Look inwards, Washington

http://atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-090614.html



Look inwards, Washington
By Francesco Sisci
Jun 9, '14

~snip~

Some sketch states and continents' boundaries according to wealth; others look at religion; some more are worried about water, energy consumption, population, or women's literacy, et cetera. A few want to keep borders and things in the world as they are; most would like to fix troubles, and almost none agrees with other institutes on how to do it - for good reasons.

There is a huge amount of knowledge and research about how the world is or should be, and a cacophony of opinions on what should be done. This cacophony seems to be the real deep-seated reason for the United States' often quixotic and at times schizophrenic foreign policy.

A cascade of contradicting opinions floods every department in Washington on any given day on any given issue. It is a huge wealth for the country: the US knows more about any place than perhaps the people living in that place themselves. But it also has immense drawbacks, as it is hard for decision-makers to tell good from bad advice among all these experts.

Yet in this geography of opposing thoughts, there is very little effort spent on the fate of Arkansas, on the resurgences of religious sects in the Midwest, or on the future of US infrastructure. That is, research on domestic issues in Washington think tanks is not as extensive as in foreign affairs, and most of all, not as freewheeling. Nobody suggests remapping North Dakota or Wisconsin, and nobody proposes a police campaign against the spread of Christian fundamentalism.