American Foreign Policy Essay Assignment
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American Foreign Policy Essay Assignment
Chapter 14
Alternative Futures
American Foreign Policy
Author: Glenn P. Hastedt
Dateline: Africa
On October 4, 2017, fifty members of an ISIS affiliate ambushed U.S. military forces in Niger. Four U.S. Special Operations Forces were killed, and two were wounded. This is believed to be the first time that an ISIS-affiliated group in the Sahel region of Africa killed active-duty U.S. military personnel. The forces were tasked with a routine, low-risk patrol. While carrying out this mission, information came in regarding the location of a terrorist leader believed to be behind the kidnapping of an American citizen. An assault team was assembled to attack the terrorist camp. This mission was cancelled at the last minute, and the U.S. Special Operations Unit was sent instead. They did not find any terrorists or key information. On 354the way back to their base, they stopped at a village for water. Minutes after they departed, they were ambushed in what some felt was an encounter set up by the village chief, as he had inexplicably delayed their departure. Only after an hour of fighting did the U.S. forces request help. It took another hour for air support to arrive. At first, the Pentagon stated that the soldiers were advising Nigerian soldiers on a routine reconnaissance mission. Weeks later it was acknowledged that they were on a quite different mission deep into contested territory.
At the time of the Niger attack, estimates placed the number of U.S. troops in Africa at between 5,000 and 6,000. These forces were deployed in ten countries and one additional region, accord to the Department of Defense.1 Press reports also identified a U.S. military presence in Burkina Faso and Nigeria. Prior to the attack, the White House had reported 645 U.S. military personnel in Niger. Following the attack, this number was revised to 800. Compare this to 40,000 in Japan, 35,000 in Germany, 25,000 in South Korea, and 14,000 in Afghanistan.
This was not the first incident in which American military advisors engaged in combat operations. In December 2017, Green Berets accompanying Nigerian forces killed eleven Islamic militants. Nor is it the last time American soldiers were killed in a military encounter. In June 2018, a U.S. Navy Seal accompanying troops from Somalia and Kenya was killed in Somalia. At the time, an estimated 500 U.S. troops were stationed in Somalia, up from 200 in 2016. Six months before this incident, the Department of Defense revealed plans to remain in Somalia for at least two more years.
Rarely has Africa been a high priority foreign policy issue for the U.S. The Africa Command (AFRCIOM), only established in 2007, is headquartered in Germany. During the Cold War, American involvement was spurred by concern for Russian support of pro-communist governments and guerilla movements in Africa. With the end of the Cold War, the U.S. presence in Africa briefly centered on providing humanitarian aid, a foreign policy orientation that abruptly ended with the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu highlighted in the Historical Lesson.
Since 9/11, local Islamic terrorist groups affiliated with ISIS and al-Qaeda have been the key motivating factors for U.S. involvement in Africa. Concern has centered on their impact in Africa as well as their ability to use the continent as a launching pad for attacks on the Middle East. Most recently, this anti-terrorism orientation has been joined by concern about growing Russian and Chinese involvement in Africa. Russian involvement is perhaps most visible in the Central African Republic. It began with an arms deal and has expanded to include military training and exploration of the potential for mineral resource mining. China has built its first overseas military base in Djibouti. It is located only a few miles from one of the U.S.’s largest military bases. China also has 2,400 peacekeepers in Africa and has become an important source of financial and development aid.
Regardless of its motivating force, a consistent feature of U.S. involvement in Africa, reinforced by the Mogadishu experience, is restricting the U.S. military presence by minimizing the number of “boots on the ground” to avoid U.S. casualties, and working indirectly through African partners to strengthen their capacity to guarantee internal and regional stability. According to the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, which defined this strategy as Building Partner Capacity, U.S. forces do not engage in “active and direct combat operations.” Instead, their mission is to train, advise, and assist. This mission first began in Niger under George W. Bush in 2002. In 2013, Obama reported to Congress that some one hundred U.S. military personnel were in Niger for purposes of providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Of those, forty were involved in setting up a drone base. For a decade, Niger has been the top recipient of U.S. security assistance. It has received about $170 million to train and equip its forces for counterterrorism operations. In reporting to Congress, both Obama and Trump cited the War Powers Act (see chapter 6 Historical Lesson) as the basis for this deployment, not the Authorization for Use of Military Force passed after 9/11 (also discussed in chapter 6).
