Foreign Policy Essay

Tension between the need for a peace without victory and the nightmare of a mighty European super-state subject by one power formed a fundamental dynamic of liberal internationalism with regard to the First World War. These contradictory, yet oddly complementary, principles and self-interests necessitated the formation of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF). American politico-military policy in the Great War, as marked by presidential decision-making, was aimed at securing the mainly desirable peace while preventing a German victory. This combination of idealism and realism created the basis of Wilsonian foreign policy, and neither can be completely isolated from the other in explaining American involvement. Traditionally, American defense and foreign policies were in agreement both were predicated on the Monroe Doctrine. They assumed separation from European politico-military commitments and concomitant activism in the Western Hemisphere. Ever as the nation’s decisive victory in the Spanish American War, Americans had considered they a great power whether or not the U.S. was renowned as such in Europe. By 1914, the U.S. was the world’s leading industrial power and provincial force, but a century of inertia kept the nation’s compass set firmly on isolation. At the same time, America was not usually regarded by the great powers of Europe as a member of the club. European politicians usually were ignorant of American affairs and not mainly interested in learning (Erald A. Combs, 1983). In the second place, the Spanish Republic was not a democratic Republic in our sagacity of the word â€Å"democratic.† (Walter Lafeber, 1993)In the United States, violence is the last alternative of a small group of disgruntled citizens. In Spain, though, the majority believed in violence. The liberal minority which believed in Anglo-American or in French traditions was swept aside. But democracy should mean something more than majority rule. Democracy, if it is to have any moral force at all, should include the idea of civil rights and of protection of minorities. In Spain, the liberals who did believe in civil rights and in defense of minorities were forced from power. President Azaà ±a, a liberal, went into a type of retirement from public life and despaired of the Republic he had helped to set up. Azaà ±a wrote, â€Å"With most Spaniards it is not enough that they themselves can admit and believe what they like. They are offended, they are outraged, and they rise in revolt–if the same liberty is approved to anyone who thinks in a different way from them.† Salvador de Madariaga, the great liberal philosopher and historian, agreed with President Azaà ±a. Madariaga went into voluntary exile and refused to support either side in the Spanish Civil War. Other liberals lost their authority. Some were executed. Though supporters of General Franco have exaggerated the so-called â€Å"Red Terror† in Republican Spain, it is however a fact that–once the civil war had begun–the Republic was no longer competent or willing to guarantee freedom of speech, liberty of the press, freedom of religion, trial by jury. Throughout the Civil War, few Spaniards who dissented from government policy have the liberties which you and I think of as a essential part of a democratic society. When groups dissented from the Popular Front, they were ousted from the association government. When the groups were small enough, they were suppressed–as was the Trotskyite P.O.U.M. In short, the Republic was not all its American backers thought it to be. And, as Communist influence improved in Spain, as the Communists wrested power from liberals and socialists, the Republic became continually less democratic. Winston Churchill stood apart from his own Conservative Party and destined Neville Chamberlain’s devastating policy of appeasement. Anthony Eden resigned his post as Foreign Minister because he could not in good conscience persist to serve that disastrous policy. The Labor Opposition troubled for a change in policy if not in government. The Department of State is not lawfully bound to follow the Foreign Office’s lead. If Cordell Hull and Franklin Roosevelt chose to tag on the British, it was their choice. Whatever Hull believed, Roosevelt believed the British were wrong. We cannot excuse him by blaming the British. In the second place, the isolationists’ role can be overstates or misunderstood. Yes, the isolationists called for the embargo. No, the isolationists did not demand that the embargo be maintained. Senator Nye, the most significant of the isolationists, introduced, on May 2, 1938, a decree to lift the embargo. He saw the consequences of the embargo and determined that it was intervention against the Republic and not impartiality at all. Charles Beard, another leader of isolationist opinion, cynically denounced the embargo as the overturn of neutrality. Edwin Borchard and William P. Lage, two scholarly advocates of neutrality, Neutrality for the United States, that the embargo was erroneous: â€Å"This was thought to be neutrality legislation. In fact, it was the specific opposite.