It sounds like an insider joke: the Revenge of the Obamanauts. Hillary Clinton has been dispatched on an urgent mission … to Greenland. Goodbye, Hillary. Hope you can find a nice walrus-hide pantsuit.

But Secretary Clinton's trip to Greenland's capital city of Nuuk on Thursday to attend a meeting of the Arctic Council is far from an effort to lower the secretary of state's profile. What is being discussed by the United States, Canada, Russia, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, and Denmark at the round-table discussion are issues that may be among the most important and least well understood of the decades ahead.

It is currently estimated that perhaps a quarter of the world's untapped oil and gas reserves lie within the Arctic Circle. In a world of scarce resources, growing demand, and an increasing capability to actually tap into those hitherto unreachable fields, that would be enough to make the Nuuk meetings and the Arctic Council process increasingly important.

But the Arctic is also the likely site of significant new sources of many vital minerals, of fisheries, and, as importantly, it is ground zero for a potential climatic transformation that could have profound consequences for the planet. Someday historians might look back at the period in which we live and laugh a sad laugh about how we were obsessed with contained temporal threats like terror while flashing brightly on the computers of scientists everywhere were bright warnings that the global environment was undergoing the most profound changes it has experienced since the dawn of human history -- changes that would literally erase countries, transform the global economy, create famines, force hundreds of millions from their homes, and send like numbers into poverty. The study announced a week ago by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program makes warnings like those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change look positively giddy by comparison. It suggests that average global sea level could rise by as much as five feet during the remainder of this century.

Much of that increase in sea-level rise over prior studies' is due to past underestimating of the speed and scope of Arctic ice melting. The AMAP study concluded that within just over a generation, the Arctic Ocean will be almost ice-free during the summertime. That means easier energy and mineral exploration, the creation of important new shipping lanes, and very different climates creating a variety of new opportunities for countries in Arctic regions.

All this means greater competition for the Arctic with real pushing and shoving and potential for growing tensions among key players including the Russians, Northern Europeans, and even the Chinese who want to be involved despite their lack of clear claims on the region. It also means that the once seemingly arcane decisions about things like shipping lanes and search-and-rescue protocols (which are being addressed in a treaty to be signed in Nuuk) are becoming much more fraught and central to the strategic interests of many of the world's major powers.

That is why sending Secretary Clinton to Greenland to be the first U.S. secretary of state to attend an Arctic Council meeting is anything but a punishment. In fact, given the issues involved and their growing centrality to global affairs … plus the presence of other key players from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar … in symbolic terms alone the gathering in Nuuk could end up being the most important visit to Greenland made since a Viking named Gunnbjörn was blown off course and arrived there in the year 930.

While it is too early to assess the long-term outcomes of the uprising in Egypt, there are nonetheless a number of important conclusions to which we can reasonably come.

First, something profound has changed. It did not change because of the uprising in Tahrir Square. It changed and the uprising was the result; the power has shifted in the region. We have passed a generational and technological tipping point. While the dinosaurs cling to the levers of power in virtually every country in the greater Middle East, the under 30 majority is now the great force to be reckoned with. While the establishment has done almost everything conceivable to keep them down from denying them education to curtailing the spread of information technologies to gutting the economies, nonetheless, new information sources and technologies and ways of connecting and collaborating seeped in to these societies through every one of the cracks spreading across the Ozymandian edifices of the elite.

These changes are irreversible. They are seen in the cell phones that even the poorest carry with them, in the broadcasts of Al Jazeera, in the burgeoning Twitter feeds, the apps young Arabs create to provide work-arounds every time a government tries to curtail Internet access, and even in the technological use of some of the region's worst players.

These changes have remade the social and political fabric of the region. What they have yet to do is what they have done everywhere else in the world and that is to fuel economic change.

That is the second inescapable conclusion we need to consider. The great challenges before this under-30 majority are economic, they are about opportunity. They are not about Israel or battles between Shiites and Sunnis or tribal divisions. Those problems still fester, but the unifying challenge for this generation is even more basic: They need jobs. They crave opportunity. And the failure of their leaders to provide them with these basic sources of sustenance and dignity is what has fueled the revolutions of 2011.

