Fact or Fiction? The ENGL 137H & 138T Blogging Experience

This week, I’d like to return back to my previous CI post titled National Security Strategy (To view that initial post, click here).  In it, I stated “national security should not be portrayed as the only component of foreign policy…societal progress (increases in well-being, the state of the economy, life expectancies, etc.) will eventually come to a halt if we consistently place an emphasis on our own best interests instead of the best interests of the human race.”

After giving it some more thought, I realize it is more difficult than I initially assumed for a government to separate their own best interests from the best interests of the human race.  If a nation believes a decision or plan of action is beneficial, it is only logical for them to think that if other nations followed in their footsteps, it would be good for the world as a whole; that the human race would be better off.  This leads me to ask a few questions that I’m sure could be debated endlessly and still not arrive at a satisfying conclusion:

Who gets to decide what is “best” for all of humanity?  How can you measure what makes one outcome “better” than any other, when there is such a vast array of conflicting cultures in existence?

To expand even further:  When acting in the best interest of the human race, are we searching for peace?  Or are we searching for a global elimination of poverty, or preventable illness?  When a nation acts in their own best interest, are they looking for the same things?  Or are they looking to maximize their power in respect to other nations?  How can we distinguish between the two motives?

From the research I’ve done, it seems impossible (it should be noted, however, that I’ve done very limited research). For example, some argue that the United States entered the War in Iraq in 2003 due to claims that Iraq harbored weapons of mass destruction, among other things.  By going to war and making sure that Iraq did not possess WMDs, was the US looking to protect its own territory, or were they looking out for the good of humanity?  One could argue either way, but that fact that an argument does exist makes my point; in most cases the line between domestic and humanitarian foreign policy motives is so blurred, it’s nearly impossible to distinguish one from the other.

Because these motives are not easily separated, the “goodness” of a plan of action or decision that acts in the best interest of the human race cannot be easily stated or measured.  Though the human race needs the same things to survive (food, water, shelter), what makes people happy varies across cultures, so what is best for one nation might not be best for another.  That being said, it is unlikely that any one nation could decide what is in the best interest of humanity without angering another nation, and since there is no form of international law/policy enforcement, the angered nation would not have to comply, defeating the purpose of an overall decision maker.

In this post, I’ve asked a lot of questions and provided no answers, but my thinking on this topic has become so cyclical (as I’m sure it has for others as well), that I’m having trouble reaching any sort of conclusion.  Thoughts?

For this post, I initially planned on discussing current US Foreign Policy.  However, as I got further into my research, I noticed that the phrase “foreign policy” is almost always followed by or connected back to the phrase “national security,” and became more interested in the frequency of this occurrence.  Why are these two phrases so closely aligned?

If you visit the division of the White House’s webpage titled “Foreign Policy,” the first sentence reads as such:

“President Obama has pursued national security policies that keep the American people safe, while turning the page on a decade of war and restoring American leadership abroad.”

From the start the two terms are coupled, and some may argue that they are even presented as equals.  National security is presented as THE business of foreign policy, not as a smaller subdivision or an essential component.  This idea is reinforced as you scroll down the page, where it links you to the National Security Strategy (NSS) issued in 2010 by the Obama Administration.  This type of document is “intended to be a comprehensive statement articulating the worldwide interests, goals, and objectives of the United States that are important to its security,” (nssarchive.us) and each president that has held office since 1986 has issued at least one version of an NSS.  Typically, these reports represent the strategic national security aims of the Executive branch and serve the purpose of expressing those goals to Congressional leaders, foreign constituents, and domestic voters.  An effective NSS can build a strong base for foreign policy debate and action, all of which is based around the best interests of the United States.

I fear that the emphasis our leadership places on national security as the only relevant facet of foreign policy can only do more harm than good.  That’s not to say I don’t value that emphasis – for in order to survive, a state must be concerned with its security both domestically and abroad.  However, I believe that in the current age of globalization, national security should not be portrayed as the only component of foreign policy.  Yes, we must first be secure to survive, but we need to escape this “national security” rut to thrive on an international level.  Societal progress (increases in well-being, the state of the economy, life expectancies, etc.) will eventually come to a halt if we consistently place an emphasis on our own best interests instead of the best interests of the human race.

There is a section of the 2012 NSS labeled “Prosperity,” and though it focuses mostly on ways to improve the US economy specifically, there is a brief paragraph that highlights the importance of global cooperation:

“To allow each American to pursue the opportunity upon which our prosperity depends, we must build a stronger foundation for economic growth. […]This new foundation must underpin and sustain an international economic system that is critical to both our prosperity and to the peace and security of the world. We must reinvigorate and fortify it for the 21st century: by preventing cycles of boom and bust with new rules of the road at home and abroad; by saving more and spending less; by resisting protectionism and promoting trade that is free and fair; by coordinating our actions with other countries, and reforming international institutions to give emerging economies a greater voice and greater responsibility; and by supporting development that promotes good governance, unleashes the potential of different populations, and creates new markets overseas.” (29)

