Because a vacuum will be filled

The pervasive lack of seriousness among those crafting and implementing public policy in post-America is probably the country's second most serious problem, right behind its spiritual rot. It is mainly manifest on the Left, and in policy realms ranging from economics to energy to immigration, and, most importantly, national security and world affairs. Which is not to say the Right doesn't share culpability, if only in its acquiescence to the Left. (Which has a lot to do with the rise of Squirrel-Hair.)

Think about North Korea. Somebody had better think about it:

North Korea threatened "indiscriminate" nuclear strikes against South Korea and the US mainland, as the two allies prepared to kick off large-scale joint military drills on Monday.

The threat to carry out what it described as a "pre-emptive nuclear strike of justice" was made in a statement by the North's powerful National Defence Commission, citing the Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army (KPA).
It came just days after leader Kim Jong-Un ordered the country's nuclear arsenal to be placed on standby for use "at any moment," in response to tough new UN sanctions imposed over the North's fourth nuclear test in January and last month's long-range rocket launch.

 

As I say, while the collapse of US foreign policy is mainly the fault of Democrats, Republicans are not off the hook. Yes, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright gave us the Agreed Framework and the decade of payoff, but it was W, Condoleezza Rice and Christopher Hill who subjected the US to the pointless Six-Way Talks the sole result of which was to give the Kim regime the time it needed to amass a full-fledged arsenal and embark on a serious missile program.

This seems to be rooted in that characteristically American trait of desiring to see a common humanity in even the worst enemies:

The trouble, rather, is that even our top foreign-policy experts and our most sophisticated diplomatists are perforce creatures of their own cultural heritage and intellectual environment. We Americans are, so to speak, children of the Enlightenment, steeped in the precepts of our highly globalized era. Which is to say: We have absolutely no common point of reference with the worldview or moral compass or first premises of the closed-society decision-makers who control the North Korean state. Americans’ first instincts are to misunderstand practically everything that the North Korean state is really about.

North Korea's nuclear program is central to its vision of its place in the world. It is not ever going to give it up.

 What can be done at this late date?

A more effective defense against the North Korean threat would consist mainly, though not entirely, of military measures. Restoring recently sacrificed U.S. capabilities would be essential. Likewise, more and better missile defense: providing terminal high-altitude area defense systems (and more) to South Korea and Japan, and moving forward on missile defense in earnest for the U.S. It would be incumbent on South Korea to reduce its own population’s exposure to North Korean death from the skies through military modernization and civil defense. The DPRK would be served notice that 60 years of highly restrictive rules of engagement for allied forces at the DMZ and in the peninsula had just come to an end — that Pyongyang could no longer count on “consequence-free” provocations at the DMZ or anywhere else in the peninsula. But diplomacy would make a difference here as well: most importantly, by strengthening our alliances throughout Asia in general and repairing the currently frayed South Korea–Japan relationship in particular. Today’s petty bickering between Seoul and Tokyo reeks of inter-war European politics at its worst; leaders who want to live in a post-war order need to rise above such distractions.

As for weakening the DPRK’s military economy, which is the foundation of all its offensive capabilities, a good place to start would be reinvigorating current counter-proliferation efforts, such as the Proliferation Security Initiative and the Missile Technology Control Regime. But that would be only a start. Given the “military first” disposition of the North Korean economy, restricting its overall potential is necessary as well. South Korea’s subsidized trade with the North, for example, should come to an end. And put Pyongyang back on the State Department’s terror-sponsors list — it never should have been taken off. Sanctions with a genuine bite should be implemented: The dysfunctional DPRK economy is uniquely susceptible to these, and, amazing as this may sound, the current sanctions strictures for North Korea are weaker than, say, those enforced until recently for Iran. (We can enforce such sanctions unilaterally, by the way.) And not least important: Revive such efforts as the Illicit Activities Initiative, the brief but tremendously successful Dubya-era task force for tracking and freezing North Korea’s dirty money abroad. Then there is the China question. Received wisdom in some quarters notwithstanding, it is by no means impossible for America and her allies to pressure the DPRK if China does not cooperate (see previous paragraph). That said, China has been allowed to play a double game with North Korea for far too long, and it is time for Beijing to pay a penalty for all its support for the most odious regime on the planet today. We can begin by exacting it in diplomatic venues all around the world, starting with the U.N. Non-governmental organizations can train a spotlight on Beijing’s complicity in the North Korean regime’s crimes. And international humanitarian action should shame China into opening a safe transit route to the free world for North Korean refugees attempting to escape their oppressors. 

