Foreign Relations
From Pete Ashdown Campaign Collaboration Wiki
America must stand firm for the ideals of democracy and human rights, but democracy and the civil institutions and traditions which support it arise from within a society. We can encourage or discourage the conditions for the spread of democracy with our economic and security policies, but must not seek to impose our values by force, or we discredit them. We should always choose to encourage freedom and human dignity as we pursue our national interest, for the spead of our values is our national interest. We must take a hard look at our trade and security policies to ensure that they are aligned with our values.
America's foreign policy should be to support the rule of law, ensure peace through diplomacy and international cooperation, and to vigilantly protect the lives and well-being of our people from foreign threats. We live in an increasing interdependent and economically integrated world, but we must insure that our national economic security is never held hostage by dependance on foreign sources of energy or other vital resources. Such entanglements encourage unwise foriegn military interventions, driven more by economic forces and ideology than by humanitarian concerns. The current war in Iraq is one such example. Our current foreign policy is too easily characterized as hypocritical by outside observers whose cooperation and good-will we need in order to lead the world.
For instance, we say we are seeking to stabilize the Islamic world by transplanting democracy, yet we give favored economic status to China, a totalitarian country with a long history of human rights violations. Such contradictions with our stated values reduce our prestige and reduce our influence in world affairs.
One clear contradiction in the Western Hemisphere has been our nearly half-century long history of enmity with the Republic of Cuba. The "missile crisis" was over 40 years ago, and many young Americans have no recollection of the so-called "Cold War." It is time for normalization of relations with Cuba, and for Americans to be allowed to travel there as they see fit. American visitors to any country can provide living examples of what makes our country great. A few thousand South Florida exiles and their offspring, erstwhile supporters of a right-wing dictatorial regime in Cuba that was no better than the Castro administration that replaced it, should no longer be allowed to dictate U.S. policy toward a sovereign nation.
One major reason for our repeated mistakes in dealing with the world beyond North America is a lack of knowledge of history and an understanding of its ethnic, cultural and religious underpinnings, at also the highest levels of our government. I would work in two major ways to remove these limitations: Short term, by requiring that the administration sets some standards for minimum education and/or exposure to such aspects of foreign countries for medium- and high-level appointees in relevant government departments such as state, commerce and defense. These aspects should also be reflected in senate confirmation hearings for top positions. Long term, by encouraging and instituting additional educational programs at all school levels.
America is the primary guarantor of world peace in today's world. Our unrivaled military prowess, deep commitments to our allies, and far-flung military presence through our fleets and more than 700 bases world-wide make us both uniquely powerful, and uniquely vulnerable. It is in our national interest to keep the world peaceful and to avoid military conflict whenever possible. We are not the military rulers of world, despite our vast military capability; we cannot and must not enforce peace by violence, rather we must keep the peace with our steadying influence. Our power has quite definite limits, as Iraq is amply demonstrating, and any positive effect our military stregth has on world affairs rests primarily in its ability to help keep the peace, not in our ability to attack defensless countries or to punish any who challenge us. No single country - not even ours - can stand against a world united against it. We must not put ourselves in such a position or we risk the ruin of the world order that generations of Americans have built.
The United States needs a fair, principled, and consistent foreign policy that is held hostage neither ideological partisanship nor to irrational fear. Our government must fully comply with our treaty obligations and cooperate constructively in international organizations. We have nothing to fear, and much to gain, from ratifying without reservation the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Accords. We must continue to lead on global arms control and non-proliferation of WMD; we cannot do that at the same time that we repudiate our own arms control treaty obligations, and seek new capabilities that threaten to spark a new world-wide arms race. The US needs to work in partnership with other countries to move toward a better future in both the economic and humanitarian spheres. The 'go it alone' philosophy advocated by the current Administration has left America isolated, resented, and weaker just as we face crucial international issues that cannot be effectively addressed by any one nation on its own: terrorism, climate change, nuclear non-proliferation, and our massive trade imbalance.
