Im-Politic: Where McCain Fell (Way) Short

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America First, foreign policy, globalism, Im-Politic, Immigration, isolationism, John McCain, Mainstream Media, nativism, protectionism, Trade, Trump

I spent a fair amount of this past weekend thinking of something to write about John McCain that would adequately explain why my long-time (and continuing) irritation with the late Arizona Republican Senator goes considerably deeper than my opposition to his stances on specific issues like trade, immigration, and foreign policy – and in particular why it was never offset much by any admiration for his instances of political independence, his efforts at bipartisanship, or even his military service.

Not that I don’t admire these widely noted traits and that portion of his bio. But here’s what truly rankles – and should bother you – especially amid the torrent of praise about how McCain supposedly kept the tone of American politics elevated while so many around him (notably President Trump) worked so hard (and successfully) to degrade it: When it came to the issues listed above, he rarely, if ever, resisted the temptation to to portray anyone opposed to what today are called globalist positions in the worst possible light – as selfish protectionists, as xenophobes, and as head-in-the-sand isolationists.

If you’re skeptical, check out statements like

>”Americans don’t run from the challenge of a global economy. We are the world’s leaders, and leaders don’t fear change, hide from challenges, pine for the past and dread the future.

“That’s why I reject the false virtues of economic isolationism.”  (Here’s the source.)

>“To abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans consigned to the ash heap of history.” (Here’s the source.)

>”We have to fight isolationism, protectionism, and nativism. We have to defeat those who would worsen our divisions. We have to remind our sons and daughters that we became the most powerful nation on earth by tearing down walls, not building them.”  (Here’s the source.)

Beliefs and accusations like these have become so commonplace – largely because they are so enthusiastically promoted by the Mainstream Media – that it’s far too easy to overlook their destructive effects. For these issues, which obviously were so important to McCain, and which not so coincidentally were central to the success of his bitter rival, President Trump, present Americans with powerful and complex questions.

Of course, there’s a compelling case that can still be made for what nowadays are called the globalist views championed so vigorously by McCain. But after the kinds of disasters and blunders represented by the Vietnam and second Iraq Wars, by a terrifying worldwide financial crisis and the worst economic downturn in decades, and by enabling the rise of China, clearly there’s also a compelling case to made for pushing back against the grandiose assumptions about U.S. interests and the nation’s place in the world that underlie them.

In fact, had the bipartisan globalist establishment encouraged, or even allowed, thoroughgoing debate over the assumptions when their vulnerabilities started emerging decades ago, some of the most recent debacles might have been avoided. Instead, the powers-that-be focused on preventing or limiting those debates, and in particular on marginalizing dissenters by casting exactly the kind of intellectual and moral aspersions peddled by McCain. And don’t doubt for a minute that this intolerance accounted for much of McCain’s adoration by a Mainstream Media whose zeal for globalism has been equally extreme, and whose determination to depict the nation’s only choices on trade, immigration, and foreign policy, as black or white has been just as strong.

In other words, the late Arizona Senator denied to his opponents on trade, immigration, and foreign policy issues the credit for good intentions – and the very aura of legitimacy itself – that he famously and laudably extended to his 2008 presidential rival, then-Senator Barack Obama, when he firmly rebuked a voter for portraying the Democratic nominee as an anti-American “Arab.”

Was McCain the worst globalist politician on this score? I’m sure I could find examples of peers who took even lower roads. But on these crucial subjects, he wasn’t notably better. For that reason alone, the election of Donald Trump, and the marked America First turn of the Republican party it has revealed, was a defeat that the McCain and globalists in general richly deserved.

Im-Politic: Trump Re-Brands “America First”

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2016 election, America First, Brexit, chattering classes, China, Donald Trump, Im-Politic, isolationism, Larry Summers, NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement, offshoring, protectionism, Trade, World War II

OK, Donald Trump has just given a long-awaited speech outlining his global trade policy. Not that his overall inclinations haven’t long been clear. And earlier in the campaign, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee put out an impressively detailed China trade position paper.

