1. Who would best decide foreign policy?

There are two extreme strategies to foreign policy. The first is liberal hegemony. This policy requires us to maintain sufficient troops to control the politics of the entire world and to defend all of the people of the world, not just those in the US. The other strategy is nationalism, a policy of noninterference in the politics of other countries relying on a balance of power for protection.

Until the end of the cold war in 1991, nations observed balance-of-power politics. If you try to destroy us, we'll destroy you in return. After the fall of the USSR, the US was in an all-powerful position with no adversarial nations with equal powers. People began calling for a reduction in spending for the military industrial complex.

The power elites in charge responded by setting the foreign policy objective of establishing liberal democracy around the globe rather than maintaining a balance of power for protection. That policy is called "liberal hegemony." It matched the objectives of our major corporations of creating new markets for US products throughout the world and offshoring as much of our manufacturing as possible. It required the ability to intervene anywhere in the world, increasing the levels of military spending.

Our policy of liberal hegemony

Under a policy of liberal hegemony, the US is responsible to save all individuals in the world from abuse and to promote our form of democracy through whatever means necessary, including staging troops throughout the world. The war on terror appeared initially as a boon to liberal hegemony. John J. Mearsheimer describes it like this. [1]

Liberal hegemony is an ambitious strategy in which a state aims to turn as many countries as possible into liberal democracies like itself while also promoting an open international economy and building international institutions. In essence, the liberal state seeks to spread its own values far and wide. [And, to increase markets for goods and services of its companies.]

Many in the West, especially among foreign policy elites, consider liberal hegemony a wise policy that states should axiomatically [accept as obviously true] adopt. Spreading liberal democracy around the world is said to make eminently good sense from both a moral and a strategic perspective. For starters, it is thought to be an excellent way to protect human rights, which are sometimes seriously violated by authoritarian states. And because the policy holds that liberal democracies do not want to go to war with each other, it ultimately provides a formula for transcending realism and fostering international peace. …

[Under this policy,] Washington intervened in the politics of virtually every country whose politics showed signs of moving leftward, which led the United States into hard-nosed social engineering on a global scale. In practice, this approach meant (1) giving money, weapons, and other resources to friendly governments to keep them in power [called foreign aid]; (2) fostering coups against perceived foes, including democratically elected rulers; and (3) intervening directly with American troops. [2]

Nationalism

Unfortunately, liberal hegemony ran into a wall called "nationalism." Nationalism proved to be a natural human tendency and the undoing of liberal hegemony. Mearsheimer described nationalism as well. [3]

Nationalism is an enormously powerful political ideology. It revolves around the division of the world into a wide variety of nations, which are formidable social units, each with a distinct culture. Virtually every nation would prefer to have its own state, although not all can. Still, we live in a world populated almost exclusively by nation-states, which means that liberalism must coexist with nationalism. Liberal states are also nation-states. There is no question that liberalism and nationalism can coexist, but when they clash, nationalism almost always wins.

The influence of nationalism often undercuts a liberal foreign policy. For example, nationalism places great emphasis on self-determination, which means that most countries will resist a liberal great power’s efforts to interfere in their domestic politics—which, of course, is what liberal hegemony is all about. These two isms also clash over individual rights. Liberals believe everyone has the same rights, regardless of which country they call home. Nationalism is a particularist ideology from top to bottom, which means it does not treat rights as inalienable. In practice, the vast majority of people around the globe do not care greatly about the rights of individuals in other countries. They are much more concerned about their fellow citizens’ rights, and even that commitment has limits.

