Obama's dud of a trip

I suspect that if in some alternative universe I were ever elected president I would take as many foreign trips as possible, as quickly as possible, just for the experience. While some of his earlier trips seemed to have objectives, or at least events that could be spun as creating a new tone (e.g., the Cairo speech), Obama's Asia trip seemed more like a get-acquainted or even a tourist excursion. He certainly didn't break any ground; if anything he reinforced longstanding U.S. policy, which is to keep an inordinate number of troops in Japan and South Korea long past their due date. Doug Bandow wrote a piece suggesting some real changes that could be made in Asian policy, starting with withdrawing troops that have little or no function with the Cold War over, and firming up economic relations with China, with which there's little or no reason to be confrontational. I linked to it in a post I did for the Register's Orange Punch blog, and we actually got some fairly thoughtful comments back and forth. Take a look.

Moving beyond empire

I guess it's becoming something of a theme, but the financial crisis almost dictates, My column for Antiwar.com this week argues that one implication of the financial crisis is that the American empire is almost crumbling before our eyes. Not only has the misadventure in Iraq cost an inordinate amount of money (not to mention 4,000-plus lives) and put the U.S. in a position where it doesn't have military force to project elsewhere, the energy situation has enriched the petro-states, notably including Russia, so there's no longer much chance of it being a unpolar world much longer. The question is whether the U.S. will stand down voluntarily from imperial ambition or have to suffer embarrassing defeats on several levels.

My old friend Doug Bandow seems to have similar ideas.