Mark Moyar wrote a fascinating editorial in The New York Times the other day. In “The World Fears Trump’s America. That’s a Good Thing,” Moyar argues that Trump’s bluster and saber-rattling are effective instruments of foreign policy. I use the descriptor “fascinating” because the article represents a sea change in conservative thinking: the right-wing adopting Trump’s “realism” in international affairs. “Realism” here refers to the school of international relations of the same name, which advocates for state self-interest over everything. In Trump’s parlance, this means looking out for America first while “bombing the sh– out of ISIS” and bringing back torture.

Self-proclaimed experts and right-wing intellectuals have begun to parrot this kind of hardline foreign policy, perhaps to get on the incoming administration’s good side. To recover a just foreign policy, this faux-realism must be debunked. First, I examine Moyar’s unsubtle and inaccurate description of “global elites”, which has disturbing nationalist undertones. Then, I take a critical look at Moyar’s main claim: that aggressive rhetoric is a useful tool of foreign policy.

 First, we must deconstruct what Moyar means by “international” or “global” elites. The argument goes, Obama’s reluctance to act emboldened our enemies and created new threats like ISIS. Obama is a frequent target of Moyar’s ire, so much so that he titled his most recent book Strategic Failure: How President Obama’s Drone Warfare, Defense Cuts, and Military Amateurism Have Imperiled America.

The truth about defense spending is more complicated, and one wonders why Moyar does not apply the label of “amateurism” to Donald Trump, who comes from a background about as bereft of military experience as our current president. The merits of Obama’s foreign policy are up for debate, and it would be foolish to try to exonerate the man before the full extent of his policies in the Middle East are known. But Moyar’s fixation on global elites is worth examining.

Who are the “global elites” whom Moyar obliquely refers to? He alternately describes these people as “the cosmopolitan chatterers of Stockholm, Paris and New York;” the Europeans who cheered on Obama’s anti-war stance during his presidential campaign; and the journalists who dare to cover the anxieties that Trump is producing globally.

It is odd to hear former European diplomats and mainstream journalists referred to as the “global elite”. Surely Moyar, a scholar of military policy, knows that policy is made at generals’ tables, corporate boardrooms, and in the halls of power of the world’s strongest states. Why, then, does he insist upon this fantasy?

Thomas Frank once articulated the “latte libel,” the concept of conservatives identifying evil as those with strange and foreign tastes: They forward “the suggestion that liberals are identifiable by their tastes and consumer preferences and that these tastes and preferences reveal the essential arrogance and foreignness of liberalism” (What’s Wrong With Kansas?, pg. 16). While I am not a “liberal” per se, the point can be applied to the Left as a whole: The image of European, latte-drinking, holier-than-thou diplomats and socialites is a strongly negative image for the reactionary American. The latte-drinkers are weak, foreign, got all their ideas from books. They are the antithesis of the proud, red-blooded American commoner.  For the nationalist Trump voter, it is easier to believe that these snooty suits across the ocean (and in New York, though that’s hardly different in the conservative imagination) are the real power brokers in the world than it is to critically examine our own imperial dominance. After all, it is difficult to claim that European intellectuals are “elite” when the United States’ ruling class possesses the most nuclear weapons, the most military bases, and the most corporate power in the world.

Moyar must know this, must know that his depiction of “global elites” is delusional. But it riles up the electorate towards more military flexing and more US imperialism, which Moyar (a senior writer at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a right-wing think tank) benefits from.

In the end, his argument about “global elites” boils down to what is essentially a fascist argument: that the United States must break through the soft, phony morals of the philosophizing Left and impose our will on the world.         

Despite this irrational hatred of “global elites.” Moyar’s point does merit examination: Can force projection—leaders’ loud, strident proclamation of national strength through rhetoric and action—be a useful tool of foreign policy? Or, more specifically, does saber-rattling lead to a more peaceful and just world?

Moyar comes from the “realist” school of international relations, which holds that state self-interest is the highest moral imperative in a chaotic world. Therefore morality in the international system is, for Moyar, tied to America’s strength. He writes:

The US is “the world’s most powerful country, and the only one whose leadership can safeguard the world order.”