An ongoing critique of U.S. foreign policy toward Africa is that Building Partner Capacity does not provide the basis for a coherent strategy for accomplishing its foreign policy goals. Instead, it leads the United States to approach African conflict situations as a series of separate, distinct separate conflicts on a cost-benefit basis that emphasizes tactical considerations rather than an understanding of their broader objectives and their underlying political and military dynamics. After the Niger attack, AFRICOM’s Commanding General Thomas Walhauser acknowledged the extent of the problem in testimony to Congress, stating that he was “not aware of any overall grand strategy [in Africa] at this point.”2
U.S. foreign policy in Africa highlights the possibility of change, the unpredictability of actions, and the potential consequences of foreign policy choices. This concluding chapter introduces six competing visions of the future direction that American foreign policy might take. It ends with a discussion of a highly visible foreign policy challenge that the United States must address relations with China.
Foreign Policy Visions
Each of the six competing visions about to be introduced provides a different starting point for making policy choices. Three questions are asked of each alternative future: (1) What is the primary threat to U.S. national security? (2) What responsibility does the United States have to other states? and (3) What responsibility does the United States have to the global community? The answers reflect different views regarding the degree to which the United States should be involved in world politics, how much power it possesses, and the extent to which the future may differ from the past.
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The United States as an Ordinary State
For some, the key to the future is realizing that foreign policy can no longer be conducted on the assumption of American uniqueness or the idea that U.S. actions stand between anarchy and order. The American century is over, and the challenge facing policy makers is no longer managing alliances, deterring aggression, or ruling over the international system. It now requires adjustment to a new role orientation in which the United States is an Ordinary State.3 This change in outlook is necessary, because international and domestic trends point to the declining utility of a formula-based response to foreign policy problems—be it rooted in ideology, concepts of power politics, or some vision of regional order. Such a response forces the United States to pursue narrowly defined national interests at the expense of international collaborative and cooperative efforts. In this altered environment, flexibility, autonomy, and impartiality are valued more than one-sided commitments, name calling, and efforts at the diplomatic, military, or economic isolation of states.
As an Ordinary State, the United States would not define its interests so rigidly that their defense would require unilateral American action. If the use of force is necessary, it should be a truly multilateral effort; if others are unwilling to act, there is no need for the United States to assume the full burden of the commitment. Stated as a rule, “The United States should not be prepared, on its own, and supported solely by its own means, to perform tasks that most other states would not undertake.”4 Ordinariness does not, however, mean passivity, withdrawal, or a purely defensive approach to foreign policy problems. The quality of U.S. participation in truly multilateral efforts to solve international problems will be vital, because the core ingredients of the international influence of the future will be found in fields in which the United States is already a leader: economics, diplomacy, and technology. The goal of these collaborative efforts should be to “create and maintain a world in which adversaries will remain in contact with one another and where compromises are still possible.”5 The following summarizes the Ordinary State perspective:
- The greatest threat to U.S. national security lies in trying to do too much and in having too expansive a definition of its national interest.
- Responsibility to other states must be proportionate and reciprocal to that of other states to the United States.
- The United States’ responsibility to the global community is to be a good global citizen—nothing more and nothing less.
The imagery advanced by the Ordinary State perspective—with its denial of American uniqueness, its lack of optimism, its focus on restraints rather than opportunities, and its admonition to not try to do too much—runs against the traditional American approach to world politics.6 A variant of the Ordinary States perspective voiced today is that the United States 357must act like a Normal State. The Normal State perspective also taps into a feeling shared by many Americans that, although it should not retreat into isolationism, the United States should not be the first to take risks that others are not willing to run.