While this notion of international cooperation appears as part of the NSS due to its potential to improve the US economy, I think it shows that the country has the potential to stray from national security as the driving factor behind foreign policy.  The economy of the United States does not exist as a single entity; it is an integral part of the global economy.  We do not produce all of our goods domestically, and it’s better that we don’t – trade and specialization allows for lower prices, increased product variety, higher overall consumer well being, etc. – and for this reason the state of our economy is inherently tied to the state of the global economy.  When the global economy begins to fail, ours shall follow suit, so the 2010 NSS points out that we must help the economies of other players (both current and up-and-coming) on the global stage succeed if we want to do the same.  This idea still ultimately looks out for the best interests of the US, but it also puts the concerns of other states on a higher pedestal than they once were.  This is a step in the right direction foreign policy-wise, due to the fact that we no longer only think of ourselves, but of others.

An additional section of the NSS (pages 37-39, “Promote Democracy and Human Rights Abroad) also addresses the importance of assisting nondemocratic or developing states in improving the well being of their people, though it is brief in comparison to the content regarding US National Security.  If you’d like to take a look, I linked to the 2010 NSS earlier in this post.

During the Cold War, the terms “foreign policy” and “national security” were linked out of necessity, however, once that period of time ended, the terms were linked out of habit.  As our world becomes globalized and the lives of populations on different sides of the planet become intertwined (politically, socially, and economically), we need to shift our foreign policy focus away from national security and towards international cooperation, among other things.

In 1985, noted political scientist J. David Singer published an article in International Studies Quarterly titled “The Responsibilities of Competence in the Global Village.”  In this work, he makes many arguments regarding the state of international politics and of those who are deeply involved in its practice, research, and instruction, and I found one of his remarks to be exceptionally interesting:

“While we have a moderately solid basis for doubting the efficacy of sustained military buildup as an instrument of national security, we have considerably less evidence on the relative efficacy of alternative instruments or substitute strategies.”

This statement was especially accurate at the time of its conception during the Cold War era, as officials realized peace between nations could no longer be achieved by war – due to the existence of nuclear weapons and the concept of mutually assured destruction – yet they did not know how else to ensure the protected welfare of their state and its values without using force.  As a result, officials turned to international diplomacy as a makeshift solution and the period of Cold War uncertainty slowly fizzled out.

This example illustrates how historically, international relations has a tendency to come about out of a necessity to survive rather than a desire for coexistence, though I find that this notion is still applicable to the current state of global affairs.  The human race has practiced the art of war since the beginning of time, so this is where our experience lies.  When war no longer became an option for the major players on the global stage due to the existence of nuclear weapons, we (the human race) turned to the less practiced methodology of diplomacy to protect what we thought valuable.

Singer makes the argument that “we [society] do not know very much about the dynamics of world affairs…just as an athletic team will be quite unsuccessful if its coaches are ignorant of the principles of the sport…foreign policy elites will have an abysmal track record if the regularities-and exceptions-of global politics are relatively unknown,” and I agree.  Though international diplomacy is not a new concept, most nations’ dependence on the practice increased substantially during the nuclear and post-nuclear era.  Up until that those eras, diplomacy was a secondary tactic; we didn’t have to be good at international relations because there was always the war option to fall back on when we failed.

To see an illustration of this notion, one must look no further than the year preceding the start of World War II.  Adolf Hitler had, up until this point, been building up an army of massive proportions and looked to be in pursuit of substantial amounts of territory.  In order to put an end to his conquest, top officials from France and the UK devised what is known today as the Munich Agreement in 1938.  Signed into action by Benito Mussolini of Italy, French Premier Edouard Daladier, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and Adolf Hitler himself, the agreement gave Hitler ownership of Czechoslovakia as long as he vowed to advance no further in his pursuit of power.

Though it was attempted, international diplomacy and cooperation was not achieved by this agreement.  Hitler violated its terms, and the start of World War II followed shortly after.  The leaders of the involved nations tried to find a solution to the problem that did not require violence, and when they could not make that solution work, they resorted to war.  I am not saying that war was not the right option, but trying to make a point about how inexperienced we are as a human race when it comes to politics on a global scale.  Until the coming about of weapons of mass destruction, we did not have to learn from our mistakes we made in international negotiations because there was always war to fall back on.  Today, that is not the case.

The current state of global politics is one, as Singer puts it, of “indifference, ignorance, and incompetence,” and to an extent, I agree with his judgment.  Most (if not all) nations tend to look out for their own best interests when interacting with others, for in the words of Singer, “too many of us find all too many temptations to ‘go with the flow’ in our nations’ policies…for challenging the conventional wisdom can be costly.”  Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom regarding international relations is lacking, and until those who are deeply involved in the practice, teaching, and studying of world politics find the gall to dispute or improved upon that wisdom, we are unlikely to thrive as a population.

In future civic issue blog posts, I hope to build upon this idea that growth is necessary to thrive on a global scale, and investigate how the United States, specifically, has improved upon their international relations skills, as well as the direction the field is headed in.  I would also like to investigate how the US’s idea of ‘good’ global politics differs from that of other major powers.