This world order is strong when the world fears the hegemonic power, the US. Obama’s blunders are to Moyar simply “the latest chapter in a post-1945 saga that has been dominated by international fear of the United States, or lack thereof.”

Moyar then outlines how every successful president (they are all Republicans, unsurprisingly) since World War II has used fear of American strength to intimidate our foes into submission. When we aren’t shouting at the USSR and the rest of the rogue’s gallery, evil forces run rampant. Moyar then illustrates this with several large logical leaps: It was the rhetorical weakness of Jimmy Carter that caused the US Embassy to fall in Iran in the 1970s. It was Reagan’s strength and fear-mongering that brought the USSR to its knees, and so on.

These claims are obviously untrue: Carter’s non-intervention did not prompt the Iranian Revolution. The revolution was a reaction to the 1953 CIA-backed coup in Iran, which installed an absolute monarch to prevent leftist elements from taking control of the country. This shocking display of power politics is to the realist like Moyar both strategically correct and morally defensible.

As to Reagan, it was Gorbachev’s brave admission that the USSR’s command economy had failed that brought the Soviet Union down. Gorbachev’s outstretched hand was in fact frequently batted away by Reagan. Contrary to conservative mythology, Reagan did not in fact shout the Soviet Union to pieces.

If the only thing propping up Moyar’s beloved world-system is the harsh rhetoric of US politicians, is it truly so effective a system? And if the only virtue of this state of affairs is to strengthen the US, is it a system worth defending?

Moyar sums up:

Tthe United States must care more about whether it commands international respect than whether it is loved by international elites.”

This argument will become common under Trump, who purports to cut through the establishment’s weakness and indecision. But this argument only works if one thinks like Trump and Moyar; that, as Thucydides wrote in a foundational text of IR-realism,

 “the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.”

If we cast aside this barbaric logic, we open ourselves up to alternate possibilities for the international system. Citizens concerned with the fairness of the international system, and not simply America’s strength within it, should therefore prepare to articulate a broad, humanistic vision of foreign policy. If novelist Arundhati Roy is to be believed,

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.

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The 2016 election cycle continues on its baffling way, but foreign policy issues have largely been neglected, with a few exceptions like ISIS. Each of the three remaining major candidates falls short in certain ways.

Allow me to summarize each candidate’s position, what I believe each lacks, and to describe the appearance and objectives of a new vision for American foreign policy.

I reviewed some key passages from each candidate’s website and came up with a short summary of their ideas:

Trump – “America first” realism:

This strategy might best be compared with what international relations scholars call “realism”, though that school has far from a monopoly on realistic proposals. Realism posits that since the world order is essentially anarchic, meaning that it has no central authority to enforce peace, states must engage in “self-help” by following national interest above all else. Because no supranational force will come and save us, we must maintain a strong military as a cornerstone of our foreign policy.  Trump demonstrates this thinking:

• In his 23-second video on the military, Trump says: “I’m gonna make our military so big, so powerful, so strong that nobody, absolutely nobody, is gonna mess with us.” There’s a couple issues here, primarily that the President’s foreign policy should take longer than half a minute to describe and should consist of something more substantial than something you’d overhear at a pub. Secondly: Since Trump has frequently invoked the specter of Islamic terror, it’s important to point out that even in pre-911 2001, the USA spent $287 billion on defense. This did not stop fundamentalists from committing the 9/11 attacks. This means that even though America was and continues to be the strongest country in the world, “nobody is gonna mes with us” is a utopian fantasy. Furthermore, for fiscal year 2015, America spent $596 billion on defense. This doesn’t strike me as “weakness” on the part of the military. Military preparedness is certainly a virtue, but Trump’s saber-rattling is not.
• The virtues of Trump’s economic foreign policy are frankly not worth discussing. Suffice it to say they represent economic nationalism, exclusion, and xenophobia.
• Note that Trump’s realism is distinct from Bush’s neoconservatism, which advocates intervention in many situations as a way of spreading “democracy”. Trump seems to forgo this ideology in favor of a more basic version of national self-interest. Regardless, Trump’s bullish attitudes about military buildup are antiquated in fights against non-state actors like ISIS in which fighting smart is as important as having the biggest guns, figuratively. Of course, all of the above rests on the assumption that Trump actually has beliefs and policies, and that this whole campaign isn’t a perverse version of self-actualization for him.

