Author: Harry LaMagna

In The New Revolution in Military Affairs, the author Christian Brose predicts the arrival of several new disruptive technologies onto the battlefields of the future and that the United States military risks losing its current dominance not because of a lack of resources or technological know how, but because political of a lack of imagination and foresight on the part of the US’s military planners.  Brose specifically points out that he does not believe that ethical debates surrounding the use of new weapons systems will contribute to the US losing its technological edge. This is something that I disagree with, I can see the debate surrounding the ethical concerns of using new weapons technology becoming very prominent and politicized which would harm the US’s ability to honestly discuss whether or not new weapons systems should be used.

As we discussed last class, the United States has faced intense criticism at home and abroad for not renouncing the use of weapons such as land mines and napalm. We also discussed how strategic rivals like China and Russia have also not yet committed to not using these types of weapons. As we move into the future, there will no doubt be calls to ban new weapons technologies even before they are used. As we are currently seeing with the coronavirus outbreak, issues surrounding science and technology have the potential  to become a battleground for the ongoing culture war, with people taking sides not based on the actual merits of the new technology but in order to signal their allegiance to a particular side of the political divide. This would only serve to further fracture our already divided country and harm our ability to stay competitive with our military technology.

In his article “The Self Destruction of American Power: Washington Squandered the Unipolar Moment”, Fareed Zakaria describes how the United States lost its position as the world’s sole superpower after the end of the Cold War and how the Trump administration has worked to further weaken the power of the US. Zakaria argues that the US has “mishandled” it’s hegemony through breaking international norms and alienating its allies with the Trump administration being a particularly egregious offender in this regard. The issue that I have with Zakaria is that, while his analysis of the US’s foreign relations since the end of the Second World War is accurate, and his characterization of the Trump administration’s policy as isolationist and unilateral  is also mostly true, he seems to criticize the Trump Administration for making decisions that the author would seemingly be in favor of and thus undermines what would otherwise be a very strong arguement.

For example, Zakaria dismisses the Trump Administrations foreign policy initiatives in the Middle East as simply “subcontracting” American foreign policy to Saudi Arabia and Israel. Wouldn’t Zakaria want to have supporting the interests of its allies in the region? Zakaria also dismisses the Trump Administration’s efforts to engage with North Korea as him simply trying to get a Nobel prize. Once again, wouldn’t this attempt to use diplomacy and dialogue instead of force and bluster be applauded by Zakaria?

I believe that the article would be better off without the mentioning this foreign policy initiatives because in doing so, Zakaria undermines his argument about the bellicose and isolationist nature of the Trump Administration. In the article does describe how Trump has pulled out of agreements and undermined relationships with the allies of the US, he should simply leave it at that instead of trying to paint attempts at increasing American influence as something to lament.