The Mandrake-Ripper Phenomenon

Last night I sat down with TyGreen and JBish and watched Kubrick's classic Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The way Kubrick, who had recently emigrated to Great Britain, cast the character of Mandrake struck me in a way it hadn't before. He by no means had to make the well-meaning and rational executive officer of the crazed General Ripper a member of the "officer exchange" with the Royal Air Force. Sellers showed in playing President Muffley that he could easily do an American accent.

Why then, make Mandrake British? Think about the post-WWII relationship the United States and Britain have... one could easily say the United States is the brash, ignorant, paranoid, reckless, unilaterally-acting leader in the relationship while Great Britain serves as its trusty ally, following commands but feebly voicing its doubts along the way. Save the Falkland Islands, Great Britain has only shown force when acting along with an American action since WWII. Save the United States' actions within our sphere of influence as defined in the Monroe Doctrine and a few retalitory bombings, Britain has aided us in our post-WWII conflicts, either directly or in official policy.

What I would like to see is the United States becoming a more coherent leader. I understand that often international diplomacy is an excercize in triviality. Global organizations have never enacted lasting peace of any sort - one has to only look at Mussolini's actions in Eithiopia and Japan's expansion into Manchuria to see evidence of this. Lasting peace has usually happened in one of two ways:
- The existence of a superpower who can exert its will upon the entire world (e.g. Pax Romana).
- The existence of two coalitions/alliances of equal strength keeping one another in check (e.g. the period of the Balance of Powers before WWI - Britain/France/Italy and Germany/Russia/Austro-Hungary).

It appears as though for the time being neither of these options are open to us. We have proved the era of the United States as the unquestioned superpower of the world has faded, and even if the EU had not undermined the strength of NATO's bond, it is not a conventional coalition which opposes the United States in today's world. It is largely web of covert organizations.

This presents our nation with a clear dilemma - how do we acquire peace in the current age? In what way can the United States form a coalition capable of keeping peace across the world? Surely the begining to finding an answer is in bringing nations into a level-playing field with ourselves at the diplomatic table and pragmatically finding solutions in questions of global peace. I would enjoy the six-nation talks being in a position to be assertive with North Korea, but the United States' unilateral policy in other parts of the world makes this difficult. One key issue in my vote for President in '08 will be in the area of foreign policy. How will the next Commander-in-Chief handle his power as the foremost statesman of America?

As General Ripper states in Dr. Strangelove, the United States has acted as if "warfare is too important to leave to the politicians". We need a President who is willing to reverse this trend and bring the diplomacy of the past into the 21st century.