Walter Russell Mead: evaluation

Transcript context

…How should US foreign policy towards sub-Saharan Africa change? Can we do better? I think it’s much more complicated than . . . I don’t think there’s a simple fix out there that just, “Oh, okay. Turn this switch from on to off, and goodness and joy will flow.” I’m glad that we are engaging, but I do think we probably need to de-fetishize democracy promotion. Not that democracy isn’t a good thing, but I read about it in a recent election in the DRC, the Congo, that helicopters were flying ballots to remote villages. When I think of all the people that die in the DRC due to medical problems that simple medical treatment could fix, this seems to me, frankly, an insane misuse of resources, a murderous fetishization of ideology over reality. I think the key to sub-Saharan African development is economic success. Not that this will make all problems go away. It’ll make, I think, things like tribalism potentially get worse. But giving people more opportunity to improve the quality of their lives through their own efforts — so far as our foreign policy can do it — I think is a very positive thing. We do also need to look a little bit more seriously at the potential of jihadi groups to destabilize large sections of the continent. Here’s a sociological question. I think you’ll follow what I’m getting at. I’ve noticed that so many anti-Trump neoconservatives — they seem to have flipped almost entirely into just flat-out Democratic positions, like Bill Kristol. You could just call him a Democrat, and if you didn’t know the history, you wouldn’t see any contradictory evidence at this point. You haven’t done that. Why the difference?…

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