strategy to reassure Asian allies about freedom of navigation, open commerce, and regional security (rather than to contain China). Of course, the governor has pledged to declare China a “currency manipulator” and to crack down on its intellectual property rights violations. But given his business experience in China, Romney is unlikely to court an all-out trade war. He knows that the value of the U.S. dollar depends on China’s willingness to hold rather than dump U.S. treasury bills.

Nevertheless, there are some important differences in outlook between President Obama and Governor Romney:

Defense Budget Policy. U.S. defense spending has doubled since 9/11 (thanks largely to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). President Obama would cut defense spending to 2.9 percent of GDP by 2017, whereas Romney would increase it to a minimum of 4 percent, implying at least $2.1 trillion more for the military over the next decade. Romney’s buildup would include increased shipbuilding, multilayered ballistic missile defense, 100,000 more soldiers, and a modernized air force. The president, meanwhile, believes a leaner, more efficient, military will not affect a new forward U.S. posture in the Western Pacific.

Nuclear Weapons. The Obama administration has focused on the threat of loose nuclear weapons or fissile material falling into the hands of nonstate actors—and therefore sponsored two Nuclear Security Summits and supported a 2013 target date for securing all existing fissile material. Candidate Romney’s rhetoric indicates a greater focus on outlier state actors acquiring weapons, notably Iran (which has of course preoccupied the Obama administration too). The most significant difference is that President Obama embraced the vision of a world without nuclear weapons while Governor Romney regards that position as utopian and foolhardy. Romney also opposed the Obama administration’s signature achievement in arms reduction–the New START treaty with Moscow. Finally, the Obama administration favors eventual U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and has pledged to build no more nuclear weapons. A Romney administration—committed to modernizing the U.S. nuclear weapons force–would oppose that position. 

Foreign Aid: President Obama advocates ambitious foreign aid initiatives in global health and food security. Romney, by contrast, has criticized traditional foreign aid as a waste of taxpayer money—and increasingly irrelevant compared to charitable giving and private sector investment. Governor  Romney’s vision is to negotiate “Prosperity Pacts” with developing countries, whereby the United States would condition assistance on removing barriers to U.S. investment and trade–and target U.S. aid to promote “liberty, the rule of law, and property rights.”

The United Nations: President Obama has described the United Nations as a flawed but indispensable pillar of world order that provides legitimacy and support for U.S. actions around the world. The White House has identified numerous “dividends of U.S. leadership at the UN” after the unilateral Bush years. These include the stiffest ever UN Security Council sanctions on North Korea and Iran, the successful UN-authorized intervention in Libya that overthrew Moammar al-Qaddafi, and an improved Human Rights Council (HRC). Romney is far harsher on the global body, calling it an “extraordinary failure.” Congressional Republicans, as well as Romney advisers like John Bolton, advocate draconian cuts in UN funding and withdrawing from the HRC. The upshot: U.S. relations with the UN could get far rockier in a Romney administration.

Russia: The White House touts its “reset” with Russia as a major success, after the acrimony of Bush’s second term, which included diplomatic clashes over Georgia and missile defense. Beyond negotiating the New START treaty to verifiably reduce Russian and U.S. nuclear stockpiles, Obama has mollified Moscow by deferring plans to build missile defense stations in Eastern Europe. More recently, he supported Russian entry into the World Trade Organization and has promised to push for repeal of the Cold War-era Jackson-Vanik amendment. Governor Romney, by contrast, has called Russia “our number one geopolitical foe,” denounced New START; and accused the president of selling out the Poles. Overall, a Romney administration bodes more confrontation with Russia.

Syria is an increasing source of dispute between the two campaigns, as the country descends into bloody chaos. The Obama administration continues to reject calls to establish safe zones for Syrian civilians or arm the rebels directly (as opposed to through proxies like Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, or Turkey). This reflects, in part, a fear that the arms may fall into the hands of violent extremists. Romney, meanwhile, has pledged to help organize and arm the insurgents, and some of his neoconservative advisers call for creating safe havens, which would require at least an air campaign.

Iran: There are important, subtle differences between the candidates. Obama has said that he will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, whereas Romney has pledged to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear “capability.” This suggests that while Obama would use force only if Iran actually tried to build a bomb, Romney might attack Iran if it were close to acquiring the means. The Obama administration continues to bank on “crippling” sanctions, while Romney supports these but is skeptical they will be sufficient.

Middle East Peace: Romney has accused President Obama of insufficient concern for Israeli security and of throwing “Israel under the bus.” Obama rejects this characterization, and has repeatedly affirmed that the United States and Israel share an “unshakeable” bond though his support for Israel has been measured. If reelected, Obama is likely to try again, provided he believes he has two parties willing to negotiate in good faith (a big “if”). Prospects for a two-state solution seem considerably dimmer if Romney is elected. While he has alluded to that goal, Romney lacks the credibility to be an honest broker, given his closer alignment to Israel, his overheard skepticism that Palestinians are not interested in peace, and his alienation of Palestinians on two separate occasions.

Bob Schieffer, the moderator of the third and final presidential debate of 2012, informed the Obama and Romney campaigns last week that he had selected debate topics. The debate, which is scheduled for next Monday, October 22, at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, will focus on foreign policy. The ninety-minute debate will be divided into six, fifteen minute segments.

Here are the topics that Schieffer selected:

• America’s role in the world
• Our longest war—Afghanistan and Pakistan
• Red Lines—Israel and Iran
• The Changing Middle East and the New Face of Terrorism I
• The Changing Middle East and the New Face of Terrorism II
• The Rise of China and Tomorrow’s World

None of these choices is surprising. They are the topics that have dominated the campaign conversation thus far. But the list leaves out several critical issues that the next president will have to confront. Mexico doesn’t make the list, even though growing drug-related violence there may have a greater direct impact on Americans than some of the issues that made Schieffer’s list. Russia also doesn’t make the cut despite the fact that Governor Romney says it is America’s “number one geopolitical foe.” There is no discussion of trade or the international global financial system even though we live in a globalized world in which what happens in other economies will go a long way toward determining whether people in Peoria and Portland have jobs. And climate change continues to be the issue that dominates political discussions everywhere but in the United States.

Perhaps these or other issues—foreign aid, Africa, Venezuela, and global health come to mind—will get raised in the course of the conversation next Monday night. And, of course, no ninety-minute debate can tackle every significant foreign policy issue. Still, in all it seems that Schieffer’s choice of debate topics is, well, debatable.

Finally, one bit of historical irony about next week’s debate. It will be held on the fiftieth anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s televised address to the nation that the Soviets had begun installing nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba. The speech marked the beginning of the public phase of the Cuban missile crisis, when the United States and the Soviet Union went to the brink of nuclear war. The anniversary is a solemn reminder of what is at stake in foreign policy. May the next president, whoever he is, not face a situation of similar gravity.

Of the competitive disadvantages faced by the United States, its democratic system is not supposed to be one of them. Quite the opposite. The stability of the U.S. democratic process and the trusted legal system it has produced have long been a competitive advantage. It is a big reason why so many global business powerhouses are headquartered in the United States.

But the recent World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report found that business concerns about the U.S. political process is one of the major factors pulling the U.S. down in global rankings. Jonathan Browning, President of Volkswagen America, said at a Brookings event last week: “[The United States] needs to restore global confidence in the workings of its political system” to continue to attract foreign investment.

Two worrisome trends unique to the United States—the spiraling cost of elections and the resulting pressure to raise funds—are eating into the integrity of the U.S. democratic system.

Between 2000 and 2008, dollars spent per voter in presidential elections leaped by nearly a factor of three. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, total campaign costs for the 2012 election are projected to reach $6 billion dollars, up 7 percent from 2008. Pricey TV ads are the main culprit, consuming half of all campaign spending.

New this time around are Super PACs. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision of 2010 left Super PACs unfettered to raise an unlimited amount of money from corporations and individuals and spend it however they choose during campaigns so long as they are technically independent from the campaigns. The Super PAC is fast becoming the spending colossus of U.S. politics. To date, they have raised nearly $400 million in the 2012 election cycle, and spent much of it on negative TV ads. Such “independent spending” was less than $100 million in 2008.

Raising money takes time, which is one reason why presidential campaigns now last twice as long as they did in the early 1970s. It would be one thing if candidates were devoting more time informing or familiarizing themselves with voters. But both President Obama and Mitt Romney have held fewer public events and rallies than their predecessors and more intimate gatherings with big-ticket donors.

No other wealthy democracy comes close to spending so much money and time for its elections. The UK spent just $49 million on its 2010 election,  one-quarter less than its 2005 election. Many countries, the UK included, do not restrict the amount of money individuals can contribute to elections. But with such short elections, there is hardly the time to fundraise. British, Canadian, and Australian campaigns generally run no longer than two months. Germany’s lasts four months. The 2012 U.S. presidential election will have lasted twenty months, from when the first Republican declared candidacy to election day. Also, since many countries tightly regulate TV and radio campaign ads, there is little need for U.S.-level campaign cash either.

The United States compares even less favorably if you include the time elected officials spend fundraising. The president’s time, it is often said, is the scarcest commodity in politics. Too much of it is wasted fundraising for re-election. According to one estimate, fundraisers consumed one-third of Obama’s summer schedule. He’s held more than twice the number of fundraisers as George W. Bush did in his 2004 bid for re-election. Senator Dick Durbin said recently Americans would be “not surprised, but shocked” by how much time members of Congress devote to fundraising, estimated at up to half of their workdays. It is precious time taken away from tending to the nation’s problems.

Worse than a distraction, the U.S. way of conducting campaigns could be undermining confidence in its democratic and legal institutions. Most Super PACs are secretive organizations funded by a few hundred extraordinarily wealthy individuals. There are no laws requiring they disclose how they spend their money. Of Americans who are aware of the Citizens United decision, two-thirds believe it will have a negative effect on campaigns. The number of Americans who have “very little” or “no” confidence in members of Congress and the President is at or near all-time highs, a trend that has amplified in the last ten years. Super PAC influence will likely do more damage to already low levels of public trust.

