The American Dream:

Can You Still Get Your Piece?

Closing Thoughts:An Educational Story

China Rising:The Dragon Finds the Forgotten Continent

Fall 2007 Issue 2 Vol. 1

Environmentalism 2.0: The Economics of Going Green

White Pages

Energy IndependenceBy Celeste Carano, Domestic Affairs Editor

Climate ChangeBy Anne DiGiulio, Domestic Affairs Staff Writer

National PreparednessBy Zach Hindin, Political Theory Staff Writer

War and the Constitution By Julie Silverbrook, Political Theory Section Editor

Middle East Instability and OilBy Divya Chalikonda, International Affairs Staff Writer

The Iranian DilemmaBy Daniel Rozenson, International Affairs Staff Writer

A Second Look at Eastern EuropeBy William Schreiber, International Affairs Staff Writer

Uniting the NationBy Alex Pazuchanics, Domestic Affairs Staff Writer

Table of Contents

Dear Readers:I would like to introduce to you to the newest addition to GW Discourse’s

publications: GWD White Papers. These white papers are intended to be a collection of staff essays and articles on particular areas of interest. With this inaugural issue we thought it fitting to focus on presidential priorities for the first 100 days.

What can arguably be called the Economic Crisis of 2008 and two foreign wars will be inherited by the next President. Each of these will all have a profound impact on how the President will focus his administration during their first 100 days.

The collection of articles represents a number of topics of domestic and international impor-tance including energy independence, climate change, presidential powers, and national pre-paredness. In foreign affairs, we have articles related to Middle East instability, the “Iranian Dilemma,” and Eastern Europe. These are some fascinating articles representing topics that are of national and global importance. On another note, this election cycle has been a long one and whoever wins will require some national healing. Our last article looks at how the next President will have to work to unite the nation after the election and the challenges they face whoever they are.

Again, I would like to thank you for your interest in this unique publication. You may also continue to check out our website at www.gwdiscourse.com. Regards, Timothy Little Editor-in-Chief GW Discourse

Editor in Chief Timothy Little

PresidentAndrew Scott

Vice President for Development

Lainie Frost

Vice President for Marketing

Jennifer Roh

Vice President for Design

Ashley Fleishman

Domestic Affairs EditorCeleste Carano

Political Theory EditorJulie Silverbrook

International Affairs EditorSophie Stern

Domestic Affiars

Staff WritersAnne DiGiulio

Alex Pazuchanics

Political Theory Staff WriterZach Hindin

International Affairs Staff Writers

Divya ChalikondaDaniel Rozenson

William Schreiber

DiscourseGW

Editor’s Note

The next president will face a horde of issues within his first hundred days that were inherited from the previous administration. Some – like the war or the bailout plan – are more pressing than others, but all are equally important, and frequently interconnect-ed. Energy and the environment have fallen by the wayside lately as an issue, due to the tendency to focus on the cur-rent crisis, be it in Iraq or on Wall Street. But they remain a very im-portant issue and the next presi-dent ought to act quickly on both, and in doing so, may be able to address some of America’s other pressing dilemmas as well.

Creating a comprehensive ener-gy policy – and initiating it – ear-ly on in the new administration will be beneficial to us in foreign policy, national security, and the American job market. American dependence on foreign energy is tying our hands in ways that are highly undesirable. Nearly sixty percent of all US oil is imported; not negative in and of itself, but as most of those exporting countries are in either OPEC or the Mideast (or both), America remains sub-ject to the manipulation of prices by these countries. This oil depen-dence puts us at an economic dis-advantage, whilst also weakening our national securi-ty stance. This dependence has yet to prove disastrous for the US, but that monster is looming over the hori-zon. Crude oil is a finite resource, and our demand is ever increasing as the supply is ever decreasing. It does not take an economics major to realize that is neither desirable nor sustainable. The short-term solution is to find more oil, either within US reach or from more amenable allies. Such suggestions have included look-ing into Canada’s tar fields or offshore drilling. But this, while an effective short-term solution, will merely delay the need to find a long-term energy source that

is both green and sustainable. Investing in alternate sources of energy is the first

action to take. No, the US does not have the money in the budget to do so, not with a financial crunch and two ongoing wars. But it needs to find a way to pay for it anyway, because such investment would have a stim-ulating effect on the economy, creating jobs in a fast-growing industry, and helping to counter the oncom-ing recession. Further funding could also be derived

from a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions; specifically, by auc-tioning off carbon limits and allow-ing trading of these caps. These invest-ments should be diverse – hydrogen, ethanol, wind, solar and nuclear power – because whatever our future solu-tion, it will likely be a combination of these, rather than a single substitute for oil. And it ought to be, because such heavy dependence on a single energy source is a weak-ness.

