Converting the Foreign Policy Elite
Chris Seiple Tuesday, 6 July 2010
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs' recent report provides a comprehensive overview of how the U.S. foreign policy and national security establishment has not addressed the intersection of religion and realpolitik—to its own detriment. The report essentially makes the case that if religion has been a part of the problem, then it can also be a part of the solution. We need the best of faith to defeat the worst of religion; that is, faith communities worldwide should be intentionally engaged as groups who have something positive to contribute to the stability, prosperity, and civility of both state and society (beginning with the fight against extremism). This is only common sense in a world where over 80 percent of the people believe in something greater than themselves. But common sense is not so common among our foreign policy elites, many of whom have been trained at top international relations schools that, like our government, still struggle to at least allow for religion as a legitimate component of realpolitik analysis.
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