Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The New York Times and World Affairs Tooth Fairies
Who benefits from this decision?
Since it’s a cardinal rule of journalism that reporters not become the news themselves, it’s crucial to point out that several New York Times correspondents broke it in an unintentional but genuinely important way during their recent interview with President Trump.
The transcript (which weirdly was published in full only three days after the two-hour Oval Office session) contained plenty of typical Trump-ian stunners (IMO both insightful and head-exploding), and is definitely worth reading for them alone.
But what’s most newsworthy – and troubling – about the transcript is what it reveals about the Times reporters themselves. Specifically, their knowledge about world history and international relations seems on a par with your average eighth grader – at best.
And bizarrely, this includes most prominently, David E. Sanger, the Times “National Security Correspondent” who covers “President Trump, his administration and the foreign policy, intelligence and military advisers who shape the nation’s national security policy;” who has “written four books on American national security;” and who co-teaches “a course at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government titled ‘Central Challenges in American National Security, Strategy and the Press.’” (See here.)
Yet Sanger (with whom I’ve had a few personal dealings over the years that have gone just fine), seems completely unfamiliar with the realist school of analyzing world politics and the concept of sovereignty.
The first consists of writings that stretch back literally 2,500 years (Google “Thucydides” and “Melian Dialogue”) and that have consistently and (in my view) compellingly argued that relations between states have always been shaped first and foremost by their definitions of self-interest.
The second centers around the idea that the state is necessarily judge, jury, and court of appeals when it comes to deciding how to advance or protect its interests. That’s because no commonly accepted higher authority exists to resolve the disputes that will inevitably arise among them.
So that’s why I was pretty gobsmacked to read Sanger point out to the president, “[A] lot of people [are] wondering whether you believe you have the right, as the world’s largest superpower, to go in and extinguish any threat or seize any resource you think is in the U.S. interest, particularly in the Western Hemisphere.”
Indeed, a lot of people are wondering this. Which means, depressingly, that – apparently like Sanger – a lot of people think that the United States should not “extinguish any threat or seize any resource [it thinks] is in the U.S. interest, particularly in the Western Hemisphere.”
But what else is the United States supposed to do, especially regarding threats? Of course, it’s entirely reasonable to believe that threats can be dealt with effectively in a variety of ways, and that military force is not always the best choice.
At the same time, who does Sanger believe should make that decision other than the United States itself? Some other country? According to what justification? The Organization of American States? The United Nations? Who elected those international groupings to pass …
Who benefits from this decision?
Since it’s a cardinal rule of journalism that reporters not become the news themselves, it’s crucial to point out that several New York Times correspondents broke it in an unintentional but genuinely important way during their recent interview with President Trump.
The transcript (which weirdly was published in full only three days after the two-hour Oval Office session) contained plenty of typical Trump-ian stunners (IMO both insightful and head-exploding), and is definitely worth reading for them alone.
But what’s most newsworthy – and troubling – about the transcript is what it reveals about the Times reporters themselves. Specifically, their knowledge about world history and international relations seems on a par with your average eighth grader – at best.
And bizarrely, this includes most prominently, David E. Sanger, the Times “National Security Correspondent” who covers “President Trump, his administration and the foreign policy, intelligence and military advisers who shape the nation’s national security policy;” who has “written four books on American national security;” and who co-teaches “a course at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government titled ‘Central Challenges in American National Security, Strategy and the Press.’” (See here.)
Yet Sanger (with whom I’ve had a few personal dealings over the years that have gone just fine), seems completely unfamiliar with the realist school of analyzing world politics and the concept of sovereignty.
The first consists of writings that stretch back literally 2,500 years (Google “Thucydides” and “Melian Dialogue”) and that have consistently and (in my view) compellingly argued that relations between states have always been shaped first and foremost by their definitions of self-interest.
The second centers around the idea that the state is necessarily judge, jury, and court of appeals when it comes to deciding how to advance or protect its interests. That’s because no commonly accepted higher authority exists to resolve the disputes that will inevitably arise among them.
So that’s why I was pretty gobsmacked to read Sanger point out to the president, “[A] lot of people [are] wondering whether you believe you have the right, as the world’s largest superpower, to go in and extinguish any threat or seize any resource you think is in the U.S. interest, particularly in the Western Hemisphere.”
Indeed, a lot of people are wondering this. Which means, depressingly, that – apparently like Sanger – a lot of people think that the United States should not “extinguish any threat or seize any resource [it thinks] is in the U.S. interest, particularly in the Western Hemisphere.”
But what else is the United States supposed to do, especially regarding threats? Of course, it’s entirely reasonable to believe that threats can be dealt with effectively in a variety of ways, and that military force is not always the best choice.
At the same time, who does Sanger believe should make that decision other than the United States itself? Some other country? According to what justification? The Organization of American States? The United Nations? Who elected those international groupings to pass …
Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The New York Times and World Affairs Tooth Fairies
Who benefits from this decision?
Since it’s a cardinal rule of journalism that reporters not become the news themselves, it’s crucial to point out that several New York Times correspondents broke it in an unintentional but genuinely important way during their recent interview with President Trump.
The transcript (which weirdly was published in full only three days after the two-hour Oval Office session) contained plenty of typical Trump-ian stunners (IMO both insightful and head-exploding), and is definitely worth reading for them alone.
But what’s most newsworthy – and troubling – about the transcript is what it reveals about the Times reporters themselves. Specifically, their knowledge about world history and international relations seems on a par with your average eighth grader – at best.
And bizarrely, this includes most prominently, David E. Sanger, the Times “National Security Correspondent” who covers “President Trump, his administration and the foreign policy, intelligence and military advisers who shape the nation’s national security policy;” who has “written four books on American national security;” and who co-teaches “a course at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government titled ‘Central Challenges in American National Security, Strategy and the Press.’” (See here.)
Yet Sanger (with whom I’ve had a few personal dealings over the years that have gone just fine), seems completely unfamiliar with the realist school of analyzing world politics and the concept of sovereignty.
The first consists of writings that stretch back literally 2,500 years (Google “Thucydides” and “Melian Dialogue”) and that have consistently and (in my view) compellingly argued that relations between states have always been shaped first and foremost by their definitions of self-interest.
The second centers around the idea that the state is necessarily judge, jury, and court of appeals when it comes to deciding how to advance or protect its interests. That’s because no commonly accepted higher authority exists to resolve the disputes that will inevitably arise among them.
So that’s why I was pretty gobsmacked to read Sanger point out to the president, “[A] lot of people [are] wondering whether you believe you have the right, as the world’s largest superpower, to go in and extinguish any threat or seize any resource you think is in the U.S. interest, particularly in the Western Hemisphere.”
Indeed, a lot of people are wondering this. Which means, depressingly, that – apparently like Sanger – a lot of people think that the United States should not “extinguish any threat or seize any resource [it thinks] is in the U.S. interest, particularly in the Western Hemisphere.”
But what else is the United States supposed to do, especially regarding threats? Of course, it’s entirely reasonable to believe that threats can be dealt with effectively in a variety of ways, and that military force is not always the best choice.
At the same time, who does Sanger believe should make that decision other than the United States itself? Some other country? According to what justification? The Organization of American States? The United Nations? Who elected those international groupings to pass …
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