There's an interesting new essay in Foreign Policy magazine written by Richard Haas, a long time fixture on that scene. Haas is a foreign policy "expert" who is totally invested in the worldview prevalent during the Obama years. To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, that policy was "speak softly and be sure to virtue signal." In the Obama/Democrat worldview, the most important thing was for the USA to say the right thing so as to look virtuous. What the USA did or did not do mattered less than how it appeared on the world stage (and on TV). For example, Obama and his secretary of state, John Kerry, wanted to be able to say that they reached an agreement with Iran on nuclear weapons so as to show that they were on the "right side" of history. What the agreement actually provided was much less important than the fact that one had been reached. Indeed, the Iran agreement was the first nuclear non-proliferation agreement that actually guaranteed nuclear proliferation; it guaranteed Iran would get nuclear weapons after a decade. Obama ended the struggle to prevent Iran from getting nukes by surrendering with great fanfare designed to hide that fact.
But getting back to Haas, his big point is that President Trump has abandoned the accepted principles that guided US foreign policy since World War II. In something like 25,000 words, Haas basically says that Trump has put the interests of the USA and its people ahead of the interests of the rest of the world. Haas is correct in this, but in all that verbiage, Haas misses the basic truth that led to this change in US policy. Simply put, the world has changed. After World War II, the USA was the giant on the world stage. America was the only major country whose economy was intact. Europe had been destroyed. Japan was in ruins. Even the Soviet Union, our main adversary, had seen the heart of the country put into ruins while losing 20,000,000 dead to the Germans. China, today's major economic competitor, was an economic backwater which was also in ruins. America produced roughly 60% of the worlds energy. America produced more than half of the steel. We had the only nuclear weapons. Despite all that, at the end of the war, we were about to go back to our pre-war practice of isolationism. The USA demobilized its army. We junked most of our weapons. We helped organize the United Nations, but we were pulling back.
As the USA disarmed, however, the Communists went on the march in Europe. The Soviets took control in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, and the rest of eastern Europe. In some places this was the result of occupation by the Red Army. Elsewhere, even more nefarious methods were used by the Soviets. Stalin and his henchmen made clear that the Soviet Union was not disarming but rather intended to take over as much of Europe and the rest of the world as possible. At that time, the Western democracies in Europe like Britain and France did not have the power to really resist the Russians. Indeed, they were national basket cases. That led to a decision by the Truman administration that the proper course to follow was to strengthen those in the world who would oppose the Communist efforts. That policy helped people in countries like the UK, France, Japan, West Germany, and the like. The real goal, however, was to protect the USA and the world order that made the USA a world leader. Put another way, the idea was to strengthen our non-Communist allies to keep the world, and thereby the USA, free of Soviet domination.
The US policy was carried out in a variety of manners. By 1948, after the Soviets overthrew the Czech government and took control in that country, America adopted the Marshall Plan. That sent billions of dollars in aid to Western Europe to help it recover so that it could be both free and a true ally of ours. We also formed a series of alliances around the world to contain the Communists. NATO, SEATO, and a host of others were designed to keep the Soviet Union in check and thereby protect the USA.
This policy lasted through the entire Cold War, some 40 years. During that time, so much was said about America and our involvement in the world, that the purpose of the policy got lost. The goal was to protect the USA and to foster peace while keeping the Soviets in check.
By the 1990's, the Soviet Union collapsed. The Cold War ended. During the Clinton presidency, they even talked about whether we had reached "the end of history". Our alliances became moribund. The threat of the Soviets was gone, and Russia was both a pale imitation of the Soviet Union as well as a potential new friend. Allies like France, Germany, and the like stopped concerning themselves about defense and treaty obligations. They continued to expect non-stop American support as had been the case for over four decades.
Clinton left our foreign policy to drift on in the form that had been followed for so long. Then came George W. Bush and 9-11. America mobilzed for the War on Terror. Some of our allies helped us. The UK in particular joined the fight. The contributions to the War on Terror by our other chief allies in NATO, however, were slight at most. Bush was preoccupied with the terrorists and didn't do much regarding the overall shape of our foreign policy.
Then came Obama. He pretty much abandoned most of the fight against the Islamic terrorists. That brought ISIS in to fill the vacuum (and to kill tens of thousands). Obama rejigged US policy so that the shell stayed the same. America was still to be concerned about the well being of other countries, but we were not to be concerned about how that would benefit us. Many in the Obama foreign policy establishment saw American power as a problem for the world; we were too powerful. Since many of these people also saw the USA as evil or flawed, they wanted to prevent us from misusing our power or even to get rid of that power. In many cases, Obama and his people wanted to be sure we took no actions. Remember how Obama told the Syrians that were they to use chemical weapons, they would cross a "red line" of the USA. The Syrians went ahead and used those weapons nearly 20 times killing thousands until video evidence made it impossible for the USA to ignore. Obama dithered in response. He took no action. Finally, the Russians stepped in and got Obama to agree that Russia could station troops and have bases in Syria in exchange for getting the Syrians to state that they would give up the chemical weapons. Russia hadn't had any bases in the Middle East since the 1970s, so this was a major victory for the Kremlin, and, not surprisingly, although the Syrians said they had given up chemical weapons, that turned out to be a lie.
Think also of the Russian invasion of its neighbor, Georgia. This happened at the very end of the Bush presidency. The USA strongly opposed that Russian invasion and we put serious sanctions on the Russians for their actions. We also got some of our European allies to go along with those sanctions. Withing a few months, however, Obama took office and he immediately lifted the sanctions. Obama had the famous "Russian reset" which was and exchange in which the USA lifted sanctions, de facto recognized the Russian seizure of half of Georgia, and the Russians announced their new friendship of the USA (while changing none of their activities.)
Obama pulled troops out of Iraq. He put major limits on the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Our troops fought on, but with one hand tied behind their backs. We got continuing casualties but we got very little progress.
Obama also adopted the virtue signaling policy when it came to trade. He negotiated the Trans Pacific Partnership, a multistate deal that would have tied American business up in knots so as to benefit our trading partners around the Pacific.
Trump has changed that. He has brought American foreign policy back to realism. He has made clear to China that we no longer think that integrating China into the world is by itself a goal to pursue. Instead, we want China to take steps that benefit the USA in exchange for steps by the USA that benefit China. Trade deals also have to be beneficial to the USA before we accept them. For example, the old NAFTA treaty with Canada and Mexico which gave such big benefits to those countries as such high costs to the USA was replaced with a new treaty that is much more even handed for all participants including the USA. We no longer need to subsidize our neighbors.
Trump also put meaning behind the words of the USA. Trump too told the Syrians not to use chemical weapons. When they violated that rule, he had our armed forces deliver a strong blow to the Assad regime.
Simply put, while "America first" may be a slogan, it has also become a rule that Trump foreign policy follows. He jettisoned the old remnants of Cold War thinking that the USA had to support the rest of the world no matter what, and he made the essence of our foreign policy the "enlightened self interest" that has guided the foreign policy of nations since at least the 18th Century. The foreign policy establishment, like Haas and others in the swamp, seems to have forgotten that the very purpose of supporting the rest of the world was originally to help the USA win the Cold War and to defeat the Communists in the Soviet Union.
No comments:
Post a Comment