If you are a member of Senator McCain or Senator Obama's cadre of campaign advisers, a former US Ambassador, or even a mere foreign policy expert, you are one busy guy/gal right now. Washington is brimming with events with titles like "US Foreign Policy in the Next Presidential Administration: What Will Go Down?" or "President McCain/Obama: What's the Foreign Policy Plan, Stan?"
Here's a list of a few examples:
Last week the Partnership for a Secure America, a Washington-based campaign dedicated to "recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy" brought together some distinguished foreign policy practitioners/campaign adviser for an event titled “A Bipartisan Foreign Policy for January 2009.”
Former Ambassador Tom Pickering, for Regan adviser Bud Mcfarlane, and CSIS fellow Rick Barton came together to opine about the kinds of foreign policies the next president could enact with support from both sides of the aisle.
To watch all of the sections of the event, click here. Ambassador Pickering's remarks, in which he enumerated the many foreign policy problems the next President will have to face, can be viewed below. [kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=5521004701716052824" width="400" height="326" wmode="transparent" /]
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a center/left-leaning think tank in Washington, has launched an initiative dedicated to this issue, titled "Foreign Policy for the Next President." The initiative includes a series of policy briefs and events that bringing out the usual suspects‚ presidential campaign advisers, former Ambassadors and the like.
To view an excellent event Carnegie hosted debating Senator MacCain's dream of establishing a "League of Democracies" under his presidential watch, click here.
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think thank based in Washington, hosted a discussion of a new book on America can exercise its "Smart Power" in the next administration. One of the discussions I enjoyed attending was hosted by American University, WAMU (NPR's Washington affiliate) and American Public Media back in April. It gathered a Clinton, Omaba and McCain adviser to speak about how the next President can improve the US' image abroad.
Coming up on Monday, the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, will be hosting "McCain University." This event discusses all aspects of the Senator's campaign platform, with an afternoon session investigating his foreign policy ideas.
The US Global Leadership Campaign, a "broad based, nationwide coalition of businesses, NGOs, and community leaders that advocates for a strong U.S. International Affairs Budget," will host an event focusing on foreign policy and the next Presidential administration in Washington in July. These are just a sampling of events I have come across. No doubt this issue is being discussed outside the beltway by a variety of different stakeholders. If you come across any events that you think we would be interested in learning about, please post them in the comments section.
Lastly, I thought I would point out a great online resource aimed at generating a global discussion about the foreign policies that can be implemented "On Day One" of the next presidential administration. The the On Day One campaign was launched by the Better World Fund, a campaign to strengthen US-UN relations.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/5JOt-j0vAeI" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /] If you have any resources or events that you would like to share with us, please post a comment to this post.
