Foreign Policy In Focus

Campaigns mounted to ask the candidates questions about human rights abuses and atrocities in places like Darfur, the Sudans, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were ignored.

Cross-posted from the United to End Genocide blog.

On October 22, The Guardian's  Glenn Greenwald summed up the dismal state of the foreign policy debate perfectly:

That was just a wretched debate, with almost no redeeming qualities. It was substance-free, boring, and suffuse with empty platitudes. The vast majority of the most consequential foreign policy matters (along with the world’s nations) were completely ignored in lieu of their same repetitive slogans on the economy.

In previous years, the debates welcomed questions from citizens. In 2008, more than 7 million Democrats and Republicans engaged with the YouTube debates. These debates allowed for citizens to not only send in video questions, but to also post written responses for discussion and for use on the CNN program. This year, citizen input was kicked to the curb, though not for a lack of trying. Greenwald notes:

Numerous foreign policy analysts, commentators and journalists published lists of foreign policy questions they wanted to hear asked and answered at this debate. Almost none was raised. In sum, it was a perfect microcosm of America’s political culture.

One such group, our student-led division, STAND, hand delivered 777 letters to debate moderator Bob Schieffer requesting that he ask the candidates “How will you strengthen the United States’ atrocity prevention efforts as president?”

And Act for Sudan ran a strong campaign to “ask the candidates how they propose to revamp U.S. policy on Sudan to ensure that the slaughter of innocent civilians does not continue on our watch and with tacit U.S. support?”

Instead, the candidates sparred over anticipated questions about our relationship with Israel and the Middle East, Iran’s nuclear capabilities, our military capabilities, and our relationship with China. The larger question facing our nation about the U.S. role in the world and how the candidates themselves would define what is in the national security interest of the United States was almost completely ignored.

Writing for OpenDemocracy, Ruth Rosen called out Schieffer and the candidates for this failure:

What would a real national security look like? This debate never really took place. For starters, we would protect human rights and civil liberties, here and abroad. National security should be about strengthening our democracy and creating an example that billions of people around the world would like to emulate.

These are core components of what our foreign policy should look like. However we need more of an outward look – a debate about real national security should extend beyond our own borders and ask what impact our polices are having across the globe.

What we heard from both candidates was a narrow view of what is in the direct interest of the United States. That view excludes the voices of marginalized people under attack in places like Darfur, Blue Nile, and Abeyei in Sudan and South Sudan or those in places in the DR Congo or Burma. The list unfortunately goes on.

Ultimately, the fallout from this narrower vision lands on us – the citizens standing with those at greatest risk around the world. After hearing the debate, those of us who have stood for people in Darfur, in Syria, in DR Congo, and anywhere atrocities are happening know our voice is still needed. Those of us calling for greater prevention efforts, like the Atrocities Prevention Board, must redouble our efforts. And as we see a narrowing interest in the world from the candidates, we know we have a lot of work ahead of us.

Erik Leaver is the Director of Digital Strategy for United to End Genocide. He previously served as Communications Manager at the Institute for Policy Studies. 

Both President Obama and Governor Romney have to break their silence on climate change in the third and final presidential debate tonight. Unfortunately it appears they’ll get little help from moderator Bob Schieffer, who has chosen to focus on war, the Middle East, and China, while presumably lumping all other matters of global importance under “America’s role in the world.” 

It may not fit neatly into the categories presented tonight, but the next president’s approach to climate change will impact the real security of our nation, and global economic and political stability. Global warming – and the extreme weather, displacement, scarcity conflicts, and humanitarian crises it promises to bring with it—will affect every aspect of U.S. foreign policy. To be a responsible electorate on November 6^th, we need to know how each candidate plans to address the threat of climate disruption.

The best first step to addressing global climate change is reducing greenhouse gas pollution at home in the United States—still the world’s biggest overall climate culprit. The incoming president should start by ending tax breaks to dirty energy like coal, oil, and gas, beefing up investment in clean wind, solar, and energy efficiency, and letting the EPA do its job of enforcing existing rules to protect the planet. The last thing we need is a pair of politicians falling all over each other on the debate floor to prove who loves coal better and who’s going to open up more gas and oil fields.

Barring an apology for their wanton wooing of the fossil fuel industry in previous debates, here are four things I hope to hear both candidates talk about getting done on climate and the environment in the next four years:

1. Stand up for multilateralism and global democracy. When U.S. envoy Todd Stern first addressed the 192 member countries of the UN climate convention after Obama’s inauguration, he received a standing ovation. Since then he’s worked to steadily lower expectations of what the United States—and democratic spaces like the United Nations—can accomplish on climate. Regrettably, it’s worked. Confidence in the UN as the best forum in which to seal a global climate deal is staggeringly low. But a growing chorus of international civil society and official voices alike is calling for the United States to bargain in good faith for a fair and effective climate treaty in 2015, or step aside and let the rest of the world do so.