The additional payoff, of course, will be cleaner fuel,

and alleviation of climate change. Global warming, however apocalyptic the predictions, never seems to be enough to kick investors or policy-makers into gear. But as American oil dependence has become a military and diplomatic liability, it may finally get the attention it deserves. America clearly needs to invest long-term in energy solutions, and perhaps not expect an imme-diate payback. But such investments will eventually pay off, and when they do, the US will be in a more stable economic position, and better able to influence foreign policy abroad.

Energy IndependenceCeleste Carano

Domestic Affairs Editor

Climate ChangeAnne DiGiulio

Domestic Affairs Staff Writer

The next president will inherit a messy world. The economy is failing, the United States is involved in two wars without an end in sight, and more nations are de-veloping nuclear weapons. Yet the most important is-sue the next president must address in his first hundred days is neither of these. Al-though admit-tedly pressing issues, the next president ought first to focus on the state of the environment and global cli-mate change. While this may seem to be the advice of a whimsical, tree hugging vegan from the Save the Spotted Owl Society, cli-mate change has significant implications in almost all sectors of the world and on every major issue in to-day’s political discourse

“ N a t i o n a l security” has been a buzz world in the 2008 election, as well it should be with Osama Bin Laden still at large and our troops engaged in two foreign wars. But, in fact, the environment has an important impact on national security. In May 2007, retired Admiral Joseph Prueher of the United

States Navy testified before the Senate on the very is-sue of climate change’s effect on national security. In his testimony, he relayed that climate change, which can reduce the access to natural resources such as water and food, adds to instability in perilous regions of the world. Indeed, he noted that climate change is already drastically affecting the most explosive regions of the world. It has become, in his words, a “threat multipli-

er,” not only to already unstable regions, but ev-erywhere. At the same hearing, retired General Charles Ward of the United States Air Force also spoke; ar-guing climate change had caused the insta-bility leading to the rise of war-lords in Somalia. He testified that this exhibited a microcosm of the wider rise of terrorist and ex-tremist groups throughout the world today. Clearly, the next President of the United States needs to make climate change, and the rever-sal of its effects, the top priority. The issue is not relevant only to

nature-loving hippies and vegans, but to the security of our country and the stability of our world.

Climate change is intrinsically linked to energy con-sumption. The United States uses about a quarter of the world’s oil. Yet it is estimated that North America

National PreparednessZach Hindin

Political Theory Staff Writer

In the first 100 days of his presidency, Barack Obama or John McCain will be flooded with demands to fix a broken financial system and relieve the tax burden; re-call our troops from Iraq and stabilize the Middle East; double aid to Africa and cut foreign spending; end energy dependence and invest in green technology (much of which is coming out of Europe and China). Suffice it to say, he will perform a tightrope walk where leaning either way means falling into the vitriolic criti-cisms of a disaffected half of the American population. Indeed, the end of a victorious campaign only turns on a point-blank media spotlight under an unforgiving public eye. And yet, rather than delivering palpable short-term campaign promises, the President ought to spend a good deal of his first 100 days in office pre-paring for turbulence that may well only reveal itself after his 1,000th day in office.

It is anti-climactic; it is not sexy or chic; and it does not have a cute acronym for a title. What is worse, it does not even have immediate payoffs to appease

an electorate that will naturally expect supernatural performance. Nevertheless, recalibrating our govern-ment to deal with an accelerant rate of social change is necessary, not for sustaining hegemony in the inter-national system, but for surviving it.

