I'll admit that some of the direction our foreign policy has been going is somewhat troubling. Russia has recalled its ambassador to the U.S. (Russia recalls envoy after Biden remarks about Putin - BBC News), and relations with China also appear to be getting colder these days. (Troubled US-China ties face new test in Alaska meeting (apnews.com))
I've always been rather critical of US foreign policy, along with the mindsets and perceptions which lead to some of the curious things we do. It also appears to be related to the US public generally being perceived as ignorant to world geography and history, so much so that they can be easily led into supporting these policies.
We Americans may need to change our ways of looking at the world, as well as the way we look at ourselves. We think of ourselves as the good guys, the "white knights" going around and saving the world from itself. In contrast, our media and political leadership present an image of the outside world as if to make it appear as some violent, horrible, scary dystopia that only America can fix and save. Many of the leaders of the world are demonized and presented as caricatures or comic book supervillains. Much of the rhetoric is so unrealistic and spread on so thick as to become unbelievable.
What do we want to do in this world anyway? When America was founded, the Founders didn't really have any grandiose visions of "making the world safe for democracy," so what happened to us? In the early days, our leaders may have been just as malignant and atrocious in the mad rush for more land and profit, but at least it was limited to our own immediate vicinity - nowhere near the status of a global empire. It was definitely an "America First" policy in the raw, and we really made no bones about it either. However, since America was still in a developing stage and significantly weaker than the great powers of Europe, we wanted to keep out of European affairs and maintain a more neutral (but mutually profitable) relationship. Meanwhile, the various European powers squabbled with each other, while we could watch from a safe distance.
For a long time, that seemed to work out well from a US point of view. But things started to change as we got bigger and still had a bit of the expansionist greed as a major motivating factor in foreign policy. We thought that Cuba was ripe for the picking, being one of the last remnants of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. (We also formally annexed Hawaii that same year, as we pushed further into the Pacific.) The relatively short Spanish-American War netted us Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Cuba was granted nominal "independence," although they, like many other nations in the region, would fall under the thumb of US business interests backed by the power of the US military, whenever it might have been needed. The Philippines also thought they might become independent, but that was not to be. What we did to the Philippines was not only an atrocity and a crime against humanity, but it was one of the biggest mistakes we made which would lead to a major shift in US foreign policy. Now, we had a foothold in East Asia, which put us on the playing field with other colonial powers in the same region.
For the longest time, America's foreign policy rested on the idea of "no foreign entanglements," but it also included a strong support of "freedom of the seas," as that was vital to American commerce. Some of our earliest military forays (such as the war with the Barbary Pirates, the quasi-war with France, and the War of 1812) made it very clear to the rest of the world that we didn't want anyone messing with our ships on the high seas. The Monroe Doctrine also made it clear that we didn't want any outside powers messing around in our backyard, making us an early version of "NIMBY."
But by the end of the 19th century, our scope had expanded beyond these early considerations. Our relations with Britain were starting to warm and improve, and we began to see eye to eye more and more on how we looked at the world. We were temporary allies during the Boxer Rebellion, along with other colonial powers in the region. We also ostensibly shared similar concerns about Russian expansion in East Asia. We did not have good relations with either China or Russia at this point, and this likely influenced our perceptions of each other in later years. Meanwhile, the Japanese were angry at us over our mediation at the Treaty of Portsmouth where they thought we gave too much to the Russians in settling the Russo-Japanese War. The Germans also seemed to be getting restless and wanting to get their piece of the action as well.
Every nation at the time had its own particular version of nationalist sentiment which influenced their perceptions and policies. American patriotism as we know it today was in its halcyon years. But the First World War presented a dilemma, since we were still committed to the idea of no foreign entanglements. From our point of view, it was just another occasion where European nations squabbled with each other, so why should we bother with that? If they want to fight, let 'em fight. But the Germans were getting too aggressive with their unrestricted submarine warfare, which violated the principle of "freedom of the seas." Plus, they were accused of attempting to incite Mexico into going to war with the United States, which violated the Monroe Doctrine. So, we eventually joined the Allies in declaring war on Germany.
Another major factor in our entry to the war was Wilson's statement that we were "making the world safe for democracy." The Western Allies of Britain and France were considered free and democratic at that point (even despite what they were doing in their colonial empires), while Germany was seen as a militaristic, authoritarian state. But by the time of the US entry, even Russia had overthrown the Tsar and was now ruled by a democratically-elected Duma and Provisional Government (albeit in a very precarious and unstable political situation).