Reformed America
According to proponents of the Reformed America perspective, U.S. foreign policy has traditionally been torn between pursuing democratic ideals and empire (one power center ruling a hierarchically structured grouping of states).7 The United States wants peace—but only on its own terms; the United States supports human rights—but only if its definitions are used; the United States wants to promote Third World economic growth—but only if it follows the U.S. model and does not undermine U.S. business interests abroad. Historically, the thrust toward empire (whether called containment or détente) has won out, and democratic ideals have been sacrificed or given only lip service. U.S. policy makers have given highest priority to maintaining the United States’ position of dominance in the international system and promoting the economic well-being of U.S. corporations.8
The Reformed America outlook argues that the need now exists to reverse this pattern. Democratic ideals must be given primary consideration in the formulation and execution of U.S. foreign policy. Not doing so invites future Vietnams and runs the risk of undermining the very democratic principles for which the United States stands. From this outlook, foreign policy and domestic policy are not seen as two separate categories. They are held to be inextricably linked; actions taken in one sphere have effects on behavior and policies in the other. Bribery of foreign officials leads to bribery of U.S. officials; an unwillingness to challenge human rights violations abroad reinforces the acceptance of discrimination and violations of civil rights at home; and a lack of concern for the growing disparity in economic wealth on a global basis leads to an insensitivity to the problems of poverty in the United States.
The Reformed America perspective demands global activism from the United States. The much-heralded decline in American power is not seen as being so great that it prevents the United States from exercising a predominant global influence. Moreover, the United States is held to have a moral and political responsibility to lead by virtue of its comparative wealth and power. The danger to be avoided is inaction brought on by the fear of failure. The United States cannot be permitted to crawl into a shell of isolationism or to let itself be “Europeanized” into believing that there are limits to its power and accepting the world “as it is.” The power needed for success in creating what amounts to a new world order faithful to traditional American democratic values is not the ability to dominate others but to renew the American commitment to justice, 358opportunity, and liberty. The following summarizes the Reformed America perspective:
- The primary threat to U.S. national security is a continued fixation on military problems and an attachment to power-politics thinking.
- The United States’ responsibility to other states is great, provided that they are truly democratic, and the United States must seek to move those that are not democratic in that direction.
- The United States’ responsibility to the global community is also great and centers on the creation of an international system conducive to the realization of traditional American values.
The values underlying this perspective were widely embraced in the early post–Cold War period, as many commentators urged presidents to move more aggressively toward a neo-Wilsonian foreign policy. After 9/11, a split occurred within the Reformed America movement. Some, labeled liberal hawks, advance a foreign policy that embraced the use of military power in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan to advance democracy and reconstruct societies. Others continue to express concern over how much the military has become the foreign policy instrument of choice to advance American foreign policy goals. Along these lines, some commentators argue that the United States is far more secure today than is commonly believed, thus providing an opportunity for rejecting power-politics thinking.9
Pragmatic America
The Pragmatic America perspective holds that the United States can no longer afford foreign policies on the extreme ends of the political spectrum. Neither crusades nor isolationism serve America well. Some world problems require U.S. attention, but not all do. What is needed in U.S. foreign policy is selectivity, a strong dose of moderation in means and ends.10 To supporters of this view, the end of the Cold War vindicated a policy of moderation.11
The United States must recognize that the American national interest is not identical to the global interest, and that not all problems lend themselves to permanent resolution. The most pressing issue on the U.S. agenda is development of a set of criteria for identifying these problems and then acting in moderation to protect American interests.
Pragmatic America emphasizes a utilitarian outlook on world politics and recognizes the lessened ability of military force to solve many foreign policy problems; it also recognizes that the nature of the problems facing the United States has changed. The Cold War dragon represented by the Soviet Union has been slain. The world confronting the United States is now populated by large numbers of poisonous snakes.
