Can the Debt Crisis Help Build a World Without War?

By Bridget Moix on 10/03/2011 @ 05:30 PM

Tags: Peaceful Prevention, Budget, , Foreign Policy, War Is Not the Answer

Between now and Thanksgiving, the so-called Super Committee will be weighing all sorts of proposals for re-shaping the federal budget to cut spending by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade. While much of the focus in Washington is on the numbers - how much to cut from which programs - at FCNL we'd like to see the debt crisis push policymakers to reshape US policy writ large, not just tinker around the edges.

A large part of the current financial crisis facing the nation is due to runaway military spending over the past decade, including two major wars that alone have cost $1.2 trillion, and to an outdated desire to remain the dominant global power in what has clearly become a multi-power world. Reshaping US foreign policy to focus on preventing wars, not fighting them, and solving global problems cooperatively rather than clinging to superpower status would yield enormous savings not only in taxpayer dollars but also in human lives.

Here at FCNL we hope to model the change we want to see in US foreign policy by bringing together our Peaceful Prevention of Deadly Conflict and Greater Middle East Diplomacy programs in one new foreign policy team. Our goal is to better link our work on conflicts in which the US is directly engaged (Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel-Palestine) with our work on improving the US's tools of diplomacy, development, and international cooperation to help prevent war and mass violence.

Too often in Washington the short-term political crises of the day override the long-term need for the peaceful prevention of deadly conflict. Even amid important progress in building new civilian capacities to help prevent war, when it comes to US policy on conflicts like Iran, Afghanistan, or Israel-Palestine, the lessons being learned are tragically lost.

Take the recent news of a US weapons deal to Bahrain amid daily reports of atrocities by the government against its own people. While the Obama administration is standing up an Atrocities Prevention Board in the National Security Council with one hand, it's handing out weapons to perpetrators of gross human rights abuses with the other. Surely this is no way to conduct a sensible foreign policy, wasting lives and dollars with inconsistent policies that undermine peace and security. (See the letter FCNL joined urging the weapons deal be halted.)

Similarly, the State Department has now claimed that conflict prevention is a core mission, but under US policy our diplomats can't even talk with Iranian officials. How can you prevent a war without even engaging in diplomacy?

The Super Committee is already being inundated by lobbyists who want to protect certain programs and cut others. FCNL is actively lobbying them, too. But after all the numbers are finally agreed to - or not - we'll also continue working with Congress to save lives and money by creating a more consistent, more cooperative, more humane, and more humble US foreign policy.