After the war, many might consider that another major blunder was in the US Senate's failure to ratify the US entry into the League of Nations, which we didn't do because we thought it would be a foreign entanglement which we weren't ready to take on. However, we did sign and ratify the Kellogg-Briand Pact, in which we agreed to condemn the practice of aggressive war and wars of conquest. A rather noble, high-minded principle on the part of nations which had built up their empires and acquired great wealth by conquering other nations. Now, they were deciding that conquest and invading other nations was wrong.
Most people might consider that World War 2 was the major turning point in US foreign policy, coupled with the idea that "there was no turning back." We were no longer second-stringers or bit players. We were fully on the playing field, center stage, achieving "superpower" status. This is when everything changed, and modern ideas about US foreign policy were formed - and the same basic framework still exists.
Russia and China were our allies during that war, but it was an uneasy alliance. We didn't like each that much, but we were willing to set aside our differences to fight against the common enemy. Allies of convenience, but at least it was something to try to build some sort of working relationship.
In that sense, the Cold War was real, but our pretexts for engaging in it were fraudulent. That was proven when they fired Patton and MacArthur, but our policymakers apparently wanted to engineer a policy of anti-communist "containment" loosely justified on the idea of "making the world safe for democracy," which Wilson had proclaimed back in WW1. But they couldn't just do it, at least not in the way that Patton and MacArthur might have advocated. After all, we made an earlier pledge to condemn aggressive warfare, so we couldn't just go off and invade like we did in the past. We had to make it look "legitimate" somehow, using proxies and puppets, turning the former colonial world into pawns which were nominally "independent," yet under the thumb of outside powers.
Even setting aside the moral implications of gunboat diplomacy, forcefully exerting hegemony on other nations, interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, and engaging in proxy and/or interventionist wars, I would say that, overall, this policy has had mixed results. It has been prohibitively expensive, too, creating a massive drain on our economy. Whatever gains we might have made come nowhere near offsetting the losses we've incurred. Our standing in the world has diminished greatly when we were at our peak at the end of WW2.
It's really a shame that we couldn't come to terms with our allies, Russia and China, at the end of WW2. The entire course of world affairs could have changed if only we had reached out in friendship. We could have avoided a wasteful and fiscally irresponsible arms race. We could have avoided nuclear brinkmanship and the fear of world-wide destruction. We could have avoided so many hot wars which we got caught up in around the world. It also had noticeable internal effects as well, as Americans became more cynical and jaded. We didn't really learn much about the world in all this time. All we seem to know now is that everyone hates us, and we can't even fathom or understand why.
And true to form, even though communism doesn't seem to be the grave threat it once was, we still have tense relations with both China and Russia at present.
I've always been rather critical of US foreign policy, along with the mindsets and perceptions which lead to some of the curious things we do. It also appears to be related to the US public generally being perceived as ignorant to world geography and history, so much so that they can be easily led into supporting these policies.
We Americans may need to change our ways of looking at the world, as well as the way we look at ourselves. We think of ourselves as the good guys, the "white knights" going around and saving the world from itself. In contrast, our media and political leadership present an image of the outside world as if to make it appear as some violent, horrible, scary dystopia that only America can fix and save. Many of the leaders of the world are demonized and presented as caricatures or comic book supervillains. Much of the rhetoric is so unrealistic and spread on so thick as to become unbelievable.
What do we want to do in this world anyway? When America was founded, the Founders didn't really have any grandiose visions of "making the world safe for democracy," so what happened to us? In the early days, our leaders may have been just as malignant and atrocious in the mad rush for more land and profit, but at least it was limited to our own immediate vicinity - nowhere near the status of a global empire. It was definitely an "America First" policy in the raw, and we really made no bones about it either. However, since America was still in a developing stage and significantly weaker than the great powers of Europe, we wanted to keep out of European affairs and maintain a more neutral (but mutually profitable) relationship. Meanwhile, the various European powers squabbled with each other, while we could watch from a safe distance.
For a long time, that seemed to work out well from a US point of view. But things started to change as we got bigger and still had a bit of the expansionist greed as a major motivating factor in foreign policy. We thought that Cuba was ripe for the picking, being one of the last remnants of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. (We also formally annexed Hawaii that same year, as we pushed further into the Pacific.) The relatively short Spanish-American War netted us Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Cuba was granted nominal "independence," although they, like many other nations in the region, would fall under the thumb of US business interests backed by the power of the US military, whenever it might have been needed. The Philippines also thought they might become independent, but that was not to be. What we did to the Philippines was not only an atrocity and a crime against humanity, but it was one of the biggest mistakes we made which would lead to a major shift in US foreign policy. Now, we had a foothold in East Asia, which put us on the playing field with other colonial powers in the same region.
