The New Foreign Policy
The new administration is realigning US foreign policy in a dangerous direction. Instead of traditional alliances with democratic countries, current leadership has expressed admiration for, and aligned interests, with dictatorial leaders. Principle among these countries is Putin’s Russia. Russia, is basically a failed state. Putin’s leadership has handed power to a billionaire class (oligarchs), who he has given license to exploit the wealth of the state as long as they remain loyal to him. Education and research have declined. Life expectancy is years shorter than in Europe or the US. Great Russians are declining in numbers within the country. The economy is essentially that of a Third World country, existing on oil, gas, and mineral extraction. If the price of oil should drop sharply, Russia’s economy would, basically, cease to exist. In other words, Russia is in deep trouble.
What does Russia have? An immense military, although aging and inefficient. Its military leadership is made up of men who are loyal to Putin, rather than proven officers. It does have lots of aging tanks and airplanes and the largest nuclear force in the world. Russia has no means to deliver their military power far from its borders. Putin has the backing of the Russian Orthodox hierarchy. After the animosity toward religion during the Soviet Union years, Putin has lavished favor on the rebuilding of the Orthodox Church and thereby gaining a loyal constituency. While Putin has proven strong in using physical violence on his political opponents, he is weak in that he must maintain a certain economic abundance for his loyal oligarchs, and military officers, to exploit. To maintain his popularity he has pursued military aggression in Ukraine. Nothing sells better in a populist society than military conquest. If his economy should falter too badly, however, or if he miscalculates too much in his military adventures (Ukraine), he will live on a borrowed time. The old Russian Tsarist theory of ruling Russia was “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality.” Putin, in effect has come full circle.
What has Putin to offer the US as an ally? Really not a thing. Russia does not produce anything that we need. They do not import much of our production. They do have a very rich leader who can show our President how to grab ultimate power in a country and become one of the richest men on the planet. One can envision towers, casinos, and hotels built all over Russia. Russia is desperate, and establishing an alliance with the US is a way out. What a coup…if Putin can manipulate the US government to follow his leadership, when he really has nothing to offer in return!
US foreign policy was created in the wake of WWII. It is a system created when most of the rest of the modern world lay in the ruins of war. We created a system in which to attack another country across sovereign borders was not allowed. We created a navy that protects the free flow of trade across the world’s oceans. We even protect China’s tankers carrying the the life blood of fuel for their industrialized society. Why? Because we have the ultimate consumer society. We use up the majority of the world’s resources to fuel our standard of living. Most of the ships carrying the world’s resources dock in US ports. Why? We can pay for those products. We do this, without having to spend a fortune in money and men to conquer other countries. We use the soft power of trade and money rather than warfare.
If we begin to break down the system, that has kept peace between the major players since WW II, world trade will break down, and with it the system that supplies the wealth of countries around the world, the US included. Threatening to take Panama, Gaza, Canada, and Greenland, even if it is just usual bombast, gives validation to Putin, Xi, and Netanyahu’s territorial ambitions. We no longer stand for the world order that has served us so well since WWII. If we are to join the Neo-imperialist ambitions of the world dictators, not only will world peace suffer, but the economic structure that underlies the improvements in world standard of living, world health, and world peace will be shattered. Foreign policy is not like running a business. Short term profit can lead to long term costs.
Rick Lohr, formerly of Marathon City, is a retired history teacher and former owner and manager of Pine Valley Golf Course. He has been retired for over 20 years but has given about 650 talks to schools, service groups and senior centers related to the 45 counties he has traveled to.
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