Trump's Foreign Policy Has Been Catastrophic-- Which Democrat Is Offering The Strongest Alternative?

Common Defense defines itself as "a diverse, grassroots organization of U.S. veterans and military family members who are fighting to preserve the core values we swore to uphold and defend. Together we vow to protect our communities from hate and violence, to serve on the front lines for social, economic, and global justice, and to champion a truly equitable and representative democracy." Last cycle, notably, they endorsed the 4 women who won congressional seats and went on to be dubbed "the Squad." This cycle they are vetting congressional candidate right now.

Common Defense is the country’s only veteran-led grassroots organization committed to engaging, training and mobilizing veterans to elect accountable leaders and promote progressive values in 2020 and beyond. We empower veterans to stand up for our communities against the rising tide of hate and violence, serve on the front lines for social, economic, and environmental justice, champion a truly equitable and representative democracy, and preserve the core American values we swore to uphold and defend.

Historically, right-wing billionaires and politicians have exploited veterans like us as political props. In order to win in 2020 and build a sustainable progressive movement going forward, we must invest in organizing the country’s 6-8 million progressive veterans-- and not just by helping elite veterans run for office or appear in television ads.

The majority of American veterans are working class, diverse, heavily located in key swing states and districts, and among the most trusted and persuasive organizers, canvassers, and leaders within our communities. Common Defense is the only organization focused on engaging this critical demographic, which could hold the key to the progressive movement’s long-term success.

Common Defense political director, Alex McCoy, wrote that "A progressive foreign policy rejects Trump-esque 'America First' posturing in which alliances are annoyances, international institutions are burdens, and foreign policy is inherently zero-sum, oppositional, and transactional. A progressive foreign policy also avoids “American exceptionalism” framing, which fails to recognize the harm that some of the United States’s policies have done in the world (including policies instituted before Trump), and it does not view either the U.S.’s permanent, global military hegemony as a prerequisite for a peaceful world, or the peaceful rise of other countries as an inherent threat.  We want to see candidates take stock of and prioritize the security challenges facing the United States through a realistic lens that avoids fearmongering and/or inflating the level of actual threat. Candidates should prioritize by looking at physical, social, and economic threats holistically, and put people over power and profits. We want to see a recognition that many security challenges lack military solutions, and are often exacerbated by U.S. militarism. We want to see an acknowledgement that there are limits to U.S. power, and concrete investments in tools for cooperative diplomacy."

As far as I cab tell, they haven't endorsed a candidate for president yet, although reading through their reports on each candidate, they seem to be clearly leaning towards Bernie, who excels in 9 of their 14 criteria. (Elizabeth excels in 6, Castro in 4, Mayo Pete, Status Quo Joe, Andrew Yang and Cory Booker in one each. Klobuchar seems to be offering the shitty end of the stick.

Their bottom line on each of their issues in terms of Bernie:

Sanders is not the isolationist that he is often smeared as. He embraces global engagement and advocates strongly for multilateral cooperation, but he is also willing to directly acknowledge and warn against both the harm that has been caused by US policies and the international institutions the US dominates, and the role that global wealth and power inequality has played in allowing authoritarian nationalism to rise. His vision of America’s role in the world is as a leader, not one of dominance, transactionalism, and coercion.

Sanders does an excellent job prioritizing threats, consistently identifying political, economic, and environmental challenges as the greatest security threats to the U.S. He has rejected
the fearmongering rhetoric of the post-9/11 wars that’s been used to justify disastrous interventions in numerous countries and lopsided federal spending. He also has called out the broken assumptions behind the militarization of US foreign policy. Sanders should go further in identifying what tools the US government needs to develop and/or invest in to address these challenges and make his vision a reality.

Sanders is a reliable supporter of decreasing America’s bloated, wasteful, and unstrategic Pentagon budget, and he has explicitly advocated for reinvesting the money in other priorities, such as diplomacy, domestic prosperity, and protecting against the climate crisis. We want him to be specific, however, about the levels of funding he thinks align with
his vision for the U.S. role in the world, and how he would fortify other foriegn policy tools to achieve the objectives he’s proposed.

Sanders is the unequivocal leader in the 2020 field on the issue of the war in Yemen, and his senatorial work on the matter can be credited with helping to bring the issue to public light. We’d love to see him go further and support ending arms sales to all countries committing these kinds of extreme abuses of human rights.

Sanders has been a firm advocate of democratizing war powers and ending the endless “War on Terror” paradigm. Even better would be his acknowledgment that this must necessarily include an end to targeted strikes and other widespread small-scale combat operations around the world, and articulating a plan to do so.

Sanders clearly views China and Russia’s role in climate change and rising political authoritarianism-- rather than hypothetical military confrontation-- as the primary threat to national and international security. He also appears to view the Chinese and Russian regimes as threats to the cause of democracy itself, but he does not echo Cold War–esque rhetoric or proposals; instead, he focuses on empowering social movements to combat this.

Sanders has taken a principled position on the crisis on the Korean peninsula, condemning the brutality of the North Korean regime and expressing skepticism about the substance of the Kim–Trump talks while also recognizing the importance of sustained diplomacy and a peace agreement instead of leaning on “concession” rhetoric.

Sanders is a firm and reliable supporter of both the JCPOA and preventing a new war with Iran, and he doesn’t echo the false narrative that Iran is the most (or only) destabilizing actor in the region.

Sanders recognizes the malignant nature of the military-industrial complex and the need to rein in excessive profits of defense contractors, but his support for defense-related jobs in his own state underscores even further the need for the next president to enact a robust, comprehensive plan to transition the US economy away from reliance on wasteful Pentagon spending, weapons manufacturing, and fossil fuels, in order to truly address the military-industrial complex.

