This is both an indirect commentary on Rand's foreign policy platform, and a discussing about what would be an ideal foreign policy platform for future libertarian candidates.
The premises of the discussion are:
(a) it would be good to both drastically reduce military spending and drastically restrict the actual deployment of the military overseas,
but (b) we want to actually win elections so we have to find the right balance between the ideal and the practical
Ron's foreign policy got no traction on the right because he didn't moderate it. He called for both reducing the size of the military and restricting its deployment overseas, both of which are viewed negatively on the right. An ideal libertarian platform would (and Rand's platform more or less does) calls for restricting the deployment of the military but also increasing its strength. The right dislikes the former but loves the latter. The latter "pays for" the former. You see? This is the basic thrust of a sensible libertarian foreign policy.
What about the details? Well, that's what I'd mostly like to discuss with you.
What exactly should be the foreign policy doctrine, the criteria for when to deploy US military forces overseas?
And, how can we strengthen US national defense in a way to satisfy the right, without going too crazy and blowing up the budget. It goes without saying that any increases in defense expenditures need to be offset by cuts elsewhere; and since the appetite for cuts elsewhere is limited, so the opportunity for increasing defense spending will be limited. So this dove-tails with a discussion of what domestic programs are cuttable in practice.
Two ideas jump to mind immediately, regarding possible increases in defense spending.
1. Drastically increase the budget for border security (idea being to keep terrorists from entering the country illegally). This would have great PR value and wouldn't actually cost that much. We could double the Customs and Border Security budget for about $13 billion per year. Note that this has no bearing on immigration policy. We could have stronger border security and lower quotas or stronger borders and higher quotas.
2. Increasing certain parts of the DHS budget dealing with protection of critical infrastructural. Again, the entire DHS budget is only about $60 billion. We could probably find a few programs in there to double or triple, for great PR value, at relatively modest cost. Note that this has no bearing on the civil rights issues with DHS and similar federal policing/spying operations. We could increase spending for legitimate security purposes while simulteously proposing to repeal the Patriot Act, end NSA warrantless spying, etc.
....directly increasing DoD spending is an obvious option, but the percentage increase would have to be small, since the DoD is already hundreds of billions per year, so I think we get more PR value for our buck by enlarging smaller programs/agencies.
Regarding foreign policy doctrine, criteria for deploying the military, and foreign diplomacy:
The major US alliances (NATO, S. Korea, Japan) are not really dangerous at this point. None of those states are at all likely to drag us into a war anytime soon. NATO is only a problem if it moves further East and provokes Russia, but the Europeans aren't the one driving that, it's the US government. Ex hypothesi, if we have a libertarian President, that will stop - and so NATO is not an issue. Taiwan is a problem, but the US has no formal alliance with Taiwan. A libertarian should not run on ending any of those major alliances - it alienates the right and doesn't really solve any pressing problem (since those alliances aren't really a risk right now).
The real risk is that some new chaos in the Middle East or possibly Africa will generate calls for a new military intervention. Now, with a libertarian President, the risks of this are automatically limited, since he won't be stirring up trouble intentionally as the current President did in Syria. But still, there will probably be some chaos somewhere, and the right-media will call for intervention. How does a libertarian president respond? What are the criteria for intervention? Rand's embassies etc argument is weak. I understand how he got himself stuck in that position, but we can do better. On another note, "no nation building" could work very well on the right. Whatever the criteria for intervention, the plan for the intervention should always be "get in, destroy the target, get out." In practice, that eliminates the worst kind of interventions.
I'm rambling....I'd like to hear your thoughts - practical details for a "Peace Through Strength" platform?
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