Welcome to the maiden voyage of Shadow Government, a new
blog that's a proud part of the new ForeignPolicy.com and that will contribute
to the overall spirit of this larger venture: a lively online magazine about international politics, economics, and
ideas. Lest you think from this blog's
name that it's written by a bunch of coup-plotting ne'er-do-wells, I'll try to
explain a bit about who we are and what we'll be doing here.
In parliamentary democracies, the "shadow government" is a
group of like-minded policymakers who have served in government before and who
now find themselves outside of it. In
that spirit, this is a blog about U.S. foreign policy, written by people who've made it before. Our commentary and analysis will reflect our
experience in government and the practical knowledge we've gleaned from it (not
always the easy way). We'll discuss
foreign policy with an intimate familiarity of the imperfections and
complications, the trade-offs and unintended consequences that are a fact of
life when dealing with the world as it is, not as one wishes it to be. And we'll approach the many hard problems
facing the United States today with an appreciation for the limits of our
nation's power, but also for its enduring potential to shape events for the
better.
As the name of this blog also suggests, its authors share a
point of view -- that, generally speaking, of a loyal opposition. Political labels like liberal and
conservative feel a bit awkward when applied to debates about foreign
policy. So let's just say that, as the
United States enters the Obama years, the authors of this blog aren't among the 300
(or more) policymakers waiting by the phone for a job offer from the
transition team. But just as we sought
out many of them for a different point of view when we were in government, we
hope they'll find value in us calling things as we see it from the outside.
Many of us served at one point or another in the George W.
Bush administration, and on that experience you'll find just as many different
opinions. Some here advised the other campaign in 2008, and some will
likely do the same in 2012. Still, this
blog has no party line. Its focus is
policy, not politics. It takes no orders
from some higher
headquarters. And it's not in the
business of criticizing merely for criticism's sake. Indeed, we expect to disagree with each other
as freely as we disagree with the incoming team. What unites the individual authors of this
blog are ideas and principles about America's role in the world, which we will
spell out in the time to come, and which guides our thinking about the many
complex and different facets of U.S. foreign policy in the 21st
century.
So, Shadow Government has three goals: 1) to provide you,
our readers, with a respectful and nuanced assessment of the Obama
administration's foreign policy; 2) to offer, where we find points or policies
to disagree with, what we think is a responsible alternative course of action;
and 3) to defend the Obama administration, as fellow foreign policy
professionals, when good decisions they make are misunderstood or unfairly
criticized.
We will be critical at times, but we'll always seek to be
civil and constructive. We will
occasionally find fault, but we'll always do so in good faith. And we will do all of this with the goal of
elevating the discourse on U.S. foreign policy, as much as one blog can. We think that's healthy. We think it'll be fun. And we hope you'll find it interesting.
—Christian Brose, founding editor
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