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This white paper, Toward a Life-Coherent Foreign Policy: A Life-Value Onto-Axiological Critique and Regenerative Framework for U.S. Global Engagement, presents a bold and necessary reimagining of U.S. foreign policy grounded in the ethical framework of Life-Value Onto-Axiology (LVOA). It argues that current U.S. foreign policy — across military, economic, environmental, and cultural domains — frequently violates the foundational conditions for human and ecological flourishing.
Through detailed case studies — including the Iraq War, sanctions on Venezuela and Iran, regime change in Libya, climate inaction, arms sales to repressive regimes, and the global export of consumerist culture — the paper reveals consistent patterns of harm: widespread civilian suffering, civil commons collapse, ecological degradation, and long-term instability. These outcomes are diagnosed as consequences of a systemic misalignment between abstract policy goals (such as power, profit, and control) and the concrete realities of life systems on the ground.
In response, the paper proposes a regenerative foreign policy framework centered on six guiding principles:
- Mutual Life-Flourishing
- Civil Commons Expansion
- Reparative and Restorative Diplomacy
- Biocentric Security
- Relational Sovereignty
- Intergenerational Responsibility
These principles are operationalized through a set of short-, mid-, and long-term policy recommendations, including ending civilian-harming sanctions, suspending arms deals to authoritarian regimes, investing in public goods globally, institutionalizing life-impact assessments, and transitioning to a biocentric conception of global security.
The paper concludes that regenerative foreign policy is both ethically urgent and strategically intelligent. It offers the United States a path to restore its legitimacy, rebuild international trust, and lead not through coercion but through coherence with what sustains all life. By anchoring policy in life-value rather than abstraction, the U.S. can shift from being a force of disruption to a steward of global regeneration.