The reality of world affairs

Unfortunately, things have not gone as planned for liberal hegemony, especially in the Middle East. China, and to some degree Russia, have made substantial inroads in the Middle East whereas the power of the US has decreased. With the invasion of Ukraine and the threats by China, we have returned to a world controlled by the balance of power. Mearsheimer explained the failure of liberal hegemony as follows. [4]

This strategy was doomed to fail. Social engineering in any country, even one’s own, is difficult. The problems are multifaceted and complex, resistance is inevitable, and there are always unintended consequences, some of them bad. The task is even more demanding when social engineering is imposed from outside because nationalism, which is ever present, makes the local population want to determine its own fate without foreigners interfering in its politics. These interventions also fail because the intervening power hardly ever understands the target country’s culture and politics. In many cases, the foreigners do not even speak the local language. The problems are even worse when a country tries to use military force to alter another country’s social and political landscape, as the United States has rediscovered in Afghanistan and Iraq after previously discovering it in Vietnam during the Cold War. The ensuing violence will make the invading country look like an oppressor, further complicating its efforts to promote positive change.

Who should decide our foreign policy?

It would be reassuring to believe that an elite group of foreign policy experts exists that can keep us safe and make the right foreign policy decisions without us having to worry about it. Unfortunately, during the last 30 years their policy of spreading our liberal ideology through military means has not worked. The world is not a safer place. In the free countries in Europe, the opinion of the US has fallen substantially over the last 20 years. [5] The Soft Power 30 from the USC Center on Public Diplomacy believes that non-government intervention in foreign affairs is the solution. They stated the following. [6]

In 2018, the central debate in foreign affairs circles centered on the continued viability of the rules-based international order. Was it in crisis? Could it survive in its current form? Accepting that the global order is eroding, foreign policy thinkers are looking at how best to respond to this new context. … The best hope for American soft power is for non-federal government actors to take up a bigger role in engaging the rest of the world.

Mearsheimer felt that a policy of liberal hegemony would only change if the public forced restraint. [7]

Both the Democratic and Republican parties are deeply wedded to promoting liberalism abroad, even though that policy has been a failure at almost every turn. Although the American public tends to favor restraint, the governing elites pay little attention to public opinion—until they have to—when formulating foreign policy.

Given this history, I propose that We The People would develop a more successful unified solution to foreign policy than the experts have by addressing foreign policy and the solution to each foreign issue separately through the Citizen Governance Website of the Department of State. I base this proposal on my conclusions below.

1. A disparity exists between the views of the public and both political parties. The business and financial agendas of the elite that influence foreign policy may not align with the needs of us the people.

2. Multiple experts in foreign affairs assert that the public should become involved in the solution.

3. The nature of the issue is complex, indicating that the collective intelligence of the people could result in better solutions.

4. US foreign policy dictated by the coalition of elite foreign policy advisors and the major political parties has failed. It's time for a solution developed by the collective intelligence of We The People aligned with our values.

Through the democratic solution process, the people can decide if they feel that it would be more appropriate for the Federal Council over the Department of State to make these decisions than themselves. At least, a Federal Council would be independent from political parties and lobbying (as lobbying would be illegal). However, a small group of people could be easily swayed by information from elite-sponsored think tanks and government advisory committees. Therefore, I believe it would be best to start with the people and give us 50 years to practice foreign policy decisions as the elites have had since WWII.

Giving foreign aid

Foreign aid is a critical element of foreign policy. It is used partly for humanitarian reasons and partly for political reasons. An article on foreign assistance prepared for members of Congress in Jan. 2022 by the Congressional Research Service explained the cost of foreign aid. [8]

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, foreign aid has increasingly been associated with national security policy. At the same time, some Americans and Members of Congress view foreign aid as an expense that the United States cannot afford given current budget deficits and competing budget priorities.

In FY2019, U.S. foreign assistance, defined broadly, totaled an estimated $48.18 billion, or 1% of total federal budget authority. About 41% of this assistance was for bilateral economic development programs, including strategic economic assistance; 35% for military and nonmilitary security assistance; 20% for humanitarian activities; and 4% to support the work of multilateral institutions.

