Last night was the “foreign policy” presidential debate, which takes place in a magical fairyland with no connection to the real world.
The President’s signature foreign policy — drone strikes and targeted killing — received a brief mention and total agreement from Mitt Romney.
Both Obama and Romney “talked tough” on China, but failed to mention that a currency war with China would mean 20% inflation. But let’s ignore that, why not?
Both Obama and Romney said that they would stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons using diplomacy, but failed to mention what concessions the United States might make. After all, in negotiations, if one side gives something up, the other side has to give something up.
As bad as Romney was, Obama was almost as bad — dodging every question of substance (Iraq/Afghanistan draw-down, military funding, Syria, Libya) and pivoting to areas of strength.
Obama has always prided himself on treating the American people like adults. In the case of foreign policy, unfortunately, there is nothing but demagoguery, jingoism, and rah-rah over-the-top patriotism.
Is there any hope for the foreign policy debate? Goofy though they are, at least the domestic policy debates give some notion of the kind of economic policy the candidates espouse. The foreign policy debates are simply untethered from reality.
One solution might be the questions asked. Schieffer did all right, but consider what was not discussed. Our allies? Forget them. Free trade agreements? Never heard of ’em. Latin America? One platitude by Romney. India? Nonexistent. Japan? Only mentioned in a question about Israel. Although geopolitical hotspots are of great importance to us, America’s success in the next century will have more to do with our allies than our perceived enemies. Instead of just asking questions about how best to warmonger, we should be considering America’s full foreign policy when asking who will lead us.
Foreign policy wonks seem to believe that the American polity simply can’t handle nuanced foreign policy discussions, but that strikes me as massively cynical. The only way to combat this is with genuine engagement with the issues by public figures, like, say, presidential candidates. Otherwise, we may as well just give the presidency to the guy who waves the flag the hardest.
Hooray! A post. *Hand clap*
The debate would be nice if they were turned into educational sessions instead of gotchas about Libya or whose pension fund has money going where or who has the experience to really run the country. Fine, believe in drone strikes or these military commissions continuing to detain people. But explain it to me, even in abstract terms if you don’t want to divulge certain things. And have an expert critic of that policy there to provide rebuttal, not just a questioner who lets the discussion go at the whim of the candidates. I think that’s been the biggest disappointment of the election cycle for me personally.
Anyway, I went to a talk with a former general counsel to National Security Council for George W. Bush’s White House to not be completely clueless. The biggest difficulty he brought up is determining how international laws should apply when dealing with a terrorist group that has no real nation state. Also, he mentioned the case of cyber attacks – what constitutes an attack and what is the appropriate response. Laws have a long way to go in that respect he thought. Like if a group shuts down a power grid, what do you actually DO to respond? Can you only make your systems more secure? Do you respond? Who do you respond to? He said it’s not like World War II where it’s clear that Germany is the enemy.
That sounds like something important to work on.
Yaaaaaaay a new podcast.