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A New U.S. foreign Policy for a Changing World

A new President will be sworn in on January 20th, 2009. The new President will inherit a remarkably different country than it was only 10 years ago; a record deficit, 2 wars, a loss of respect from our allies, a loss in power around the world, $4 a gallon gasoline, the value of the dollar at an all-time low, and the borrowing of billions of dollars from Asia just to keep our system alive. There have been some achievements of the government over the past 10 years, but they have largely been overshadowed by a United States whose foreign policy objectives and motives are no longer recognizable to its citizens, or its admirers around the world. Possibly for the first time in U.S. history, the world is confused as to what America is all about. It will be up to the next President of the United States to have the courage, strength, intellect, and charisma, to take on the difficult and complicated task of showing the world what we are about by returning America to her former greatness. He or she must have the ability to rally the American people and our allies around the world to support and carry out the changes needed. It is time that the U.S. once again conduct itself, and be viewed as a powerful, fair, consistent leader for justice, democracy, and peace in the world.

America’s downward spiral has seemed to be the most noticeable over the last 10 years, particularly since 9/11, but in all honesty, America has been consistently losing its power and prestige since the end of the Cold War. Foreign spending on new wars, covert military missions, Israel and the U.N. has been the first financial priority for the U.S. government. Meanwhile, domestic issues such as our crumbling national infrastructure, broken immigration system, decaying public education system, and mortgage crisis lie on the back-burner, and never get resolved. There isn’t enough money to do everything, and for sure, congressional earmarks and pork make up a significant portion of domestic spending that could be better used on the aforementioned items. However, if the U.S. President wasn’t so preoccupied by a massive, outdated, and inconsistent foreign policy, more time could be spent on domestic issues, including holding congress accountable to spending within its means, and eliminating pork barrel spending. Essentially, the next U.S. President must return the U.S. to a balanced domestic and foreign policy, one where neither domestic, nor foreign issues completely overshadow or dominate the other.

First off, it’s worth noting that there have been some foreign policy and security successes in recent years. The initial invasion of Afghanistan, and the removal of the Taliban from power, went fairly well, and happened with the assistance of a broad coalition of allies. A majority of the Al-Qaeda leadership have been captured or killed. After the invasion of Iraq, Libya, fearing they would be next in line for regime change, decided to give up its nuclear ambitions and work towards normalizing relations with the U.S. There were democratic elections in Lebanon in 2005, in which pro-Western politicians gained power. Perhaps most importantly to the lives of every-day Americans, U.S. intelligence has foiled or prevented any subsequent terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11. Much of this can be credited to a total overhaul of our security and intelligence infrastructure. This is a feat that most believed unthinkable at the time, and the consequences of which actually makes rallying the public behind the War on Terror much more difficult. That’s a good problem to have and indeed, and the intelligence community, President Bush, U.S. Congress, and law enforcement, deserve their share of the kudos.

Unfortunately, as good as this progress is, it’s belied by a series of foreign policy setbacks and failures. Most of these setbacks stem from the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. Going into Iraq diverted troops, funding, and focus from finishing the war in Afghanistan, where Coalition and NATO troops are now fighting a resurgent Taliban. The U.S. invaded Iraq working outside the parameters of the U.N. and against the wishes of many of our closest allies. Countries that did not assist in the invasion were denied contracts to assist with the reconstruction, which only hurt our relationships with these countries even more. The main reason for invading Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, turned out to be nonexistent. The events and pictures from Abu Ghraib tarnished America’s human rights record and became a recruiting tool for terrorists. Pakistan continues to need our help to fight the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda in their country, but because of sentiments caused by the invasion of Iraq, U.S. troops cannot overtly assist Pakistan without threat of civil war. Not enough troops were in Iraq for the first 4 years, and now 5 years after the start of the war, there still appears to be no end in sight.

America’s handling of Iraq, unfairly painted our country as arrogant, hypocritical, imperialistic, and also weak. This perception allows Iran and Syria to provide weapons, money, and soldiers to fight U.S. forces in Iraq, to fight Israelis in the West Bank, and to eliminate pro-western forces and politicians in Lebanon without fear of reprisal. The U.S. does threaten retaliation for these actions, but both Iran and Syria know, the U.S. is too bogged down in Iraq, too financially strapped, and not credible enough with the world community right now to build a coalition that could militarily challenge them. As a result, the Middle-East is in chaos, and our enemies know there’s not much the U.S. can do about it as long as our strategy and leadership remains the same. The oil companies have capitalized on that chaos in the region by upping the price of crude oil. Americans are currently paying $4 for a gallon of gas, and prices are expected to continue to rise, which has curbed economic growth, and increased inflation.