Then there is Syria. Years of vacillating and avoidance of clarity about the dynamics of the situation allowed an Arab-spring burst of unrest to morph into a tangle that carries the threat of world war.

Jeff Jacoby at Townhall looks into Samantha Power's role in this situation. He  lauds her, properly so (although her overall orientation is decidedly not rightward; she is, after all, married to Cass "Nudge" Sunstein) for having written a serious book, A Problem From Hell,  about a longtime flaw in US foreign policy:

Power, a foreign-policy adviser to Barack Obama and a former journalist, had literally written the book on genocide: She won the Pulitzer Prize for A Problem From Hell, a sweeping history of America's repeated failure in the 20th century to stop the world's monsters from committing mass murder. Power documented how time and time again — from the extermination of the Armenians during Woodrow Wilson's presidency to the Nazi Holocaust in FDR's time to the Rwandan slaughter in the Bill Clinton years — American leaders had known that horrific bloodshed was occurring, but could never muster the political will to stop it.

Jacoby says he was a rarity among conservatives in endorsing Power's appointment as UN ambassador, but that he came to see the shortsightedness of his stance:

I was wrong.
Within weeks of Power's installation as ambassador, Assad unequivocally crossed the "red line" — the use of chemical weapons — that Obama had warned would trigger a decisive US response. When that response never came, the new ambassador voiced no dissent.
Syria's ethnic cleansing persisted. The death toll rose, with Hezbollah, then the Russians, entering the war and abetting the slaughter. By now at least 370,000 lives have been destroyed, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights; nearly five million Syrians have become refugees. It is the worst humanitarian disaster in decades, yet Obama has steadily refused to take concrete actions that could have halted Assad's butchery — arming rebel fighters, creating and enforcing no-fly and safe zones, and ordering the US military to stop Assad's indiscriminate barrel-bomb attacks. Power has occasionally mentioned Syria in speeches and tweets; she once invited a family of Syrian refugees to dinner. Mostly, though, she has acquiesced in the president's unwillingness to act.

The rise of Islamic State, meanwhile, has unleashed fresh horror. ISIS has embarked on campaigns to exterminate Kurdish and Iraqi Yazidis, Syrian Alawites, and Assyrian Christians; it has beheaded, crucified, and enslaved thousands of Shiites and even some Western captives. The response from the Obama administration: a desultory campaign of airstrikes, a vow to "ultimately" destroy the killers — but always coupled with a firm refusal to deploy the ground forces that would be the fastest way to demolish ISIS and stop its murderous rampage. 

 So the absence of clarity, resolve and principle continues.

Which, as everything must these days, brings us back to the presidential race in post-America. The Most Equal Comrade certainly has several more months in which to proceed with his planned-decline agenda, but at least the world knows what it is getting. That will also be the case should a Democrat succeed him.

But what of this entirely new force in the presidential dynamics? What does that look like to the various actors on the world stage?

Foreign diplomats are expressing alarm to U.S. government officials about what they say are inflammatory and insulting public statements by Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, according to senior U.S. officials.

Officials from Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia have complained in recent private conversations, mostly about the xenophobic nature of Trump's statements, said three U.S. officials, who all declined to be identified. 

"As the (Trump) rhetoric has continued, and in some cases amped up, so, too, have concerns by certain leaders around the world," said one of the officials.

The three officials declined to disclose a full list of countries whose diplomats have complained, but two said they included at least India, South Korea, Japan and Mexico.

U.S. officials said it was highly unusual for foreign diplomats to express concern, even privately, about candidates in the midst of a presidential campaign. U.S. allies in particular usually don't want to be seen as meddling in domestic politics, mindful that they will have to work with whoever wins. 

Senior leaders in several countries -- including Britain, Mexico, France, and Canada -- have already made public comments criticizing Trump's positions. German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel branded him a threat to peace and prosperity in an interview published on Sunday. 

Trump's campaign did not respond to requests for comment on the private diplomatic complaints. 

Japan's embassy declined to comment. The Indian and South Korean embassies did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for the Mexican government would not confirm any private complaints but noted that its top diplomat, Claudia Ruiz Massieu, said last week that Trump's policies and comments were "ignorant and racist" and that his plan to build a border wall to stop illegal immigration was "absurd."

The foreign officials have been particularly disturbed by the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim themes that the billionaire real estate mogul has pushed, according to the U.S. officials.

European and Middle Eastern government representatives have expressed dismay to U.S. officials about anti-Muslim declarations by Trump that they say are being used in recruiting pitches by the Islamic State and other violent jihadist groups.

Again, the various elements of the present picture point to one serious option and one only: We must elect Ted Cruz president. It's our best bulwark against apocalypse.