A corollary to this conclusion is that we in the United States have been sending the wrong people with the wrong approaches to solve the wrong problems in this region for decades. The problems of this region will not be solved by negotiators or generals. They require investors and entrepreneurs and educators. To the extent that we can contribute, we must do so by supporting the creation of economic opportunity. It is a massive undertaking but it is the only true peacemaker.

A third conclusion is related to the second, however. The role for the U.S. government in all this is very, very limited. We would do well to redirect what aid we provide to address this core challenge of creating jobs for the under-30s. We would do well to put our best economic minds in charge, perhaps even appointing a special economic envoy of real stature. But the only people who can ultimately solve this problem are in the Middle East. In fact, in the hierarchy of those who can help, if the people of the Middle East are first and by far foremost, it is the people of Europe, not the United States who must be second. They are the natural economic neighbors of the region and they must answer the question whether they want those under-30s employed in the Middle East or seeking employment in Europe. After the Europeans, it may even be the Chinese or Indians and others dependent on oil in the region and closer to its problems who should take more prominent roles in helping to solve the problem than the United States, which is a lightening rod and has problems of our own at home.

A fourth conclusion is that the hardest part is clearly still ahead of us. Egypt must make the transition to democracy and that means the military must really step aside after six months. Friends of mine who have met with them believe they understand the implications of the political earthquake that has taken place during the past month and that they will do so. But there are dinosaurs among their leaders so it is by no means a sure thing. Even beyond establishing a democracy is actually keeping one, and beyond that is addressing successfully the economic challenges alluded to above. Further, there are the problems of all the other countries of the region. They will be difficult to handle but we in the United States need to be confident enough in our core beliefs to let them work them out among themselves. There will be fights and setbacks and people we don't like will periodically gain the upper hand. But give me a duel between two guys armed with the Internet, Facebook, and Twitter feeds and let one offer the people the 11th Century and another offer the 21th and I know who I will bet on.

Finally, my fifth conclusion is that of all the big challenges ahead for U.S. foreign policy associated with this period of upheaval, the greatest by far lies with Israel and the Palestinians. Personally, I am not sure why the Palestinians have not yet unilaterally declared independence. The world would surely support them. But imagine what would happen if, perhaps on the road to such a declaration perhaps following it, a hundred thousand Palestinians took to the streets peacefully demanding real self-determination. With memories of Tahrir Square fresh in the minds of the world, how could the Israelis respond as they might have in the past? On what side of history would they appear to be as President Obama might put it? And in that vein, on what side of that history would President Obama and the United States want to be?

Until now, the fact that Israel was the region's only democracy was its "get out of jail free" card. It was used to excuse ... or attempt to excuse ... a multitude of sins. For this reason, no Arab military offensive could be as effective in undermining Israel's strategic advantages as real democracy taking root elsewhere in the region. The Netanyahu administration would be flummoxed if people power came to the West Bank and Gaza. They would be cast involuntarily with the dinosaurs. They would have no pages in their playbook indicating how to handle this. They would have very few good choices.

Actually, they would have only one. They would have to get out of the way. They would have to do what Mubarak did. They would have to step within the 1967 borders and let the Palestinians begin the job of building Palestine. And they would have to hope that the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world helped the Palestinians do it because once that happens, it will be of the utmost importance for Israel that its new neighbor produce real opportunity for its people ... because we have seen the alternative and it, for this generation who have both nothing and nothing to lose will not be contained by the tactics or the rhetoric of the past.

If one of the secrets to success in any job is choosing the right predecessor, then Dilma Rousseff may be starting out with one strike against her.

Her current boss and political champion Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva could well be the toughest act to follow anywhere in the world. Despite the efforts of some commentators to take him down a notch or two (much like young guns in the old American west who used to try to boost their reputations by going after the fastest gun in town), Brazil's charismatic president has done a remarkable job. Confounding -- and consigning to the trash heap of history -- old distinctions between left and right, Lula has overseen an economic boom, major social reforms and the elevation of Brazil's standing to the top ranks of nations in the world. (See the excellent story in today's Latin Business Chronicle ... rapidly becoming required reading for anyone interested in Latin America ... summarizing Brazil's recent economic accomplishments. It's pretty dazzling stuff.)