The unpopularity of Iraq has had consequences beyond the middle-east as well. Venezuela’s socialist President, Hugo Chavez came into power before the Iraq war, but rose to prominence around Latin America by capitalizing on the negative image the war created for America. His anti-American rhetoric, originally based on U.S. funding and support of corrupt, anti-communist regimes during the Cold War, took on a new credibility in light of Iraq. Soon, Ecuador, and Bolivia had socialist Presidents of their own, and as a result, our old enemy in Cuba, Fidel Castro re-emerged as a relevant and influential force in Latin American politics.

America’s foreign policy has gone astray and lost focus since the days of the Marshall Plan. During that time, the U.S. remade Europe and Japan by providing a humanitarian service, but in turn that service also a created a bulwark against communism. During most of the Cold War, the U.S. policy was viewed as strong, consistent and mostly fair. The Cold War gave the U.S. a focus. Unfortunately for the U.S., its success in winning the Cold War, and the fall of the Berlin wall marked the end of a consistent, cohesive, and effective foreign policy.

We step in to stop some genocides (Somalia, Kosovo), yet refuse to get involved in others (Rwanda, Sudan, Bosnia). Our willingness to use military action to defend some countries, such as Kuwait during the Gulf War, seemed overly based on personal interests rather than on defending international law. If it wasn’t, many ask, why doesn’t the U.S. step in any time a country is invaded? A fifty year old foreign policy of economic and political isolation towards Cuba still exists that has never worked, and yet this remnant of the Cold War is then used towards Iran and North Korea in an attempt to change their government and policies. We rightly criticize the human rights records of Cuba, Iran, Burma, and North Korea, yet mostly ignore the atrocious records of our allies Saudi Arabia, China, and Egypt. Regardless of America’s motives, which I do believe to be well intentioned, perception is reality. If the world sees America in the context of what I’ve described, and the general consensus is that they do, then the world will act and treat America accordingly. In order to change that perception, America must develop a consistent, fair, and effective foreign policy for the new global world, and then effectively sell that policy to the world.

An effective U.S. policy for 2009 and beyond will require a 4 pronged approach;

Consistent foreign policy and U.S. image in the world

We must change the current narrative of the U.S. as a country that does what it wants for its own self interest, to the U.S. being a powerful, fair, consistent leader for justice, democracy, and peace in the world. One of the things that hurts our image the most is our incoherent, and inconsistent foreign policy. No longer will there be different treatment for countries with human rights violations, or other issues that is simply based on whether or not we can afford to have relations with them. If we can have relations with China, we will similarly have direct relations with Cuba. If we have relations with Saudi Arabia, we can have relations with Iran. If we step in and stop genocide in Kosovo, we will step in and prevent genocide in Bosnia.

Different treatment of different countries and cultures plays into what Samuel Huntington discussed in his summer 1993 Foreign Affairs article “Clash of civilizations”. He believes future wars will be fought over cultural differences and misunderstandings that stem from those differences. To avoid this, I believe we must be sensitive and do everything possible to avoid costly conflicts that can be prevented if we work diligently on changing our actions, and our image. Part of that change is better educating the world as to what America is about, and also educating them about the good things America has done, and will continue to do for the world. America spends more than any other country on aid and assistance to other countries but we do a terrible job of touting our own real successes. We appear to have left it to the media and foreign governments to give us the credit we deserve, which will likely never happen. We must be shameless promoters of our values, our goodness, and our mission in the world. If we don’t educate the world, then who else will? What incentive do foreign governments have, particularly ones we might disagree with, in portraying an accurate picture of the United States?

Foreign policy is never cost free, as Stephen Walt (Winter 2001/2002) points out in “Beyond Bin Laden: Reshaping U.S. foreign policy.” Despite what we think of ourselves, in many parts of the world the U.S. is not viewed as a benign superpower. Unilateralism is simply no longer a viable option for U.S. foreign policy. To repair our image in the Muslim world, we must work with them to separate those that would harm our country, and their’s, from everyday moderate Muslims, who want much of the same things we do. One way to start building trust between the Muslim world and the U.S. is to use foreign aid as leverage for cooperation, like we did with the Marshall Plan. Tensions in a region are almost always reduced when the public has enough food and clean water, and its hard to view a country negatively that has helped provide you with those necessary items.

As G. John Ikenberry (May/June 1996) points out in “The Myth of Post-Cold War Chaos”, the strategy that the U.S. laid out during the cold war worked incredibly well. It effectively compared Western Liberal Democracy to the alternative, and most countries saw that the alternative was not in their country’s best interest. Decades after the end of the Cold War, the picture and the choices aren’t so clear. There are current challenges to WLD now, such as the new Russia and China. These countries that have successfully utilized a capitalist economy, yet maintain a government that’s far from being democratic. We must once again lay out the merits of WLD in a way that’s common-sense, and in a way that shows a clear benefit to the country.

Preemptively attacking terrorism by fighting extreme poverty.

