I can’t find it. That makes it difficult to decide how I feel about what he wants our role in the world to be. On the other hand, Senator Obama’s policy choices are easy to find, and therefore fairly easy to judge.
I am a foreign affairs professional (started out as a Peace Corps Volunteer, now retired after nearly 30 years as a Foreign Service Officer in the State Department and overseas, working on African and European Affairs, democracy and human rights, followed by service with multilateral organizations including the OSCE and the United Nations). I care deeply about America’s standing in the world, which has (how shall I put it?) suffered in recent years. So I tend to judge candidates for President through that lens, at least in part (although as I advance in years I am paying greater attention to domestic issues like health care).
There have been a number of diaries and other comments in past weeks about the relative strengths of the candidates on foreign policy. So I thought I would look for what the candidates themselves say they want to do. It has not been easy, and that's instructive.
I have looked at McCain’s website http://www.johnmccain.com for policy details, and all I can find listed are the following topics: American Energy, Economic Plan, Iraq, Health Care, Education, Climate Change, Border Security, Human Dignity & Life, Second Amendment, Veterans, Government Reform, and National Security. If you drill down a little, you can also find listings for Judicial Philosophy, Values, National Heritage and Ethics Reform.
Yes, I will agree that “Iraq” is part of foreign affairs, but it’s not the be-all-and-end-all, is it? And you can clearly say that “border security” might be included, and “climate change” and “national security” also involve our relations with The Outside World. But there’s no single page on the website that compiles and sets out his foreign affairs policies in a coherent way, much less in great detail.
If you do a search on the McCain site for “foreign policy” or “foreign affairs,” you are led to over a dozen pages with newspaper articles about speeches he has made, as well as commentary by various writers on what they think he thinks about foreign affairs. The only concrete thing listed from that search is his March 26 speech in Los Angeles in which he calls for establishment of a League of Democracies, designed to, in his words, “harness the vast influence of the more than one hundred democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests” (emphasis mine). No, it’s not really the Justice League of America ©, but you get the idea. (Full disclosure: I now work on ways to promote the peaceful promotion of democracy, so this could be relevant). But aside from that one speech, there is no expansion of his ideas – if indeed they have ever been expanded beyond those bounds.
In contrast, the website of Senator Obama’s Campaign clearly includes “Foreign Policy” on the list of over twenty Issues on which the campaign has set forth its positions. Other topics -- which come as no surprise on a Democratic candidate’s website -- include Disabilities, Ethics, Poverty, Service (dear to my heart as a former PCV), Seniors and Social Security, Urban Policy, and Women.
If you follow the Foreign Policy link on Obama's website http://www.barackobama.com/..., you will find policy papers on Ending the War in Iraq, Iran, Renewing American Diplomacy (I particularly like that one), Nuclear Weapons, Bipartisanship and Openness (oh, yeah!), Israel, and Africa, as well as speeches or papers on Counter-Terrorism, Latin America and the Caribbean, and relations with Europe. No, there’s nothing (yet) about the peaceful promotion of democracy. But there is a lot of talk about the virtues of diplomacy, so I am encouraged. And from what I hear from friends overseas, foreign observers of the U.S. political scene are mighty encouraged too.
I admit I have not studied all these positions in depth, but I will. I mean, at least there’s something there that I -- and everybody -- can study, unlike the website of the presumptive GOP nominee. And he’s running on his foreign affairs experience? (Maybe General Clark was right?)
Or am I missing something?