Upon an Objective Foreign Policy of the United States

The United States is the preeminent military power in the world. As the freest country in the Western world, it is also a beacon of liberty & justice. Its military & economic pre-eminence is not one of geographic chance in terms of natural resources or strategic location. Neither is it borne out of historical chance or of a feudal-imperialist global policy that enslaves the countries it has diplomatic ties with or even of its relatively open immigration policy. Rather, its might & prosperity is based on a unique political system built upon on principles of classical liberalism that found their fullest & most complete political expression in the Constitution including the Bill of Rights. The United States Constitution, based on its fundamental principle of life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness, is a unique intellectual achievement & a rare instance of successful political-social engineering. Mankind through most of its political & often bloody & dark history has, on principle & in explicit intent, lived as subservient to a political authority that derived its powers to govern & rule from a mystical realm. This mysticism has been religious in nature conferring divine & unlimited authoritarian powers on an absolute monarch as in the Middle or Dark ages. That mysticism has also been populist or egalitarian in nature resulting in socialist, fascist, & communist political regimes that conferred vast & unlimited political power to the majority at the expense of a minority. 

The United States was the first country to explicitly recognize the primacy of the individual over all other social groups. Here is what philosopher Ayn Rand had to say of the development of political freedom leading to the culmination of the United States, 

“It took centuries of intellectual, philosophical development to achieve political freedom. It was a long struggle, stretching from Aristotle to John Locke to the Founding Fathers. The system they established was not based on unlimited majority rule, but on its opposite: on individual rights, which were not to be alienated by majority vote or minority plotting. The individual was not left at the mercy of his neighbors or his leaders: the Constitutional system of checks and balances was scientifically devised to protect him from both. This was the great American achievement—and if concern for the actual welfare of other nations were our present leaders’ motive, this is what we should have been teaching the world.” 

Of the basic political premise of the Founding Fathers, Miss Rand wrote,

“The basic premise of the Founding Fathers was man’s right to his own life, to his own liberty, to the pursuit of his own happiness—which means: man’s right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; and that the political implementation of this right is a society where men deal with one another as traders, by voluntary exchange to mutual benefit

Of the Constitution, itself, Miss Rand wrote,

“Ours was the first government based on and strictly limited by a written document—the Constitution—which specifically forbids it to violate individual rights or to act on whim. The history of the atrocities perpetrated by all the other kinds of governments—unrestricted governments acting on unprovable assumptions—demonstrates the value and validity of the original political theory on which this country was built.”

To further clarify & emphasize the point about the relationship of the Constitution to the government, Miss Rand stated,

“Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals—that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government—that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizens’ protection against the government.”

Of the relationship of America’s founding ideal to its economic system of free enterprise, Ayn Rand wrote,

“America’s founding ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more—and nothing less. The rest—everything that America achieved, everything she became, everything “noble and just,” and heroic, and great, and unprecedented in human history—was the logical consequence of fidelity to that one principle. The first consequence was the principle of political freedom, i.e., an individual’s freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by the government. The next was the economic implementation of political freedom: the system of capitalism.”

Thus, the ethical principle underlying the political structure of the United States is rational self-interest or rational selfishness. The right to life, liberty, & pursuit of happiness applies equally to every man. A man is free of physical coercion from the government in form of an explicit constitution & a scientifically devised system of checks & balances. In order to be free of coercion (including fraud) from private criminals & foreign governments, the United States government was devised with its Armed Forces, Courts, & Sheriffs.

In accordance with its underlying ethical principle, any foreign policy of the United States ought to be based, collectively, on its national self-interest. As egregious examples of present foreign policy, for instance, it is not the duty of the US government or its taxpayers to be alleviating AIDS in Africa, or poverty in the third world, or bringing about an end to tyrannical regimes at enormous cost in terms of money & blood & then letting the natives of those regimes re-establish or re-elect whatever political system they want to, which is usually another variant of tyranny. It is, clearly, not within the constitutional scope of the US government to be fighting global warming & climate change, either.

On foreign policy, Ms. Rand wrote,

“We do need a policy based on long-range principles, i.e., an ideology.”

