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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy are George Soros and Charles Koch collaborating on a U.S.-bashing think tank?
George Soros is rightly regarded as one of the most consequential advocates of freedom in Central and Eastern Europe. Years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Hungarian-born financier began investing his fortune in democratic dissidents. Once the Berlin Wall fell, his Open Society Foundations rapidly opened offices across the region, providing crucial support to independent journalists, civil-society activists and liberal-minded politicians.
It is this steadfast support for democracy that makes Soross latest gambit so confusing. The liberal philanthropist has joined forces with fellow billionaire Charles Koch in founding a foreign policy think tank, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Disparaging the foreign policy community in Washington for having "succumbed to intellectual lethargy and dysfunction, the institute will advocate a new foreign policy centered on diplomatic engagement and military restraint. On most issues, the liberal Soros and the libertarian Koch exist on opposite ends of the political spectrum. That they are collaborating on foreign policy may be a harbinger of a new left-right consensus favoring isolationism.
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In a recent podcast, Koch explained the purpose of the institute, inaccurately quoting its namesake. We go not abroad in search of monsters to destroy, were the friends of all nations, and allies of none. John Quincy Adams did indeed utter the first part of that phrase, beloved by noninterventionists. But he said nothing of the sort about America not having allies.
That Koch would impute a distaste for alliances to Adams is revealing. Alliances have been the mainstay of U.S. foreign policy since the end of World War II, ensuring more than seven decades of unprecedented peace and prosperity. The alliance structures and partnerships the United States has forged, embodied by institutions such as NATO and bilateral agreements with nations including Australia, Colombia, Japan and India, ensure global order, freedom of commerce, and human rights. Koch also complained about our over 800 bases around the world, as if these were agents of aggression and not projections of stability.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/27/why-are-george-soros-charles-koch-collaborating-us-bashing-think-tank/
You know who loves Western non-interventionism? Vladimir Putin, which is why it's the cornerstone of Russian propaganda efforts.
elleng
(130,156 posts)(( for having)) "succumbed to intellectual lethargy and dysfunction,'
saidsimplesimon
(7,888 posts)Nothing "good" comes from libertarian alliances, imo.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)judgement on foreign policy which is horrendous.
Upset about the Iraq War? Blame Iraqis
https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/07/iraq-war-critics-united-states-great-britain-saddam-hussein-john-chilcot/
Mosby
(16,168 posts)But Bush and his team did not anticipate what would result from debaathification and sectarian violence.
That doesn't mean the US should spend the rest of eternity in isolation.
The Democratic party used to be the party of nation building not isolationism.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)I will agree to disagree.