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Romney's Campaigning on Foreign Policy

Romney attacked Obama before the next of kin had been called.
 
BaseballBoomhauer said:

The international system that we have set up and maintained is in many parts full of authoritarian regimes, dictators and despots because of our military (and intelligence) actions.[SUP]1[/SUP] I'm not saying get rid of it because we're terrible, I'm saying that this cycle will never stop if we continue to feel the need to intervene at every turn. If we're going to intervene, do it for the right reasons.[SUP]2[/SUP] We are exponentially safer by fighting for the rights of foreign citizens to have their own democracy, under their terms and permitted because of our intervention, than installing our own "guy."[SUP]3[/SUP] Furthermore, your 1914 example does not bear much relevance because it is pre-decolonization and pre-WWII - the defining characteristics of the society we have since established.[SUP]4[/SUP] Of course war is still relevant, I never said it wasn't.[SUP]5[/SUP] People will likely always be at war. However, to justify our spending by comparing it to a time when war was lower stakes is not proper. While I understand that WWI happened after a time of relative peace amongst major powers (excluding the Boer Wars), my point is that everyone was a lot more eager to shoot the shit out of each other than they are now.[SUP]6[/SUP]

This paragraph conflicts itself. You're saying that war IS the fallback option, only right now it isn't because of the US, and if we were gone everyone would be at war again. I find that a difficult conclusion to come to given how much we all globally depend on each other through trade. The fallback option for governments is diplomacy and sanctions, while for vested interests it is essentially multinational corporation operations, which governments aim to protect.[SUP]7[/SUP]


I disagree that we would see this by now. It is a slow, painful process that I hope will continue and accelerate. If we still lived like we used to, we would have used those weapons. There were essentially two sets of rules; Western and Eastern. If we wanted to use military might to enforce those rules, we would have, and did to a certain extent in proxy wars, but we did not use nuclear weapons because we don't want to obliterate the Earth. If we're going to use military spending on nuclear arsenals, use it to keep them as harmless as possible while reducing them to a reasonable level. I think we can agree on that, and I think we agree that nukes are not "real" weapons so much as they are a threat, which fits to my argument of realizing how out of hand it had gotten.
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You made my argument for me here. The reality is that the US and USSR could not directly attack each other because no one would win. We would all die. My statement of changing attitudes referred to the late 20th century, after WWII and the Cold War, as I stated.[SUP]9[/SUP]


Someone earlier in the thread said that they thought Europeans only liked Obama because he was cool. I was responding to that. And it's not about the arrogance, it's about the fact that we invaded 2 countries, one on shoddy intelligence. They didn't declare war on us because we were sauntering around like a child playing Risk and we have more weapons, and because we are NATO allies. Are you saying that we should keep our high level of military spending so that we do dumb shit like we did during the Bush years? Come on, I don't know what argument you're trying to conjure up there.[SUP]9[/SUP]

If you want to be a warmonger, then that's a pretty sick position to take. Don't glorify war. These are real people and real Americans dying.[SUP]10[/SUP]

2 things. First, I think you're severely discounting the EU. These cultures have been trying to eliminate each other for all of history. Now they are economically and politically tied. Why do you think it's such a big deal if Greece leaves the Eurozone? Everyone has a stake in everyone else.[SUP]11[/SUP] Second, you're essentially acting like an autocrat at this point. You're saying that one element of force needs to keep everyone in control, by their own decision-making, and once no one else can do anything there will be peace. That's not the role I want us or our allies to take. That's bully shit. That is what makes people hate us.[SUP]12[/SUP]

This just furthers my point - they don't want to go to war, they do because they feel like they have to, and for reasons that their sons should not be dying. If I were them I'd hate the Bush administration too. It's wars made their sons go to war for unheroic reasons.

And as a side note - I'm enjoying this argument but we HAVE to find a way to cut it down or just take each others' arguments for what they're worth. We're likely the only 2 reading through this book right now.
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1. You cannot seriously believe that. Since the United States has taken the lead role in world affairs, dozens of countries have switched to representative forms of government, many at the direct behest of the United States. We have directly installed republics in Japan, Germany, Iraq, the Philippines, Grenada, Panama, and Afghanistan. We have indirectly guided scores of other nations towards open and free societies. The only cases you could argue that the United States played a role in toppling a democracy in favor of an autocratic government are Iran in 1959 and Chile in 1973. That's two cases, and in both cases, the government that the United States set up is no longer in power. Despots existed long before the United States came on the scene, and to blame this country for accepting the political reality that despots continue to exist is foolish.

