Ian Bremmer

This week — chads willing — Americans will finally put an end to four years’ worth of electoral Sturm und Drang. Only then can the country begin to ask the question that matters much more than who will win: Will anything change? On foreign policy, it’s increasingly clear that the answer is, for the most part, no.

Likewise, this week — politburo willing — the Chinese will finally put an end to a year of bureaucratic angst. The powers that be hope that once a new president is installed, the Communist Party can put months of scandal behind it (Bo Xilai’s trial and Wen Jiabao’s family fortune, to name just a couple) and start to answer the question they’re most eager to put to bed: Will anything change in a new regime? On foreign policy, it’s increasingly clear that the answer is — you guessed it — for the most part, no.

In a volatile world, American and Chinese foreign policies appear, at least for the next few years, set in stone.

Americans — the people, not the politicians — don’t particularly care about foreign policy at the moment. The economic recovery, which few link directly to foreign policy questions, is too important. Anyone who watched the final presidential debate — ostensibly focused on foreign policy — saw two candidates who worked their way back to domestic issues at every opportunity. After a question about forcing Hosni Mubarak from office, for example, President Barack Obama said, “It’s very hard for us to project leadership around the world when we’re not doing what we need to do here at home.” Romney answered a question on America’s role in the world with a critique of teachers unions.

When the candidates weren’t pivoting, they were mirroring one another. Obama and Mitt Romney have different orientations toward the world, but their actual policies are remarkably similar. Both embrace the tactical value of drones; both think Europe’s economic problems deserve benign neglect; both favor free trade. Neither candidate is willing to take a more assertive stance on Syria; both want to get out of Afghanistan and impose tough sanctions on Iran.

Despite the rhetoric, both feel similarly toward China, as well. Each is willing to avoid alienating China on noneconomic issues like Taiwan, the Dalai Lama and human rights. Instead, each candidate wants to look more supportive of U.S. industry in the face of cheap Chinese goods. Whoever wins will put in place selective tariffs, invest in cybersecurity and try to counteract China’s influence in Asia. Don’t believe Romney’s bluster about declaring China a currency manipulator his first day in office — presidents don’t start their terms by provoking a trade war with their country’s most important economic partner.

In China, the particulars of the next government are still in some doubt: Will the Politburo Standing Committee be made up of nine people or seven? How conservative or nationalist will Xi Jinping, the next president, be? Is Li Keqiang, Xi’s slated deputy, an economic reformer? But beneath all that intrigue, China’s outward-facing policies will likely remain the same. Policy in China is made by consensus — strong, independent leaders are not in style (see: Bo Xilai). In the next few years, Chinese leadership is going to be incremental in responding to currency complaints and domestic economic reforms. It’s going to be wary of domestic political reforms, especially in the face of international pressure. And in terms of foreign policy it will likely follow precedent, responding harshly if provoked by Japan or anyone else in the region.

But the biggest factor driving the new Chinese government is that the world is no longer its oyster. Global economic growth is slowing, the Eurozone’s future continues to be shaky, and the U.S. debt trajectory threatens China’s investments. In the face of all this uncertainty, expect the Chinese government to continue to be risk averse.

No matter the country, elections — or backroom deals — don’t always bring change, even when promised. There’s a certain momentum to world events, especially when trouble at home outweighs needs abroad, as it does for the U.S.

Shuffling the deck chairs won’t ensure the boat steers toward a different port.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

PHOTO: U.S. President Barack Obama (R) shakes hands with China’s Vice President Xi Jinping in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, February 14, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed 

With Election Day 10 days away, there has been no “October surprise.” The economy plods slowly forward. Iran has not exploded. No shots have been fired in the South China Sea. Syria’s carnage continues, but the two candidates agree that U.S. troops should remain outside the line of fire. Republicans have tried without much success to use the killing of the U.S. ambassador in Benghazi to backfoot the president.

Just when it seemed we’d have an election without a last-minute wildcard, along comes Sandy. The storm has claimed lives, destroyed homes, cut power — and created uncertainty. The media and the country have turned away from the election toward the disaster’s startling images and human toll.

We can’t yet know if the storm will boost either candidate, but it has certainly added new variables, new questions, and new tests as the two campaigns make the final turn toward judgment day. Now that the clouds are parting, what’s next in the forecast?

