Towards a Pro-America, Pro-West Foreign Policy

For years, I have written in this humble blog that Obama and his team have created an unprecedented foreign policy disaster. The disaster bequeathed to President Trump is even greater than that left to President Reagan by Carter. The Carter mess, except for Iran, was relatively easy to correct, and Reagan did so with gusto and efficiency--bye, bye USSR. The Obama mess (see here and here, for example) is much more profound and dangerous, but it, too, can be fixed. I will provide a few steps that we need to take, in my view, to begin to fix our broken foreign policy.

The first step has already been taken: we have elected a President who, it certainly appears, wants America to "win." That seems almost needless to say but given that we currently have a President who openly stated he can't be bothered by concerns over whether or not America is winning, and a Secretary of State who infamously declared that it made no "difference" what had generated the Benghazi massacre, well, one can see that even a baby step in the right direction, is a step in the right direction--and to be welcomed.

A key component of power is leadership, a leadership committed to "winning" and a leader who has his people's back. We haven't had that for some time. It seems that Trump will be different; I can't imagine a President Trump abandoning his people to the jihadi mob in Benghazi, for example. Leadership can and does prove a power multiplier. We see that with Putin who heads up a nation much, much weaker than the USA, but who has played his hand masterfully, and greatly enhanced Russia's role in the world. We don't have to like Putin to acknowledge this.

Besides leadership, the primary requirement for successful diplomacy is wedding diplomacy to power. The two go together. We see, for example, Secretary Kerry's increasingly futile "efforts" in Syria which are hampered both by a lack of vision of an end game, and, of course, by an incompetent almost non-existent use of American power--I see Kerry is now beclowning himself in Antarctica. We have had an administration which has refused to recognize that successful American diplomacy requires a powerful military component and a leadership willing to pull the trigger. Yes, pull the trigger. We need right away to start a vigorous rebuilding of our military capabilities, and get the military away from distractions such as LGBT restrooms and lowering standards to get women into the Rangers.

Our military and diplomacy institutions must work closely with our allies, who must be encouraged to build up their own forces--Britain, in particular, needs to restore its once-formibable military clout. I would argue for a reinvigoration of the Anglosphere alliance, with Israel as an honorary member. We all confront similar threats to the existence of our nations, and will have to work together in confronting a nuclear armed Iran (Thanks Obama!) and the ever-present threat of jihadi terror. I see no reason for our current tense relations with Russia. We do not need to like or approve of Russia's government, but we should recognize that Russia could and would prove a formidable ally in confronting the jihadis, and in a flip of Nixon's China policy, in helping restrain growing Chinese big power aspirations. We should have no illusions about Russia but we should not be deluded about them, either. Russia is not a threat and offers an opportunity.

All power--sorry Mao--does not "grow out of the barrel of a gun." There are other key aspects to restoring American and Western power. One, of course, is energy independence. Despite absurd government policies, we have not been this close to having energy independence in many generations. That independence is a matter of economic prosperity and national security. We must develop our domestic energy resources, gas, oil, coal, nuclear, so that we cannot be blackmailed by tin-horn dictators or others wishing us harm. The US, Canada, UK, and Australia can achieve energy independence. We have to put in the casket all those idiotic "global climate warming cooling changing" so-called "theories" and recognize them for the dangerous and expensive hoaxes that they are. The polar bears are doing fine, thank you, better than our coal miners, in fact.

Energy independence will give us tremendous freedom of action on the world scene. OPEC is in collapse, and we should make sure that it continues so. It will also contribute to another key component of power, a prosperous and vigorous economy. Part of restoring our status in the world comes from having a growing economy, one that actually invents, designs and makes things. What a shock! Making things is important. I know the libertarians will disagree, but there are non-macro-economic factors to consider when choosing an economic policy. In theory, yes, free trade, natural allocation of resources, all that stuff is fine. In the real world, all that must be tempered by other considerations. For example, it might make more purely economic sense for the US and the West to buy our weaponry from China . . .  I think you can see the problem with going down that avenue. Part of restoring our power involves freeing as much as possible of the economy from regulation and taxation. The entrepreneurial spirit must flourish. Some restraints, however, will be needed to protect the nation. That's the way it is in the real world.

A sane immigration policy is also a requirement for re-establishing our power and protecting our economy. We must decide how much, if any, immigration we need (see here and here, for example, for previous discussions.) We need to enforce our existing immigration laws, and, yes, deport those we catch who are here illegally. The law must be respected. We should defend our southern border against the invasion to which it is now subjected. This is not racist or xenophobic. This is a matter of preserving our prosperity, sovereignty, laws, and, yes, culture--nothing wrong with that. We have the right, as do all nations, to decide who can and cannot come live in the country. There is no Constitutional or internationally recognized right to immigrate to the United States, or Britain, or Canada, or Australia, or anywhere else. I hope, in fact, that all those progressives "threatening" to move to Canada and Australia discover that Canada and Australia might not want them . . . and have no obligation to take them, even if it would make America a better place . . .

We cannot abuse our power. While we must never take orders from the UN or other international fora, we must recognize limits to what we can and should do in the world. We will have to deal with regimes we find unseemly and even odious. That's the way of the world. Most of the world will never become a Jeffersonian democracy, and we cannot expend our blood and treasure chasing that dream. Foreign policy cannot be a projection of domestic issues. There are vile totalitarian ideologies out there, one masquerading as a religion, which seek to subjugate and conquer us. Those can be resisted without engaging in silly nation-building exercises. Our military power must be overwhelming, but used only as a last resort--but when that resort is reached, it should be used overwhelmingly.

As Bastiat reminds us, there are always "unintended consequences." Whenever we undertake an action, we set in motion forces that we do not initially see or understand, and that could have serious consequences in the future. Rumsfeld said it best, "the unknown unknowns." While we need to try to foresee those consequences as best we can in our limited human way, we cannot let the fact that we will not usually succeed paralyze us. At times we have to deal with the immediate threat and worry about the future later. Defeating Nazi Germany and Shintoist Japan, for example, took precedence over worrying about creating power vacuums in Europe and Asia. Jihadis are a bigger threat than climate "change." One real enemy at a time.

Thanks to Donald Trump and the voters, we have a chance to step back from the edge of the cliff. Let's not waste it.