OP-ED: A look back at U.S. foreign policy
Editor’s note: This is the first of four parts.
American foreign policy after World War II was dominated by the Cold War, which was seen as an existential battle with the Soviet Union. The United States created the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and keep it from going communist, which was one of America’s greatest achievements; in stark contrast to WWI, when the victors extracted onerous reparations from the Germans, which helped create the conditions for the rise of Hitler, the Marshall Plan helped the Germans (as well as other European nations) recover from the devastation of the war. While the U.S. offered assistance to the Soviets, the Soviets didn’t want the U.S. to dominate post-war Europe, so they declined (and convinced their client states to decline also). Fearing Soviet expansion, President Truman adopted a policy of containment, which meant a worldwide effort to oppose Soviet expansion wherever it appeared.
The Cold War dominated American foreign policy until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (which led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union). During the Cold War there was an adage in the U.S. that politics stop at the border, with the idea that while the political parties could disparage each other domestically, in foreign policy, the U.S. needed to present a united front. While there were some exceptions (opposition to the Vietnam War, e.g.), that largely defined U.S. foreign policy during that period.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. dominated the unipolar world. There was supposed to be a “peace dividend” created by reduced defense spending since we were no longer threatened by the Soviets, though that disappeared with the attack on 9/11. During the Cold War the U.S. set up a series of bases around the world (eventually numbering more than 700) that would allow us to respond rapidly to any threat. While the Soviet threat was gone, new threats presented themselves.
President George H.W. Bush responded to Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait over an oil dispute by organizing a “coalition of the willing” to turn him back. This successful military effort (against what was the fourth largest army in the world at the time) demonstrated U.S. military might. This was the end of the “Vietnam Syndrome,” where the U.S. feared to exert itself militarily because of the devastating loss in Vietnam.
During Bill Clinton’s presidency, Madeline Albright, his Secretary of State, frustrated with Colin Powell’s reticence to use the military unless he could see the end game (a lesson he learned from Vietnam), asked Powell, “What’s the point of having this superb military if we can’t use it?” Albright argued that the U.S. was the “indispensable nation” and had an obligation to step in and right the major wrongs in the world where we could. During the Clinton years, the U.S. (as part of NATO) intervened successfully in Bosnia, had a disastrous experience in Somalia when militias shot down a Black Hawk helicopter leading to an urban gun battle in the streets of Mogadishu (and the loss of 18 American soldiers).
The U.S. responded to the Al Qaeda attack on 9/11 by deposing the Taliban regime (because Al Qaeda had training camps there) in 2001, and then invading Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein (though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11). While the Bush Administration justified the attack on Iraq as being integral to the War on Terror, this was a war of choice pushed for by the neoconservatives in the administration who wanted to remake Iraq as a capitalist democracy that would be a model for the Middle East. Years of failure in both Iraq and Afghanistan led to people’s frustration with “forever wars” and were one of the factors contributing to Donald Trump’s political success, as he vowed to put “America First.”
The original America First movement began with the isolationists of the 1930s (the America First Committee was formed in 1940 to prevent the US entering WWII). The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (along with Adolph Hitler’s declaration of war against the U.S.) ended isolationism as a viable foreign policy in the 1940s.
The post-war Liberal World Order was based on global cooperation, open trade, democracy, human rights and the rule of law, and was upheld by U.S. military and economic strength. During the Cold War, the U.S. supported this system in opposition to the Soviet-led system based on political oppression and state planned economies. After the collapse of the USSR, the U.S. was the lone superpower and assumed the responsibility to manage global affairs. The U.S. retained the system of bases created during the Cold War because they allowed the U.S. to respond quickly with an impressive amount of force almost anywhere in the world.
American political and foreign policy elites do like to be able to control worldwide events, at the very least making the world safe for American business interests and to expand trade (while the more ambitious want to remake the world in the U.S. image). Traditionally, the internationalist wing of the Republican Party (people like George H.W. Bush) favored this scenario where the U.S. was the benevolent hegemon. All but the most left-leaning Democrats went along with this because the system was based on American prosperity and power, which were politically popular. During the 1980s Democrats often opposed Reagan’s defense buildup, but his popularity made most Democrats think this opposition was a losing strategy (opening them up to being “soft” or “unpatriotic”).
But American dominance comes at a cost. The U.S. spends more on its military than the next nine nations combined (and at least six of those are allies). Unrestricted free trade has cost some Americans their jobs. President Trump has challenged this bipartisan consensus, and rightly so. Because Americans spend so much on the military, other developed countries, such as Japan and those in the European Union, don’t have to.
Should America continue in its role as the guarantor of world peace? Is the benefit of being in charge worth the cost? Many believe that’s no longer true.
Kent James, of East Washington, has a doctorate in history and policy from Carnegie Mellon University.