First, Sandy has frozen the race. Not much can change in a contest where undecided voters — the least engaged — aren’t watching. Whatever “Mittmentum” might have remained from the Romney surge may have been washed away by the storm surge this week. Both candidates have taken a step back from active campaigning, the president to play his presidential role and the challenger to find a role of his own.

Second, the storm has slowed early voting. Remember the Obama court victory in Ohio to allow early voting right up until Nov. 6? Sandy has partially overruled that decision. We can’t know how the storm damage will affect voting on Election Day, but we do know that Obama’s ground game infrastructure is more extensive than Governor Romney’s in key states.

Finally, Sandy has cast Obama in the role of crisis manager in chief, and the president has been praised, including – crucially – by Republican New Jersey governor and A-list Romney surrogate Chris Christie. If reconstruction proceeds slowly, the president could take some blame. But that’s a problem for next month, not next week. Romney, meanwhile, must play his cards more carefully. He cannot compete for leadership with the president in this particular moment. Nor is it safe for him to compete with top Obama-surrogate Bill Clinton on the campaign trail.

Yet both candidates must be careful around cameras and open microphones not to give this campaign one last unfortunate soundbite in a season with too many.

The final wildcard will be that the polls are about to become a lot less trustworthy. Storm damage will make it harder for pollsters to reach a representative sample of voters, and in what is still a close election, that should give us pause.

Obama entered this last chaotic week with an advantage. He doesn’t have as many paths to 270 electoral votes as he had one month ago, but he still has more than Romney. Sandy is unlikely to change that. But election night just got even more interesting.

PHOTO: Residents wait in line during lunch hour to cast their early votes in the upcoming U.S. presidential elections, at the Milwaukee Municipal Building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin October 29, 2012. REUTERS/Darren Hauck

If you watched the third presidential debate this week, you got the sense that in the U.S.-China relationship, there are only good guys and bad guys, and all the bad guys are in China. The Americans are the valiant defenders of well-paying jobs; the Chinese are the ones who make tires so cheap it hurts the Americans. The Americans have a currency so free it’s the envy of the world; China’s is so manipulated it stunts competition the world over. But the squabbling isn’t limited to what you heard at the debate or just the two governments. It’s also happening between governments and private companies.

For years, Huawei, a Chinese telecom giant, has been trying to break into the U.S. market. Huawei wants to provide communication infrastructure to the U.S., but the U.S. wants to make sure Huawei, founded by former members of the People’s Liberation Army, isn’t actually a spy organization. Huawei claims to be just like any other Silicon Valley tech giant. U.S. intelligence agencies, despite finding no evidence of spying, view Huawei’s technology as too vulnerable to hackers. The House Intelligence Committee classified Huawei as a national security threat. State capitalism and the challenge it poses have expanded enough that the government is officially worried about them.

The U.S. appears to be coordinating with the Canadians to resist Huawei’s advances. Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, called his country’s relationship with China “complex” and acknowledged that there’s a national security dimension to its dealings with Huawei. In the midst of investing in cyber security, the Canadian government is also considering whether to allow Huawei to bid on building a new national email system.

The challenge for the U.S. is in developing even broader coordination against Huawei’s advances — and it won’t come easy. Granted, Britain’s Parliament is investigating the relationship between Huawei and British Telecom, but that doesn’t mean the U.K. will adopt the American stance. In response to the U.S. committee’s anti-Huawei announcement, British Prime Minister David Cameron came out and said his government would not change its relationship with the company. Huawei employs 800 people in the U.K. and a recent $2 billion investment will create 700 more jobs in years to come. Europe will be even more difficult to convince — Huawei is already well-established there, with $3.75 billion in sales in 2011; the relationship is just too lucrative for recession-riddled countries to pass on.

This is part of a larger trend, as we’ve seen many American allies actively invite Chinese investment. British foreign policy has focused on getting commercial deals done. Angela Merkel’s dealings have led many to dub the Berlin-Beijing link as “the special relationship.”

The showdown with Huawei is yet more proof that U.S.-Chinese relations are complex and problematic. It’s also indicative of a larger truth in our globalized era: that free-market capitalism and state capitalism are increasingly at odds — and economic statecraft, exemplified in the move against Huawei, is the best line of defense for the former.

This economic statecraft is the second prong of the Obama administration’s pivot toward Asia. Washington has already begun to shift its military resources, but for the pivot to be sustainable, it will have to involve more soft-power efforts. America is all over the place in Asia when it comes to security — when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. But the nails are fewer when it comes to the economy. China’s economic influence only grows as the U.S. scrapes its way back out of the recession.