September 11th represented a break-point in Amer-ican history when even button-down conservatives were recalling Donald Rumsfeld’s September 10th di-agnosis: “We must change for a simple reason – the world has. And we have not yet changed sufficiently.” The creation of the Department of Homeland Security was the first major cabinet position to be created since the Department of Energy in 1977 and the first large-scale reorganization of government since President Truman created the Department of Defense in 1947. It is telling that the intervening periods between such massive overhauls are shrinking.

They are shrinking because of exponential increases in human interconnectedness via the globalization of access to technologies that are evolving as fast as they are proliferating and the liberalization of economic ac-tivity. In short, history itself is gaining speed. Cause and effect no longer lie at either end of a line segment

has only 16% of the world’s oil reserves and, as of Jan-uary 2009, the United States will have only enough oil in its reserves to supply the country for an additional nine years. This extravagant use of oil and fossil fuels accelerates climate change and threatens our national security. If the United States develops and successfully implements alternative clean energy, positive effects, both economic and security related, will follow.

Should we fail to halt climate change the cost of our inaction will be high. The changing climate poses a ter-rible economic and security threat to our nation. Due to the rising temperature, the polar ice caps will melt. The ensuing increase in the sea level will destroy the homeostasis of the world’s coastal regions. Both the air and water temperatures will rise, causing devastat-ing natural disasters like droughts and hurricanes. The later is an effect the US has become familiar with in recent years, as it has experienced longer hurricane seasons and more violent storms.

These crises can be prevented on an individual and national level. Individually, little things can be done: unplugging household appliances, turning off lights, driving less, and buying locally grown produce. But the

largest push needs to come from the national level. The country can, and must, make a commitment to stop and reverse climate change. Solar-power, wind power and hydroelectricity are all clean, safe, and free sources of energy. Using these alternative sources of energy would reduce our environmental impact. By making these small and large scale changes, the next president, with the support of the people, can stop and reverse climate change, saving the world from the plagues it will otherwise undergo.

If the next president makes climate change a prior-ity, it will save this county from suffering heavy eco-nomic and security related effects. If he does not, there may be no world left to argue over. Without food to eat or water to drink, a failing economy or foreign war will have little importance. So far, the United States has been lucky and avoided the negative impacts of cli-mate change. But as General Ward and Admiral Pueher demonstrated in their testimonies, it has already had dire implications around the world. As stewards of the earth, and a world power, America has failed to take up its environmental responsibility. It needs to be made a top priority now before it is too late.

but require at least three (and often many more) di-mensions of variables.

While popular figures of speech like “the butterfly effect” or “the law of unintended consequences” pop-ularly intuit this trend, our government is grossly ill equipped to anticipate, let alone cope with changes that promise more unintended consequences soon-er. Moreover, the disciplinary boundaries that once neatly pigeonholed policy aims – think economic vs. environmental initiatives or domestic vs. foreign poli-cies – are becoming porous, if not obscured altogether. This is the hallmark of complexity, a term borrowed from the hard sciences’ study of nonlinear phenomena by social scientists who are increasingly hard-pressed to describe the world around them.

The bottom-line is that the answer to the rhetorical question, “What’s that got to do with the price of rice in China?” is: “More than we’ve ever thought before.”

Global affairs are not either domestic or foreign. They are both. They are not exclusively instigated by individuals or states or transnational actors. They oc-cur across and between these units of analysis. They are not political or social or economic or technologi-cal or environmental. They are often all of these at once. Their causes are radically disproportionate to their effects. The need for our public servants to come to grips with such a calculus has never been more ur-gent. Reductionist thinking has preoccupied much of the Western world in a hangover from Sir Isaac New-ton’s elegant explanation of the physical universe as a bunch of infinitesimal balls knocking together. Con-trast this with basic Eastern worldviews that are in-tegrate systemic patterns into holistic conceptions of

It is said that the United States is a “government of laws, and not of men.” For the last eight years, our government has been that of men, and not necessarily that of law. In the name of the “War on Terror,” a war that has not been formally declared by Congress, we have seen the expansion of the powers of the Ameri-can presidency at the expense of two fundamental features of our constitutional structure—civil liber-ties and checks and balances.

On the first of the President’s first 100 days in of-

War and the ConstitutionJulie SilverbrookPolitical Theory

Editor

fice, he takes an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. The greatest challenge facing the Presi-dent in his first 100 days of office will be remaining true to that oath in the face of the exigencies of war.