One national security practitioner suggests that the ideal practical method for moving forward and dealing with these poisonous snakes is 359through the creation of international posses.12 Just as in the old American West, when security threats present themselves, the United States (the sheriff) should organize and deputize a posse of like-minded states that will end the threat and then disband. The following summarizes the Pragmatic America perspective:
- The primary threats to U.S. national security continue to be military in nature.
- The United States has a responsibility to other states on a selective basis, and only to the extent that threats to the political order of those states would lessen American security.
- The United States’ responsibility to the global community is limited. More pressing is a sense of responsibility to key partners, whose cooperation is necessary to manage a threatening international environment.
President George H. W. Bush, in his farewell foreign policy address, argued for a position that is consistent with this view.13 Warning against becoming isolationist, Bush asserted that the United States can influence the future, but that “it need not respond to every outrage of violence.” Bush went on to note that no formula exists telling with precision when and where to intervene. “Each and every case is unique . . . we cannot always decide in advance which interests will require our using military force.” When force is used, Bush urged that the mission be clear and achievable, that a realistic plan be in place, and that equally realistic criteria be established for withdrawing U.S. forces.
The Pragmatic America perspective is seen by some as well suited for an international system in a state of flux. Henry Kissinger argues that goals should be consistent over time but the means to achieve them must be based on specific conditions.14 This measured approach to solving foreign policy problems is also a fundamental weakness. Because pragmatism can be interpreted differently by different people, the policy it produces tends to move forward in a series of disjointed steps. The result is that defenders see it as producing flexibility and adaptability, but detractors see in it a foreign policy by lottery, in which the past provides little guidance for friends or enemies as they seek to anticipate America’s position.
American Crusader
The American Crusader sees the United States as having won the Cold War and now being intent on enjoying the fruits of its victory as the dominant global power.15 Victory brings with it an opportunity to act on America’s historical sense of mission. It builds on an important strain in the American national style that defines security in absolute terms. The objective is “unconditional surrender.” “For more than two centuries, the United States has aspired to a condition of perfect safety from foreign threats,” both real and imagined.16 Unlike the Reformed America 360perspective, the American Crusader perspective identifies military power as the instrument of choice. It is rooted firmly in that part of the American national style that rejects compromise and seeks permanent, engineered solutions to political problems.
Faint echoes of the American Crusader perspective can be found in post–World War II foreign policy. During the Eisenhower administration, some commentators called for rolling back the Iron Curtain, feeling that containment was too passive and accommodating a strategy. During the Persian Gulf War, there was a moment when defeating Saddam Hussein had the characteristics of a crusade, at least at a rhetorical level. The American Crusader perspective is most associated with neoconservative thinking on foreign policy and burst on the scene with full force following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The following summarizes the American Crusader perspective:
- The international system holds real and immediate threats to American national security that must be unconditionally defeated.
- The United States has a responsibility to help other states that are allies in its cause, because their security increases American security.
- The United States’ responsibility to the international community is great, but how that responsibility is defined is a matter for the United States to determine based on its historical traditions.
There are some who share the American Crusader view that the international system contains immediate and serious threats to American national security, but others question its wisdom as the basis for U.S. foreign policy. One concern is that this view overlooks the fact that superpower status does not convey total power to the United States. The challenge of bringing means and ends into balance is an ongoing one, and “superpower fatigue” becomes a real danger.17 A second concern is that, by acting in this manner, the United States may hasten its own decline. Rather than staying on the American “bandwagon” as an ally, second-order states may decide that—because they too may become the object of an American crusade—it is necessary to build up their own power to balance that held by the United States.
America the Balancer
Out of a conviction that unipolarity is bound to give way to a multipolar distribution of power in the international system, some commentators argue that the prudent course of action today is to adopt the role of balancer. The United States needs to stand apart from others yet be prepared to act in concert with them. It cannot and should not become a rogue superpower, acting on its own impulses and imposing its vision on the world.18
The starting point of wisdom from this America the Balancer perspective is that not all problems are threatening to the United States or require its involvement. The United States has a considerable amount of 361freedom to define its interests. In addition, the United States must recognize that one consequence of putting a global security umbrella in place is that it has discouraged other states and regional organizations from taking responsibility for preserving international stability. This situation must be reversed. Others must be encouraged to act in defense of their own interests. Otherwise, the United States runs the risk of becoming entrapped by commitments to unstable regimes.19 Finally, the United States must learn to live with uncertainty. Absolute security is an unattainable objective and one that only produces imperial overstretch. The following is a summary of the America the Balancer perspective:
- The primary national security threats to the United States are self-inflicted. They take the form of a proliferation of security commitments designed to protect America’s economic interests.