The question is: What's a girl to do? Dilma, who almost certainly will become Brazil's first woman president -- despite a recent slight slip in the polls due to a scandal that doesn't in any way implicate; her one of those curiously timed dust ups that happen to come to light in the weeks before an election -- is going to inherit a country with very high expectations. Some critics expect that absent Lula's extraordinary gifts that she will falter. But read her story and you discover an exceptionally accomplished, tough as nails, politically canny, professional manager who will come to office much better prepared and equipped than some other leaders who have taken over major powers recently.

In fact, given that a centerpiece of her tenure will be the efforts to tap the enormous oil reserves off Brazil's shores -- thus making Brazil a major petropowerhouse -- her background as former energy minister is ideal. The fact that in that capacity she chaired Petrobras, the state's oil giant that recently completed a massive financing that made it the fourth most highly capitalized company in the world, gives her much more business understanding than many political leaders ... even if her views on the national responsibilities of that company make some market purists uncomfortable.

Read on

Is It Too Early to Call the Karzai Visit a Failure?

No. Especially after it was upstaged by General McChrystal's televised declaration that we're getting nowhere in Afghanistan. But the fact that the media has reacted to the whole carefully orchestrated exercise as though it were either a) a charade (see Maureen Dowd yesterday or Helene Cooper's excellent article in today's New York Times) or b) not happening (see the fact that the story didn't even make the front page of Friday's Times) is really a secondary problem for those with the unenviable task of guiding Obama's benighted AfPak policy. 

The real measure of success of the effort is going to come in the U.S. Congress when it votes on the supplemental appropriation to support the increasingly unpopular conflict. If they vote the money, then all this lying through the gritted teeth of U.S. and Afghan politicians about how well everything is going and everyone is getting along will have bought some time at least. If they don't vote it, vote less or make the process really painful for the president then not only will all this posturing seem to have been pointless but Obama is going to have to face up to the possibility that not only is the war going to end badly (as almost seems inevitable) it's going to end for the United States a lot sooner than he, Karzai or anyone involved wants it to. 

That said, the fact that both U.S. and Afghan officials believe it will take a decade of active U.S. involvement in Afghanistan to prepare for a real security handover á la Iraq suggests just how unlikely a real U.S. success in Afghanistan is. Because if the Congress is choking on the money this year (and Speaker Pelosi has warned more than one visitor to her office that passing the supplemental could be "tougher than health care") imagine how much worse it will get in the run up to 2012. Which in the end means the current visit is actually serving a useful purpose, preparing all involved for the bald-faced dissembling that will be required to put a good face on this mess when we head for the door.

Is the Hot New Trend Divided Government?

With the election of the Doublemint Twins in the U.K. after an election that didn't produce a majority winner, the voters of the countries that were once seen as the world's top powers seem to be sending a message (advertently or otherwise) that at a moment of great crisis, they're perfectly happy letting someone else take the lead -- because in country after country election results or projections seem to be making it tougher for leaders to get anything done. 

In Germany, the recent election bodes ill for Angela Merkel's party. Japanese politics are just a hopeless mess. The United States seems to be headed for an election which produces a much more evenly divided Congress. France's president seems to currently have the support of only about a third of the French people. Admittedly, the confusion among voters only mirrors that among the leaders but it doesn't bode well for swift or bold decision-making within the G8 countries ... and may offer an opening to countries, like China, that aren't burdened with the complexities and headaches associated with democracy.

And while we're on the subject of the Brits, all credit to them for being presented with a confounding (if not entirely unexpected) election result and within days not only piecing together an inter-party deal but actually putting together and announcing an entire coalition cabinet.  It's one thing they do so well that Americans, accustomed to agonizingly long cabinet nominating and approval processes, watch with envy. At least this one does. And since this one is also a bit of a National Security Council historian, he was pleased to see the Cameron government launch the process to set up an equivalent body in Britain. It's a bit of a trend worldwide recently. The question is could we in the United States be using ours better while others are so inclined to imitate it? 

