Current U.S. foreign policy is unjust and breeds insecurity for all. In seeking an alternative, we should not revive the failed policies of the past. Instead, we should chart a new relationship between the United States and the world.
Our common future faces daunting challenges. War, poverty, terrorism, loose nukes, and climate change make us all feel less secure than a decade ago. The Bush administration's foreign policy has brought U.S. popularity in the world to new lows. At home, it has generated widespread dissatisfaction across the political spectrum.
Such widespread public dissatisfaction offers an opportunity to transform the national conversation from the framework of fear that has prevailed since 9/11 to a broader response to global ills and injustices. The growing public awareness of the climate crisis, the need to address the Middle East in a comprehensive manner, the wasteful extravagance of military spending, the continued threat of nuclear proliferation and nuclear use, and the corrosive effects of global inequality have revealed the inadequacies not only of current U.S. foreign policy but the Democratic Party's 2006 "real security" doctrine as well.
With its emphasis on fighting wars, the Bush administration has insisted on focusing just on security. We must focus instead on a just security, because there can be no real security without justice. The United States should act as a global partner not a global boss. We must restore principles of fairness and equity into our international conduct.
This alternative foreign policy framework tells five different stories about our common future and the five principal challenges we face: climate change, global poverty, nuclear weapons, terrorism, and military conflict. We address five different sets of core misconceptions and offer five interconnected prescriptions for change. We then offer a Just Security budget that would cut roughly $213 billion from the president's current defense budget request and yet make the United States safer and more secure. The concluding chapter puts the challenges facing the United States in a larger historical context and offers an integrated Just Security program.
Our Just Security program calls for:
- A reduction of $213 billion in U.S. military spending, or one-third of the total "defense" budget.
- Dramatic cuts in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals as a first step toward nuclear disarmament.
- An international process under the auspices of the UN to secure a viable peace between Israel and Palestine.
- A global carbon fee to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and generate funds to help countries transition to sustainable sources of energy.
- A large-scale, global plan to train four million new health workers.
What distinguishes this report from many alternative foreign policy proposals is an integrated approach that avoids the twin perils of hard power and global disengagement. We propose seven principles to guide U.S. engagement with the international community.
The United States must advance rather than undermine international mechanisms and institutions. We should move from a unipolar system presided over by the United States to a secure, multipolar system that is held in place by a latticework of international institutions and laws.
We must support the rule of law, not the rule of the jungle. The United States should spend less time talking about the rule of law and more time practicing the rule of law—by upholding international agreements such as the Geneva Conventions, ratifying the core labor standards of the International Labor Organization, and supporting new international institutions such as the International Criminal Court.
We must lead by example, not by force. The United States is No. 1 in several dubious categories—most powerful nuclear arsenal, largest greenhouse gas emitter, leading arms exporter—so if we want to change the world we have to start by changing ourselves.
Global problems call for global solutions, but one size does not fit all. The world is a varied place and what works in one place for one problem may not work the same elsewhere.
We should support just policies abroad because they also encourage just policies at home. Global inequality, unregulated arms sales, and weakened international agreements and institutions are not just foreign policy issues. They have tremendous impact on the U.S. economy and the security of the population.
We need more public involvement in global affairs not less. We can't leave it to the experts to solve the world's problems because, in many cases, the experts got us into the jam in the first place. As those who live in this country, we must use democratic means to close the gap between what the polls say and what our leaders are doing.
Security is not just about the military. When we speak of security, we are talking about freedom from military conflicts and terrorist attacks. But we also believe that security involves access to sufficient food and shelter, good health care and good jobs, a clean environment and well-functioning, accountable political structures.
The civil rights movement, the women's movement, and the peace movement have all transformed U.S. society. As a result, we have become a more just society, a more diverse culture, a more international country. It is time to change our foreign policy so that it looks more like America and also reflects American traditions of justice.
Many of the ideas and proposals in this report have broad support among the American public. Majorities of Americans believe that no nations should possess nuclear weapons, reject the notion that military force should be used to promote democracy, and want immediate steps taken to halt global warming. What was once considered radical has now gained some political support in Washington. Several architects of the Cold War are now calling for nuclear disarmament. The climate change skeptics are rapidly turning Green. Prominent politicians no longer believe in a "global war on terrorism."
We need leaders and social movements that can translate this broad American appeal and this growing political support into an integrated program for American renewal. We believe that this program must be founded on the principles of just security laid out in this report. Only a just security will make us all feel more secure.
