by hilzoy

John McCain "My friends, we have reached a crisis, the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War."

Steve Benen:



"Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. has fought (or is fighting) two wars in Iraq, a war in Afghanistan, and two conflicts in the Balkans. There have been multiple crises in Israel. There was a burgeoning nuclear crisis with North Korea. There is, and has been, a crisis in Darfur. There have been multiple, shall we say, tense moments between Pakistan and India, nuclear powers both. One could make the argument that the attacks of Sept. 11 were, themselves, a serious international crisis. And yet, there’s John McCain, describing a regional conflict between Russia and Georgia as the first “serious crisis internationally” since the end of the Cold War. Do the other crises simply not count? Or does McCain not remember them?"

Two days ago, when McCain said that "In the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations," I dismissed it as a lapse. Since then, however, he's said similar things: a couple of days ago, for instance, he wrote a WSJ editorial that began: "For anyone who thought that stark international aggression was a thing of the past, the last week must have come as a startling wake-up call." Coming on the heels of those rather extraordinary statements, his claim that this is the first "serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War" makes me wonder: has something about the war in Georgia simply erased Iraq, Afghanistan, and 9/11 from his mind? What's going on?

I can think of a number of possibilities (which are not mutually exclusive):

First, it could be that McCain has some sort of policy analog of Attention Deficit Disorder: he focusses on one thing, but when something else comes along, it distracts him and he forgets about the first thing entirely.

Second, it could be that McCain's mind is stuck in the Cold War, and so for him the only crises that really rate are conflicts that involve the US and the Soviet Union Russia.

Third, it could be that McCain does not see anything we do as a crisis, an unprovoked invasion, etc. When he says "In the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations", he believes it, and Iraq doesn't register because, well, we invaded Iraq. Likewise, nothing we have done could possibly count as "stark international aggression." And while Iraq and Afghanistan are challenges, they are not crises: problems people need to figure out how to respond to, lest everything go to hell in a handbasket. Other people cause crises; we simply do what has to be done.

It should go without saying that any of these traits would be a complete disaster in a President. A President has to be able to hold a number of things in his head at once; to pursue objectives with patience, over years; to keep his various objectives in mind, and see how what he does in one area affects another that is of importance to him. A President with Policy ADD would not be able to do any of these things, and that would be really bad. A President whose mind was stuck in the Cold War, and who saw Russia as our great strategic rival, would be, well, wrong. Russia is a declining country temporarily buoyed by oil and gas revenues. It is not anything like as much of a challenge going forward as China, or the problem of dealing with failed states and underdevelopment. We need a President who can see these challenges and respond to them; not one whose mind is stuck decades in the past.

But the third might be the worst. We badly need a President who will try to reconstitute our moral authority in the world, and to undo the damage of the last eight years. To do that it is essential that that President be able to see the US as other countries see it, and understand how our actions appear to others. A President who simply assumes, without even noticing that he's doing so, that the rules that apply to others do not apply to us would not be able to do this.

This is serious. I'm not trying to score political points here. One way or another, the next President will have to deal with our shattered reputation abroad and the challenges, predictable and unpredictable, that the next eight years throw at us. We cannot afford to elect another President who really doesn't get these things. Anyone who thinks that the war with Georgia is the first serious international crisis since the end of the Cold War, or who can say, without apparent irony, that "In the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations", is just not up to the job.

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UPDATE: Matt Y notes:



"It was just a little while ago that McCain was giving speeches about how “the threat of radical Islamic terrorism” is “transcendent challenge of our time.” Now Russia seems to be the transcendent challenge. Which is the problem with an approach to world affairs characterized by a near-constant hysteria about threat levels and a pathological inability to set priorities."

Josh Marshall:

