-- Due in no small part to the technological wonders of the Internet, the people of the world can now, for the first time in history, perceive one another in terms of a global human family. All of us can now view people of different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds not as "others" to be feared, but as fellow humans with whom we can link our respective talents to help meet the needs of millions of the world's people who still struggle to survive. Such a possibility should not be suppressed by any national government that seeks to dominate other peoples of the world in order to better meet the demands of its own greed, fear, and hunger for power.
-- The growing economic interdependence of states makes war between them cost-ineffective, even for the side that prevails. Though China and the U.S., for example, are economic rivals, and China is wary of an American presence in the Asia-Pacific region and resulting U.S. ties to neighboring states, neither nation can afford to pursue war with the other as a means to increase its global influence. The economic interests of both states are interlinked and interdependent. The U.S. is a major importer of Chinese goods, and China is its biggest trading partner. Globalization has in fact increased the interdependence of all states by organizing world trade within a "global village." The stability of that trading order depends on the willing cooperation of all the states of the world.
A People's Movement for a New Foreign Policy
In concluding his interview with Quincy
Institute Responsible Statecraft, Peter Beinart offered this scenario as a
first step in reshaping U.S. foreign policy in support of pluralism and peace:
"One of the interesting things that we're seeing on domestic
policy is the degree to which that's changing. There's a boldness and a
willingness to not be cowed which has allowed for the ascendance of things like
the wealth tax and Medicare for All. And what I really hope is that this will
filter into foreign policy too. [Bernie] Sanders is where you tend to see that
the most. There's a culture in the way that Sanders has started talking about
foreign policy much more now than in 2016 where there's a certain kind of "I
don't really give a crap about what the establishment critique is going to be."
Were he to become president, I don't think he probably will become president,
but were he, you could imagine him changing the party's thinking on foreign
policy. And if he did that, I think it's quite possible that a lot of Democrats
would fall in line. But part of the really important question with some of the
other Democratic presidential campaigns is to what degree are they willing to
have the same kind of progressive audacity on foreign policy that they have on
domestic policy. And so far, with the other candidates, I don't see it as much."
As Beinart suggests, a Bernie Sanders presidency could in fact provide a major impetus to efforts at moving U.S. foreign policy away from endless war and toward vigorous diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace. Bernie's campaign slogan is "Not Me. Us," and his political mantra "I can't do this alone." He recognizes that putting into law his progressive domestic agenda-- Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, tuition-free higher education, forgiveness of student and medical debt, and so on--will require a supportive people's movement numbering in the millions that marches in the streets, communicates with its House and Senate congressional representatives, and helps educate its non-marching fellow citizens about the real-life advantages such programs can bring to their lives.
As President, Bernie Sanders would serve in large part as Organizer in Chief, giving direction to such a movement. The same would apply to efforts to reshape U.S. foreign policy--to finally end U.S. support of the Saudi war in Yemen; to adopt an even-handed approach to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and push hard for a feasible two-state solution; to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq and finally end endless war in the Middle East; and to restore the JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran. These goals too can only be achieved with the support of millions of Americans marching in the streets, communicating with their congressional representatives, and helping to educate their fellow Americans on both the logic and benefits of such policies for themselves and for suffering humanity throughout the world.
Proven Tactics for Achieving Political Change
The logic and benefits of replacing a foreign policy based on endless wars with one that promotes vigorous diplomacy for international peace are in fact so compelling that they should be pursued even without a Bernie Sanders as Organizer in Chief.
We now know from history that, at least in the case of small countries ruled by weak, corrupt, dysfunctional, or authoritarian regimes, non-violent civil resistance organized "from the bottom on up" (to use Bernie's words) has proved an effective tool for effecting lasting political and social change. The following points help explain why. They are selectively excerpted from a TED TALKS presentation by Erica Chenoweth, Ph.D., Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver.
* "Non-violent civil resistance" is accurately defined as the participation by unarmed civilians in active forms of conflict, protest, boycotts, demonstrations, and other forms of mass non-cooperation aimed at effecting constructive change in the leadership, behavior or policies of a lawless or repressive governing authority. The strategy has already proved effective in bringing down tyrants such as Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in 1986 and Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia in Oct., 2000.
* It is widely believed that violence in the face of oppression happens automatically, because practically all of its victims assume it is the only way to successfully eliminate willful oppression. But that belief is false. In colonial America, for example, there was a full decade of civil disobedience before the start of the Revolutionary War. Though the resistance by itself was not sufficient to induce British withdrawal from America, it served to sharpen the American will for independence and later brought home to the British the stakes involved in maintaining their occupation through endless warfare.
* Nonviolent resistance can also play a critical role in successful activist campaigns for nuclear disarmament, conventional arms reduction, and the closure of military bases around the world--actions that together could provide a foundation on which to base an ultimate campaign for abolishing war as an institution.
The following two points explain why activist tactics based on non-violent civil resistance can be especially effective in forcing change in government policy:
* The bigger a non-violent resistance movement becomes, the faster it will continue to grow. In time, it will even begin to attract political, social, and religious leaders who recognize they are a part of, and have to live with, all the people in their community--including dissidents in their own families. As the resistance movement continues to grow, these leaders will begin to shift their allegiance from the existing power structure to the community as a whole, including the institutions schools, churches, organizations, etc. to which their members belong.
* Recent statistics show that no government or government policy can survive if just 3.5% of the people over which it has jurisdiction demonstrate or take non-violent disruptive action against it.
Based on evidence offered in the TED TALK and other research, I can offer here a very sketchy scenario that illustrates how a campaign of non-violent civil resistance might be effectively organized to deter a hypothetical impending pre-emptive attack by the U.S. on North Korea or Iran:
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