American Foreign Policy is Broken - Peter Munson at War on the Rocks.
The Obama administration’s struggle to respond to the Syrian regime’s almost certain use of chemical weapons is the culmination of over a decade of bankrupt and bungled US foreign policy. The past few days have made it clear that neither the American public nor their counterparts around the world trust the US government to lead the international community through another military conflict. On Saturday, President Obama punted the decision to Congress, which will create a tortured week or more of debate, accusations, and grandstanding in the US. Unfortunately, few are likely to do the soul-searching required to realize just how bad a state American foreign policy is in.
For over a decade, America has bullied and bruised its way through crisis after crisis, leaving behind damaged relationships, broken societies, and discarded international norms. Since 9/11, US foreign policy has been characterized by an overwhelming reliance on military force as the instrument of choice, and by an overbearing and gratingly moralistic unilateralism that has done great damage to global stability, US prestige, and the alliances and relationships that should guard the international order…
Comments
Re: Our foreign policy:
If one country's vision and goals for certain other countries (for example: rapid, radical, comprehensive and complete state and societal transformation) seem dangerous, ridiculous and unrealistic to many other countries/populations,
Then this might lead to this "outlier" state and society (in this case, the United States) having to occasionally act unilaterially and/or via the use of force to achieve certain of its goals and objectives.
Exhaustive efforts at diplomacy and concensus-building (already attempted) offering no hope when the vision and goals of the "exceptional" nation differ so significantly from that of other states and/or societies.
Thus, the outlier/exceptional nation (the United States) would seem to have a choice to make:
a. Remain exceptional and, for example, continue to attempt to rapidly shape the world in its image, and occassionally have to pursue these and other such goals and objectives unilaterally and/or via the use of force. (This continuing to harm, in the eye's of the author of this thread, "global stability, US prestige, and alliances and relationships which guard the international order.")
Or
b. Become -- re: one's more subdued foreign policy vision and goals -- more "common," less ambitious and less radically different from other states and societies and, thereby, become more capable of achieving -- now via diplomacy and concensus-building made easier by joining the "2nd team" -- only those less difficult, less important, less grandiose and, therefore, more realistic goals and objectives.
(Those more important, more difficult and more grand requirements of our nation's foreign affairs being left for another leader, another generation and another day.)
Well, I am dragging heavy fuselage through the 'oficina mexicana' hoy because I was up late watching the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee unclassified hearing on Syria that took place yesterday, featuring SecState Kerry, SecDef Hagel and Chief-of-Staff General Dempsey.
While the transparency was low due to over-classification, that is a systemic problem and not the fault of the present Administration. Nevertheless, I am thrilled for the level transparency we did get to see and to watch our leadership make itself more accountable to the people who hired it.
Three cheers to those three leaders on the hot-seats; to President Obama for taking this issue to Congress; and, to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on both sides of the proverbial aisle, for re-convening as quickly as imaginable to undertake this important public discourse.
God bless you, Peter Munson. I believe only someone from your side of the street (i.e., a strong military background) could say something like this now. One problem that the U.S. has is a large standing military with many, many weapons. That makes the military the last of two options in the policy-maker's mind rather than the last resort among ten in yesteryear.
That is not to say that the U.S. should have too small a military or appease aggressors. It is to say that making our soldiers clean up after civilian policymakers' mistakes is bad enough; its repeated occurrence makes it immoral not only to our soldiers but to the rest of us.
My younger sisters and brothers in uniform are not 'hired help' to clean up the mess of others' folly, thank you very much.
One can always speculate, but some speculations wander into pretty distant realms. "The rest of East Asia falls rapidly"... to whom? "As does the Philippines"... to whom? "New threats on the southern borders"... from whom? And on, and on. One can speculate equally in the other direction, and neither speculation would have much bearing on today's problems.
