No more horror stories

Today I came across an essay by Matthew Yglesias on advocating for future progressive foreign policy. His basic premise is that progressive ideas need to be presented in a progressive way, and that it's remarkable how few leading Democrats are willing to make statements like "'starting a war with Iran would be a strategic disaster for the United States,'...'Harry Truman and Franklin Roosevelt founded the UN because a strong UN is good for the US,' 'getting other countries to follow non-proliferation agreements is going to require us to follow them too,' or 'reviving the Arab-Israeli peace process would make it easier for us to find Muslim allies.'" (The actual essay is only about 4 paragraphs so it's a quick read.)

Here's the thing: Over the past three years, I've been guilty of, when backed into a corner, making arguments along the lines of: "It's important to pay attention to Africa because our experiences with terrorism in the 90s (see East Africa Embassy bombings) show that failed states, war, and extreme poverty create a power vacuum in which it's easier for terrorism to flourish. {see Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan]" I don't think this is total BS, but my belief that we need a comprehensive approach to foreign policy in the developing world isn't really based on concerns about short-term security threats. Tanzania may be poor, but it's certainly no power vacuum. There may be war in the DRC, but they aren't attending American flight schools.

Yglesias argues that people need to make the point that "good things can happen in foreign policy and will happen with smart leadership, it's not just a realm in which scary people try to do scary things and we try to stop them." My earlier argument does sound a little bit like "Look, not only the Middle East can be scary! Africa can be scary too! Love it!" Competitive horror stories should be reserved for Halloween and camping trips.

However, it's almost impossible to have a conversation about seemingly distant wars and inequities without someone asking "Why should we care?"

The response I want to give is the impassioned and emotional one, citing moral obligation, chilling statistic, and heart-breaking anecdote. At bottom, I think we should care because it's just plain wrong to turn our backs on suffering. This is the sort of answer that's hard to give without eliciting sneers from would-be hardened realists, though. On the other hand, in order for progressive arguments to gain traction, we have to drop "the assumption that liberal ideas won't fly politically and need to be kept hidden under layers of macho posturing, and, instead, actually try to build progressive messaging around progressive ideas."

Another tactic is the "because we are responsible" tactic. I think this is usually more polarizing than persuasive, and it also relies on heavy-handed use of the counterfactual. Has the CIA done great wrong in assisting dictators like Saddam Hussein or Mobutu? Yes. But I'm uncomfortable tracing all current problems in the DRC back to the moment of US interception.

I think there's a bigger, better argument I should be making about restructuring the world and non-locking regimes and chaos theory and soft power, but I'm too tired.

Happy Election Day, USA!