- The United States has a limited responsibility to other states, because the burden for protecting a state’s national interests falls on that state.
- The United States’ responsibility to the global community is limited. American national interests and the maintenance of global order are not identical.
Many advocates of balancing see a return to multipolarity as all but inevitable and believe that trying to reassert or preserve American preeminence and suppress the emergence of new powers is futile.20 Thus, there is little reason for the United States to become deeply involved in the affairs of other states on a routine basis. What is needed is a hedging strategy, one that will allow the United States to realize its security goals without provoking others into uniting against it or accelerating their separate pursuits of power. Blessed by its geopolitical location, the answer for some lies in adopting the position of an offshore balancer.21 The United States is positioned to allow global and regional power balances to ensure its strategic independence. Only when others prove incapable of acting to block the ascent of a challenging hegemony should the United States step in to affect the balance of power. Given its continued power resources, such an intervention is likely to be decisive.
One issue that must be confronted by advocates of the America the Balancer perspective is how to exercise American military power most effectively. Traditionally, war has been the mechanism for preserving a stable balance of power in the international system. Commentators across the political spectrum have raised the question of whether wars can continue to play this role on a large scale. If they cannot, how is the balancer to enforce its will? One possibility is that, rather than using American power to deter or defeat an adversary, America the Balancer will play a central role in compelling adversaries to change their behavior. The distinction is potentially important. One commentator who has looked at compellence (see chapter 10 ) suggests that it is more of a police task than deterrence (see chapter 12 ), which is a military task.
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Disengaged America
The final alternative future calls for the United States to selectively, yet thoroughly, withdraw from the world.22 It is a perspective most often associated with the libertarian perspective on U.S. foreign policy.23 The Disengaged America perspective sees retrenchment as necessary because the international system is becoming increasingly inhospitable to U.S. values and unresponsive to efforts at management or domination. Increasingly, the choices facing U.S. foreign policy will be selecting what types of losses to avoid. Optimal solutions to foreign policy problems will no longer present themselves to policy makers; even if they do, domestic constraints will prevent policy makers from pursuing such a path. In the Disengaged America perspective, foreign policy must become less of a lance—a tool for spreading values—and more of a shield—a minimum set of conditions behind which the United States can protect its values and political processes.24 In the words of one commentator writing after 9/11, the purpose of American foreign policy should be security first. Promoting democracy is fine so long as it is pursued by peaceful means and is seen as homegrown.25
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Historical LessonThe Path to Mogadishu
On October 3, 1993, a 160-person special assault team consisting of Army Ranger and Delta Force troops, nineteen aircraft, and twelve vehicles targeted the Olympic Hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia to apprehend warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid and two of his top leaders. The raid was expected to be completed in one hour. Instead, it became a seventeen-hour overnight battle in which eighteen U.S. soldiers died and eighty-four were wounded before being rescued by an international military force.
Little went right in the October 3 military raid, although it did reach its intended target. Minutes after beginning their withdrawal from the area of the hotel, U.S. forces were attacked by Somali militia and armed civilians who blocked their path. They pushed back repeated attempts by Somali groups to overrun their positions. Two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters were shot down and its crew members killed, captured, or pinned down by enemy fire. Highly emotional TV images of the Battle of Mogadishu showed the bodies of U.S. servicemen being dragged through the streets. Estimates of Somali deaths ranged from 315 (by Aidid) to 1,000–2,000 (by U.S. diplomatic officials).
