The recent Republican debate shows some difference but there are some similar. Take the issue of Ukraine during the recent Republican debate. Haley’s argument is that there is a connection between Tawain and Ukraine, if we fail to support Ukraine, China may view Taiwan as vulnerable whereas others fear that are we concentrating on the Ukraine at the expense of the Chinese. The reasoning begins with using up our own military stock and the billions we have spent with no end game in sight.
The one thing that everyone agrees with, no United States troop will enter the conflict to aid the Ukrainians and it is their war to win or lose. As I mention, what needs to be explored is the review of the Weinberger doctrine which was controversial in the 1980’s during the Reagan years.
Just a remainder, those principles were:
1. Forces should not be committed unless the action is vital to national interest.
2. Forces should be committed wholeheartedly with the intention of winning – or they should not be committed at all (No half-hearted commitment).
3. Forces should be committed with clearly defined political and military objectives.
4. The use of force should be the last resort (after all diplomatic initiatives have been exhausted).
5. The relationship between objectives and the force committed should be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary.
6. Before committing forces abroad (in foreign countries) there should be some reasonable assurance of public support.
As for the Ukraine, is it similar to helping mujahideen to defeat the Russians in Afghanistan? After the Russian invasion, we aided the mujahideen against the Russians and they provided the blood and we the money. In the case of the Ukraine, there is no support for American troops to be involved in the defense of Ukraine and that Ukraine fate is up to the Ukrainian people. There is no support for American troops and since Ukraine is not NATO country, there is no reason to involved European troops.
The question is how much support is too much and what is the end goal? Has the aid been parcel out bits by bits and in a half-hearted fashion? Has Biden’s administration delayed providing M-1 tank and F-16 fighters, and does this violate the dictum that forces should be committed wholeheartedly or not at all? And what are the clearly defined political and military objectives? What is victory? And how does the definition of victory change in the course of war? During Korean war, once the Chinese joined the fight, the objective went from the entire the Korean peninsula as one entity favorable to the West to merely defending the status quo of independent South Korea not controlled by communists. South Korea has zoomed ahead of North Korean and is not just a developed nation economically but is a leading military power in the region.
In the case of the Ukraine, a NATO official hinted that a negotiated peace would allow Ukraine to be part of NATO and Russia in control of eastern portion of Ukraine. Ukraine gets the protection of NATO in the future and aligned with NATO and EU, has a chance to provide its own economic miracle as a counter to Russia. Certainly, having a military power of quarter of million soldiers with armed citizenry behind it will provide security for much of central Europe, the Nordic and Baltic states along with Poland which is in the process of strengthening their military. The Polish-Ukraine alliance will include a minimum of 500,000 soldiers, well trained and with the latest military equipment. Poland economy is on the verge of overtaking Great Britain by the end of the decade and many of the Baltic and Nordic states have their own sound economics bordering Russia. This gives both United States and NATO option if Central European nations are capable of defending against Russia in the future. This could be seen as a military objective in which followers of a modest foreign policy could get behind. This is one policy that both Haley and DeSantis could agree on along most Republicans. (There will be some debate on whether Ukraine should be a member of NATO, but the reality is that in order to gain a peace treaty, Ukraine has to be guaranteed some security arrangements against future Russian incursion and NATO is the one that provides that.)
Reagan years saw their number one objective as defeating the Soviet Empire and how does a modest policy face our number one threat, China? The one thing that Reagan understood is that our economy strength played a role in our national defense and presently our economy is not strong presently with inflation percolating and energy policy designed to weaken our local energy production. An American first policy begins with energy independence policy, full speed ahead along with anti-inflationary policy. Reducing spending and getting our budget under control.