Osama Bin Laden, a rich Saudi, who’s family has ties to the Saudi Royal Family, did not recruit those who would die for Al-Qaeda’s cause from schools or businesses. Bin Laden recruited the extremely poor and disenfranchised; essentially, those who felt they had nothing to live for. With no hope for anything better in this world, it was an easy sell for Bin Laden to convince people that being a martyr was the best thing they could ever do in this life, and that heaven awaited them in the after-life. Ladan and Roya Boraumand (April 2002) state in their foreign policy piece “Terror, Islam, and Democracy” that we must remove the conditions of poverty and despair in order to eliminate the appeal of terrorism. I believe we have a choice; we can either fight terrorism in a very costly way after it happens, like we currently are in Iraq and Afghanistan, or invest in infrastructure, jobs, education, fighting HIV/AIDS and malaria, providing clean water, and opportunity in the poorest regions in the world now, in order to reduce the appeal of men like Bin Laden in the future. It’s hard to make your case that America is a big, evil, immoral country, when you directly owe your survival to it. It’s not only the right thing to, it also shows the generosity of America, and is a long-term investment in peace for us, and for them.

Most specifically, Africa is a perfect example of a continent that is in desperate need of help, and if we don’t act quickly, we could soon be reaping the consequences. Robert Kaplan in his Foreign Affairs piece titled “The coming Anarchy” says that we must help poor countries such as Africa now, because its problems will spill across borders, and will become a breading ground for terrorism. Because of its shear size and population, Africa has the potential to be 5 or 10 Afghanistans. It is imperative that we put out those fires before it is too late. President Bush’s new $15 billion a year plan to combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and TB, are a huge step in the right direction. However, comparatively, we have spent close to a trillion dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq. More money than we are currently spending in Africa will be needed if we truly want to end extreme poverty. It will be up to the next president to use the momentum, and success of the current program to take this initiative the next step.

New global world foreign policy

As Dani Rodrik (Summer 1997) puts forth in “Sense and Nonsense in the Globalization Debate”, the new global world has overall been good for poor countries. It has also increased the role and importance of the governments. I believe the U.S. should not fear, or give a mixed impression of globalization. I believe we should embrace it, and adjust our foreign policy so that it’s more effective in this new world. Rodrik points out that globalization can be maintained and spread if we encourage governments to find a balance between free-markets and social obligations and safety nets. A way to ensure this balance is achieved would be through the creation of a U.N. task force charged with evaluating a country’s progress towards finding this balance. Once a country has successfully met its obligations, the reward for that hard work is that it will be allowed to join a trade pact of countries that have also met their obligations. The trade pact would operate in much the same way NAFTA and CAFTA does, in that it lowers or eliminates tariffs between trading partners, and generally streamlines the trade process.

Policies of political and economic isolation, such as our current policy with Cuba and Iran, no longer work because other countries can simply come in and fill void left by the U.S. And just because we convince a country to have elections, such as in Pakistan, or the Palestinian Authority, it doesn’t mean that country has safe-guards in place for the electoral process, or for the rights of its people. Fareed Zakaria (November/December 1997) makes the case in “Rise of Illiberal Democracy” that many countries are having elections but they aren’t particularly free or fair, and often aren’t leading to Western Liberal Democracy. Again, if we don’t fill the vacuum, someone else will. If we don’t assist these countries in transitioning, it won’t happen on its own. This is a long term commitment. One democratic election does not mean that we can assume a country is charted on a course for WLD. These governments first need to implement constitutions in order to protect human rights, and civil, economic, and legal liberties. Zakaria suggests we focus the most attention to countries that seem receptive to constitutional liberalism. The expanded use of the U.N. to oversee a country’s progress towards these benchmarks, and additional rewards for completion of those benchmarks should be instituted. Also, there needs to be a more prolific distribution of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights in these countries, so that politicians and governments are more likely to be held accountable by their own citizens who know what rights they are entitled to.

Increased use of the EU and U.N. and creation of a Latin American alliance

Lastly, to assist with implementing the forward looking strategy outlined above, America must rally other countries to our cause. The reality is, as Charles Kupchan (Fall 1999) points out in his “Life after Pax Americana” foreign policy piece, everyone has a stake in regional and world peace, and as such should be willing to do some of the heavy lifting to make that scenario a reality. As new superpowers have emerged, the U.S. can no longer carry out a foreign policy paradigm shift on its own, and the U.S. needs to embrace this reality, and use it as best we can to our and the world’s advantage.

As America has struggled in recent years to resolve crisis’ on its own, it has increasingly had to turn to our European Allies to assist in U.N. negotiations, such as with Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. This hasn’t been a totally useless exercise, and is likely a sign of things to come. Even if America gets its credibility back, it still will no longer be able to do all the heavy lifting on its own, and its only fair that other countries with the economic and political strength assist in providing a more secure, just, and democratic world. Countries such as China, India, and Russia could provide a serious challenge to our future strength and values, and it will be important for our closest allies who share our values to help carry out our shared mission and policy. As part of that strategy, a series of coalitions of countries will be created in order to handle military, political, economic, and humanitarian issues in their respective hemispheres.

