What Does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Think About the South China Sea?
The rising left needs more foreign policy. Here’s how it can start.
By Daniel Bessner
Mr. Bessner is a historian of American foreign policy
As the insurgent left wing of the Democratic Party captures headlines and wins votes, many of its supporters are coalescing around a growing set of policy priorities: universal health care, higher taxes on the rich, the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But when it comes to matters of war and peace and to America’s place in the world, the left is either silent or confused.
In the 2016 Democratic presidential primary campaign, Bernie Sanders did not make foreign policy a focus. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently dismissed questions about the Israel-Palestine conflict by claiming she was “not the expert on geopolitics on this issue.” And as other candidates across the United States scramble to get votes from self-declared socialists by, say, supporting single-payer health care, few feel the need to appeal to the left on foreign policy.
To be fair, there are good reasons leftists haven’t grappled much with foreign policy. For one, there are few decision makers from whom they can learn: Since the early days of the Cold War, foreign policymaking has been dominated by a bipartisan commitment to militarism and American hegemony; those who depart from the consensus view have largely been kept out of the State Department, the Pentagon and other parts of the government. At the same time, the left itself lacks institutions dedicated to developing foreign policy ideas. While Republicans and moderate Democrats have a host of think tanks pushing interventionism, no corporation or billionaire has yet decided to fund a left-wing foreign policy think tank to which politicians could turn for advice.
But if the left wing of the Democratic Party wants to be taken seriously, it must speak convincingly about security and diplomacy. Without core, identifiable beliefs about foreign affairs, left-wing politicians will either embarrass themselves or repeat some version of the tired conventional wisdom. Moreover, there is an opportunity here: Just as many Americans are fed up with the economic status quo, so too are they fed up with business as usual in foreign policy.
A foreign policy for the left won’t emerge overnight. A conversation is just starting to take place, and it will continue as more socialists win power and shape American politics. Though a concrete agenda remains a ways off, there are five broad principles that merge the left’s commitment to egalitarianism and democracy with a sober analysis of the limits of American power.
Democracy
Left-wing politics is, at its heart, about giving power to ordinary people. Foreign policy, especially recently, has been about the opposite. Since the 1940s, unelected officials ensconced in bodies like the National Security Council have been the primary makers of foreign policy. This trend has worsened since the Sept. 11 attacks, as Congress has relinquished its oversight role and granted officials in the executive branch and the military carte blanche. Foreign policy elites have been anything but wise and have promoted several of the worst foreign policy blunders in American history, including the wars in Vietnam and Iraq.
The left should aim to bring democracy into foreign policy. This means taking some of the power away from the executive and, especially, White House institutions like the National Security Council and returning it to the hands of Congress. In particular, socialist politicians should push to reassert Congress’s long-abdicated role in declaring war, encourage more active oversight of the military and create bodies that make national security information available to the public so that Americans know exactly what their country is doing abroad.
Accountability
The American foreign policy establishment is notoriously forgiving — of itself. Rarely are policymakers held to account when they offer bad advice, such as supporting a disastrous war in Iraq or helping organize torture or assassinations. This amnesia has plagued Democrats and Republicans alike.
This unaccountability cannot continue. A system that does not punish poor foreign-policy making is a system doomed to repeat its mistakes. Politicians on the left should make this a core tenet of their approach to foreign policy by promising that when they are elected, they will hold decision makers and advisers professionally accountable.
But professional accountability is not enough. The left should demand that those who violated domestic or international law see justice, even if that means prosecuting them. It will enable the left to demonstrate to both the American people and the international community that it is serious about the rule of law.
Anti-militarism
The United States controls roughly 800 military bases in dozens of countries around the world. This is far more than any other power. The United States also spends more on its military than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Britain and Japan combined. American Special Operations forces were deployed to 149 countries as of last year. Reducing this military footprint, and thus lessening the havoc the United States wreaks abroad, must be a priority for the left.
This reduction should be framed as both a foreign policy goal and an issue of domestic justice. It is unconscionable that the United States spends so much on its military while inequality grows and social programs are underfunded. Cutting military spending will also address another priority of the left: corruption. As William Hartung at the Center for International Policy has argued, almost half of the military budget goes to private corporations that squander our tax dollars “on useless overhead, fat executive salaries and startling (yet commonplace) cost overruns on weapons systems and other military hardware that, in the end, won’t even perform as promised.” A less militaristic United States is a more just United States.
Threat deflation
We can bring our troops home and cut the military budget because the United States doesn’t face any serious external challengers. North Korea, Iran, the Islamic State, Russia and China can’t challenge American sovereignty in the ways Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did. While there are admittedly serious global threats, none are existential and none are unmanageable. But for too long, politicians have inflated international threats to justify military adventurism, boost military spending, increase domestic surveillance and campaign on a politics of fear.
The left should change that. Candidates and policymakers alike should educate the public about the United States’ relative safety. Such education will encourage a military drawdown, engender a more honest domestic politics and protect Americans’ civil liberties.
Internationalism
None of this means the United States should retreat from the world. Rather, America should engage with other countries through peaceful diplomacy. An important first step would be to embrace international treaties and institutions endorsed by most nations, like the Paris Agreement on climate change and the International Criminal Court. Moreover, policymakers should urge disarmament talks with all major powers and reinstate the Iran nuclear deal.
The left should also commit itself to reducing global economic inequality by reordering the hierarchical relationships that benefit rich countries over poor ones. For example, the left should not allow American-led corporations to use underpaid and abused workers to produce inexpensive products. Policymakers should also prevent the wealthy from avoiding taxation by working with foreign countries to shutter tax havens.
Finally, the left should take human rights seriously. In particular, left-wing foreign-policy makers should pressure allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel to stop committing human rights abuses by withholding arms transfers and other forms of assistance.
What’s next?
A democratic socialist left is shaping the conversation in American politics right now. This makes it necessary for left-wing politicians to think beyond bread-and-butter issues and to develop new ways of approaching the United States’ world role. An explicit program may not yet exist, but the five principles discussed above can serve as the base upon which future leaders can build a left-wing foreign policy that ushers in a more just and peaceful era.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/opinion/democratic-party-cortez-foreign-policy.html
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by Zuper Sun Sep 02, 2018 11:10 am
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