Worldview:Two main factors define foreign policy. One is the nation's interests, or the definition of the kind of people we are, as Ben Tonra explored in last Saturday's WorldView. The other flows from the world environment the nation must address.
In the coming decade, we will face a new, unprecedented, and therefore uncharted, world. A world obliged to achieve effective global action on several complex questions, while simultaneously developing and reforming its decision-making structures.
Our "Great Power" is, at least in relative terms, declining. The decline of a power is a challenge in itself, but we face an untoward situation in that there are no replacement powers waiting in the wings and our traditional world narrative is based on such replacements.
We react more effectively to sudden changes, often finding gradual, radical, shifts difficult.
Prof Wiktor Osiatynski, in an article commenting on Poland's transitional difficulties in the New York Times (January 22th, 2007), wrote, "It has been difficult to deal with the communist past in Poland in part because the transition was so smooth."
When the 44th president of the US enters the Oval Office in two years' time, he or she will face one major international question: how to extract the damaged, or broken, US army from Iraq.
Once that question has been addressed, domestic issues will dominate the incoming administration's agenda. Some - trade, energy and agriculture - will have major international elements; others - healthcare and infrastructure - will be largely domestically driven.
Tony Blair, speaking on UK defence policy on January 12th last, expressed his concerns over this reality, referring to " . . . the US where the future danger is one of isolationism not adventurism".
Experience shows that there can be a significant time-lag between a changed power reality and domestic acceptance of its consequences by that nation's leaders.
France and the UK, realising that their imperial days were over after the 1956 Suez fiasco, sought to preserve their power status - even briefly considering some form of union as official documents revealed last week.
The UK chose close rapprochement to Washington to survive as a power - "Greeks in this American empire", Harold Macmillan described it in 1964.
France opted for a leadership role in the new European structures.
Fifty years later, both strategies have run their courses- although many in Paris and London have yet to recognise this, much less incorporate it into their discourse.
The UK's "special relationship" is bleeding to death in the sands of Iraq.
France, in a common market of six with a young, almost apologetic Germany, emerged as a leader. In a European Union of 27, with an increasingly confident, democratic Germany, Paris has to find a new, more modest, and less condescending, role.
The relative power of the US is declining. Traditionally, the decline of one power (Austro-Hungary) has always been matched by the rise of another (Prussia).
Now, for the very first time in human experience, we face the decline of a major power without any obvious heir.
The relative strengths of China, India, the EU and Brazil will all grow, and Russia's will recover, but there will be no new "hyperpower" to replace the US.
Whether this proves to be positive or negative will depend on how well our planet's 200-odd governments manage the transition.
Almost all our young global systems date from the end of the second World War. Many were designed around the reality of US power and the cold war confrontation with the now-defunct USSR.
Gordon Brown, speaking in India less than two weeks ago, said "The post-1945 system of international institutions, built for a world of sheltered economies and just 50 states, is not yet broken but - for a world of 200 states and an open globalisation - urgently in need of modernisation and reform."
If the need for reform is accepted, its consequences are often not.
The US refuses to dilute its World Bank and IMF hegemony.
Paris and London continue to defend their "right" to permanent seats on the UN Security Council.
How can Latin America be expected to accept a rotating permanent seat when two members of the EU refuse to pool theirs, and Germany argues for a seat in its own right?
Organisations such as Nato continue, despite the demise of their raison d'etre. They will either have to transform themselves into something new or expire.
We are faced with the need to reform our global structures and possibly to develop new ones, at a time when we also face several major interconnected global issues including climate change, the move away from oil, and the achievement of fairer trade and development policies.
These international issues can be seen as elements of foreign policy, but their resolution will involve major domestic policy decisions.
If Ireland is to cut its carbon emissions and reduce its dependence on oil, we will have to consider the electrification of our railways.
Producing that level of electricity could put the question of nuclear power firmly on the national agenda.
Sources close to the Doha Round WTO trade talks are now hinting at a possible breakthrough between the US, India, Brazil and the EU.
The outline deal is said to involve reductions in US farm subsidies and significant EU cuts in its tariffs on agricultural imports, with the bigger developing countries opening their markets to industrial goods.
Such a deal could have major implications for Irish agriculture and rural development
Whatever validity the neat division between foreign and domestic policies may once have had, the two have now become inseparable, if not indistinguishable.
Many of the traditional approaches to the international agenda are also open to question, where they have not become obviously redundant.
In this coming debate, many voices will be heard, including those of states and peoples not previously seen as being central to determining global agendas.
Ireland has made significant international contributions in the past and now has an opportunity to do so again - in a debate which could establish the basis for a more rational, and more equitable, global order.
Ben Tonra cited Dick Spring's 1996 definition that our foreign policy was "a statement of the kind of people that we are". That definition now needs to be completed to add "and the kind of world we would like our children to live in".
Tony Kinsella is an Irish author and commentator on international affairs.