We need to get verbal confirmation that our next leader understands the magnitude of the threat that climate change poses, and hear how he would promote multilateral efforts to solve this global challenge.

2. Put his money where his mouth should be. Taking global warming seriously means spending money to help poorer countries steer away from cheap but polluting energy toward low-carbon development. It also means paying our fair share to support communities as they adapt to the effects of warming already “locked in” by existing emissions. It’s a moral obligation and a legal commitment, but it also makes economic sense. Every dollar we spend today staving off climate chaos saves three in future disaster response costs. And since climate change threatens to derail and even roll back development gains in the global south, paying for prevention is part of protecting 60 years of U.S. investment in reducing poverty.  

The candidates should signal support for international climate finance by naming innovative proposals to raise funds like a financial transaction tax (popularly known as a Robin Hood Tax)—a tiny tax on trades of stocks, bonds, and derivatives that can raise hundreds of billions of dollars a year—and committing to put that money in the Green Climate Fund.

3. Don’t trade away our future. Trade may not seen like a climate issue, but the United States is in the midst of negotiating a free-trade agreement (FTA) called the Trans-Pacific Partnership that could stop us, and our allies, from passing laws that protect the planet and our families. FTAs give countries—and even companies—the power to sue governments for policies that they say hurt their bottom line. In a current case, Japan and the European Union are suing Canada for Ontario’s new feed-in tariff program to increase the share of green energy in province electricity markets and encourage “made-in-Ontario” goods and labor.  Sadly, the United States has sided against the climate, submitting an official brief calling Canada’s support of local renewable power “trade-distorting.” The United States could be in the same boat in the future if a member of the TPP doesn’t like one of our environmental regulations. Add to the mix a major potential ramp-up in natural gas exports to Asia, and the biggest free-trade agreement on the table is a climate disaster waiting to happen.

Both Obama and Romney should talk tonight about how their policies on trade would protect our environment and local jobs, and what they would do to correct past mistakes that undermine our partners’ forward-looking initiatives.

4. Champion real security for all. The debate tonight will no doubt focus heavily on security and the military, and there’s no better reminder of the urgency of climate change than voices from the front line. From the 2007 Blue Ribbon Panel to current Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, security officials have been sounding the alarm about the increased risks of instability that global warming poses. The next president needs to make clear his plans for bolstering human security in the face of climate chaos, steps that could include cutting the military budget and spending those dollars instead on helping communities keep good jobs in the transition from military manufacturing to solar panel production. 

It may not be realistic to expect these words to fall from either candidate’s lips—and if we don’t hear most of what I’ve outlined here, I’ll be disappointed, but not surprised. But if the next president doesn’t take climate change seriously as a central issue in his foreign policy platform, then he’s not being realistic either.

Janet is co-director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Research has shown that one of the main reasons Americans don't like politics is conflict between candidates and in Congress.

(Two notes: 1. Though the debate isn't about foreign policy, Focal Points couldn't help but weigh in. 2. The author is not a supporter of President Obama.) 

Acquiescing to the conventional wisdom that Mitt Romney won the debate last night is surrendering to the notion that appearances are all that matters while content counts for nothing.

Romney labors under the handicap of trying to make policies that are unpalatable to the public palatable, which requires him to contort himself or outright lie. Also, his organization seems to have viewed the debate as an opportunity to solidify his drift from the far right in hopes of winning swing voters. But, assuming they were listening and not just watching, that segment of the population, as well as his supporters -- not to mention his opponents -- can't help but be confused by the state of flux in which they found the candidate's message last night.

Let's, though, reduce ourselves to reducing the debate to appearances -- to wit, Romney's aggressiveness. First, seldom remarked upon is how, even in his most buoyant moments, tightly wound Romney seems. His presentation last night only made him look that much more excitable, a character trait that obviously doesn't befit a presidential candidate.

Second, both conservatives and progressives urge their candidates to go on the offensive and puncture what they perceive as the other's lies. But, arguably, much of the American public prefers that conflict and aggression be confined to reality TV shows.

One of my key electoral handbooks is Stealth Democracy: Americans' Beliefs About How Government Should Work (Cambridge University Press, 2002) by political scientists Elizabeth Theiss-Morse and John Hibbing. Using focus groups and polls, the authors, as you may know, determined that more of the American public doesn't participate in democracy because of an aversion to conflict in, say, town meetings and between candidates. The message that Americans are too soft for democracy aside, incivility in politics seems to make them as uneasy as corruption.

Like a spurned lover who doesn't get the message, President Obama may have clung to his dream of bipartisanship with Republicans too long. But, outside of Washington, civility and cooperation in politics are alive and well. Most Americans believe those are principles to which politicians should adhere. Viewed through that prospective, Romney may have seemed less like an attack dog than a mad dog.