Revise U.S. border control policy with Mexico to concentrate "on the smaller number of high-risk subjects...[and] radically expand the number of people permitted to cross the border without search."

"Triple funding for the Fulbright Program to bring more bright foreign students to United States," and "reconfigure media efforts like Al-Hurra along a C-Span type model.">

Obama's dad was a foreigner who came as a student and stayed to work; their path will be smoothed, but...
anouncing that it is being done at a time of unemployment?

Prof. Walt,

As you probably know, Prof. Slaughter sponsors a whole different set of foreign policy ideas, expressed in her many publications but given policy form in the final report published by the Princeton Project on National Security, which she co-directed with John Ikenberry, called "Forging a World of Liberty under Law". As the name suggests and as it is clear throughout the report, her plans for national security are far from being realist.

With all due respect, these are the exact same sort of "inside the box" recommendations Hillary gave, they are just coming from a slightly different (more realist, more academic) perspective. Scholars at MIT like Samuels and Posen have made these arguments for years. That does not make them wrong, but how are they innovative?

"Triple funding for the Fulbright Program to bring more bright foreign students to United States,"

I not sure why this is a good idea. Not that it is bad. Tom Friedman had a great idea a couple years back to do something similar with the number of students that we allow in from Iran. Increasing that number would hopefully give the future intellectual leaders of Iran some insight into the strength of our democracy, comparatively speaking.
I could think of several countries that we could apply that logic toward. Although a private sector initiative could achieve the same objective.

It is really amazing that smart people from MIT still ignores the Constitution's being out of date and offers Micky Mouse solutions to the real problems to save the phenomena. I see there is a _real_ need for a
Salvare Apparentias Theory of FP (SATFP) out there.

I am not going to call the following set of axioms Stephen's RTFP anymore, because now I realise that wouldn't be fair for he didn't review it. From now on I'll be calling it SATFP. I will still keep on improving it according to the postings on the blog. As you see below I have re-ordered the axioms for the convenience of the readers. As I change and add new axioms or drop some I will repost it. Please note that I also modify(edit) my messages to improve them.

Salvare Apparentias Theory of FP (SATFP).

1. There exist states.

2. A State composed of a nation, a national leadership, national interests and power (economic, military, population, land, etc? ..(any others? pls feel free to add).

3. There exists a competitive arena where states acts as they do.

4. There exists no central authority in that arena that can enforce moral or legal constraints.

5. States commit morally dubious acts (dubious according to what? The Blog knows) (see axiom 1)(Why this is here? Didn't the Blog declare that SATFP is essencially amoral?)

6. A State's foreign and defense policy reflects national interest of the state.

7. A State seeks to increase her national interests when her existence is threatened.

8. A State's power is a potential threat to other states. A state is by definition paranoid of other states.

9. Salvare Apparentias Foreign Policy is the art of keeping the threats of states in Balance besides saving the foreing policy related phenomena. (How? By shuffling and mixing nations/races/cultures?!, subjecting them to prototype secularo-fascist laws to reduce their multiplicity to singularity? the Blog knows).

Grand Sen~or

Re-write the Constitution of the USA. It is out of date to perform any realist act of internal and foreign politics.

Same advice I gave to Bush;->
He didn't listen to me and he had Shower of Shoes;->>

Grand Sen~or

I agree that the Arab League proposal would result in the safest world possible for Israel and Palestine, and provide for normalization of relations between Israel and the rest of the nations of the middle east.

It would quickly isolate Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas.

I fear that if Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas are isolated that they would resort to more desparate efforts to jockey for influence in the region.

I'm not confident that that strategy would result in peace for Israel, Palestine or Lebanon for that matter.

I don't believe that Iran seeks to be a normal power in the region. I believe that they hold unconditional positions of enmity towards any Israel in the region of what they perceive as the Islamic Waqf.

They lose a great deal of relevance in a world in which economic development controls the balance of power. They are then overshadowed by Israel, other oil-producing states, India, and China.

Hezbollah and Hamas are more focused on local conflict and to my mind are primarily concerned about their relative power within their home communities.

I don't know if they would yield to a normalized regional relation with Israel.

For Israel, the 67 border would only be acceptable with full normalization with the entire Arab world, permission for most settlers to remain where they live (as Palestinian citizens) assuming that compensation is paid to perfect title to land. (I personally don't have a clue if Palestine would accept Jews - formerly sponsored by Israeli state - as full citizens. To fail to do that would enact what the Israeli right describes as the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the region - 100% rather than 80% in Israel proper.)

I would expect that the 67 borders are more defensible than the maze of settlement protection blocs that are implied even in most generous recent Israeli offers.

I would expect that the 67 borders are more defensible than the maze of settlement protection blocs that are implied even in most generous recent Israeli offers.

I'm not so sure about that. Keep in mind that most of Israel proper is either in the Negev Desert or on the Mediterranean coastal plain (particularly Tel Aviv), whereas the West Bank (presumably part of any future Palestine) constitutes the highlands and mountains of the total area in question. That alone gives the Palestinians a strategic advantage if they ever get their own state in that area.

Of course, if you are talking about lower-level things, then yes, the borders would be more secure - particularly if they basically walled off the border to a prospective Palestine.

