ashthomas//blog: Cohen on the First Debate

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Monday, October 04, 2004

Cohen on the First Debate

Eliot A. Cohen, of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, has a very sensible op-ed in the WSJ Opinion Journal today, "Isolate or Liberate?".

I didn't get a chance to see the debate, but the ashWife and I listened to a simulcast from the BBC World Service in bed (it was mid-morning Friday here). She thought Kerry romped it in, I thought it was close, but Kerry had a slight advantage. One of the things that bothered us was that the debate was limited in many ways, and did not address as many foreign policy issues as it could have in the alloted 90 minutes. This was a problem that Cohen also identified:
[A]s a window into the foreign policy implications of America's presidential choice, the debate left much to be desired. The candidates did not discuss American relations with the most important power in the world, China, and yet a U.S.-China clash over Taiwan could happen. If it did, the results would deservedly blow bombings in Fallujah or gunplay in Waziristan to the back pages. In a similar vein, the problem of international trade policy, i.e., protection, will revert to the domestic policy debate--a piece of self-absorption that is itself part of the problem of how Americans think about trade, and a source of much hostility abroad. The Arab-Israeli conflict was notable for its absence. There was nothing about the broader course of U.S.-European relations, international environmental issues, or the emerging strategic alliance with India.

The debate was primarily about the events of the past (Iraq and Afghanistan) and how the candidate would deal with the situations that have developed in since 9/11. The only time other issues seemed to be brought up was when Kerry inserted them into his answers. As Cohen notes,

This was a debate overwhelmingly about Iraq, to a lesser extent about the misnamed Global War on Terror, and in a cursory fashion, about North Korea, Iran and Russia.

Of course, this can't be entirely the fault of Bush and Kerry--a good deal of the blame must fall on the shoulders of the moderator and the questions that he chose. Cohen also wished there was more variety to the questions, and he proposes one that should have been put to the candidates:

The best question Jim Lehrer could have asked is the one that the candidates could not answer: "Who will be your national security adviser and his or her deputy, your secretaries, deputy secretaries, and under secretaries of state and defense?" The audience would have learned much if Sen. Kerry had said in response "Richard Holbrooke goes to Foggy Bottom," or if President Bush had said either "no changes at all" or "a complete reshuffle." They would have learned still more if they had some inkling of how the top dozen officials in the next administration would likely relate to one another, how they would deal with pressure, who would thwart or cooperate with whom, how stable or volatile their temperaments were, and which would find favor in presidential eyes.

I, for one, wish Kerry would come out and state who would constitute his cabinet, or at least the big three as far as foreign policy goes--Secretary of Defence, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. As Cohen says, some idea of who will make up the decision making apparatus would make it easier to gauge the ideological temperature of a Kerry administration.

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