Following from my previous post as well as from Hillary Clinton's well-grounded criticisms, Bernie Sanders is a single-issue economistic candidate. His candidacy is dogmatically oriented toward a renewal of the promises of the New Deal without an apparent corresponding realization that, as the most powerful nation on earth, both economically and militarily, we have a responsibility to defend common humanity and project an ethical commitment to create a more democratic world through engaged and aggressive diplomatic action and, if necessary and imperative, the muscular utilization of American military might to achieve changes that diplomacy cannot otherwise achieve. A Sanders administration would have to both rigorously define the meaning of a principled and engaged progressive foreign policy, grounded in secular democracy, economic integration on fair and equitable terms for all participating parties, common concern for the maintenance of ecological sustainability by all nations, and respect for the basic dignity of human life and human freedom, and demonstrate its commitment to act in the name of realizing a world corresponding the terms of such a policy. That is not to say that a Sanders administration should establish a new, more humanitarian American imperium, but, on the contrary, we need to engage as one voice among many in a broader transnational conversation about how human civilization is to evolve and transform itself around common needs and concerns in the Twenty-first century, and we can be a critical participant in assuring that such a conversation happens.
Climate change is a very large and pressing issue to the global human community and will so remain into the future. A Sanders administration might attempt to lead on this ground, but, fundamentally, the capacity of the U.S. to leverage a convincing perspective on global ecology is presently undermined by the incapacity of progressives to achieve meaningful changes in the U.S. economy, oriented toward sustainability. Changes to carbon emission thresholds attempted by the Obama administration pursuant to the Clean Air Act are currently being challenge in the federal judiciary and, notwithstanding the passing of Justice Scalia and the absence of his conservative voice in the Supreme Court, it seems unlikely that the administration will be able to effect permanent changes without legislative enactments. Such enactments will not make it through a Republican controlled Congress. In this sense, it is hard to lead globally on the issue of climate change when the U.S. federal government has one hand tied behind its back!
Pointedly, at the present, Syria, the rise of the Islamic State, and the role of sectarian politics across the Middle East (most notably the proxy war being waged between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen) remains the most pressing issue in foreign security policy and Sanders appears utterly clueless about it! This point is not shocking - Sanders' prominent base of support really doesn't want to spend any time thinking or discussing foreign policy toward the Muslim world. Circumstances that truly and emphatically demand a muscular American response tend to leave a bitter taste in the mouths of most American progressives. The idea, expressed by Sanders at the last Democratic debate in Wisconsin, that there might be room in the Department of Defense budget to facilitate some cutting, however true in certain ways, is most unhelpful to this conversation. Rather, if a Sanders administration is to have a meaningful impact on the world in which it is situated, then it will have to consider how the U.S. military is currently organized and institute changes in order to deal with divergent, heterogeneous threats to domestic security and deal better with punctuated regional threats to allies and to world peace, generally. Some programs, vigorously defended as cash cows for local arms contractors in certain Congressional districts will have to be challenged. Certain ideas, unpopular across the broader expanse of the American electoral, will have to be defended. A Sanders administration, elected on economic grounds, would have to decide how many carrier groups and how many ballistic missile submarines the Navy needs in order to extend naval air power and leverage an undersea nuclear deterrent globally, how many nuclear capable bomber wings and how many heavy air mobility wings the Air Force needs, and how many active combat divisions and expeditionary forces the Army and Marine Corps need. It would also have to jointly determine the cost effectiveness and the tactical necessity of particular military technological initiatives. These are heady demands to be made of an administration elected to wage economic warfare against Wall Street and to deliver a single-payer health insurance system!
On the specifics of Syria and Iraq, a Sanders administration would have to exercise a greater degree of diplomatic savvy to balance the divergent interests of nominal American allies (Saudi Arabia and Turkey), countenance the legitimate interests of rivals (Russia and Iran), and seriously engage with the needs of populations on the ground (Iraqi and Syrian Kurds, Sunnis, the Shi'a-dominated government of Iraq, the Alawites of western Syria, the Yazidis of northern Iraq). Pointedly, at some point in the forthcoming administration, the U.S. may have to come to some definitive position regarding the sovereignty of Iraqi Kurdistan relative to the Shi'a dominated government in Baghdad. How would a Sanders administration act in this regard? Would defending the best interests of democratic sovereignty for the Iraqi Kurds fatally undermine our effort to defeat the Islamic State by crippling our relations with our NATO ally, Turkey, to say nothing of our relations with the Iraqi central government? How do we deal meaningfully with the Syrian conflict as Russia becomes progressively engaged militarily in the Assad government's behalf and the flood of refugees from the country continues to destabilize the European Union and undermine the premises of the Schengen agreement on free movement within the EU? These are issues that Senator Sanders needs to thoughtfully address on his road to the Democratic nomination if he seriously intends to be an American President. At this point, Secretary Clinton is quite correct in her criticism that Sanders is not ready to engage in foreign policy and, therefore, not ready for the office that he seeks to win.
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