Clinton – “Mixed” liberalism:

Clinton’s platform more closely resembles international relations liberalism, which in this context means a foreign policy centered around international political and economic cooperation towards greater prosperity and freedom for all, theoretically. This is evident in her website’s national security section, which includes some interesting points:

• “Create partnerships for tomorrow. Hillary believes in free peoples and free markets. As president, she’ll invest in partnerships in Latin America, Africa, and Asia with people and nations who share our values and vision for the future.” Presumably, this means Clinton will support free trade deals and more privatization. We are looking at a more liberal version of the Washington Consensus, an economic plan for the world which values free trade and free markets. However, frequently this has resulted in inequality, oppression, and stagnation in the developing world. It does not fundamentally change United States policy, which has almost always been to guarantee the existence of friendly markets, by force if necessary.
• “Engage civil society. America has the opportunity to resolve familiar conflicts and nurture new democracies; to empower moderates and marginalize extremists; and to open markets and champion human rights. From engaging students and civil leaders to broadening our development partnerships to involve our businesses, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists, Hillary knows that America’s greatest assets are our diverse citizens and the vision of fairness and openness we offer the world.” This alludes to another key tenant of international relations liberalism: The importance of non-state actors and institutions in maintaining capitalist freedom and peace. The more ominous side of this is giving authority to fundamentally undemocratic organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These financial institutions will frequently help save economies of the developing world on the condition that these economies privatize and frequently sell off state assets to wealthy corporations. Egypt and Greece recently went through this process; a Clinton presidency would probably see more of it.
• Democrats are frequently on the defensive when it comes to defense, constantly attempting to prove to the American people that they are as “tough” internationally as their Republican counterparts. This phenomenon explains the military positions on her website. These include “making sure our military is on the cutting edge”, “defeating ISIS”, and “standing up to Putin”. I have no doubt Secretary Clinton will attempt these things in office. Her term as Secretary of State was rather hawkish, especially in regards to airstrikes in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. One could make the argument that her hardline on the military is a result of sexism; that is to say, a woman gunning for the nation’s top elected office must appear especially tough when it comes to international relations. This may very well be true, but it does not fundamentally alter Clinton’s foreign policy, merely our understanding of it.
• Thus, the word “mixed” I used to describe Clinton’s liberalism refers to her belief in a combination of “soft” power economics and “hard” power military intervention and force projection.

Sanders – Liberal Cooperation and Caution:

Sanders’ policy is a little difficult to fit into the one of the schools of international relations, which are frequently descriptive rather than prescriptive. One might point to constructivism, which argues that international society is built by evolving norms of behavior, which Sanders’ caution probably seeks to build. Economic structuralism, a Marxist school of international thought, doesn’t accurate describe Sanders’ platform either: But Sanders’ “socialism” isn’t particularly Marxist or revolutionary: it stands for measured critiques of the corporate elite, the reform of capitalism, and opposition to international free trade deals and not the overthrow of the capitalist world-system. Liberalism may best serve to describe Sanders’ overall vision, which is that of peace, cooperation, and economic progress:

• Ending unliateral action: “We must move away from policies that favor unilateral military action and preemptive war, and that make the United States the de facto policeman of the world.” This is comforting to left-leaning Americans who are tired of Afghanistan, Iraq, and a variety of other conflicts which appear to have hurt us and not furthered the national interest. Critics may therefore refer to Sanders as Trump-like or isolationist.  However, Sanders lays down some examples of situations in which he would advocate the use of force:
• Cautious and limited use of force: “As a member of Congress, I have supported the use of force only when it was a last resort and America’s vital interests were at stake. I opposed the first Gulf War, as did many other Members of Congress, because I believed that there was a way to achieve our goals without bloodshed, through sanctions and concerted diplomatic action. I supported the use of force to stop the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. And, in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001, I supported the use of force in Afghanistan to hunt down the terrorists who attacked us. I regret that President Bush did not use that authority properly, and that American combat troops remained there too long. I voted against the war in Iraq, and knew it was the right vote then, and most people recognize it was the right vote today. The only mission President Bush and his neo-conservative friends accomplished was to destabilize an entire region, and create the environment for al-Qaeda and ISIS to flourish.” This may be the kernel that composes a hypothetical “Sanders Doctrine”: The use of force as a last result, and only then to prevent mass murder and self-defense.

Why are these inadequate? What do we need? A shift beyond imperialism and isolationism to internationalism. 

It is my opinion that the United States should focus in the long run on the improvement of the international system itself. Each of the candidates has not fundamentally addressed the root causes of the problems identified, namely, the lack of a system of global governance to solve problems individual states are unable to. It should be relatively obvious that Trump does not care about the world-system. His idea of a good world is one in which America is strong. In an increasingly interdependent world in which the borders between nation-states are dissolving, this nationalist position is as impractical as it is immoral. As for Clinton and Sanders, they seem to be focused on individual solutions to individual problems, holding out the promise of “international cooperation” as an antidote to climate change, terrorism, and trade. Though I am more sympathetic to their arguments, Sanders in particular, without a fundamentally just international system, none of these problems are solvable. Below I explain a little about our current international system, and posit some ways in which it must be reformed.

After World War II, the United States set up multiple interwoven systems to guarantee its global dominance. They include Bretton Woods, the system that regulated monetary relations globally, the IMF, the World Bank, and the United Nations. When I say “global dominance”, I do not mean to indicate that U.S. hegemony was totally negative in nature. It did allow a degree of prosperity globally, especially in U.S.-aligned states in Western Europe and Asia. However, it was a system that guaranteed the supremacy of the United States and, to a lesser extent, the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council: Britain, France, Russia, and China.

Conventional wisdom says the United States is a hegemon in decline. Regardless of the accuracy of this statement, we are certainly seeing what Fareed Zakaria describes as the “rise of the rest”, specifically the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) as well as many states in Africa. We are facing a century in which the United States will not have overwhelming authority it possessed in the past. And despite the horrible human rights abuses of the United States and its allies since 1945, I am hesitant to declare that China, the probable next hegemon, would be somehow more peaceful or responsible. A responsible world wouldn’t be bound by American or Chinese dominance. What then must we do?

The international system is changing, and the United States foreign policy apparatus should use its clout to move towards a more inclusive, just, democratic, and peaceful world order. How do we do this? A strong commitment to human rights, for one. It is difficult to speak as a moral authority when the nation is engaged in unjust wars, and the intelligence apparatus supports kleptocrats in the developing world. In the long run, we should strengthen, reform, and reshape multilateral institutions like the UN. The international system should be just and more permanent than whoever is in power.

I can’t give you specifics as to what an ideal world-system would look like. But I do know that Trump’s nationalism, and to a lesser extent the immediacy of Clinton and Sanders’ ideas, are fundamentally incapable of moving toward such a system.

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Since Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have so little experience with foreign affairs, it’s difficult to predict the direction of their foreign policy should the Republican ticket win the election. What we do know is that they strongly believe in “American exceptionalism.”

Frida Ghitis of the Miami Herald offers her opinion on CNN’s web site:

Regarding Afghanistan, the war in which Americans are serving and dying, Romney and Obama have, incredibly, largely avoided the topic. Despite vague criticisms, Romney is on record supporting Obama’s plan to remove American forces.

Romney once, a little bafflingly, declared that Russia is America’s main foe. In reality, whoever wins the election will need Russia’s cooperation on the global stage to counter vital and urgent problems.