Does the European Economic Crisis Spell Trouble for Alternative Energy Advocates?

It has been a bad year for the European model of coping with the climate crisis. First, in the run up to Copenhagen, we saw the preferred European approach of moving toward a global cap and trade system falter. The Chinese and Indian idea of "target and regulate" (meaning they set their own national targets, don't commit to global hard caps and use regulation and whatever tools they saw fit to achieve those goals) gained traction and as it did, so too did the center of gravity for global leadership on these issues shift to the Pacific from the Atlantic. 

Now, with Europe's economies battered by the markets and burdened by debt, what will become of the rich incentives that have made the growth of alternative energy in Europe possible? Here's the answer: they're going to have to be cut back over the next several years, particularly in countries like Spain where they are especially expensive and debts are especially high. Further, since the European commitment to combating global warming is not likely to diminish, expect more of focus on regulations, taxes, surcharges and penalties (which actually produce revenues for the government) and less on incentives, grants and other costly goodies.  And just as the Europeans get this message, expect a similar one here in the U.S. and in places like Japan.  This in turn will leave the Chinese who are sitting on a $2.4 billion piggybank and an equally large reservoir of political will to lead in an ever better position to make the big leap from memories of a red revolution at home to leading a green one worldwide.

Who's in Charge on Climate Legislation?

This week saw the launch of Senators Kerry and Lieberman's long awaited climate legislation.  It also saw Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid express his view that such a bill might be difficult to pass this year and that perhaps it would make sense to focus on an "energy only" initiative that might include a Renewable Energy Standard, some offshore provisions and a few other elements more popular with a larger majority of Senate members. His saying this literally hours before the Kerry Lieberman launch suggests a bit of a split at the top of the Democratic congressional leadership on this...the kind of thing that might have been better worked out behind closed doors. Who's in charge here? If the White House is committed to this kind of legislation passing this year -- and it may be much harder to pass after the November elections if the Republicans make big gains -- why aren't they taking the lead on shaping proposals and ensuring that their team on the Hill is unified behind them? Admittedly, this has not been the way things have worked on health care or financial services reform but, perhaps the lessons of those experiences suggest a new approach might be in order.

Today, it's all good news in the world...

Remember back a couple weeks ago when the G-20 leaders agreed to get rid of subsidies on fossil fuels? Well, guess what? So far not much has happened here on that front ... not surprising perhaps since the "commitment" by the G-20 leaders did not include a timeline. But one bold, shining light has emerged that is leading the way for us all. Who should Barack Obama and his fellow statesmen call for advice? Why their old pal Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Because just this past Sunday the Iranians moved to cut back on their subsidies for fuel (and food) in the interest of trying to trim their budget. Admittedly, the money they save will be used to attempt to make a big hole in the ground where Israel is, but since this is Good News Tuesday, let's focus on the upside. Today, Tehran is our good governance pick of the week.

Have you seen those promos for the latest movie by catastrophe specialist Roland Emmerich, 2012? They'd be pretty horrifying even if they did not, as pointed out in Entertainment Weekly, use collapsing twin towers as one of their money effects. But fortunately, it turns out that we don't have to go see the movie in order to help prepare for the doomsday it suggests was predicted by ancient Mayan calendars. According to an AP story yesterday, the Mayans that are still with us say this end of days frenzy is just an over-wrought misinterpretation of the calendars which do note that late in 2012 some unusual astronomical developments will take place. This may, they imply, be worth a visit to the backyard with a telescope but it doesn't warrant hiding in the basement with a year's supply of franks and beans. Or going to see 2012, which according to early reviews is itself such a disaster, it'll have audiences wishing for the real thing before they've finished their popcorn.

