Analyzing President Obama's speeches
Using a new search engine developed by the Washington Post, Steve Clemons analyzed Obama's speeches to divine which countries get regular mention:
From January 1, 2009 until July 12, 2010, Barack Obama mentioned Afghanistan in 70 major speeches and commentaries. Afghanistan leads among all nations in the FP failed state index.China follows with 58 mentions. Then Iraq from the failed states line-up with 54. India beats Iran with 46 mentions to 43. North Korea scored just 19 even though it has nukes, sank a South Korean ship, and tests more ballistic missiles than virtually any other country.
Pakistan, which also has nukes and ranked No. 10 on the FP Failed States Index, got 17 mentions.
Interestingly, Israel and Palestine had nearly the same number of tags in key speeches and comments - 19 for Israel and 17 for Palestine.
Clemons adds:
This quick check of Obama statements shows a President and his team mostly focused on rising powers and key problematic powers.Overall, there is still a systemic dearth of attention to the states that are doing the worst and sliding into failure.
The distraction of Afghanistan and Iraq is palpable - while the perceived need to manage US-China relations appears paramount.
Should we care about a "systemic dearth of attention" to failed states? I don't think so, for reasons elucidated well by Paul Staniland here. There's only so much an administration can do. Better to get China right.
(AP Photo)