China is well aware that clashes between state capitalism and free market entities are a two-way street. While America is resistant to Huawei, China continues to stymie Facebook, Twitter and Google’s efforts to expand in the country. Twitter and Facebook are blocked by firewall in China, and Google has a long history of tension with the central government over its censoring of search results. In their place, Chinese competitors and copycats bloom. Even American companies largely turned a blind eye to Google’s exit: They saw it as a chance to get a leg up.

One potential U.S. coordinating partner is Japan. I recently spent a week there, where the dispute over the Senkaku Islands — known as the Diaoyu in China — has turned public opinion entirely against China, Japan’s largest trading partner. From my travels, no one in Japan thinks the relationship with China can be repaired any time soon. Japanese automakers are rethinking their growth plans after Chinese demand for Japanese goods fell once the dispute began.

The United States needs to hone its economic statecraft policies and incentivize allies and like-minded free market institutions to hold the line — regardless of the rewards the Chinese offer for breaking ranks.

Can the United States pull it off? We don’t know, but it’s becoming more and more critical that it does. What we do know is that, increasingly, it’s America’s way or Huawei.

PHOTO: A cleaner wipes the glass door of a Huawei office in Wuhan, Hubei province October 9, 2012. REUTERS/Stringer

There will always be a wide gap between what candidates promise and what they deliver once elected, particularly when it comes to foreign policy. After all, this is an area where U.S. presidents have less control than either candidate will ever admit near a microphone. But this year, there are contradictions that cut straight to the heart of debates over American power and how it should be used. With that in mind, here are the questions I would like to see each candidate answer.

THE CHINA CONUNDRUM

• President Obama, given how much money the United States borrows from China each day, how can your administration expect to persuade the Chinese government to do anything it wouldn’t otherwise do?
• Governor Romney, you have pledged that, if elected, you will formally label China a “currency manipulator” on day one of your presidency. This decision would surely provoke a sharp response from China. Are you risking a trade war, and how could the United States win a trade war with China?

China-bashing has figured into many a U.S. presidential campaign. As China’s economy and geopolitical importance has grown — and as U.S. manufacturing jobs have moved from U.S. swing states to China and other foreign countries — both sides have tried to score points by promising to “get tough” with Beijing. Given the economic interdependence of the two countries and continued Chinese willingness to loan money to the United States, voters are right to wonder how seriously they should take all this anti-Chinese rhetoric.

SYRIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST

• President Obama, does the United States have a moral responsibility to protect Syrians from their government?
• Governor Romney, if we were to see large-scale pro-democracy demonstrations in Saudi Arabia, similar to those we saw last year in Cairo, would your administration side with the Saudi citizens demanding democracy? Or would you side with their government, a key U.S. ally?

President Obama cited moral concerns for the U.S.-led NATO intervention in Libya. Syria is a much more politically and logistically complicated problem for outsiders contemplating involvement, but the moral imperative — protecting citizens who are being killed by their government — appears the same. Where is the line in U.S. foreign policy between pragmatism and moral concerns?

Governor Romney has two principle criticisms of the Obama Middle East policy: The White House has refused to stand with U.S. allies in the region and has refused to stand with those who demand freedom. There are many ways to highlight the contradiction in these critiques, but the most efficient is to ask about Romney’s attitude toward the potential for pro-democracy demonstrations inside an authoritarian state that is also a crucial U.S. ally and the world’s leading producer of crude oil.

THE GLOBALIZED ECONOMY

• President Obama, how can the U.S. government work with American corporations to ensure that they can effectively compete against state-owned corporations, like those in China, that benefit from the financial and political backing of their home governments?
• Governor Romney, is an economically-sound Europe good for America’s national security? If so, what, if anything, would your administration do to strengthen Europe in this moment of crisis?

Beyond the basic question of what role government should play in promoting U.S. business abroad, the next president will have to consider how U.S. companies can succeed on a global competitive playing field distorted by governments like China’s that use state-owned companies to achieve goals that are ultimately political.

Europe’s economic struggles continue to weigh on U.S. growth. But at a time when there is a focus on reducing U.S. government spending, what credible steps can and should the U.S. government take to bolster the eurozone?

WHAT’S WORTH FIGHTING FOR?