The first coalition created to carry out these, should be the EU. The EU is likely headed this direction anyway, but disputes between France and Germany on military issues has kept the process from moving forward. The U.S. should do what it can to assist in those negotiations and provide assurances to France, that she will be defended if ever threatened by Germany. Examples of the coalition’s duties are that the EU would be in charge of stepping in and stopping civil war or genocide in the Balkans, rioting in Denmark, devastating floods in Britain, or a political collapse in Turkey.

The next coalition that should be created is in Latin America through a beefed-up Organization of American States, or OAS. Latin America has the potential in the next twenty years to become a serious power player in the world, and that role should be encouraged along with the responsibility that comes with it. Economic success in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, won’t necessarily mean success for El Salvador, Belize, or Nicaragua. It’s realistic to believe that those countries will continue, as they are now, to struggle against government corruption, drug lords, and extreme poverty. The OAS will be more uniquely positioned to step in, and help these countries transition to accountable, stable governments, with sustainable economies. To do this, the OAS will need a military component, as well as economic investment from all member nations. The U.S. and U.N. will offer assistance to properly organize, and assist with the implementation of these changes to the OAS. Richer countries such as Brazil, and Argentina, will likely need to carry more of the burden, but should be reminded that it is in their best interest that there be peace on their borders, and on their continent. Without that, the much needed foreign investment and necessary economic stability to make Latin America the force it can be, might not happen.

Upon the successful completion of these coalitions, subsequent coalitions should be created for Asia, and middle-east, and in Africa through the AU. These three coalitions will most likely be the most difficult to create, and to maintain due to the varied political and economic situations that exist in those regions. Those kinks would have to be worked out over time, and the likelihood is that the initial coalitions will be made up of our allies. However, a successful template would be firmly place with lessons learned and goals achieved through the implementation of the first two coalitions.

An always ready, trained, and equipped U.N. standby force, compiled of U.S., EU, OAS, AU, and other troops, should be quickly deployed to assist in any other conflicts that fall outside the boundaries of the above coalitions. This force should be equipped and trained to handle any situation, whether it be a civil war, or disaster relief. Security Council authority will be required to dispatch these troops.

There also needs to be more accountability and significant reforms at the U.N. I suggest that if there is a failure in implementing a U.N. resolution by a certain, pre-determined date, there should be an independent agency charged with investigating and quickly replacing those determined to be slowing down the process at the U.N. The U.S. has always provided the largest share of U.N. funding, and as such, it’s time that America returns to using the U.N. an effective institution for promoting justice, democracy, and peace.

The United States’ foreign policy has been costly, unfocused, and often times counterproductive to our goals and values since the end of the Cold War. If unchanged, America’s place in the world will continue to disintegrate, while new power-players such as China or India will step in to fill our void. It’s not too late to reverse that course if a new strategy, such as the one I’ve laid out, is effectively implemented over the course of the next few presidential administrations.

Bibliography

Huntington, Samuel P. (Summer 1993). The Clash of Civilizations? In Gideon Rose (E.D.), Foreign Affairs: America and The World-Debating the New Shape of International Politics (pp. 43-70). New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Walt, Stephen M. (Winter 2001/2002). Beyond bin Laden: Reshaping U.S. Foreign Policy. In Gideon Rose (E.D.), Foreign Affairs: America and The World-Debating the New Shape of International Politics (pp. 320-347). New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Ikenberry, G. John. (May/June 1996). The Myth of Post-Cold War Chaos. In Gideon Rose (E.D.), Foreign Affairs: America and The World-Debating the New Shape of International Politics (pp. 119-131). New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Boroumand, Ladan and Roya. (April 2002). Terror, Islam, and Democracy. In Gideon Rose (E.D.), Foreign Affairs: America and The World-Debating the New Shape of International Politics (pp. 299-319). New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Rodrik, Dani. (Summer 1997). Sense and Nonsense in the Globalization Debate. In Gideon Rose (E.D.), Foreign Affairs: America and The World-Debating the New Shape of International Politics (pp. 168-183). New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Zakaria, Fareed. (November/December 1997). The Rise of Illiberal Democracy. In Gideon Rose (E.D.), Foreign Affairs: America and The World-Debating the New Shape of International Politics (pp. 132-153). New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
Kupchan, Charles A. (Fall 1999). Life After Pax Americana. In Gideon Rose (E.D.), Foreign Affairs: America and The World-Debating the New Shape of International Politics (pp. 199-210). New York: W.W. Norton and Company

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