The Simpleton Dreamer's Foreign Policy

The talking heads and those Republican clowns have made much about our "failed" foreign policy.  Even friends question whether we have one.  In this month's Foreign Affairs, Edelstein and Krebs argue that we shouldn't bother with having one; that the world is too chaotic, competitions too multi-faceted, for any effective foreign policy other than just reactive pragmatism[1]. 

 Obama's "don't do stupid shit" is fine as far as it goes, but he has taken it no further, leaving us in a purely reactive mode, responding to events over which we neither have control nor apparently anticipation.  A "no policy" policy is not enough. That aimless reactionism has led to fourteen years of mucking around in the Mid-East (thanks to Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz, Tenet, Rice and the like who fed 43's ego and impulsiveness.)  Now we're in a here-we-go-again mode as Obama reacts to Congressional, political, popular and military pressures to "do something about those bastards."

In order to "win", by which I mean achieve success, one must decide which games to play in, and which not; determine what success looks like in each; determine the policies to guide one's plays; and then make tactical moves that play to your strengths.

 

Certain policy principles logically can lead to desirable but highly improbable, un-feasible, wishful outcomes.  But identifying the far-out sometimes triggers ideas which, upon reflection, turn out to be feasible after-all, reachable mile-posts on the way to success.  So, in keeping with that, the simpleton makes these suggestions of where to play, of how to define success, of policies, and of some far-out tactical moves:

1. .       Halt the foreign "war on terror" and begin to treat international terrorism just as we do domestic terrorism, as police and criminal justice matters.  Share info and fully cooperate with international police efforts -- allies or not.
2.            Re-position the CIA as a spy and analysis agency and withdraw them from special ops.  Their extra-judicial assassinations generate order-of-magnitude more terrorists for every one they kill.  Use the military to do militaristic things; hold both agencies accountable to transparent civilian authority.
3.      Repeatedly veto military appropriations containing congressionally-mandated weapon purchases that the joint chiefs do not want until Congress gives up in order to fund DOD.  Direct Joint Chiefs to focus on delivery of military force quickly, responsively, forcefully and productively.  After all these years, get an audit of DOD expenditures.
4.        .  Pursue base closures overseas as well as domestic ones.  Re-invest savings in the diplomatic corps and Peace Corps, and link DOD budget increases to increases in diplomacy budgets.
5.            Don't just respond to terror inflicted on cultures we identify with; show we care equally about Madrid, Beirut, Ankara, Jakarta, Nairobi, Mumbai, Karachi, Jeddah, Kano, Kunming, Jerusalem, Moscow, Sharm el Sheikh,  Buenos Aires, Bamako  and many more....
6.            Define specifically what our "national interest" means in each troubled region (Eastern Europe, Mid-East, North Africa and Arabia, Southeast Asia, South America, the Arctic, etc.) and make the definitions clear to those nations involved.
7.            Adopt and publicize our respect for self-determination; drop our  insistence on establishing universal democracy.  If citizens select some other form of government, so long as it has been self-determined in a fair way, accept it, tolerate it even if we do not support it.
8.            Continue our "pivot" toward Asia but forego any more mutual defense treaties.  Restrain NATO support and shift NATO burden increasingly onto European shoulders.
9.            Stop calling countries "friends"; they are nations, each with its own self-interest supreme, just as is ours.  It is particularly galling to call Saudis and Pakistanis our "friends" while they disseminate hate and nurture terrorists.
10. .         Cancel the lease and give Guantanamo back to Cuba in return for taking in some of the detainees.  (Is a 19thC naval base still that relevant to a 21stC navy?)  Have the Justice Dept. enforce that detainees subject to US justice must be held in US jails and be subject to habeas corpus.  This means transfer of remaining Guantanamo inmates to Federal Maximum Security prisons.  Dare Congress to sue and/or impeach; in the meantime, the courts will have no place to which to send inmates back.
11. .         Support creation of Kurdistan by Iraqi, Turkish, and Syrian Kurds.  Provide air and other support for self-defense at a price of not aggressing against neighbors.
12. .         Support creation of an independent Sunnistan in contiguous parts of Syria and Iraq.  Get word to former Baathists that in return for squelching their ISIS crazies, we will support a new Sunni state, borders to be defined by Iraqi, Syrian and Turk negotiators, and will support its self-defense against Shia neighbors.
13. .         If those left in a rump Syria choose to retain Assad, pledge to accept and ignore the bastard.  In a rump Shia-Iraq, accept whichever crazy their representatives select.
14. .         Support Israel, but undertake a steady, five-year scaling back of military assistance to both Israel and Egypt.  Drop commitment to a two-state "solution" (which is no solution at all) and encourage Israel to move toward Palestinian citizenship.  (A "religious democracy" is an oxy-moron if its population is heterogeneous.  Either it's a theocratic autocracy or a secular republic.)
15. .         Become increasingly energy independent and self-reliant on critical resources.
16. .         Underscore our secular system of governance by removing "under God" from the pledge and "In God We Trust" from our money (yes, I said these are simplistic.)
17. .         Re-join the International  Court of Justice; sign the land mine convention; ratify the Convention on the  Law of the Sea (the best backing for our passive/aggressive resistance to Chinese claims in the South China Sea); and work to agree on -- and sign -- a global warming treaty in Paris.