Are there any ways to weaken the vicious cycle of spiraling campaign costs and fundraising? There are plenty of  ideas. Using only public funds, like in some European countries, is one. Another is to use vouchers: Americans could be given a small amount of public money to give to the campaign of their choosing. But the trends are moving in the other direction.This year both presidential candidates have forgone public funds for the general election so they can spend as much as they wish.

The only solution may be to wait for costly television ads to lose their value. This may be occurring as internet ads become more popular. Internet campaign ads are becoming more effective than TV ads, because specific audiences can be better targeted. They are also vastly cheaper. Money wouldn’t matter as much, taking the steam out of Super PACs. Perhaps, then, elected officials could spend more of their time again on the job for which they are elected: governing.

The World Next Week podcast is up. Bob McMahon and I discussed the second presidential debate; where Libya stands one year after the death of Muammar Qaddafi; and the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis.

The highlights:

• Next Tuesday’s presidential debate in Hempstead, New York is a high stakes meeting for both candidates, but especially for President Obama. The chatter on the eve of the first presidential debate was whether he was effectively about to clinch his re-election. After a showing that even his supporters describe as disastrous, the talk is suddenly whether it is too late for him to recover. Governor Romney saw a roughly four point bounce in the national polls, some of which now show him leading, and he closed the gap in critical battleground states. Obama’s task may get even harder if Vice President Joe Biden fares poorly in his debate tonight against Paul Ryan.
• One year after the death of Muammar Qaddafi, Libya is in political turmoil. Libya’s parliament ousted the country’s prime minister in a no-confidence vote this week, the contending political factions cannot seem to work together, the country is awash in weapons, and a small pro-Qaddafi contingent hangs on. The fact that Libya, which has a relatively small and homogenous population, is struggling to build a stable democratic government raises serious questions about the fate that awaits Syria, a larger and far more complicated society, after the al-Assad government falls.
• Sunday marks the 50^th anniversary of the U-2 flight that turned up photographic evidence that the Soviet Union was installing nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba, despite insisting repeatedly and publicly it was doing no such thing. One of the many remarkable things about the thirteen-day long Cuban missile crisis was how President John F. Kennedy stuck with his public schedule for several days, giving the American public and the world no hint that he and his national security team were wrestling with how to respond to a Soviet provocation that had brought the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear war.
• Bob’s Figure of the Week is 40 percent. My Figure of the Week is Malala Yousafzai. As always, you’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out why.

For more on the topics we discussed in the podcast check out:

Obama and Romney rematch in the second presidential debate: The Huffington Post outlines four foreign policy issues that will dominate Romney’s debate strategy. The LA Times reports on Madeleine Albright’s criticism that Romney changed his mind on several issues and failed to provide specifics about his proposed foreign policy strategy. ABC News compares what Obama and Romney have to say on several foreign policy topics.

Libya one year after the death of Muammar Qaddafi: United Press International covers the ouster of Libya’s prime minister on Monday. Time contends that the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi has intensified the deep political divisions in Libya. The Chicago Tribune reports that the International Criminal Court is deciding whether Libya can provide Qaddafi’s son with a fair trial. The New York Times notes that partisan politics may play a role in the congressional hearing on the attack in Benghazi.

The Cuban missile crisis fifty years later: VOA News points out particular events in 1961 that helped fuel the Cuban missile crisis. Forbes compiles political figures’ thoughts and reflections on the Cuban missile crisis. Foreign Policy plans to tweet the Cuban Missile Crisis in real time while outlining its historical lessons. The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University commemorates the crisis with a website loaded with information and analysis about the events and people that drove the confrontation. USA Today reports that the National Archives is releasing 2,700 pages of papers from its Robert F. Kennedy collection, many of them dealing with the missile crisis.

Mitt Romney’s “win” over President Obama in Wednesday’s presidential debate has lifted GOP hopes of victory on Election Day. A critical part of Governor Romney’s strategy to make that happen looks to be hammering Obama on foreign policy—he had a Wall Street Journal op-ed this week lambasting Obama’s Middle East policy, and he plans to give a major foreign policy address on Monday. So now is a good time to ask a question: How different would Romney’s foreign policy likely be from Obama’s?

Probably not much.

Yes, that answer runs contrary to the sturm und drang coming from the campaign trail. Both parties insist that a wide gulf separates the two men in world affairs. Romney says that his approach will vanquish the challenges that have stumped Obama. Democrats, for their part, repeatedly point to the many neoconservatives staffing the Romney campaign, implicitly suggesting that a Romney presidency means a return to George W. Bush circa 2002. And it’s not just the partisans arguing that Obama and Romney represent wildly different foreign policy visions. Journalists like to talk about “a stark divide on foreign policy” and Romney and Paul Ryan “having parroted the views of their neocon advisers.”

But here are three reasons why Romney’s foreign policy would likely end up looking a lot like Obama’s no matter how much hand waving and table thumping you witness over the next month:

First, foreign policy is hard to change. Presidents don’t make it solely as they please. They instead confront complex realities abroad and difficult politics at home that greatly narrow their choices. Just four years ago Democrats were trumpeting, and Republicans complaining, that Obama would “transform” American foreign policy. Today the tables are turned. Republicans are trumpeting, and Democrats complaining, that Obama’s foreign policy resembles George W. Bush’s second term. Guantanamo remains open, the Afghanistan war drags on, and drone strikes mount. The ambitions of the 2008 campaign yielded to the complications and trade-offs that characterize governance.

Second, despite the harsh campaign rhetoric and partisan jabs, Obama’s and Romney’s foreign policy views are broadly similar. A year ago journalists were trumpeting how an isolationist wave was washing over the Republican Party. And if Ron Paul had won the GOP nomination we would have a clash of foreign policy worldviews. But Romney is not Ron Paul. He is an internationalist with a strong pragmatic streak—much like Obama. The two men may not live in the same zip code when it comes to foreign policy, but they certainly reside in the same area code.

Third, while Romney hasn’t offered many specific foreign policy prescriptions, the ones he has offered look a lot like Obama’s. The governor sees the need to draw down U.S. troops in Afghanistan, favors tougher sanctions to halt Iran’s nuclear program, and offers Syrian rebels kind words but no direct U.S. military support. In other words, current White House policy. The two significant foreign policy promises on which Romney does differ from Obama—spending far more on defense and punishing China as a currency manipulator—are also two vows that probably won’t last much past inauguration day. Dreams of bigger defense budgets clash with the cruel math of tax cuts and budget deficits, while common sense, or Chinese retaliation, will cool the current ardor for going toe-to-toe with Beijing on currency valuations.

None of this is to say that a Romney foreign policy would mirror Obama’s or that the results would be the same. A President Romney probably would not negotiate a new arms control treaty with Russia. (Then again, the odds are that Obama won’t either, or if he does, that any resulting agreement will languish in the Senate.) And a President Romney might tinker with missile defense plans, try new approaches to doling out foreign aid, or find himself embroiled in fewer public disputes with Israel’s prime minister. Moreover, many foreign policy choices are close calls. So even men with similar world views and pragmatic streaks can disagree about which is the right one, and even closely decided decisions can have immensely different consequences.

It is to say is that Campaign 2012 doesn’t present the American electorate with a stark foreign policy choice. The candidates are less stark alternatives than variations on a theme, and a basket of tough foreign policy problems awaits whoever wins on November 6. If that turns out to be Mitt Romney, he will quickly discover what Obama already knows: what is easy to promise on the campaign trail turns out to be exceedingly difficult to deliver once in office.

It did not take long for the verdict to be reached on the first face-to-face debate of the campaign: President Obama’s performance was about as lackluster as the current state of the U.S. economy. It may not matter much to the final election outcome, but his inability to make a stronger case for his economic management highlights one of the disadvantages of incumbency  — that governing is a chastening experience.

Candidates run on a set of optimistic and essentially unprovable theories about how the economy might respond to their favored medicine. Sometimes they get lucky, as Presidents Reagan and Clinton did. But more often they run for re-election knowing that their theories are unlikely to survive the stubborn challenges that await.

President Obama has learned what my CFR colleague Michael Spence has called “the hard truths about global growth” — that incomes for the middle classes in the advanced economies are likely to remain stagnant for some time, that growth is likely to be modest as deleveraging continues, and that governments face an almost zero-sum choice among financing consumption, financing investment, or bringing deficits under control. Thus much of Obama’s pitch was about the difficult decisions he believes must be faced, which involve raising at least some taxes and cutting at least some consumption, especially through cost controls on Medicare, to finance investments in education and infrastructure that will not pay off anytime terribly soon.

In contrast to that dour message, Mitt Romney was able in the debate — in a way he had not really done in the campaign — to capture the edge in optimism. His economic platform boils down to the hopeful prediction that an overhaul of the tax code and the rolling back of certain Obama era regulations (health care, much of the Dodd-Frank financial legislation, restrictions on energy exploration on public lands, etc.) would unleash a new era of stronger growth that will make the hard choices avoidable.

While Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, has sketched out a budget plan that would actually make deep cuts in government spending on the poor and elderly, Romney steered clear of those sorts of specifics. Instead, he promised that robust growth created by a revenue-neutral tax overhaul and some regulatory tweaking would keep the deficit under control, free up more money for Medicare and allow him to boost military spending, while making only modest cuts to the most obviously wasteful or unnecessary government programs.

The reality, of course, is that Romney’s plan would almost certainly allow nothing close to that. Nor, for that matter, would President Obama’s plan to let taxes on the wealthy to revert to Clinton-era levels suddenly ignite Clinton-era growth rates. Either will confront an economic and fiscal situation in which any of the plausible choices are difficult ones.

Optimism has long been an American trait, and certainly Romney’s political advisers must be delighted that he has finally tapped into it. Yet the polls at the moment still give an edge to the president, who is asking voters for patience while the economy slowly crawls out of worst economic crisis in three-quarters of a century. There is a great irony, to be sure, that the candidate of hope and change has now become the candidate of incremental progress and tough decisions. But governing requires a sense of irony. It helps for coping when the promises don’t work out quite as planned.