* Start building a "regional security community" in Asia, modeled on the OSCE in Europe, as a long-term substitute for the current "hub-and-spoke" network of U.S. alliances.

I probably don't know enough about the OSCE, but aren't most of the major players in East Asia (or Asia in general) strategic rivals and competitors, as opposed to most of the European states? I know that there are perennial disputes over certain areas (particularly resource-rich pieces of sea) in East Asia. That would tend to inhibit a real regional security community, just like the fact that the East Asian "Tigers" were economic competitors inhibited the growth and development of ASEAN.

* Push NATO to appoint a European as Supreme Allied Commander, in order give Europeans a bigger stake in NATO's performance and increase their incentive to create more effective fighting forces.

I don't think that is that big of an incentive, to be honest. Certainly not enough to make the major European nations switch decades of military funding policy to play a bigger role.

It would be nice, though, if they would take a bigger role in terms of security guarantees for the Eastern European members of NATO.

* In Afghanistan, "embark on negotiations with whatever groups of the Taliban are willing to reciprocate."

This is a bad idea, for the most part. You might be able to negotiate some members back to the "neutral" camp (and negotiate some "neutral" Pashtun Tribesmen into allies for the US), but the Taliban will insist on more than a nominal role in the Afghan government as compensation, and I have severe doubts as to whether they will actually honor their commitment after the US leaves.

Not to mention that their guys would have more free rein to do things like throw acid in the face of schoolgirls.

* In the Middle East, replace the current peace process with "American pressure -- not a dirty word -- based on the Arab peace initiative" (this from Anat Biletzki of Tel Aviv University, former chair of the Israeli human rights group B’tselem).

And if the Palestinians insist on the Right of Return?

For that matter, what IS the Palestinian Authority's position on the Saudi Peace Initiative?

* Revise U.S. border control policy with Mexico to concentrate "on the smaller number of high-risk subjects...[and] radically expand the number of people permitted to cross the border without search."

I'm in support of the latter, although the former will be a tall order - you're talking about a massive land border with no real natural dividing lines on it except for the Rio Grande on parts.

* "Triple funding for the Fulbright Program to bring more bright foreign students to United States," and "reconfigure media efforts like Al-Hurra along a C-Span type model."

It can't hurt.

* Focus counter-terrorism efforts on "disrupting the slowly forming networks of disaffected youths," and avoid large-scale military operations that stimulate rather than dampen terrorist recruitment.

This sounds like a code word for "don't get into any more stupid Iraq-style operations that turn into lightning rods for jihadist recruitment and so forth". Good ideas, although you'll need to really ramp up the HumIntel to do this, particularly with regards to infiltrating the "slowly forming networks of disaffected youths." You'd also need to hack into a lot more of those Al-Qaeda forums.

Some of them are decent ideas, but none of them really stand out as either really "outside the box" or "fantastic."

Laura Rozen:

At a quiet dinner meeting late last week in Washington's Ronald Reagan Building, President-elect Obama reached out to outside foreign-policy experts, trying to resist the presidential bubble that is rapidly closing around him.
...Among those who attended the off-the-record dinner: Iran scholar Haleh Esfandiari, Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid (who had flown in from Lahore), Obama friend and foreign-policy advisor Samantha Power of Harvard University (who accompanied PEOTUS to the meeting), incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, and a few others. Obama told the group, none of whom reached would discuss the details, that he already felt in the bubble and was trying his best to meet with independent experts.

Sorry if I'm more impressed that Rashid and Esfandiari we there than I am by the presence of Aaron David Miller

For a president looking for a way to buck up America's credibility, an Israeli-Syrian agreement offers a potential bonus. Such a deal would begin to realign the region's architecture in a way that serves broader U.S. interests. The White House would have to be patient. Syria won't walk away from a 30-year relationship with Iran; weaning the Syrians from Iran would have to occur gradually, requiring a major international effort to marshal economic and political support for Damascus. Still, an Israeli-Syrian peace treaty would confront Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran with tough choices and reduced options.

Divide and conquer, again.

34th US President IKE suspended AID TO ISRAEL

Ike was not a "crypto-Palestinian; as Hillary Clinton was once called in Israel"

“Ike” = Dwight David Eisenhower American general & the 34th President of the United States (1953-1961). As far as WAR & PEACE issues; IKE had the richest experience of all US presidents!
In WWII he was the commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force (1943-1945) he launched the invasion of Normandy (June 6, 1944) and oversaw the final defeat of Germany (1945).
Ike cared about the STRATEGIC WELL BEING of Israel because HE was aware that the creation of Israel was the ultimate answer to European anti-Anti-Semitism.
On October 31, 1956 Ike’s presidency was marked by SUSPENSION OF US AID to ISRAEL in protest at its invasion of Egypt in the Suez Crisis.
In an emergency session of the United Nations (UN) November 1-2 1956 General Assembly was called to consider the Suez Crisis. U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE John Foster DULLES, ATTACKED the British–French–Israeli ACTION, and the Assembly votes for a cease-fire!
Britain & France complied promptly, but ISRAEL did not; until January 22, 1957 when Israeli forces completed their withdrawal.
And the near east enjoyed a NO WAR situation for TEN YEARS!
Halelujah