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11/01/2007
John McCain's Foreign Policy
Senator John McCain, from an essay titled “An Enduring Peace
Built on Freedom” in the November/December issue of Foreign
Affairs.
[Excerpts]
America needs a president who can revitalize our country’s
purpose and standing in the world, defeat terrorist adversaries
who threaten liberty at home and abroad, and build enduring
peace. There is an enormous amount to do. Our wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan have been costly in blood and treasure and in other
less tangible ways as well. Our next president will need to rally
nations across the world around common causes as only America
can. There will be no time for on-the-job training. Given the
present dangers, our country cannot afford the kind of malaise,
drift, and fecklessness that followed the Vietnam War. The next
president must be prepared to lead American and the world to
victory – and to seize the opportunities afforded by the
unprecedented liberty and prosperity in the world today to build
a peace that will last a century.
Defeating radical Islamist extremists is the national security
challenge of our time. Iraq is this war’s central front, according
to our commander there, General David Petraeus, and according
to our enemies, including al Qaeda’s leadership.
The recent years of mismanagement and failure in Iraq
demonstrate that America should go to war only with sufficient
troop levels and with a realistic and comprehensive plan for
success. We did not do so in Iraq, and our country and the
people of Iraq have paid a dear price. Only after four years of
conflict did the United States adopt a counterinsurgency strategy,
backed by increased force levels, that gives us a realistic chance
of success. We cannot get those years back, and now the only
responsible action for any presidential candidate is to look
forward and outline the strategic posture in Iraq that is most
likely to protect U.S. national interests.
So long as we can succeed in Iraq – and I believe that we can –
we must succeed. The consequences of failure would be horrific:
a historic loss at the hands of Islamist extremists who, after
having defeated the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the United
States in Iraq, will believe that the world is going their way and
that anything is possible; a failed state in the heart of the Middle
East providing sanctuary for terrorists; a civil war that could
quickly develop into a regional conflict and even genocide; a
decisive end to the prospect of a modern democracy in Iraq, for
which large Iraqi majorities have repeatedly voted; and an
invitation for Iran to dominate Iraq and the region even more.
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[We need to go NATO one better] by linking democratic nations
in one common organization: a worldwide League of
Democracies. This would be unlike Woodrow Wilson’s doomed
plan for the universal-membership League of Nations. Instead, it
would be similar to what Theodore Roosevelt envisioned: like-
minded nations working together for peace and liberty. The
organization could act when the UN fails – to relieve human
suffering in places such as Darfur, combat HIV/AIDS in sub-
Saharan Africa, fashion better policies to confront environmental
crises, provide unimpeded market access to those who endorse
economic and political freedom, and take other measures
unattainable by existing regional or universal-membership
systems.
This League of Democracies would not supplant the UN or other
international organizations but complement them by harnessing
the political and moral advantages offered by united democratic
action.
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Dealing with a rising China will be a central challenge for the
next American president. Recent prosperity in China has
brought more people out of poverty faster than during any other
time in human history. China’s newfound power implies
responsibilities. It raises legitimate expectations that
internationally China will behave as a responsible economic
partner by developing a transparent code of conduct for its
corporations, assuring the safety of its exports, adopting a market
approach to currency valuation, pursuing sustainable
environmental policies, and abandoning its go-it-alone approach
to world energy supplies.
China could also bolster its claim that it is “peacefully rising” by
being more transparent about its significant military buildup.
When China builds new submarines, adds hundreds of new jet
fighters, modernizes its arsenal of strategic ballistic missiles, and
tests antisatellite weapons, the United States legitimately must
question the intent of such provocative acts. When China
threatens democratic Taiwan with a massive arsenal of missiles
and warlike rhetoric, the United States must take note. When
China enjoys close economic and diplomatic relations with
pariah states such as Burma, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, tension will
result. When China proposes regional forums and economic
arrangements designed to exclude America from Asia, the United
States will react.
China and the United States are not destined to be adversaries.
We have numerous overlapping interests. U.S.-Chinese relations
can benefit both countries and, in turn, the Asia-Pacific region
and the world. But until China moves toward political
liberalization, our relationship will be based on periodically
shared interests rather than the bedrock of shared values.
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The Nuclear nonproliferation regime is broken for one clear
reason: the mistaken assumption behind the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that nuclear technology can
spread without nuclear weapons eventually following. The next
U.S. president must convene a summit of the world’s leading
powers – none of which have an interest in seeing a world full of
nuclear-armed states – with three agenda items. First, the notion
that non-nuclear weapons states have a right to nuclear
technology must be revisited. Second, the burden of proof for
suspected violators of the NPT must be reversed. Instead of
requiring the International Atomic Energy Agency board to reach
unanimous agreement in order to act, as is the case today, there
should be an automatic suspension of nuclear assistance to states
that the agency cannot guarantee are in full compliance with
safeguard agreements. Finally, the IAEA’s annual budget of
$130 million must be substantially increased so that the agency
can meet its monitoring and safeguarding tasks.
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Almost two centuries ago, James Madison declared that “the
great struggle of the Epoch” was “between liberty and
despotism.” Many thought that this struggle ended with the Cold
War, but it did not. It has taken on new guises, such as Islamist
terrorists using our technological advances for their murderous
designs and resurgent autocrats reminiscent of the nineteenth
century. International terrorists capable of inflicting mass
destruction are a new phenomenon. But what they seek and what
they stand for are as old as time. They are part of a worldwide
political, economic, and philosophical struggle between the
future and the past, progress and reaction, liberty and despotism.
Our security, our prosperity, and our democratic way of life
depend on the outcome of that struggle.
Thomas Jefferson argued that America was the “solitary republic
of the world, the only monument of human rights, and the sole
depository of the sacred fire of freedom and self-government,
from hence it is to be lighted up in other regions of the earth, if
other regions of the earth shall ever become susceptible of its
benign influence.” Since that time two centuries ago when the
United States was the “solitary republic of the world,” more
people than ever before have come under the “benign influence”
of liberty. The protection and promotion of the democratic ideal,
at home and abroad, will be the surest source of security and
peace for the country that lies before us. The next U.S. president
must be ready to lead, ready to show America and the world that
this country’s best days are yet to come, and ready to establish an
enduring peace based on freedom that can safeguard American
security for the rest of the twenty-first century. I am ready.
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Hot Spots returns Nov. 8.
Brian Trumbore
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