Over the past year, anti-Trump resistance movements have mobilized around foreign policy issues—the Paris Climate Agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Saudi-Houthi war come to mind. But by and large, domestic issues and scandals have received the most attention and activism. And that lack of attention to international issues is a problem.
It’s no secret that the left has for some time lacked a coherent foreign policy. Left and liberal voices do not agree, for example, on when intervention is justified or desirable, when the use of force is acceptable, how to engage or cooperate with the United Nations, NATO, or other international bodies, or how we should respond to human rights violations, revolutions, or genocide abroad.
This is not a short list, and these are not trivial questions.
Michael Walzer wants to change this. An editor at Dissent magazine, Walzer has compiled his essays from the last two decades in a new book, A Foreign Policy for the Left. For too long, he says, the left has, in place of a foreign policy, offered only a mish-mash of platitudes: a watery combination of opposing imperialism and militarism, rejecting the efficacy of American power, and doing good abroad by doing good at home.
“Leftist conceptions of foreign policy, insofar as we think about foreign policy, lean toward the avoidance of forceful action,” Walzer writes. “Neutrality is a nice way of having and not having a foreign policy at the same time.”
Leftists can take the moral high ground by opposing obvious evils, he says, but have no systematic or long-term standards to discern action (or non-action) and evaluate the results. This wishy-washy claiming of the moral high ground, Walzer writes, has led to some truly devastating foreign policy stances: the destruction of Syria, for example, or the unwillingness of American liberals in the 1930s to oppose Adolf Hitler.
What is Walzer’s proposal for a left foreign policy? Above all, it is “a steady commitment to conciliation and compromise so long as these are possible, and a readiness to fight when fighting is necessary.” Military intervention is necessary, says Walzer, in “emergencies”—imminent and massive loss of life when a default position of anti-militarism might not always be the answer.
Habitual human rights violations in other parts of the world are not grounds for military intervention, he says. But the left should be engaged with people resisting these violations, and can provide support from afar through political parties, unions, NGOs, and other organizations.
“We should publish the dissidents’ works, organize demonstrations and sign petitions against their imprisonment, write about the tyranny they experience, join them at meetings abroad and in their own countries,” Walzer argues. “We should regularly ask them what further help they want or need.” Solidarity is paramount, as is humility. Americans cannot fight other people’s battles for them; above all, the left’s goal is to help oppressed peoples become “participants” in their own societies and to let them build with their freedom.
A left foreign policy also demands discernment in deciding whom to support or oppose. This might require fighting “on two fronts”: opposing tyranny and injustice but not condoning injustice in the fight against it. Walzer gives several examples: Why, in the 1950s, did it seem impossible to support Algerian liberation but to oppose the country’s National Liberation Front terrorists? Why, today, does the left find it so hard to both defend the civil rights of Muslims in the United States while condemning some Muslims’ use of violence? (Walzer devotes an entire chapter to the latter example.)
The left, Walzer asserts, is in a perpetual state of resentment, always playing defense and acting as though it will never wield power. Rather, it should be pushing itself to develop concrete solutions and build on past actions. “We should act as if we won’t always be powerless,” Walzer writes. It’s the only way to achieve goals and build coalitions for lasting change.
Walzer is at his best when he encourages the left to do certain things: standing in solidarity with dissidents throughout the world, discussing and publishing their writing, and using political and social organizations to pressure those in power on behalf of others. His simple (but not facile) suggestions remind us that political action really is at our fingertips, and many small steps can become something bigger.
The same goes for his numerous examples of how the left will have to fight their battles on two or more fronts. The examples he gives of “principled leftist engagement,” such as the Anti-Imperialist League or Menshevik revolutionaries, remind the reader that such a thing is possible.
Walzer is shakier when he discusses the use of American power abroad. He argues that the United States does not qualify as a global hegemon because “hegemony hasn’t been consistently maintained in recent decades.” Here Walzer does not convince. Through our economic reach, cultural influence, and military might, the United States exerts immense power globally. Walzer, who seems to think that American power is a good thing, writes that “American leftists should be advocates of a self-limited hegemony” on behalf of the rest of the world.
But isn’t “self-limited hegemony” a contradiction in terms? American power is not passive. A hegemon must actively shape the world to be amenable to its interests—to preserve its power often at the expense of local, national, and global needs. This requires economic domination, political influence, and yes, military intervention. Walzer assumes that the presence of a global superpower can be benevolent, an assertion that is by no means obvious. Any concentration of power sets the stage for the opposite.
It is telling that not once in A Foreign Policy for the Left does Walzer mention the tradition of pacifism among the left or present it as a valid stance towards foreign policy issues. (One need only look in The Progressive’s pages for a thorough consideration of pacifism as it relates to foreign policy.) Pacifism would require a renunciation of power, an active dismantling of American hegemony. Hopeful as he is that American hegemony is a positive force, Walzer does not see this as a valid option.
Walzer’s positions on hegemony and power aside, his message is one of hope and potential. He reminds us that we can and must engage with our fellow citizens and global comrades, because we share their fate.
Regina Munch is the editorial assistant at Commonweal magazine. She lives in Manhattan.