Underreach: Tightening The Noose On Foreign Policy

by Herbert I. London
January 4, 2010 at 5:00 am

http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/977/underreach-tightening-the-noose-on-foreign-policy

As the plans for American foreign policy are being debated in the White House and the corridors of Congress, it is increasingly apparent that the options are limited.

It is not that options are limited by the lack of imagination, although that is a factor. The overarching concern is that foreign policy options are limited by the lack of resources.

The Obama initiatives to stimulate the economy and insinuate the government into the banking, financial services, automobile, insurance and health care industries are tied inextricably to the decisions on the foreign policy front.

It appears that, intentionally or unintentionally, domestic decisions are driving national security and foreign policy goals. How can you build a 300 ship navy when you require resources for universal health care? And how can you pay for sustained military deployments when the deficit is ten percent of g.d.p.?

It may be convenient for this administration to have an aggressive domestic stance, one that devours the bulk of the budget so that the president can pursue his desire for the incremental withdrawal of forces abroad and the cessation of new military hardware. Why even consider the F22, for example, when there are insufficient funds for constructing this aircraft?

We are seeing the pursuit of a global strategy using capital limitation as its justification. Just as it was fashionable in the 1990’s to discuss overreach - the worldwide deployment of troops that drained our resources - it is now appropriate to describe present policy as underreach - the belief that any deployment is beyond our present resource capability.

Where this strategy leads is obvious. The United States is on the highway to Great Britain of 1990, a once great power that ruled the seas, but is relegated to marginal military status in the present. Should the U.S. pursue this goal to its logical conclusion, there will no longer be a global hegemon capable of shaping world affairs; there will only be regional powers and international instability.

It should be noted, of course, that all foreign policy decisions are constrained by available capital. A nation incapable of generating wealth can only be a military power if it impoverishes its people. For democracies this tactic is unacceptable. If we have guns, we insist on butter as well. Hence an Obama plan that promises a lot of butter, limits and eliminates guns.

What differentiates President Obama from his predecessors is that domestic spending drives his agenda and offers a rationale for international timidity and conciliation. He embraces a view of U.S. imperial impulses that must be subdued, and he seeks to do this by spending on the domestic front, thereby forcing decisions on the international stage.

As the president has noted “we have run out of money.” But we have only run out of money for defense preparations. The domestic agenda proceeds in an unrelenting fashion, oblivious to countervailing obligations . One Obama aide noted that the only limit to our spending is in our imagination. Presumably that imagination has the dollar printing presses working overtime.

This condition has alarmed our allies and given comfort to our enemies. The president may appear as a sensible man doing only what the budget dictates. But in truth, the budget is a political instrument that can be used to drive policy decisions. The nexus between domestic and foreign spending is invariable. In the Obama age only the domestic counts; it is the manifestation of his philosophical underpinnings and the rationale for his foreign policy decisions.

Herbert London is president of Hudson Institute and professor emeritus of New York University. He is the author of Decade of Denial (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001) and America's Secular Challenge (Encounter Books).

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