by CKR
I’m continuing my series boiling down the presidential candidates’ statements on foreign policy to readable points (Obama, Romney). I’m a bit late with Bill Richardson. James Joyner has already done something like this, but I like to do these things myself. At some point in the future, I’ll do some analysis. For now, I’m just trying to see what they’re saying. As I did earlier, I’ll mostly use the candidate’s words, but I’ll edit for coherence. And I urge you to read Richardson's own words.
Richardson frames his statement with
a new realism adapted to the facts of a new century. Such a policy will require a bipartisan paradigm shift as profound as that which occurred in the middle of the last century, when thinkers like George Kennan and Hans Morgenthau saw that the world had changed, that isolation was no longer an option, and that the United States needed to assume a role as global leader.It’s easy to say we need a change, much harder to provide that paradigm shift. Here’s what Richardson offers as an outline:
Such a new realism must harbor no illusions about the importance of a strong military in a dangerous world, but it must also understand the importance of diplomacy and multilateral cooperation in a world in which what goes on inside of one country has profound impacts on other countries.Also,
Today, leadership by the world’s only superpower is needed more than ever, but such leadership cannot disregard what goes on inside other societies. No nation can defend its own interests without blending them with the interests of others and seeking common solutions to common problems.
This realism must address six trends:
• fanatical Jihadism bursting from an increasingly unstable and violent greater Middle East.
• the growing power and sophistication of criminal networks capable of disrupting the global economy and trafficking in weapons of mass destruction.
• the extraordinarily rapid rise of Asian economic and military power, particularly in China and India.
• the re-emergence of Russia as an assertive global and regional player, tempted by authoritarianism and militant nationalism, with a large nuclear arsenal and strong control over energy resources.
• the growth of both global economic interdependence and of global financial imbalances, unaccompanied by the growth of institutional capacities to manage these realities.
• the globalization of urgent health, environmental, and social problems.
His specific recommendations are:
International Institutions
• First and foremost, the United States must repair its alliances.
• Promote expansion of the UN Security Council’s permanent membership to include Japan, India, Germany, and one country each from Africa and Latin America, along with ethical reform at the United Nations.
• Expand the G8 to include India and China.
• Join the International Criminal Court and respect all international treaties, including the Geneva Conventions.
• Reward countries that respect the Universal Declaration on Human Rights—and negotiate, constructively but firmly, with those who do not.
• Start taking human rights in Africa seriously.
Climate Change
• Embrace the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, and lead the world with a man-on-the-moon effort to improve energy efficiency and to commercialize clean, alternative technologies.
• Cut fossil fuel consumption dramatically.
• Set and meet ambitious emission caps and alternative energy goals, develop new technologies, and promote those technologies in the developing world.
• Climate agreements must include tough and enforceable emission commitments from both developed and developing countries, as well as financial incentives and technology transfer assistance for developing countries.
Nuclear Issues
• Engage Russia and China more effectively, strategically, and systematically.
• Build strong coalitions to fight terrorists and to stop nuclear proliferation.
• US diplomatic leadership is needed to unite the world, including Russia and China, to sanction the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, and to provide these nations with positive incentives and face-saving ways to renounce nuclear weapons.
• Increase funding for the Nunn-Lugar program and for US Energy Department programs to secure former Soviet plutonium stocks and nuclear weapons.
• Work with Pakistan to make sure that their nuclear arsenal does not fall into the hands of Jihadists.
• The Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) needs to be upgraded and tightened in an effort to prevent states from legally developing their nuclear capabilities and then opting out of the treaty as they rush to build bombs.
• Re-affirm the US NPT commitment to the long-term goal of global nuclear disarmament.
• Invite the Russians to join in a moratorium on new weapons and further staged reductions in arsenals, beyond what has already been agreed, over the course of the next decade.
• Seek to get the other nuclear powers to reduce their arsenals, to get the non-nuclear powers to forego nuclear fuel enrichment, and to agree to rigorous global safeguards and verification procedures.
• Ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Response to Jihadists
• The United States must live up to its own ideals. Prisoner abuse, torture, secret prisons, and evasion of the Geneva Conventions must have no place in US policy. Close Guantanamo.
• Pressure Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and other friends in the Arab world to reform their education systems. Support public education in the Muslim world.
• Re-engage the Middle East peace process. Use all its sticks and carrots to strengthen Palestinian moderates and to achieve a two-state solution which guarantees Israel’s security.
• Spend more to recruit, equip, and train more first responders and to drastically improve public health facilities.
• Homeland Security dollars should be allocated to where they are needed most—to the population centers and facilities that Al Qaeda targets.
International Development
• By example and diplomacy, encourage all rich countries to honor their UN Millennium goal commitments.
• Create a Commission on the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goals, composed of world leaders and prominent experts, to recommend ways of meeting Millennium commitments.
• Lead donors on debt relief, shifting aid from loans to grants, and focus on primary health care and affordable vaccines.
• Encourage the World Bank to focus on poverty reduction, and the IMF to be more flexible regarding social safety nets.
• Promote trade agreements, which [that?] create more jobs in all countries and which seriously address wage disparities, worker rights, and the environment.
• Together with other governments, pressure pharmaceutical companies to allow expanded use of generic drugs, and encourage public-private partnerships to reduce costs and enhance access to anti-malarial drugs and bed nets.
• Promote a multilateral Marshall Plan for the Middle East and North Africa.