• President Obama, are democracy and free market capitalism values that America should actively export to other countries? If so, what will you do in a second term to accomplish this goal?
• Governor Romney, what lessons from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would you use as president to decide how, where and under what circumstances to send American men and women into harm’s way?

At times, Governor Romney has hinted at a willingness to use U.S. military assets in Syria and Iran. President Obama has taken a relatively pragmatic and risk-averse approach to foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East. Election season in general — and foreign policy debates in particular — invite a lot of high-minded rhetoric about support for freedom around the world and American exceptionalism. But what is actually possible for U.S. foreign policy at a moment when more Americans than ever tell pollsters that they want the United States to “mind its own business” internationally?

PHOTO: Students playing the parts of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney (L) and U.S. President Barack Obama rehearse on the set of the final U.S. presidential debate in Boca Raton, Florida October 21, 2012. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

Six months ago, the U.S. election was about the economy, and little else. Nearly everyone agreed that for Mitt Romney to win, he’d have to exploit Barack Obama’s glaring weakness: an economy that was as stubborn as the Congress that refused to rescue it. Unemployment was high, Europe’s future was uncertain and the markets were volatile. Not coincidentally, polls showed the two men neck and neck.

But now Mitt Romney has kicked off the week of the first presidential debate – which is focused on domestic policy – with a foreign policy op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. Noting the recent protests over the Innocence of Muslims video and the Iranian nuclear program, Romney writes: “These developments are not, as President Obama says, mere ‘bumps in the road.’ They are major issues that put our security at risk.” Obama’s now just as vulnerable on foreign policy as on the economy, and Romney seems to realize it. So what’s the problem? Voters are still basing their decision overwhelmingly on the economy. Romney has flipped the electoral script, but it’s not a winning strategy. He would be wise to get back on message before it’s too late (which it already may be).

Over the past few months, the global and domestic economies have averted the double-dip disaster that seemed so imminent. The Europeans have made significant strides toward a stronger union, the Supreme Court upheld the Democrats’ healthcare law, Ben Bernanke moved forward with a new round of quantitative easing, the housing sector appears to be growing again, and consumer confidence is at its highest in the last four months. That unemployment remains high and GDP remains weak means that 81 percent of voters still think that the economy is “not so good” or “poor,” according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll. And yet that and other polls show that there’s an even split on which candidate voters think is best equipped to handle the economy.

And so Romney has moved to foreign policy. Over the past couple of months, all the news from the Middle East has been bad. The killing of Osama bin Laden has been overshadowed by a region that is once again restive. Shoddy embassy protection, a U.S.-China relationship that’s tenser now than at any point since the Cold War, broken diplomacy with Russia, cool relations with Israel, an intractable civil war in Syria, and rising attacks on NATO troops from Afghan security forces have all gotten more headlines than revised GDP figures.

Romney has tried to capitalize. Last week at the U.N. General Assembly, Obama offered an address, but skipped meetings with foreign leaders. Romney campaign officials and other Republicans questioned whether Obama’s light schedule meant he wasn’t taking foreign policy seriously. But what was the point in meeting with foreign leaders when there is, at this moment, so little that can practically be done with such obstructive partners? As my mom used to say, if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

The problem with Romney’s new tack is that even if he is successful in framing Obama as a naïve appeaser on foreign policy, few people are going to vote based on it. In a new Quinnipiac poll, 50 percent of voters say the economy is most important in this election, while 17 percent say healthcare, 13 percent the budget, and 7 percent national security.

Foreign policy, then, is just a distraction for Romney, no matter how tempting it may seem. If there is a way forward for Romney with one month to go – and I’m not sure there is – it is to go hard on unemployment, hard on the economy, hard on the deficit. That’s why he picked Paul Ryan to begin with. He was slightly behind in the polls, and he recognized that the big distinction with Obama he could make was on the most important issue of the election. The economy is all he should be talking about.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney talks to U.S Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) (R) on his campaign plane en route to Denver, Colorado October 1, 2012, ahead of Romney’s first debate with U.S. President Barack Obama.   REUTERS/Brian Snyder

As the world convened at the U.N. General Assembly last week, the willingness of the Obama administration to risk blood and treasure promoting democracy abroad was on full display: Barack Obama gave a stirring speech defending American values and asking other democracies to adopt them. But Obama’s rhetoric doesn’t tell the whole story. He didn’t deliver his speech until after an appearance on a daytime chat show, in obvious support of his re-election campaign.

