Don’t let Washington’s toxic partisanship infect foreign policy, too

When most Americans think about the dysfunction that defines our current politics, they focus on domestic concerns. We wonder why Republicans and Democrats can’t find commonsense bipartisan solutions to issues like health care, infrastructure, or immigration and border security. Why are so many of our leaders more prone to fight with one another than fix the problems facing the nation?

But while it’s not entirely true that, as then-Sen. Arthur Vandenberg (R-Mich.) declared in 1947, “politics stops at the water’s edge,” debates over foreign policy used to be kept largely above the political fray. Since the Second World War, no matter who sat in the Oval Office, when national security was at stake, the president could act with broad bipartisan support. Americans themselves stood together against international threats. And that was reflected on Capitol Hill: When compared to panels focused on domestic issues, the armed services and intelligence committees in the Congress tended to be collegial and effective.

{mosads}But the good will that once defined our nation’s approach to foreign policy is under new threat. Of late, the same poison that undermines our ability to resolve important domestic issues has upended our approach to national security. The result is alarming: Excessive partisanship is weakening America abroad and inviting our opponents to exploit our penchant for bickering.

One of the most striking examples was the March 9, 2015 letter from all but two Senate Republicans to the “Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” In a massive departure from tradition, the missive infamously asserted that “President Obama will leave office in January 2017, while most of us will remain in office well beyond then – perhaps for decades.” In essence, the senators were inviting a foreign country to ignore the nation’s commander-in-chief. Rather than standing behind the White House, they were undermining the executive branch.

But if Washington’s deepening divisions on national security seem worrisome, the electorate’s new proclivity for viewing international crises through a political lens is a near disaster. Voters now appear to evaluate our options based solely on who lives in the White House. In September 2013, when the Syrian regime dropped sarin gas on the people living in suburbs surrounding Damascus, a Gallup poll found that 31 percent of Republicans and 45 percent of Democrats supported an American military response. But last year, after President Trump replaced Barack Obama in the White House and the Syrian regime attacked again with chemical weapons, a full 86 percent of Republicans supported an American strike and only 38 percent of Democrats shared that view. Same crime and same criminals—but a different public outcry.

Even the military budget has now become more of a political football. As always, defense expenditures have to be weighed against the nation’s other domestic and international needs. However, Congress was rarely divided along party lines. Sens. Dan Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) could have replaced one another atop the Senate Defense Appropriations Committee without much of anything changing in the contours of the budget.

More recently, however, debates over the nation’s national security priorities have turned explicitly partisan, with cuts and additions to the Pentagon’s budget weighed almost exclusively against cuts and additions to domestic spending. That’s no way to judge where taxpayer dollars should and should not be invested. Where are the statesmen and women who can assess and balance the nation’s many needs and fashion a federal budget to address them?

Here’s the harsh reality. The United States faces a bewildering variety of challenges abroad: China’s rise, Russia’s resurgence, the barbarity of violent extremist groups, the vulnerability of our information networks, and the decline of freedom and liberty around the world. These all demand American leadership.

We will succeed only through balanced debate among our political leaders and respectful consideration of the opinions of our political opponents, principles embodied in organizations like No Labels and in the thoughtful constructive negotiations done among the 24 Democrats and 24 Republicans in the Congressional Problem Solvers Caucus. Like in eras past, everyone’s objective must put the broader national interest ahead of any parochial or partisan concern. Much as we may disagree with one another, we can’t afford to let political bickering leave our national security at risk.

Adm. Dennis Blair is a co-founder of No Labels, who previously served as Director of National Intelligence in the Obama Administration