Foreign Policy: Obligations and Ideals

By Russ Cote

Let me start this essay by stating unequivocally that I believe that Ron Paul is by far the most consistent member of Congress in the last fifty years and maybe longer. Let me state my unequivocal agreement with Rep. Paul’s approach to economics, being myself a firm supporter of the Austrian School-(check out Mises.org from the link to ‘The Right Friends’). Finally, let me be on record agreeing with Rep. Paul’s belief that the United States is far too entangled with far too many other nations through various forms of financial aid and other more clandestine types of assistance.

All that said, my issue with Rep. Paul is his belief, shared by the Austrians that I’ve read, that the United States has no business defending itself at an armed level in places beyond our borders. Reading his book, “A Foreign Policy of Freedom”, I gleaned that his ‘threat’ threshold is extraordinarily high. The bombs must be literally en route to our shores before a defensive maneuver is morally justified and constitutionally permitted. I invite our Paulian readers who take issue with that characterization to make their case.

One example is the Vietnam War. I disagree with Rep. Paul’s conclusion that the War was unjustified and illegal. A subject that is obviously beyond the scope of this article, I’ll just say that I do not agree with Rep. Paul’s reading of our nation’s history concerning the criteria for what makes an armed conflict “illegal”. Suffice to say our history is replete with justifiable, justified and congressionally undeclared armed conflict. The Vietnam War, in particular, was an effort to stop the onslaught of Soviet expansion in Southeast Asia; a threat Ronald Reagan called “the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars”. Considering the death toll racked up prior to 1960 by Communism in general and the Soviets in particular, it would have been morally derelict on our part not to intervene. The problem with Vietnam, as I see it, is that we didn’t win when we could have.

In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson said that a goal of the United States was, in part, to strive for “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none”. In fact this is the headline to Rep. Paul’s book. I sincerely believe this as much as Rep. Paul. However, continue reading his address and we see that Jefferson also said that “the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad” was as much a governing principle. I posit that ‘in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad’ is as much a recognition that the United States will fight threats to our safety abroad as they arise, as the former clause is a recognition that the United States should not entangle itself in the affairs of others that have no direct or indirect affect on the safety and security of the American people.

Perhaps our disagreement is more one regarding the limits of the “general government in its whole constitutional vigor” in the context of its power to engage in foreign conflicts-its obligations vs. ideals. For brevity’s sake, my own view is that our history-including Jefferson’s own actions respecting the Barbary pirates, as strong a denunciation of any theory of appeasement as one can find -tends to counsel that armed conflict is not as severely circumscribed as Rep. Paul believes. I am not debating that, from an economic vantage, war is extraordinarily costly. My quarrel with Rep. Paul and pure libertarianism is that man’s nature makes conflict inevitable; this is especially true in a world where not everyone shares the United States’ commitment to “peace, commerce and honest friendship”. Because of this simple historical fact and because of the United States’ unique place in the world, our leaders should not hesitate to militarily engage the forces of tyranny wherever the occur, counseled first by the central government’s constitutional and primary obligation to ensure our “peace at home and safety abroad” and second by the ideal of not entangling ourselves where it is truly not necessary.

Rep. Paul is a patriot; of this I have no doubt. I welcome this debate on foreign policy with adherents to his Libertarian School of thought because, at essence, I believe both sides honestly aspire to preserve those indispensable conditions for Liberty that offer the only real chance for our pursuit of happiness.