For the longest time, America's foreign policy rested on the idea of "no foreign entanglements," but it also included a strong support of "freedom of the seas," as that was vital to American commerce. Some of our earliest military forays (such as the war with the Barbary Pirates, the quasi-war with France, and the War of 1812) made it very clear to the rest of the world that we didn't want anyone messing with our ships on the high seas. The Monroe Doctrine also made it clear that we didn't want any outside powers messing around in our backyard, making us an early version of "NIMBY."
But by the end of the 19th century, our scope had expanded beyond these early considerations. Our relations with Britain were starting to warm and improve, and we began to see eye to eye more and more on how we looked at the world. We were temporary allies during the Boxer Rebellion, along with other colonial powers in the region. We also ostensibly shared similar concerns about Russian expansion in East Asia. We did not have good relations with either China or Russia at this point, and this likely influenced our perceptions of each other in later years. Meanwhile, the Japanese were angry at us over our mediation at the Treaty of Portsmouth where they thought we gave too much to the Russians in settling the Russo-Japanese War. The Germans also seemed to be getting restless and wanting to get their piece of the action as well.
Every nation at the time had its own particular version of nationalist sentiment which influenced their perceptions and policies. American patriotism as we know it today was in its halcyon years. But the First World War presented a dilemma, since we were still committed to the idea of no foreign entanglements. From our point of view, it was just another occasion where European nations squabbled with each other, so why should we bother with that? If they want to fight, let 'em fight. But the Germans were getting too aggressive with their unrestricted submarine warfare, which violated the principle of "freedom of the seas." Plus, they were accused of attempting to incite Mexico into going to war with the United States, which violated the Monroe Doctrine. So, we eventually joined the Allies in declaring war on Germany.
Another major factor in our entry to the war was Wilson's statement that we were "making the world safe for democracy." The Western Allies of Britain and France were considered free and democratic at that point (even despite what they were doing in their colonial empires), while Germany was seen as a militaristic, authoritarian state. But by the time of the US entry, even Russia had overthrown the Tsar and was now ruled by a democratically-elected Duma and Provisional Government (albeit in a very precarious and unstable political situation).
After the war, many might consider that another major blunder was in the US Senate's failure to ratify the US entry into the League of Nations, which we didn't do because we thought it would be a foreign entanglement which we weren't ready to take on. However, we did sign and ratify the Kellogg-Briand Pact, in which we agreed to condemn the practice of aggressive war and wars of conquest. A rather noble, high-minded principle on the part of nations which had built up their empires and acquired great wealth by conquering other nations. Now, they were deciding that conquest and invading other nations was wrong.
Most people might consider that World War 2 was the major turning point in US foreign policy, coupled with the idea that "there was no turning back." We were no longer second-stringers or bit players. We were fully on the playing field, center stage, achieving "superpower" status. This is when everything changed, and modern ideas about US foreign policy were formed - and the same basic framework still exists.
Russia and China were our allies during that war, but it was an uneasy alliance. We didn't like each that much, but we were willing to set aside our differences to fight against the common enemy. Allies of convenience, but at least it was something to try to build some sort of working relationship.
In that sense, the Cold War was real, but our pretexts for engaging in it were fraudulent. That was proven when they fired Patton and MacArthur, but our policymakers apparently wanted to engineer a policy of anti-communist "containment" loosely justified on the idea of "making the world safe for democracy," which Wilson had proclaimed back in WW1. But they couldn't just do it, at least not in the way that Patton and MacArthur might have advocated. After all, we made an earlier pledge to condemn aggressive warfare, so we couldn't just go off and invade like we did in the past. We had to make it look "legitimate" somehow, using proxies and puppets, turning the former colonial world into pawns which were nominally "independent," yet under the thumb of outside powers.
Even setting aside the moral implications of gunboat diplomacy, forcefully exerting hegemony on other nations, interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, and engaging in proxy and/or interventionist wars, I would say that, overall, this policy has had mixed results. It has been prohibitively expensive, too, creating a massive drain on our economy. Whatever gains we might have made come nowhere near offsetting the losses we've incurred. Our standing in the world has diminished greatly when we were at our peak at the end of WW2.
It's really a shame that we couldn't come to terms with our allies, Russia and China, at the end of WW2. The entire course of world affairs could have changed if only we had reached out in friendship. We could have avoided a wasteful and fiscally irresponsible arms race. We could have avoided nuclear brinkmanship and the fear of world-wide destruction. We could have avoided so many hot wars which we got caught up in around the world. It also had noticeable internal effects as well, as Americans became more cynical and jaded. We didn't really learn much about the world in all this time. All we seem to know now is that everyone hates us, and we can't even fathom or understand why.
And true to form, even though communism doesn't seem to be the grave threat it once was, we still have tense relations with both China and Russia at present.
