Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Traps For US Foreign Policy
Traps For US Foreign Policy
At a time when political campaign events are in full swing with a view to the
November 2024 US presidential elections, forecasts about individuals and
parties are multiplying, both with a view to the highest executive office and with
respect to majorities and minorities in senates and federal and state houses.
Little is written, however, about those domestic issues that will have to be
addressed in one way or another by the future government and, much less,
about how U.S. foreign policy will be articulated for the 2025-2029 period.
It is obvious that in this period, as in any other, the United States will try to
maintain its leadership position in international issues, subjugating supposed
allies, pressuring third parties, launching military actions and imposing
economic sanctions of all kinds against those who have opposing interests. The
questions would be, how they expect to do it, whether they have the real
capacity to achieve it and whether there is an internal consensus on priorities
and agenda.
They are people who have also had the responsibility of trying to defend the
“American vision” in countless public events, inside and outside the United
States, and have been forced to answer questions beyond the “talking points”
they had prepared in their agendas for each case.
There is no established methodology for choosing such sources and any result
would carry a risk of error, but in any case they are relevant, whether or not one
agrees with the rationale they offer. In this exercise, we may be part of the
misconception that U.S. foreign policy is based on deep, coherent and
consensual reasoning, supported by historical data, that observes clear and
inviolable rules. But increasingly, the foreign policy of that country is short-
sighted, accidental, chaotic, poorly implemented, declarative rather than
executive, responds to very specific economic interests and on many occasions
contradicts what has been theoretically considered as the so-called national
interest and has been reflected in that category on programmatic documents.
The first two have alternated their roles under the mantle of Democrats and
Republicans. The experience of the third is not balanced in that regard with a
fourth figure, but he brings a twelve-year view from recent executive positions, a
period in which there is no similar source among the Republican hosts, much
less someone with intellectual thought of some elaboration. It would just be a
distraction to resort to what has been written or said by someone like John
Bolton.
Although from Cuba, as from the rest of the world, the argumentation of his
reasoning differs, it is interesting to review the points of coincidence between
their assessments regarding the main challenges for the United States in its
relations with the world and how to face them in the immediate future.
Paradoxically, all three agree that perhaps the greatest constraint, the main
“enemy” at present, is not external, but is to be found within the United States.
Haass put it most dramatically, breaking with the main theme of focus in his
long career in public service and writing a book on domestic politics, The Bill of
Obligations, which explains that “the main danger to the country, however,
comes not from without but from within, from none other than ourselves. The
question is whether Americans are prepared to do what is required to save
democracy,” the latter term being understood as the set of rules of the political
game to which the majority has no access.
Haass believes that beyond the debate about the rights of each individual, a
conscience must be formed about the obligations of each citizen and defines
the ten that he considers the main ones: be informed, get involved, be willing to
reach agreements, have a civilized behavior, reject violence, give value to the
rules, promote the common good, respect government service, support the
teaching of civic values, put the country first. In other words, a counter-reading
of all the behaviors represented in Trumpism.
Such is the crisis of values within the United States that Haass argues that “our
domestic political situation is not just one that others don’t want to bear
resemblance to (…) it has introduced a degree of unpredictability and
unreliability that is really poisonous (…) it makes it very difficult for our friends to
depend on us.”
For Haass, what differentiates the current situation from any previous one is
that in none of them “there were threats to the system, its fabric”, as there would
be now.
Gates, on the other hand, with a more general staff vision and distant from the
contradictions that manifest themselves in the country’s social base, describes
this risk by saying that “at the very moment when events demand a strong and
coherent response from the United States, the country cannot give one. Its
fractured leadership – Republicans and Democrats, in the White House and
Congress – has failed” including “articulating a longer-term strategy” and
explaining “to all Americans” the external risks. He went on to state that “the
United States finds itself in a particularly treacherous position: facing
adversaries (…) unable to assemble the unity and strength necessary to deter
them (…) the dysfunctionality has made American power erratic and unreliable”.
In the former secretary’s view, the country’s legislators have also failed to
approve the country’s budget, in particular the modalities for military spending
and for not setting limits on social spending. In other words, he would be for
even greater imbalances.
Making clear his concerns for 2024, Gates wrote that “former President Donald
Trump’s disdain for U.S. allies (…) his willingness to question America’s
commitment to its NATO allies, and his generally erratic behavior, undermined
credibility and respect for the U.S. around the world.” On several occasions the
former official links other Trump missteps.
These are three different ways of saying that the U.S. domestic political map is
highly segmented and polarized, that the political class is increasingly distant
from the social base, that public opinion could not support any costly, long-term
military incursion abroad, much less understand approving large expenditures
to support “allies,” as has been done in recent situations with Ukraine and Israel
.
All three authors agree that foreign policy is defined in an entirely new context in
the international arena and, with their differences, refer to the Great Powers
confrontation, which is reflected in the most up-to-date US doctrine on national
security. It is a matter of, firstly, trying to contain the thrust of the People’s
Republic of China on all fronts and of Russia, secondly, basically on the military
level. India is mentioned as a balancing factor that would be playing in favor of
U.S. interests. Europe is a kind of safe rearguard and the so-called Global
South is that area of the world that needs to be taken care of only to weaken
Chinese and Russian advances, not because it is significant within the
international community. Asia and Africa are mentioned a few times, Latin
America and the Caribbean none.
In the confrontation with these other great powers, everything that is done to
prevent China from exercising sovereignty over Taiwan and to avoid a Russian
victory in its military operation in Ukrainian territory would be of the utmost value
to the United States. In the former, the views range from Gates’ position of
preventing “Chinese misinterpretations” through the use of military force, to
Sullivan’s understanding that China and the United States are “highly
interdependent” countries, between which economic issues play a first-order
role.
