Lux Lucet

Now it may come as a surprise to many Christians that the Bible has anything to say about foreign policy.  But we should ask ourselves, where do nations come from?  They come from the hand of God.  “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings” (Acts 17:26).  And not only that, but the Lord has also provided for the governing of these nations, “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities.  For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God…for he is God’s minister” (Romans 13:1, 4).  With this in mind, it would seem unusual were his word to have nothing to say about international relations.

One could, I suppose, write an entire book on what the Bible teaches about politics, and specifically about foreign policy.  But the outline of a Christian foreign policy is easy to grasp. 

As has been noted earlier in this space, the 1850 State of the Union address by Millard Fillmore contains an excellent summary of the basic principle of a Christian foreign policy.  It is this, “And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise” (Luke 6:31). In his address, Fillmore noted, “The great law of morality ought to have a national as well as a personal and individual application.  We should act toward other nations as we wish them to act toward us.”

It’s really that simple in theory. 

But sinful men do not like accepting simple truths from God as a gift.  Especially sinful men with advanced degrees and prominent positions and those who aspire to these things. 

Rather than accepting truth in foreign policy as a gift of God, these men prefer to try to establish their own righteousness by concocting complex theories of international relations, all which are beyond the ken of the great unwashed masses, all of which need the management of experts. 

But it is these complex theories of international relations that have led this nation to one foreign policy disaster after another.  In the last seventy years, the United States has fought a series of wars, many of which have either ended up in a draw or in outright defeat.   Others, while successfully achieving a particular objective (Iraq, 2003 and Libya, 2011) created enormous and entirely avoidable consequences for the United States, not to mention great suffering for the citizens of those nations. 

The end of the Cold War, which was won, not in some apocalyptic inferno of a battle, but in the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union, might have served as a lesson to our foreign policy establishment. But it was a lesson they were unwilling to learn.  Seemingly desperate to find an enemy of sufficient threat to justify the bloated Pentagon budget, they concocted the Global War on Terror (GWOT), which as far as this author knows, is the only war this nation has ever waged on a tactic.

But scattered groups of jihadis, however threatening they may be, simply were no substitute for the good old Evil Empire of the Soviet Union.  And without an outside enemy of sufficient weight with which to frighten their people into falling in line, American politicians were in grave danger of being held accountable for their many lies and unconstitutional policies. 

Vladimir Putin, ex-KGB strongman of Russia, was the perfect man to fill the much-needed neo-Hitler role, a spot which he has occupied for the last twenty years. 

But not only did Putin make the ideal international baddie against whom the deep state interventionists could rally the American people, he was also an actual threat to the neo-conservative dream of American world hegemony.  Unlike the drunk and compliant Boris Yeltsin, Putin would actually say “nyet” to the neo-con’s plan to subjugate Russia to American rule.  Used to bossing around their satrapies in Western Europe, the American foreign policy establishment was not accustomed to being told no and did not take kindly to it.

Now if the foreign policy of the United States was guided by the Biblical principle of treating others as Americans would like to be treated, those responsible for our international relations would have been willing to find a way for Russia and America to get along.  If America has legitimate foreign policy interests, and it does, it follows that Russia also has legitimate interests that ought to be respected.  This mutual respect for one another’s legitimate interests is at the heart of the Protestant system of international relations established by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 at the end of the Thirty Years’ War.

This system of international relations is known as the Westphalian World Order (WWO) which is a system of geopolitics in which each nation-state has the exclusive right to conduct its affairs within its territory.  Put differently, the WWO is the application of another important Biblical principle: mind your own business (MYOB). 

It was the Apostle Paul who told the Thessalonians they should lead quiet lives and to mind their own business (1 Thess. 4:11). Like the Golden Rule, MYOB has a national application as well as a personal one. 

Yet is the failure of America’s foreign policy establishment to mind their own business that has put this nation in a position where we are closer to a possible nuclear war with Russia than probably at any time during the Cold War, except perhaps for the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Far from minding our own business with respect to the nations of eastern Europe, it has long been the policy of the U.S. to remove Russia as a possible challenger to its global hegemony.  This is where Ukraine comes in.  For our foreign policy establishment, Ukraine has served as a battering ram of sorts against Russia.

According to Daniel McAdams’ article “Washington’s Crocodile Tears Over Ukraine’s Destruction,” twice the U.S. has overthrown the democratically elected government – although America’s foreign policy elites love to extol the virtues of “democracy” publicly, in practice, they are quick to overturn democratic elections if the vote does not produce the “correct” results – of Ukraine, once in 2004-5 and a second time in 2014.  The current government of Ukraine is a puppet government of the U.S., being a continuation of the illegitimate regime installed during the 2014 Maidan revolution. 

Interestingly enough, while Vladimir Putin is often portrayed in the Western press as a new Hitler, it is in Ukraine where neo-Nazism flourishes.  They were key players in the U.S.-backed 2014 Maidan revolution and have been the drivers of the attacks on ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, the Donbas region that has served as the flashpoint for the current war between Russia and Ukraine.  See Robert Parry’s well-known article “The Mess that Nuland Made” for more details.

The current conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which has the real possibility of spreading and even going nuclear, was entirely avoidable.  Donald Trump was excoriated by the deep state’s media arm as a “Putin Puppet” for trying to normalize relations with Russia during his term in office.  Trump was both right, and, in the opinion of this author, sincere in seeking better relations with Russia.  But the American establishment, drunk on its own hubris, desirous of maintaining its pretensions to rule the world, and lacking in Biblical wisdom, would not permit him to do. 

By ignoring the wisdom that comes from God, and by substituting their own “wisdom” in place of it, our foreign policy establishment through its sinful actions has brought this nation, perhaps the world, to a place of extreme danger.

May the Lord have mercy on us.   

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