Obama's Foreign Policy Priorities

The Economist had a recent article on the strangely 19th century world of great power rivalry that Obama faces.

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12551938

Whilst I'm broadly in accordance with the main policy recommendations it makes, here, as I see it, are the five most important foreign policy moves that Obama should make in his first term, in chronological order (but not necessarily in order of priority).

1) Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama should make Afghanistan his first foreign policy focus. Bluntly put, America needs to deploy far more troops to Afghanistan. Far more than any other conflict out there, America needs a clear victory in Afghanistan. If the conflict smolders on, there is a progressively greater risk of it prompting all out anarchy in Pakistan. This will require stretching an already overstretched American military still further. This can be helped by withdrawing some forces, cautiously, from Iraq. Obama should also use his massive political capital in getting more assistance from America's allies on the ground. America has to treat Pakistan with kid gloves. The administration there cannot survive full scale American attacks over the border. This will hamper America's efforts on the ground, but it will be the best option in the long run.

2) Reconciliate with Syria. This is absolutely vital to an Iran strategy. America needs to move Syria away from the pro-Iranian block. In effect, Syria gets the Golan Heights and a rapprochemente with America in exchange for severing links with Iran, Hamas, and Hizbullah and a permanent peace treaty with Israel. Obama should also make it clear to Syria that he intends to push any new Israeli Prime Minister to the negotiating table.

3) Defuse growing Russian militarism. America has too many other concerns for a second Cold War right now - it needs Russia on board, even if this involves a show of apparent weakness. American should make it clear that it will take Russia's interests seriously. This may require putting pressure on would be NATO members like Georgia and the Ukraine to cool the rhetoric, a postponement of America's missile defence shield in Europe, and a willingness to negotiate with Russia on Arctic Oil. With these two big carrots, plus a willingness to work with Russia to ameliorate the world financial crisis, America should be able to get Russia on board for negotiations with Iran, a deepening of their assistance in Afghanistan, and their assistance with international terrorism. Eastern Europe will be pissed off, but they have nowhere else to turn. Despite this, America should reiterate its commitment to democracy and warn Russia that any country that is ready for NATO membership and which is truly in favour of it will eventually get to join the club. However, America should reassure Russia that it will move slowly and be ready to address Russian concerns at every stage.

4) Do not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. This has to be Obama's big priority. A nuclear Iran would be the biggest threat to world peace and stability out there. As long as Iran can play divide and rule, a negotiated peace has no chance of success. This is why America needs Russia, China, and Syria on board. Very large carrots and very large sticks will need to be produced if this is to succeed, and Iran needs to be made clear that it will ultimately stand alone if it proves intractable. Iran could be reassured by an American deal with Syria, a drawdown in Iraq, and an administration determined to push for Palestinian statehood. Iranian presidential elections are next year, and anything America can do to encourage Iran to vote for a moderate will pay rich dividends. Iran's interests also coincide with America's in Afghanistan and Pakistan - Iran hates the Taliban, and is nervous at the prospect of instability in Pakistan.

5) If America can prevent the nuclearisation of Iran, achievement rapprochement with Russia, Syria, and Iran, and successfully close the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, then I will be surprised and delighted. Resolution of all of these things is necessary for the challenges that America will be facing ten years from now. In particular, I see Pakistan as likely to be a long term problem. American and Russia will clash over Arctic oil, but if this occurs in the context of a warm and successful relationship, it has a greater likelihood of success. With Iran and Syria no longer acting as agents of chaos in the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian problem will have a greater likelihood of success. The biggest long term threat to world peace and stability will inevitably be the rise of China as America's equal in world affairs.

Therefore, Obama's final move should be to seek to begin the process of reordering international institutions according to a more multipolar model. It should do this now, whilst its international credit is still strong. If it waits another 10 years, when the BRIC group of countries will be in an even stronger position, then its hand will be much weaker. Thus the fifth priority of an Obama presidency should be to start putting out feelers for a recasting of the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO, to more evenly distribute power whilst ensuring that America still has a strong voice. This will be a long and time-consuming process that will make plenty of work for everyone in the diplomatic establishment. The sooner America starts, the better.

Proposition 8

Here's a video of Keith Olbermann's commentary on Prop 8:

It is sad thought for Liberals like myself to note the passing of Proposition 8 in the Californian Ballot Initiative. The philosophical issues underlying gay marriage are not easy to sift out, but it certainly seems to have become a cause celebré for Liberals everywhere. I too identify myself as a Liberal, but I use the term in its traditional philosophical sense, relating to writers like John Locke, Thomas Paine, and in particular John Stuart Mill.

I regard Mill's On Liberty as a useful starting point when considering the rights and wrongs of the issue. In particular, the following of Mill's principles seem relevant:

• The government should restrict no interaction that occurs between rational consenting adults that does not cause direct harm to unwilling others.

Prima facie, it might seem that this principle would militate in favour of the government legalising gay marriage. After all, it concerns two consenting individuals, and the harm it does to "the institution of marriage" is sufficiently ill-defined and amorphous to be dismissed: it is not clear who would be harmed, or precisely how, by the recognition of same sex unions as marriage. Many of the arguments against gay marriage amount to nothing more than "Straw Man" attacks - those who would link it to adoption by gay couples, and who disapprove of such a policy, should restrict their attacks to that specific policy.