From the podium at the opening session of the 67^th UN General Assembly, President Barack Obama  defended freedom of speech as a human right that must not be infringed and expressed confidence that “the rising tide of liberty”—as witnessed in the Arab spring—“will never be reversed.” His speech was a welcome riposte to demands from Muslim leaders, outraged by a crude video mocking the prophet Mohammed, for global rules against the defamation of religion. At the same time, his address reminded us of how turbulent the “Arab spring” that Obama lauded in last year’s speech had become.

In insisting on freedom of speech, the president was right on target. For years, Islamic religious and political leaders have advocated for international laws against the defamation of religious beliefs and texts. The United States has rightly resisted such efforts, recognizing that tyrants could use such tools “to silence critics or oppress minorities.”  The U.S. Constitution thus enshrines freedom of speech as a fundamental right, Obama explained, to the degree that “we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs.” The answer to offensive hateful speech is not persecution or imprisonment, but “more speech,” so that voices of tolerance and mutual understanding shout down those of “bigotry and blasphemy.” At the same time, the president doubled down on stressing the abhorrent content of the video, helping preserve some goodwill in the new Arab spring democracies.

As the president acknowledged, not all UN member states share this unquestioned commitment to free speech. But it is the only workable solution in an age of of instantaneous communications, when an unending supply of offensive messages and images can be spread to all corners of the world at the press of a button. In such an interconnected world, the effort to control the flow of information is a fool’s errand. Nor does the spate of violent outbursts we have witnessed in recent weeks bring anything but destruction and division, while empowering the worst among us. “It is time,” Obama declared, “to leave the call of violence and the politics of division behind.” Political leaders must speak out against hateful messages. But official censorship is never the answer.

President Obama’s second major theme was that the ideals of the Arab spring endure, despite the turbulence that has engulfed the Middle East and Muslim world in recent weeks. Here, he had a tougher case to make. A year ago, the president spoke at a heady time, touting the toppling of dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, as well as the UN-mandated operation that deposed Muammar al -Qaddafi in Libya and saved thousands of innocent lives. Today’s speech was somber, and appropriately so, given anti-American riots that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, the unending slaughter in Syria, and Iran’s continued race for nuclear weapons.

The president opened with a moving remembrance of Christopher Stevens, the slain U.S. ambassador, who had dedicated his life to U.S.-Arab understanding and, ultimately, sacrificed it in the effort to make Libyans free. He did not die in vain, Obama implied, for the majority of Libyans—and Arabs generally—yearn to live under democratic freedoms. “History is on our side,” the president insisted, and “a rising tide of liberty will never be reversed.”

This argument is harder to sustain in the case of Syria, where the death toll now exceeds 25,000, thanks to Bashar al-Assad’s determination to remain in power and the failure of the UN Security Council to agree on forceful action in the face of repeated vetoes from Russia and China. Faced with this context, the White House appears paralyzed,  calling the situation unacceptable yet remaining unwilling to arm the rebel forces, much less assume the tremendous risks of leading a “coalition of the willing” to support them militarily. An understandable position, perhaps, given uncertainty about the coherence of the Syrian opposition and the constraints of a tight presidential race and uncertainty—but a recipe for continued, grinding conflict. Just last summer, the president created an Atrocities Prevention Board to address just these sorts of contingencies. It was notable that he avoided any mention of that body in his speech.

On the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the speech criticized the virulent opposition to Israel in countries like Iran—but also included a soft jab between the lines at his domestic presidential competitor, Mitt Romney. A media firestorm erupted after a recently leaked video showed Romney stating that the Palestinians were uninterested in peace and that a two-state solution would be “almost unthinkable to accomplish.” Obama clearly separated himself from his opponent, by forcefully stating that the “the destination is clear – a secure, Jewish state of Israel; and an independent, prosperous Palestine.” Given that the United States is currently pressuring  the Palestinian Authority to refrain from pursuing non-member observer state status at the UN, the statement was also intended to reinforce support for a two-state solution negotiated between Israel and Palestine.

The toughest Middle East challenge confronting the White House, of course, is Iran. Here, the president repeated what he has said before: “the United States will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” Although strategists disagree over whether a nuclear armed Iran could be subject to deterrence, the president is clearly skeptical: “A nuclear Iran is not a challenge that can be contained,” he asserted, and one that would pose an existential threat to Israel and the Gulf nations, as well as triggering a regional nuclear arms race and unraveling the NPT. At the same time, Obama clearly disappointed the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanahu, by maintaining the U.S. “red line” at the actual acquisition of a nuclear weapon—as opposed to simply the “capability” to produce one. Nor did he offer any signal that the UN Security Council—and particularly the Russian and Chinese permanent members—were prepared to tighten the screws on Tehran.

In short, the Obama administration’s positions all remain unchanged. The president used the speech to pressure the new heads of Arab Spring allies not to slip towards extremism, and to remain engaged with the United States. But on the two major flashpoints—Iran and Syria—Obama merely sought to make the case for the current path.

Today CFR.org interviewed me about the upcoming opening of the UN General Assembly. One particularly interesting question that Bernard Gwertzman, the CFR consulting editor, asked me, revolved around President Obama’s effort to balance his initial hope to improve relations with the Muslim World with the recent anti-American protests and Afghan “insider” attacks on U.S. coalition troops. It’s a difficult question. As I told Bernie:

President Obama began the early months of his administration with the major speech in Cairo in which he talked about turning a new leaf in U.S. relations with the Muslim world and the Arab world, in particular, and which would be focused on advancing social welfare and human rights in the region and being less tied to authoritarian regimes. In a sense, he was offering the Muslim world a new arrangement. At that point, of course, Barack Obama was extraordinarily popular throughout much of the world, and I think there was great hope within the Muslim world. And even in last year’s speech at the UN General Assembly, a big focus was on the great hope created by the Arab Spring and the trends that were occurring there. It’s obvious that things have gotten much more complicated, and the notion that one president, even a well-intentioned one, could somehow overcome several decades of legacy of support for authoritarian governments has been exposed as an illusion.

There are also tremendous religious and cultural differences between many parts of the Muslim world in terms of what is permissible to actually be said. So in terms of his international audience, he is going to have to again explain the nature of the United States and the nature of a liberal polity that can condemn certain activities as being hateful or inappropriate, but on the other hand, the price in the sense of liberty is allowing people to say reprehensible things, and the government has no recourse other than to do that.

Because this is taking place six or seven weeks before the presidential election, Obama will have to be on guard not to appear overly apologetic because that plays into the Romney campaign’s view and the view of some of his critics that he has shown weakness rather than strength, and that has, in effect, invited some of these attacks.

You can read the full interview on CFR.org here.

In one U.S. Presidential election after another, the media hype the specter of China as an issue of real policy import. It has been two decades, however, since China has been anything more than a blip on a Presidential debate television screen; and frankly, that has been a good thing. Campaigns rarely elevate thinking on substantive issues. This time around, however, China is becoming a genuine political football, tossed around without any clear aim but hard enough to cause some real damage.

Out on the campaign trail, China rhetoric lives mostly in the realm of political insult. Governor Romney’s campaign argues “President Obama promised to take China ‘to the mat’ but instead he has allowed China to treat the United States like a doormat.” Should he become president, Governor Romney has stated that “I will finally take China to the carpet and say, ‘Look you guys, I’m gonna label you a currency manipulator and apply tariffs unless you stop those practices.”  For his part, President Obama has railed against Governor Romney’s private equity experience with China: “I understand my opponent has been running around Ohio claiming he’s going to roll up his sleeves, and take the fight to China…. Ohio, you can’t stand up to China when all you’ve done is send them our jobs.” In reference to China’s trade subsidies, President Obama has asserted that “It’s not right, it’s against the rules and we will not let it stand.”

Such throwaway campaign lines are part and parcel of U.S. presidential politicking, but China deserves to be treated seriously in the Presidential race for all the reasons everyone already knows, including: it manipulates its currency; its companies routinely violate intellectual property rights and engage in cyber-espionage; its regional security rhetoric and military activity have become much more assertive in the past few years; and its political practices—both at home and abroad—challenge U.S. notions of good governance and often undermine U.S. efforts to address crises in global hot spots. While China’s policies may not be that different or even as detrimental as those of many other countries, the size of its population, economy, and military greatly amplify its impact.

Thoughtful discourse should not be difficult. President Obama has a record on China that he can defend and Governor Romney can challenge. There are also emerging issues that have yet to be tackled and desperately need to be addressed.  Here are my suggestions for four China-related issues the candidates might debate:

1)     Is the U.S. pivot toward Asia the right strategy? This is one of President Obama’s hallmark initiatives, and Governor Romney asserts it has been oversold and under-resourced.

2)     Assuming China is not going to wake up tomorrow and decide it is important to play by all the rules of international finance and trade, what should the United States do? President Obama has focused much of his energy on the WTO and multilateral engagement and enforcement mechanisms; in contrast, Governor Romney has advanced a set of unilateral and punitive actions.

3)     How will the United States manage the wave of Chinese investment activity that may soon be washing up on its shores? What is the potential upside, as well as downside risk? I haven’t heard anything from either candidate on this front.

4)     Are we making China into an enemy we don’t need and they don’t want to be, and if so, how do we avoid this trap?

If the candidates themselves can’t get China right, the Chinese media are apparently ready to step in to help. The Global Times, for one, has offered up its services: “As US elections often involve China-bashing, China cannot remain out of the affair. China should play a role in the elections and correct the attitude of both candidates and the American public toward China.” My guess is that on this particular China policy, both candidates would have the same reaction: Thanks, but no thanks.

