All The Things The Democratic Candidates Got Wrong On Defense At Last Night's Debate
Tyler Rogoway
Filed to: 2016 election10/14/15 10:30am
All The Things The Democratic Candidates Got Wrong On Defense At Last Night's Debate
The first Democractic Presidential Debate was dominated by domestic policy issues, but there were still plenty of opportunities for the candidates to say things that were devoid of specifics or even just flat-out wrong on defense. Foxtrot Alpha will dissect these statements just as we’ve done for the two Republican Presidential Debates.
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The candidates’ opening statements were a sign of what was to come when it came to addressing America’s military issues and our engagements abroad. The majority of the Democratic candidates didn’t even mention foreign policy at all in their statements, and those who did merely brought it up in passing. This is a stark contrast to the last Republican debate, where Iran, Russia and China were major topics from the get-go.
We’ll start with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, still the party’s front-runner and most probable nominee.
All The Things The Democratic Candidates Got Wrong On Defense At Last Night's Debate
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Hillary Clinton on the reset with Russia and the current situation in Syria
“Well, first of all, we got a lot of business done with the Russians when Medvedev was the president, and not Putin. We got a nuclear arms deal, we got the Iranian sanctions, we got an ability to bring important material and equipment to our soldiers in Afghanistan.
There’s no doubt that when Putin came back in and said he was going to be President, that did change the relationship. We have to stand up to his bullying, and specifically in Syria, it is important — and I applaud the administration because they are engaged in talks right now with the Russians to make it clear that they’ve got to be part of the solution to try to end that bloody conflict.
And, to — provide safe zones so that people are not going to have to be flooding out of Syria at the rate they are. And, I think it’s important too that the United States make it very clear to Putin that it’s not acceptable for him to be in Syria creating more chaos, bombing people on behalf of Assad, and we can’t do that if we don’t take more of a leadership position, which is what I’m advocating.”
Although Russia was more flexible and far less belligerent when Medvedev was president, Putin remained in the Prime Minister role, and it is largely understood that Medvedev was not his own man. In other words, it is questionable if the policies enacted when Medvedev was president were not sanctioned by Putin directly.
So although Putin’s relationship with the West has been fractured in his third term as president, it is not like this happened because Medvedev stepped aside to take on the Prime Minister seat that Putin vacated. The two leaders can be seen as almost a single entity, even after the invasion of Crimea.
When it comes to Syria, the Obama Administration has briefly talked with Russia in a high-level military-t0-military manner shortly before bombing operations began. Both sides have floated the idea that talks should commence in order to work together, at least when it comes to deconflicting airspace for military aircraft operations over Syria. Yet even with this initial overture of goodwill, Russia seems to be uninterested in any such cooperation and has not followed through with these talks, and although now this may finally be changing, but there are no guarantees.
Currently, Russia dominates Syrian airspace where they are striking targets at will, the majority of which are not ISIS related. They shadow U.S. drones and even making incursions into Turkish airspace. As such, there is little incentive for them to give up any of this operational freedom to facilitate U.S. interests at this time beyond putting forward some basic rules, so that U.S. and Russian aircraft do not collide or shoot each other down due to a misunderstanding.
So when Clinton says “it’s important too that the United States make it very clear to Putin that it’s not acceptable for him to be in Syria creating more chaos, bombing people on behalf of Assad, and we can’t do that if we don’t take more of a leadership position, which is what I’m advocating”, it kind of means nothing.
The Obama Administration has already made it very clear they are not happy with the situation and Putin could care less. Secretary Clinton has not yet made clear exactly how she plans on showing “additional leadership” to somehow change Russia’s goals in Syria.
All The Things The Democratic Candidates Got Wrong On Defense At Last Night's Debate
Bernie Sanders on Syria
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