Speech
Foreign Policy Issues: Challenges for a New Administration
Young Presidents' Organization, Los Angeles, California, January 17, 2008
James B. Steinberg, Dean, LBJ School of Public Affairs
The next President will take office at an extraordinarily delicate and dangerous time in American history. He or she will face an ongoing conflict in Iraq with US troops still engaged, our ground forces over-extended, and few good options on how to stabilize the situation there and prevent wider conflict. There remain active nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea which threaten to destabilize their regions and undermine the global non-proliferation regime. Our nation faces a continued high level terrorist threat, fueled by the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, and social, cultural and religious divisions from Europe to South East Asia.
We see an intensification of instability in Pakistan, which contributes to the terrorist threat and risks an internal meltdown in a nuclear armed state. Behind these immediate headlines are the longer-term challenges of an increasingly assertive Russia, an economically and militarily more powerful China, and grave long term dangers like climate change, energy security, and pandemic disease.
Throughout our history, the first year of a new Presidential Administration has posed particularly acute challenges, and since the dawn of the nuclear age, these challenges have had a life or death quality. I am going to talk today about why it has proved so difficult for new Administrations to come in and take charge effectively, and how the next administration – whether it is Democratic or Republican – might do better in dealing with challenges that I have just outlined for you.
View Complete Speech
