Ron Paul's Foreign Policy

I've spoken with many people who like most of what Ron Paul is saying and has been saying for decades, but draw the line at his foreign policy. The defects in that foreign policy are so self-evident, they assume, that they don't bother to deal with specifics. They simply describe his foreign policy as wacky, goofy, insane, or any of a dozen strongly negative words.

But just what IS Ron Paul's foreign policy, and how insane is it really? Let's look at it.

In broad terms, his foreign policy can be divided into three categories:

We Can't Be The World's Policeman
Yes, Paul believes that we can't be the cop on the world beat, keeping peace everywhere. Why? Two major reasons. First, it's wrong. We have no moral or legal right to demand sovereignty for ourselves and then meddle in other nation's internal affairs as we please. Second, we can't afford it. We have a yearly deficit of $1.5 TRILLION, and our national debt is approaching bankruptcy levels. We simply cannot afford to keep, according to DOD figures, 1.43 million troops stationed in over 150 countries... and that's not including the 203,000 troops in Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan!

What is insane about respecting the sovereignty of other nations and acknowledging our own limitations? Trying to keep this up will drive us into bankruptcy.


Bring the troops home
With so many abroad, we spend a lot of money building and maintaining bases on foreign soil. The recently constructed embassy in Iraq cost us over $1 billion to build, and that's ridiculous. We maintain, by DOD count, 662 bases on foreign soil. An awful lot of money and personnel go into maintaining our foreign presence, when in truth we can adequately defend our nation FROM HOME. Bring the troops home and defend our nation with our impressive collection of submarines and aircraft carriers, supplemented by the Air Force, Army, and Marines. What aspect of our national defense is served by having troops stationed in Malta?

And not all of the facilities we have are dedicated to defense. Did you know that in 2007, the US had 172 golf courses on foreign soil? We also have resort hotels and ski areas, though not nearly as many as we have golf courses.

End foreign aid
Each Year, the US sends $20-$30 billion to foreign nations, many of them unfriendly to us and/or our allies. We have no say in how it is spent, and we simply can't afford to keep giving free money to any nation that wants it. (Remember the whole bankruptcy thing.)


There is another aspect to his foreign policy that seems to stand out, so I want to deal with that separately. Israel.

Ron Paul is being characterized as anti-Israel because he wants to stop sending foreign aid to Israel. But remember, Paul wants to stop sending foreign aid to EVERYBODY. If you look at how much foreign aid we send to the middle east, you'll find that we send 10 TIMES as much money to Israel's Arab neighbors as we do to Israel. And since many of them would like nothing better than to destroy Israel, ending all aid actually turns into a net gain for Israel.

Paul wants us to be Israel's ally, even their friend, something we aren't right now. I mean yes, we send them money, but even ignoring the other aid we send to the region, we attach strings to that money. Our leaders seem to think that because we send money to Israel, we can dictate to them how they run their nation. We've told them how to handle the Palestinians, even where they should set their nation's borders. Think of how intrusive and offensive that is, to dictate to an ALLIED NATION where they should draw their borders.

Ron Paul believes that if we are allied to another sovereign nation, then we should respect them. And that means let them set their own policy, run their own nation, and decide where their own borders are. The interesting thing about sovereignty is that we should respect the sovereignty of other nations, something we aren't so good at. We prefer to stick our noses in anywhere we want, telling other nations how to run things.

And it doesn't usually work out so well for us. We insisted that Mubarek should go, and now Egypt is run by the Muslim brotherhood! They're not particularly friendly to the US... in fact, they're pretty big on the whole "death to the Great Satan" idea. (That's us.)

Ron Paul's foreign policy isn't insane. According to the International Business Times, his foreign policy is "one of Paul's strongest points."

The truth, however, is that foreign policy is one of Paul’s strongest points.

Paul is a non-interventionist. He wants to bring troops home from Iraq, Afghanistan and from all over the world. He wants the U.S. to stop policing the world, mind its own business and spend less money on defense.

This is in sharp contrast to the current state of U.S. foreign policy, which has the U.S. spending nearly five percent of its GDP on the military each year and stationing troops in over 150 countries (including heavy presences in friendly countries like Japan).

The U.S., in fact, accounts for 43 percent of the total global military spending in 2010, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute…

Instead of listening to the hyperbole, learn the facts of Paul's foreign policy. If you do that, then you'll understand he doesn't want us to be a weak nation. He wants a strong defense, but he wants it at home, where it belongs. A period of reduced spending as we consolidate would result in a recovered nation that is stronger than ever.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me.