How shall we rate the state of the world? Take a look around — from Islamic State atrocities in Sinai and Paris, to the Taliban’s resurgence in Afghanistan, to China’s efforts to control the South China Sea, to Russia’s intervention in Syria, to the stabbing intifada in Israel.
You might be reminded of the classic exchange in Woody Allen’s movie Play It Again, Sam. The scene takes place in New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Allen spots an exotic-looking brunette staring intently at an abstract painting. Plucking up his courage, he sidles up to her and asks: “That’s quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn’t it. What does it say to you?”
In an accented, bored-sounding voice, she answers: “It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of man forced to live in a barren godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror and degradation forming a useless bleak straitjacket in a black absurd cosmos.”
“What are you doing Saturday night?” Allen asks.
“Committing suicide.”
“How about Friday night?”
So there we are. How do we move forward? Let me begin by offering a few thoughts on how we got here. And then allow me to play National Security Adviser to the next president and offer some ideas for how best to conduct US future foreign policy.