Carte Blanche: Antony Blinken - Diplomat Or Hegemon?
Kris Connor
The Secretary of State pick is of the utmost importance for libertarians’ evaluation of incoming administrations. For Joe Biden, that’s the soul playing father of two, Antony Blinken.
In multiple interviews, Blinken portrays himself as a savior to Trump’s impetuous severing of diplomatic ties internationally. He speaks frequently of reestablishing America’s role in the international community as leader, a role he argues is in our best interest to avoid “power vacuums” being filled by insidious entities. He uses strange concepts such as “tough diplomacy,” instead of admitting his obvious admiration for and even implementation of hegemony. He does, however, display commendable views of open trade and a refreshing willingness to cooperate with the international community.
As a libertarian, I fear for Blinken’s hegemonic views that signal a return to an administration that favors overbearing military presence globally. Blinken says that “whether we like it or not, the world tends not to organize itself,” continuing, “if we’re not doing a lot of that organizing in terms of shaping the rules and the norms and the institution through which countries relate to one another'' chaos and power vacuums will prevail. A longwinded way to say that you value control.
I agree with Blinken’s notion that the Trump administration’s take on diplomacy, which amounted to Trump putting everyone down and talking America - no, himself - up was disastrous for fostering cooperation on the international stage. But Trump’s sentiment of ‘unpolicing’ the world was, dare I say, admirable. In Blinken’s January 2019 piece for The Washington Post titled ‘America First’ is only making the world worse. Here’s a better approach’, Blinken highlights that “whatever tolerance most Americans had for the global role the United States embraced after World War II began to fade with the collapse of the Soviet Union and was shattered by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the 2008 financial crisis.” He goes on to warn that “whoever wins office in 2020 will have a hard time bucking a trend that preceded Trump and will likely survive him.” It sounds like Blinken will happily take up that challenge.
No stranger to the aristocracy, Blinken is a graduate of Harvard undergrad and Columbia Law. He worked for the State Department before becoming Deputy National Security Advisor followed by Deputy Secretary of State during the Obama administrations. Hearing “Obama administration” is another red flag for libertarians. For most of us, The Drone Papers come to mind with images of civilian casualties as well as cumbersome interventionist policies like the 2011 military intervention of Libya (a move Blinken supported).`These concerns prove valid as Blinken more recently blames circumstances in Syria on the United States having done “too little.”
Dating back to October 2002, then Senator Joe Biden’s decision to grant the Bush administration the authority to militarize against Iraq - a move that fueled the start of a nearly two decade long insurgency and exacerbated the violence of several rebel groups- Blinken defended him, stating that Biden’s vote “was a vote for tough diplomacy.” This oxymoron leads one to wonder if Blinken misunderstands the definition of diplomacy or knowingly exploits it. Again, in his 2019 piece Blinken sounds more like a Secretary of Defense than a Secretary of State as he suggests, “Force can be a necessary adjunct to effective diplomacy.” This is cacophony to a libertarians ears. Libertarians are vehemently antiwar. Blinken may be a diplomat, but he is clearly a proven interventionist.
Nonetheless, it is refreshing to hear a future Secretary of State use the right words to address our national community. Diplomacy and cooperation are absolutely something libertarians can get behind. “Put simply,” Blinken says, “the world is safer for the American people when we have friends, partners and allies.”
He also sees the merit in ending protectionist policies. A value that opens the walls to cooperation that the Trump administration put up. He seems open to free trade as he acknowledges “all of us are now linked in unprecedented ways--incentivizing new forms of cooperation”. He also ties this acknowledgement with invigorating positivity. “But the fact is” he writes, “70 years of free trade also helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, and many into a global middle class - which in turn help produce decades of peace and stability.” I can’t imagine a libertarian that would not applaud that statement.
Despite Blinken’s sometimes more aggressive version of what he deems diplomacy, Biden has often diverged, and at the end of the day Biden will be taking the lead. Libertarians can only hope Antony Blinken will begin to see his past fault in his backing of interventionist policies and lead the way towards peace.