I made the case that the importance of supply side economy and that its definition must be expanded in my book, “Americas at the Abyss, will America survive?” Government spending must be controlled, regulations burden reduced, and supply side had to move beyond just tax cuts. Trump did two of three, reduce regulation and tax reduction which benefited most Americans. The result was continuation of the recovery and more importantly the middle class, minorities, and lower income saw their income increase. Economic growth matters but Trump failure to get government under control hurt his overall economic plan and the massive spending during the Covid pandemic along with the anti-growth lockdown hurt the economy in 2020 and ended Trump chances to win.
GOP governors are pursuing tax reductions and yet, they are conscious of making sure that they keep spending under control so as not to repeat what Brownback did in Kansas, cut taxes but failed to cut spending accordingly. The new generation of governors are doing both while not just cutting taxes but trying to flatten taxes.
The United States is in the middle of the tax-reduction revolution on a state level and as Jared Walczak of Tax Foundation, observed, “The past three years have seen the largest wave of state-tax cuts in the modern era, certainly since income taxes were created over a century ago at the state level. We have seen more than half of the states with income taxes cut their top rates. We have seen trimming of rates in other taxes, including thirteen states with corporate-income-tax cuts, a couple of states with sales-tax cuts, and trimming other taxes as well.” And these states are enacting real tax reforms. State governors are providing a game plan to take to Washington to strengthen the economy.
The number one rival is China and China is building its military and have overtaken the United States with number of ships built but the negative for Chinese is that xi has increased government intervention in their economy and there is an economic slowdown occurring combined with population implosion, China may get old before it progresses further economically. China advantage is that the present Administration has engaged policies that benefit them including the Green new deal in which our domestic energy is penalized while going with renewables benefits China since they control much of raw materials needed to produce wind and solar energy.
Austin Bay in his Strategy page, “The Japanese fleet is the largest in the region and the South Korea fleet is growing. Japan also has naval and air bases American ships and military aircraft use, especially in wartime. The combination of Japanese, American and South Korea naval and air forces match whatever the Chinese can deploy against them. The large increase in Japanese defense spending is meant to maintain that superiority.” An America First policy will include strengthening alliances in the Pacific to counter China and as I mention in my book “America at the Abyss, Will America survive?” that India must be included as part of any long-term alliances. India has border clashes with China and a natural rivalry, but Modie government is part of the BRIC’s economic alliances and that includes weakening the dollar as the reserve currency. So, diplomacy is a must to keep India aligned with us.
Frederic Fleitz noted, “That the heart of the Ramaswamy/Haley argument over the Ukraine War is the ultimate goal of the American policy on the war. Ramaswamy’s position, though far from perfect generally adheres to the America First principles of prioritizing the security of the American people, keeping America out of unnecessary wars, and focusing actual threats to U.S. security like our southern border and China. Meanwhile Haley’s interventionist position, with no exit strategy and no limiting principles on foreign aid, is closer to President Biden’s. … Vivek Ramaswamy has made some mistakes in his proposals to end the Ukraine war, but he realizes that the Biden Administration approach is feckless and unsustainable. I hope Mr. Ramaswamy quickly his proposals on the war so they are not so generous to Russian and holds Russia accountable.”
Ramaswamy view that we are driving Russia into the hands of China does have some merit similar to Allies position in 1935 toward Italy invasion of Ethiopia. Italy had not yet been a full ally of Nazis Germany and the year before, Mussolini protected Austria in a German attempt to overthrow the government and have Austria part of greater Germany. The Allies and the League of Nation sanctioned Italy (except oil which would have hurt Italy) and drove Italy toward Germany. Italy shortly afterwards joined Germany in a security pact and moved away from the alliances. That is also debatable point since Putin himself wants to rebuild a new Russian empire and build up Mother Russia with control of those nations like Ukraine. So, lot depends how one feels about Putin own view.
Finally, an America first/Modest foreign policy begins with the control of the southern border. A nation that can’t control its border ceases to be a nation and massive illegal immigration along with the influx of drugs seeping through the border undermines any support for legal immigration and undermines the principles of successful immigration policy, assimilation. An immigration policy without assimilation as its goal is national suicide and that is where we are right now.
The Donelson Files 