Megatrends and American Foreign Policy

I recently posted on global megatrends, pointing out that mankind's physical power and mankind's intellectual power have been increasing rapidly and should continue to do so well into the 21st century. The agenda for the community of nations has also become more ambitious and complex. (Last year I also posted on megatrends, with a more detailed listing.)

Looking back, the first half of the 20th century might be seen as marking the destruction of European hegemony, with the physical destruction of European culture and infrastructure in World War I and World War II, as well as the economic destruction of the Great Depression, not to mention the erosion of European power to maintain global colonial empires. At the end of World War II, North America held unprecedented economic and political power, as the United States and Canada emerged from the war with strong economies while Western Europe, Russia, Japan, and even China had been devistated.

In the decades after World War II, the European Union and Japan restored and expanded their economies, decolonization resulted in an unprecedented spurt of nation building, and the Cold War ended with virtual eradication of Communism as an economic alternative to Capitalism. Perhaps less obvious, the megatrends of increased physical and intellectual power also saw a shift in relative power, as first Europe, and more recently Asia rose in relative economic power; the oil exporting countries have become major financial powers as a result of the increasing global reliance on the natural (oil) resource that they command.

Globalization is a result of these trends and the inherent economics driving the expolitation of comparative advantages. A hub and spokes model has been suggested as describing world networks as they existed shortly after World War II, when the world's economy was dominated by North America. As the physical and intellectual power commanded by other regions of the world increases, those regions are increasingly interacting through trade diplomacy with each other. Increasingly global networks are and will be more net like, as China and India trade with Africa and each other, as Latin America begins to trade with the former Communist nations and Asia, etc. A complex network of intergovernmental organizations, including the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the IMF and other Bretton Woods institutions, and a plethora of others have come to replace the institutions of the colonial empires to enable nations to manage the complexities of a globalized world.

The United States foreign policy is basically about promoting and protecting the welfare of the people of the United States. In some sense, its most important component is domestic economic development. Not only is that economic development critical to the economic welfare of our citizens, but it also provides the economic power on which U.S. influence in international affairs rests.

U.S. foreign policy also depends on our domestic political policy. President Johnson said our most important foreign policy initiative in his term of office was passing the Civil Rights legislation (because that action so contributed to the nation's international prestige). I would say that U.S. leadership in establishing the United Nations, in the Marshall Plan, and in President Carter's emphasis on human rights in foreign policy also had similar impacts. I think people everywhere appreciate the ideal of liberty for all, and have seen the United States as more than usually committed to that ideal not only domestically but internationally.

Increasingly, soft diplomacy will have to complement and indeed replace hard diplomacy as instruments of U.S. foreign policy. As the billions of people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America more fully legitimize their aspirations for a better life, even if the United States is successful in continuing its rapid economic development, its relative economic power will be reduced. As Iraq and Iran show, there are strict limits to what can be achieved through military power. Comparably, the solution of the problems forming the agenda of the community of nations require collaborative efforts by the nations of that community; the United States can at best be the first among equals in a partnership for the solution of those problems; at worst, other nations will demand that we get out of the way as they move to solve the problems.

Soft diplomacy depends strongly on getting our domestic house in order. It is hard to get other nations to respect and follow the leadership of a country that promotes torture, that is moving to curtail the individual liberties of its citizens, that permits an underclass to suffer in perpetuity, that continues to execute its own citizens and has the highest prison population in the world.

Soft diplomacy also depends on a foreign policy that recognizes that other governments must have seats at the table, that other peoples have legitimate aspirations, and that multinational mechanisms are comparably important to bilateral ones. In the last half century, U.S. military spending has come to dominate world military spending, while we have become one of the least generous sources of foreign aid (in comparison with our economic ability to offer such aid.) We continue to focus on trade for our benefit, rather than as an instrument that can also help other peoples to achieve their legitimate aspirations. We no longer say, "give me your tired and hungry," but rather militate to keep out even those immigrants who can most contribute to our domestic economy. We must get our domestic policy in order!

As others have pointed out, it is too bad that the current election campaign does not address these real issues facing the United States, since the president and his administration lead in foreign policy in our system. (Although, it would be great if we could return to a bipartisan foreign policy; but we will do so only if a national debate can bring a bipartisan coalition together over an intellectual agreement on the principles on which that foreign policy would be based.) As we face the complexity and necessary evolution of the 21st century, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Israeli-Palestinian situation are distractions, not core problems, as is (the apparently controlled international terrorist movement).