What's better than good governance in Iran and the fact that the world's not going to end in three years? How about something that seemed impossible just a few months back: economic recovery? Yup, according to Larry Summers, the president's top economic advisor, in a letter to Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner, happy days are near again. Consumer confidence is coming back and the housing market is stabilizing. But, for most Americans, an even more credible source than a senior government official who happens to be one of the world's leading economists has emerged: TV ads. Yep. According to a front-page story in today's New York Times, "While economists and investors study housing starts and gross domestic product predictions to measure economic vibrancy, General Electric, Bank of America and other companies are using commercials to proclaim America's future is bright." And if they say it in a TV ad, you know it's true. Otherwise how do you explain all the ShamWows and that Popeil Pocket Fisherman in your basement?

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has reported following talks with Secretary of State Clinton that there is a "good chance" of cutting a deal with Iran on its nukes. He also called the threat of sanctions "counterproductive," revealing a resolute and moving faith in the fundamental decency of mankind ... and especially in the Iranians despite a track record that would and has made lesser nations doubters. State Department spokespeople said that they didn't seek anything from the Russians during the trip, which provides us with more good news since nothing is precisely what they got.

In today's Washington Post, Anne Applebaum, almost certainly their best regular commentator, finally digs deep enough to find the positive spin on our favorite prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. This is important because without Berlusconi, newspapers would be dull grey things ... er, even duller, greyer things. We need a buffo world leader and I suspect we can all agree he's the perfect guy in the perfect place given his special breed of apparently corrupt ludicrousness and the not unimportant fact that Italy is probably the largest country we could trust to such a clown without really dire consequences to the planet. Writes Applebaum, seeking to explain his popularity, "Besides, with Berlusconi as your prime minister, you don't have to take yourself too seriously. You don't have to trouble yourself with geopolitics or the state of the planet, or poverty and failed states. You can stay at home, remain unserious and argue about the latest legal scandal. And maybe that too, is part of the prime minister's appeal."

And in other good news: The five short-range missiles tested by North Korea yesterday were only short-range missiles, while the recent spate of bombings in Pakistan have been tragic they do serve as a useful reminder that our real problems in that neck of the world are not in Afghanistan, despite the fact that the Baucus health-care bill doesn't actually fix a single one of the problems it sets out to address according to members of the House of Representatives it may actually get a helpful makeover in conference, Nicolas Sarkozy loves his 23-year-old son enough to advance him for a job running a good chunk of Paris's financial district, and perhaps most upliftingly the founder of Cirque du Soleil returned safely from a trip to outer space today thus guaranteeing the world more of his trailblazing work creating the theatrical equivalent of Muzak. Next up: why not an evening of bad jokes, young scantily clad women, acrobats, plastic surgeons and opera music called "Berlusconi!"

OMAR TORRES/AFP/Getty Images

Senator Charles Grassley, one of the six power brokers featured in the New York Times story today on the inner circle of senators who are shaping health care legislation, may not be one of the three Blue Dog Democrats on the group, but that doesn't stop the Iowa Republican from being pretty dogged when it comes to his own pet issues.

According to today's Congress Daily, the Finance Committee's ranking member has slammed the brakes on the confirmation of Thomas Shannon to be ambassador to Brazil. His reason? He seeks what is euphemistically called a "clarification" of Shannon's confirmation hearing statement that eliminating the tariff on ethanol imports would be "beneficial." Of course, by "clarification" the Senator means a complete reversal slammed down Shannon's gullet by administration higher ups.

In letters to Secretary Clinton and USTR Kirk Grassley wrote:

A clear signal of the President's stance on this issue would decrease the possibility of confusion in America's heartland and in Brazil regarding the ethanol tariff if Mr. Shannon were confirmed as Ambassador to that country."

Since Shannon, most recently U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs and by consensus the most talented and successful individual to hold that office in at least two decades, is one of America's very best diplomats he will of course, be far too circumspect to offer Grassley the "clarification" he deserves.

Let me try however. U.S. ethanol tariffs are indefensible on any level, yet another example of the system of agricultural welfare that has burgeoned in the United States thanks to that good old fashioned combination of backroom and checkbook politics that make America great. There is not a single credible analyst of biofuels (which is to say one that is not paid for by or affiliated with American agriculture) who thinks that corn ethanol makes a hint of sense. It is hopelessly inefficient and with every new development regarding next generation biofuels only grows more so. Brazilian sugar cane ethanol, the main target of the tariffs, is produced as much as eight times more efficiently. As such, it offers a cheaper, more abundant, more environmentally friendly alternative to American consumers at a time when one would have thought that concerns about reducing dependence on foreign oil and combating climate change would be at the forefront of our concerns.