2. What "cycle"? The United States has never actually put a despot in power in the Middle East. Reza Pahlavi was the Shah of Iran before Mossadegh was kicked to the curb, and he remained the Shah until 1979. The other Middle Eastern tyrants have gained power on their own accord. Sure, the United States has been accused of "propping them up" by undertaking such heinous and controversial actions as international trade. I hardly hear the liberal left complaining about the United States propping up the oppressive regime currently in power in China.

3. And that's exactly what we've done in every case where we've actually militarily interceded. You've just laid out how to do it the "right way" and that's exactly how we did it in Iraq and Afghanistan. You must not have been watching the news every day that Iraq and Afghanistan have held elections. You are arguing against something that simply does not occur here. Where have we invaded and set up puppet governments?

4. I can think of no reason why colonialism has any bearing on the relevance of the analogy I brought up. And further, your objection flies in the face of your belief that we are currently living in an era of American neo-colonialism.

5. "I find the fact that you're comparing current levels of military spending to levels of past empires as ludicrous. Culturally and societally speaking, war is far less important today than it was back then."

6. Again, do you have any evidence at all to back this up? And the Boer Wars weren't the only conflict from 1815-1914. I said it was the century of greatest tranquility, but I was of course speaking in relative terms. The 19th century brought us highlights like the American Civil War, the Greek War of Independence, the First and Second Afghan Wars, the Indian Mutiny, the Crimean War, the Italian Wars of Unification, the Austro-Prussian War, the Franco-Prussian War, the Russo-Japanese War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Taiping Rebellion, the Opium Wars, the Mexican-American War, and the Spanish-American War. The Boer Wars were only a minor colonial conflict, they can't even be classified as an interstate conflict. The Concert of Europe was anything but stable, but it was better than nothing. That's why I think preserving American unipolarity, as long as it is feasible, is crucial. Managing unipolarity is much simpler than attempting to peacefully manage four or five balancing coalitions. But back to your point, that somehow people back then wanted to kill each other more than they do now. I don't see how you can keep making that claim. It certainly isn't backed up by any evidence I've seen.

7. It doesn't contradict at all. War is always the fallback option, and it still is. Thankfully, due to U.S. hegemony, it is largely a counterproductive fallback option. That doesn't mean that the option no longer exists. Diplomacy and sanctions are not the fallback options for nations. Multiple empirical studies have shown that sanctions are useless tools of diplomacy. Sanctions are what governments do when they want to express displeasure, but they don't think it's in their best interests to use military force.

8. Again, I don't know what you mean when you say things like "if we lived like we used to". What does that even mean? What has changed amongst humans that has all of the sudden made us so peaceful? When did this sudden revelation come upon us that made us realize nuclear weapons are so evil? And if it's true that we've experienced such a revelation, why does it appear that India, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, China, and Libya have all missed out on this kumbayah moment? We are reducing our nuclear stockpiles because the marginal utility of holding another nuclear weapon beyond the number that would be required to destroy all our enemies is zero. Holding any more than that is costly, and presents a security risk from non-state actors.

9. I was responding to the implication that our actions in the Middle East actually hurt our geopolitical position in a significant way. Pissing off a bunch of young people you hang out with in Europe is not harmful to our geopolitical position. If you want to make a normative statement about the risks and benefits of our actions in Iraq, that's fine, but the only thing I'm arguing about here is our level of military spending.

10. Get off your high horse. You are presupposing that just because people in Europe think we are warmongers we are actually warmongers, and when I take issue with that statement, you interpret it as a tacit endorsement of warmongering. Nice. I'm not glorifying war, I'm saying I don't give a shit what people in Europe think, because they will always find something to dislike about America as long as we occupy a pre-eminent position in global affairs.

11. So are you saying that if Greece left the EMU, other countries would have no disincentive to take military action against Greece? The facts belie your argument. Pan-European peace predates Maastricht by 48 years, and the Euro by 57 years. In fact, European peace directly coincides with the inception of bipolarity in 1945, and an even greater period of peace coincides with the beginning of United States unipolarity in 1991. An endogenous outcome of this stability is the formation of the European Union and the monetary union. These unions aren't the cause of the stability themselves.

12. That's also the reason why people hate the federal government, but I don't think I've ever seen you argue for a smaller role for the government domestically.
 