† The embargo was a form of involvement against the recognized government of Spain. In short, the leaders of American isolationism changed their minds on the embargo. Had Roosevelt joined their effort to sway public opinion, had he used his office to urge repeal on Congress, had he dared–as Henry Stimson suggested–lifting the embargo as part of executive prudence, the leaders of isolationism would have rallied to his side? He ignored the prospect. Nye’s bill never left committee. (Akira Iriye, 1993) In international affairs the USA displays growing unilateralism. International development policies have been forced by the Washington consensus. The United States fails to sign on to major greening protocols. Until lately the USA was perennially in arrears in United Nations dues. On numerous occasions (such as Nicaragua and Panama) the USA has not followed international legal standards and it ignores the International Court if its decision goes against it. American policies put in to the enduring stalemate in the Middle East. Take any global problem and the United States is both the main player and major bottleneck. It is a rational question to ask whether this is just a matter of current US administrations or whether more reflective dynamics are at work. If we take seriously global problems and therefore also the requirement for global reform (such as the condition of global public goods and the regulation of international finance) and then turn to the question of political implementation we obviously arrive at the door of the United States. Progressive social forces and international institutions the world over make proposals for global reform, whose list is significant and growing, but without US cooperation they stand little prospect of being implemented. The world leader, then, turns out to be the global bottleneck and in this light American conditions and problems become world problems. The difficulties are to evade mistaking American ideologies for realities, to avoid the trap of impressionism based on unawareness when everyone thinks they ‘know’ the USA on account of its large cultural radius, and to be brief while the data are vast. The literature on ‘America’, the largest and foremost developed country, is vast and multimodal. This part of the treatment is meant as a prà ©cis planned in brief vignettes. The second part probes the international consequences of American exceptionalism. This is less widely talked about and tucked within specialist literatures on international relations and international political economy (including transnational enterprises, the Washington consensus and military affairs). Twinning the themes of American exceptionalism and global implications is the pioneering element in this inquiry. The terrain is large, the literatures are wide-ranging and so this treatment is pointed, focusing on American exceptionalism and global ramifications. The closing section criticizes American exceptionalism as a self caricature and considers potential counterpoints. (Gruber, L. 2000) The whole world must adopt the American system. The American system can endure in America only if it becomes a world system. Americans who wanted to bring the blessings of democracy, capitalism, and constancy to everyone meant just what they said – the whole world, in their view, must be a reflection of the United States. There is no contradiction that several features of American exceptionalism shape modern globalization; yet developing this argument entails several hurdles. First, intrinsic in the notion of ‘Americanization’ is an element of methodological populism. To which unit of analysis does this apply – to which America, whose America? The USA is the fourth largest country in the world in terms of population, quite varied, and local differences play a significant part. American corporations with decentralized headquarters and offshore tax reporting cannot be merely identified with the United States either. Besides, international flows do not run just one way but in multiple directions; there are also trends of Europeanization, Asianization and Latinization of America, economically and culturally (regarding foreign ownership, management style, consumption patterns). Transnational Diasporas have been changing the character of ‘America’ all along and this bricolage character is part of its make-up. What then is the actual unit at issue? Is it a set of ’organizing principles’ that remain incessant over time, as Lipset would have it, or, at another extreme, is America a site, a place of transnational synthesis and bricolage? Since waves and layers of Diasporas, from the Irish to the Latino, have been shaping ‘America’ it is not feasible simply to refer back to the founding fathers in order to identify American fundamentals. It would not be productive either to rework the dà ©fi Amà ©ricain type of argument; that would place the argument in a setting of national comparisons and competitiveness, à   la Michael Porter. This national focus is in part overtaken by the dynamics of stepped up globalization and is not appropriate to an analysis of the relationship between AE and globalization. (Duclos, D. 1998) A second problem is to put up historical variation in US politics, or the association between structure and politics. AE does not quite match the definite profile of US administrations and is not essentially intrinsic to American politics; to argue otherwise would be to essentialism American politics. Wilsonian internationalism was also element of US foreign policy and American contributions to world order comprise the establishment of the UN and Bretton Woods system, the Marshall Plan, support for European union, and policies in favor of human rights and democracy. While these contributions are under disagreement they show that there is greater disparity to American foreign policy than just the profile of the past decades. As the emphasis here is on American policies