This past summer, two former Secretaries of State formed The Baker-Christopher Commission calling for the next President and Congress to repeal the War Power Act of 1973 and enact in its place the War Pow-ers Consultation Act of 2009. The new act places its focus on ensuring that Congress has an opportunity to consult meaningfully with the President about armed conflicts. Despite the Commission’s best attempts at finding a compromise between Congress’ ‘declara-tion of war’ powers and the Presidents’ ‘commander-

the universe and one may be closer to understanding the remarkably measured rise of India and China.

In 1947, the Department of Defense was created in the aftermath of World War II as part of the Truman administration’s Cold War strategy. Two decades lat-er, the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Re-organization Act of 1986 sought to address the lack of coordination between the Army, Navy and Air Force – a shortcoming made painfully evident by the Vietnam War and the failed 1980 mission to rescue 53 hostages from the U.S. Embassy in Iran. In 1973, a massive en-ergy crisis ensued after OPEC announced an embargo against the United States. By revealing how unpre-pared we were for that not-so-unpredictable scenario, the crisis inspired President Carter’s creation of the Department of Energy four years later. Similar lack of coordination in strategy and information sharing after the attacks on the World Trade Center led to the creation of the Homeland Security Department.

So where is the next crisis that will prompt the ef-fort to streamline a sprawling, stove-piped and inef-ficient government; to network public servants such that top-level officials have a lucid picture of the envi-ronment in which their decisions are enacted beneath them; to create a truly dynamic platform for interagen-cy information-sharing and cooperation on complex challenges that marry traditionally strange bedfellows like the Department of State and the Department of Labor; to galvanize creativity within government bu-reaus racked by resistance to change?

One look at today’s headlines will show the next president that these crises of tomorrow are unfolding, at various trajectories, all around us.

in-chief’ powers, the new act still risks undermining the institutional norm of checks and balances within our consti-tutional order.

Notwithstanding the Constitution’s clear dictate that the Legislative Branch has the exclusive responsibility to de-clare war, Congress has consistently left the decision of force to the Presi-dent. At the same time, the Courts have practiced a doctrine of avoidance, leaving the interpretation of war pow-ers to the President. It is time for the President to take the lead on this issue and require that Congress make the authorization of the use of force both clear and explicit. It is only then that the Executive and Legislative Branches can legitimate-ly exercise ‘wartime’ or ‘national security’ powers.

After rectifying the institutional issues faced by the ever-expanding power of the Executive Branch under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, the President will be faced with yet another constitutional challenge in the face of war. What are the constitutional limits of the ‘emergency’ powers Presidents have invoked throughout our nation’s history during times of war?

The war powers exercised must not violate the Con-stitution’s explicit guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures and arbitrary detentions, the freedom of speech, assembly, association, and the press, or the right to due process and fair trial. The President must commit himself and Congress to exer-cising its power within the scope of the Constitution.

Our Constitution was written during a state of emer-gency, and the Framers’ found it prudent to secure cer-tain rights and liberties despite that fact. The threats the President of the United States face from our en-emies are broad will no doubt present him with many challenges, but the greatest challenge will be his will-ingness to hold true to his oath and uphold the Consti-tution despite those threats. It is preserving our con-stitutional order that presents the greatest challenge to any American President who inherits an uncertain war in uncertain times.

In his first 100 days of office, the next President of the United States will have to transcend past the tra-ditional practices of men who have come before him during times of war, and instead re-institute our gov-ernment as one of inviolable laws.

Middle East Instability and OilDivya Chalikonda

International Affairs Staff Writer

Iran has just completed its first successful test of a nuclear bomb, contradicting the 2007 United States Na-tional Intelligence Estimate that its weapons program re-mains frozen. In an effort to prevent extensive damage by Iran, Israel launches a massive air bombardment against the Iranians, and traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the site of passage for 20 to 40 percent of the world’s oil supply, comes to an abrupt stop. Gas prices skyrocket, making the escalation over the past year look petty.

