Why Not A Progressive Foreign Policy? Part 2: The Whole Enchilada

by: Paul Rosenberg

Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 18:30

In the paper, Lakoff starts off by observing that since the end of the Cold War, a broad range of international issues have emerged that don't don't fit into the traditional "foreign policy" framework, and could appear to be nothing more than a laundry list of unrelated issues--things like global warming, women's rights, global public health, etc.  However, he goes on to argue that there is a very natural framework that encompases them all: the framework of moral norms.  These are all issues that involve how a community of nations ought to conduct itself.  Furthermore, Lakoff argues, the moral norms framework produces a better global neighborhood or environment than the traditional self-interest framework that foreign policy has traditionally used, the same way that an ordinary neighborhood is a better place to live when the people there treat each other according to a shared set of norms, rather than only looking out for their own self-interest.

The idea of operating within a framework of moral norms was present throughout Obama's Cairo speech, and indeed has long been a part of America's foreign policy outlook, though it has rarely been clearly articulated as such.  Individual norms have been invoked often enough, but all too often there's been an ulterior motive, which only serves to build suspicion. But when a wide range of normative statements are made, as Obama did in his Cairo speech, there is a clear implication that something very different is afoot.  Whether or not that comes to pass depends on many different things, not the least of which is developing a more broadly shared understanding of just what that means.

Lakoff begins his paper thus: This study has a grand purpose: to begin a change in American foreign policy - not just in particular existing policies, but in the very idea of what foreign policy is. New realities have emerged since the end of the Cold War. But they have largely been ignored in American foreign policy. The Global Interdependence Initiative was designed to address those vital concerns. They are: the environment, human rights, women's rights, children's issues, global public health and the spread of disease, poverty and the powerlessness of the impoverished, fair labor practices, violent ethnic conflicts, the rights of indigenous people to preserve their traditional ways of life, and crucially an economics of sustainability that promotes quality of life rather than an unsustainable economic growth. When one looks more closely, further details come into focus: the immense danger of global warming, the freedom of women to get an education and engage in public life, the connections between women's education and world population growth, AIDS in Africa, the spread of tuberculosis, the enslavement of children and child labor, and so on. These concerns might sound to some like a laundry list of unrelated topics. As we shall see, they are anything but that. They are a natural category of concerns - a category that has never been adequately described or named. Our job is to forge a general approach to foreign policy where each item on this list is a natural special case, a natural and obvious concern for American foreign policy conceptualized in a new way. Lakoff goes on to say, "Our job is to change ideas, to imagine and implement a new way of thinking." He then describes two contrasting frameworks for thinking about foreign policy: Self-Interest Versus Moral Norms, and formulates the central argument: The use of international moral norms as a basis for foreign policy is based on the following central idea: It is better to live in a world governed by international moral norms than by the pursuit of self-interest and the potential for conflict that comes with self interest. In ordinary communities, security comes not just from police power. Real security comes only when the community members follow moral norms. The US is the only superpower -- it has superior air power, enough bombs to destroy the world, and is wealthier than any other nation. But that does not make the US really secure. Its wealth and military security are threatened by the possibility of the collapse of markets elsewhere, and by events internal to other countries: a. "rogue nations" harboring and supporting terrorists, b. the sale of nuclear weapons and missiles to such nations, c. large flows of immigrants fleeing oppression, d. global warming and other dangers to the world ecology, and e. looking bad in the "court of world opinion" (which could effect trade and hence wealth and military treaties). It's important to realize that Lakoff is not simply repackaging the old distinction between foreign policy idealism and realism.  He is saying that there is a very realistic and pragmatic reason to adopt a moral norms perspective-and conversely, that there is something wildly utopian in the notion that going it alone on the basis of narrow self-interest could ever produce the sort of future we desire. It's an extremely enlightening paper, the main body of which is bookended by a look at the 2000 Bush/Gore foreign policy debate.  Lakoff uses that debate as a high-profile example of how the failure to grasp the basic nature of the moral norms framework undermines the articulation of a coherent alternative to even the most cretinous forms of self-interest arguments.  As Lakoff explains it, there was much more going on in this debate than other analysts-even very good ones-have previously suppossed.  He is particularly astute in explaining how Gore became essentially tounge-tied in debating an opponent with virtually zero foreign policy understanding, but a firm grounding in the self-contained logic of his own position.

Barack Obama has a much stronger intuitive sense of where his vision is coming than Al Gore had in 2000, and Obama's conservative critics today are much less centered, much wilder and unfocused. TPM reports on Senator Inhofe, for example:

Mark down Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) as one of the more outspoken critics of President Obama's speech yesterday in Egypt -- in fact, he told The Oklahoman the speech was "un-American" for calling the Iraq conflict a "war of choice."

Inhofe also blasted Obama for implying that torture had taken place at Guantanamo Bay: "There has never been a documented case of torture at Guantanamo."

"I just don't know whose side he's on," Inhofe added

This sort of us/them mentality, once so unquestioned, now appears palpably foolish as a world grown hostile to us responds enthusiastically to a new message of cooperation and shared vision.

All this portends a much greater opportunity for success.  But many old barriers remain, and they are mostly internal to the Democratic wing of the foreign policy establishment, because that is where initiatives for a new direction need to find support, rather than resistance or outright opposition.  And of course, that is where one finds so many individuals who were not only utterly wrong about the Iraq War, but who also remain unrepentant--and thus, none the wiser--to this day.

This is the challenge we face--to overcome the old thinking and knee-jerk responses of a Democratic foreign policy establishment still stuck in the past.  So I don't mean to suggest for a moment that the task before us is easy.  But I do think one can argue that the task is relatively clear, and that is to recognize and realize the enormous benefits there are to be gained by fostering both an atmosphere and an institutionalized framework for wide-ranging cooperation based on shared norms for the benefit of the entire international community.

If we don't take such a direction, the results could be quite dire.  Global warming is but one shared threat that could wreck havoc on the world community.  Resurgent terrorism, fueled by deeper inter-faith hostility is another.  The threat of global pandemics, facilitated by increased globalization, individual mobility and a narrowly-conceived focus on short-term profits, shunning responsibilities for global public health, is yet another.  Energy shortage, water shortage, and other forms of resource depletion represent yet another dimension of the challenges that threaten to overwhelm us if we do not find a way to work together to limit short-sighted, narrow-minded approaches that can produce devastating results for all of us, if we are not more mindful, more forward-looking, and more committed to creating productive, cooperative structures as well as relationships.

In my next diary, I will return to Jeremy Scahill's appearance on Bill Moyers Journal last night, to reconsider his warning about where Obama's continuation of Bush/Cheney policies (particularly the use of private mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan) may lead us. And I will do so not just to point out the particular dangers those policies hold, but also as an example of the broader threat we face if we fail to take the spirit of Obama's Cairo address to heart, and make it the foundation of policies going forward, rather than camouflage for more of the same failed policies of the past.