A LETTER FROM PETER MUNK
Since we started the Munk Debates, my wife, Melanie, and I have been deeply gratified at how quickly they have captured the publics imagination. From the time of our first event in May 2008, we have hosted what I believe are some of the most exciting public policy debates in Canada and internationally. Global in focus, the Munk Debates have tackled a range of issues, such as humanitarian intervention, the effectiveness of foreign aid, the threat of global warming, religions impact on geopolitics, the rise of China, and the decline of Europe. These compelling topics have served as intellectual and ethical grist for some of the worlds most important thinkers and doers, from Henry Kissinger to Tony Blair, Christopher Hitchens to Paul Krugman, Lord Peter Mandelson to Fareed Zakaria.
The issues raised at the Munk Debates have not only fostered public awareness, but they have also helped many of us become more involved and, therefore, less intimidated by the concept of globalization. It is so easy to be inward-looking. It is so easy to be xenophobic. It is so easy to be nationalistic. It is hard to go into the unknown. Globalization, for many people, is an abstract concept at best. The purpose of this debate series is to help people feel more familiar with our fast-changing world and more comfortable participating in the universal dialogue about the issues and events that will shape our collective future.
I dont need to tell you that that there are many, many burning issues. Global warming, the blight of extreme poverty, genocide, or our shaky financial order: these are just a few of the critical issues that matter to people. And it seems to me, and to my foundation board members, that the quality of the public dialogue on these critical issues diminishes in direct proportion to the salience and number of these issues clamouring for our attention. By trying to highlight the most important issues at crucial moments in the global conversation, these debates not only profile the ideas and opinions of some of the worlds brightest thinkers, but they also crystallize public passion and knowledge, helping to tackle some of the challenges confronting humankind.
I have learned in life and Im sure many of you will share this view that challenges bring out the best in us. I hope youll agree that the participants in these debates challenge not only each other but also each of us to think clearly and logically about important problems facing our world.
Peter Munk
Founder, Aurea Foundation
Toronto, Ontario
HAS OBAMA MADE THE WORLD A MORE DANGEROUS PLACE?
Stephens and Kagan vs.
Zakaria and Slaughter
THE MUNK DEBATE ON
U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
EDITED BY RUDYARD GRIFFITHS
Copyright 2015 Aurea Foundation
Fareed Zakaria, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Robert Kagan, and Bret Stephens in Conversation, by Rudyard Griffiths. Copyright 2015 Aurea Foundation.
Post-Debate Commentary by John Stackhouse. Copyright 2015 Aurea Foundation.
Post-Debate Commentary by Janice Stein. Copyright 2015 Aurea Foundation.
All rights reserved. No part o f this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This edition published in 2015 by
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Has Obama made the world a more dangerous place?: Stephens and Kagan vs. Zakaria and Slaughter: the Munk debate on U.S. foreign policy / edited by Rudyard Griffiths.
(The Munk debates)
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN: 978-1-77089-996-4 (pbk.). ISBN: 978-1-77089-997-1 (html).
1. United States Foreign relations 2009. I. Stephens, Bret, 1973,
panelist II. Kagan, Robert, panelist III. Zakaria, Fareed, panelist
IV. Slaughter, Anne-Marie, panelist V. Griffiths, Rudyard, editor
VI. Series: Munk debates
E907.H38 2015 973.932 C2014-906996-0
C2014-906997-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014953296
Cover design: Alysia Shewchuk
We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.
INTRODUCTION BY RUDYARD GRIFFITHS
Has the foreign policy of President Barack Obama made the world a more dangerous place? This simple question animated a fiercely contested debate in the autumn of 2014 that featured some of the worlds top thinkers on the state and future of U.S. foreign policy. It also riveted a public audience of 3,000 people in Toronto, Canada, and thousands more watching online. For the debaters and audiences alike the issue at hand was how much President Obama and his administration were responsible for a wave of geopolitical instability that had reverberated from the Middle East to Eastern Europe to China and the Asia-Pacific region in the preceding months. Were the violent actions of ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the Levant), Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, and those of a host of other bad actors being stoked by a president whose failed foreign policy has carelessly emboldened the Wests enemies? Or was no one nation, let alone a solitary U.S. president, the cause of the kinds of geopolitical instability and great power rivalries that increasingly define our multi-polar world? Do presidents make history, forming through the adroit use of American power oases of stability and prosperity out of the chaos of global events? Or is every U.S. administration the product of global trends and the international balance of power, allowing presidents to at best nudge the course of history and world events in a better direction?
Arguing for a critical assessment of the effectiveness of Barack Obamas execution of U.S. foreign policy were Bret Stephens and Robert Kagan. Bret Stephens honed his razor-sharp attacks on the Obama presidencys impact on world events as the deputy editorial page editor for the international opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal and as author of the papers weekly foreign affairs column, Global View. Robert Kagan was the debates consummate foreign policy insider. In addition to being a senior fellow at the prestigious Brookings Institution, he has been an influential and bipartisan adviser to the top echelons of U.S. leadership, including Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and George W. Bush.
Throughout the debate Bret pushed home the point that President Obama was the author of his and the worlds misfortunes by not having the United States assume its traditional role as the dominant global power: There were no consequences for Assad in Syria, no real consequences for Putin in Georgia or Ukraine; and the rogues of the world sensed that we now live in a place where no one is in charge, where the United States is afraid to intervene in all circumstances, which allows them to do whatever they want. Were entering into a broken-windows world. We need a foreign policy that understands that the role of a great power is to maintain order as a policeman, not as a priest.