But once again, America's electoral system rears its ugly head. So long as presidential campaigns begin in Iowa, Iowans like Grassley will use the system to put the interest of their state's three million citizens and the most vocal special interests within their midst like the corn lobby, ahead of the three hundred million or so of the rest of us. Further, in so doing, Grassley seeks to preserve yet another dimension of America's system of farm protection and subsidies that costs tax payers tens of billions each year, forces food prices higher (according to the likes of Nobel Prize winner Joe Stiglitz) and is the single biggest distortionary factor in the world trading system. I understand why he is doing it. It's just a shame he can. The system allowing individual senators to hold up presidential nominations is regularly abused and needs to be reconsidered.

It is now July and the Obama administration does not have its own ambassador in Brasilia, capital of one the rising powers that is most important to us in the world. The guy who is there now, Bush's appointee Cliff Sobel, is widely regarded by Brazilians (and anyone else who is paying attention) as a joke whereas Shannon is seen as the crème de la crème of the U.S. diplomatic service and is a nominee viewed with great enthusiasm by the Lula administration. The Shannon pick said "Brazil is important."  Grassley's move says "all politics is local." 

It will be interesting to see how this plays out given that Grassley is so important to the prospects for health care reform. Grassley, who is as canny as they come in the Senate, knows the hand he holds and is betting he can get the Obama team to commit to keeping the tariffs as part of the wheeling and dealing associated with health care. I wouldn't bet against him.

As they say around state fair time in Des Moines, "ain't nothing like a corn dog."

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

I was one of those kids who grew up in the '60s mesmerized by the space program. I actually, geekily, wrote NASA regularly requesting pictures of astronauts and sending in my own ideas for spacecraft, mission patches and the like. They would reply with thick envelopes full of press releases and eight by tens of my astronaut heroes, glossy proof that in our times anything was possible.

I watched the moon landing from summer camp where my store of newspaper clippings on space shots was the focus of considerable commentary (and not in a good way...leading to plenty of taunting, hazing, and one night alone on a tiny mosquito infested island in the middle of our lake). We had a small black and white television in the lodge up there in Readfield, Maine and we watched the ghostly images of Neil Armstrong leaping off the lunar lander ("yes...yes...the Lunar Excursion Module...the L.E.M...." cries out the little geek with black-framed glasses sitting as close as possible to the screen fully aware that his outburst will lead to the short-sheeting of his bed). It was not just moving for me, it was life defining. It was evidence that ours was an era apart and it was a harbinger of more amazing things to come. We didn't need Harry Potter. We had real magic happening before our eyes.

Sadly, in terms of the space program, that day 40 years ago this week was a high water mark emotionally if not technologically and in the years since we seem to have lost our sense of adventure and our connection to the ancient human impulse to constantly explore as far as possible beyond the limits of our knowledge. Our decision not to build as we might have on the achievements of the Apollo program is to me a sign we suffered a failure of national imagination.

During the presidential campaign last year, there was a conscious effort to draw analogies between John Kennedy, the symbolic father of the space program, and Barack Obama. There was a clear sense that association with the Kennedys would offer Obama a "right stuff" infusion. Personally, I found the whole business pretty distasteful, in part because I feel that Kennedy is almost certainly the most over-rated American political leader of the 20th Century and that there is an unsavory dimension to his history and that of his family that neither reflects well on them, nor on those who choose to overlook it. I also don't much buy into that greatness by association formula that is so popular within spin community.

That said, here we are six months into the Obama administration and there are strong indications that the president did not take the analogies lightly, that he is in a real way aspiring to the Kennedy example. Indeed, despite the inevitable grappling with both the learning curve and the curve balls thrown by circumstance, I think it is possible to argue that Barack Obama more than any recent president has sought to set goals that if achieved would have massive, global and ennobling consequences.