Many foreign policy experts have criticized Obama for wasting time with Barbara and Whoopi on The View when he could’ve been engaging with foreign leaders on the East Side of Manhattan. But the experts’ takeaway from Obama’s priorities last week is no different than it has been from the administration’s response to months of civil war in Syria, the teeter-tottering of Libya, the reluctance to pose a credible military threat for Iran and the refusal to engage in the Middle East peace process.

The U.S. is willing to do less on the world stage than it has since the onset of World War Two. In the long term, this reset of foreign policy and military initiatives may yield the country a peace dividend. In the short term, there are three international issues where the situation on the ground is deteriorating rapidly and where, in the past, a U.S. president might have intervened. Let’s look at them:

1. Syria. The Assad regime has engaged in deplorable behavior. But the U.S. has been extremely reluctant to support the opposition without a clear identity, leader or mission beyond overthrowing the regime. Furthermore, nothing about the Libya experience has given the U.S. any reason to do anything differently. It’s completely unclear that U.S. intervention in Syria would put U.S. interests in any better shape in that country, or outside of it. The Iraq lesson was simple – that democracy building is very expensive. And Libya taught us more: Regime change itself hurts and can’t be done on the cheap. Furthermore, when it came time for the U.S. to garner international support for its limited Libya mission, Russia could not ignore Gaddafi’s bombast and promise to exterminate the rebels, and therefore could not block the necessary U.N. resolution. When it comes to Syria, Russia won’t provide international cover for a U.S. intervention. Assad gets a pass, despite his brutal war and the fact that it is beginning to reach into bordering states as well. The knock-on effect is more instability in the Middle East – but that seems to be something the Obama administration has decided it can live with.

2. Iran. Here, the U.S. has actually been doing a good job eliciting international pressure on the regime over its quest for nuclear weapons. Rightly so: This is a bigger, global problem. But how much pressure can be brought to bear on Iran, given what’s going on across the region? The Obama administration can say, “Iran, you can’t develop nuclear weapons, or else,” but the question becomes, “or else, what?” Setting out a thick red line is a big problem in this environment. The U.S., according to reports, is running a rather effective sabotage operation on Iran’s labs, but Israel’s current government is apoplectic that Uncle Sam is not sending in the cavalry. Israel, here, is at great risk of appearing to cry wolf, losing the support it has in the international community should the situation in Iran become worse. And Tehran would, it seems, be more willing to declare itself at war with the U.S. to distract the Iranian public from the pain of economic sanctions.

3. Israel and Palestine. While Israel might look like a loser when it comes to Iran, it’s a winner when it comes to its own territorial dispute, no matter who wins the U.S. election in November. Mitt Romney is on the record as saying the Palestinians don’t seem to want peace. When, if ever, has a major party presidential candidate uttered a statement like that? Neither he nor Obama, in other words, intend to use any political capital on another meaningless accord. The message from U.S. politicians to Jerusalem: “We’re done trying to fix this. No more pressure on settlements, or anything else. Good luck.” Israel gets a nearly free hand to deal with Palestine, because there are enough crises in the world that set off anti-American demonstrations, and there’s little need to create another. What that means for Palestinians, though, is the end of American support for their claims, and possibly the end of restraint by Israel.

What all three situations come back to is that the foreign policy implications of the 2012 election are virtually nil. Americans are consumed by domestic issues like the economy and unemployment. Despite the fact that Romney paints Obama as an apologist, a declinist, an unpatriotic leader-from-behind, both are peddling roughly the same foreign policy. Romney is setting a theme and a tone to attack Obama, but it’s mere background music. Whichever candidate is elected will, for different reasons, tell the military “you’re not going to bomb that.” All the rest is posturing.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

PHOTO: U.S. President Barack Obama addresses the 67th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, September 25, 2012.   REUTERS/Mike Segar

Whether it’s Barack Obama or Mitt Romney who wins the next election, there is already a vacancy to fill in the president’s Cabinet. With the resignation of John Bryson in June, thanks to a hit-and-run accident apparently caused by a medical issue, the Department of Commerce is being led by an acting secretary, Rebecca Blank. Yet after the initial scandalmongering about Bryson’s departure died down, nary a peep has been uttered in the media about the department’s fate or future.