This week, foreign policy took center stage in the presidential campaign, and it appears that it may stay in the conversation for Candidate Romney and President Obama next week as well. Listen to The World Next Week podcast, where Bob McMahon and I discuss the attack in Libya that killed four U.S. embassy personnel, the opening session of the sixty-seventh UN General Assembly, and the improvements of the Human Rights Council:

• The attack in Libya and the tragic death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens is but one symptom of the herculean challenge of consolidating security in the aftermath of the Libyan revolution last year. Militias have refused to disarm; the country remains awash in weapons and some observers even suggest that Libya continues to be on the verge of civil war. These unchecked arms flows are fueling violence throughout the Sahel region, Mali, and perhaps even the Sinai peninsula. Romney has criticized the United States for being behind the curve on reacting to tumult in the Middle East and North Africa, and for leading from behind, notes Bob McMahon—a condemnation which is sure to be debated in the coming week.
• The UN General Assembly opens next week, and Palestine will again be in the headlines. Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), has announced that he will pursue non-member observer state status at the UN General Assembly. The United States has vigorously pressured them not to—and to instead pursue bilateral talks with Israel to resolve the territorial dispute. Alternatively, the PA could repeat its effort to join specialized UN agencies. U.S. legislation requires the United States to cut off funding for any organization that Palestine joins as an equal member state. A successful bid might therefore put the United States in a position of having to cut off its nose to spite its face if Palestine joins, for example, the International Atomic Energy Agency or World Intellectual Property Organization.
• The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has enjoyed a partial renaissance over the last two years. It had been vilified for being a “den of abusers,” but the Obama administration touts its increasing balance and utility as a success of its engagement with the body. Meanwhile, Romney has signaled that he would withdraw from the HRC.

Listen to the podcast to learn more about the agenda for the UN General Assembly, the implications of the Libya attack, and the promising, if uneven, maturing of the Human Rights Council.

I will be traveling to Detroit this week to speak on a panel at the Techonomy conference, which is an annual event normally held in Arizona. It’s a gutsy decision by the organizers to shine the spotlight on a city that Techonomy founder David Kirkpatrick noted is usually considered “a gritty, depressed, financially troubled city that seems well past its glory.” The conference will highlight the transformative economic potential of modern technologies, and as Kirkpatrick writes: “If technology is the key ingredient to rejuvenating the American economy, it has to work where the problems are biggest and the task the hardest.”

The post below, which looks at what governments should be doing to facilitate this transformation, first appeared on the Techonomy web site.

Here’s a chicken and egg problem. Are companies failing to invest in the United States because of its decaying infrastructure, schools that don’t produce enough skilled workers, and a byzantine immigration system? Or has the reluctance of companies to invest in the United States led to decaying infrastructure, failing education, and growing political fights over immigration?

The question is one with enormous implications for governments at all levels looking to create conditions for stronger growth. Should they invest more heavily in education and infrastructure and hope for future payoffs (build it and they will come)? Or should they hold down spending, keep taxes low, and hope that companies will invest, creating a faster growing economy that generates new revenues for education and infrastructure?

The United States clearly has an investment problem, and it’s not just a cyclical one caused by weak consumer demand coming out of the Great Recession. The U.S. share of global foreign direct investment stock, for instance, fell from over 40 percent a decade ago to less than 20 percent today. U.S. headquartered multinational companies, which created more than 4 million jobs in the United States in the 1990s, cut more than one million in the 2000s even as they continued to expand rapidly overseas.

The Harvard Business School earlier this year released an important survey of its alumni working in multinational companies, asking whether their companies were moving operations overseas, and if so why. Discouragingly, far more companies were still thinking about expanding abroad than adding jobs in the United States. And nearly half of those decisions involved research, development, and engineering activities, which are critical to maintaining the U.S. lead in innovation. Many of the respondents cited lower wages as a big incentive to move abroad, but other reasons included better access to skilled labor, fewer or less expensive regulations, and lower tax rates. The most popular recommendations for making the United States a better place to invest included a simpler tax code, immigration reform, strengthening education and training, and streamlining regulations.

One obvious response, and one I generally support, is to try to address these concerns and make the United States a more attractive location to invest. Bolstering the skills of the workforce seems like a no-brainer, for example, but there’s no gain in training young people for jobs that aren’t available.  There are already too many college grads working at Starbucks. Immigration reform to attract more educated and skilled workers again seems obvious, but not quite so obvious in an economy where even U.S. college graduates are struggling to find good work. Infrastructure spending makes sense, especially when long-term borrowing costs are so low. But West Virginia has spent billions building roads, and total federal, state, and local spending accounts for more than half the state’s economy, the highest percentage in the country. And yet West Virginia is still among the poorest states. Roads alone do not make an economy.

So what should governments be doing? For one, they should be competing aggressively for investment. While other governments court multinational companies, the United States has long taken a hands-off approach, though states often take this on themselves. In the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on U.S. Trade and Investment Policy, released last year, we call for a National Investment Initiative that would set a target for increasing investment in the United States, both by domestically headquartered multinationals and by foreign multinationals. We urged action on a variety of fronts including “education, development of infrastructure, encouragement of high-skilled immigration, expanded government support for R&D, and other initiatives that enhance the United States as a primary destination for the location of higher wage employment.” And the task force recommended an overhaul of the corporate tax system to encourage the location of business in the United States. The idea for a National Investment Initiative was endorsed by President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

At the state and local level, Roland Stephen of SRI International, in a working paper for the Renewing America initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations, looked at the experience of North Carolina. The state has rebounded quite strongly from the devastating collapse of manufacturing employment over the past two decades, which was even worse there than in Michigan and Ohio. The state’s Research Triangle is a national success story. While there was no silver bullet, Stephen argues that long-term funding of education and infrastructure “are the foundation on which other policy initiatives rest.”

He calls for more targeted investments as well, particularly in building regional partnerships, technology centers, and other institutions focused on economic development. But he cautions: “Success demands patience. Economies grow slowly and payoffs come slowly. The powerful and appropriate impulse to keep score on public spending should be weighed against the need for investments of an uncertain duration with hard-to-measure payoffs.”

That’s a hard one to sell to the public in a time of fiscal constraint and diminished expectations. But if the United States doesn’t build for the future, it will pass us by.

Coming home after several weeks in Tokyo, I had planned to write about several issues that are consuming the attention of Japan’s political and policy elites. But instead I came back to a hubbub stirred up by presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s commentary on Japan.

At first, I found it hard to believe that Japan had come up at all in the U.S. presidential race. Not since the trade disputes of the 1980s did Tokyo factor in our domestic political contests, and even then it was in large part a function of our own economic concerns and the protectionist impulse that this created in some sectors of our society. China seems to be our demon of choice today in electoral politics, and politicians in the midterm elections fixated on that perceived threat.

After having read about Romney’s comments in Josh Rogin’s blog The Cable, I’m a bit concerned. First, the Republican candidate for president seems to be misinformed about Japan’s economy. He described Japan as “a nation that suffers in decline and distress for a decade or a century.” But this is simply not true. Japan remains a formidable economic force, although China squeaked by Japan in the global ranking in 2010. But that is no reason to ignore the world’s third largest economy. In terms of GDP per capita, Japanese citizens continue to be far richer than Chinese, and Japan’s businesses continue to invest confidently in the United States.

Second, Mr. Romney’s remarks were not simply a careless slip, but rather the basis of his analysis of Asia. The Romney campaign’s website contains a very simplistic rendering of East Asia, one that focuses almost exclusively on China and that completely omits our closest ally, Japan. It would be reckless to continue to be misinformed about one of the world’s most accomplished democracies.

More worrisome is his inference that Japan is no longer important to the United States, or for that matter in global affairs. Today, the United States counts Japan as one of its strongest partners in virtually everything we do around the globe. For example, the United States has worked tirelessly with Japanese diplomats and successive political leaders to contain nuclear proliferation—first from North Korea and now from Iran—and Japan has coordinated closely with us on our latest rounds of sanctions on Iranian oil. Japan has been one of the world’s most significant contributors of overseas development assistance, and has played an indispensable role in one of Washington’s most pressing challenges, the stabilization of Afghanistan. Tokyo leads the effort to organize global assistance for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, with the largest pledge of $5 billion in economic assistance over five years, and has just convened a donors meeting bringing together over fifty-five countries and twenty-five international organizations to work together on Afghanistan’s future.

Tokyo is also a critical partner in global economic governance. Japan stands strongly behind the Bretton Woods institutions that continue to ensure that the world economy has a lender of last resort, and has been a formidable force in support of the International Monetary Fund’s effort to stabilize European finances. It has worked together with the United States and Europe in the World Trade Organization to ensure free trade practices are respected, and disputes are fairly adjudicated.

Undervaluing Japan is not only mistaken, it is potentially compromising to our own national interests in Asia. For over half a century, Japan has been the cornerstone of our alliances there. During this half-century, Tokyo and Washington have grown into a mature relationship of military cooperation that far outpaces other alliances in the region. Our two countries now work to ensure ballistic missile defense against North Korea, to patrol and maintain open sea lanes of communication in the Western Pacific, to police and if necessary act against piracy and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and to assist other Asian nations, particularly in Southeast Asia, in building the capacities they need to defend their coastal waters and airspace against these new 21st century threats.

Japan is a prosperous nation, with a consistent policy of providing stable and sustaining support for the global liberal order. Is it having difficulty generating economic growth? Well, yes. The debate over how Japan might achieve better and sustainable economic growth has been ongoing for some years now. But this year, expectations are that Japan will record a 2.4 percent growth rate. This will most likely mark a better economic performance than the United States or the European economies. Japan is an advanced industrial economy, and like the rest of us, is struggling to compete with the emerging economic powerhouses, especially China.

