Israel war: Pence’s peace-through-strength priorities are crucial now and forever
Quin Hillyer
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With Hamas’s terrorism against Israel dominating the news this week, former Vice President Mike Pence looks all the wiser in having spent the three prior weeks spreading Reaganite wisdom about defense and foreign policy.
In a Sept. 18 speech at the Hudson Institute and an Oct. 3 forum at Georgetown University, Pence hearkened back to the “Reagan Doctrine” of (A) providing arms and other aid to American allies struggling against American enemies while (B) calling for stronger U.S. armed services and greater engagement in international diplomacy. To our allies, he said at Georgetown, the message should be that “if you’re willing to fight … with your soldiers, we’ll give you the means to fight them [over] there.”
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At Georgetown, after slamming President Joe Biden’s foreign and defense policies in multiple ways, Pence also said this: “There are voices in our party … that suggest that we have to choose between securing our border, reviving our economy, and unleashing American energy and being the leader of the free world. I think that’s a false choice. I think we can do both, and anyone that says that we can’t solve our problems here at home and be the leader of the free world has a pretty small view of the greatest nation on Earth.”
At Hudson, he mentioned Ukraine and Israel together in the very same sentence, saying that under a better presidency, “we will provide more arms and support to Ukraine, without hesitation or delay. And the world will continue to know that America stands with its most cherished ally, Israel.” Again, this was three weeks before Israel was attacked.
Like his fellow presidential candidates Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), Nikki Haley, and Chris Christie, Pence is a firm supporter of Ukraine’s defense of its own territory, saying at Georgetown that “in Ukraine, weakness arouses evil.” Likewise, in both appearances, Pence repeatedly blasted Biden for the disastrously botched bug-out from Afghanistan that has reinvigorated terrorists and made American will and competence look severely lacking.
(After Hamas’s brutality last weekend, Pence went too far in linking the lack of support for Ukraine from rival Republicans Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Ron DeSantis with the new attack on Israel, but he was making the same underlying, valid, thematic point as he did earlier at Hudson and at Georgetown — namely that when the United States wavers in supporting allies, the world’s evildoers feel emboldened. Trump and Ramaswamy especially are wrong on most foreign policy, but they aren’t responsible for Hamas.)
Throughout his campaign, Pence arguably has been the most specific and comprehensive of all the candidates in laying out his vision on defense and foreign policy, which Reagan administration veterans (I was one) immediately recognize as being deeply rooted in the Reagan approach that, as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously said, “won the Cold War without firing a shot.”
Pence calls for the U.S. to spend at least 3.5% of its gross domestic product on defense, increase its number of active-duty Navy ships from below 300 up to 355, end the “woke” emphases at the Department of Defense, and put a much stronger focus on how to combat China’s ambitions. He says the latter requires selling “every necessary weapon to Taiwan,” along with greater efforts to protect against Chinese high-tech rapaciousness and banning China from buying more U.S. farmland.
In addition to supporting Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan with arms and diplomacy, Pence supports reinvigorating free-trade alliances — except with regard to the need to sanction China and other bad actors for misbehavior and to protect against trade practices that threaten U.S. national security.
Pence also is tough against illegal immigration, vowing a return to the successful “Remain in Mexico” program that he played a leading role in negotiating.
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Pence understands that the safety and interests of Americans are best protected through American engagement, American leadership, American toughness, American arms, American support for allies, and American military might. That combination actually makes it less likely, not more, that American fighters actually will face combat — and less likely that American civilians will be threatened or their livelihoods hampered or destroyed.
No matter who wins the presidency, the U.S. will be better off if Pence’s principles and priorities govern the diplomacy and defense policies used in the Oval Office.