In fact, in a few key areas at least the President of the United States has broken free of the gravitational pull of Washington incrementalism and he already has us embarked on not one but perhaps as many as three different moonshots, national initiatives of importance comparable to those we cheered when back when British Open runner-up Tom Watson was still young.

One of these is closely related to the dark underside of the space program, the nuclear arms race that had us all as kids cowering in our school hallways beneath the winter coats that were supposed to protect us from thermonuclear fireballs. It is Obama's pledge, made in Prague, to seek the reduction and eventual elimination of nuclear weapons programs that resonates most like Kennedy's commitment to put a man on the moon in ten years. It seems impossible. It is redolent with hope. It would mark a breakthrough in the history of human civilization. In fact, it would mark multiple breakthroughs including both advancing the cause of peace and security worldwide and moving us toward more effective next generation global governance mechanisms. In this latter case, the breakthrough would come because there is no way to achieve Obama's goal without a successor to the Non-Proliferation Treaty that guarantees the international community the right to inspect at will and the right to use all means including force to ensure compliance.   

Another existential threat, climate change, is the target of another of Obama's moonshots. He has powerfully articulated his belief that global warming and continued reliance on fossil fuels exposes the United States and the world to manifold risks. Finally, the United States is seeking to play a leadership role in crafting an international agreement to reduce green house gas emissions. At the same time, the U.S. is investing unprecedented sums in cultivating alternative energy forms and finding ways to capture and harmlessly store carbon. Success on this front could well be the defining achievement of the current generation of world leaders. (Interesting what a vitally important role the Department of Energy, long the black hole of the U.S. bureaucracy, plays in two of these signature Obama initiatives.)

A third moonshot is the president's commitment to fix America's broken health care system. While this may seem prosaic and hardly as elevating as launching men into space or ending the threat of a nuclear or climatic end to human life on earth, nothing less than the role of the United States as a leading nation depends on our ability to get our arms around the massive underfunded liability we face in retirement health care. At the same time, when the last major economy on earth finally agrees with all the other developed nations that healthcare is a fundamental human right, it will represent a watershed in our view of the nature and role of governments. And the costs associated with this particular challenge will almost certainly exceed those associated with the space program...by at least 250 times. (The roughly 180 billion 2009 dollars it cost to put a man on the moon is roughly the same as was allocated for the AIG bailout. So by that measure, already the Obama Administration has plenty more moonshots to its credit.)

Each of these objectives is worthy and each is a massive undertaking. Any administration that accomplished one would secure its place in history. Throw in a few other largish objectives -- like achieving peace in the greater Middle East -- and there's no denying that America's long drought of vision and ambitions on a grand scale is over. We're no longer in the school uniforms or "don't ask, don't tell" territory any more, Toto. (Of course, it's worth remembering that we put a man on the moon at the same time as we fought the war in Vietnam, launched the "Great Society", implemented the Civil Rights Act of 1964...all effectively under the remarkable and under-appreciated leadership of Lyndon Johnson.)

But of course, the reason that today we are seeing replay after replay of Kennedy's pledge to put a man on the moon in a decade is because we actually achieved the goal. As of now, all three of Obama's moonshots seem even more unlikely to be achieved than did putting a human on a satellite of earth 240,000 miles away. But for the moment, it's worth celebrating the fact that we are thinking big again, that we are still game for attempting the worthy but seemingly impossible which is why I am declaring today a cynicism free national holiday in honor of the imagination, chutzpah, and hard work that made the achievement of July 21, 1969 possible. I even feel my imagination stirring a bit. But rest assured, I am not planning on building a model spent nuclear fuel disposal facility in my bedroom or sending fan mail to climate envoy Todd Stern. The last thing I need is for my wife to start short-sheeting our bed. 

Matt Stroshane/Getty Images

In March, for the third month in a row, more cars were sold in China than in the United States. Admittedly, there are many more Chinese. But this is a sign of a permanent change in the structure of the global auto industry that even an army of car czars will not be able to reverse. Even if we had car czars that actually knew something about the industry. Even if the American auto industry did not think the height of innovation was the reintroduction of a 1960s muscle car for the Vin Diesel crowd like the new(ish) Camaro. (Although even tuners prefer to nitro boost foreign-made vehicles as well illustrated in this week's gearhead superhit, the subtle and heart-breakingly beautiful, Fast and Furious.) 

