Tonight, I walked out wishing that I could sit down and talk to Dennis Kucinich and ask him about his strength through peace doctrine. I, for one, believe that he needs to lay out a clear doctrine like the Bush Doctrine and show the world his plan for making the world a better place. He is fully capable of doing that but thus far all that is available is a single page explanation that is largely rhetorical and does not lay out strategies and tactics that would be used.
In class tonight, after reading Kristol & Kagan’s Introduction: National Interest and Global Responsibility, excerpts from Paul Wolfowitz’s dissertation (written to get his Ph. D in the late 1960s), and Wolfowitz’s Statesmanship in the New American Century, the professor asked us to pretend we were in Bush’s Cabinet. He said that we were to make the decision between two models. We could pursue balanced bipolarity (what we had during the Cold War), which means we have stability but the possibility of total annihilation. Or, we could pursue an unbalanced multipolarity with a potential hegemon (America) and have no nukes but chaos and instability in select areas of the world. We also pursue a complex highly intellectual strategy.
My answer was that I would take an idealist approach and rely on the spread of information through our global economy, the Internet, and diplomacy. I would rely on the fact that our government is stacked with highly intellectual people and therefore, would not allow our nation to be annihilated. I would work with the other hegemony in the world that is balancing America's power and in a sort of “father and mother” model, we would nurture the world and allow it to thrive and prosper. And finally, I asked, “Isn’t it possible for chaos to breed total annihilation?”
Right now, the current administration is pursuing a “neorealist” strategy because the basis of realism is impossible. What used to rely on balance of power cannot because the Soviet Union fell. What used to rely on containment cannot be employed because in the case of 9/11, a state cannot contain a non-state actor. What used to rely on deterrence or pure fear does not work anymore because the people we are dealing with feel that if they die they will find paradise. So, Kristol, Kagan, and Wolfowitz developed a strategy involving preeminence, a strategy that plans for 100 years what America will prevent so that we do not have to deal with a Middle Eastern hegemony. And they are partial to the idea of a world where America is the only hegemon in a unbalanced multipolarity.
How do you Dennis Kucinich come in and make that neorealist strategy do a 180-turn? How do you correct the tactical vacuum the neorealists (commonly incorrectly referred to as neoconservatives) have created? What do you plan on doing to deal with the neorealist’s plan to allow chaos to occur in the Middle East so that we can prevent a hegemony in that region and maintain economic stability in our nation i.e. oil prices from skyrocketing? What do you plan to do with the scientific fact that there is no realistic way to regulate morality on an international level? While diplomacy is one way to get morality into the world and into international policies, how do you build an effective strategy that places morality as the most important part of the policy?
The fact is this administration put together a strategy for a chess game to be played out over the next one hundred years and called themselves the Project for the New American Century. They engaged our enemies in this game. But they failed to put any American chess pieces on the board. So, when our “enemies” began to move against us, the neorealists were unsure of what to do because they were trying to take out a king (achieve a primary objective) without having any pieces to move meaning this administration had no tactics. Except for regime change, which has been underway for a few years now, there was nothing on the board to use.
Dennis, the world is looking to you. You show compassion and visit Middle Eastern countries when other leaders neglect them for what they are capable of doing to Israel (a nation that has become a strategic burden to U.S. foreign policy). You place an importance on domestic policy and rebuilding our infrastructure that no other candidate does. You speak up for the average American middle class worker. You are a beacon of light. But your policy for foreign affairs is a piece of breading with no meat.
I want a private conversation so I can get an idea of what your response is to these highly intellectual thinkers who have misjudged and misguided American foreign policy and I want it now. I want strategies and tactics or primary and secondary objectives in a 50 to 100 page foreign policy doctrine so that we all can preach to the world how benevolent you will be.
You intelligently accept that we are a power with great responsibility and that we must maintain our hegemony because if we let go, the cost may be detrimental (I believe). From that point on, please give me something to talk to Obama and Edwards supporters who can cite real foreign policy doctrines that were run in Foreign Affairs.
I’m for you Dennis but man, you’ve gotta throw me a bone.
Call (574) 261-4465. Let me speak out for you and be the leader of an Internet campaign to elect you President of the United States of America.