But since most of his other remarks have consisted of generalities (i.e., he’d make great deals), and have often been expressed in the form of off-the-cuff answers to reporters’ questions (as with his contradictory statements on tariffing Chinese imports), a comprehensive description of a global approach containing at least some specifics was unquestionably needed.  And given the trouble Trump encountered due to his latest bombastic comments about so-called “Mexican judges” and the like, the timing couldn’t have been better for a shot of gravitas.  

Although it wasn’t the speech I would have written for him, it should be clear to any fair-minded observer that Trump passed this test with flying colors. In fact, he just gave by far the best speech on trade more broadly that Americans have heard – at least since the current, offshoring-focused era of U.S. trade policy-making was launched in the early 1990s by adding Mexico to an existing American agreement with Canada and creating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Granted, the bar for recent trade speeches is rock-bottom low. And the negatives of Trump’s deserve considerable attention – and will receive it tomorrow. But one positive worth pointing out immediately: Trump has gone toward putting a positive stamp on the slogan “America First.”

There’s no doubt that his political opponents in the chattering classes, as well as more even-handed journalists, will mindlessly keep regurgitating the mantra that these were the watchwords of the isolationist movement that they blame in part for the outbreak of World War II. But there’s also no reasonable doubt that Trump provided a re-branding of this motto inspiring enough to resonate powerfully and favorably both in the ranks of his supporters and among undecided voters in the working and middle classes.

As Trump declared, his version of America First entails the American people taking “back control of their economy, politics and borders” and choosing “to believe in America.”

He continued, “We lost our way when we stopped believing in our country. America became the world’s dominant economy by becoming the world’s dominant producer.

“The wealth this created was shared broadly, creating the biggest middle class the world had ever known.”

“But then America changed its policy from promoting development in America, to promoting development in other nations.”

To be sure,Trump blamed foreign countries that engage in predatory trade practices for the devastation suffered by much of America’s manufacturing base and workforce. But he also singled out “a [US] leadership class that worships globalism over Americanism.”

And he closed the address with a veritably Reagan-esque flourish:

“On trade, on immigration, on foreign policy, we are going to put America First again.

“We are going to make America wealthy again.

“We are going to reject Hillary Clinton’s politics of fear, futility, and incompetence.

“We are going to embrace the possibilities of change.

“It is time to believe in the future.

“It is time to believe in each other.

“It is time to Believe In America.

“This Is How We Are Going To Make America Great Again – For All Americans.

“We Are Going To Make America Great Again For Everyone – Greater Than Ever Before.”

In fact, there are signs in the post-Brexit world that even sophisticates are at least approaching this bandwagon. According to one leading establishmentarian, writing as the British vote totals were coming in, “The political challenge in many countries going forward is to develop a ‘responsible nationalism”. It is clear that there is a hunger on the part of electorates, if not the Davos set within countries, for approaches to policy that privilege local interests and local people over more cosmopolitan concerns.”

Translated into plain English: No less than former Clinton Treasury Secretary and top Obama economic adviser Larry Summers is going America First.

Im-Politic: Cruz on Foreign Policy Could be Both a Lot Worse & Lot Better

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China, Cold War, conservatives, Cuba, democracy, Donald Trump, foreign direct investment, Im-Politic, interventionism, isolationism, John Quincy Adams, morality and foreign policy, nation-building, neoconservatives, Republicans, Ronald Reagan, Soviet Union, Ted Cruz

Difficult as it is to remember sometimes, there are still candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination other than Donald Trump. For example, there’s Senator Ted Cruz, who in fact has established himself as the runner up in most national polls so far and the leader in Iowa, whose caucuses kick off Campaign 2016’s actual voting.