Last week, in the lead story in the New York Times, we also saw that China was actually going to have something like twice as many electric cars as the United States in the next couple years and that the country was poised to lead in electric car technology. While we actually could be competitive on the technology front, the problem we have with electric cars runs deeper. American car owners want longer range, faster, more powerful vehicles than the Chinese (and consumers in many other countries). Sure, I'll take your damn green car, we say helpfully, but only if it is the same as the gas-guzzling, road-rocket I'm used to. Oh, and please be sure it has three rows of seats, a beer cooler in the glove compartment and twin flat panel screens so the kiddies don't have to watch the same episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants (because we don't want them fighting over which life lesson they will gather from their favorite gay underwater kitchen implement).

In other words, our consumers don't look like the consumers in the rest of the world. That's been a challenge to American car makers for some time (the appetite of international consumers for smaller cars led to the rise of the Japanese, European, and later Korean auto industries at the expense of American manufacturers). But with the rise of China and India and other emerging car markets and the more willing embrace of greener standards in everything by Europeans, our consumers are sending a market signal to car makers in the United States that is just completely out of whack with much of the rest of the planet. 

Some of that is, of course, due to the success car manufacturers, oil companies and others have had in keeping U.S. mileage standards artificially low and in dragging their feet on efficiency. Some of it may be due to the same auto manufacturers' ability to persuade American men that cars are somehow direct extensions of their penises. (Oddly, I don't know that the reputation of French lovers or other Latin lovers has suffered because they drove Renaults or Fiats...even if it should have. In fact, I know for a fact that the very handsome and irresistible editor of Foreign Policy drives a Smart car that looks like a toaster on a roller skate and yet, still the legions of policy groupies gather each day outside the FP headquarters just to catch a glimpse of him.) But part of it is that American consumers are spoiled and have gigantic rear-ends that don't fit in little tiny car seats. The Obama administration can help to change this (the auto innovation and buying habits parts) with new standards and with incentives for car makers and car buyers to invest in more efficient cars going forward. U.S. consumers will also have a role to play in all this too, of course...they will have to respond to the incentives. (As for the rear ends, all of you now: clench...maintain...release...clench...maintain...release.) But the cultural shift we need can't just stop there. For one thing, it might be helpful if U.S. politicians stopped referring to the Big Three as "the U.S. auto industry," since there are hundreds of thousands of Americans employed by great companies that contribute to American growth like Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, Mercedes, and BMW. And who knows, if we took that step, we might actually be a step closer to tuning out the idiot-populism currently clouding this issue such as that by people like noted auto industry economist John Rich (of country music's only economically titled duo Big and Rich). Writes Rich in his current hit "Shuttin' Detroit Down"...

Cause in the real world they're shuttin' Detroit down,
While the boss man takes his bonus paid jets on out of town.
DC's bailing out them bankers as the farmers auction ground.
Yeah while they're living up on Wall Street in that New York City town,
Here in the real world they're shuttin' Detroit down."

Admittedly, this is poetry. Neither Shakespeare nor later day innovators like Bukowski never dared experiment with anything quite so incomprehensibly moving as "DC's bailing out them bankers as the farmers auction ground." But the song does have so many flaws you couldn't have hid them all under Carrie Underwood's gigantic dress at last Sunday's Academy of Country Music Awards. Not the least of them being that a.) as noted earlier many of the auto companies in America are neither the "big three" nor are they doing anywhere as badly as the big three and, oh yes, b.) D.C. is actually bailing out Detroit, too. (Although it's still a horse race to see which bailout packages are actually less successful. I'm splitting my bet. We'll waste more money on Wall Street but dollar for dollar we'll be less successful in Detroit.)

Because in the end, we also need to recognize, adjust to and respond with creativity and innovation to the fact that there are secular trends afoot that make it increasingly unlikely that so-called American brands will ever dominate worldwide as they once did. Even if we do reduce the size of those ginormous tushies.  

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