It is this second view that would seek to transform what Donald Trump and the
free trade practice sectors have termed as economic “de-coupling” from China
into something also impractical but somewhat more realistic called “de-risking,”
avoiding a close economic relationship in those sectors that may constitute a
national security risk.
In relation to what the authors put forward as options for the case of Ukraine,
just a few months after their statements the reality on the ground would indicate
that Russia does not suffer the effect of the sanctions imposed by the USA and
NATO in the way they were designed, that some of them have had a more
decisive and negative effect on areas of the European Union, that Ukraine is
completely dependent on for the constant sending of resources and means,
which cannot be offered in an unlimited way.
In none of the three reflections was stability or peace in the Middle East
mentioned as a priority, nor were there any warnings about risks. Rather, it is a
former area from which it was necessary to start in a disorderly fashion, in order
to devote time and resources to the “new challenges”.
If one starts from the theoretical assumption that it is difficult to accept the
theory that the Israeli special services were unaware all along the line of the
military preparations made by the Palestinian resistance for the events of
October 7, 2023, then only two options remain as to what Tel Aviv may or may
not have communicated to Washington in the previous days.
The Netanyahu government may have shared some of its intelligence findings
with U.S. federal agencies and even the type of response it planned to give, or
there were no alerts, leaving the Biden government with the only option of
unequivocally endorsing Israeli genocide.
There would be at least three additional factors to consider in assessing the
U.S. accompaniment: the extent to which the corporate propaganda apparatus
unreservedly supported the early Israeli actions and the manner in which they
took less enthusiastic positions as Palestinian civilian casualties mounted. The
second has to do with the manner in which military aid packages to the Israeli
military were approved by the White House, without congressional oversight.
Third, within US society, there was a mobilization against Israeli actions that
may have been far greater than the anti-Russian sentiments generated by the
actions in Ukraine.
This critical situation, which is still in full swing and has the potential to escalate,
will undoubtedly have to be added to the scenarios to be constructed for
possible U.S. foreign action in the period 2025-2029. It seems that the
strategists mentioned in this text did not include in their predictions the possible
action of insubordinate allies with their own agendas.
In their visions of the future, the three authors also share certain coincidences.
Gates states that “in the best of all worlds – one in which the U.S. government
has public support, energetic leaders and a coherent strategy – these
adversaries (China and Russia) will pose a formidable challenge. But the
domestic scene today is far from orderly: the American public is inward-looking;
Congress has descended into back-and-forth, and successive presidents have
neglected or done a poor job of explaining America’s global role (…) The
danger is real.”
For Sullivan, who writes from the logic that Biden’s policies have been correct
and that, therefore, he should be reelected, there are still several objectives that
have not been achieved. Thus he states: “The United States is now at the
beginning of a third era: one in which it is adjusting to a new period of
competition in an era of interdependence and transnational challenges (…) The
outcome of this phase will not be determined solely by external forces. It will
also, to a large extent, be decided by America’s own choices”.
The way Haass referred to the same problem was by saying, “we are not where
we need to be and we are not on the trajectory we should be on (…) our ability
to play a role in the world and our ability to do so effectively depends on
something we take for granted, essentially a functioning democracy. Well, we
no longer have that luxury. We can’t take it for granted (…) I never thought I
would say something like that.”
If you take into account that the Republican Party in practical terms does not
exist, as a political entity with some command level structure, in the way it was
known for the last hundred years. If it is known that the Democratic Party for its
part has delayed a transition of leadership, due to the inability of certain internal
chieftains to make room for younger sectors, which migrate more to the left of
the spectrum.
Add to this the fact that no plausible explanation has yet been articulated for the
fact that the United States had the highest per capita COVID19 casualties
among developed and even less developed countries; that homelessness
exceeds half a million, with the highest total in the last decade; that more than
100,000 individuals died in the last 12 months from fentanyl overdoses alone
(excluding other drugs); that more than 40,000 individuals in 2023 will die from
fentanyl overdoses alone; that 40,000 individuals in 2023 will die from fentanyl
overdoses alone (excluding other drugs); and that the United States will have
the highest per capita number of homelessness deaths in the last 12 months;
that 40,000 individuals in 2023 were victims of gun violence and that of the 3.2
million deaths per year at least half are due to preventable diseases; with all this
it will be understood that Americans as a constituency have strong reasons to
call for attention to be paid inward, rather than outward. Countless statistics are
available on imbalances in access to wealth, income levels and savings in
banks.
The 2020 presidential election “cost” $14 billion in contributions from large and
small donors.
One hundred individuals in that country contributed to these funds with totals
ranging from $178 million to $3.2 million. A total of 2,476 political action
committees of very specific interests raised $2.7 billion for the same purpose.
All of these collectively are the ones placing the bets and picking the winning
rider.
For now, the names most often heard are Trump and Biden, but for those who
actually decide the options are much more open, commensurate with the
diversity of problems facing the country. Behind the curtain, one can hear the
ticking of a probable new financial crisis, 2008-style, which could be about to
repeat itself. The unforeseen evolution of a regional military conflict, which could
take on international proportions, underlies several points of the planet.
Never before in recent U.S. history has the potential for a definitive breakdown
of the rules by which the ruling classes have shared power been greater. The
clear trend, political formations aside, is toward greater authoritarianism and
less inclusiveness.
https://resumen-english.org/2024/01/traps-for-u-s-foreign-policy-in-the-period-
of-2025-2029/#more-25634