| By Kay Steiger - Nov 13th, 2007 at 11:36 am EST |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
My friend Mark over at UN Dispatch alerted me to a new poll conducted by the UN Foundation which shows that overall people have more faith in international co-operation than military action. What's really interesting, though, is that young people (which the UN defines as the 15-24 age range) view themselves as islolationists more than older generations do. They tend to resist interference in other countries' internal problems. I'm all for resisting military invasions, but what I think is danerous about this, though, is that it suggests a general disengagement with what's going on in the world. There are plenty of places (see: Pakistan and possibly Sudan -- although there are some strong arguments to be made for military intervention there) where some strong diplomacy could swing things in a favorable direction. Since the US has so much power when it comes to trade (although to a lessening degree lately) it makes sense to monitor what's going on in other countries.
I'm interested to know, what do other young people think about isolationism?
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but its possible that we are seeing an early consequence of our misguided missions in the Middle-East.
As the 15-24 age group becomes more aware of the harsh economic, political and social realities which U.S. foreign policy has created in the homeland, its conceivable that a counterculture has also been created where the basic assumption of this age group is that isolationism is more domestically beneficial than intervention.