In other words, the Department of Commerce’s real problem is not a lack of leadership, but a lack of mission-a weakness that means Commerce isn’t making the most of its roughly $10 billion budget. In today’s world, everything – geopolitics, national security, foreign policy – is increasingly being viewed through the lens of our economic interests. The United States has a powerful bureaucracy devoted to international diplomacy and a gargantuan one devoted to national defense, but a near-total vacuum when it comes to global economics.

For a long time now, as conservatives have tried to scale back the size of the government, they’ve also argued that America’s businesses need to be unencumbered from government regulation. They worry about how the government’s intrusion into business will harm our competitiveness abroad. However, the idea that’s been neglected is that the government, through industrial policy, can protect and advance the interests of the private sector abroad, too. The global, U.S.-led economic institutions that arose from the ashes of World War Two have truly become global. Thus they’ve stopped protecting America’s interests abroad. Structurally, our business sector has little to no support from the government when it comes to finding customers outside of our borders. To remain competitive, especially with the state-run economy of China, that has to change.

Again, the three-legged stool of United States interests abroad – diplomacy, defense and business – is currently missing a leg. Is it any wonder that the country has remained influential and militarily superior, even as its economy cratered during the financial crisis and has only sluggishly and half-heartedly recovered? While the Department of State attracts the best and brightest minds, and the Department of Defense is unrivaled in the world, Commerce has not exactly been a haven for global economic thought or leadership.

What I’m suggesting is not, however, a government-sponsored think tank for global commerce. The Department of Economic Statecraft should be staffed and run by those in our country with the most impressive resumes in the private sector. They should be given the tools of government to serve the business community they came from. Presidents have long recruited business leaders to join White House economic councils and working groups, and to informally offer their advice, but it’s time to go beyond that into actual executive and policy powers.

When you consider the might of the U.S. in defense and diplomacy, you can understand that in these realms the U.S. can often achieve its goals by “going it alone.” For better or worse, consider the prosecution of two wars over the past decade, with scant help from our allies. But when you think about business, going it alone is not an option. We need trading partners to sell our goods to. And we need to foster a robust domestic economy to ensure that we can buy goods from others. While our capitalist system has proved to be the greatest in the world, we need only look toward China to understand how some limited economic coordination can lead to booming, sustainable growth. The U.S. has, for a long time, refused to learn anything from any other country’s example. Often it can afford to do so because of its pre-eminence in the world. Here, though, is one example where the government’s structure is behind the times and could stand to learn a thing or two.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

Poor Mitt. Despite the listless U.S. economy, the aftermath of the Arab Spring and the abyss the euro zone still faces, his campaign is showing the world that it’s hard to go up against an incumbent, even one who is as potentially vulnerable as President Obama. Team Romney had to hope that the jobs report that came out on Friday would be very bad, so it could continue to pin the country’s economic malaise on Obama’s policies. Instead it got a mixed report – good hiring, but an uptick in the unemployment rate – that made it hard for Republicans to present a clear message to the American people.

Of course, what we’re seeing in this campaign is that Romney hardly needs the Department of Labor’s help when it comes to presenting mixed messages. If Romney were a smarter candidate, or had a smarter team around him, he’d absolutely hammer Obama on the economy, to the exclusion of any other issue. That’s right – no talk about healthcare, immigration, gay marriage, contraception in Catholic hospitals or Osama bin Laden. Romney’s campaign, if he wants to win, should be all economy, all the time.

Any college kid getting a poli sci degree could tell Romney that. So why on earth did his campaign just waste a week in the UK, Israel and Poland? Those three countries are American allies, to be sure, but they also don’t matter nearly as much as they used to. As such, leaving aside his constant stream of gaffes while on his tour, he didn’t get much out of his trip. Sure, Poland and the UK were happy to flatter him (to the extent that they could, given the foot he had in his mouth about the London Olympics and his shutting out of the press throughout the trip, especially in Warsaw). His stop in Warsaw may have had some impact on Polish-American swing-state voters, while Israel was important to large chunks of his American constituency, especially super PAC funder and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.

For Romney to have taken an international trip that would matter, there’s one place he might’ve considered going: Japan. Between Japan’s economic efforts and its rebuilding after the tsunami and Fukushima disasters, it’s an extremely relevant country to U.S. interests that would’ve welcomed him with open arms. Unfortunately, it would also have required him to buy into the Obama administration’s pivot toward Asia. For someone who doesn’t have a ton of foreign policy credibility yet, it could also have made for even more disastrous gaffes than did the trio of countries he ended up visiting. So, in the end, why take the trip at all? Romney should’ve stayed home.

