The Council of Foreign Relations is providing a useful public service by getting the candidates to articulate their foreign policies at think tank -- that is to say, excruciating -- length. Rudy Giuliani's manifesto went up today, and it's interesting, if only for its intense attention to new names for the War on Terror. First we get "the Terrorists' War on Us," followed quickly by "the terrorists' war on global order" and "the long war." The War on Us" neologism seems best suited for fear-mongering and aggressive self-righteousness, their war on "the global order" is probably for those times when Giuliani wants to pretend to be a multilateralist, and "the long war" is for all those NeoCons desperate to imagine themselves in some sort of World War II style clash.
From there, Giuliani promises to expand the military by at least 10 brigades, which probably means between 15,000 and 35,000 new soldiers. We also need a missile defense system, because "Rogue regimes that know they can threaten America, our allies, and our interests with ballistic missiles will behave more aggressively, including by increasing their support for terrorists. On the other hand, the knowledge that America and our allies could intercept and destroy incoming missiles would not only make blackmail less likely but also decrease the appeal of ballistic missile programs and so help to slow their development and proliferation." This makes, so far as I can tell, no sense.
Giuliani also calls for a Reagn-esque type of diplomacy, wherein we "The next U.S. president should take inspiration from Ronald Reagan's actions during his summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavík in 1986: he was open to the possibility of negotiations but ready to walk away if talking went nowhere. The lesson is never talk for the sake of talking and never accept a bad deal for the sake of making a deal," before taking a shot at Pelosi: "Members of Congress who talk directly to rogue regimes at cross-purposes with the White House are not practicing diplomacy; they are undermining it."
Giuliani also calls for expanding NATO to "to any state that meets basic standards of good governance, military readiness, and global responsibility," presumably so it can serve as a replacement for the UN, which he says "has proved irrelevant to the resolution of almost every major dispute of the last 50 years," and though it "can be useful for some humanitarian and peacekeeping functions...we should not expect much more of it."
So let's be clear: Giuliani, who's advised by Norman Podhoretz, is running to uphold the foreign policy of the NeoCons. He is their champion, and his platform reflects their influence. He's the closest thing to Cheney in the race -- right down to the authoritative, secretive streak -- and is probably the most dangerous of the Republican contenders.