The path to Mogadishu began in January 1991, when Somalia’s dictator was overthrown by an alliance of tribal warlords. With his removal from power, the alliance collapsed and the warlords began competing for control of the government. By September, fighting had become so widespread and intense that an estimated 4.5 million Somalis were on the verge of starving to death. By the end of the year, an estimated 200,000 people had been killed or injured. In response, a cease-fire was organized by United Nations (UN), and relief efforts began. In July 1992, a small UN mission was sent to Somalia to oversee the distribution of food. In August, the UN initiated Operation Provide Comfort to further the relief effort. The U.S. provided transportation to move aid workers and relief supplies to Somalia. Its efforts were frustrated and undermined by continuing fighting among the warlords and their seizure of an overwhelming majority of the relief supplies. General Mohamed Farrah Aidid, one of the key players in bringing down the Somali government and its self-proclaimed new head, was now demanding that UN peacekeepers leave and that no new peacekeepers be sent.
The inability of Operation Provide Comfort to alleviate the suffering and stabilize the situation in Somalia led to a proposal to the UN by President George W. Bush that U.S. combat troops be sent in to protect the humanitarian operation, on the condition that they not be placed under a UN command. That offer was accepted, and in December it was announced that some 25,000 troops would be sent to Somalia under the heading Operation Restore Hope. Bush stressed that Operation Restore Hope was not an open-ended military mission but would be concluded by the time Bill Clinton was inaugurated as president in January 1993.
In March 1993, the mission of UN forces in Somalia was officially changed from providing humanitarian aid to nation building and promoting stability throughout the country. Upon taking office, Clinton had expressed a desire to reduce the U.S. military presence in Somalia; with the change in mission, he arranged for reducing the number of U.S. forces and having them replaced by troops from other UN member nations. By June 1993, only 1,200 U.S. troops remained in Somalia.
A principal challenge facing the UN mission was disarming the warlords. On June 5, 1993, the full extent of the challenge became clear when twenty-four Pakistani troops were ambushed and killed and another fifty-seven wounded while they were inspecting a weapons storage facility. Three American soldiers were also wounded. A UN emergency resolution called for international efforts to capture those responsible. Evidence pointed to Aidid.
U.S. and UN troops repeatedly attacked locations in Mogadishu the following week searching for Aidid. He was not found, but several buildings were destroyed and a number of Somalis were killed. In August, four U.S. military police were killed by a remotely detonated land mine. A 400-person U.S. military task force was sent to Somalia in September. That month it carried out six missions in an attempt to apprehend Aidid. Also in September, the Clinton administration rejected requests for armed reinforcements and began secret planning to negotiate with Aidid.
The path out of Mogadishu has not been smooth. Shortly after the attack, President Clinton ordered the remaining U.S. Ranger troops to leave Somalia on the grounds that the mission had changed from a military one to a diplomatic one (seeking a political settlement to the ongoing civil war). Additional U.S. troops were sent to Somalia in order to prevent greater violence, but they were restricted to defensive operations. March 1994 was set as the withdrawal date for all U.S. forces. All remaining UN forces left in 1995. However, in 2016, fifty U.S. troops returned to Somalia to help fight terrorism.
Applying the Lesson
- What should be the lesson of Mogadishu for U.S. foreign policy?
- Can future Mogadishu’s be prevented? How?
- 3. Who holds primary responsibility for dealing with domestic unrest and civil wars in Africa, and why?
Becoming disengaged means that the United States will have to learn to live in a “second-best world,” one that is not totally to its liking but one in which it can “get by.” Allies will be fewer in number, and those that remain will have to do more to protect their own security and economic well-being. Nonintervention will be the rule for the United States, and self-reliance will be the watchword for others. The United States must be prepared to “let” some states be dominated and to direct its efforts at placing space between the falling dominoes rather than trying to define a line of containment. In the realm of economics, while supporting free trade, the objective should be to move toward autarchy and self-sufficiency so that other states cannot manipulate or threaten the United States. If the United States cannot dominate the sources of supply, it must be prepared to “substitute, tide over, [and] ride out” efforts at resource manipulation.26 World order concerns must also take a backseat in U.S. foreign policy. As George Kennan has said about the food-population problem, “We did not create it and it is beyond our power to solve it.”27 Kennan argues that the United States needs to divest itself of its guilt complex and accept the fact that there is really very little that it can do for the Third World and very little that the Third World can do for the United States. The following summarizes the Disengaged America perspective:
- The major threat to U.S. national security comes from an overactive foreign policy. Events beyond U.S. borders are not as crucial to U.S. security as is commonly perceived; moreover, the United States has little power to influence their outcome.