Japan is also a thriving democracy with a commitment to the rule of law, a nation that has actively led the effort to build sustainable norms and institutions for regional governance in the Asia Pacific that will ensure a similar prosperity for others in Asia. Japan has long advocated for an inclusive regional order, one that ensures a seat at the table of the East Asian Summit for the United States should Washington want to be a participant in the regional effort to build confidence and to solve shared problems. Tokyo has long been an irreplaceable source of support for nations struggling to sustain their success in a volatile global economy. Tokyo provides its neighbors with access to currency swaps to stabilize their volatile financial systems, and invests heavily throughout the Asian region and beyond to provide capital for the burgeoning new economies. Japan has funded much of the infrastructure in China that allowed for the market reforms to take hold, and today it provides up to 25 percent of its overseas development assistance to India to build the infrastructure it needs to underpin its economic expansion.

As a Japan expert, I know how important this relationship is to the United States, and how much we Americans share in terms of goals and aspirations with so many in Japan. Our two societies compete fiercely—as we saw yet again in the women’s soccer match at the Olympics! But we also look to each other completely in times of need. Americans and Japanese last year yet again demonstrated the depth of our friendship in the face of Japan’s overwhelming crises. Japan did the same for us after September 11.

The person who seeks to lead our country should be aware that Tokyo is one of America’s closest friends and allies. If they are not, they will undermine all that has been done over the past half-century to build one of our most valued relationships, and they will badly miscalculate our strategic interests at a time of considerable economic and political transformation in the Asia-Pacific.

Please sit down, Mr. Romney, and take the time to learn about Asia and especially about the value of our allies there. Learn about the tremendous resilience and strength of the Japanese people before you count them—and our alliance with Japan—out.

Last week, twenty-two human rights organizations and activists released a list of the ten most pressing human rights challenges for the next U.S. president. The U.S. president remains one of the most influential public figures in the world—if not the most influential—and the enormity of the challenge to protect human rights around the world should not deter President Obama or President Romney in 2013. As the introduction notes:

“U.S. leadership is critical to effectively address international human rights issues. International responses to gross violations and systematic abuses of human rights around the world tend to have the greatest impact when the United States plays a prominent role or is otherwise actively engaged in promoting a rights-based response. Multilateral human rights institutions similarly make the greatest progress in drawing attention to abuses and maintaining human rights standards when the United States exercises leadership.”

The list offers the next president a guide to prioritizing today’s greatest human rights challenges—and learned experience from past efforts to promote fundamental rights around the world:

1)      Prioritize U.S. leadership on international norms and universality of human rights: Despite the flaws of multilateral bodies like the UN Human Rights Council, they provide crucial legitimacy to U.S. pressure for human rights. Notably, the report points out that engagement is necessary, however frustrating it may be: “By withdrawing from these institutions or restricting funding, the United States forfeits its leadership…and undermines of [sic] its ability to advance its own interests.”

2)      Act to prevent genocide and mass atrocities and ensure accountability:  The next president should build on the painstaking progress that NGOs and governments have achieved over the past decades by sustaining political will and “matching resources to rhetoric…The next administration should support the APB [Atrocities Prevention Board] and provide it with the necessary resources.” In addition, going it with others, versus going it alone, lends legitimacy to U.S. atrocity-prevention efforts and helps defray suspicions that the United States is purely acting  for self-interested political reasons.

3)      Pursue policies that protect people from the threat of terrorism while respecting human rights both at home and abroad: Balancing human rights and terrorist prevention remains an enormous challenge. Specifically, the report recommends two steps: end indefinite detention without charge or trial, and publicly clarify the criteria for lethal targeting and rendition. While terrorism understandably prompts desire for urgent and harsh action, sacrificing human rights at home and abroad carries dangerous, long-term consequences.

4)      Oppose the coordinated global assault on civil society, including the murder, criminalization, and vilification of human rights defenders: This is not a simple task, but the authors offer five actionable steps to mitigate the worst effects of repressive regimes from Ethiopia to Belarus to Venezuela, such as U.S. funding to civil society and media organizations and guidelines for U.S. agencies to support human rights defenders.

5)      Proactively address the democracy and human rights opportunities and challenges presented by the Arab Uprisings: Among a number of recommendations, the report notes that the Obama administration’s “limited pressure for reform” toward Arab monarchies has been disappointing, and that the next administration should condition military aid to Bahrain on progress toward political reform, more forcefully pressure Egypt’s military to transfer power to an elected government, and step up diplomatic and economic pressure on Syria’s Assad regime.

6)      Ensure that corporations avoid contributing to human rights violations in their operations and through their supply chains: The ten actionable steps presented in the report provide feasible options to reduce horrifying violations of human rights in many corporation’s global supply chains. They include implementation of the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and ensuring that it “is not amended to erode the core intent of the law” as well as releasing “final rules for Sections 1502 and 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act” (PDF) and implementing the law “in line with congressional intent.”

7)      Bolster accountability and access to services and justice for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence: The horrors of mass rapes, sexual assault, female genital mutilation, human trafficking, “so-called ‘honor killings,’ ” forced marriage, and domestic violence require a “deeper and more thorough response.” Along with continuing to press for accountability and enforcing a zero-tolerance policy for gender-based crimes perpetrated by U.S. government employees or contractors, the next administration should “expand support for international programs that increase access to health care, educational opportunities, and judicial institutions for girls and women” and increase visas for victims of gender-based violence.

8)      Review the United States’ relationships and alliances with governments that violate human rights:  This has consistently been one of the most difficult lines to walk. Regarding relationships with authoritarian regimes, the authors argue that “Washington policymakers often underestimate the political and moral capital America has, or refuse to use it.” They add, “Despite the recognition that the United States’ largely uncritical partnerships with repressive regimes in the Middle East undermined long-term U.S. interests, old mistakes are being repeated around the world. The United States has largely neglected human rights as it collaborated on counterterrorism with Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, and other authoritarian partners.” Therefore, the authors call on the next U.S. president to review U.S. relations with authoritarian governments with a fresh perspective. In addition, U.S. diplomats on the ground should engage with democracy activists or civil society groups. The administration should also introduce targeted visa bans and asset freezes on foreign government officials implicated in rights violations.

9)      Support international justice and accountability for human rights violators present in the United States: To reduce impunity for gross violations of international law, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, the United States must support accountability for leaders or compatriots who carry out heinous abuses. As I have written previously, the false peace-justice tradeoff is no reason to go easy on the most violent dictators. To further this progress, the report urges the next administration to “close legal loopholes in the federal war-crimes law and press for crimes against humanity committed abroad to be a federal crime so human rights violators in the United States can be held to account.”

10)   Support policies at home and abroad that respect the rights of asylum seekers, refugees, migrants, and immigrants: The authors lament that the United States “has failed, in a number of ways, to protect the human rights of refugees and migrants.” Regrettably, the report continues, “the United States detained nearly 400,000 asylum seekers and immigrants last year, often without individual assessments or prompt court review of detention” and the list goes on of documented U.S. violations of migrant and refugee rights, as confirmed by both bipartisan domestic reviews and international observer missions. As the report lays out, the next administration must reform the U.S. immigration detention system, stop fostering racial profiling through immigration enforcement, and ensure accountability for human rights abuses by the Border Patrol and at points of entry. Protecting human rights must start at home. 

In a presidential election year, it’s almost impossible to find any balanced and nuanced analysis on an issue as volatile as immigration. So it’s tremendously refreshing to watch the new, three-hour PBS documentary series, “Homeland: Immigration in America,” which begins airing across much of the country this week. The episodes will also be available on a website created for the program, at www.explorehomeland.org.

Wonderfully narrated by Ray Suarez of the PBS News Hour, the series does a superb job of tackling most of the big immigration challenges – such as enforcement, jobs, and refugees. But what is unique and fascinating about the series is that it locates these issues in an unlikely place – the state of Missouri.

Missouri is not exactly the first state that comes to mind when thinking about the immigration challenges facing the United States. According to the Migration Policy Institute’s authoritative MPI Data Hub, Missouri ranks 41st out of the 50 states in the immigrant percentage of the total  population – just 3.9 per cent. In first place California, over 27 percent of the population is immigrant.

But the local PBS affiliate that produced the program – Nine Network of Public Media in St. Louis – started with the hunch that the whole story could indeed be told without leaving the state. And they were right. While the total numbers are still small, the immigrant population in Missouri has nearly tripled since 1990.  An episode on refugees looks at survivors from conflicts in Africa and the Middle East struggling to remake their lives in St. Louis. The episode on enforcement profiles Kris Kobach, a Kansas City lawyer and radio host who has played a key role in the harsh enforcement legislation passed by states like Arizona, Alabama, and Georgia. But it also looks at migrants fighting deportation (including some unprecedented footage of the deportation flights overseen by the Department of Homeland Security), and at local police trying to win trust in immigrant communities where some fear arrest and deportation.

For the segment on jobs, the producers looked in depth at the town of Monett, Missouri, which is a big employer of immigrants in the local Tyson Foods chicken slaughtering plant, and at the farms in the region trying to fill seasonal jobs through the H-2A temporary worker program. Immigrants there have revitalized the town, but also caused a fair bit of trepidation among older residents and raised new challenges for the local schools. And the documentary also follows the story of a local Taiwanese student who is working for a PhD in immunology at Washington University in St. Louis, and trying to navigate complex U.S. immigration laws to figure out whether she will be able to stay in the United States after she graduates.

The stories are interspersed with analysis from a range of immigration experts that sets the local issues in a broader context. Full disclosure – I am one of the talking heads quoted at times in the episodes. But don’t watch it for that. The people in the show – the immigrants themselves and the local citizens who are wrestling with how to react to their growing numbers – speak for themselves.

In an election year, where the complexities of an issue like immigration are inevitably bludgeoned out of the debates, that is a great service.

Outsourcing is a big problem. That’s about the only thing The Washington Post got right in its front page story this morning, “Obama struggles to make headway on outsourcing,” that sadly does much to misinform about one of the most important issues confronting the U.S. economy.

Perhaps the president deserved this. His campaign had jumped on an equally misleading Post story last month that accused Mitt Romney’s former private equity firm of investing heavily in U.S. companies that were moving work to lower-wage countries. That story immediately became fodder for a series of Obama campaign ads accusing the GOP presidential challenger of shipping jobs overseas. I presume today’s story was an attempt by the Post to show “balance,” but the result is to leave Post readers more befuddled than ever.

