Quoting Colen Dueck’s book, The Obama Doctrine: American Grand Strategy Today, Peter Berkowitz presents as good an explanation of the president’s policies as any I’ve seen:
to secure progressive policy legacies, win domestic political victories, and preserve the strength of his center-left coalition
I don’t find his characterization of the Republicans’ alternative particularly reassuring:
bedrock support for American allies overseas, firm deterrence of U.S. adversaries, assertive counterterrorism, reinforced national defenses, and an overarching mentality of peace through strength.
Generalizations can only be contextualized when embodied in actual physical candidates who are competing for an office. In 2008 we had a choice between a candidate who vowed to win in Afghanistan by increasing the troop strength deployed there and his opponent, a man who has apparently never met a war he didn’t like. As usual I chose the lesser evil. In 2008 we had a choice between the incumbent and a challenger who didn’t differ materially from the incumbent in his foreign policy approach other than by a vow to be more aggressive.
Today most of the nineteen (!) prospective Republican candidates are vying over how hawkish they can be. Returning to “conservative American realism”, we have very few allies, a number of frenemies, a large number of clients, and no imminent threats other than our own policies. Truculence or the willingness to fight our clients’ battles for them doesn’t reassure our allies; it alarms them. And as far as strength goes, we are in the possession of overwhelming military force and there are few signs that will change any time in the foreseeable future.
The leading Democratic candidate is one of the party’s most hawkish, who has a manifest willingness to engage in humanitarian interventions without a concomitant willingness to ensure that realize humanitarian objectives.
I’ve written before that I vote for president primarily on foreign policy. Unless something changes radically in 2016 I will be faced with a Hobson’s choice which is to say no choice at all.
I wonder how this kind of thing fits into either of the stated philosophies:
We need more foreign workers to do the jobs that CEOs just don’t want Americans to have.
Anyway, don’t see how this fits in with either party’s alleged objectives.
And Schuler, as long as you always choose an evil candidate, the parties will have no incentive to choose non-evil candidates. Leave “Blank Ballot” in 2016, for change.
They still won’t have any incentive to choose non-evil candidates.
“Little strokes fell great oaks,” one of our greats once said. Your vote for BLANK and my vote for BLANK don’t amount to much. But if those BLANKS accumulate, that will start creating a space which might eventually be exploited by someone for something we might actually want to vote FOR.
And I’m not looking for a candidate with whom I’d agree 100% of the time. It would be nice to get over 1% of the time, though, yes?
I’m doing what little I can. If I can convince a few others to do likewise, I’ll be ahead. Not enough, obviously, but it’s a start. If YOU chose this kind of path, I imagine you could persuade a few others more easily than I can. (You’re certainly more persuasive than I am.)
Again, it’s not much, but what else have you got? You’ve been voting for the lesser evil for decades at this point. What has it gotten you? What’s it going to get you in 2016? President Hillary or President Walker in 2017? You can already see how that’s likely to work out in either case.
Time for a new strategy, Dave. Last year I didn’t vote (it didn’t occur to me to vote BLANK, unfortunately), and this year I’ve felt better about that than I have for any other vote I’ve cast since 1986*. The best part is knowing that I didn’t vote for all the crap that’s going on now, both at the state level and at the national level. I did NOT give the bastards the pleasure of another affirmative vote on their behalf. For you can call it voting for the lesser evil, but it is effectively an affirmation of whomever you’ve cast a ballot for.
* Possible exception: I honestly can’t remember if I voted for Jeb in 1998 for governor. If I did, I’d probably be pretty happy about that one, too, as he was a fine governor when it mattered.
Is there any reason to think paying attention to the primaries will help Dave’s choice? Hillary will move to her left a bit to prevent a challenger from gaining air, but she’s basically a known quantity here. Precautionary aggressive like Obama.
The Republican field full of people grasping for air will be throwing meat to the masses, but will be prepared to turn on Hillary/Obama for Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, that might be the same criticisms that Dave might have. (Edit: Not on Iraq, Republicans are pretty clear that removing a stabilizing force from Iraq blew everything to Hell, and NY Times writers will support this point)
Any Dem candidate will either support Obama’s foreign policies (O’Malley), or be more in line with the “neo-conservative” consensus which favors more aggressive democratizing of Third World hell holes (Hillary!).
(Why can’t we invade decent places in the Third World, like Jamaica or Tahiti?)
Any Republican is going to have to sound at least as aggressive as Hillary (if O’Malley is the Dem candidate) or approach McCain levels of rabid dog (if Hillary is the Dem candidate).
Given the stupid dichotomies inherent in modern American politicking, that’s about how it has to play out.
Turning on Obama/Hillary for not doing more in Syria, Yemen, Egypt and Iraq. If you want more involvement in these places, you know how to vote. Which reminds me that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of press coverage on the pretty extreme measures being used in Egypt to suppress any kind of dissent.
Steve
The Morsi disaster (along with ongoing disasters in Iraq, Syria & Libya) showed everyone in power here that there are worse things than supporting corrupt regimes. I take it as a small sign of progress that they can learn.