I know, I know: idealistic, impolitic, illegal, infeasible, fanciful and naive ...  But on these policy principles can be built a concerted foreign policy of leadership -- respect for self-determination, well articulated national-interest in each troubled region, a balance between Europe and  Asia, support of world treaties, diplomacy balanced with military might -- these are foreign policies from which goals and winning strategies can be formed. 

Anyway -- in the meantime -- don't do stupid shit.

---

[1] Nov/Dec 2015 Foreign Affairs, Delusions of Grand Strategy, David Edelstein and Ronald Krebs

An "Unloyal" Opposition?

"His Majesty's Opposition" was coined in 1826 by John Hobhouse, Radical, later a Whig, to proclaim his ability to oppose the sitting government while at the same time being loyal to nation and regent.  The phrase has come down to us as "The  Loyal Opposition," a distinction too often ignored in Mid-East and Asian autocracies these days.  Erdogan, Putin, Sisi and lots of others treat opposition as disloyalty if not outright treason.

In a representative democracy, like ours, to what should an opposition be loyal?  Not king nor President but certainly to the foundation of law and governance.  But in these contentious days, it seems that our oppositions are increasingly disdainful, if not outright dismissive of the processes of representative governance -- reaching compromise, searching for pragmatic solutions to move forward.

Yes, I'm thinking of the Tea Party but also of the Occupy movement.  And of the Freedom Caucus.  And of the Ted Cruzes and Jim Bishops and Donald Trumps of American civic life.  Are they loyal to the processes of representative governance?  And the anarchists -- well, anarchists are disloyal.  But I'm not ready to name the rest disloyal, but are they not an "unloyal opposition?"   Do they not eschew compromise and collaboration; do they not simply seek confrontation, denial and disruption?    

David Brooks wrote recently that the center is not holding -- extremes are becoming ever more strident and disinterested in the art of governing.  There is no strategy of positive opposition, only tactics to destabilize and destroy.  Destroy those governing whether of one's own party or the other.  Destroy the "enemy" opponent.  Seed suspicion, disbelief, and disdain.  

Look at Trey Gowdy, of the  4th of South Carolina, confronting Hilary Clinton: prove your innocence.  After the 11 hours of disbelief and attack, he said that she had "answered as she always has" clearly implying that she's "still lying under oath."  (Gowdy has starred in a couple of reality TV episodes -- would you buy a used car from this dandy?)

And what of Jim Jordan (4th, Ohio) who demonstrated less the former federal prosecutor and more the former high school wrestling coach: this isn't an inquiry; grab a hold, don't let opponent catch a breath, go for the pin?  Or Mike Pompeo (4th Kansas -- what is it about these 4th Congressional Districts anyway?) persisting in false claims that Mike Blumenthal was Hilary's only source of advice on Libya to the point that Andrea Mitchell was moved to sacrifice her reportorial impartiality and counter him in public?  Or Martha Roby (2nd Alabama -- trying to work up to a 4th level inquisitor?) prim, judgmental, thin-lipped and humorless, channeling Cotton Mather while fixated on meaningless e-mails between low-level State Dept. staffers Hilary never heard of?

This attitude of suspicion, of sniffing out conspiracies, of distrust of representative governance is not isolated to Congress.  At a local candidates forum here in our little town, the challengers to city council members were tight lipped, negative, suggesting conspiracy, and calling for "citizens' advisory votes" on complex issues of governance that have been studied and debated in depth.  They oppose and lack faith in representative government. 

Even at the Supreme Court -- supposedly the steadying governor on the engine of our democratic republic, we see dissenters using  disdainful ad hominem attacks to discredit majority opinions.  Scalia and Thomas in dissent seed scorn and disrespect for our democratic representative process.

Can another kind of opposition thrive?  Of course.  Remember the happy warrior, Reagan?  And what of Justin Trudeau in Canada, coming from behind to majority by opposing with respect, with positive proposals and optimistic belief in the system.  Trudeau has strengthened Canada's center. 

Let's squeeze out an unloyal opposition.  Don't fund them.  Encourage those who seek compromise, who practice respectful, affirmative listening, and who work to create pragmatic collaborations.  Find more Joe Bidens and John Kasichs.  Deny unloyal opposition a place to stand; vote them out of our democratic representative system to which all of us should be loyal.  Demand of them: what are you for, not just what are you against?