What Are the Foreign Policy Proposals of New Social Democrats? Anyone?

What Does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Think About the South China Sea?

The rising left needs more foreign policy. Here’s how it can start.

By Daniel Bessner a historian of American foreign policy, writing in an op ed for the NY Times.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could not and wisely did not answer that question.  This article was forwarded via facebook by Norman Solomon with the comment "This is a very astute article. We need to push for truly progressive foreign policy!" Indeed we do. Progressives have a lot to say about bad foreign policy, and yet no central and trusted institutions of deep analysis (excepting the one man institution of Noam Chomsky) that can provide details such as could answer the question in the headline.

Bessner suggest "here's how we can start" and I would add that "Starting" is the most necessary and difficult part, the messy, unruly answers in the context of global inequity will unfold quickly enough once a truly democratic internationalist diplomacy is launched. "Finishing" or becoming expert in foreign policy should not even be a goal as it is a chauvinistic and undemocratic conceit of the powerful. Keeping our eyes on our shared values and keeping the faith amid a diversity of messy solutions will indeed be a challenge for our new world -- but one I am ready for.

To be fair, there are good reasons leftists haven’t grappled much with foreign policy. For one, there are few decision makers from whom they can learn: Since the early days of the Cold War, foreign policymaking has been dominated by a bipartisan commitment to militarism and American hegemony; those who depart from the consensus view have largely been kept out of the State Department, the Pentagon and other parts of the government. At the same time, the left itself lacks institutions dedicated to developing foreign policy ideas. While Republicans and moderate Democrats have a host of think tanks pushing interventionism, no corporation or billionaire has yet decided to fund a left-wing foreign policy think tank to which politicians could turn for advice.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/opinion/democratic-party-cortez-foreign-policy.html

Here is another article on the same Foreign Policy question for democratic socialist by another global expert PHYLLIS BENNIS  in the other "Times" which few see, In These Times

And, here is another long form article by Bessner on the over arching question of  "Internationalism" by wrapped aroung the subject of George Soros and his Open Society project.  Bessner is clearly not your typical NY Times writer and his analysis is worthy of the ear of progressives .