Socialism in the U.S. goes international through foreign policy and soft power, solves spillover and key to disarmament

It is not enough to say what is wrong with US military and foreign policy. We need to present a socialist alternative. Our foreign policy’s primary goal should be to unite workers across borders to limit the power of capitalists. Capitalists gain a huge advantage from their ability to move money around the globe. The threat of a capital strike or of capital flight is used to break unions; force left governments to reduce social benefits; and cancel environmental, financial, and business regulation.

The United States clearly has the leverage to reverse pro-capitalist policies. After all it has used its power, as we noted above, to impose trade treaties and to intimidate or replace foreign governments. We need to demand that our government instead ally with left governments and popular forces around the world to enact very different sorts of treaties: ones that end money laundering and movements of “hot” money by forcing banks around the world to identify the true owners of capital, tax treaties that impose uniform and highly progressive rates so that capitalists can’t park money in tax shelters, and trade treaties that require exporting countries and firms to uphold living wages, strong health and safety regulations, and favor products made by unionized workers.

Bernie Sanders was correct when he said that climate change is the greatest national security threat faced by the United States; it is also the greatest threat facing humans the world over.

American efforts to limit fossil fuels were nonexistent before 2009; then uneven and pathetically weak under Obama. Now, Trump is actively fostering oil and coal production domestically and around the world.

The rich countries of the world, who in the centuries of fossil fuel use have emitted most of the CO2 in the atmosphere, need to immediately sign a treaty committing them to end fossil fuel use within a decade. The United States can use its economic and diplomatic power to pressure its fellow oil/coal producers and users to make this transition, with the threat that rich countries that continue to use fossil fuels will have their exports embargoed.

At the same time, foreign aid now needs to be focused on helping poor nations make a rapid transition to green energy and on conserving forests and wetlands. The United States needs to recognize that in its budget and encourage other rich countries to do the same.

Wars in their destruction of human life are immoral and almost always fought for evil reasons: to further capitalist exploitation, to allow militaries to self-aggrandize themselves and the politicians who fund them, and to allow powerful groups to dominate weaker ones. Because the United States has such an overwhelming edge in arms and technology, American disarmament can be leveraged to gain commitments by others to disarm. We need to demand that the US government immediately stop all arms sales, withdraw its soldiers from the vast archipelago of bases it holds around the world, and to stop any sort of military cooperation with repressive regimes.