Secunda facie, however, government restriction of gay marriage is not quite like drug use, prostitution, abortion, or gun ownership. It is not the case that California will now suppress gay couples from calling each other husband or wife, or forbid them from calling their union a marriage. This is not a case of the government intervening in people's private lives. In seeking legalisation of their union, gay couples are seeking from the government a particular form of recognition, together with its legal and economic privileges. The kind of arrangement they are seeking exists because of, and not in spite of, a legal framework.

However, there are still strong Liberal arguments for legalising same-sex union. In particular, marriage comes with certain legal, civic, and economic privileges, and these privileges can only be enjoyed by mixed-sex pairings. This is illiberal, for the following reasons.

The Liberal state should be a minimal organ for maximising the welfare of every citizen. It has no paternalistic mandate, and its sole obligation is to ensure the happiest sustainable society. It can justify any legislation that it passes for this reason alone. Therefore it is illiberal to base any policy on the conviction that certain social arrangement are more ethical than others or certain citizens more deserving. Therefore the state must be blind to colour, gender, and sexuality. It should, for that matter, also be blind to other non-social and non-economic factors: it would be illiberal for the state to promote rural over urban living unless this policy were derived from a clear calculation relating to the welfare of its citizens.

Blindness towards gender includes mixed gender arrangements. It is illiberal to provide greater funding to mixed sex schools than to single sex schools, unless this can be justified by clear empirical evidence showing that one or the other is overwhelmingly in the public good. Likewise, it is illiberal to restrict certain civic and legal rights to mixed-sex unions. The only acceptable liberal justification for this would be if serious and direct harm were caused by such unions to either the individuals concerned or those around them. Needless to say, this is not the case for gay marriage. Thus there is an argument to say that, even if every one in our society were as a matter of fact heterosexual, there would be no justification for legally limiting marriage to heterosexuals, even if no-one would actually benefit from it as a policy.

As it is, however, a large group of citizens would directly benefit from that policy. There would also be many less direct welfare gains. In particular, the individuals who would benefit are those who have historically had their rights illiberally restricted by the state, and who still face discrimination in many areas of life. Therefore it would have the side benefit of reducing the sense of alienation from society among many individuals, so its benefits to welfare would be amplified.

This is a clear argument for civil unions, that is, extending the same legal and economic rights to gay couples that are enjoyed by straight couples. A more difficult question is whether this union should have the name of marriage. The state's duty to be blind to gender applies properly only to substantive policy. It is not clear that it should apply to nomenclature. For example, imagine a state that required female inheritors in legal documents to be referred to as heiresses and male inheritors as heirs. This would not be in any sense illiberal. Some people would certainly feel unhappy about a nomenclature that differentiated between men and women, but without any substantive policy underlying the difference, this unhappiness would be purely ideological. And it is by no means clear that the liberal state should make decisions based on ideology. Surely, rejection of a state ideology is part of what it is to be a non-paternalistic state?

How, then, would the state settle a linguistic issue, behind which there lurked no substantive question of policy? Presumably by recourse to welfare. If it were felt that the heir/heiress distinction in naming caused a net loss to welfare for whatever reason, then the state would have an obligation to abandon it; conversely, if it caused a net gain to welfare, to retain it. Therefore, the state must judge whether the unhappiness and alienation that would follow from calling gay unions "civil unions" rather than marriages would outweigh the unhappiness and alienation caused by calling all unions "marriages." It is my suspicion that it would, but this seems a useful area of empirical research; and it would seem that the dilemma comes down solely to a matter of empirical fact rather than any normative issue.

I would like to make one further suggestion (for which I have Sarah to thank). First off, anyone should be able to claim their union, be it a heterosexual or homosexual one, as a civil union rather than as a marriage, if the former term is felt to have less religious significance: I pity any strongly atheist couples who are forced to live out their union under a despised theist title. Second, if the term marriage does have deep religious significance, then what the hell is the state doing handing it out left, right, and centre, without giving any thought to the particular confessional issues at stake? Should couples in Las Vegas casinos who get married for 24 hours for a bit of fun and then immediately divorce be religiously endorsed by the state?

If there is anything religious about the term marriage, the state either should have no role in bestowing it, or should bestow it responsibly, where "responsibly" means in accordance with a particular set of religious principles. As a religiously neutral institution, it has no business doing the latter - that is the job of particular churches - so we are left with the former as our only option. The state should recognise no "marriages" - only civil unions. It should be down to particular faiths to endorse individual unions as meeting their requirements for the title of marriage, but this should be none of the state's concern. Thus I may proudly boast that my union is recognised as a Roman Catholic marriage; you may boast that yours is recognised as a Jewish marriage. Leave the state out of it.

(On a final note, it is interesting that, etymologically speaking, there is nothing religious about the word "marriage" or "marry", as a quick glance at the online etymology dictionary will show you. It means nothing more than provided with a young man or woman: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=marry )

Welcome to Charmed By Randomness.

The main concerns of the blog will be politics, philosophy, law, and economics. I am hoping that there will be contributions from a range of writers, though my focus will be primarily with the first two.

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