America’s Foreign Policy

The United States as a World Superpower

The United States of America is considered to have been through a lot and always come out on top. Victories in eras such as WWII and the Cold War, when the US faced real foes, established the US as the supreme world superpower. Being a superpower has come with a lot of duties for Americans. The end of the Cold War was expected to relieve most of the pressures on the United States. This never happened because as soon as the war ended, new challenges arose. Some of the issues came from several quarters ranging from the environment to disgruntled groups who were not happy with the American order. This led to formation of terror groups which challenged what America stands for – democracy. United States has a number of challenges facing it which directly threaten the American Grand Strategy.

Isolation and Adventurism

These challenges are likely to cause isolation. Going by the current trend in the US politics where the new president has promised to put American interests first, isolation seems to be a thing waiting to happen. As isolation waits to happen, adventurism is a thing that seems to have already occurred. The dropping of the MOAB bomb for the first time in Afghanistan says a lot about the adventurism in American politics. Also the tensions resulting from the nuclear threat by North Korea and the US vice president visiting the demilitarized zone of the Korean border speaks a lot about the American adventurism in its foreign policy. The future of US foreign policy looks like an interesting one given the latest developments. Let us have a look at the challenges that US currently faces.

The Rise of China and Disagreements in the South China Sea

The rise of China and the disagreements over territory in the South China Sea

China is a country with fastest growing economies. The boom in economy have however been blamed on China’s unethical business practices with some quarters blaming it for currency manipulation to portray a country with economic boom. This rise of China is a direct challenge to the US especially in the world balance of power. China has in the recent past paid a lot of attention in having influence over states that originally paid allegiance to the US. China has paid particular attention in African nations where it has pumped a lot of money into winning their support. This rise means that it has directly challenged American interests.

Disagreements over territory in the South China Sea where US allies such as the Philippines continue being threatened by the Chinese claim that the islands in contention belongs to them. Such disagreements have led to both super powers sending war ships to the region to exert their presence. The presence of warships from both nations has increased tensions in the area. The area is said to be so tense that a mistake by either of the sides could result to a major international conflict. This particular issue is very important to the American foreign issue in that the islands in question are the Centre of naval routes and air ways which the US heavily relies to access the Middle East (Peter 2011).

Proposed Solution to the Disagreements

Certainly armed confrontation is not the option to solve the disagreement. As much as the US says that it does not involve itself in matters touching territorial conflicts, it actions say otherwise. The most suitable solution to this is that relevant bodies such as the UN be left to handle the conflict. The international law that gives directions on how to solve such conflicts has to be followed.

The downside of this approach or the governmental pressure associated with this move is that the US government could end up on the losing end. This will come about should the tribunal set to solve the conflict decide otherwise. The actors of American foreign policy who are likely to go against this move is the media who might come up with the narrative that the US was losing influence in the Middle East. The other group who might go against this recommendation is the collective security organizations such as NATO who may believe that they can exert their strength through an armed confrontation and have their wishes passed.

The Use of Drones

The use of drones

USA has the most advanced military in the world. The technology that its military uses is evolutionary in nature. The US military became the first country to use drones in combat. It used drones in Afghanistan in the fight against the Al Qaeda extremists. Drones became an issue in American foreign policy when the drone use came with a lot of controversies because many people including human rights activists doubted the accuracy of the drones hitting their targets. In fact, most of the bombings that hit civilians were all attributed to drones. Most people have even questioned whether it is legal to use drones in war. The international law on wars however states that as long as the weapon does not target innocent civilians then it is legal to be used. The drones are however important to the American foreign policy. This is because in the America’s effort to ensure that the world is more secure no American soldier dies in the field. Using drones has an economic value since it has been proven that using drones is cheaper compared to using the conventional warplanes. The drone use also ensures that America utilizes the technology at their disposal to their own benefit (Hastedt and Glenn 2017).

Solution to the Conflict about the Use of Drones

The only problem that people who are against drones have is that most drone attacks will lead to the loss of innocent civilian lives. The solution therefore lies in convincing these groups that the drone attacks are more accurate and that it only hits carefully selected targets.

