“Alexander Hamilton said, ‘A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.’ Let's set the record straight. There is no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there is only one guaranteed way you can have peace — and you can have it in the next second — surrender." - Ronald Reagan, 1964
If there is said to be one overriding National Interest, it would without doubt be National Security. One of the main anchors of National Security is American Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy is the face that each Administration develops and presents to the outside world, to friends and foes alike. Until recently, American Foreign Policy differences among Americans stopped at our shoreline.
The reader will notice that I have quoted Democrats, Republicans, and a Federalist. I have quoted Ronald Reagan twice; Reagan was an FDR supporter long before he became a Conservative icon. I have chosen these quotes for the remarkably strong resolve that these famous Presidents showed regarding our American Foreign Policy. All of these Presidents lived during turbulent, and dangerous times.
Indeed, it is difficult to find an era during our Constitutional Republic’s nearly 230 year history as a free nation in which the world was not a dangerous place. During our fledgling years, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars raged in Europe. European intrigues in the Caribbean led James Monroe to state the famous “Monroe Doctrine.” This doctrine declared that the Western Hemisphere was to remain free of foreign influences. This doctrine established the US, by default, as a virtual guarantor of fledgling democratic governments in Latin and South America. This was bold statement made by a nation who was barely forty years old herself. Even during our own Civil War Years, there was remarkably little disrespect for this Doctrine.
The Monroe Doctrine, coupled with a warning by Washington and Jefferson to avoid permanent alliances, served us well until the advent of the 20th Century. At that time, unsettled grudges in Europe, races to establish colonial outposts in the Pacific and Africa forced the United States to realize that oceans were no longer a protector of our National Security. This, coupled with a world-wide arms race and a rush to develop “blue water” navies throughout the Northern Hemisphere forced the United States to rethink its place and purpose in the world. Theodore Roosevelt’s response to the world was to, “Walk softly and carry a big stick.” Our subsequent participation in World War I, “the war to end all wars,” was a response to Germany violating Wilson’s “Armed Neutrality” in 1916. This changed our Foreign Policy objectives. The Treaty of Versailles in1919 only hardened European antagonisms. The totalitarians of the day sought to even the scores of the past. FDR noted in 1940, America could not long ignore the growing threats of Fascism, Nazism, and Japanese Imperialism. America had to become an “Arsenal of Democracy.”
The Post World War II until the present had been characterized, until recently, by a Cold War. With its bipolarity, the Cold War ironically and cruelly stabilized the world by the very real threat of nuclear “Mutual Assured Destruction.” Since the 1970s the world has watched impotently as more nations have attempted to develop nuclear weapons, as terrorists and anarchists seek to bring down the West, as Radical Islam seeks to destroy Israel and the United States [the Little, and the Big Satan respectively] and replace them with Islamic rule. It is indeed easy to understand Ronald Reagan’s vision for America: Freedom is indeed “never more than one generation from extinction.” Truly, the only instant guarantee of peace in this world would be instant surrender to our enemies. America arguably until now, has never had a President who preferred “disgrace to danger” with the possible exception of the hapless Jimmy Carter. His limp response to the terrorist Iranian regime’s “Hostage Crisis” in 1979 resulted in the election of Ronald Reagan. This crisis ended the day Ronald Reagan assumed the Presidency. This is significant.
January 20, Inauguration Day 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States. Even prior to his winning the 2008 Presidential Election, “Citizen of the World” Barack Obama was visiting Europe, criticizing America and apologizing for our “mistakes.” This continued after his election with another Bush-bashing apology tour to Europe and Muslim Turkey in April 2007, and then in Cairo Egypt to the Muslim World in June 2009. Citing past American Foreign Policy arrogance and hubris seems to be Mr. Obama’s forte. God forbid that he would ever recognize and apologize for his own. I am almost struck dumb that a President can claim to honor the blood and sacrifice of Americans in the Middle East to liberate tens of millions from brutal tyranny, while simultaneously condemning the Bush effort to “Democratize” Muslim nations. President Obama’s alternating good cop - bad cop approach to Iran’s obstinate refusal to abandon it’s quest for nuclear weapons is laughable. Indeed the Iranians do laugh at him and his “ferocious” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [John Foster Dulles she is not. Ms. Clinton is not even in the same league as Dean Acheson].