While this scenario may not happen, the United States’ reliance on foreign oil poses many risks. The next President will be faced with the task of finding alternative sources of energy the moment he enters office. The United States’ dependence on foreign oil has shaped foreign policy. Our dependence on imports from places like Venezuela (1.187 million barrels per day) and Saudi Arabia (1.661 million barrels per day) leads to fluctuation of crude oil prices because of the political and social unrest in these countries. The un-stable environments from which we draw most of our oil have led both presidential candidates to propose specific, but drastically different, plans on how to wean

the U.S. off its addiction to foreign fossil fuels. Senator Barack Obama’s idea to eliminate

current imports from the Middle East and Venezuela is based on an increase in domestic regulation and offshore drilling. He will require oil com-panies to develop a designated 68 million acres (40 million of which are offshore) of land. This plan is essentially the opposite of Sena-tor John McCain’s proposal. Senator McCain aims to in-crease the use of do-mestic oil and argues that there are trillions of dollars in oil reserves within the United States.

Both candidates need to be aware of the possibility that ten-sions could arise between the United States and the countries that we have historically relied upon for oil. The next President needs to address America’s depen-dence on foreign oil without creating tensions between the countries whose economies we have consistently backed for access to easy energy. As both candidates are striving towards decreased dependence on foreign oil, it will be necessary for the President-elect, early

in his term, to find a way to prevent tension after our needs have lessened.

The prospect of increased tension arising between the United States and Russia, the world’s number one supplier of natu-

ral gas, is also likely. The candidates’ views on natural gas production

and consumption mimic their views on oil. However, consid-

ering the amount of business the United States gives Rus-sia, a decrease in natural gas consumption could lead to a strain on relations. If this were to occur, meeting the challenge of a resurgent Rus-sia would be much more dif-ficult.

The next President will also need to take into consideration

the increasing gas prices and the United States’ excessive energy use.

Senator Obama has proposed to enact a Windfall Profits Tax that will provide a $1,000 emergency energy rebate to

American families. Senator Obama will also increase fuel economy standards and es-

tablish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard to reduce carbon in our fuels by10 percent by the year 2020. Senator McCain has similar goals, but is looking at al-cohol-based fuels as an alternative to gasoline to help break our dependency on foreign oil. Regardless of the enacted plan, the current obstacles, as well as the inevitability of political conflict, will require the next President to address the energy crisis immediately.

The Irannian DilemmaDan Rozenson

International Affairs Staff Writer

The first few months of the American presidency are usually a “honeymoon period” where the new chief executive eases his way into the highest office. The 44th president will not have this luxury, however. The continued enrichment of uranium conducted by the government of Iran will dictate the attention of the new president quite quickly, if not immediately.

Intelligence and arms control experts believe that Iran is nearing the amount of uranium necessary to con-struct a nuclear bomb, and Western powers are deter-mined to halt this process. The incoming president will have to juggle several factors relating to the national security crisis caused by the Iranian nuclear standoff, and will have little time to make the critical decisions that will shape American policy.

Iranian nuclear enrichment has accelerated signifi-cantly in recent months with the development of a new uranium-enriching centrifuge that works at two-and-a-half times greater efficiency than Iran’s original mod-

el. Six months ago nuclear proliferation expert David Albright believed that Iran faced significant technical setbacks in the operation of its 3,000-plus centrifuges. However, in late September Albright claimed that the machines “now appear to be running at approximately 85 percent of their stated target capacity, a significant increase over previous rates.” Furthermore, Albright estimated that Iran could achieve the amount of low-enriched uranium needed for one nuclear weapon as soon as March 2009. Israeli intelligence officials as-sume a similar timetable. As a result, some Americans, and especially Israeli establishment figures, advocate using military force to slow Iranian progress.

The prospect of a military strike poses serious for-eign policy problems for the United States. Iranian leaders have warned that U.S. military bases in the Middle East would be among the first targets. Mili-tary action also might reverse a declining trend of Iranian-manufactured munitions winding up in the hands of Shi’a militant groups for their eventual use against American soldiers in Iraq. Another important consequence of armed intervention in Iran’s nuclear program is the possibility that Iran would play a non-military option and drive up the price of oil to $200 a barrel or more. No American president would want to be seen as causing a war unfold that could further cripple the world economy.

