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Vivek Ramaswamy has written an article on his foreign policy doctrine, focusing on China.
He is squarely taking aim at the "neocons and liberal internationalists", in other words the two main constituents of what Obama referred to as "the Blob" dominating foreign policy in D.C. He is predictably being called an isolationist and WaPo columnists are freaking out.
WaPo columnists themselves are not relevant but they are often mouthpieces for more powerful interests. Trump was hated for many things but one underappreciated aspect of why the Blob hated him was his instinct not to start new wars. In fact, he is one of the few presidents in recent memory who did not start a new war and he tried to get out of Syria - twice - but was undermined by his own bureaucracy.
Vivek is a much smarter guy than Trump, so I wonder if the Blob would be able to run circles around him the way they did around Trump. I doubt it and I suspect they doubt it too, which is why I think a campaign to destroy Vivek is likely to ramp up before too long. Trump couldn't be controlled outright but at least he could be misled.
I will offer a reason why the self-interested realism of America First “doctrine” is naive. Specifically, that saying out loud you are a jerk who cares only about your own self-interest lessens your power level compared to being a sanctimonious moralist-hypocrite. Of course, there are also tradeoffs to the latter, but here I will specify the benefits.
A very important aspect of international politics (contrasting somewhat with the video game versions) is that international politics is not zero sum. In a zero sum game, it is never advantageous to have fewer options. But this is not true for a positive-sum negotiation. For example, the Chinese population empirically care a lot about Taiwan, arguably to an irrational extent. This takes Taiwanese independence proper off the table for at least a few generations, because the domestic conditions in China are likely to force the administration to go to war if it happened, and all sides wish to avoid war. Similarly to ripping the steering wheel off your car in a game of chicken, the pigheaded moralism of the Chinese populace give the Chinese administration a negotiating advantage in the game. China has a credible threat of going to war, so the war does not happen.
If we take as a given keeping Taiwan de facto independent has some benefit, such as the semiconductors thing, one approach for the US administration is to generate as many reasons as possible Taiwan deserves to not be a part of China (liberal democracy good!) and use those reasons to manufacture consent domestically. This increases the credibility the US would defend Taiwan, which inherently gives us an advantage. China is less likely to march in and take it the more they are worried about US resolve and moralistic irrationality. Plus, domestic propaganda is basically costless— we do not actually have to support Taiwan that much materially! Adding more factors into the mix and making it unclear how committed we are is a costless way to prevent war in Taiwan until it happens. This is the main conceit of strategic ambiguity. Strategic clarity is a downside, and spelling out our interests in Taiwan precisely forces us to spend more in material terms there, not less, to assert the same credibility of resolve and deter a war.
Reducing ambiguity and rationalist doctrine throws away a lot of real advantage. Imagine if you walked into a business negotiation spelling out honestly in good faith exactly what you want and how far you are willing to go to get it! Your counterparty will take 100% of the surplus in the transaction. One benefit of a doctrine, spoken out loud, is that it creates an ambiguous honor commitment. My doctrine is to protect the Western hemisphere, and my people have heard me say it. If I do not live to that, my people will be angry with me, so don’t start trouble here or I will fight past the point of rationality. How far? It’s uncertain! That’s the point.
In this sense, America First is an anti-doctrine. It anti-manufactures consent domestically. It invites domestic critics to complain that such and such proposed action abroad (say, defending Taiwan), isn’t really in our interests. In a way, such a doctrine is totally content-free, because it says nothing China does not always know. They are also capable of modelling what we want in a pragmatic sense.
Counterintuitively, taking the realist stance and assuring China that their model is correct is good for fostering cooperation. We cede the possibility of escalation and the associated negotiation surplus in exchange for a stable peace. But Vivek sees China as a geopolitical rival. Vivek wants to beat China; Vivek wants a bigger slice of the pie. The America First doctrine as a foreign policy doctrine does not advance this. The America First doctrine prevents the US from nuking the pie and making it smaller for everyone out of misguided moralism, but it does not help the US seize any more pie from China. Therefore, Vivek’s hawkish position with respect to China is basically incoherent with his Taiwan policy. If he wants to beat China, he should definitely not be saying these things to China. Do you want to impress the Chinese administration with how pragmatic you are? They are seasoned pragmatists. The advantage is in frightening them with how crazy you can muster the will to be.
Truthfully, people generally know this instinctively based on vibes. We know US-aligned Taiwan = good, and so we will forget about the pragmatic reasons why, generate domestic enthusiasm by any means possible, and revel in frightening the enemy with that enthusiasm. Vivek countersignalling realism here is attractive to some audiences, but the vibers recognize this accurately as a defection for personal gain. If America First prevails, the greatest hope, in terms of keeping Taiwan, is that China will assess that the domestic messaging is meaningless, the deep state controls military affairs, and that Vivek is a principle-free demagogue and doesn’t believe what he is saying. The moment China becomes confident we are committed pragmatists and will not hurt our own interests to defend Taiwan, we will lose it.
Everyone in the USA still believes that the USA is the first etc etc. The only thing that matters is the domestic response to foreign posturing. "I'm against America First" is a viable posture in America because nobody in America really believes that America could be anything but first.
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