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TR1982 said:
So improving public approval ratings in France, Japan, and the Czech Republic are evidence that Obama has improved our relationships with foreign nations? Our relationship with those countries is going to be strong whether or not 20% more people like the United States because they think Obama is cool. In countries that actually matter strategically (you know, those countries that the article just shrugged off), Obama is not only less popular with the populace, he's distrusted by the leaders. It's true that many foreign leaders were not fans of Bush's policies. How do you think they are responding to Obama sending unmanned drones over their airspace without their permission to bomb their citizens? How is the "reset" with Russia going? Is Putin coming around now that he doesn't have to deal with that bastard Bush?
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So the argument is that Obama has done a bad job with foreign relations, because although our allies like us more, our enemies like us less?

But on the other hand, the argument I constantly hear from the Romney camp is that Obama hasn't been tough enough on our enemies, which I assume means he is a pussy for not bombing Iran already or put missile shield in East Europe to piss off "our number one foe," Russia. Will getting tougher on our enemies make them like us more?

Which is it?
 
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Deacon923 said:
So the argument is that Obama has done a bad job with foreign relations, because although our allies like us more, our enemies like us less?

But on the other hand, the argument I constantly hear from the Romney camp is that Obama hasn't been tough enough on our enemies, which I assume means he is a pussy for not bombing Iran already. Will getting tougher on our enemies make them like us more?

Which is it?
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Not sure why you are equating our enemies liking us less with "being tough" on them. I'm saying that the degree to which most countries and their populaces "like" us is an irrelevant barometer for the success of policy, and a dangerous and laughably naive metric on which to base foreign policy decisions. The argument isn't that Obama has performed poorly in foreign policy because the people of the Middle East like us less. The are going to dislike us regardless. The argument is that he has performed poorly because he has alienated our allies in the region in a vain (and I mean that in both senses of the term) effort to make the general population like us more. As much as I sympathize with the people of Saudi Arabia, they are not relevant geostrategic actors, and it is useless to treat them as such. The House of Saud, on the other hand, is very much relevant, and they are certainly uneasy with how quickly Mubarak was abandoned by the United States, and how cavalierly we are treating the threat of an Iranian bomb.
 
yeah, those buttons were a major fuckup
 
TR1982 said:
Not sure why you are equating our enemies liking us less with "being tough" on them. I'm saying that the degree to which most countries and their populaces "like" us is an irrelevant barometer for the success of policy, and a dangerous and laughably naive metric on which to base foreign policy decisions. The argument isn't that Obama has performed poorly in foreign policy because the people of the Middle East like us less. The are going to dislike us regardless. The argument is that he has performed poorly because he has alienated our allies in the region in a vain (and I mean that in both senses of the term) effort to make the general population like us more. As much as I sympathize with the people of Saudi Arabia, they are not relevant geostrategic actors, and it is useless to treat them as such. The House of Saud, on the other hand, is very much relevant, and they are certainly uneasy with how quickly Mubarak was abandoned by the United States, and how cavalierly we are treating the threat of an Iranian bomb.
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I have yet to hear a credible argument that Obama has done a poor job at foreign policy, certainly not in this post. I agree that the Saudis are important. How exactly has Obama mismanaged that relationship? You have identified two possible issues, but you have not identified the alternative that would have been more palatable to the Saudis, while simultaneously being no less palatable to other important geostrategic actors, while simultaneously being satisfactory to a domestic political audience, while simultaneously being within the scope of our substantial but not unlimited resources. Monday morning quarterbacking is easy, but it's pretty hard to chip Obama on his foreign policy record. Romney keeps trying, but despite being backed by the full power of the GOP attack machine he just makes himself look stupid doing it.
 
TR1982 said:
Not sure why you are equating our enemies liking us less with "being tough" on them. I'm saying that the degree to which most countries and their populaces "like" us is an irrelevant barometer for the success of policy, and a dangerous and laughably naive metric on which to base foreign policy decisions. The argument isn't that Obama has performed poorly in foreign policy because the people of the Middle East like us less. The are going to dislike us regardless. The argument is that he has performed poorly because he has alienated our allies in the region in a vain (and I mean that in both senses of the term) effort to make the general population like us more. As much as I sympathize with the people of Saudi Arabia, they are not relevant geostrategic actors, and it is useless to treat them as such. The House of Saud, on the other hand, is very much relevant, and they are certainly uneasy with how quickly Mubarak was abandoned by the United States, and how cavalierly we are treating the threat of an Iranian bomb.
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Abject gibberish. One of the few things almost everyone (other dogmatic ideologues) agree upon is Obama's successes in foreign affairs.

Once again Romney got a third F- in international diplomacy. He failed miserably in softball countries of England and Israel. This is strike three.

His failure today was almost unimaginable in its scope of incompetence.
 
Romney after his press conference concerning the death of a US ambassador and 3 other Americans in Libya:
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Romney is going to triple down today on what he said yesterday.
 
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