Biden Must Make Peace at Home and Abroad

By JASON SIBERT

President elect Joe Biden will become president of the United States Jan. 20, a positive development.

The negative development is that Donald Trump and Trumpism will continue to impact our politics. This is not good news for those who believe the US should use its power to create a more law-driven world, as Trumpism is incompatible with internationalism in any form.

We live in a world filled with dangerous arsenals, nuclear and non-nuclear. In addition, there are other methods of killing that are growing more dangerous by the moment. In the 20th century, Fascism and Soviet Communism sought to spread its way of life around the world. In the current century, there doesn’t seem to be a political ideology with as much sway as those two doctrines had at one time. However, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes are fighting to increase their influence, and authoritarian movements exist inside democratic nations.

While it’s unlikely that any country will invade numerous countries to spread its way of life, international cohesion is fraying at a time when the methods for killing are growing. Conflicts that are much less deadly than World War I and World War II could still kill millions given our technology.

The type of world envisioned by international law theorist Hugo Grotius – who advocated international law — seems to be going by the wayside. Biden has said he will strengthen US alliances as president. The Trump foreign policy emphasized a retreat from the world and large military budgets at the same time, a recipe for more weapons and a US more alienated from the world.

However, our country needs to go beyond merely strengthening our existing alliances. It must engage our foes — China and Russia — on certain issues which threaten the security of all city-states and nation-states, or the world in general. There are examples of how our country has worked to make the world a safer place. Fifty years ago, on Feb. 14, 1967, the Treaty of Tlatelolco opened for signature. This landmark Treaty led to the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Latin America and the Caribbean, the first agreement to prohibit nuclear weapons in a population. It paved the way for other similar zones that cover 114 countries in four other regions of the globe, as well as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. All of these nuclear-weapon-free zones were negotiated on the basis of arrangements freely arrived at among the states within the region concerned, a principle affirmed by the 1999 United Nations Disarmament Commission guidelines on nuclear-weapon-free zone. 

The challenge to creating a more peaceful world is a political challenge. Many in our country have not heard of the landmark agreement mentioned in this story. Our leaders, possibly Biden, have to level with the American people on the dangers we face. Our citizens must understand what will take their families more safe and secure.

The military-industrial-congressional complex is a problem in this equation because it is the driving force behind defense spending. Every district in Congress profits through jobs. This is true regardless of how many arms control deals our country enters. However, this complex would benefit less if there were more arms control.

The offensive weaponry that is a part of the military-industrial-congressional complex does us little good on the greenhouse effect and in pandemics. Those threats don’t have as many spending priorities that benefit congressional districts. Peace advocates and organizations should be working to change the emphasis. Defense spending could be made genuine defense spending instead of offense spending as it currently is. 

We’ve seen predictions by environmentalists, medical professionals, and the military that future security threats have little to do with the Cold War military that we have. The Navy’s hospital ships, the Comfort and the Mercy, are ready to be retired and there’s no plan to replace them. More civilian hospitals would be more appropriate for this and future pandemics.

The greenhouse effect and pandemics are threats that know little about the politics that divides our world or if the democratic way of life can survive in a world moving toward totalitarianism and authoritarianism. This means our world will have to cooperate on fighting and adapting to the greenhouse effect and fighting pandemics, regardless of the politics in question.

Biden will have his work cut out for him when it comes to finding a way to make common ground with our adversaries on certain key threats. He’ll have the powerful military-industrial-congressional complex working against him. Hopefully, there are some voices somewhere, perhaps in the State Department or general population, which will work toward a peaceful and lawful world.

Jason Sibert is the executive director of the Peace Economy Project in St. Louis, Mo. Email jasonsibert@hotmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, February 1, 2021

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