“A proper solution would be to elect statesmen—if such appeared—with a radically different foreign policy, a policy explicitly and proudly dedicated to the defense of America’s rights and national self-interests, repudiating foreign aid and all forms of international self-immolation.”

Citing further contemporary examples, it clearly is self-immolation when the United States liberates Iraq at grave cost & loss of lives only to see it being, gradually, taken over by Islamic savages from Iran & elsewhere during transition & after.

It, clearly, is self-immolation when it does the same in Afghanistan only to see it degenerate into anarchy as Islamic brutes rush to fill the vacuum gradually created as it sets a timeline for a pullout.

It is also self-immolation when the United States, after the September 11 attacks, declares a perennial war on terrorism, like its domestic war on drugs, but never on actual, concrete enemies in form of states & regimes. As further illustration of this self-immolation, it chooses to attack minor enemies of lesser consequence such as the Al-Qaeda network & Afghanistan but continues to maintain full diplomatic ties with countries who have harboured, supported, & sustained such networks including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, & other oil-rich nations of the Middle East; nations who became rich owing to Western technology in oil yet continue to reap decade-on-decade royalties in this natural resource. It is even more grotesque when American citizens are told that the Middle East is of strategic importance owing to its oil resources, yet domestically, the United States permits little to no exploration or drilling of oil while bowing to pressure from groups such as the tyrant-loving Hollywood that lectures on the grave &, largely fictitious environmental cost of permitting newer technologies such as fracking.

It continues to be self-immolation when the United States declared Iran as part of an axis of evil more than a decade ago for its state sponsorship of terror groups, its open hostility to a genuine ally in free Israel, & its internal repression of political dissidents but refuses to consider any concrete military action. For the greater part of the past two decades, the United States has been engaging Iran diplomatically through the United Nations & through a perverse & convoluted Middle-East process. Meanwhile, Iran has continued unabated in its pursuit of a nuclear bomb, in its increasing sponsorship, both material & spiritual, of Islamic terror internationally, & an increasing belligerence towards Israel. All this time, the best & most courageous in its populace such as university students, journalists, engineers, writers have continued to be jailed, tortured, & executed.

It is, again, self-immolation when the United States, till today & since the mid-nineties, has committed $4 billion in bilateral assistance to the Palestinians while terror groups amongst them have fired rockets at its ally, Israel. From 2001 to 2008, only one of numerous terror groups, Hamas has fired more than 8,600 rockets. This works out to 3 rockets fired daily on a civilized settlement, continuously, for 8 years. More importantly, the Gaza portion of the Palestinian territories is governed by Hamas which participates in the Palestinian parliament. The United States, meanwhile, has continued to aid the Palestinian Authority with $600 million annually, since 2008.

It was folly & self-immolation when the United States, at the cost of improved relations with the Communist People’s Republic of China, recognized the dictatorship as the sole government of China while breaking official ties with Taiwan in 1979. Although this was partially negated in the Taiwan Relations Act, when the United States obligated itself to come to Taiwan’s defense in an instance of aggression, it has provided the dictatorship of the PRC much unrecognized legitimacy, both internationally & domestically. The PRC continues to oppose the Taiwan Relations Act & protests every time the United States provides Taiwan with arms & military training. After establishing full diplomatic relations in 1979, the United States continued to invest in & trade with the dictatorship & in 2000 the US Congress approved ‘permanent normal trade relations’ (PNTR) that opened the US market to China at the same low tariffs as goods from most other countries. Even after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the United States did little to nothing in terms of economic or diplomatic sanctions. Before granting PNTR status, President John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO made the following remarks before the Senate Finance Committee,

"China routinely tramples human rights and religious liberty. It is a massive user of prison labor, and, according to the Laogai Research Foundation, operates over 1,000 forced labor camps, many of which produce commercial goods. The Chinese government does not allow workers to join free and independent trade unions and imprisons those who try to exercise this fundamental right to freedom of association and to organize.”

