The Foreign Policy Establishment Licks Its Chops for Harris

Any discussion of what U.S. foreign policy under a President Harris might look like must begin with a recognition that every Democratic president beginning with Truman has ended up being captured by the very institutions that presidents are ostensibly elected to oversee. The one exception was murdered in office in 1963.

Generally speaking, Harris has three foreign policy templates from which to choose: Achesonianism, reluctant realism, and progressive internationalism.

The foreign policy template that has governed the behavior of Democratic presidents since the days of President Truman and his secretary of state, Dean Acheson, can be defined by an ingrained belief in the efficacy of American military might and the right and duty to act unilaterally and against international law in the name of security; a hard-wired deference to the prerogatives of the U.S. national security and intelligence bureaucracy; a fear of appearing “weak” on national security and defense issues by their political opponents; a barely concealed disdain for the allegedly “isolationist” tendencies of everyday Americans.

While much of what defines Achesonianism could also fairly characterize the foreign policy of President Barack Obama, his willingness to buck AIPAC and the most powerful of the Democratic party’s donor base in pursuing the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran, his short-lived attempts to normalize and stabilize relations with Cuba and Russia, and his refusal—at the last minute—to launch a full-scale war on Syria make him more of a reluctant realist than a full-bore Achesonian.

The less said about the third Democratic foreign-policy template, progressive internationalism, the better. As I noted in a 2019 cover story for The American Conservative, progressive foreign policy too often glosses over national context, history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the ‘authoritarian’ nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis…Progressive values crusades bear more than a passing resemblance to the neoconservative crusades to remake the world in the American self-image.

Progressive foreign-policy influencers remain convinced of their clout when no evidence for it exists. Outside a small community of “experts” who have somehow convinced themselves that funding a $100 billion proxy war against nuclear-armed Russia is necessary because it will somehow advance LGBTQ rights in Severodonetsk, there is little to indicate that Kamala Harris is in sympathy with their agenda—or indeed knows they exist.

From what little one can tell, given the scarcity of her public statements on such matters, Harris will almost certainly staff her administration with Achesonians who, over the past several weeks, have dutifully lined up to endorse her candidacy.

Notable among these was that of former CIA director and defense secretary Leon Panetta. Panetta’s speech to the DNC in Chicago was remarkable if only because it was so militaristic that it caused some in the convention to disrupt his address with chants of “No More War.” According to Panetta, “Trump tells tyrants like Putin they can do whatever the hell they want, Kamala Harris tells tyrants the hell you can. Not on my watch.”

Panetta’s speech won plaudits from the ever-predictable Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin, who gushed, “Panetta made clear no one is going to call Democrats weak on national security.”

Thank you for referencing that article Angelino97. Please note the the following critique is not directed at you.

"[...] and the right and duty to act unilaterally and against international law in the name of security; [...]"

FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument

Congress (House) has the constitutional “power of the purse,” so the executive branch arguably has no constitutional authority to do anything unilaterally outside enforcing laws reasonably based on constitutionally enumerated powers.

In fact, the drafters of the Constitution gave the power to declare war uniquely to Congress to help prevent armed forces from being used as instrument of tyranny (Justice Joseph Story), the power of the purse House being able to decide not to support an army led by a rising tyrant, let's now include rising puppet tyrants.

"Article I, Section 8, Clause 11: To declare War [emphasis added], grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;"

Constitutionally non-existent executive branch power to declare national emergencies, mythical power which arguably escalated over time to politically correct power to unconstitutionally justify US involvement in foreign wars, probably got started in the time of Constitution-ignoring activist President Woodrow Wilson under the cover of WWI.

More specifically, the Democratic-controlled Congress arguably took advantage of that difficult time by unconstitutionally giving all presidents the power to unilaterally declare national emergencies, Wilson wrongly signing the constitutionally indefensible bill that gives presidents such power.

"Now, Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, acting under and by virtue of the authority conferred in me by said Act of Congress, do hereby declare and proclaim that I have found that there exists a national emergency [...]" —Proclamation 1354—Emergency in Water Transportation of the United States (non-FR)
Merchant Marine Act of 1916 (Alexander Act) (non-FR)
List of national emergencies in the United States (non-FR)
”The system of the General Government is to seize all doubtful ground. We must join in the scramble, or get nothing. Where first occupancy is to give right, he who lies still loses all.” —Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1797.

But even if corrupt elite Democratic and RINO lawmakers are willing to spend our repealable 16th Amendment (direct taxes)-based tax dollars for national emergencies, now including global policing, it remains that, unlike Congress's constitutional power declare and pay for war, Congress has no express constitutional power to declare and pay for such emergencies.

Regarding US involvement in foreign wars, Wilson seems to have initiated a national emergency “falling dominos” effect that had been pointed out in general by law experts in the early 1800s, the misguided legal system inadvertently (deliberately?) using common law as a way to bypass the Constitution's Article V for “amending” the Constitution with politically correct policies.

"If it were, in fact, an unconstitutional exercise of power in congress to pass a law establishing the bank, nothing can manifest the impropriety of over-stepping the limits of the constitution, more than the act which we have just noticed. It shows that the most unauthorised acts of government may be drawn into precedents to justify other unwarrantable usurpations [emphasis added]." —Article 1, Section 8, Clause 6, St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries 1:App. 262--64, 1803.

In fact, since worthless career federal lawmakers and renegade states have repeatedly proven that they are enemies of the people imo, it is now up to Democratic and Republican Trump supporters to effectively "impeach and remove" ALL (exceptions?) state and federal lawmakers and executives in November.

In other words, it's now up to Democratic and Republican Trump supporters to take the first MAJOR step in draining the swamp by supporting hopeful Trump 47 with a new, Constitution-respecting Congress, new state lawmakers and executives too, not only so that he will not be a lame duck president from the first day of his second term, but will support him to quickly finish draining the swamp, including leading the states to repeal the 16th and 17th Amendments (popular voting for federal senators).

Finally, let's not allow the anti-Trump media try to fade our memories of what we witnessed on July 13.

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