Thoughts on a Post-Obama Foreign Policy: A "Holistic" Approach (Part I)

I always have envied the loonies' ability to borrow language from other fields and apply it to their causes and slogans. One such word is "synergy," another, my favorite, is "holistic." I love that word. It conjures up incense, herbal tea, a small silver bell ringing rhythmically, some George Harrison in the background, soft cotton cloth, a yogi or two . . ..


Being a hard-hearted right winger, I generally don't get to use  "synergy," or "holistic," in fact, I don't think I ever have used either. That ends today: I advocate that the GOP advocate a "holistic" approach to foreign policy which understands the "synergy" between domestic and foreign affairs.


We start with the basics. Foreign policy is important. It should not be an afterthought, or something left to the naive, the incompetent, the ignorant, or the malicious, i.e., the Obama administration. Securing foreign markets, for example, can prove a major source of jobs, as I have noted before. Even more important, however, foreign affairs can get you killed. We need go back no further than September 11, 2001, to see a grotesque reminder of how the outside world can come calling. Simply put, there are people who want to kill us, all of us, men, women, children, old, young, Democrat, Republican, independent, white, black, brown, Christian, Jew, agnostic, atheist, etc. Some are so eager to kill us that they willingly die to do so. I repeat: foreign affairs can get you and your family killed, and right in your home or work place. We saw it on 9/11/2001; on 12/7/1941; and almost saw it during thirteen days in October 1962, when JFK nearly got into WWIII because he did not have the vision, intelligence, and gumption to get rid of Castro when he had the opportunity, an opportunity bought with the blood of brave Cuban freedom fighters in April 1961. They want to kill us, crush us, and conquer us, because of who we are. What we, a mix of races, religions, and creeds, have accomplished has defied and continues to defy the predictions and prescriptions of royalists, Nazis, Fascists, Marxists, populists, jihadists, and all-knowing UN and EU bureaucrats.


The current mis-administration has, at best, no understanding of the importance of the United States in the world, and, at worst, the conscious aim of making us "just another country." The first step, therefore, to developing a foreign policy is to decide how you view the USA. If you view us as Andorra with guns, then the Obamaistas are for you. I, on the other hand, view America, as I think most Americans do, as a country that from its creation has played a unique role in fomenting freedom, prosperity, and opportunity here and abroad.  Interestingly, Britain's National Army Museum last week voted George Washington to have been the British Empire's greatest military foe, ahead of Michael Collins, Rommel, Napoleon, and Ataturk. That is a very astute conclusion. The nation that Washington helped create, for all its flaws, moral lapses, and excesses, has been the world's greatest foe of empires, kings, dictators and oppression; it has been and remains the most open and least xenophobic society ever to exist, and history's most successful country by almost any measure. The United States matters a great deal because of its military power and wealth, but above all for its ability to generate and implement revolutionary ideas in politics, culture, and economics.


In Part II, I will get down to brass tacks, with recommendations on repairing the damage done by Obama.