in relation to modern globalization this serves as a note of caution. In the latter days of the Clinton administration there were several changes in the picture (mitigation of the embargo on Cuba, settlement of arrears in UN dues), some of which, such as US endorsement of the permanent International Criminal Court, were upturned by the next administration. In recent years much discussion on Americanization has focused on cultural dynamics, or what Nye calls ‘soft power’: the responsibility of media, popular culture and transnational consumerism, examined in cultural studies. It is also another type of populism for it is rarely effectively correlated with other dimensions of American influence: economic, financial, international and military. This lack of enunciation between soft and hard power is problematic. The question of AE and globalization differs from the conformist cultural imperialism thesis. Overall American impact is to a considerable extent a matter of what Galtung (1971) called ‘structural imperialism’: shaping other societies through structural leverage rather than just through direct political involvement. This includes but goes beyond popular culture, the cultural industries and the familiar litanies of Coca-colonization, McDonaldization, Disneyfication, Barbie culture and American media conglomerates. as these are high-visibility and receive irresistible attention, the more significant impact of AE perhaps concerns economic policies and international politics and security. These too are ‘cultural’, but covertly rather than obviously so and less visible in everyday life. They concern not just relations among advanced countries but relations across development ascents that affect the majority world. It may assist to differentiate several levels of analysis: Structural dynamics. This comprises scientific and technological changes forged by and exported from the USA. Eventually, however, these symbolize an inter-civilizational heritage. Fundamental dynamics which are universal to industrialized countries. Here the leading package offered by the country that founds these trends affects all; yet these dynamics are not essentially peculiar to that country. This brings us to the junction thesis of modernization theory according to which industrial societies would finally converge. In this category belong trends such as mass production, mass utilization, mass media, car culture, and suburbanization and information technology; that is, they are not ‘American’ per se but since the USA was the first comer they take an American gloss. American corporations and cultural industries request to draw monopoly rents from their provisional lead ‘by means fair or foul’. This is a general business practice with ample pattern in history. The British destroyed the Indian textile manufactures and trade and sabotaged incipient industrialization in Egypt, Persia and the Ottoman Empire. During international leverage (international financial institutions and the WTO) and regional arrangements the US government seeks to combine its lead and institutionalize the benefit of its multinational corporations. It follows that the center questions of global Americanization are the last two points: drawing monopoly rents and their institutionalization through superpower leverage. That the line between domestic and international politics is distorting is a familiar point in international relations literature. Often the importance falls on the international influencing the domestic. A major US export has been its brand of capitalism, as in Taylorism, Fordism, high mass-consumption, free trade, and American company and business practices. Another major policy take on by western countries is a â€Å"war on terrorism† that is not a foreign policy; it is an goal of a foreign policy. Western’s world way must reach beyond the curse of terrorism. We should offer an inclusive vision of hope and affluence for all nations, and thinking the interests of our friends and allies, as well as those peoples around the world who need to be our friends and share in our exposure. Beliefs, standards, values, and prospect are all part of a foreign policy, but they are not foreign policy. They are enriching blocks of foreign policy. It has become a maxim to state that September 11, 2001 â€Å"changed everything† as well as that â€Å"nothing will ever be the same again.† In fact, little has changed in the imperialist tendencies of American foreign policy since the founding of the United States of America in 1789. The war on terrorism possesses features that influence west to operate in direct confrontation of accepted norms of international law, and to overlook the deficiencies and the crimes of its cobelligerents. The new war is a messianic, apocalyptic struggle of blameless good against consummate evil. Its motivation is not the real world with its shades of gray (and indeed, relevant histories and grievances), but the type of struggles that used to play out in the cowboy movies. Little reveal is made of the fact that the primary enemy is religious, in fact intensely so at times to the point of prejudice, bigotry, and terror, and not atheist as the previous enemy was. There is no need to attempt to understand that this new enemy regards Israel as a state that practices state terrorism and that by supplying military and economic aid, Washington is an accomplice. Or to try to understand that this enemy believes that Washington should cut off this aid and declare war on state terrorists as well as private ones. Those