American foreign policy

Two weeks ago, while speaking to Revd Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, America’s ambassador to the United Nations said ‘When we raise issues of equity and justice at the global scale, we have to approach them with humility. We have to acknowledge that we are an imperfect union – and have been since the beginning — and every day we strive to make ourselves more perfect, and more just.’ She said that she had recently spoken to the UN General Assembly about growing up in the segregated South adding ‘I shared these stories and others to acknowledge, on the international stage, that I have personally experienced one of America’s greatest imperfections.

Age matters in Japan, so when Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga (73) sat down for talks with President Biden (78), deference to his ‘senpai’ (senior) colleague would have been his default setting. But from the looks of the joint statement following their summit, he seems to have held his own. The main issue, it seems, was China. Japan wanted assurances from the US that their claim to the Senkaku Islands would be respected. The islands’ status is covered by the US/Japan security treaty, but as China routinely sends its own fishing boats to menace Japanese vessels, Suga was looking for a reaffirmation of American support.

I am no fan of Trump, but what Joe Biden said in a recent interview with George Stephanopoulos made me almost nostalgic for some aspects of the last presidency. When Biden was asked if he believes Putin to be a killer, he replied, 'I do.’ He also confirmed reports that in 2011, while serving as vice president, he personally told Putin that Putin does not 'have a soul’. Putin’s reply was quick and masterful: he wished Biden best health and inviting him to a public debate about big existential and ethical issues on Zoom. Biden’s strong words stand in sharp contrast to Trump who, in 2017, when the Fox News host Bill O’Reilly called Putin a 'killer’, suggested that America’s conduct was just as bad as that of the Russian president.

Thoughtful observers of life often comment on the richness of the English language, its huge polyglot vocabulary, its precision, it sinewy expressiveness. It is doubtless politically incorrect to say so, but English has also shown itself to be a conspicuous ally of political liberty. I have commented on this in the past, noting that 'there seems to be some deep connection between the English language and that most uncommon virtue, common sense'. Speakers of English can be plenty extravagant, it may go without saying, but there is something about English — exactly why, I do not know — that acts to tether thought to the empirical world.

The world has many island nations, and sometimes the United States counts itself among them. We have water on either side of us, and though we share our big island with Canada and Mexico, neither poses any threat. America is immune to invasion, a castle surrounded by the safest of moats. This wasn’t always so, and it isn’t really true today, unless we forget about Hawaii and our Pacific and Caribbean territories, most of which would be easy prey for other states if they weren’t under our sovereignty. In the earliest days of the republic, we shared the North American continent with outposts of Europe’s leading powers: France, Russia, Spain and Britain.

There is an endless stream of commentary on what a Biden administration will do in foreign and domestic policy. Some writers seem prescient, others seem like gossip and speculation. However, you need not be a Beltway policy wonk to understand the moral, spiritual and ethical outlook of the Establishment elites who will be on Biden’s staff — and therefore to know what their policy prescriptions will entail.Classical political philosophy understood that all political problems are downstream from moral and spiritual problems. And, in the 18th century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau destroyed the West’s understanding of morality and spirituality, setting the stage for our current confusions.

It’s of course premature to even speculate as to how the new administration will fashion a foreign policy. But enough declarations have been made to give an outline, so let us imagine the policies that might emerge.The Founders never really envisioned foreign relations being a major preoccupation of America when they drew up the US Constitution. ‘Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none,’ Thomas Jefferson famously admonished. In a document that brilliantly balances the government’s power and reach between executive, legislative and judicial branches, the executive is left with virtual control over making foreign policy, for little of that was expected.

Americans have never been sure of their standing in the world, and the world has never been sure of Americans’ standing. In their first century as a nation, Americans believed that their principles made their civilization not just different but also better than Europe’s. Meanwhile, the intellectual and political leaders of Europe were unconvinced that America was a civilization at all. In their second century as a nation, other, older civilizations were obliged to admit that Americans were not just different: they were better at modern life. The Americans achieved this recognition first by the force of their industrial and military power, and then by the flattery that other civilizations could become equally forceful and seductive by adopting the American way of life.

America’s longest war has just entered its 20th year. The US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to overthrow the Taliban and destroy al-Qaeda. Now, nearly a decade after the death of Osama bin Laden, the Afghan war continues. And everyone expects that if the Americans ever leave, the Taliban will return to power. Yet the Taliban who take charge will not be the same as those who harbored bin Laden. The median age in Afghanistan is around 19 years old: half the country’s population was born after the war began. The US is not fighting a limited reservoir of Taliban militants; it is fighting a cultural force that has renewed itself over a generation.

In just over a week, the Empire hopes to strike back. Joe Biden personifies the foreign policy of endless war that Democrats and neoconservatives pursued for 25 years, from the end of the Cold War until the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Biden voted for the biggest and most foolish intervention of that era, the Iraq War of 2003. He has not so much repudiated this act as tried to exculpate himself for it, claiming that in voting to authorize military force he didn’t think military force would be used. This is not credible on its face, and not the way anyone understood the vote at the time. It was as clear a vote for war as any vote has been since World War Two.

Dear America,Two-hundred-and-forty-four years ago, the resolve, courage, and wisdom of your Founding Fathers forever changed the course of history. For the first time, with the ratification of your Declaration of Independence, mankind was offered an unmatched societal ideal. Human beings were recognized for what we truly are by nature: all created free and equal, endowed with unalienable rights derive from our Creator. With your Constitution, your Founders sealed these God given rights, and protected them by instituting a limited form of self-government along with a robust justice system.This, America, is what makes your nation exceptional. It is why you have stood as a beacon of democracy and hope for all subjugated peoples over the past two centuries.

Why should the United States prop up the defense of Germany, the richest country in Europe — and against Russia, Germany’s closest energy partner?Two reasons. One is what the sociologists call ‘path dependency’. The US has had troops in Germany since the winter of 1944, and the Cold War and Nato turned military occupation into strategic alliance. Since 1990, a vast machinery of budgets and employments, civilian and military, has perpetuated a strategy for a conflict that no longer exists. As British soldiers used to sing, ‘We’re here because we’re here because we’re here.’ This is not a good reason for risking American lives.The other reason that American forces are there is because they have to be somewhere near there.

This article is in The Spectator’s March 2020 US edition. Subscribe here. What would a Michael Bloomberg foreign policy look like? A total smoking ban across the Middle East seems imminent, even if it does risk spawning a new generation of pro-hookah jihadists. Fresh sanctions would likely be imposed on enemies of the West, including Iran and salt. Air superiority would be prioritized, especially as it pertains to illegally landing one’s personal helicopter in midtown Manhattan. Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess. Bloomberg has spent most of his career codifying class snobbery through petty regulations, and, while that’s a potent recipe for being annoying at home, it doesn’t really lend itself to a coherent agenda abroad.