Instead of visiting the most important countries to U.S. interests, he picked a safe trio of “Avis” countries. As second-tier allies, “they try harder” to compete for U.S. attention, but there’s little to gain for a U.S. politician in rewarding them with it. As Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton do a very good job (most analysts believe) in meeting the challenges facing the world in the 21st century, Romney visited a trio of countries that epitomized the challenges of the last century. As icing on the cake, the press couldn’t stop making comparisons with then-candidate Obama’s 2008 trip to Iraq and Afghanistan. Where Obama casually drained a 3-point shot in a military gym, Romney had to vehemently deny he would stick around to watch his wife’s horse compete in Olympic dressage, otherwise known as “horse ballet.”

Romney’s visit exposed a number of awkward truths about the candidate: his fantastic wealth, his catering to the wishes of his super PAC benefactor with his trip to Israel, and his peculiar temperament, as shown by his skepticism about the ability of London to have successful Olympic games and his press secretary’s outburst at a Polish war memorial. If Romney wants to win the presidency, his best bet is to run a 21st-century version of a “front porch” campaign: Stay close to home, and hammer away at the idea that Obama has mismanaged the U.S. economy. Romney must become a single-issue candidate to win the election. Any other use of his time will likely mean he’ll wind up with plenty of spare time – and a permanent vacation come November.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

PHOTO: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is pictured before delivering foreign policy remarks at Mishkenot Sha’ananim in Jerusalem, July 29, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed

“Syria: Towards the Endgame” was the headline the Economist splashed across one of its most recent covers. But as we’ve seen with this week’s assault on Aleppo, the end of the Assad regime is, in all likelihood, not even close. Let’s unpack why and enumerate the ways:

1. China’s and Russia’s vetoes

The two countries vetoed the most recent U.N. Security Council resolution, which would have authorized sanctions against Assad’s government as a result of its repeated failures to adhere to promises to bring peace to the nation. While the result is disappointing for the Syrian people, the effect of the vetoes of China and Russia is twofold. First, the U.N. obviously has been robbed of one of the tools it uses to protect citizens of oppressive regimes. But second, the impact of the veto, coming from two countries that have up-and-down relationships with the U.S., serves to turn any American interventionism into an international incident.

Let’s be clear: This is playing politics on a global, humanitarian scale. We always knew that Russia and China would not support a U.S. intervention in Syria, not even in the way they grudgingly did when it came to Libya. But ultimately, the bloodshed there is not just on their hands. While Obama has cover for his hands-off foreign policy thanks to the veto, U.N. resolutions have hardly stopped or even influenced U.S. foreign policy in the past, especially when it mattered.

2. Even without vetoes, the U.S. has no stomach for intervention

It’s messy. It’s expensive. There’s no domestic constituency for it. The U.S. is still reeling from the price tag of the Iraq war, and still extricating itself from Afghanistan. But more important than whether we have the stomach for an overseas campaign is our lack of a solution or an exit strategy. It’s not clear at all who could successfully replace the Assad regime. We don’t know what would come after him. There’s always the possibility that some internal assassination or bombing could take him out. But as long as he has his military apparatus, he’s going to be able to smash any attempt by opposition forces to gain strength against him. There’s simply nothing rising up in Syria that might take Assad’s place. So, the question of freedom for Syrians turns very sadly pragmatic indeed: What, exactly, would we be fighting for?

3. The civil war in Syria has begun, and it’s dragging the region with it.

As in countries across the Middle East, the civil war here is rooted in ethnic identity: Shiite vs. Sunni Muslims. The Shiite minority holds power. The Sunni population has been oppressed. The answer to the question of who should be running Syria, other than that it should not be a murderous dictator, is entirely unclear. What is clear is that other countries are experiencing tensions and internal strife thanks to the bloodshed there. Turkey and Qatar have interests in the outcome. China and Russia, and the United States, have investments and interests in the area. By proxy, U.S. relationships could also face further deterioration as the Syria conflict drags on.

There was a time when the U.S. would race to the rescue, playing world cop on the global stage, and attempt to intervene and end strife. It would lead a peloton of countries toward the outcome it thought was most desirable, and it would commit, in blood and treasure, whatever it took to get the job done. Whether for better or for worse, in our new G-Zero world that sort of thing just doesn’t happen anymore. We can blame the U.N., Russia, China, and Syria itself all we want, but the reality is, the U.S. has decided it’s just not getting involved.