- The United States’ responsibility to other states is minimal. The primary responsibility of the United States is to its own economic and military security.
- The United States’ responsibility to the global community is also minimal. The issues on the global agenda, especially as they relate to the Third World, are not the fault of the United States, and the United States can do little to solve them.
From the Disengaged America perspective, traditional principles of defense planning are largely irrelevant.28 Military power should no 365longer be employed to further human rights or economic principles beyond American borders. Rather than pursuing military goals, American foreign policy must concentrate on protecting American lives and property, the territorial integrity of the United States, and the autonomy of its political system. Consistent with these priorities, American military power should only be used for three purposes: (1) to defend the approaches to U.S. territory, (2) to serve as second-chance forces if deterrence fails or unexpected threats arise, and (3) to provide finite essential deterrence against attacks on the United States and its forces overseas.
The Disengaged America perspective has few qualms about the need to defend American interests or take action unilaterally and forcefully in doing so. Preemption as a means for dealing with terrorists is not a repugnant strategy. The primary concern is that the War on Terrorism has as its objective not simply the defeat of the enemy, but its transformation. In the words of Pat Buchanan, an assistant and special consultant to Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, the purpose of American foreign policy is “America First—and Second, and Third.” Some twenty-five years later, Buchanan reiterated this theme, writing, “This is not isolationism. It is putting our country first . . . It used to be called patriotism.”29
Over the Horizon: The U.S.–China Relationship
China has become the central reference point for discussing the present and future direction of U.S. foreign policy. In 2019, General Mark Milley (who would soon become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) told Congress that China may be the primary threat to the U.S. military for a century.30 In the Council of Foreign Relations’ annual Preventive Priorities Survey, a 2019 poll of five hundred scholars and practitioners ranked thirty challenges to U.S. interests. Five scenarios were identified as being of high impact and moderate likelihood and placed in Tier 1. One involved an armed confrontation in the South China Sea between China and its neighbors. Another, a China-Taiwan conflict, was placed in Tier 2.31
Identifying the ways in which China presents a challenge to the U.S. is only the starting point for thinking about U.S.–China relations over the horizon. It is also necessary to anticipate the extent to which cooperation or conflict will dominate that relationship.32 The two end points of the debate on this question are engagement and confrontation. Engagement is a strategy based on the potential for cooperation, promoting democracy, and creating a free market economy in China. It is identified with U.S. foreign policy dating back to 1972, when President Richard Nixon made his surprise visit to China. Advocates of confrontation argue that engagement failed. From their perspective, China is a revisionist state and strategic challenger with policies targeted toward significant reduction in U.S. global power.33 Defenders of engagement argue that it did not fail but was misrepresented, and that, in many ways, 366it is just as much of a gamble to rely on a strong U.S. military to end this challenge.34
Between these two perspectives are images of U.S.–China relations built around the idea of limited competition. China is seen not as a state interested in remaking the international system but as a competitor seeking to gain influence in and increased benefits from it. Some describe this middle ground as coevolution, benign competition, or a view of China as a junior superpower.35 Still others see that a triangular strategic partnership among China, Russia, and the United States will become the cornerstone of global stability.36
Numerous starting points exist for thinking about which of these pathways will best come to characterize U.S.–China relations in the future. Each of the following four possibilities draws upon themes developed throughout American Foreign Policy: Past, Present, and Future:
Organize the development of policy options around the fundamental forces that drive international relations. Possibilities range from casting these relations as a clash of civilizations representing alternative and competing value systems to focusing on economic, political, military, and geographic forces that drive the foreign policies of states.37 One danger highlighted by this starting point is the Thucydides Trap, named for the ancient Greek historian who studied the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. He observed that the war was made inevitable by the fear that Athens’ rise in power instilled in Sparta.38
- View U.S.–China relations as the coming of a new Cold War. If this is true, the logical starting point for U.S. foreign policy is to replicate the policy of containment practiced during the Cold War. Those who reject this starting point argue that China and the Soviet Union are not alike, the military challenges they present differ, their level of economic interaction is much higher, and the American society supporting containment no longer exists. 39
- Focus the development of policy options and challenges on how the United States and China view world politics. An often-cited obstacle to cooperation is the American sense of exceptionalism(see chapter 3 ), according to which the United States sees itself either as the indefensible state or the aggrieved and exploited state. Both versions place other states in a subordinate position. Similarly, many see reestablishing China’s leadership role in world affairs as a driving force in its foreign policy.