I’m no Cruz-an, but I’m grateful to economic and security commentator Nevin Gussack for calling my attention to an April interview given to The Daily Caller by the freshman legislator. It shows that Cruz has some sensible instincts when it comes to an overall American approach to world affairs, but that he has a lot to learn about China.

In other contexts, Cruz’ claim that he’s neither a  “full neocon” nor a “libertarian isolationist.” in his strategic leanings could legitimately be dismissed as cynical, Clintonian triangulation. Unfortunately, both American foreign policy and the commentary it’s generated have so typically tended to view the nation’s world role in terms of starkly and foolishly dichotomous choices (like “interventionism” versus “isolationism”) that Cruz’ apparent attempt to stake out a middle ground decidedly encouraging.

In fact, though he cited former President Ronald Reagan as a role model, Cruz actually sounded more like John Quincy Adams, who served not only as president himself but as Secretary of State. In 1821, he famously articulated this definition of the U.S. purpose in world affairs:

“Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication….” [The rest is very much worth reading, too, but this section suffices for this post’s theme.]

It sounds an awful lot like the Caller‘s account of a “Cruz Doctrine”:

“‘I believe America should be a clarion voice for freedom. The bully pulpit of the American president has enormous potency,’ he [said], before praising former President Ronald Reagan for changing the ‘arc of history’ by demanding Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall and lambasting President Barack Obama for not sufficiently standing on the side of freedom during Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution.

“But, Cruz noted, speaking out for freedom ‘is qualitatively different from saying U.S. military forces should intervene to force democracy on foreign lands.’”

I’m not sure I’m with Cruz on Reagan rhetoric bringing down that “Evil Empire.” But for all my hesitancy about the place of moral considerations in American diplomacy, I have no problem with a president speaking out on such questions, provided he or she doesn’t create unjustified foreign expectations about American actions, or provoke dangerous responses. It’s also, after all, entirely conceivable that such statements can do some good.

Even better, like Adams, Cruz is skeptical about involving the United States in protracted democracy-promotion campaigns: “It is not the job of the U.S. military to engage in nation building to turn foreign countries into democratic utopias.”

So far so good. But Cruz betrays some deep ignorance on the subject of China, and on the magnitude of the security threat it poses to America versus that of, say, Cuba. Asked why he favors normal relations with human rights abusers like China and Saudi Arabia, but not with Cuba, Cruz (whose father was born on and fled the island) replied:

“The situation with Cuba and China are qualitatively different. For one thing, in China, direct investment is allowed, where American investment can go into the country invest directly and work with the Chinese people, which is bringing economic development and is transforming China in significant ways. In Cuba, all outside investment has to go through the government. Lifting sanctions will inevitably result in billions of dollars flowing into the Castro government into its repressive machinery.

“Secondly, China or Qatar or the different countries you mentioned, none of them are 90 miles from our border.” Cuba is uniquely situated 90 miles away from the state of Florida. Cuba is a leading exporter of terrorism throughout Latin America. Cuba was recently caught smuggling arms to North Korea in the Panama Canal.”

If he wasn’t running for president, or serving as a U.S. Senator, Cruz might deserve some slack for his clearly emotional feelings about Cuba and his family. But whatever his family background, these views are ridiculous. The economic picture painted of China is flat wrong. First, the Chinese government still sets very strict conditions on incoming investment, and second, although China’s economic growth and modernization unquestionably have benefited, so has China’s military strength and technological sophistication. Even many of the world’s most historically craven panda-huggers have decided that reform in the PRC has now shifted into reverse despite all the economic and even political liberalization that they once predicted inevitably would be produced by engagement with democratic, capitalist world.

Moreover, China’s burgeoning military power wouldn’t be such a concern if its leaders had decided to keep conducting a relatively quiet, passive foreign policy. But those days clearly are long gone, as Beijing has demonstrated a strong determination to expand its territory and influence in the East Asia/Pacific region at America’s expense. Moreover, the Chinese government’s burgeoning cyber-hacking activities are only the latest signs of the dangers of allowing current economically “normal” relations – including massive technology transfer – to proceed apace. And we haven’t even gotten to the damage to the U.S. economy and therefore to its defense industrial base and potential done by China’s predatory trade policies.

