Fred Thompson

Fred Thompson on the continuing challenges of American foreign policy

Fred Thompson is a former Senator and assistant U.S. attorney who campaigned for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. As well as playing an outspoken district attorney on the TNT series “Law and Order,” Thompson has served as chairman of the International Security Advisory Board and as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. During a recent visit to Harvard’s Institute of Politics, Thompson sat down with the HPR for a few minutes to discuss U.S. foreign relations.
Harvard Political Review: Do you see the U.S. government continuing to be divided on foreign policy issues, namely our roles in Iraq and Afghanistan? If so, how should it reconcile these differences and proceed forward?
Fred Thompson: Well, of course there are differences, but they are reconciled through the political process. That’s what we do in this country. We’ve had differences with regard to every major foreign policy issue that we’ve ever faced, but that’s not a surprising or bad thing in a democratic society. As they say, elections have consequences, and this next presidential election will. But, every two years congressional elections also guide and direct us and the way that we will go. Let me put it this way: there was a bipartisan consensus during the years of the Cold War that saw more unity than we’ve seen either before or after it. But the consequences, sometimes, of winning a war include the luxury of division. We’ve fought amongst ourselves on some issues and we don’t have the consensus that we used to have. But that will have to be resolved in the political process.
At the end of the day, we all have the same goals, in terms of our own domestic security and in terms of the need, on occasion, to do things outside of the boundaries of the United States in order to enhance that security. We just disagree sometimes in terms of the when, where, and how, but that’s to be expected in a democratic society of any kind.
HPR: What foreign policy issues should the Republican Party in particular take up?
FT: Our country’s role in the 21st century. We have been a force for stability and freedom and prosperity. We’ve demonstrated that countries have followed the model of free markets, the rule of law, trade with our friends, and responsible domestic policies. Those fiscal policies have produced unprecedented freedom and prosperity. And when other countries are free and prosperous, it enhances our security. So, to what extent can we or should we promote those ideals? To what extent should we remain a beacon of hope for freedom-loving people, and to what extent can we export free market and free trade practices and things of that nature? It gets down into a bunch of details, but those are the issues I think we as a country and we as a party will have to address.
HPR: How well equipped is the U.S. to handle foreign policy change given its economic troubles?
FT: Again, that covers a lot of territory. You’ve got foreign policy apparatus that I think we can do a better job managing, in terms of our State Department apparatus, personnel, and the diplomatic core, which all need enhancing. But our foreign policy, in large part, is going to continue to rely upon our strength as a nation both militarily and economically. So as long as we do the things that we’re supposed to do, in terms of sound policies for our economy, and not making the mistake that we have made in times past of downsizing our military dangerously after a period of war—if you want to call the Cold War a war—we’ll be fine and we’ll be well equipped to deal with whatever challenges we have.
Things like recessions cause us to realize we have to prioritize. We don’t have any choice but to prioritize sound foreign policy and all the things that go into sound foreign policy. That has to be at the top of the list. The worst thing we can do for ourselves, for our economy, and for our foreign policy is to try to put up walls, whether they be export walls or integration walls which keep out qualified people that we need in various industries here in our country. That would be a terrible approach. We can’t afford to do that, regardless of economic boundaries.
HPR: Do you view the U.S. troops abroad as an extreme economical strain on the government? Should the U.S. budget its military differently?
FT: Yes, they should budget the military differently, because the way they do it now is not a true reflection of the cost. A lot of the costs are budgeted through the supplemental process and are not really figured into the basic budget. There needs to be more honesty in budgeting. But having said that, those who think that after Iraq or after Afghanistan we can scale down our military and spend all that money on domestic priorities are mistaken. We live in a more dangerous world, a more complex world.
We live in a world where a handful of people can engage in mass destruction. We live in a world where rogue nations are trying to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction. We live in a world where there are belligerents in countries like Russia and massive military buildups in countries like China. [China] has several hundred missiles pointed toward Taiwan, for example, and is building a blue water navy right now that is designed to take over Taiwan before we can get there, according to a lot of experts. And threats on the other side of the world can often pose direct threats to us as they have before.
In that kind of world, we’re going to have to prioritize our security and that involves homeland security. But it also involves the tradition of hard power, and that has to do with our military and has to do with our intelligence capabilities around the world. In the ‘90s we took what some have called a holiday from history. We won the Cold War and downsized the military by about a third. Research and development was downscaled, procurement was downscaled, and we’re still paying the price for that. We need not to make that mistake again.