Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal Outlines Foreign Policy Vision

Joe Raedle/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Monday laid out his foreign policy vision, a plan in which the United States reinvests in and rebuilds the nation’s military in order to defend its national security, values and strategic interests.

Jindal began his speech at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., with the notion that the Obama administration is constantly blaming the “third person.”

“Time and again he [President Obama] turns to the third person to explain the ineffectiveness of his leadership. It is always they who stand against his noble aims to help the people. They who botch Obamacare. They who underestimated the threats of ISIS. For this president there is always somebody else to blame,” he said.

Jindal outlined a military plan Monday — a plan which he claims will save the American military from the extensive damage President Obama has done. The solution? Undo the president’s harmful spending cuts and spend more on defense.

The governor was particularly critical of the Obama administration’s approach to airstrikes to defeat ISIS. He did say the president’s rhetoric on ISIS has improved but thought “it was extremely foolish to announce unilaterally to ISIS that we would not deploy ground troops.”

Jindal called for the United States to spend at least 4 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on the military going forward. He emphasized the importance of returning to the 2011 budget proposed by then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, arguing that this budget was developed with a real examination of the threats America faces.

Jindal said this 4 percent must be used carefully. It should not be used to nation-build overseas or as a police force, but rather as a deterrent for adversaries and as a tool to eradicate threats to American lives and interests.

Jindal noted there is less of a need to use the military when it is feared and respected. The best approach to reducing global risk would be to move decisively to rebuild the tools of military power.

Spending the majority of the time breaking down Obama’s failures over the past six years and seemingly splitting the responsibility between Obama and Hillary Clinton, Jindal said, “If only he [Obama] had the help of a wise steady hand. A policy expert in dealing with foreign affairs, he would have come up with better answers. But instead, he just had Hillary Clinton. Today we are living with the consequences of the Obama-Clinton ideas when it comes to foreign, domestic and defense policy.”

On the domestic front, Jindal claimed the United States is faltering slowly through a lackluster recovery — a nation that is marked by exhaustion, discouragement and fear, where the people feel they no longer have a voice.

Internationally, he claimed things are arguably even worse. He wondered why Obama has come to the conclusion that the United States should “lead from behind” on the international stage.

“Today we see a world in which the Obama administration has neglected or abandoned America’s longstanding allies,” he said. “Our special relationship with Britain is gone, NATO is drifting, Eastern Europe is disaffected, and Israel has been purposefully alienated from the United States.”

Jindal then asked to consider the consequences over the last year, noting the rise of ISIS and the capture of the Mosul Dam in Iraq; Russia’s expansion and invasion in Crimea and Ukraine; new heights of crisis in the Middle East and Israel; and genocide and destruction of religious minorities in Iraq, among others.

Jindal also touched on 2016 and Ebola in the media Q&A. He said he will most likely decide whether to run for president in 2016 after the holidays. As for Ebola, he said he’s not calling for a ban on medical personnel and other experts, but still thinks flight bans are a common sense approach. He said it seems like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has taken their eye off the ball and thinks they must be more focused.

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