No matter how close to American shores lilliputian Cuba might be, it would need to turn into a something like a huge ISIS base even to start threatening major U.S. security interests to this extent – and of course such hostile assets would be easy for American forces to flatten, or simply to embargo into helplessness.

A final worrisome note on the (obviously still embryonic) formulation of Cruz’s foreign policy ideas: Although he claims to reject “full neocon-ism,” the advisers he told The Caller he consults with are all firmly in that camp. Since the end of the Cold War, American conservatism has bred an impressive variety of schools of foreign policy thinking (unlike American liberalism). The more such resources he taps, the likelier Cruz will be to develop an international strategy that both wins votes and furthers American interests.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Desperately Seeking Real Retrenchment

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Afghanistan, American exceptionalism, Asia-Pacific, Baltic states, Bashir Al-Assad, boots on the ground, Charles Lanes, chemical weapons, defense budget, defense spending, Earl Ravenal, George W. Bush, international law, Iraq, ISIS, isolationism, Middle East, multilateralism, national interests, NATO, Nixon Doctrine, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, pivot, Poland, Richard Nixon, Russia, sequestration, Soviet Union, Stephen Sestanovich, Syria, Ukraine, Vietnam War, vital interests, Vladimir Putin, Washington Post

Washington Post columnist Charles Lane has just done an excellent job of demonstrating how powerfully universalist America’s bipartisan foreign policy establishment remains – even as powerful reasons keep multiplying for climbing down from this wildly ambitious approach.

According to Lane, a new book by former American diplomat and Columbia University political scientist Stephen Sestanovich bears out President Obama’s claim to be a kindred spirit with Richard M. Nixon as a “retrenchment” president – one of the chief executives who has sought to “correct the perceived overreaching of their predecessors and free up U.S. resources for domestic concerns.” In fact, says Lane, Sestanovich has written that post-World War II U.S. foreign policy has been marked by a “constant pendulum-swing between administrations that aggressively pursued U.S. goals abroad” (who the author calls “maximalists”) and those Nixon- and Obama-style retrenchers.

I hate to comment on books I haven’t yet read. But Lane’s description of Mr. Nixon and Mr. Obama both qualify as retrenchers reveals a mindset so enthusiastic about massive and potentially open-ended U.S. involvement in literally every corner of the world if necessary that it sees even talk about a more discriminating approach as a major departure.

Judging by the record, it hasn’t been. In fact, both the Nixon talk and the Obama talk about retrenchment have been overwhelmingly that – talk. Just as important, and closely related, what have arguably looked at least superficially like exercises in retrenchment have in fact been exercises in wishful thinking. Both presidents have actually agreed that the security, stability, and even prosperity of the entire world are U.S. vital interests. They’ve simply differed with the maximalists in insisting that these interests can be defended through means that are less dangerous and violent, and more globally popular, than the unilateral U.S. use of military force.

To cite the leading historical example, the ballyhooed Nixon Doctrine of 1970 was never a decision to cross Vietnam or any part of Asia off the list of vital U.S. interests – those whose defense was thought essential for maintaining America’s own security and prosperity. As explained initially by Earl C. Ravenal shortly after the Doctrine’s declaration, Mr. Nixon had decided, in the absence of any evidence, that this vital set of objectives could be defended without an early resort to U.S. military involvement – chiefly, by the militaries of America’s regional allies.

Therefore, Ravenal wrote:

“the Administration’s new policies and decision processes do not bring about the proposed balance [between the country’s foreign policy ends and the means to be used to attain them]; in fact, they create a more serious imbalance. Essentially we are to support the same level of potential involvement with smaller conventional forces. The specter of intervention will remain, but the risk of defeat or stalemate will be greater; or the nuclear threshold will be lower.”