on â€Å"our side† are seen as being good, or at least infinitely better than the enemy. It is a war of no negotiations with the enemy, no summit meetings, no compromise, and surely no need to modify policies to accommodate the feelings and the policies of the enemy, or examine any just accusations that the enemy might possibly have. The enemy’s soldiers will not be given prisoner of war status and will be tried in special military courts (New York Times, May 26, 2003). Similar to the enemies of the Cold War, the enemy in the new war is depicted as sinister, cunning and underhanded. This time—and it is no irrelevant difference—the enemy actually struck mainland west on September 11 and before, and is expected to strike again. The fear is that the enemy will develop and use weapons of mass destruction against us—nuclear weapons, or more probable, radiological dispersion devices, also called â€Å"dirty bombs† (conventional bombs to which radioactive material has been added). The result would be the spread of radioactivity over a large area. But we are advised that we must not panic. Just be careful and vigilant. This war too, America advises us openly and in advance, is a war of global proportions. It is an open-ended war with the world as its arena. The enemy assumes two general forms. One part is visible, above ground, represented by evil governments and reminiscent of the old Soviet bloc. So far only four of the enemy governments in the new war have been identified—the former governments in Afghanistan and Iraq, and two remain â€Å"axis of evil† governments in Iran and North Korea. The other enemy component is invisible, consisting, we are told, of cells in some 50 or 60 typically unnamed countries. These are not the cells of the communist party, but the underground organizations of what Washington chooses to call â€Å"terrorists† (New York Times, October 24, 2002). Whatever its form, whether bearing the legality of government or existing underground, the enemy should be destroyed. To do this, we must sometimes act alone, unilaterally. Other times we can act with our allies. America attacked the Afghan government only three weeks after the 9/11 tragedy. It therefore demonstrated that it was determined to protect the nation against terrorism, â€Å"to fight the war against terrorism,† not only by police measures—interpreting the determination to protect the nation as actions taken on to constrain and apprehend criminals but also by actually waging war against governments (Douglas Kellner, 2003). This, despite the fact that former approach is recognized as the most promising way a government can use to guard its citizens against terrorism if that government is interested in peace. Such an approach entails the kind of police measures actually adopted by Washington and other governments such as anti-terrorist measures affecting airplanes and airports, as well as foreign policy measures such as pulling troops out of Saudi Arabia, and threatening to lessen aid to Israel. The use of war, however, increases the damage to the victim country and the innocent parties therein. This increases the moral quandary posed by just war theory, as well as increasing the hatred that can consequence against the perceived aggressor, as has been demonstrated in the recent war against Iraq (Frederick H. Gareau; 2004). Thus like the war on terrorism, non-proliferation leadership desires global cooperation and coalitions. The two might combine such as while states both proliferate and sponsor terrorism-but their intimidation, and the techniques for dealing with them, are varied. Proliferation is provoked by customary state interest’s geography and security and maybe not terror, and consequently might require a varied set of policy responses. The approaches to proliferation will diverge in Iraq, North Korea, and South Asia. The â€Å"war on terrorism† rubric offers neither explanation nor path concerning our non-proliferation policy options. That said, if a propagating state sponsors terrorism, or has relations with terrorists disparate to the United States, then these two areas of center converge. And our tools to agreement with both threats must be directly focused on those states (New York Times, December 10, 2002). It is unsure that we face a feasible intimidation of a large-scale nuclear harass from another main nuclear power. The further real threat is now the development and deliverability of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons by terrorist associations and the states which support them. The Bush Administration has mapped a new path in association with Russia by moving to lessen nuclear munitions to usually low numbers and engaging former opponent on controlling the expand of nuclear technology. Nunn-Lugar non-proliferation programs have institutionalized a vital helpful association unswerving to the reduction and power of nuclear or double use materials. But we should be careful not to be lulled into a counterfeit sense of security with this new Russian-American agreement. The truth is that this new agreement – which represents progress – does not comprise the mainly dangerous nuclear threat that we still must deal with, and that is strategic nuclear weapons. Short-range nuclear missiles and bombs are left out of this agreement. Thus, The basic challenges for western countries foreign policy today are much as they have been in the past: to safe our interests and support our ideals in an deficient and precarious world. 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