I spent much of my Pandemic Year hard at work on a new book. And now I’m ready to announce its release! I called the book Left Foreign Policy: An Organizer’s Guide. You can buy the paperback version at the link above. Here’s a page where you can read an in-depth description.
But on this page, I’ll say a bit about the target audience. It’s a book on left foreign policy at a very 101-level. I wrote it for new leftists and for organizers holding discussions with new leftists. In the book, I lay out some general principles for foreign policy organizing, and I invite new leftists to see internationalism as a key piece of leftist strategy and work. So, from this starting point, we can do better organizing.
Why Foreign Policy?
Back in 2016, I had a discussion about left foreign policy with a Hillary Clinton supporter. The Clinton supporter said that only ‘privileged people’ make foreign policy a top priority. The point seemed to be that only privileged people can ‘afford’ to talk about foreign policy.
That’s wrong, and in fact, reality turns out quite to the contrary. Only U.S. citizens can get away with ignoring other countries. This makes it the height of a kind of ‘American privilege.’ By contrast, citizens of other countries must attend to the world. But, more important for our purposes here, foreign policy remains a vital part of any leftist movement.
I find two main reasons for this.
First, the US harms far more people through its foreign policy than it does through any domestic issue. Arguably even all domestic issues combined. The police kill a thousand people a year in the U.S., and our grotesque health care policies kill thousands. However, the U.S. killed more people in Vietnam alone than in its domestic policies. And this all comes without adding Iraq, Afghanistan, and a hundred other military misadventures.
Second, domestic issues don’t take place in a bubble on some purely domestic stage. The global economy and issues of war and peace set boundaries on what the U.S. can do in its domestic politics. When countries go it alone on social democratic (or socialist) change, they set themselves up for failure when international winds blow in a new direction. Western Europe built social democracy after World War II. But then, in the neoliberal era, it dismantled much of it.
In order to build programs that cross borders and last, we must organize internationally.
Reading Group?
If any of you want to start a foreign policy or internationalism reading group, I’d be happy to work with you! So, you can click here for a contact page!