- Focus on how the United States and China approach solving foreign policy problems. In the case of the United States, the emphasis is on immediate problem solving, in which a solution is identified and put into place with the expectation that success will soon follow. China, on the other hand, is defined by many observers as having a long-term perspective. Incremental gains and the avoidance of direct conflict are seen as underlying their development of policies.40
These starting points for thinking about future U.S.–China relations are not mutually exclusive. More than one may be of importance, but their influences will vary depending on the time, place, and nature of the foreign policy problem. The challenge is to identify how they interact and what policies they support.
Critical Thinking Questions
- In selecting a foreign policy for the future, which of the three questions we ask is most important, and why?
- Identify one foreign policy option that is missing and needs to be added to the list. Why is it needed?
- What power resources are most needed by the United States in facing the future, and why?
Key Terms
- America the Balancer, 360
- American Crusader, 359
- Disengaged America, 362
- empire, 357
- falling dominoes, 364
- hedging strategy, 361
- Ordinary State, 356
- Pragmatic America, 358
- Reformed America, 357
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Further Reading
Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry, “Unraveling America the Great,” The American Interest 11 (Summer 2016), 7–17.
The authors call for a renewal of the Rooseveltian (FDR) foundations of success and influence in the world. They express deep concern over the growing influence of radical conservative anti-internationalism.
Jacob Helibrunn, “Trump Transformed,” National Interest 161 (March 2019), 5–9.
This article raises the following question: “Does the Trump presidency mark the end of an era or is it a passing moment?” The author notes that Trump’s willingness to change policy is not matched by his ability to do so.
Robert Kagan, “The Allure of Normalcy,” The New Republic (June 9, 2014), 14–31.
The author calls for the United States to reject a return to the normalcy that guided foreign policy in the post–World War I era. He argues that it must adopt a definition of the national interest which recognizes the need to defend the global liberal international order.
Michael Lind, “The Case for American Nationalism,” The National Interest 131 (May 2014), 9–20.
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The author of this article calls for a foreign policy of primacy rather than one of hegemony. To this end, he favors an offshore balancing or concert balancing strategy and supports the call for the United States to become a normal country in world politics.
Joseph Nye, Is the American Century Over? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015).
This book argues that the American century is far from over, because its military, economic, and soft power resources will continue to far exceed those possessed by its closest rivals for several decades.
David Shlapak, “Toward a More Modest American Strategy,” Survival 57 (April 2015), 59–78.
The author argues that the United States needs to place limits on its global ambitions. He identifies five challenges that should drive force planning, all of which focus on defeating an adversary’s attempt to project power and not on internal Pentagon politics.
Fareed Zakaria, “The Self Destruction of American Power,” Foreign Affairs, 98 (July 2019), 10–16.
Zakaria argues that the United States has squandered the unipolar moment, a problem accentuated by Trump’s presidency. He asks if the United States will now witness the decline of the empire of ideas that now dominate international politics.