The media as actors in American foreign policy would play a very critical role in ensuring that the public are in support of drones. Although humanitarian INGOs such as the aid organizations may want more, the media will have to play an aggressive leading role in ensuring that people actually believe that drones will not cause civilian deaths.

Environmental Scarcity and Its Impact on American Grand Strategy

Environmental scarcity and its impact on American Grand Strategy

With the growing population and the diminishing natural resources environmental scarcity suddenly became a challenge to USA and the world at large. America is substantially blessed with natural resources such as water and soil. It usually tops her domestic production with resources from other nations. This is to ensure that the American people have enough resource for their industries and domestic use.

The US has in the past been blamed for invading resource-rich nations for natural resources in the name of liberating the people. One of the pillars in the American Grand Strategy is homeland security, this includes economic security. When there is environmental scarcity it means people will be spending more to get access to the basic resources such as food or water. This weakens their economic strength for less will be left to be spend on individual development. What has occurred in the US is arguably a case of resource capture form of environmental scarcity (Wenche, and Tanja n.d). This leads to powerful individuals taking over things such as arable land such that they have full control of production hence the supply and thereafter prices.

Solutions to Environmental Scarcity

To solve this challenge the government has to put measures that ensures that the channel of production is well managed. This will ensure that there is minimal or no wastage of the natural resource.

Such a move will very unlikely receive any backlash from the other actors of foreign policy because it is for the general good of the people. The solution will in fact gain support from both state and non-state actors.

Promoting World Peace

Promoting world peace

This is one of the American challenges which also happen to be its foreign policy. The US resolved to ensure that the world becomes as peaceful as possible (Michael). To do this it has to impose some measures such as regulating access to nuclear weapons. It also maintains peace by imposing sanctions on non-cooperative countries or leaders such that they surrender power to the people. The US for a long time has been fighting wars. The US for instance invaded Iraq looking for nuclear weapons and in the process removed Saddam Hussein from power hence returning power to the people. World peace is good for America and the world at large since a lot can done where there is peace. With world peace there is economic boom, money that would rather be spent on buying and developing military weapons would be redirected to other activities such as developing industries and improving health (Cox, Michael, and Stokes 2012).

Solution to this Challenge

There is always two ways to bring and maintain peace; war or peaceful negation. The US have been coined to be good when it comes to the armed conflict. The latter should however be given a chance, in conflicts where the parties are willing to negotiate. In places where negotiation seems farfetched USA can use an armed confrontation to bring peace. It happened in Libya, it is happening in Syria and it was successful in Afghanistan. This approach may not always be successful in bringing peace because there are countries that have engaged in armed confrontation in an effort to bring peace but have ended up in even worse condition.

Implementing this suggestion to bring peace through an armed approach could receive a huge backlash from the actors of American foreign policy. This is especially from the media, economic blocs and humanitarian INGOs. Economic blocs could argue that war is not good for doing business or that war is costly. Humanitarian INGOs could argue that innocent wars can cost innocent lives. The people is another important actor of foreign policy. The people/ citizens can choose to oppose the government’s decision to go to war. This happened in the Iraq war where it became so unpopular with the people that it urged the government to withdraw its forces.

Conclusion

America has to do a lot of balancing acts to ensure that all the decisions that they make will be to the national interest and world interest. The actors of foreign policy have to be sensible in their support or opposition against the decisions that the government wishes to carry on. Issues such as countries allowed to handle nuclear weapons should be handled with care. The same level of caution should be extended to conflicts touching the superpowers since a mistake could result to a major conflict.

Works cited

Hauge, Wenche, and Tanja Ellingsen. “Beyond environmental scarcity: Causal pathways to conflict.” Journal of Peace Research 35.3 (1998): 299-317.

Hastedt, Glenn P. American Foreign Policy: Past, Present, and Future. Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.

Dutton, Peter. “Three disputes and three objectives: China and the South China Sea.” Naval War College Review 64.4 (2011): 42.

Cox, Michael, and Doug Stokes. US foreign policy. Oxford University Press, 2012.