October 14, 2003 © New York University. All Rights Reserved. Bush's 'Big Stick' Foreign Policy By Jeremy Brecher Global Beat Syndicate (KRT) WEST CORNWALL, Conn. —It was called "The Big Stick." Between 1890 and 1930, we sent our armed forces to intervene in Latin America more than 30 times. Those actions harvested a legacy of hatred and shame. In 1933, newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that he would replace the "Big Stick" with a "Good Neighbor Policy," which renounced the right to intervene in Latin America and offered to put economic relations on a fairer basis. After the Bush administrationÕs catastrophic experiment in unilateralism and "Big Stick" diplomacy, it is time for us to adopt a Global Good Neighbor Policy. We will not escape the growing quagmires in Iraq, the Middle East, North Korea and elsewhere -- not to mention global warming and global economic stagnation -- without global cooperation. But such cooperation is blocked by the legacy of fear and distrust President BushÕs foreign policy has generated. If we want the warm embrace rather than the cold shoulder of the rest of the world, our new Global Good Neighbor Policy will need the following critical elements: First, we must restore our commitment to international law. Nothing has harmed our support in the rest of the world so much as this administrationÕs assertion of the right to attack other countries without adhering to international law and the UN Charter. We should forcefully state that as global good neighbors we renounce the right to preventive war for anyone -- including ourselves. To show we mean it, we should cut our military budget to eliminate all programs that are not unambiguously defensive and reinvigorate negotiations designed to eliminate weapons of mass destruction -- including our own. Second, we must initiate economic cooperation. The Bush administration has recklessly piled up domestic budget deficits and international trade deficits on an unprecedented and perilous scale. Now it is following "beggar thy neighbor" trade and monetary policies as well. The result is a global imbalance that threatens to bring global economic catastrophe. Hardest hit are the poor peoples and countries of the world. We need to endorse their right to preferential treatment designed to raise the standard of living in such countries. We must stop trying to squeeze wealth out of poor countries, renounce the policy of "structural adjustment" that this administration has imposed directly and through the IMF and World Bank, and endorse the right of people to control their own economies. The worldÕs huge debt overhang -- created primarily by recent U.S. policies -- can only be addressed through international cooperation. We should propose discussions through the UN Economic and Social Council to set new rules for national economic policies and debt servicing that promote full employment globally. Third we must be far more active in measures to save the environment. Few acts have so outraged the rest of the world as the Bush administrationÕs refusal to cooperate with efforts to limit global warming and other forms of environmental destruction. Good neighbors do not dump pollution into their neighbors' air, water and land. An Environmental Good Neighbor Policy would start with a U.S. commitment to comply with international agreements and norms regarding pollution, and with a pledge to negotiate further, more effective limitations immediately. Fourth, we must again stress our support for human and democratic rights. The Bush administration has funded and protected outrageous violations of human and democratic rights all over the world, from Uzbekistan to Pakistan to Palestine, not to mention Iraq, all in the name of fighting terrorism. How can we expect people not to hate us when we are imposing murderous tyrannies and occupations on them? A Good Neighbor Policy for Human Rights means that we would pledge to base our actions on international human rights norms, not national political expediency. A symbolic first step would be to join the International Criminal Court. The next president of the United States will inherit a legacy of global isolation that, unless corrected, will make it impossible to solve any of the terrifying problems we face. The way out of this dangerous and volatile corner is to replace the Big Stick with a Global Good Neighbor Policy. ABOUT THE WRITER Jeremy Brecher is a historian, an award-winning documentary screenwriter and the author of twelve books, including Strike! and Globalization from Below. © 2000 New York University. All Rights Reserved. The Global Beat Syndicate, a service of New York University's Center for War, Peace, and the News Media, provides editors with commentary and perspective articles on critical global issues from contributors around the world. For more information, check out http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/syndicate/. Home | About | Archives | Advisors | Staff