No Coercion

Okay, I’ve slammed Obama plenty on his apparent desire to use the guns of government to take from Peter and give to Paul (while government itself keeps a hefty cut). His economic policies, if carried out, will likely prolong our recession and are, quite simply, morally repugnant.

But I also want to acknowledge the bright side of this situation: Obama’s foreign policy disposition.

But first, let me lay out a premise: there is a direct relationship between true national security and individual liberty. The safer we are, the less excuse the government has to crack down on personal freedom in the name of catching bad guys. Inversely, as we have seen over the past 8 years (and in other periods of war), increasing numbers of people threatening violence against us leads to increasing government infringements of our liberty.

Now, on to Obama and his foreign policy.

Generally, Obama seems much more willing to sit down and talk with our international interlocutors than McCain would have been. Thinking optimistically here, I can see a President Obama treating states like Iran, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela like adults (even when they don’t deserve it) and opening dialogue instead of opening fire (literally or figuratively). Some of the basic rules of conflict resolution are to make the other side feel like an equal, keep them from losing face and getting defensive, and move them from an adversarial position on the other side of the table to a co-problem-solver position on the same side of the table jointly attacking an impersonal problem. I have a feeling Obama has a relatively well-developed understanding of these principles. Hopefully, his talk during the campaign about unilaterally going into Pakistan was just a miscalculated attempt to prevent McCain from painting him as a sissy. Basically, foreign relations is like raising children. Children don’t respond well to screaming and beating, and neither do the child-like despots that control the countries we call our “enemies.” You praise the positive actions and use negative actions as opportunities to talk about why the action was wrong. Such an approach will drastically reduce international tensions and eliminate potential military conflicts, thus making us safer.

One other key point is that Obama is not in bed with Israel. He won’t likely be bending over backward to support a country that’s perfectly capable of defending itself. Since our foolishly unconditional support of Israel is one of the main rallying cries for recruitment of new anti-Western terrorists (I know, it doesn’t really make sense to us), cutting or reducing the U.S.-Israel military and financial umbilical cord would go a long way toward enhancing our overall security.

One negative aspect of Obama’s foreign policy that shouldn’t go unmentioned is his probable continuation and increase of all kinds of foreign aid. Not only is foreign aid another immoral instance of government using force to transfer wealth from one group to another, but it has the added disadvantage of giving ammo to various countries and groups calling for violence against Americans (as in the case with Israel).

So hopefully the foreign policy of the Obama administration will actually improve both our short term and long term security and do so by following the libertarian principles outlined above.

What thinkest thou?

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!