What Is "Strength Through Peace"?

What I want to do is explain what Dennis Kucinich is offering our country right now when he talks about “Strength through Peace”; to get a better understanding of what he means by peace and how it will make our country stronger as a whole. We need to understand that creating peace is not simply some idealistic hope for ending wars, but rather a very pragmatic plan that builds relationships based upon fairness and justice and which, predictably, reduces the likelihood of hostilities that lead to crimes, violence and wars. I want people to start seeing peace as a balance, not only in our foreign relationships, but here at home as well; a balance in the economy, a balance in healthcare, in education and government. And I want others to understand peace as paying us a dividend, that peace is a practical investment in our future. But, I want to begin by looking at where we are. Where is America right now?

Well, obviously we’re in Iraq, involved in a hugely unpopular and expensive occupation of that country. We are in Afghansitan and flirting with Iran and in debt to China among others to fund these campaigns. Economically we’re in trouble with a weakening dollar, importing much more than we export, leading to a massive trade deficit. At home we are in a healthcare crisis, with a crumbling infrastructure, growing poverty rate, a shrinking middle class and some gaping holes in our constitution. The housing bubble is bursting, jobs are declining and outsourced, and inflation is eating away at the whole thing. On top of it all we are growing more and more isolated from our government, as a 70% call for an end to Iraq and overturning both Senate and House majorities isn’t enough to leave. Where’s America? It’s at the bottom of record low approval ratings for our president and our congress.

Now, to really trace all of the reasons that we got here would take us outside the scope of this presentation. However, I want to focus on a principle that has served as a kind of underlying philosophy for a lot of the decisions that has lead us here: “peace through strength” (the direct opposite of Kucinich's "strength through peace"). This doctrine of “peace through strength” has been floating through American policy for the last 30 years or so and has been aggressively pursued by our current President. And I think if we examine this for a moment we can gain some insight into our current situation, as well as how an America under Dennis Kucinich would differ.

The first thing to notice about “peace through strength” is that peace is posited as a goal, or an end in itself, which will be achieved through strength. So the first thing we would want to know is what is strength? Or, how is it exactly, that we will achieve peace?

So, when we look at America under George W. Bush, do we see strength or do we see weakness? I don’t know if there’s really an answer to this question because America is strong in certain areas, but very weak in others. However, if we examine the current policies, a very definite pattern starts to become clear. Power is redistributed to specific areas and further consolidated at the top, greatly strengthening the relative few, while severely weakening the majority of others. This is true both in our foreign policy and our domestic policy.

If we start with the federal budget, we see this bloated Pentagon budget has come close to $500 Billion, a 62% increase since 2001 and this doesn’t even include the $142 Billion appropriated for Iraq. Consequently we do have a hugely powerful military, but only while we under fund our schools, watch the bridges in our weakening infrastructure collapse and, possibly worst of all, live with the 47 million people who have no health insurance and more people fall into medically related bankruptcy. But, this budget isn’t just by chance. It is directly related to this doctrine of “peace through strength” and is really only one part of the picture.

Now, if we are pumping outrageous amounts of money into this military, then it shouldn’t come to anyone’s surprise that we are utilizing this powerful military in aggressive wars. Because we have to understand that Iraq was an aggressive war based upon lies. In the beginning it was sold as a “defensive war” because, according to the intelligence, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and could attack at any time. That was the story at least. But, we later learned that there were, in fact, no weapons at all and that the intelligence had been shaped and carefully selected by this administration. In fact, we have learned that the administration “didn’t accept intelligence to the contrary” and that there existed conflicting intelligence that was omitted from discourse, as Sen. Durbin later told us. The fact that the administration tailored the intelligence to lead us into war and didn’t allow time for the weapons inspectors to do their job shows us another way that power has been redistributed. Unilateral, Pre-emptive war and regime change has been strengthened in policy and multilateral, diplomatic efforts have been weakened. The fact that Mr. Bush only increased his hostile rhetoric towards Iran after the IAEA report indicated significant progress in compliance with inspections, shows how weak diplomatic policies have become, and is an ominous sign of things to come if we don’t challenge this type of thinking.

Even when war can be avoided however, the solution is one of intimidation, rather than negotiation and the U.S. follows unjust policies, like the privatization of Iraqi oil reserves. In either case, war or intimidation, America’s standing in the world is undermined and hostility becomes great.

All of this has been justified by the so-called “war on terror”. However, it’s important to keep “peace through strength” in mind, as this has definitely been the philosophy behind this war on terror and, according to the administration, protecting America. “Peace through strength” has been the doctrine for achieving national security and so this same transferal of power has occurred; a transferral of power that has included more and more corporate profits, rights and international leverage, as well as more and more power consolidated in the executive branch through unconstitutional legislation, signing statements and executive orders. Consequently, the weakening has come to the working and middle classes, Congress and Representative Government and individual civil liberites, such as habeas corpus.

