Kerry and the World

June 3, 2004

In the Atlantic Monthly, Josh Marshall looks at what a Kerry Foreign Policy might look like: Kerry Faces the World.

[Kerry advisor Dan] Feldman outlined a course that starkly departed from the one charted by President Bush, yet was equally unlike the approach—characterized by soft multilateralism and fealty to the United Nations—portrayed by Republicans as typical of Democratic foreign policy. Feldman emphasized the need for skilled diplomatic management and a willingness to use force abroad, but also an essential caution. The more he spoke, the more he called to mind the policies of the first Bush Administration.

Many of Kerry's foreign policy advisors have served for many years in the professional national security apparatus. In contrast, Bush's advisors had been political appointees. "And whereas Kerry's team is the embodiment of the nation's professional national-security apparatus, key members of Bush's team, such as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, had spent entire careers trying to overthrow it."

The Democratic foreign policy experts who might shape policy in a Kerry administration are not stuck to the Cold War era belief in the primacy of states as the only key actors in international affairs. However, the Bush administration approach minimizes the importance of non-state actors, like al Qaeda, and the problems caused by chaotic failed states. A Kerry foreign policy would follow a modern approach to deal with the problems of the modern world, rather than the Bush policy, which tries to fit modern problems in the framework of an outdated, Cold War-era approach.

Posted by Andrew Raff at June 3, 2004 9:41 AM