Sanders has a consistent record on nuclear weapons, with strong support for reducing or eliminating these weapons programs and preventing proliferation.

Though his proposals don’t have the specificity of other 2020 contenders’, Sanders uniquely takes every opportunity to explain positions on modern issues within the context of US foreign policies that helped us get here.

Sanders has staked out a strong progressive position on civil liberties in national security, though he has not unveiled specific plans to fully implement his vision.

Among his competitors in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, Sanders takes a notably strong stance on climate policy. He has a history of leading the conversation in framing the climate crisis as an imminent national security concern, which warrants prioritization and international cooperation.

You can read all of their assessments here but since Status Quo Joe is the biggest threat to a Bernie presidency. I'll go over how Common Defense viewed him as well.

Here are their bottom line assessments on all their top issues:

There’s no question that Biden embraces the process of international diplomatic engagement (though the outcomes are what matter, not merely the process), and that he would turn away from the toxic, coercive nationalism of the Trump administration, but he is overly focused on putting things back in place as they were-- a broken, destructive, and exploitative status quo that is increasingly unsustainable-- rather than acknowledging and repairing the damage that the US did long before Trump, which is essential fora successful and moral US foreign policy moving forward.

Overall, Biden’s current campaign rhetoric on the level of threat posed by our national security challenges is fairly realistic and nonhawkish compared to the kind of campaign he plausibly
could have run—a testament to the shift achieved
by organizers in the progressive movement. However, Biden’s credibility in foreign policy must be assessed against his concrete record and proposals.

Biden’s budget priorities are out of
step with his own threat assessments. He proposes deepened diplomatic engagements and a focus
on challenges like climate change and protecting democracies. Despite that, he has refused to recalibrate foreign policy spending to effectively accomplish those goals, and he appears committed to maintaining sky- high, permanent war-levels of military spending.

Biden’s recent commitment to ending US complicity in Yemen’s suffering is welcome,
but if as the next president he would continue to prioritize the profits of defense corporations over human rights, US-made weapons will continue to be used to massacre civilians and oppress dissent in authoritarian countries like Saudi Arabia.

Unlike several of his opponents, Biden has not signed progressive veterans group Common Defense’s pledge to End the Forever War. In the Senate, he voted in favor of both the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force, authorizing the so-called “Global War on Terror” paradigm and the Iraq war, respectively. These authorizations remain in force today. Biden continues to obfuscate and tell contradictory stories regarding why he originally supported the war and when he turned against it, though both developments are well documented.

Biden hasn’t explicitly stated support for repeal of either authorization-- a necessary step to ending the endless wars and to restoring the constitutional power that Congress has unwisely surrendered to multiple presidential administrations.

So, when does Biden think the use of force is justified, and when does he think the president must seek congressional authorization? He says he will “never hesitate” to protect the American people-- including by force, if necessary-- though believes it should be a “last resort.” He has not clearly elaborated what he means by “protecting the American people,” which leaves significant room for interpretation. He also says that force should be limited to “defending our vital interests”-- a standard that is highly broad, ill- defined, and ripe for exploitation—though he does say the objective should be “clear and achievable.”

When it comes to limiting presidential war powers, he says the use of force should occur with the “informed consent of the American people,” though he does
not expressly commit to seeking congressional authorization before taking the country to war.

He continues to defend the Obama administration’s reliance on Article II of the Constitution and its “commander-in-chief” powers to launch “limited” military operations in service of “important U.S. interests” without congressional authorization, a standard used to justify interventions like the bombing of Libya. This is an expansive reading
of presidential war powers, one well beyond the traditional understanding that it allows unauthorized force only in limited instances of self-defense. Beyond the legal implications, this reading means that Biden believes the president has the right to send US troops to die, and order military combat operations against people in other countries-- all without the permission of Congress-- as long as these operations are relatively small in scale.

While Biden appears to reject calling for an all-out new Cold War, and while he seems
to understand the importance of diplomacy and investing domestically in order to compete in an increasingly globalized economy, he does lean into hawkish rhetoric and proposals that both leave military confrontation on the table and feed into a Cold War-like, zero-sum policy framework. Such a “great-power competition” narrative risks a new Cold War military and diplomatic posture, and a truly progressive foreign policy would avoid it.

Though Biden calls for a peaceful and negotiated settlement to Venezuela’s conflict, his failure to explicitly take a military option off the table and his support for maintaining financial and oil sanctions with no clear path to a solution could make the situation worse for everyday Venezuelans.

Despite lip service for diplomacy, Biden seems poised to continue the failed hawkishness toward North Korea that has driven US policy for decades, maintaining the risk of nuclear war.

Successful diplomacy with Iran starts with immediately reentering the JCPOA and with refraining from military action. It’s not clear that Biden is fully committed to a diplomatic approach when it comes to building on the nuclear deal and resolving regional conflicts, and he has signalled a continued hawkishness and confrontational posture toward Iran.

This is a huge gap in Biden’s foreign policy posture In order to invest in diplomacy, combat the climate crisis, or end endless wars, the powerful financial interests of the military-industrial complex must be defeated.

Biden’s stance on reducing the threat of nuclear weapons is consistent and fairly strong.

There’s a recurring theme with Biden on these issues: His sharpest criticisms are reserved for Trump-era policies, and his solution is primarily to return to Obama-era approaches without confronting harms that existed prior to Trump.

It is unacceptable to merely return to Obama-era practices. The expansive national-security state threatens the rights and liberties of Americans, and further endangers marginalized communities. Biden falls short of advancing a progressive path of reform.

Biden appears to understand the urgency and scope of the climate crisis, but his policies are less serious than those of many of his rivals, and Biden fails to address the militarization of our foreign policy and the contribution that has made to the worsening climate crisis.