Following Lenin, Sanders believes that an America that is dominated economically and politically by big capitalists will inevitably have a foreign policy that is aggressive, militaristic, and interventionist. Following Vladimir Putin, Sanders thinks that unchecked American power is mostly a force for evil and instability throughout the world. As you would expect, he is determined to change that.
The pillars of the Sanders Doctrine are as follows:
- A sound foreign policy begins at home. Build a more equal, more fair, and more genuinely democratic America, and the world will take note.
- No more military interventions! Cut the defense budget and use the funds to build a better welfare state. Rely on moral force, diplomacy, and economic sanctions to protect America’s interests abroad.
- Call out strong men, particularly of the right-wing variety, for their human rights violations. Left-wing dictators are struggling against the odds to build a more equal and better society, so they should be treated with a bit more respect.
- Strengthen our alliances with social democratic forces overseas to build a friendlier world based on shared values.
A shorthand way to say this is that Sanders wants America to look more like Denmark, so it follows that we should have Denmark’s foreign policy, too.
How would this differ in practice from the Obama and Trump Doctrines? I will be discussing that in the next several Sandersday posts.