While President Obama succeeded in removing American troops from hot zones in the Middle East, his administration was nonetheless infected with a neoconservative ideology that pursued regime change as a modus operandi for U.S. foreign policy. This saw the U.S. engage in wars in Syria and Libya that have created failed states and unfortunately resulted in the global proliferation of radical Islamic terrorism. To signal a dramatic, positive departure from the failed policies of the current administration, the new president should focus on bold new initiatives in a few key countries.
The first and most important foreign-policy move the president should make is to reclaim/restate the nation’s “special relationship” with the U.K. The president should stress that the relationship has become even more “special” now that the U.K. has elected to leave the European Union. This will send a wake-up call to the EU bureaucracy (and the global elites) and also will encourage other European states to fight against mandates from Brussels that adversely affect national sovereignty and security. However, the United States should look to strengthen military alliances with NATO by stressing that Europe and England contribute their fair share to the ongoing security alliances. There will also have to be renegotiation of multilateral trade agreements with Europe and a reconstruction of the global trade framework. We will have to shift away from the globalist agenda foisted upon the U.S. and Europe by the World Trade Organization, as the devil lies in the details in terms of sovereignty-reducing schemes.
Russia has been treated as an adversary when it should actually be considered one of our most important allies. Russians are not killing Americans or Europeans; Islamic jihadists are – and they are killing Russians, too. We need to join forces with Russia to defeat Islamic jihadists wherever they appear. The most effective fighters and battleground leaders of ISIS are Chechens. The Russians have fought them for many years, know them well and can make an important contribution to the effort to defeat them. Put all other differences with Russia aside to focus on defeating this lethal enemy. There is historical precedent for effective Russia-U.S. collaboration in the defeat of Hitler. Moreover, orienting toward Russian natural resources as a source for Europe could help break the West’s increasingly tenuous energy-related entanglements with Middle Eastern governments that are secretly supporting the jihadists.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the root and lifeblood of all Sunni Islamic terror in the world. The Saudis’ society, culture and aspirations are antithetical to U.S. interests in many respects. All U.S. military advisers and support for Saudi Arabia should be withdrawn. The Saudi royal family made a devil’s deal with the Wahhabi religious leadership, and the rest of the world a paying a price for this. The Saudi-Wahhabi marriage (the radical Sunni taproot) must be destroyed, and our withdrawal of support for the regime will accelerate this process. Furthermore, Saudi interventions in Iraq and Syria have complicated U.S. efforts to achieve peace and work with the Russians to defeat ISIS in the region. There is immense political upside in this reorientation for the president. Highlighting Saudi human rights abuses, especially their treatment of women, will be well-received in the U.S. and Europe. The rest of the Arab world will appreciate it as well; they detest the Saudis. U.S. defense contractors will fight hard against this, but that brings additional political benefit to the president as he seeks to right-size our own military.
Japan is our most important ally in the Pacific. We should re-visit outdated post-WWII restrictions on Japan’s military forces, especially with regards to the Japanese navy. Most of the Pacific nations would welcome a more assertive Japan as an additional counter-balance to a more aggressive China and an increasingly erratic North Korea. Even South Korea and the Philippines, who suffered greatly under Japanese occupation, recognize that a stronger Japan would be a positive influence in the region. Furthermore, Japan’s zero growth economic trajectory over the past two decades is largely a result of its inability to expand its geopolitical influence in the region. It has caused essentially a “cramping” of Japanese society that is having dire social effects on Japan’s people. Declining birth rates and a rapidly aging population make Japan weaker.
China is a demographic catastrophe unfolding before our eyes. The country is sitting on a massive and unsupportable debt. Due to its restrictive social policies, the country is aging at a faster rate than it can achieve wealth. It is apparent that because China has pegged its currency to the U.S. dollar, it can no longer afford the labor arbitrage that caused it to be able to create lower-cost imports to the U.S. Although the Trump administration has promised to take action on curbing the U.S. trade imbalance with China, it may be a problem that eventually solves itself. In the near term China will be forced to either devalue its currency (essentially floating it freely) or partially default on its national debt. This could spell an opportunity to onshore manufacturing that has migrated to China from the U.S. and bodes well for U.S. workers and job growth.
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