The foreign affairs budget for fiscal year 2022 was $56.1 billion. The budget included "nearly $14 billion in emergency funding for Ukraine, some of which will go to supporting the humanitarian response and refugees." [9]

Bilateral aid – giving away money

To influence other countries, sometimes the US simply gives them money, known as bilateral aid. As stated above, bilateral aid is 41% of the current foreign aid budget ignoring funding for Ukraine. A World Bank consultant and economist, Dambisa Moyo, wrote the following in her book, Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way to Help Africa. [10]

Most problematic bilateral aid disbursements are simple, direct cash transfers. Such foreign aid to Africa has been "an unmitigated economic, political, and humanitarian disaster." Foreign governments are often corrupt and use foreign aid money to bolster their military control or to create propaganda-style education programs.

Military aid

Military Aid is sometimes a bilateral aid cash gift and other times it is financing to buy military equipment and military services. In both cases, the country receiving the aid is required to buy military hardware or defense services from US companies. For example, outside of the Ukraine, Israel has received more military aid from the US than any other country, receiving $3.3 billion in 2020. This was part of an agreement in 2016 for $38 billion in military aid to Israel over a 10-year period. [11]

The effectiveness of current military aid decisions

Andrew Miller and Richard Sokolsky detailed the lack of effectiveness of US military assistance in the Middle East in an article for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The article demonstrated that much of the money was wasted and that our foreign aid processes, policies, and other decisions are in need of serious reform. [12]

Every year around this time, the administration submits its annual request to Congress to appropriate billions of dollars for America’s allies and partners in the Middle East to finance their purchase of U.S. military training and equipment.

Congress rubber stamps these requests with little regard for whether this assistance achieves U.S. foreign policy objectives. It does the same when the executive branch requests congressional approval of arms sales for cold hard cash. Such docility might be good industrial policy—after all, it creates jobs in key congressional districts, provides corporate welfare for America’s defense companies, and helps maintain the defense industrial base. But it makes for lousy foreign policy. The United States will continue to pour money down a rat hole until Congress and the executive branch better understand why these problems keep recurring and muster the political will to fix them. …

U.S. interests and taxpayers are not the primary beneficiaries of military assistance and arms sales. Instead, it is U.S. defense contractors and regional militaries. … [Regional militaries of other countries have] exploited arms sales to…sustain their dominant position in domestic politics.

Authorizing foreign aid

As we have seen with multi-trillion dollar omnibus bills, whenever many decisions are bundled into one decision and all associated costs are combined into one number for Congressional approval, the vast expenditures invite corruption, or at least collusion with those special interests who wish to siphon off their billions of dollars at the trough. I can't imagine the President and Congress "mustering the political will" to fix these problems. They have no incentive.

To solve the problem of undue influence by special interests and to achieve better results, I propose that solutions for foreign aid be made by the people one issue at a time through the appropriate Citizen Governance Website. These types of issues appear to be suited to resolution by the people. Each solution would contain funding for the solution.

As Moyo stated, better solutions might be available than throwing money and weapons at rulers of other countries. Thoughtful solutions could be developed by the people that ensure that aid goes to those in need, not to buy mansions and military hardware to benefit corrupt governments.

Arms sales to foreign governments

Arms sales are not included in foreign aid figures because they are not government expenses. However, according to the State Department, they "are important tools of U.S. foreign policy with potential long-term implications for regional and global security." Two types of arms sales are authorized by the State Department as shown below, totaling about $165 billion per year. [13] 

1. Government-to-government military sales implemented by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (under the Department of Defense) average around $50 billion per year for equipment such as aircraft and combat systems.

2. Privately contracted direct commercial sales average around $115 billion per year including sales of hardware, services, and technical data.

Combined with foreign aid, the US provides more major conventional weapons to the world than any other country. [14] According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, almost 40% of global arms exports come from US companies. [15]

Authorizing military purchases

I propose that government-to-government military sales would be implemented by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency under the direction of its Federal Council. Direct commercial sales to foreign governments would continue to be authorized by the State Department. These processes would remain under the State Department, ultimately supervised by the Council of State. If citizens wanted to become part of the decision process, they would change the process through the Citizen Governance Websites of the Council of State and the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.