Where to start? The Post stories are absolutely right that outsourcing by multinational corporations poses a huge challenge to the United States. In the Council’s recent Task Force report on U.S. Trade and Investment Policy, on which I served as project co-director along with the Dartmouth economist Matthew Slaughter, we showed the dramatic turn for the worse over the past decade. In the 1990s, U.S.-based multinational companies created 4.4 million jobs in the United States, and 2.7 million jobs in their overseas affiliates – a classic “win-win.” In the 2000s, however, those same companies went on adding another 2.6 million jobs abroad, but eliminated 2.9 million jobs in the United States. The world’s gain became our loss.

That’s a big problem. Not only are these generally better, higher-paying positions, but these are the companies that do more than 70 percent of the private sector R&D in the United States. As jobs in these firms migrate overseas, there are growing worries that research and innovation will follow.

In its Romney story, the Post highlighted Bain Capital’s investments in various companies that expanded call center operations abroad, helped tech companies outsource packaging and hardware assembly, and moved or expanded manufacturing outside the United States. The story was not so much wrong as meaningless – any private equity firm or other large investor in the United States over the past two decades has unavoidably held a stake in firms that were outsourcing. In fact, one could probably say confidently that virtually every American who has owned stock or a mutual fund over that period has, to quote the Post headline, “invested in companies that moved jobs overseas.”

This morning’s story, however, was even worse in quoting a series of “critics” slamming the Obama administration for not enacting remedies that would likely have done nothing to reverse the trend, and could in fact have accelerated it. It focuses heavily on Obama’s repeated call to raise corporate taxes on income earned overseas; some Democrats have been advocating various forms of this proposal for a decade or more. The proposals are complex, but in simple form would make it harder for U.S.-based multinationals to lower taxes by retaining overseas income outside the United States, or shifting profits to lower-tax jurisdictions overseas. CFR.org has an excellent backgrounder on the issue here. The difficulties in enforcing compliance would probably be overwhelming. And if the regime were truly effective, the primary result would likely be to encourage U.S.-based multinationals to reorganize in ways to escape the additional tax burden, probably by moving additional parts of the company offshore.

The other suggestions are even less likely to help. The article quotes various critics saying that Obama should have labeled China “a currency manipulator” which, according to the Post, “could ultimately allow the U.S. government to erect tariffs to protect American industries.” No it couldn’t. In fact, all the statute says is that, by identifying a country as a currency manipulator, the Treasury Secretary is required to “initiate negotiations with such foreign countries on an expedited basis.” Slapping punitive tariffs against China over currency manipulation would almost certainly be a violation of World Trade Organization rules, and would be struck down as such.

The article similarly accuses Obama of embracing “unfettered trade despite its costs to American workers,” citing the administration’s belated support of trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. The first two countries already exported virtually everything to the United States duty-free, so the primary effect of the deals was to open those markets to U.S. exports. And with South Korea, the administration only supported the deal after forcing Seoul to re-write the provisions related to auto trade to meet the concerns of the United Auto Workers, who then backed the agreement.

Perhaps the most egregious distortion in the article is the suggestion that allowing skilled foreign workers into the United States on H-1B visas means that “these foreigners get trained in the United States and then set up competing enterprises when they go home.” Really? Some surely do, but by that logic the United States should kick every foreign student out of U.S. universities because they might acquire skills that allow them to go home and compete with Americans.

While there are legitimate debates over the H-1B program, the notion that it encourages outsourcing is ridiculous. By allowing the best foreign workers into the United States, it means U.S. companies do not need to go abroad to hire top talent. It is far better for the United States to have skilled foreigners working here alongside skilled Americans than to see those operations leave the United States. And if some smart Indians or Chinese go back home and set up businesses, they are likely to build on the contacts they made in the United States, opening up new opportunities for American business even as they may provide new competition.

Finally, it’s not even clear that the premise of the article remains correct. The subhead in the print edition notes: “President’s record is criticized as jobs keep flowing from U.S.” That was certainly the case through 2010, the latest hard data available. But there is growing evidence of at least a slight uptick in manufacturing jobs returning from overseas, in part due to rising wage costs abroad. And as indicated by the recent Airbus announcement of its plans to begin assembling planes in Alabama, the United States is becoming more attractive to foreign investment as well.

The debate over outsourcing deserves better than this, though judging by the thousands of comments on the two Post stories, it is clearly a topic of great interest. It should be. The United States desperately needs to figure out how to do more to expand investment and jobs in a world where other countries are competing aggressively to do the same. Serious newspapers like the Washington Post should be raising the quality of that discussion, not lowering it.

Many years ago I was attracted to the idea that advanced economies could gradually move from a relentless focus on economic growth to a “steady state” in which they would grow only slowly, if at all. It all seemed quite logical – as societies became generally wealthy, as population growth slowed,  and as non-renewable resources were further depleted, more modest rates of growth would be more sustainable and perhaps even conducive to a higher quality of life that was less focused on the next percentage point of growth.

It was, in retrospect, rather naïve. The reason is this: A successful slow growth society would require a population that believed in the fairness of how that fixed wealth was distributed. And that appears to be nearly impossible. Even in a country like Japan, which is something of a model here, slow growth over the past two decades has brought with it a near permanent crisis of political instability. In Europe, anemic growth coupled with high borrowing in many countries to pay for an unsustainable level of government services has undermined what appeared to be an enlightened arrangement in which the richer northern countries helped along their poorer southern neighbors.

And in the United States, the dismal growth of the past five years is similarly unraveling the social compact. Tuesday night’s elections were only a small harbinger of what is likely to come. In debt-plagued California, where public schools may be cut by three weeks to save money and the nation’s best public university system is being starved, voters in San Jose and San Diego voted to roll back generous pension benefits for current and retired workers, in effect tearing up contracts that had been signed  in an era when strong growth was taken for granted. With state taxes and unemployment in Californian both already among the nation’s highest, voters are set on clawing back scarce dollars from someone else.

Similarly, voters in Wisconsin returned Republican governor Scott Walker, whose efforts to cut wages and benefits for public workers had resulted in a recall campaign that split the state into near warring factions. Walker has promised to try to heal the wounds, but economic growth in Wisconsin has been weaker than in most of the rest of the country. Unless that changes, the battles over distribution will only get worse.

At the national level, the big election-year debates over taxes and government spending reflect increasingly deep divisions over how to distribute wealth in an economy that’s barely growing.  The newly released Pew survey of “Trends in American Values” shows a widening gulf between Democrats and Republicans, especially since the onset of the recession in 2007. And almost all of the increased polarization has occurred over the past decade, during which most Americans saw losses in real income.

One question asked Republicans, Democrats, and Independents whether “government should take care of people who can’t take care of themselves.”  Among Republicans, 62 percent said yes in 1987, but today just 40 percent think so. Most of the decline has occurred in the past five years. On another question, whether “government should help more needy people, even if it means going deeper into debt,” two-thirds of Democrats said yes, roughly the same as in 1987. But among Republicans support fell from 39 percent to 20 percent, and there has been a big drop among Independents as well.

Source: “Trends in American Values: 1897-2012,” Pew Research Center

These numbers are particularly worrisome because the federal government has yet to actually make any of the tough budget decisions it must inevitably make. New figures released by the Congressional Budget Office this week forecast that, if Congress remains on its current tax and spending path, federal debt will continue to rise from 73 percent of GDP this year to 93 percent by 2022 and nearly 200 percent by 2037.

Is there a way out? Only one that’s plausible – strong, sustained economic growth. Most of the fights over limited resources will become far easier to resolve if the resources aren’t so limited. Both parties pay lip service to this by packaging their preferred distribution of wealth as growth enhancing. Republicans claim smaller government and low taxes on the wealthy will accelerate economic growth; Democrats claim stimulus spending and targeted subsidies will jumpstart growth. But in neither case is growth actually the priority – it is rather a sort of residual effect of policies favored on distributional grounds.

That needs to change, and soon. Because as we are seeing, the steady state economy turns out to be anything but.

Senator Marco Rubio, a leading contender to serve as Mitt Romney’s running mate, has a surprisingly centrist foreign policy vision according to his address at the Brookings Institution last Wednesday. Florida’s junior senator sees a world of complex, transnational threats that make it impossible for the United States to hunker down in an isolationist crouch. He recognizes the need for international partnerships. He’s in favor of foreign aid and the defense of human rights. And he believes military force should always be on the table in defending U.S. security. Senator Rubio, meet Barack Obama.

GOP critics and their op-ed and think tank allies routinely paint Obama as a foreign policy naïf—an appeaser, a peacenik, and worse. They conveniently overlook, as Peter Bergen recently pointed out, that the president has authorized the most intense counterterrorism operations in U.S. history, to say nothing of a victorious coalition operation that deposed Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi. (The president even used his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in 2009 to justify the use of military force in a world of evil-doers).

One might have expected Senator Rubio to descend into caricature of Obama, and launch into a full-throated defense of American unilateralism. Refreshingly, he instead outlined a strategy of pragmatic internationalism.

So what did we learn from Rubio?

• Isolationism is impossible in an age of security interdependence: Like Obama, Rubio understands that globalization has erased the line between “foreign” and “domestic,” and that today’s security threats respect no borders. “Every aspect of our lives is directly impacted by global events,” Rubio explained. He offered the security of cities, living costs, and food safety as “ just a few examples of everyday aspects of our lives that are directly related to events abroad and make it impossible for us to focus only on our issues here at home.”
• Multilateralism reflects enlightened self-interest. As the president himself has done, Rubio lionized the generation of far-sighted wise men who had “a vision, the will and the means” to create and defend liberal norms and principles of world order after World War II.

“The purpose of the institutions we established, from the United Nations to the World Bank and the IMF, was to spread peace and prosperity…. Other nations consented to our leadership because they saw what the economic and political values of the American world view had achieved and they wanted the same for themselves.”

