'The Godfather' doctrine

It is one of the best-known scenes in cinematic history. Vito Corleone, head of one of the most powerful organized-crime families in New York, crosses the street to buy some oranges from a fruit stand. Seconds later, his peaceful idyll is shattered as multiple gunshots leave him bleeding in the street -- victim of a hit by Mafia rival Virgil "the Turk" Sollozzo.

By a miracle, he is only badly wounded. Two of his sons, Santino (Sonny) and Michael, and his adopted son and consigliere, Tom Hagen, gather in an atmosphere of shock to try to decide how to save the family.

This, of course, is the hinge of Francis Ford Coppola's movie, "The Godfather." It is also a startlingly useful metaphor for the strategic problems and global power structure of our time. The don, emblematic of Cold War American power, is struck by forces he did not expect and does not understand, as was America on 9/11. Intriguingly, his heirs embrace very different visions of family strategy that approximate the three schools of thought -- liberal institutionalism, neoconservatism and realism -- vying for control of U.S. foreign policy today.

As consigliere, Tom's view of the Sollozzo threat is rooted in a legal-diplomatic worldview similar to the liberal institutionalism of today's Democratic Party. The way to handle Sollozzo, Tom judges, is not through force but through negotiation. Tom thinks even a rogue power can be brought to terms, if the family accommodates his needs and accepts him as a normalized player in the Corleones' rules-based community. In this, he echoes the Democrats' belief that Washington's only option for coping with the Iranian nuclear crisis is immediate, unconditional talks with our latest "Sollozzo," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But to succeed, Tom's diplomacy must be conducted from a position of unparalleled strength, which the family no longer possesses. Gone are the days when Tom was invariably the man at the table with the most leverage. Like the petty tyrants who challenge Washington with increasing confidence, Sollozzo is an opportunist who will take things as they come -- as either a revolutionary or a status quo power, but certainly as one out to profit from the transition to multi- polarity. Power on the streets has already begun to shift to the Tattaglias and Barzinis -- the Mafia equivalent of today's BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China). The reality confronting the Corleones is one of increasing multipolarity -- something lost on Tom, who, like many Democrats, thinks he is still the emissary of the dominant superpower.