If we look at the economy we will see the same type of thing happening. Trade agreements like NAFTA and the WTO have strengthened large corporations, but weakened workers and the environment throughout the world. These corporations outsource their jobs to countries where they can pay for labor, pennies on the dollar, and avoid the costly environmental restrictions they would have to pay in the U.S., for instance. Further, the agreements have been written in such a way that prevents other costly provisions like worker’s rights. And so what is the effect of these agreements? We have huge profits for these corporations, but only at the cost of miserably exploited labor, who make near slave wages, have to work in unsafe and unsanitary conditions and who are not allowed to form unions or strike to negotiate more fair conditions. Also, we have violence done to the environment, which costs all of us in the long run. It’s important to think about our environment as a sense of wealth. Not only is protecting a clean environment necessary for human, as well as all, life, and therefore truly a form of wealth, but because of that fact, the day of reckoning will come. If clean up and repair is possible it will be much more costly then prevention and it will be the taxpayers who are given the bill. On top of all of this we import massively more than we export, facing a huge trade deficit. Even the workers in the industrialized countries lose too. They lose jobs. It has been estimated that over 3 million manufacturing jobs in the U.S. alone has been lost due to outsourcing through NAFTA.

At home we see the same power grab for the few at the top and the consequent weakening of the majority that makes up the rest of us. The concentration of wealth at the top of the population has lead to a shrinking middle class and growing poverty rate. The average CEO in the U.S. earns $475 for every dollar the average worker does. And, with a cruel sense of logic, our tax rates then have those who struggle most pay a higher tax rate than the people at the top who can best afford it. Inflation has been steadily eating away at American’s purchasing power and unions have been weakened through acts like Taft-Hartely. It’s become necessary to work more just to live at the same standard as before. Adjusted for inflation, the minimum has dropped by 42% since its peak in 1968. In fact, if the minimum wage had risen at the same rate as CEO compensation, it would be $23/hr.! People are finding it more and more difficult to buy their own homes as property values are through the roof, leading to more debt. We now have 47 million Americans without any health insurance and 50 million who are underinsured. This underinsured group is largely responsible for half of the bankruptcies in the U.S. each year. In a study out of Harvard, a couple years ago, it was found that ¾ of all medically related bankruptcies are experienced by people who have insurance. Think about that. These people had insurance, but after you add the co-pays, deductibles and medication costs to the premiums, people who get seriously ill can’t cope with the payments and have to file for bankruptcy. In fact, the study found medically related bankruptcy to have risen by 2,200% since 1981! And yet, pharmaceutical and insurance companies are experiencing record profits at the same time. Then on top of all of this the most recent report from the U.S. Labor Department found the economy lost over 4,000 jobs.

So to sum this up then, in “peace through strength” the strength is granted only to industrialized nations, multinational corporations, the Pentagon, the Executive branch, pre-emptive war, unilateral policy, large industries like weapons, securities, oil, pharmaceutical and insurance, and the top income earners in general. And all of this has come by weakening everything else, such as less developed nations, multilateral and diplomatic solutions, the environment, education, small businesses, Representative government, the middle class, the poor, our nation’s health and our national security. These are the relationships created under “peace through strength” and so one then has to ask: Is this what peace is?

When you look at the consequences of this doctrine of “peace through strength” the nature of “peace” that develops is peculiar. If peace is simply the absence of war, we aren’t doing very well, since we’ve already waged two wars and are laying the ground work for a third against Iran. If peace is understood as a relationship of justice and harmony we fail here as well, since the effects seem to lead to intimidation and domination instead. And we start to see that if we continue on with these ideas we create more hostility, more enemies, more crime, more suffering and more likelihood of violence and war. We start to see that this conception of strength, that causes so much weakness and injustice causes the opposite of peace. So we are forced to conclude that this whole doctrine of “peace through strength” is impractical and flawed. We find ourselves in need of a new doctrine and way of thinking for the country.

And this is exactly what Dennis Kucinich is doing. He’s reversing this type of thinking for a new doctrine of “strength through peace”. That is, reversing these detrimental policies in order to create the conditions for peace. Dennis Kucinich is creating policies for relationships of peace, based upon justice and equality, from which we can build from, to strengthen our standing in the world. Peace is not the end, it is the means by which you empower individuals and countries. Peace is not simply the absence of war, but the presence of diplomacy and fair negotiations. Peace is not passive isolationism hoping things will turn out for the best, but actively participating in the world and pursuing relationships. It isn’t an empty ideal to look forward to through endless wars and suffering, but rather a pragmatic tool that is forward looking, creating friends instead of enemies, true universal healthcare, an more equitable economy and a sustainable future. Peace under Dennis Kucinich is balancing the budget and slashing the bloated Pentagon budget for money here at home, ending the war and engaging the world community, creating fair trade based upon human rights, workers rights and environmental principles, universal pre-kindergarten and college, alternative energy techologies, fair tax rates, and newfound constitutional responsibility. It's creating a safer, more secure and stronger America. Peace under Dennis Kucinich is what's necessary for this country.

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