That was the question—with respect to the global problems we currently face—that Tom Brokaw posed to the spectacular panel at "Enhancing the U.S.'s Role in the World," sponsored by t
Eighteen Years of Strategic Drift is Enough! We've had too many wars, crises and disasters around the world. The greatest challenge facing America is to develop a cohesive strategy to include four billion people into the global economic engine.
Language matters. We've done a disservice to the Muslim world and the intelligence of all Americans by oversimplifying all of these conflicts -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and others -- under the guise of one war. These conflicts are largely movements that are using Islam as a political tool to advance their political agendas, and confronting them requires a disaggregated approach that sees them for the distinct conflicts that they are.
We spend $23.5bn on foreign assistance, much of which is mismanaged and corrupted, and not ending up in the hands of those to whom it's intended (i.e. the poor!). The next president needs to make a concerted effort to reform our broken foreign assistance programs. We should use PROVEN models of assistance that will provide for wealth accumulation for the poor from the bottom up -- things like development of microfinance, conditional cash transfer programs, and child development accounts.
