Colucci: Foreign policy strategies for Hillary Clinton

Lamont Colucci, associate professor and chair of politics and government and interim director of the Center for Politics and the People at Ripon College, wrote an opinion piece about Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy record.

It was published by National Review. Click here to read the full article.

“A look at her foreign policy record is far from reassuring,” he writes. “The dominating story about Hillary Clinton lately has been her mishandling of government e-mails. Meanwhile, it is widely agreed that foreign policy and national security will play a large role in the presidential election of 2016 — larger than in 2008 and 2012. Conventional wisdom states that this will be better for Republicans than for Democrats. A twist on this formula is that Hillary Clinton is being portrayed as stronger than the current occupant of the White House. She is asking voters to remember the foreign policy of her husband, rather than that of the president she served as secretary of state.”

However, he says, there are fundamental problems with scenarios she might present. “She has not yet offered a grand outline, but when she does, one will have to be suspicious of it from the beginning,” he writes. “Which of the three scenarios is in play at any given time will be dependent on the audience, and the assumed outcome. Voters and the media will have to discern which scenario is being followed.
However, the greater question is simple: Whose interests would she serve? What kind of America does she wish to see? How would she guarantee American military and economic supremacy? Whichever scenario she chooses to follow to obtain the Democratic nomination, one can assume a different one will be used if she makes it to the general election. And if she should win, an entirely different scenario yet would be used to govern.

“This scenario-switching belittles the electorate and sets a low priority on the national interest. … The nation can ill afford another president coming into office without a sound national security strategy, one based on the greatness of the American people, not the whims of any individual or group.”

Posted April 26, 2015 in Faculty.

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