I do not mean to imply agreement with the commonly held Western labour notion that they have the right to unionize irrespective of whether private employers are in agreement. In other words, I do not endorse the right to unionize as a civil right. However, the point about investing in the PRC where most workers have no legal right to negotiate freely with their employers is valid as are allegations of prison labour. Prior to the granting of PNTR status, this article also noted the following regarding labour concerns,

“Labor leaders are also dismayed. They see normal trade relations with China as a ticket to lost jobs and a worsening trade deficit. In a decade of annually normalized relations, the deficit with China burgeoned from approximately $6 billion in 1989 to $56.9 billion. They note that some Chinese workers are paid as little as 13 cents per hour. That cheap labor pool could convince U.S. manufacturers to move to China.”

This, again, is an entirely valid concern. It is one thing for businesses to move to politically free countries with a comparatively cheaper labour pool as is true of most East Asian countries such as Malaysia & Thailand, as is largely true of India & Japan. In that scenario, labour in the United States has the ability to adjust to global market conditions & compete accordingly. It is an entirely different scenario when investment capital moves to the PRC where labour is cheap because it is largely enslaved & is assured to remain enslaved &, thus, assured to remain cheap, relatively, till real political reform can occur. At the time, Michael Jendrzejczyk, Washington Director of Human Rights Watch, made another important observation,

“The human rights situation has worsened recently in some significant ways, with a tightening of controls on basic freedoms that began in late 1998, escalated in 1999, and has continued this year. When Mary Robinson, the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, visited Beijing in March she condemned the crackdown on free expression, religion and association. The government also just launched its annual "Strike Hard" anti-crime campaign, targeting both common criminals and suspected dissidents. The authorities seem determined to maintain "social stability" at all costs.”

And,

“The Communist Party's economic reforms, launched by Deng Xiaoping, have led to more personal freedom for many of China's citizens since the 1980s, for example, related to their ability to live and work where they choose. But when it comes to political freedom or fundamental political reform, there is no evidence thus far of trade in itself improving human rights. In areas with the largest influx of foreign investment, restrictions on peaceful political, religious or independent labor activities are as stringent as in other parts of China.”

This continues to remain true. For the latest news on the human rights situation in China, visit the Laogai Research Foundation.

In the same testimony, John Sweeney also remarked,

“China also routinely violates existing trade agreements, and high-ranking Chinese officials have made it clear that they have no intention of living up to the deal negotiated with the United States in Beijing last fall.”

“Since 1992 the United States and China have entered into four bilateral agreements - on market opening, prison labor, intellectual property rights, and textiles. The Chinese government has failed to live up to its obligations in all four cases. The annual USTR report on foreign trade barriers lays out China's failure to comply in numbing detail. Mr. Chairman, I'm sure you are familiar with USTR's report, so I will not recite their findings here, but simply observe that the violations are blatant, widespread, and continuing.”

As the then House minority leader, Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), stated,

“Just last week, Chinese authorities again arrested a group of peaceful Falun Gong protesters in Tiananmen Square. They join thousands of their colleagues already under arrest. The Chinese government is so insecure in its power, any group that is not officially sanctioned is automatically branded subversive -- even a non-political, self-help movement like Falun Gong."

And he, further, made the following prescient remarks,

"The most reliable trading partners are countries that embrace the rule of law, support the tradition of an independent legal system, and who adhere to democratic self-government at home. Democracies tend to live up to trade and other agreements negotiated with the U.S. because the governments in those countries are ultimately responsible to their citizens."

I reproduce, again, what Ms. Rand wrote on foreign policy,

“We do need a policy based on long-range principles, i.e., an ideology.”

“A proper solution would be to elect statesmen—if such appeared—with a radically different foreign policy, a policy explicitly and proudly dedicated to the defense of America’s rights and national self-interests, repudiating foreign aid and all forms of international self-immolation.”

An America whose foreign policy is dedicated to the defense of its own rights & national self-interests would recognise politically free countries as potential trading partners & allies with whom it would form trade & military alliances. Such an America would recognise tyrannies & dictatorships as potential threats that it would either boycott or engage militarily should such despotic regimes turn hostile or violent. The former point is wholly applicable to Israel while the latter to Iran. A foreign policy dedicated to the defense of America’s rights would also recognise the crucial need to keep the trade routes of the world - on land, air, & sea – free of coercive interference.

The business of America is business. It is the conditions of free enterprise that the United States should seek to foster & sustain internationally.