This essay is based on a transcribed interview with Bremmer.

PHOTO: Syrian soldiers celebrate after their entry to al-Midan neighborhood in Damascus, July 20, 2012. REUTERS/Stringer

This piece originally appeared in Reuters Magazine.

As Europe’s leaders struggle to restore confidence in the single currency and America’s economy limps ahead at a painfully slow pace, China’s economy continues to power forward at its now characteristically strong clip. For the past three decades, China has been the world’s fastest growing economy—and within the next several years, the People’s Republic will overtake the United States as the world’s largest. Some economists have even argued that, measured by purchasing-power parity, China has already pulled ahead. Such prognostications, accurate or not, have led to dire warnings that liberal capitalism’s best days are behind it, that the future lies with authoritarian market managers who are able to relocate populations and move mountains by decree. For the moment, at least, state-managed capitalism appears to be triumphant.

Such appearances, however, are misleading. The appeal of state capitalism lies in its ability to withstand the occasional crises that afflict market systems, thus shielding the general population from politically inconvenient disruptions. It is a system in which the state uses state-owned enterprises, national champion firms, sovereign wealth funds, and politically loyal banks to dominate the process of domestic wealth creation. To be sure, this is not communism; significant segments of state capitalist economies are in private hands. But the state plays the largest role in ensuring that market forces serve political ends—by ensuring that, profitable or not, businesses invest in projects that bolster social stability and protect the ruling elite’s political control.

China is not the only state capitalist economy producing impressive results. As the Arab world continues to contend with the risks of political turmoil, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have stockpiled the cash they need to maintain stability by controlling much of the wealth produced by national oil companies. Even some emerging democracies have begun to flirt with limited forms of managed capitalism. Brazil’s private sector remains crucial for the country’s expansion, but its government leans on state-owned energy firm Petrobras and privately owned mining champion Vale to help create jobs. President Dilma Rousseff’s government won’t milk cash from these firms as President Hugo Chávez has done with state-owned oil company PDVSA in Venezuela, but Petrobras is already at risk of becoming a much larger, less efficient, and thus less profitable company.

State control is not the future of capitalism. It is a dead end from which China will have to free itself if it is truly destined to dominate the world economy. As a system and by design, state capitalism ensures that wealth creation does not threaten the leadership’s hold on political power. Its ability to stimulate growth and general prosperity is a secondary benefit. Forced to choose between public wealth and political survival, state capitalists will always protect their own interests first. In China, as elsewhere, commercial activity depends on access to information, and the Internet provides the best and most efficient access to it. Yet if the Internet threatens to enable popular resistance to China’s authoritarian government, and if political officials have the means to shut the Internet down, even temporarily, they will do just that.

State capitalism’s greatest weakness lies in its intolerance of “creative destruction,” a process that invests liberal capitalism with vital self-regenerating momentum. The liberal capitalist model makes it possible for the workers, resources, and ideas invested in a dying industry to spontaneously recombine in novel configurations to produce goods and services that satisfy emerging demand. But the economic engineers of state capitalism fear any form of destruction that develops beyond their control. This is why state-owned companies, which build influence within government over time, often succeed in resisting the need to adapt to changing times.

Then there is the question of openness. Within autocratic state capitalist systems, government-owned companies like China National Petroleum Corporation and some of the Arab world’s sovereign wealth funds shun the transparency that long-term resilience and adaptability demand. This opacity can benefit a country’s ruling elite by hiding unsuccessful investment decisions, but it is very harmful for the system’s long-term health. When such institutions can hide their failures, they are free to inflict much more lasting harm than they otherwise could.

Managed capitalism also falls short when it comes to exploiting innovation, though government-directed investment can play an important role in the development of new technologies. The Internet arose from a U.S. government subsidized defense project, but it was profit-driven companies that developed and reimagined the Internet and thus transformed the world. History shows that over time state officials never value assets and allocate resources as efficiently as market forces can.

Even in China, state officials understand that citizens are the engine of economic vitality. That is why the state has embarked on an historic and ambitious plan to shift wealth from China’s largest companies to the country’s consumers. China’s leaders know that the next generation of economic growth must be less dependent on exports to Europeans and Americans; creating domestic consumer demand is crucial. Thus the process of empowering Chinese consumers will undermine state capitalism’s appeal even within the country that has made this system so seductive.