A Foreign Policy that Protects America's Vital National Interests

Why is the Pakistan-Afghanistan border more important than the US-Mexican border?

Beamish chided me recently for using the term Neocon. It's not the first time a fellow conservative has challenged me on it, so I decided to post my thoughts on the issue.

I use it because it is a generally understood term, but alas it is also fraught. For many it is codeword for International Jewish Conspiracy. Anyone who knows me or who has spent any amount of time here knows that I do not traffic in such bigotries and conspiracies. When I use the term, I mean it to designate those armchair generals who loudly beat war drums, although they themselves have never been to war and usually have no children or family who would march off on any of their foreign adventures.

Convert them to our side with a freedom agenda...

I understand what George Bush was trying to do, but he did it poorly, mostly because no one else in the world, including our own foreign policy establishment, would cooperate with him. Rolling into other countries and blowing their stuff up is not the best way to convert people to our freedom agenda, even if we kill the odious dictator who had his jackboot on their necks. He may be a bastard, but he's still their bastard, and we are still the foreign occupiers who humiliate them twice. First by doing what they themselves should have done, and secondly by occupying their country, with the cascading misunderstandings that cause thousands of civilian deaths.

I pray Iraq may yet end up successful. There is a chance, since no country, especially a proud Arab one, will go willingly into the arms of a neighbor, let alone a Persian one. They may decide we are the best partner they have. Afghanistan, on the other hand, is a sinkhole of ignorance and corruption, and no amount of further intervention will change that. Once the Northern Alliance took Kabul we should have handed them the keys and wished them luck.

We have new wars to fight in the 21st century, but they are all shadow wars

China has completely penetrated our civilian and government networks. The legions of shipping containers arriving at our shores and airports every day are ripe opportunities for the next strike, and we have no control over who enters our country, with people coming, going and setting up camp here with impunity. We will also continue to conduct quiet military assistance to those willing to do the dirty work themselves.

CFR President Richard Haass (a liberal Brookings Institute type who I nonetheless find myself in often agreement with) surveys the threats to the US:

The world's most powerful countries may not always agree with the U.S., but rarely do they see it as implacably hostile or an impediment to their core objectives. U.S. relations with the principal powers of this era are for the most part good or at least good enough.

As a result, the biggest external threats confronting the U.S. are the spread of nuclear materials and weapons, the possibility of pandemic disease, climate change, a breakdown in the functioning of the world's financial and trade systems—in short, the dark side of globalization.

Also of concern are medium-size hostile states (Iran and North Korea) that have access to weapons of mass destruction, and weak states (e.g., Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen) that are unable or unwilling to police their territory to ensure it is not used by terrorists, drug cartels or pirates. (Richard Haas - Bring our Foreign Policy Home)

Haas’s foreign policy Recommendation?

“… a U.S. foreign policy based on restoring this country's strength and replenishing its resources—economic, human and physical.”

Restoration is not isolationism. Isolationism is the willful turning away from the world even when a rigorous assessment of U.S. interests argues for acting. Isolationism makes no sense in a world in which the U.S. cannot wall itself off from terrorism, proliferation, protectionism, pandemic disease, climate change or a loss of access to financial, energy and mineral resources. An embrace of isolationism would accelerate the emergence of a more disorderly and dangerous and less prosperous and free world.

Restoration is very different. The U.S. would continue to carry out an active foreign policy—to create international arrangements to manage the challenges inherent in globalization, to invigorate alliances and partnerships, to deal with the threats posed by an aggressive North Korea, a nuclear-armed Iran and a failing Pakistan. (Richard Haas - Bring our Foreign Policy Home)

No more wars of choice, but a strong military that puts the world on notice that we will crush you if you mess with us. Time to let some distant fires burn and start cleaning up our own backyard.