As
2011 comes to a close, I decide to spend a couple of hours looking back over
the year's posts and picking my personal favorites. Of course, the
one that I'd take back was my January 16 entry on "Why
the Tunisian Revolution Won't Spread," but you can read my defense of
this error here.
As
for the rest, here are my personal favorites from 2011:
1.
American
Exceptionalism. Ok, technically not a blog post, but I'm
still glad that FP asked me to write this and I still stand by
the the main points. And please note: I wasn't saying the United
States was a terrible country; we're just not as virtuous, special, or
divinely-blessed as we think we are.
2.
Wishful
Thinking. My reaction to re-reading this post was simple: it's a
pretty good guide to the foreign policy pathologies of the current GOP
candidates. Especially #10 ("Everything Will Be Fine after the Next
Election").
3.
End
of the American Era/Offshore Balancing For a more complete
version of this argument, go here.
4.
Does
Europe Have a Future? I wrote a lot about Europe and its
troubles this year (who didn't?), but this was my favorite take on the
situation. I still think the EU can escape its current morass only if it
can generate economic growth in the trouble southern zone. But even if it
manages this miracle, I'm betting that: 1) Europe will get weaker relative to
other regions, 2) European unity will remain fragile or decline, and 3) the
highwater mark of transatlantic cooperation is behind us.
5.
Attack Iran? Are You Kidding Me? A
recurring theme in this year's postings was my continued opposition to a war
with Iran. For other comments on this issue, go here,
here,
and here.
6.
Power Corrupts (especially if you're male) Lord
Acton was sounding like a realist when he said "absolute power corrupts
absolutely." Especially when you're dealing with men.
7.
Who's Winning in the Arab Spring? Who's Losing? I
hadn't read this one since I'd posted it, and I thought it held up pretty
well. Maybe it makes up for missing the initial wave.
8.
Nationalism Rocks! Actually, nationalism has
upsides and downsides. But you can't ignore it, unless you want to get
lots of things wrong.
9.
Why We (Keep) Fighting. I could have added a sixth
reason: because some of the loudest cheerleaders for war have learned nothing
from the past decade. But Matt Duss got there first.
10.
Oh yeah...that "special relationship." As you
might expect, I wrote a number of pieces on US Middle East policy and
U.S.-Israel relations. As always, these posts tended to generate the most
vociferous reactions (on both sides), a phenomenon that is itself worthy ofnote
(and a little disturbing). In any case, this post was my favorite, even
if I was aiming at a pretty fat target.
11. What's going on in Asia? These two
posts
should be read together, as they pretty much summarize how my thinking on Asia
is evolving. But I'm not done thinking yet.
12. Peace. Because
I remain an optimist, even if it opens me up to repeated disappointments.
And my New Year's Resolution? To read
more and to write just as much. What I haven't figured out yet is what
I'm going to cut out. Because time and resources are finite
(something most American strategists have yet to learn), and successful grand
strategy is all about setting priorities and deploying resources effectively.
So unless you're a war-monger, human rights abuser, criminal gang leader,
international terrorist or corrupt financier, I hope all of you manage to
do that in 2012 too.
Gorshkov25, Shutterstock
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