President Obama has given us a different version of such dangerous wishful thinking. More accurately, he’s given us several different versions. His original 2008 candidacy for the White House was largely motivated by a conviction that the overly unilateralist and militaristic tendencies of George W. Bush had produced disaster in Iraq, and were actually undermining U.S. security by damaging America’s international image.

That’s why Mr. Obama focused so much attention on repairing that image. He never indicated that he would scale back that list of U.S. vital interests. He simply suggested that they could be better defended if need be by acting multilaterally, with international approval, rather than by going it alone. And he conveyed the clear impression that challenges could be prevented in the first place if only America became more popular in regions like the Middle East.

Once in office, Mr. Obama did try to establish a hierarchy of U.S. worldwide interests that would have operational impact. He decided that the nation had been so preoccupied with Middle East wars that it had been neglected the Asia-Pacific region, which he considered at least as important. So he launched a “pivot” that would transfer some American forces from the former to the latter.

But the president never apparently judged the Middle East to be less important to America’s fate. He simply concluded that, with the Afghanistan and Iraq wars supposedly winding down, it had become less dangerous. Having been proven wrong by the rise of ISIS. in Afghanistan, he’s (gradually) boosting the American military presence in region again. The president is claiming, moreover – based on as little evidence as Mr. Nixon required – that any remaining capabilities gap can be filled by the armed forces of regional countries. Worse, many of his Republican critics, who are just as reluctant to deploy many more U.S. “boots on the ground,” agree with Mr. Obama’s fundamental assessment.

Further, the president has actually expanded the list of circumstances in the Middle East (and presumably elsewhere) that should justify American military responses – the kinds of chemical weapons attacks launched by Bashir Al-Assad against Syrians revolting against his dictatorship, along with similar major violations of international law.  (This effort, so far, has not yet won over the public.)

Nor does that exhaust Mr. Obama’s efforts to lengthen the list of U.S. vital interests. He has understandably responded to Russia’s recent provocations against allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by strengthening U.S. forces and deploying them more conspicuously in new NATO members like Poland and the Baltic states, former Soviet satellites clearly in Moscow’s line of fire. Less understandable have been the Obama administration’s numerous suggestions that the security of Ukraine, too, is a matter of urgent American concern – even though this country was actually part of the old Soviet Union for decades with no apparent effects on U.S. safety or well-being.

Yet like the debate over countering ISIS, that over dealing with Vladimir Putin spotlights one major difference between President Obama and his (mainly) Republican foreign policy critics: Many of them have strongly backed big boosts in the U.S. military budget (if not always using these forces), including aggressive moves to circumvent spending caps established by the sequestration process. Mr. Obama has not sought comparable increases.

The president unquestionably has often spoken in terms that seem to support a smaller U.S. role in the world – e.g., his remarks suggesting that America’s exceptionalism isn’t all that exceptional, and reminding that much of the world has legitimate historical grievances against the West, and in some cases against the United States specifically. But his strategic walk has never matched this talk, and the continuing flood of contentions to the contrary in the punditocracy and even academe (if Lane’s Post column is accurate) plainly are serving their (partly) intended purpose of preventing searching debate on foreign policy fundamentals.

Given the nation’s resulting over-extension militarily, therefore, when the chattering class powers-that-be start labeling presidents or most other politicians as retrenchers or minimalists (an improvement to be sure over the hackneyed charge of “isolatonism”), the only legitimate reaction is a thoroughly exasperated, “If only.”

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Real Lesson of Vietnam

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Baby Boomers, economics, energy, foreign policy establishment, geopolitics, internationalism, interventionism, isolationism, Middle East, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Persian Gulf, public opinion, realism, terrorism, Vietnam War

No one who lived through it in 40 years ago, and was following the news even sporadically (far from everyone in the dazed and confused mid-1970s!), will ever forget the TV footage of U.S. military helicopters evacuating the last Americans and at least some of their local allies from Saigon in a humiliating denouement to the Vietnam War.

