Democrats Shouldn’t Squander Their Chance to Launch a Foreign Policy Revolution: The Imperative of Ambition in a New Congress
Foreign Affairs · Matthew Duss ·
The imperative of ambition in a new Congress.
Tuesday’s election made clear that endless wars, political corruption, and the high cost of living are three of the American public’s top concerns. They are deeply interrelated—and the new Congress must address all three. That will require a true foreign policy revolution that grapples not just with the outrages and failures of the Trump administration’s foreign policy but also with the ways in which past Democratic or Democrat-supported foreign policies have contributed to today’s crisis. There will be a temptation among some Democratic leaders, in Congress and beyond, to limit the scope or pace of change. But to find a way out of today’s crisis and move beyond the failures that have afflicted American foreign policy for the past several decades, Democrats will need to have the courage to face a hard truth: that President Donald Trump’s abuses of power and unilateral warmaking are not so much a break from Washington’s militarist mindset as they are a particularly aggressive, predatory expression of it.
The incoming Democratic majority will face a national security environment in which the most severe challenges to U.S. safety and prosperity come from within. That’s why Congress should shut down the Iran war immediately but also recognize that it can make the United States more secure only if it pairs a foreign policy shift with a frontal assault on spiraling costs and political corruption. Political polarization; government corruption and dysfunction; increasing dominance of political and economic life by a small handful of mercurial oligarchs; and a president who recklessly and unilaterally launches unauthorized military interventions while relentlessly seeking opportunities to enrich himself, his family, and his cronies—all pose more immediate danger to the safety and prosperity of the American people than does any foreign enemy.
When Democrats take control of Congress in January, they will have considerable power to challenge the corruption and malfeasance of the Trump administration. Control of committees and of the congressional calendar will provide the opportunity for sorely needed oversight. But although the Trump administration deserves aggressive investigation, Democrats must aim higher—and use the opportunity to articulate a genuinely compelling alternative for American foreign policy.
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