America Needs A Transformative Foreign Policy
NPP Pressroom
Forbes
William Hartung
07/14/2020
The COVID-19 crisis and the movement for racial justice have transformed the debate on what makes Americans safe, from calls to shift Pentagon spending to public health infrastructure to demands for defunding of the police. But Congress and the presidential candidates have lagged behind public sentiment on many of these issues, most notably the need for a radical rethinking of U.S. foreign and military policies.
Donald Trump has been transformative in certain respects, almost all of them negative – denigrating allies, rejecting climate science, pulling out of the World Health Organization at a time when global collaboration on public health is urgently needed, dismantling decades of arms control agreements, and implementing harsh immigration policies that are further isolating the United States from the rest of the world. And in the few cases where he has made promising moves – by seeking direct talks with Kim Jong-Un and proposing reductions or withdrawals of U.S. troops from Syria, Afghanistan, and Germany – he has either botched the execution of these policies or faced fierce opposition from the bipartisan foreign policy establishment.
Historically Joe Biden has promoted moderate policies at best – policies, which, nonetheless, would be far better than our current approach. But at first glance there is no reason to believe that he would go much beyond the policies of the Obama administration. This is not to suggest that there are not positive elements to his proposed policies, from pledging to revive the Iran nuclear deal to stopping arms to the Saudi coalition that continues to wage a devastating war on Yemen to a commitment to revive arms control discussions with Russia.
Missing from this picture is any suggestion that a Biden administration would substantially reduce the Pentagon’s bloated budget, which, as the National Priorities Project has pointed out, now accounts for 55% of the U.S. government’s discretionary budget, more than the country spends on public health, education, environmental protection, housing infrastructure, employment, and scientific research combined. Without substantial reductions in Pentagon spending, there won’t be much left for what should be more urgent priorities.
The COVID-19 crisis and the movement for racial justice have transformed the debate on what makes Americans safe, from calls to shift Pentagon spending to public health infrastructure to demands for defunding of the police. But Congress and the presidential candidates have lagged behind public sentiment on many of these issues, most notably the need for a radical rethinking of U.S. foreign and military policies.
Donald Trump has been transformative in certain respects, almost all of them negative – denigrating allies, rejecting climate science, pulling out of the World Health Organization at a time when global collaboration on public health is urgently needed, dismantling decades of arms control agreements, and implementing harsh immigration policies that are further isolating the United States from the rest of the world. And in the few cases where he has made promising moves – by seeking direct talks with Kim Jong-Un and proposing reductions or withdrawals of U.S. troops from Syria, Afghanistan, and Germany – he has either botched the execution of these policies or faced fierce opposition from the bipartisan foreign policy establishment.
Historically Joe Biden has promoted moderate policies at best – policies, which, nonetheless, would be far better than our current approach. But at first glance there is no reason to believe that he would go much beyond the policies of the Obama administration. This is not to suggest that there are not positive elements to his proposed policies, from pledging to revive the Iran nuclear deal to stopping arms to the Saudi coalition that continues to wage a devastating war on Yemen to a commitment to revive arms control discussions with Russia.
Missing from this picture is any suggestion that a Biden administration would substantially reduce the Pentagon’s bloated budget, which, as the National Priorities Project has pointed out, now accounts for 55% of the U.S. government’s discretionary budget, more than the country spends on public health, education, environmental protection, housing infrastructure, employment, and scientific research combined. Without substantial reductions in Pentagon spending, there won’t be much left for what should be more urgent priorities.
Biden has also outlined a much bolder plan on climate change than he put forward earlier in the campaign, in part no doubt due to the influence of Bernie Sanders and his advisors, who have created joint task forces on a wide array of policy issues.
It would be a huge step forward if Biden would follow Sanders lead on Pentagon spending. The Senator from Vermont – joined by his House colleagues Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) – are pressing amendments that would cut Pentagon spending by 10%, freeing up over $70 billion to spend on public health, jobs, housing, education, and criminal justice reform in disadvantaged communities. And while the measures will no doubt face stiff opposition from the arms lobby and its allies on Capitol Hill, they are in reality a modest but crucial first step towards reordering our national priorities.
As Representatives Lee and Pocan noted in a recent piece in Newsweek, a $70-billion plus cut could go along way towards funding public health, early childhood education, clean energy, expanding the availability of affordable housing, and more. To cite just one example, the savings from a 10% cut in the Pentagon’s budget could pay for “680 million coronavirus tests, over 720 million N95 respirator masks, and provide health care to over 10.3 million low-income children” or create almost a million jobs in the clean energy sector.
And as Erica Fein of Win Without War and national security analyst Joe Cirincione have pointed out in an article at Defense One “going bold” on the creation of a an alternative approach to defense is both good policy and good politics. The public is ready for real change, not just incremental steps.
It remains to be seen whether political candidates and office holders seize this moment. But if they don’t, we can expect a continuing decline in the safety, security, and prosperity of the American public.