Obama next January will find himself facing this crisis with few good options. However, there are still ways to help ensure a favorable outcome for the Unit-ed States and its allies, and it starts with reforming our current approach to the problem. Western govern-ments believe that the Iranian government operates on a cost-benefit calculus when it makes decisions re-garding its security. This has led Washington to pursue a “carrot and stick” approach to Iran—reward them for

good behavior, but penalize them for bad behavior. The problem is that this isn’t producing what we want yet. As former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross wrote in an article last year, “the Iranians may be feeling pressure, but they have yet to change their behavior. The diplo-matic track is slowly impacting Iran’s leadership, but at a pace that continues to be outstripped by the coun-try’s nuclear advances. The key, then, is to find a way to alter the calculus—and, therefore, the behavior of Iran’s rulers—more quickly.”

This can only be done by beefing up both the car-rots and the sticks. The president needs to be willing to meet with the Iranian leadership face-to-face over their nuclear program—without the Iranians halting enrichment as a precondition—in an effort to prove that we are serious in easing relations and welcoming them into the community of nations. These negotia-tions, and the financial incentives and security guaran-tees that would accompany any agreement on nuclear inspection, will be an attractive offer for the Iranians if it is made clear that the threat of force is real.

To better position ourselves for this ultimatum of sorts, the president and his secretary of state will have to be able to convince other countries to buy into this policy. Key European leaders such as France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany’s Angela Merkel understand the threat that a nuclear Iran would pose, and there is a possibility that they would cooperate with a military strike if bilateral negotiations failed. Talking to the Iranians directly would at the very least provide cover for such an intervention if necessary, and they might even convince the Iranians to open up to full nuclear inspection. In essence, the next U.S. president must really mean what he says when he declares that “all op-tions are on the table” if he wants to solve the Iranian question.

A Second Look at Eastern EuropeWilliam Schreiber

International Affairs Staff Writer

The writer Milan Kundera once described the strug-gle of man against power as that of memory against forgetting. His thoughts were shaped by the Soviet in-vasion of Czechoslovakia after the failed Prague Spring reforms. As Russia once again tests its strength on its borders, perhaps Kundera’s description will remind us of the importance of consulting history when deciding

foreign policy. Once Russia had a great moral memory: it was pre-served in men like Solzhenitsyn, Yevtushenko and Sakharov, but the memories of those men have faded. Today their voices are eclipsed by those in political leadership – men like Putin who describe the Soviet Union’s collapse as the “greatest geopolitical catastro-phe” of the century. They implicitly threaten a “new Cold War” and coordinate naval exercises with radical-ly anti-U.S. countries like Venezuela. Cold war history should be at the front of Obama’s mind as he develops

foreign policy towards Eastern European countries like Georgia and Ukraine. Western Europe appears immobilized by what Kasp-arov described as the inverse correlation between de-mocracy and the cost of gasoline. It has rendered the EU divided and ineffective over recent Russian aggres-sion in Georgia. It must not weaken the next adminis-tration. The next president must swiftly restore stabil-ity and defense to an insecure Eastern Europe in order to contain Russia. Central and Eastern Europe remember the implica-tions of Russian power better than anyone, and will follow a convincing lead from the United States to avoid Russian control. Yet the West’s recent inaction in Georgia has highlighted the need for NATO mem-bership in many Eastern European countries. The next president must help Georgia along its “path to NATO” by 2009, without lowering democratic standards. Admitting a potentially unreliable or even irrational member is tantamount to sacrificing the whole for the sake of one. The next president must also not forget Ukraine. In 1993, John Mearsheimer argued against the nuclear disarmament of the Ukraine’s approximately 5,000

nuclear weap-ons. He said that Ukraine would be un-able to defend itself from a nuclear power with conven-tional troops and argued the United States was unwill-ing to provide “meaningful” security guar-antees. In 1994, the Ukraine signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty as a non-nuc lear weapon state and trans-ferred its mis-siles to Russia