• Foreign aid remains essential to secure U.S. objectives. Rubio acknowledged that America’s surging deficit and national debt make slashing the foreign aid budget tempting. But he cautioned that “foreign aid is a very cost-effective way, not only to export our values and our example, but to advance our security and economic interests.” The Senator counted the effort to combat AIDS in Africa as one of the U.S assistance programs he is “proudest of.”

To be sure, Rubio tried to force some daylight between him and the president. He criticized Obama for unsteady leadership in catalyzing global cooperation, for placing undue faith in rising powers, and for overreliance on formal multilateralism.

On each of these counts, Rubio’s indictments were unpersuasive.

Rubio’s main critique was that the Obama administration has too often substituted a pusillanimous “engagement” strategy for true leadership. He condemned the administration for failing to understand that “ effective coalitions don’t form themselves…and more often than not, they can only be instigated and led by the United States.” But Rubio’s supporting evidence was weak. The closest he could come was in chiding the administration for taking the slow route to victory in Libya—but even then, he had to concede that the coalition approach had succeeded.

More broadly, Rubio criticized Obama’s effort to cultivate rising powers as responsible stakeholders. Rubio sees this as a mirage, particularly when it comes to authoritarian China. The hard truth is that “there is no one else to hand off the baton to, even if that were a good idea…who will lead if we do not?” Yet in the same breath, Rubio concedes the United States can’t do it all:

“America should work with our capable allies in finding solutions to global problems. Not because America’s gotten weaker, but because our partners have grown stronger…. Our greatest successes have always occurred in partnership with like-minded nations.”

The problem with this formulation, of course, is that mere assertions of U.S. leadership are no longer enough to secure followers. Compromises must be made, and deals must be cut. The United States cannot simply rely on “like-minded nations.” To address climate change, nuclear proliferation, and a host of other global issues, the United States has no choice but to engage China, as well as other major players like Russia, India, Brazil, and Turkey.

Finally, like other Republicans, Rubio perceives a slavish Democratic devotion to formal international organizations. He charged that American power has been “diminished” by the “one nation, one vote formula of the UN General Assembly or the Human Rights Council,” with “absurd and often appalling results.” Nor is Rubio impressed with Obama’s efforts to forge consensus on the UN Security Council, since, “as we have seen on North Korea, on Syria, on Iran,” that body is too often paralyzed by veto threats from China and Russia.

This critique is simply a bum rap. The Obama administration has never limited multilateral cooperation to working through formal institutions, and it has made pragmatic use of coalitions of the willing. Where the Obama administration differs from its predecessor is in working assiduously within universal membership bodies—including the flawed UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council—in an effort to reform these from the inside out. Finally, Rubio’s critique of the Security Council has little to do with the Obama administration, per se—it’s simply a structural function of the UN Charter’s veto provisions. What Rubio neglects to mention is that the administration, despite the inherent limits of the Council, has achieved the strongest sanctions resolutions ever on both North Korea and Iran.

The real test of whether Rubio is offering something new came in his discussion of Syria. Here the Senator, revealingly, pulled his punches. For weeks, interventionist senators like Joseph Lieberman and John McCain have called for arming the rebels and establishing a no-fly zone. Rubio was more circumspect. While arguing that the United States should  “help the people of Syria bring [Assad] down,” he was vague about what stronger “American leadership” in Syria would actually entail. He spoke of working with Turkey and the Arab League to provide the opposition with food, medicine, communications equipment, “and potentially weapons,” but quickly backtracked in the subsequent Q&A, suggesting in a response that he shares some of the Obama administration’s qualms about the nature and coherence of the Syrian opposition:

“First of all, we have to ensure that whoever it is, if ultimately we equip them or our allies equip them, we understand the nature of who they are, their ability to protect these weapons from falling into the wrong hands… you can’t just give that over to a force that’s largely disorganized and can become—you know, the weapons could fall into the wrong hands in a global marketplace.”

In other words, before arming an inchoate rebel force in a looming sectarian war in the heart of the Middle East, we should probably know who we are dealing with. Such circumspection sounds strangely familiar….

Over the course of the Obama administration, Washington’s objectives for Israeli-Palestinian peace have shifted dramatically. President Obama took office seeking to resolve the conflict within two years. Deeming it a “national security objective” and one of his highest priorities, he immediately appointed Senator George Mitchell his special Middle East envoy. Three years later, Mitchell is no longer in the position, and the president is no longer seeking to resolve the conflict.

In May of last year, the president lowered his sights, calling for Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate on just two of the core final status peace issues—borders and security arrangements—while deferring talks on some other thorny issues, such as the final disposition of Jerusalem or the fate of the Palestinian refugees. Curiously, after articulating the basis for a borders-for-security deal rather than dispatch his envoy to the Middle East, the president effectively shelved the issue.

Frustrated with both Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and Palestinian president Abbas and consumed with other regional issues like Egypt, Libya, and the Arab uprisings, the Obama administration has downgraded the priority of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Indeed, the administration has shifted from conflict resolution to conflict management.

Once the president is sworn in on January 20, 2013, he will no doubt have to confront the question of how to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is probably safe to say that the century-old dispute will not have been resolved by then.

Whether he wants to or not, come next January, the president will be forced to make some decisions about how best to approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Will the president, regardless of who he is, renew Obama’s original pledge and try to resolve the conflict? Or will he instead seek simply to manage it? The context in which he tackles this question will no doubt be dramatically different given. I address these questions as part of CFR’s Campaign 2012, a series of video briefings on the top foreign policy issues debated in the run-up to the 2012 U.S. elections. Check out the video below (also available on YouTube here), and please post a response suggesting what you think are the challenges the president is likely to face.

Unsurprisingly, foreign aid has once again become a political football in this year’s primary season. Today’s GOP presidential candidates regularly bash it, echoing “Mr. Republican” Robert Taft—who dismissed overseas assistance more than six decades ago as “pouring money down a rat hole.”

But public opposition to providing foreign aid is one of the hoariest misconceptions in U.S. foreign policy.

In fact, U.S. citizens support foreign aid, particularly when it is targeted to alleviating poverty and humanitarian suffering. This is remarkable, given the magnitude by which Americans consistently overestimate the percentage of the federal budget actually devoted to foreign aid. These findings emerge from a newly updated digest of U.S. and international polling on global issues developed by CFR and the Program on International Policy Attitudes. They suggest that bashing foreign aid—as most of the leading GOP candidates for president have done—is a campaign strategy of dubious value. It may provide red meat to the Republican base, but it ignores the generous impulses of the American majority.

All of this brings to mind a famous lyric from the Broadway show, Porgy and Bess. To paraphrase Gershwin, things you’re liable to read in the (GOP foreign policy) bible ain’t necessarily so.

In the United States, there is actually a broad consensus that developed countries have “a moral responsibility to work to reduce hunger and severe poverty in poor countries”—81 percent of the U.S. public holds this view (WPO, 2008). Americans also believe that it is in rich countries’ own interest to help poor countries develop, but that wealthy nations are not doing enough to help poor nations.

U.S. public support for foreign aid has proven resilient despite the global economic downturn and the struggles of many Americans to get by.  In a 2010 poll by the Chicago Council of Foreign Affairs, 74 percent of U.S. citizens polled favored providing “food and medical assistance” to other countries, and 62 percent favored delivering “aid to help needy countries to develop their economies.” To be sure, the recession had dragged down these numbers slightly from 2004 (when the equivalent figures were 82 percent and 74 percent), but both propositions retained clear majority support.

As in years past, when asked, Americans initially tend to say that their government should reduce economic assistance to other nations (CCGA, 2010). But this attitude rests on persistent misperceptions of the share of the U.S. federal budget devoted to aid. For decades now, U.S. citizens have overestimated U.S. foreign aid spending by several orders of magnitude. When WorldPublicOpinion.org asked the public in 2010 to estimate the percentage of the federal budget going to foreign aid, respondents on average reckoned 27 percent—and suggested that a more appropriate percentage might be 13 percent. The actual figure is less than one percent. (When informed of the actual figure, Americans tend to be initially incredulous). When given accurate information, a clear majority of Americans favors either increasing current aid levels or keeping levels constant. In addition, a large majority of Americans say they would be willing to increase spending on foreign aid to meet anti-poverty targets, provided other nations agree to do the same.

During  recessions, legislators are quick to target overseas assistance for the scalpel. Unlike military spending, after all, there is no powerful domestic constituency that will be alienated by draconian cuts.

But here the public parts company with politicians.

When asked by pollsters to engage in an (imaginary) budget-cutting exercise of their own, Americans did not single out foreign aid, especially its more altruistic forms, for disproportionate cuts. In 2011, for example, the Program for Public Consultation provided a representative sample of Americans with an online exercise, allowing them to manipulate the U.S. federal budget, broken down into 31 categories. Participants actually increased funding for humanitarian aid by 18 percent and nicked global health by just 2 percent, while cutting development assistance by a more significant 14 percent. On average, respondents cut these three aid programs by 3 percent—significantly less than the average of 11 percent they advocated across the 31 programs. By contrast, respondents placed heavier cuts on U.S. aid programs with less altruistic motives, recommending a 15 percent decline in military assistance and a 23 percent reduction in Economic Support Funds (essentially political support for U.S. allies).

However, the Republican presidential candidates have read the field differently. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have both endorsed Texas Governor Rick Perry’s idea of “zeroing out” the U.S. foreign aid budget, and eliminating all assistance “to countries that don’t support the United States of America.” Gingrich has stated, “I think it’s a pretty good idea to start at zero and sometimes stay there.” Romney has agreed that the United States should “start everything off at zero.” Unsurprisingly, the libertarian Ron Paul has been most scathing, calling foreign aid to Africa “worthless.” As he said at Tuesday’s presidential debate, “I think the aid is all worthless. It doesn’t do any good for most of the people. You take money from poor people in this country and you end up giving it to rich people in poorer countries.”

