Future of American Foreign Policy

Today the United States is at a crossroads concerning foreign policy. We are currently fighting two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with a possibility of starting a third with Iran. Presently we have two presidential candidates whose use of power would be quite different. Barack Obama tends to favor the use of soft power while John McCain favors the use of hard power. What future role will the American Empire play in the coming years? What role will the United States be able to play with mounting debt and the growing hesitation of foreign governments to continue to extent credit?

Concerning the Middle East the central question is how to achieve peace between Israel and her neighbors while continuing to look out for American interests? Is this goal achievable? Is present United States policy toward Israel, unconditional support, the reason behind the inability to reach peace?

Traditionally there have been three approaches to viewing foreign policy. The first is Idealism which stresses "consensus on values" that "underpin any stable political order. Thus an idealist would be concerned with human rights, humanitarianism and international justice as guiding principles of America's foreign policy. Liberalism is the second approach which focuses on cooperation with other "mature democracies" and institutions such as the United Nations. The third approach is Realism which stresses "self-interested states compete for power and security." (Snyder, 2004)
As the United States moves forward one of these traditions will move to the forefront. Idealism is "belief that foreign policy is and should be guided by ethical and legal standards." Centered on the premise that American foreign policy can be used to make the world a better place by shaping it to reflect those ideals. This is achieved through debates about ideas and values that are the "fundamental building blocks of international life." (Snyder 2004) Idealism depends upon transnational groups such as Human Rights Watch to expose violations of the accepted moral standards and values while the democracies would give support, at least verbally. For idealism the need for soft power, diplomacy and economic sanctions, would be the main course of action.

The Liberal school highlights the importance of spreading democracy worldwide. The classic example is Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations. Usually this is done with the help of mature democracies and international institutions such as the United Nations. As these new democracies emerge civil violence has erupted usually between competing ethnic groups who want self autonomy. Though once established democracies rarely wage war against each other but they tend to be "prone to launch messianic struggles against warlike authoritarian regimes," (Snyder 2004) as both Wilson and Bush II has shown. And if the election result does not favor the United States we will not recognize the newly elected government. When Hamas won election in Palestine the immediate reaction was not to legitimize the results because of their terrorist past. As with the world how do we push democracy upon these Middle Eastern nations without realizing that these "terrorist" groups are legitimate with the people of these nations?

The final approach is Realism. Realism focuses upon the power struggle that exists among self-interested states. Realism centers on the concept of achieving a balance of power among these states. Presently we have nations coming together to oppose the American hegemony such as China and Russia. A new balance of power has begun to be created. Another example are European powers, members of NATO, who to achieve a balance of power has begun using international institutions, like the United Nations and the World Trade Organization to counter the United States. Snyder mentions his organization, Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy whose stated principle is "the move toward empire must be halted immediately." (Snyder 2004)

When looking at history the Realism approach had been the guiding principle for our early foreign policy. In his farewell address George Washington warned us, "It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world..." (http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/farewell/) As Doug Bandow says, "Let us make John Quincy Adams' apt dictum the lodestar of our new foreign policy: America 'goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.'" (http://acdalliance.org/)

Presently the United States has over $11 trillion of debt. Over $5 trillion has been created in the last 7 years. The United States has nearly 800 military bases overseas and spending $515 billion per year on military. We have become a nation depended upon China, Japan and oil rich countries to buy our ever growing debt. (Bandow 2008) Whichever foreign policy we decided upon it must be based on the use of soft power. Diplomacy and economic sanctions would be preferred methods in dealing with human rights violations or ethnocide, destruction of a culture. As an aside I am an isolationist who thinks we would be better off placing American interests first than work with transnational groups by using soft power to help people in need.

Over the past 7 years American policy in the Middle East has been one of hard power, using the military to achieve our goals. The coming years will hopefully change this to reflect a more soft power, economic sanctions and diplomacy, approach of dealing with nations. Using diplomacy Jimmy Carter was able to achieve peace between Israel and Egypt. Using soft power Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty. As Stoessinger says about successful empires, “Empires in the past survived only so long as they understood that diplomacy backed by force was to be preferred to force alone.” (2008)

Bandow, Doug. Economic Collapse: The Financial Death of the US Empire. 2008. American Conservative Defense Alliance, Retrieved Oct 15, 2008. http://acdalliance.org/letters/10-11-2008-economic-collapse-financial-death-us-empire-doug-bandow
Snyder, Jack. One World, Rival Theories, Foreign Policy, November/December 2004
Kelleher, Ann & Laura Klein. Global Perspectives, 2006, Pearson Education.

Stoessinger, John G. Why Nations go to War, 2008, Thomson Wadsworth