Has bipartisan dialogue ended?  Certainly not.  But I think our nation would benefit from a few more passionate arguments to jumpstart that conversation.

Not that any of us want more screeching debates masquerading as a foreign policy dialogue.  But where are the robust arguments across party lines?  I wonder if our lack of conversation about some topics is partly why we lack a bipartisan approach to foreign policy.  We may simply look at – and worry about – different problems.  We exist in alternative universes.

In today’s fractured political environment, for example, think tanks and policy institutes look at modern issues and offer new ideas to all comers.  But, are they looking at the same questions?  Sure, you can find reports and opinions offered across the political spectrum on some hot issues: Iraq, energy, WMD, intelligence and this week, Iran and China.  Look deeper and you find some regional and topical debates across party lines – some. 

But dig a little further and the conversation drops off.  Do progressive organizations look at the structure of US defense budgets and military forces, think about Syria and North Korea, and analyze how doctrine for stability operations should be designed?  Not too many.  Do conservative groups look at how to better organize US interagency resources for post-conflict operations, promote peace efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or fret about environmental degradation of the Amazon or oil-rich Niger Delta?  Very few.  For many foreign and defense policies, we appear cubby-holed by issue areas, segregated roughly by where we line up on concern for hard power or soft power, and what we see as the greatest concerns for the United States.

I’ve often seen the results – such as when I sought analysis as a Hill defense staffer on the Navy’s air wing configuration or frigate radars for detecting incoming missiles – and trusted progressive sources had little to say.  More recently, I hosted a workshop on US training of African and other foreign militaries for peacekeeping operations – an initiative of President Bush – and found few conservative thinkers on the subject. 

The Partnership for a Secure America argues that “Policy differences must always be debated, but growing partisan bitterness dangerously interferes with substantive discussion of our national security and foreign policy.” That is clearly true, but what if we aren’t even debating? 

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