Senator Richard G. Lugar: A Lifetime of Diplomatic Engagement.

• Author: Foldi, Paul

In these contentious times, when the United States seems to be going down the road alone, the foreign policy achievements of the late Senator Richard Lugar offer a different model--engagement.

Whether working with our allies, or even with our enemies, Senator Lugar showed that achieving a goal unilaterally was never as likely to produce long-standing results as when working with others who shared our vision and were also committed to the outcome. This sense of partnership has been the hallmark of all successful long-standing U.S. foreign policy successes since World War II, regardless of the party of the president, or the individual in the White House.

The More Things Change....

As Senator Lugar wrote in 1988 decrying partisanship in foreign affairs, "Presidential primaries and even general election campaigns give vent to the worst of foreign policy arguments.." Intended as a series of foreign policy epistles, Lugar's Letters to the Next President ran the range of the pressing U.S. priorities from that decade. Although the themes of Letters are timeless - rule of law, free elections, democracy promotion as a cornerstone of U.S. diplomacy--they may seem distant to today's generation.

Indeed, the modern reader of Letters would be hard-pressed to recognize some of the undemocratic locales that Senator Lugar focused on. South Africa--then still in the throes of apartheid--and the Philippines--whether one approves of Duterte's policies or not--have each seen more than half a dozen elections since Nelson Mandela and Corazon Aquino first wrested power democratically. Still, other hotspots from the late 1980's will be instantly recognizable: Sandinistas are once again suppressing Nicaragua's free press and opposition parties, continued instability and violence in Guatemala fuels much of the immigrant caravans, and U.S. Congressional partisan bickering is producing gridlock instead of honest debate. Yet Lugar's core theme--American leadership through engagement--resonates as much today as when the thought pieces were written.

Washington Bipartisan Efforts - Global Results

Senator Lugar's focus on engagement was not limited to the bilateral stage. His efforts to reduce the number of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons impacted not just the United States, but the entire world.

No reflection of his work can fail to mention his ground-breaking work to help secure the nuclear stockpiles spread throughout the Soviet Union at its dissolution. The visionary Nunn-Lugar Program used millions of American taxpayer dollars not only to dismantle and prevent "loose-nukes" from falling into the hands of rogue nations and actors, the program also funded former Soviet nuclear scientists to keep them from assisting the same out of economic necessity.

Co-sponsored by Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA), the measure passed the Senate by an unrecorded voice vote. A similar vote in the Democrat-controlled House guaranteed passage.[1] In today's hyper-partisan environment, it is almost impossible to remember a similarly visionary piece of legislation having such an easy birth.

A rare exception would be the 2003 passage of the President's Emergency Plan...