Even for many Americans who had lost much of their faith in the country’s virtues (all too easy in that stagflationary aftermath of the turbulent 1960s and the Watergate scandals), and who had watched disaster in Southeast Asia unfold slowly for years, this final act was surely harrowing emotionally. After all, however ugly Americans might have become to however many foreign populations, anything smacking of lasting military defeat had never been experienced in U.S. history.

The simple uncertainty of life without Vietnam-related news at least in the backdrop must have been unnerving as well, even if not consciously. Those who had actively or passively defined themselves as opponents, supporters, or bewildered spectators of the war faced even greater questions. Four decades later, it’s anything but clear if many of them have been answered among Baby Boomers and their surviving elders.

Failure in Vietnam shook up the nation’s leadership classes and foreign policy establishment, too. But what’s most striking four decades later is how few fundamental challenges to the policy status quo have emerged in these circles. The public is clearly more skeptical of foreign intervention and international engagement, although televised Middle East horrors in particular have interrupted that trend for the time being.

In addition, throughout the post-Vietnam decades, a handful of analysts has cogently explained how the Indochina debacle stemmed directly from the foreign policy strategies pursued by the United States since Pearl Harbor, and how this approach would undermine prosperity as well as needlessly court risk. (I’ve made my own small contributions, on this blog and elsewhere.  If you’re interested in others, I wholeheartedly recommend Googling – and reading! – the following “realists” in particular: Earl C. Ravenal, Robert W. Tucker, David C. Calleo, and Christopher Layne. For powerful indictments of U.S. interventionism on an issue-by-issue basis, see the many writings of Ted Galen Carpenter.)

But as I’ve argued, the left, right, and centrist wings of the foreign policy mainstream clung determinedly to an ideology called internationalism.  It’s characterized by the bizarre conviction that a geopolitically secure continental power with an immense potential for economic self-sufficiency can not be acceptably safe or prosperous unless literally every corner of the world becomes safe and prosperous, too. As a result, liberals, moderates, and conservatives alike defined American vital interests in breathtakingly sweeping terms, differing only on which combination or ratio of tactics (mainly the “hard power” versus “soft power” debate) were likeliest to pacify, stabilize, and enrich the entire planet.

In the process, all these leaders and analysts have neglected opportunities to reduce the country’s vulnerabilities to disrupted supplies of foreign goods, like energy, and to terrorist attack. Indeed, in defiance of the defining feature of economics itself, all have assumed that all the material resources to pursue this limitless agenda would somehow always be available, or could be created as needed.

That’s why, in the forty years since the fall of Saigon, American leaders from all over the political spectrum have:

>obsessed over fighting leftist forces in miniscule El Salvador and Nicaragua;

>fought two wars in Iraq, largely to protect the flow of Persian Gulf oil;

>permitted the worst attack on American territory in 70 years to take place;

>allowed the nation’s armed forces to become dangerously dependent on imports from a prospective Chinese adversary;

>kept the nation locked into defending allies against nuclear-armed adversaries increasingly able to retaliate powerfully against the United States;  

>remained committed to a futile policy of safeguarding U.S. energy and anti-terror interests by fostering stability and reform in a Middle East so thoroughly dysfunctional that it’s very state structure is falling apart;

>become addicted to preserving the semblance of growth and well-being by falling ever deeper into debt even though this blueprint triggered one financial calamity less than a decade ago;  and

>devoted oceans of rhetoric, and real and digital ink, to sliming any genuine dissenters as ostrich-headed isolationists, xenophobes, appeasers, or all of the above.  

As a result, all the commentary I’ve read that’s been occasioned by 40^th anniversary of Saigon’s fall has missed the main point. The most important lesson Vietnam is that American leaders have learned no important lessons at all.