<blockquote>Yes, credibility, the old siren song of American foreign policy. The same lure of credibility drew us into a losing battle in Vietnam, as it has drawn us into a string of subsequent military adventures, each of which sapped the very credibility policy-makers sought to uphold. The very fact that the US has to go to war so frequently in pursuit of foreign policy ends and in defense of international norms should sound an alarm. When you have no credibility and you lack the patience to build it, you find yourself left with no options but to fight</blockquote>
It's 1950 and the North Koreans invade and we determine it is in our best interest to withdraw. South Korea becomes communist followed more rapidly by South Vietnam when the French make no effort there or the U.S. The rest of east Asia rapidly falls as does Taiwan and the Philippines with Japan threatened. The Straits of Malacca are now under communist control. With so much money having to be diverted to defense of Japan, their economy fails to develop to become at one time number 2 in the world.
Emboldened Soviets move nuclear weapons into Cuba and we do nothing. Communist governments take over in South and Central America and a strategy of massive drug smuggling into the U.S. is a strategy to limit U.S. productivity and reduce high school and university learning. There is no FID campaign in Columbia, El Salvador or anywhere else and Panama is firmly communist with control of the canal charging massive fees to U.S. bound or departing shipping.
The U.S. with new threats on its southern borders determines it must withdraw all armored forces from Europe in the 60s and 70s, instead relying only on its nuclear deterrent. The Soviets invade West Germany conventionally to consolidate East and West Germany since they have no nuclear and an inadequate conventional deterrent to stop them. The U.S. decides it isn't worth the prospect of MAD to try to deploy to Europe to answer the aggression conventionally. France votes in an even more Socialist government and aligns with the Soviets to prevent being invaded themselves. Great Britain remains largely Socialist and Margaret Thatcher is never elected to turn their economy and world-standing around.
We refuse to sell arms to or help Israel and they fall to the Soviet-aided Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in the early 70s and Egypt with Soviet backing closes the Suez to U.S. ships. Oil rises to $3 a gallon by 1975 and Iran overthrows the shah the same year and threatens the Straits of Hormuz which the Saudis are unable to defend. Iraq gets defeated by the Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war and now sits along the Saudi and Turk border. Hezbollah is committing terrorist acts throughout Europe and Turkey, and disrupts oil supplies in Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states. Iran seizes Kuwait instead of Iraq and we did nothing.
With the Soviets in control of so much of Europe and thousands of nuclear weapons still pointed at us from the still powerful USSR, The U.S. and Britain/Holland (what's left of NATO) make no efforts to counter the slaughter of Muslims in the Balkans and hundreds of thousands die leading to increased terrorism in the U.S. and Europe by al Qaeda and Hezbollah. 9/11 comes 10 years earlier as we did not assist Afghanistan against the Soviets and it rapidly falls followed by seizure of Pakistani lands allowing Soviet access to the Indian Ocean. Now the world is 40% communist, the Iranians are rapidly developing their own nuclear weapons along with Saudi Arabia and both are supporting terrorism against western targets. In 2003, a nuclear weapon smuggled into a port in NYC goes off killing 200,000 and plunging the U.S. economy into a depression.
This is an important article that I wish more Americans would read and seek to understand. The military has significant oversight by Congress and the American people, and while it creates it problems we're far better off because of the oversight than we would be without it. The Department of State tends to get a pass on this level of oversight, and subsequently they're not held accountable when they don't act in accordance with American values. People need to understand that more often than not it is our diplomats who walk us into stupid wars, and yet it the military that tends to have the stink attached to it. This will continue to happen unless the American people take a greater interest in our foreign policy and communicate their concerns with their representatives.
Peter wrote, "US diplomacy has been reduced to half-hearted, moralizing lectures to the rest of the world accompanied by the threat of unilateral use of force to police the international order. US officials swear that they value international norms, but they are too impatient to bolster and follow those same norms and institutions when crisis strikes."
Amen, this summarizes our foreign policy perfectly. The only thing I would add is that military options are not the only coercive options employ, they also default to economic sanctions which normally punish innocent people and do little damage to the regime they're trying to coerce. This is an exaggeration, but not my much, our diplomats default to acting like spoiled children when they don't get their way, which may indicate a lack of diplomatic talent to reach consensus. If we're attempting to help create a world order that all participate in to maintain global stability, then we have to abide by the same rules or we're at cross purposes with ourselves.