Indeed, among the remaining GOP candidates, only former Senator Rick Santorum has rejected “zeroing out” foreign aid, describing it as a form of “pandering.” Of aid to Africa, Santorum argues, “it’s absolutely essential.” His rationale is partly strategic, noting that the continent has in the past been “on the brink of complete meltdown and chaos, which would have been fertile ground for the radical Islamists to be able to get a foothold.” But he’s also been among the most ardent GOP champions of HIV-AIDS assistance in Africa.

Such positions suggest that Santorum, alone among the GOP hopefuls, would help preserve George W. Bush’s greatest presidential legacy: his enormous expansion of foreign aid, notably his President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has saved hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives worldwide. Bush also launched the Millennium Challenge Account, to channel more aid to countries that rule justly, promote economic growth, and invest in their people. These investments testified to the generosity of the United States and to the president’s conviction that well-targeted aid could advance human dignity worldwide.

View the entire digest of World Opinion on Energy Security at www.cfr.org/public opinion. View key findings of the digests and a short introduction at worldpublicopinion.org.

Let’s start with the flawed part. As Torsella rightly noted, there are “at least two UNs,” and neither presents a pretty picture. One is the global institution itself. This “UN” is composed of departments, programs and agencies that deliver many essential services like peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance. But it is also plagued by outmoded management systems, too little transparency and accountability, and mind-boggling waste. The other “UN” is composed of 193 diverse and often fractious member states that too often treat the world body as a spoils system, cling to outdated blocs like the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) or the Group of 77, and play to the galleries with irresponsible behavior. And predictably, the two “UNs” tend to blame each other for their failures.

The United Nations is also trapped in the past, structured to address traditional dangers of inter-state war, rather than the transnational threats—like “proliferation, terrorism, degradation and disease”—that dominate today’s global security agenda.

The administration’s agenda for UN reform rests on “four pillars,” Torsella explained: thrift, accountability, integrity, and excellence.

Torsella himself admitted that achieving all of them is not realistic, so it’s important to prioritize among them. Restoring the UN’s “integrity” should be job one. Nothing weakens the United Nations more than self-inflicted wounds to its reputation, whether it is electing Cuba to the Human Rights Council, or permitting North Korea to assume the chair of the UN Disarmament Commission. The administration is working hard to prevent the UN from being its own worst enemy, Torsella explained, including by “working overtime to keep the worst offenders off UN bodies,” fighting for competitive elections (as opposed to regional rotations) for seats on UN bodies, and preventing countries under Security Council sanctions from assuming UN leadership roles. One of the administration’s most promising ideas is forging a new “credibility caucus” in New York to establish “membership criteria” and “promote truly competitive elections” to the Human Rights Council.

Promoting “accountability” registers as a close second. Transparency at the United Nations remains appalling. This facilitates mismanagement and contributes to public mistrust worldwide. Under heavy pressure, UN member states agreed to create an Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), but funding and staffing remain inadequate, and the office is subject to political interference. To shed more light across the UN system, the Obama administration is pressing for a stronger OIOS, urging greater involvement by civil society watchdogs, and asking “UN funds and programs to post audits on the web, as UNICEF and UNDP recently pledged to do.” As Torsella explains:

Websites like the U.S. government’s recovery.gov, the UK’s dfid.gov, and Kentucky’s opendoor.gov make unprecedented amounts of information—about salaries, contracts and budgets—easily available to the public. We’re going to ask the UN system to do the same.

Furthermore, some reasonably minor and feasible management reforms could drastically improve the UN’s ability to deliver—and even deliver “excellence.” Changing UN personnel rules would make it easier to hire qualified staff and eliminate under-performers. Second, consolidating the delivery of services by multiple UN agencies within target countries, under a strong UN resident coordinator system, would allow the UN to truly “deliver as one.” And a third step would be strengthening the evaluation of UN development programs—taking a page from the World Bank and other institutions—by focusing on outcomes and impact, not simply inputs.

In a period of fiscal austerity, finally, the UN cannot be immune. Here’s where “thrift” comes in. Over the last twenty years, the UN’s regular, two-year budget (not counting peacekeeping or other missions) rose an average of 5 percent a year, far faster than inflation. But thanks to pressure by the United States and like-minded governments, Torsella noted proudly, UN member states had just voted for only the second budget reduction in the last fifty years (and the first since 1998), a 5 percent decline from $5.41 to $5.15 billion.

As Torsella reminded his CFR audience, the United States has a fundamental stake in a credible, effective, and legitimate United Nations.

“Because—at its best—the UN can help prevent conflict, keep the peace, isolate terrorists and criminals, go where nobody else will care for the neediest of the world, smooth the channels of global commerce, and promote universal values that Americans hold dear. That’s why the United States led in creating the UN in 1945, and why we continue to lead in renewing the UN today.”

The reform agenda Torsella described reflects this constructive legacy in being sober, reasoned, and balanced.

That’s a far cry from what we’ve heard from the Republican presidential candidates. Like their counterparts in the House, the GOP contenders have adopted a slash and burn approach to the world body.  Newt Gingrich, this weekend’s victor in South Carolina, last summer called for defunding the UN. (Prior to dropping out, Texas Governor Rick Perry advocated the same in a televised debate). Rick Santorum, who’s taking his fight to Florida, has made halving U.S. funding for the UN part of his official platform. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, called recent UN work an “extraordinary failure,” and endorses John Bolton’s proposal that the United States defund the Human Rights Council—despite recent U.S. progress in improving that body’s functioning. The libertarian Ron Paul gets even spookier, describing the United Nations as a threat to American liberty. (In 1998, he even warned that it “would confiscate our guns” if it got the chance).

Whoever is elected in November must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Many of the reforms UN critics identify are needed not only in Geneva and New York, but also in Washington, DC—underscoring the foolishness of trashing a flawed but indispensable organization. Kudos to Ambassador Torsella for putting forth such an ambitious framework and for illuminating a viable path for UN reform.

Republican presidential candidates stand at attentiond during the singing of the national anthem during the CNN GOP National Security debate on November 22, 2011. (Jim Bourg / Courtesy of Reuters)

Truth be told, I don’t think that foreign policy—other than matters related to war—is likely to play a significant role in this year’s presidential election. Moreover, as decades of U.S. electoral politics have demonstrated, whatever candidates say about China is likely to bear little resemblance to what they actually do once they are in the Oval Office. Nonetheless, as a matter of character and competence, it is fascinating to look at what each of the Republican candidates has to say about China. Even though I have followed the Republican race fairly closely, I was surprised—both pleasantly and not—by what I found.

Talk the talk but don’t walk the walk: Rick Perry breathes fire on China: “Communist China is destined for the ash heap of history because they are not a country of virtues. When you have 35,000 forced abortions a day in that country, when you have the cyber security that the PLA has been involved with, those are great major issues both morally and security-wise that we’ve got to deal with now.” Well maybe, but exactly how Perry is dealing with them by courting Huawei to invest in Texas is unclear. The U.S. government has three times denied China’s telecom giant business opportunities in the United States because of security concerns related to spying and the People’s Liberation Army. Mr. Perry, however, has praised Huawei’s “really strong worldwide reputation.” The end result of candidate Perry’s China policy to date? Huawei has a corporate headquarters just outside Dallas.

Make love not war: Ron Paul appears to recognize all the challenges in the U.S. – China relationship from trade to security to human rights, but his response is basically “go along to get along”: stop spy plane missions, reconsider the Taiwan Relations Act, and drop the idea of a tariff on Chinese goods in retaliation for Beijing’s currency manipulation. Laissez-faire rose to new heights when he opposed a congratulatory congressional resolution for Liu Xiaobo on the Nobel Peace prize. Candidate Paul leaves no doubt that he would be Beijing’s pick for top dog.

It’s all about the economy, stupid: Mitt Romney ‘s China policy is all about trade—keeping counterfeit goods out, aggressively pursuing intellectual property infringement cases, levying tariffs and sanctions on Chinese industry that have unfair trade practices, designating China a currency manipulator, and imposing countervailing duties. And much of it sounds reasonable. However, Romney will face some pretty stiff opposition from at least half of the U.S. business community that imports from China (e.g. Wal Mart). After all, a lot of Americans benefit from those cheap Chinese goods as well. And he doesn’t really address the potential impacts of a trade war from his tough new China trade policy. Of course, achieving all of Mr. Romney’s enforcement goals will require a steep increase in the financial and human capital devoted to trade enforcement. Does “Big Government” still play in the Republican Party?

Where’s the beef?: Try as I might, I couldn’t really find any China-related policy prescriptions from Rick Santorum. He denigrates President Obama’s foreign policy as allowing “other powers like Russia and China to have more influence in this world.” (He must have missed three months worth of “Pivot” headlines this past summer.) And he calls for going “to war with China” to “make America the most attractive place in the world to do business.” I am not sure what that means, but my guess is he’s not either. Hopefully his foreign policy staff will up their China IQ as the race progresses.

Nuance but not in the race: No real surprise that the greatest nuance in China policy arises from former U.S. Ambassador to China John Huntsman and former history professor Newt Gingrich. Huntsman has all his facts in line. You can agree or disagree with his opposition to a China currency bill or his desire to engage to promote political change in China—but he knows his stuff. Gingrich has seemingly refrained from too much China-bashing, and basically called on the United States to do the right thing and take action on the home front in order to be more competitive. Hard to argue with that either. The fact that neither appears to be in for the long haul will be a loss for future election-year debates over foreign policy.

Ignorance is bliss: Anyone looking for confirmation that Michelle Bachman was right to drop out of the race probably doesn’t need to look much further than her comments on China in which she suggested that we follow China’s example with regard to social welfare policy. She claimed that “if you look at China, they don’t have food stamps…They save for their own retirement security, they don’t have AFDC, they don’t have the modern welfare state, and China’s growing.” Yes, but what they do have is 150 million people living on less than US $1 per day, a level of income inequality that exceeds that of the United States, and roughly 180,000 mass demonstrations. Is that really what she wants the United States to look like?