Unraveling of a bi-partisan U.S. foreign policy (Gettysburg Times op-ed)
“Containment” was the central doctrine of U.S. foreign policy throughout nearly the entire duration of the Cold War (1945 through 1991). As first promulgated by George Kennan and a few other young State Department employees during the administration of President Harry Truman in the early days of the Cold War, containment meant that the U.S. would oppose, by force if necessary, any expansion of Communist rule outside the borders of the U.S.S.R.
The right, of course, had a problem with the doctrine of containment because it was, in their view, not ambitious enough. The containment advocates in government wanted only to stop the spread of Communism, not eliminate it entirely. Thus, they did not seem to the right to be displaying sufficient faith either in the ability of the U.S. to defeat Communism or in the Russian people to free themselves from the tyranny under which they lived. The containment practitioners, on the other hand, thought that they were the practical ones, advancing a foreign policy goal for the U.S. that was not only achievable but that was more likely to avoid superpower war for the long term.
The left also had a problem with the doctrine of containment. To the left, the U.S. government’s willingness to rely on nuclear deterrence if it seemed to advance the cause of containment of Communism was morally unacceptable.
Most people in government, like most Americans, were neither on the left nor the right in the arms control debates. They wanted neither a complete abandonment of nuclear weapons, as did the left, nor a complete rejection of arms control, as did the right. Those who thought about the issue at all mainly wanted the Cold War conflict to be managed in such a way as to prevent it from erupting into direct military conflict between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. This meant using arms control to limit and contain the Soviet expansion of Communism and its military threat. After the end of the Soviet Union and the rise of Putin and authoritarianism in Russia, it meant using arms control to prevent Russia from drawing back into its orbit the newly independent republics, like Ukraine. In other words, arms control was and still is seen as a vital tool of U.S. foreign policy.
Thus, the “grand compromise” on foreign policy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union all during the Cold War, and with Russia after the nominal end of the Cold War, was that the right would support arms control agreements as long as the left supported maintenance of the nuclear weapons deterrent. Presidents of both parties supported this compromise, and were able to successfully manage the conflict between the U.S. and its western allies and Russia to prevent nuclear war.
This grand compromise, which served the country well for more than 70 years, has been unraveled by the MAGA extremists who have taken over the Republican Party.
The unraveling actually began on Dec. 13, 2001 when President George W. Bush withdrew the U.S. from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. The very next day the Russians responded by withdrawing from the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II). But this is a story for another time.
The unraveling was greatly accelerated by the TEA Party insurgency that arose in the wake of the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency in 2008. The TEA Party was an invention of Fox radio talk-show host Glenn Beck, who was trying to incite a revolt against paying taxes; the name of the new party comes from Beck’s claims that Americans were “taxed enough already” and was meant to liken his supporters to the patriots in colonial Massachusetts who protested British taxes on tea by boarding British merchant vessels in Boston Harbor and throwing overboard crates of imported tea. What started as an erstwhile tax revolt quickly morphed into a large and widespread movement to first take over the Republican party by running TEA Party radicals against establishment Republicans in the 2010 primary elections, and then by winning control of both the House and the Senate from the Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections.
Tea Party adherents were generally opposed to the NEW START Treaty, which was up for ratification in the U.S. Senate in 2010, but deft political work by President Obama in garnering the support of the influential Republican Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and six former Republican Secretaries of State, led to the U.S. Senate ratifying the treaty on Dec. 22, 2010.
The original TEA Party radicals were later molded by Donald Trump into the MAGA movement, which now comprises the base of the new Republican Party. Not only are they opposed to all arms control agreements, the most alarming thing is their opposition to NATO and U.S. support for Ukraine in its current war to fend off Russian aggression. Trump and his “amen” chorus in both the House and the Senate would certainly end support for Ukraine were Trump to win re-election to the Presidency. His putative main opponent in the Republican primaries, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has said that the war in Ukraine is a mere “territorial dispute” in which the U.S. should not involve itself.
Not only is the new Republican Party a threat to democracy and the rule of law in the U.S., as lucidly explained in Leon Reed’s Op-Ed of May 25, but it is also a threat to world peace and stability. We must remain aware of the consequences of voting to put these Republican anti-democratic extremists into positions of power.
Jeff Colvin is a research physicist and resident of Gettysburg. He is co-chair of Gettysburg DFA. The opinions expressed are his own.