A "Do No Harm" Foreign Policy

As a former US diplomat and someone who advocated for the US to help stop the genocide in Bosnia, I've been a strong internationalist my whole life.  I have believed that the US should use its role as a superpower to help others, to support human rights and make the world a safer, better place whenever possible.  That didn't mean I thought we should intervene in every conflict or genocide around the world, or that supporting human rights in, say, China, was more important than every other US national interest.  But I thought we should be actively engaged and helping out whenever possible. We did a lot of good during the Cold War promoting human rights in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and those efforts helped support and encourage the people who eventually toppled those regimes two decades ago.

But I am starting to wonder.  Yes, we should care about others.  But I think we pay a lot of lip service these days to "human rights" while ignoring the considerable harm we do, intentionally or not, every day.  And I think we over-promise and overextend ourselves, and we can no longer afford to do so.

So my new foreign policy paradigm is that we should "do no harm" while getting our own house in order.

Getting Our House in Order
First off, we should make sure we complete our military withdrawal from Iraq this year, while fully funding the State Department's expanding operations intended to build on our success to date.  Second, we should withdraw from Afghanistan.  I fear that we will be there forever, but I don't think the investment of blood and treasure is paying off or will pay off.  In terms of long-term, vital US interests, there are better ways to invest our money and use our military than battling the Taliban and trying to turn the Karzai government into a stable government for that country.

I am sick and tired of the Middle East being the most important region in the world, just because we're addicted to oil and have refused for decades to do anything serious about it.  While President Obama has significantly increased government investments in new energy technology, it's not enough.  Let's be audacious and invoke a little bit of JFK's magic:  let's rid ourselves of our oil addiction by 2020.  Don't tell me it's impossible.  We went to the moon in less than a decade - over 40 years ago!  Don't tell me it's not important - how many Americans have died, and how much money has been wasted, just because of this addiction?  How can we go to the pump and pay for gasoline that came from Saudi Arabia, when some of that money will end up financing terrorists trying to kill Americans and other innocent civilians around the world?  Yes, the Middle East will always matter because Israel's security will always matter to us, but let's remove oil as the primary reason.

We also should examine ways to make more cuts in our defense budget.  I've always been a defense hawk, but we can't afford the military budget we have right now, and we're clearly not willing to pay for it.  We are willing to borrow from our kids and grandkids, but if we don't fix the budget deficit soon, our fiscal calamity will force even more draconian cuts later on.  Now, we still need a military that can project power around the world and protect our vital interests, but right now the military-industrial complex is running wild.  We have real and potential threats we need to defend against - North Korea and Iran come to mind - and we need to make sure that every defense dollar is spent actually making us safer.  Sometimes, I think we just look at the hundreds of billions going toward defense each year and assume we must be really safe because we spend so much.  That's a dangerous assumption.

In addition, drawing down in Iraq and Afghanistan hopefully will allow us to drastically reduce our dependence on military contractors, which has cost us untold billions.  We need to make sure that we restructure our military so that contractors like Blackwater are no longer hired as mercenaries to take the place of our professional soldiers.  You want contractors to handle building and staffing the mess hall - fine.  But we should not be using contractors to fight our wars.  We should not be using US tax dollars to finance the creation of private armies.  Period.

Fixing the budget deficit isn't rocket science.  It just requires us to act like responsible adults.  It means agreeing that, except in recessions or extraordinary economic crises (like the last two years), we will all agree to pay for our government and to expect only the government we are willing to pay for.  I have addressed - and will again - this challenge elsewhere on this blog, but suffice it to say that some relatively minor tweaks will fix Social Security, while additional healthcare reforms will be needed to slow the growth of Medicare.  And we will need to raise taxes - primarily on the wealthy and, probably, on consumption, through a value added tax of some kind.

We also need to shift our spending priorities.  Say goodbye to oil and corn subsidies, hello to rebuilding and modernizing our infrastructure.  As mentioned earlier, we need even more investments in new energy.  We need to change how we fund our schools as we try to make them more effective.  We need to rebuild America as we reinvent it for the 21st Century and beyond.

Do No Harm
We talk a lot about other people's human rights.  During the current state visit by China's president, the Obama administration is struggling to defend its record on human rights in China.  Now, I do want people in China to have more freedoms, and I want the people of Tibet to have their rights and autonomy restored.  But while we talk a lot about those issues and accomplish relatively little (other than ticking off the Chinese government), we do a lot of harm collectively and individually every day.

We buy mutual funds that invest in companies doing business in Sudan, effectively funding the genocide in Darfur.  We buy cell phones and computers that use materials mined in eastern Congo, effectively funding the worst crimes against humanity on the planet.  We do little to stem the use of illicit drugs bought in the US by our kids, which buys the guns used by Mexican drug gangs to kill thousands each year in a war that is turning Mexico into a failed state and is threatening our own national security.  We buy clothes manufactured in sweat shops employing children and underpaid laborers, often working in dangerous conditions around the world.  Largely because of our oil addiction, though partly to protect Israel, we spend billions propping up corrupt regimes in the Middle East that deny their own citizens fundamental human rights.  We avoid serious efforts to reduce carbon emissions that are warming the planet and changing the climate to the point that people are dying and millions more are threatened.

If we just decided to do no harm, not expecting to be perfect but striving to be better, every day, we would do more good than all the lip service to human rights seems to be doing.  Sure, if there seems to be a diplomatic solution or path to helping out (like Obama's efforts in southern Sudan of late), that's great.  But, overall, let's focus first on not being part of the problem.  Let's divest from companies doing business in Sudan and anywhere else where the money funds genocide.  Let's insist that electronics be certified "conflict-free."  Let's buy fair trade products whenever possible (that may also help protect US jobs against unfair competition from abroad to some extent).  Let's figure out how to drastically reduce the use of illicit drugs that come from or through Mexico while using a combination of tighter gun control measures and border control checks to reduce the number of guns going from the US to Mexico.  Let's adopt a cap and trade system - or if there's a better way to reduce emissions, let's do that.  And let's make our oil addiction a mistake of the last century, not this one.

These shifts could potentially save thousands or even millions of lives.  That's a much better return on our investment than Afghanistan or Iraq got us.

So my bottom line is that we should focus on rebuilding and reinventing America for the new century while trying to reduce the harm we do elsewhere.  If we could show our kids that these changes are possible, think about the kind of America - and the kind of world - they could help shape during their lifetimes?

I welcome your thoughts and comments - this is a significant shift for me.  If you've got some hard evidence or persuasive arguments that I'm way off course, I'd love to see them.