Cursory campaign despite a 'complex world'

The World Affairs Councils of America conference began last Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Fellow attendees, including a group from the Minnesota International Center, came from across the country to discuss and discover what diplomats, military leaders, executives, academics, nongovernmental organization leaders and others thought about "America and the World 2015."

The confab commenced a day after the midterm election.

The two events bore little resemblance.

The conference was an in-depth analysis of complex foreign-policy problems. By design, the deep dive resisted surface solutions.

The campaign was, well, not that.

Instead, it devolved into a distracting debate about the campaign itself, including polls, gaffes and ads. Or it was about what wasn't on the ballot — President Obama — and if America is on the "right or wrong track."

The dearth of debate about foreign policy may have influenced voters. In October, Gallup asked: "What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?" Five percent said Ebola and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Afghanistan was an asterisk, despite U.S. troops still in harm's way there.

Those dynamics drive events on every continent, including Africa, which was usually viewed this fall through the lens of Ebola or Benghazi. But, of course, the continent is more complex, and the cursory campaign rarely mentioned the opportunities arising from Africa's transformation, which was the subject of another panel discussion.

North America's transformation into an energy exporter has geostrategic implications, but comes in the context of climate-change concerns, all of which were discussed during a panel on the future of energy. Separate panels addressed cybersecurity, as well as the changing dynamics among China, Asia and the United States. Energy was also a fundamental factor in another conference topic, "meeting Russia's challenge."

The conference is designed to take the long view. But it was also prescient. Just days later, a major U.S.-China climate agreement was announced and allegations were leveled over Chinese hacking. And NATO charged that Russian tanks were surging across Ukraine's border.

The emphasis on foreign policy is still important, despite — and in fact because of — the political shift toward domestic, mostly economic concerns.

"It's a very interesting time for foreign policy and the global environment. We are coming from a time when international affairs had lost its importance and we needed to focus on issues at home," said Vali Nasr, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. "But in a very peculiar way, this kind of history has proved us wrong. We have a set of very interesting new issues. Economics has truly changed the shape of the world. The greatest superpower rivalry today is over economics — it's with China."

"Power has become easier to acquire, harder to use and easier to lose," said Moises Naim, former Foreign Policy editor and author of "The End of Power."

"This is happening everywhere geographically, but is also happening with every function," Naim said. "With the Vatican and the Pentagon, with governments and the private sector, with philanthropies and terrorist groups, in criminal cartels and civil societies and nongovernmental organizations. Wherever there is an enterprise that requires humans to get together and organize and somehow power is a currency, power is decaying."

The Pentagon — unlike some politicians — cannot ignore foreign-policy issues. Gen. David G. Perkins, commanding general, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, described the new U.S. Army operating concept that he helped shape. "Win in a complex world" it's called, and complex, as Perkins defines the word (and the world), is "unknown, unknowable, and constantly changing."

This complexity calls for internationalism, not isolationism.

For five or six years America "decisively withdrew from foreign policy," Nasr said. "That itself became an international issue. The world wasn't ready for a sudden departure of the United States. All of these things are in play. These are problems that we are going to face going into the next two or three years."

John Rash is a Star Tribune editorial writer and columnist. The Rash Report can be heard at 8:20 a.m. Fridays on WCCO Radio, 830-AM. On Twitter: @rashreport.