Fast reverse to North Korea. North Korea is no longer an “axis of evil.” President Obama has no credible position from which to deal with this rogue nation. Indeed there must be no bargaining. A July 4, 2009 missile test by North Korea presented a glorious opportunity to test our anti-missile defenses, or at least pose a threaten to use them. Instead, Mr. Obama chose only to express grave concerns and condemnations … this to a nation that has thumbed its nose at the United States and the West for almost sixty years. Mr. Obama even debased the Presidency and former President Bill Clinton by sending him on a groveling-mission to Kim Jong-Il to obtain the release of two wayward reporters. I wonder what we secretly had to give that black-mailer, Kim, in return? Recall the lack of American outrage? Now hearken again to Alexander Hamilton‘s Foreign Policy admonition warning, “
A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one.”
President Obama, who has “the blood of Africa within me” promised African nations increased social and economic development. To date, George W. Bush is still the one American President who promised much to Africa and delivered on that promise. We are still waiting on Mr. Obama. It seems he cannot focus on more than one item at a time, so obsessed with National Health care is he.
And what of Indian-Pakistani tensions? Can anyone explain American Foreign Policy objectives there? I can. There are none, nada, zip … save what some third level Undersecretary of State might be able to pull off the shelf. God help us if those two nations decide to go toe to toe. I doubt they will respond to a summit where we serve S’mores and sing Kumbaya. Speaking of Pakistan, how do you think the Pakistanis regard a US President who has unilaterally stated a willingness to violate Pakistan’s national sovereignty in the US pursuit of Osama bin Laden? I find this all to be incredibly naïve ineptitude … appalling. Then again, perhaps Mr. Obama is prepared to answer such tough questions, but has just never been asked to the dance by the media. Don’t even get me started on Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama went to Russia in July 2009. President Medvedev was unimpressed; PM Putin was unimpressed; the Russian people hardened by years of Soviet Communist Party flim-flam artists were unimpressed. Obama came home with nothing in hand. But make no mistake, the Russians took the measure of this man and Obama blinked first. Let’s hope that there is no Venezuelan Missile Crisis on the horizon. Presidents Medvedev and Chavez are, after all, new good buddies.
And what of the Chinese? For a man who worships at the altar of the New Deal, what in the world can President Obama be thinking by starting a tariff war with China … over tires no less! I do not believe it to be very wise, in spite of ideological differences with China, to repudiate in any way this major trading partner who holds nearly $750 Billion of our debt [yes folks, the size of the Obama Stimulus]. The Chinese hold even more of our debt than our erstwhile ally and major trading partner, Japan, who holds nearly $600 Billion of our debt.
And then, there is our stalwart ally and bastion of freedom in the Middle East, Israel. If PM Netanyahu finds himself making clandestine visits to Russia seeking help in dealing with Iran, what does this say about our Foreign Policy toward Israel. If you were Iran, would you think the US would come to the aid of Israel? The fact that I even pose such a hypothetical shows how our relations with Israel have deteriorated. The Eastern European nations share the same dubious circumstances as their Israeli cousins. Mr. Obama has thrown them under the bus too after they stuck their necks out to support Bush’s anti-missile defense initiative. The Czechs, Poles and Romanians have been left in the lurch by Mr. Obama… no rock star status there.
Indeed, the only area of the world where there is yet to be a question about our commitments is in Europe where Mr. Obama enjoys true rock star status. Understand this, the Europeans have become almost childlike in their elitist intellectualism. They are the distant Socialist forerunners of the cattle-like, “Eloi” sub-race described in HG Wells’ novel, “The Time Machine.” But this is just as well. With the exception of Great Britain, Canada, and Australia, the rest of the Western European Nations [with one or two exceptions] can be counted on to fold like a cheap suit in any major Foreign Policy Crisis … plenty of justification for avoiding permanent or entangling alliances.
All of this in sum causes me to wonder, Mr. Obama, “What is your Foreign Policy plan?" We are in in deep “kimchi” folks. I don‘t think there is one. There has not been one comprehensive Foreign Policy statement by Obama that I can remember, and we are eight months into this Administration [I know it seems longer]. My analysis compels me to demand that President Obama tell us: what the parameters of American Foreign policy; who are our friends;, and which specific lines are not to be crossed or tested.
Prior to the Bush Administration, criticism of America and American Foreign Policy stopped at the shoreline. I fear that the Democrats have screwed that up for the foreseeable future. Their own Party’s President, the current President of the United States, feels free to continue the Blame America and bash Bush as their official American Foreign policy.
If I could ask the scholarly Charlie Gibson one question, it would be this, “Mr. Gibson, what is the Obama Doctrine?” I believe his reply would likely be, “Colonel Mann, in what respect?”