Entire opinion piece

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One of the most crazy-making aspects of political news is having to listen to government double-speak, especially when it involves foreign policy. When the White House, or the State Department, or the military issues a foreign policy statement, I listen for the code words that are hiding the truth of what’s really going on. I listen because I know I’m not being told the truth about whose interests our government’s foreign policy agenda is serving.  The moral of the story is this:  In this age of American imperialism on steroids, when listening to the nightly news, you better be wearing your secret decoder ring.

“Stability” sounds reassuring, doesn’t it?

Terms like “humanitarian mission,”  “peace-keeping mission,” “American interests,” “national security,” or “stability” sound good. That’s because they are designed to elicit a sense of patriotism, idealism, and security for the majority of Americans. But they are sanitized terms that hide the real purpose of our hundreds of military bases around the world. This we can be sure of: those bases are not there to serve and protect you and me, or the people of our host countries. They are there to insure that corporations have access to natural resources, cheap labor, and markets. Many Americans vaguely know this, and, worse, believe that corporations having unfettered global access to what they want is good for America, but they know nothing of the ugly reality of U.S. aggression.

Young people are vulnerable to patriotic double-speak, which is used to manipulate them into joining our all volunteer army. If recruiters tell them they are needed to risk their lives to secure Wall Street profits, would they enlist?

Linguist Noam Chomsky on the code word “stability.”

Chomsky says “stability” means“conformity to American interests.” But, it helps to dig deeper. “American interests” are not your interests, or my interests, they are the interests of the upper 1%, and of Wall Street and  global mega-corporations. So, the question Chomsky urges us to ask when the word, “stability” shows up on the evening news is, stability for whom and for what purpose?

Stability is—it’s kind of like democracy. Stability means conformity to our interests. So, for example, when Iran tries to expand its influence in Afghanistan and Iraq—neighboring countries—that’s called “destabilizing.” It’s part of the threat of Iran. It’s destabilizing the region. On the other hand, when the U.S. invades those countries, occupies them, half destroys them, that’s to achieve stability. And that is very common, even to the point where it’s possible to write—[as did the] former editor of Foreign Affairs—that when the U.S. overthrew the democratic government in Chile and instituted a vicious dictatorship, that was because the U.S. had to destabilize Chile to achieve stability. That’s in one sentence, and nobody noticed it, because that’s correct, if you understand the meaning of the word “stability.” Yeah, you overthrow a parliamentary government, you install a dictatorship, you invade a country and kill 20,000 people, you invade Iraq and kill hundreds of thousands of people—that’s all bringing about stability. Instability is when anyone gets in the way.

Iraq was defined as “unstable” as is Libya today. You may think the U.S. went to war with both countries to get rid of  “unstable dictators” who posed a military threat to the United States. But that would be wrong. The United States has installed plenty of dictators to manage it’s many client states around the world. And neither Iraq or Libya posed a direct threat to the United States. What Iraq and Libya have in common is that they were/are independent nations that did not allow access to American corporations, or enough access to make the U.S. and other Western nations happy. Because they were not compliant and amenable to “American interests,” their leaders were considered unreliable “loose canons.”

Getting rid of loose canons

After the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, leveled much of Baghdad with a bombing campaign the Pentagon called “shock and awe,” and got rid of Saddam, Gadhafi tried to ward off threatened aggression on Libya by making political and economic concessions to the U.S and other Western countries. He opened the economy to foreign banks and corporations, and he agreed to IMF demands for structural adjustment, i.e., privatizing many state-owned enterprises and cutting state subsidies on necessities like food and fuel. But in 2010, he began to be “difficult” and demanded terms that were not to the oil companies, or the IMF’s liking. The U.S. supported rebels, who oppose Gaddafi, appeared in 2011, waving the flag of the Western backed monarch he deposed in a coup in 1969.

No matter what you hear from the podiums in the White House or the State Department, we are not in Libya for humanitarian reasons. We are there to remove Gaddafi and install a reliable U.S. dictator who will give oil companies unfettered access to large proven quantities of sweet crude (the most sought after oil in the world) and to limit China’s access to Libyan oil. Also, the old Wheelus Air Force Base near Tripoli will make a handy staging point for the recently formed U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM.

If you believe otherwise, then you really need to get a decoder ring.

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