Back to basics

Hey, there foreign policy wonks… economic downturn cutting into your interventionist plans for global dominance?   Tired of the pontificating on the same old dreary “-stans” that no one seems to be able to find on a map, let alone find interesting enough to support your think tank?  Has Andrés Martinez got a deal for you!

Mexico is so refreshingly 9/10. The fact that the bad guys there — and they are truly nasty — are not driven by religion or ideology, but are just in it for the money, is reassuringly retro. Still next door and still a mess, though not quite Pakistan, Mexico is a place Americans can always go back to, the way one goes back to basics, or the girl next door. Mexicans may not feel the same way about U.S. intentions, but ever since the James K. Polk administration a century and a half ago, whenever the United States preoccupies itself with Mexico, it takes a breather from more adventuresome empire-building. It was no accident that the pre-9/11 George W. Bush talked about adopting a more “humble” foreign policy almost in the same breath in which he talked about prioritizing the U.S. relationship with Mexico. The two would seem to go hand in hand.

Mexico is a fitting foreign-policy “crisis” for an overstretched superpower suffering recessionary times, eager to turn inward. This isn’t about wanting to extend a Pax Americana halfway around the world, but about domestic anxieties once Americans’ hubris has been depleted. U.S. jobs are disappearing along with Americans’ retirement savings, and now, well, the neighborhood is going to hell.

The cool kids  donate to the Mex Files: