The roots of the Democratic Party's foreign policy are found in WWII, the atomic bombing of Japan and militarization during the Cold War. Biden supported the Iraq War but fought for the nuclear agreement with Iran. What should we expect from his administration? Vijay Prashad joins Paul Jay on theAnalysis.news podcast.

Transcript

Paul Jay

Hi, I'm Paul Jay. Welcome to theAnalysis.news podcast. Please don't forget the donate button at the top of the web page. We're in a matching grant campaign. You'll see all the details explaining the matching grant at the top of the page.

When President-elect Joe Biden becomes commander-in-chief of the most powerful war machine in human history, it's not clear which Joe Biden we will be getting. Will we get the Biden who supported the Iraq War and comes out of a foreign policy tradition of Truman and Kennedy, Cold Warriors who massively built out the military-industrial complex. Truman, who directed the fascist and racist Air Force General Curtis LeMay to drop atomic bombs on Japan and later directed LeMay to kill millions of Koreans. Kennedy, who started the process that led to the Vietnam War and brought the world to the edge of nuclear annihilation in a pointless confrontation with the Soviet Union. A Cold War that was used to justify the greatest investment in military spending outside of a major war. Or will we get the Biden that fought for the Iran nuclear agreement, who apparently opposed a trillion-dollar investment in modernizing the American nuclear weapons arsenal, and was reported to be against the invasion of Libya. When it comes to rivalry with China, when we get beyond the inflammatory rhetoric, will Biden work with China to deal with climate and a host of other issues, or will he try to show how strong he is and please the China hawks who want him to contain China and weaken its global economic influence?

Well, to better understand what we might expect from the Biden administration, let's start by taking a look at the roots of the Democratic Party's foreign policy. Joining me to do that is Vijay Prashad. Vijay is a historian, journalist, and commentator. He is the executive director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research and the chief editor of Leftword Books. His latest book is Washington Bullets: A History of the CIA, Coups, and Assassinations. Thanks very much for joining us, Vijay.

Vijay Prashad

Thanks, Paul. Always great to be with you.

Paul Jay

Thank you. So, to understand the roots of how the Democratic Party pursues war and foreign policy, why don't we start with Roosevelt, who in 1939 or so denounced the bombing of civilians in Europe as barbaric, and then he joined in. He ordered American planes to join in the firebombing of Dresden and burning alive hundreds of thousands of civilians in Japan. Roosevelt, who continued developing the nuclear bomb even after it was clear Hitler was not developing one. So, if you think that's a good place to start understanding how the Democratic Party thinks about foreign policy, why don't you pick it up from there?

Vijay Prashad

Well, you know, Paul, it's good that you start with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, because by all accounts, he is the gold standard of American liberalism, or at least Democratic-Party liberalism. And yet, if you look at FDR and then jump forward some decades to the next great shining star of Democra...