![Christopher Hitchens - Is Obama's Foreign Policy Working? [2010]](https://democracyalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/mqdefault2.jpg)
September 22, 2010.
Elebash Recital Hall, New York.
Christopher Hitchens, Peter Beinart, George Packer.
The panel discussed America's position in, and relationship to, the rest of the world under Obama and whether or not his foreign policy has been effective.
What kind of foreign policy will the world's second largest economy pursue under Xi Jinping's leadership and what will be the focal points? Linda Jakobson, East Asia Program Director at the Lowy Institute for International Policy, assesses the main foreign policy challenges facing China's new leaders. She also elaborates on recent foreign policy appointments made in the government realignment following the National People's Congress and sheds light on the implications of the make-up of China's foreign policy leadership.
Linda Jakobson has lived and worked in China for 20 years and published six books about China and East Asian society. A Mandarin speaker, she has published extensively on China's foreign and security policy, the Taiwan Strait, China's energy security, and climate change and science & technology polices.
Prior to joining the Lowy Institute, Ms Jakobson served as Director of the China and Global Security Programme and Senior Researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). From 1998 to 2009 she worked for the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
Ms Jakobson was a Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1990. The Finnish edition of her book, A Million Truths: A Decade in China (M. Evans, New York, 1998) won the Finnish Government Publication Award. Her SIPRI Policy Paper, New Foreign Policy Actors in China (co-authored with Dean Knox) was awarded an Alibi in 2010. She has written two Lowy Institute publications: Australia-China Ties: in Search of Political Trust (2012) and China's Foreign Policy Dilemma (2013).
This presentation is part of the National Security College's public seminar series. The National Security College is a joint initiative of the Commonwealth Government and ANU.
Video Rating: 4 / 5
The very fact they’re talking about Iran in 2010 as the main US foreign
policy issue, tells me his FP was working.
If you analyse what Iran does rather than says, it’s quite clear that their
main concern is for survival. Their actions are very well considered in
advance, pre-planned and professionally executed. They talk like radical
Islamists but act like any other modern nation state, that is to say, in
their own best interests. Iran wishes to acquire nuclear weapons as a
deterrent. They are not building nukes to launch a strike against Israel,
knowing it would result in their own utter annihilation, but rather to
deter an Israeli strike with the threat of retaliation. Iranian nukes may
even moderate their militant impulses by reducing their insecurity. In any
case, it’s not clear that an air strike can destroy their enrichment
capabilities, and a ground offensive and occupation would be a disaster
dwarfing that of the invasion of Iraq.
Iran is run by a mafia clergy through fear and favour and for those who
dare criticise them, slow death by hanging.
Being a Fiscal Conservative/Social Liberal/Foreign Policy Hawk, I often
find my self at odds with Mr Hitchens opinions, but I will say that I
respect him. His arguments are tempered with an extensive knowledge of
history and anchored in both reason and reality. Which, unfortunately, I
cannot say about many of his contemporaries.
partition Iraq, leave Afghanistan ASAP, let the Pakistanis take over, USA
can use drones to patrol Afghanistan’s sky, looking down to seek and kill
Al Quaeda training camps
wheres his hair
Hitchens should of stuck to what he really knew about, “religion”. this is
well outdated, look what obama has done after this debate. i really cant
agree with hitchens on much here but that is probably because he was fed bs
himself at the time. played like a fiddle. on the matter of religion
though, he could never of been beaten.
agreed USA should back INDIA, over Pakistan, Pakistan is a failing state,
getting worse, supporting our enemies, while taking our money
Yes. Yes, he was. Quite likely rendering you wrong on a lot of positions.
trololol 😉
Uhm uhm uhm. Does nobody tell people to stop saying uhm all the time? You
can’t take a breath without saying uhm. You have the floor, you aren’t
going to be interrupted, just shut up for a damn second if you must. This
is hard to listen to, brutal.
In other words, it seems like got this nailed down, though “No position” is
a bit harsh, he was good at somethings, really bad at other, particular in
the details of the hard sciences and intuitions granted by gene
selectionism in regards to social and societal behavior, with that
background of information im sure he woulda been even more brilliant and
insightful than he was. Read my first hitchbook back in 1999. Never cared
for God Is Not Great.
You just may be correct in that statement.
You might find yourself agreeing with him more and more as you understand
his perspective.
Really disagree with Hitch on Iran as much as I love his mind.
Right… that guys intro is boooring!
Most certainly do not.
to be fair anyone could see something like that happening and i for one
remember (as a guy in the U.K) thinking the London bombings were way
overdue so i’m actually staggered that the kind of incident in Boston only
happened now. and i’m someone who doesn’t think for a second terrorist
motives such as that are anywhere near as widespread as we’re told to
assume!
1:02:05 is the most interesting until the end.
Now, now. It’s always worth tipping the hat to a man who will play with
ideas he does not accept.
Starts around 4:52
RIP Christopher Hitchens (legend) though at least we have his good friend
Dawkin to carry on his legacy
Did you know that we also have evidence of the US doing terror attacks
around the world? Ill never understand how Hitchens managed to not spot how
intellectually dishonest he is about US aggression around the world.Yes
religion is a problem, causing chaos and maintaining economic imbalances
around the world will certainly only make the clergy more powerful.And Iran
is clearly not viewed as such a horrible regime that Hitchens make it out
to be,Qatar = worse, SArabia =Worse.He was brilliant tho.
I dont think I’ve as much fun watching an intellectual conversation as I do
when hitchens is apart of that conversation. He speaks with such rigor and
knowledge. Its too bad he left without someone to replace him.