It's long been said that in the United States, anyone can grow up to be president. This was not actually true for most of our history, but it's more nearly true today than ever before.
I'm beyond such lofty ambitions, but it occurred to me that if almost anyone can grow up to be president, it should be easier to grow up to be vice president, a job much less demanding, requiring only a steady EKG and the ability to eat politely in public. I qualify on both counts, though after the recent action in the stock market, I'm not so sure about the first one.
Being disappointed in the quality of public debate offered by the two leading contenders for the vice presidency, I offer myself as an alternative. This is the first of my campaign mini-speeches, dealing with foreign policy and in particular with our relations with Russia.
The past eight years have shown us the dangers of having an administration innocent of foreign experience. The federal government can impose its will on the states, most of the time, by passing legislation to require the states to do things, or to prohibit them from doing things; and by offering financial assistance with strings attached. Congress is accustomed to ordering the states to do things, or not to do them, and a senator might be excused for believing that he or she, as president, could do the same to other nations.
Foreign policy does not work that way. Although ours is the most powerful country on the world scene, we do not command obedience from other nations through force. Nor should we try to. Today's forced laborer becomes tomorrow's willing rebel.
This fall, the Bush administration reached a treaty with Poland to allow the United States to install missiles and station soldiers in Poland. This followed an agreement to allow the United States to install missile tracking radars in the Czech Republic.
Our nation's stated purpose in securing permission to open military bases in eastern Europe was to protect western Europe from missile attacks from "rogue states," meaning unnamed nations in or near the Middle East. The purpose of Poland, and maybe of the Czech Republic also, was to provide some protection not from the Middle East but from Russia.
Now, Russia is the central part and largest constituent of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Under the Communist regime the USSR oppressed its people and those of the Eastern European nations that were members of the Warsaw Pact, and the rivalry between our allies in NATO and those of the Warsaw Pact was at the heart of the Cold War.
The Cold War ended, symbolically, with the destruction of the Berlin Wall by the citizens of East and West Germany together, and then in fact with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact a short time later. We must never return to the days of the Iron Curtain, yet our foreign policy, in this instance, seems designed to do just that -- to push Russia farther politically from the rest of Europe, rather than closer to it.
Since the end of the Cold War the nations of Eastern Europe, including Russia, have made great strides toward freeing their people. The Russian people now have economic opportunities never before available to them, including things as everyday as the golden arches, and as basic as the ability to travel. Russia still has far to go, but it is on the road to freedom.
If Europe is to be defended from the missile attacks of rogue states, Europeans should set up and maintain the defenses. We should stand ready to provide technical help, but the people protected must be the ones to staff and operate the bases. We should take a lesson from the history of the 20th century, however, and not restart the Cold War.
As your vice president, I will support those nations that increase the economic and political freedom of their citizens. I will oppose efforts to reward nations that don't. Nations that use their military against their own citizens deserve no military support from ours.
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