Foreign Policy: How the US Should Maneuver in the Coming Decades

Landmark Digital Art, accessed 2/28/2018

Even if I am able to discredit and crush the reactionary opposition to progressive, evidence-based policymaking in the United States, we will still have to reckon with the conservative wave that is growing in Europe, and the reactionary powers of Russia and China.  Foreign policy is as important as domestic, because those external forces can profoundly influence and shape our own domestic condition and state. The only way we are going to be able to effectively challenge international conservatism that is two-fold:

1. The reactionaries need to discredit and delegitimize themselves in their home territories and places of influence. 
2. We must genuinely improve our relations with the people and peoples of all territories in the world, working underneath their reactionary, extracting governments and political factions. 

The Achilles Heel of the Right is their greed and inability to work well with others.   Progressives' weakness is our humanity and the limitations associated with that in understanding, communicating, and genuinely/effectively working with a compassionate heart for others' benefit. The United States can no longer afford to be the big bully in Latin America or on the continents of Africa and Asia.  To be ready to meet the potential challenges of Russia, China, and a potentially hostile Europe, we're going to have to work carefully and diligently to make actual friends with the people whom we have been beating up and bullying for a very long time.

To accomplish this, I would suggest developing the skills and techniques that are needed to effectively operate a society based on evidence and compassion in our own society at many levels of social organization.  The idea here is to have an actual set of products for people to use and pick from for their own countries.  Once we work out the bugs in our techniques, we can begin exporting the techniques, policies, and programs to other cultures and help them get these new social tools into the local context and cultures.  There would be no invasions, no use of military force or violence to persuade the governments and sovereign people to adopt these techniques; we do not seek the students, the students need to seek us.  An example of this is appealing to Islamic jurisprudence, and framing compassionate, evidence-based policymaking in terms of Islam for predominantly Muslim countries.  If we can prove that these basic concepts work better in our own society, we may be able to spread this kind of logic elsewhere in the world if and when they're ready and willing to accept them.  

It should be noted that liberal, Western democracy is only as important as the ability for people to inexpensively and non-violently provide effective feedback and accountability for the leadership of the country, regardless of whether they are autocratic or democratic.  My goal, stated simply, not be to impose anything on anyone, but to help others figure out how to better manage their domestic and international affairs based on existing sensibilities, beliefs, perspectives and social institutions.  The beauty of using evidence and compassion to justify decisions and institutions is that they know no regional or cultural boundaries.  The only things that must be overcome are the anti-social tendencies of some people within the given society.  I'm in favor of letting each society figure out how to suppress those anti-social elements and temperaments, with the only stipulation that they not be killed in the process of purging them from office.

Unfortunately for us, I doubt our current political leadership, and their supporters in the crowd, will understand and appreciate our changing position in the world, and the steps needed to get ourselves out of our predicament.  I'm worried that our reactionaries will continue to use military force to bully others, while Establishment liberals will continue to think their way is superior to all others in the world, thus alienating potential friends.  The clock is ticking, and I don't believe we as a nation will make it on time to save ourselves and the quality of life in the world from the growing tide of conservatism and Russian/Chinese led imperialism.  We will have to pay for our choices.  My only hope is that those who aren't directly responsible for the problems and mistakes of our nation will pay a lighter price than those who actively instigated and created the problems knowingly or unknowingly.