for elimination. It is 2008, and Ukraine remains outside of the mean-ingful security guarantee of NATO. This past February, Putin warned that joining NATO would cost Ukraine its sovereignty. He went on to threaten Ukraine with the vision of a “horrible” scenario, in which Russia would be forced to aim nuclear weapons at them. Putin’s remarks were made under the pretext that Ukraine would agree to host a missile defense system, though it must be noted no such overture has been presented to the Ukraine. It’s clear that the government of Putin and Medvedev is focused on Ukraine as the next test-ing ground of American hegemony. Ukraine’s internal security, and by implication its NATO candidacy, seems particularly without guaran-tee. As recent as this October, amidst hotly contested elections and a damaged economy, President Yush-chenko dissolved the Ukranian parliament, only to have the decision overruled. In light of these events, Ukraine seems far from NATO membership, but instability is as much a result of Ukraine’s exclusion from NATO as its cause. It is clear that Ukraine cannot be accepted into the fold in its current destabilized condition, but if either NATO

Uniting the NationAlex Pazuchanics Domestic Affairs

Staff Writer

The president of the United States will assume the mantle of leadership at what may be one of the most difficult times in modern history. He will face a host of issues, both domestic and foreign, that will prove to be extremely difficult. But before the new president can roll up his sleeves and get to work, he will have to overcome the most pressing issue: ensuring that the country can rally behind the new president.

No matter which candidate wins, the next presi-dent is going to be responsible for uniting the coun-try behind him. Perhaps the American public, after the election of 2000, has been calloused to the cries of election fraud and “corrupt bargains”, but given the historic nature of this election, it is more than likely that they have not. Already, charges of voter fraud and the purging of voter rolls are arising. While most of these accusations are on par with most of America’s electoral history, the severity and early arrival of these calls almost guarantees the likelihood of issues in the November election.

In the event that Senator Obama becomes the next president, it is unlikely that he will win by a landslide. As a result, he will face a portion of the electorate that is exceptionally hostile to him. If the rhetoric of the last several campaign rallies by McCain and Palin are any indication, the Republican base is distraught. Jon Stewart mocked the crowds at some of the McCain/Palin rallies as a torch-carrying mob, but the metaphor is not so farfetched. The McCain campaign has made some efforts to tone down the rhetoric, but at times it seems like McCain is not in control of his own sup-porters. If Obama gets elected, he must calm these McCain supporters and assuage their fears, at least to the point where he can dispel the stereotypes they

have of him.Given the fact that Obama is ahead in the national

polls in the high single digits, if McCain wins the elec-tion, it will be very likely that he does so winning the Electoral College but losing the popular vote. If he does not quickly make efforts to reach out to Obama supporters, he risks creating a new generation of disil-lusioned Americans out of the young people who were actively trying to get Obama elected. Obama will like-ly attempt to transform his mandate for young Ameri-cans into a new commitment to national service, and McCain must make sure that he too can tap into this historic community developing.

McCain faces the additional hurdle of working with a Democratic Congress. It will almost certainly return at least the same Democratic majorities in both hous-es, if not additional gains in the House and a poten-tial filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. With the approval ratings for both the legislative and executive branches at record lows, McCain would have excep-tional trouble in getting any of his agenda passed (and the Congress would have difficulty getting its agenda signed) which would serve to make him even more unpopular in the first hundred days of his presidency. McCain, after discussing how often he broke with his own party during the primary, would have to crawl back to the congressional GOP for help with his agen-da, angering independents who voted for him.

In light of these complications, it is absolutely criti-cal that the next president address national unity as soon as he gets elected. Otherwise, the open sore of partisanship would fester, creating problems long into the next president’s administration. After the election of President John Kennedy in 1960, actor John Wayne was quoted saying, “I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job”. Let us hope that, whatever the outcome, the American public will be as forgiving this time around.

or the next administration hesitates to press Ukraine towards membership standards, it will become the next Georgian crisis. Russia has voiced strong objections to U.S. support of Democracy in what it has traditionally considered its backyard. President Medvedev has even rhetori-cally established his desire for “regions of privileged interests,” a remarkably similar phrase to “spheres of

influence.” The President must remember the Cold War when enacting policy, lest he find it encroaching on the realm of his experience. Geopolitics and ideals must be given equal weight. He must support the sovereignty of former Soviet countries and, in the context of Rus-sia’s nuclear arsenal, this means inclusion in NATO. The world cannot afford another Cold War.