What I think US foreign policy should be

So one of the things that I've become really sensitive about is the accusation that I'm some sort of traitor that hates America and wants to see the US crushed by China. In fact it's the opposite, and I'm very disturbed by what I see as the US heading for disaster, and even more disturbed by the lack of discussion about what to do.

The basic problem is that the United States is suffering from "late Imperial syndrome." If you look at the numbers, the only way that the US can maintain sole superpower status is by killing the Chinese economy. If the Chinese economy continues to grow, then there *will* be a reordering of world power.

The reason that I think the Indo-Pacific strategy is going to be disaster is that rather than conserving national strength, and focusing on specific issues that are in the major US security interests, the US is opening up new battles which will just drain it's strength in the end.

So we start by just focusing on the two flashpoints in Asia. Korea and Taiwan. Instead of spreading US power across the Indo-Pacific region, the US should just focus on these two flashpoints. This means both making sure that South Korea and Taiwan have defensive weapons and US support to maintain the balance of power, but also to realize that in the end, there will have to be a political settlement in the Korean peninsula and across the Taiwan straits. Taiwan and Korea are the only flashpoints by which you could have a war between great powers, and the focus of US foreign policy should be to stabilize the status quo, and then work to some political settlement that would defuse the bombs.

As far as checking Chinese power. This *is* a legitimate concern but the US is doing it in a way that cases more alarm in China and push back that will ultimately leave the situation worse than before. The solution would be to adopt what China and Russia have done in Mongolia and Central Asia. Between Russia and China are a set of buffer states that are neutral, and in which Russia and China have agreed not to use against the other. So you have Mongolia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

In south Asia, the US and China could easy turn ASEAN into a buffer state which is not aligned with either US and China. A strong ASEAN would have the effect of balancing US and China in much the same way that Mongolia and Central Asia balances China and Russia.

Once you have basic security, then you start working through the UN on issues of common concern.

As far as human rights policies go I'm a fan of the Nixon/Kissinger approach of *deemphasizing* the role of human rights in foreign policy. It's not that I'm against human rights, but if you mix in human rights, your foreign policy becomes subject to capture by people that know how to create moral outrage, and you end up with very confused policy that ultimately kills your own credibility. For example, I think it's absolutely crazy that the US is accusing China of *genocide* while not bombing Shanghai and Beijing. I remember that back in the 1990's, Clinton bombed Serbia over Kosovo. What's happening is that its very easy to put together a public relations campaign to create public outrage, and the hope is that you get the US to make a declaration of massive human rights abuses and then you get real stuff. What happens in practice is that you get a "talk is cheap" declaration, but when it comes time to do something real, people hesitate.

What's basically happened is that because the US has screamed "freedom and democracy" so much, that most people in China take US screaming with as much seriousness as people in the 1980's took the Soviet Union when they claimed to support peasants and workers. And the reason for this is that all of the talk about "freedom and democracy" is just to win US elections, and people that get bombed in drone strikes don't vote in US elections.

So let the Pope talk about human rights.