Foreign Policy

Foreign policy is defined as “a systematic and general plan that guides a country’s attitudes and actions toward the rest of the world. Foreign policy includes all of the economic, military, commercial and diplomatic positions that a nation takes in its relationships with other countries”. The American Constitution does not clearly specify exactly how to split foreign policy between the president and Congress. The President is Commander and Chief and therefore assumes much of the decision-making power when it comes to foreign policy making and members of Congress help shape the president’s decisions and still have the ability to limit the president’s powers. In regards to foreign policy, The Constitution gives the President the power to make treaties with other countries (these need to be approved by ⅔ the senate) and to make executive agreements with other heads of nations with no approval from the senate. Another way the President affects foreign policymaking is that the President is a symbolic head of our government and represents the face of our country to the rest of the world. The Cabinet helps recommend foreign policy decisions however the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense are the only cabinet members that work on foreign policy full time. There are multiple agencies that work with foreign policy such as: The Department of State, The Department of Defence, The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, The Agency for International Development, The Peace Corps, National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency. The Department of State is the government agency that works the most directly with foreign policy and maintains diplomatic relationships with almost two hundred independent nations. A part of the Department of Defence is The Joint Chiefs (chief of staff of the Army, the chief of staff of the Air Force, the chief of naval operations and the commandant of the Marine Corps); the job of The Joint Chiefs is to be key military advisors to the President including military decisions regarding foreign nations. Historically, America’s foreign policy has shifted dramatically in response to attempting to preserve national security. Initially, the founding fathers used isolationism as the foreign political policy. A policy of isolationism meant America avoided political involvement in world affairs in order to preserve American interests. As America began to trade more with a number of Asian countries, it slowly shifted to interventionism. Interventionism is defined as a country being directly involved with the affairs of another country. Once the first World War broke out, the United States tried to shift to a policy of neutrality in order to stay out of the war. However, the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 during World War II forced the United States to abandon their policies of neutrality and isolationism and join the war in order to protect America. After World War II the United States continued to follow the policy of interventionism and spent a lot of money and policy making trying to prevent the spread of communism (The Cold War) . The spread of communism was a major threat to democracy and started at the end of World War II in 1945 and continued to be a foreign issue that drove American policy making till the 1980s when the Soviet Union declared independence and the Communist Party lost almost all its power. After the Cold War the United states had created a reputation of being the defender of the “free world” and at this point U.S. foreign policy makers had to reevaluate America’s forign policy goals. In most recent decades, the foreign policy decisions that are being made have the same goal as our founding fathers, to protect America’s best interest. The horrific event of September 11, 2001 where America experienced a terrorist attack that killed 2,996 people, the United States foreign policy has focused heavily on The War On Terrorism. There are different types of terrorism: Local / Reginal terrorism, State-Sponsored Terrorism and Foreign Terrorist Networks. Local/reginal terrorism is often committed by extremists that desire to be freed from an oppressive government. State-sponsored terrorism is planned and sponsored by governments and foreign terrorist networks are nongovernement, hierachical terrorist organizations that plan terrorist attacks and members of the organization are dispersed globally in small units. As stated before, a lot of America’s foreign policy goals in the last decade of been directly a result of the war on terrorism. The Bush administration was resolved to hunt al Qaeda members and stomp out all its members immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This not only led to the war in Afghanistan but also a war on Iraq. United States Policy makers at this point were so focused on national security that they chose to engage in a preventive war which is not sanctioned by international law. The war on Iraq was a preventive war and the resolution created by the Bush Administration as reasons to go to war were allegations against Iraq that were later proved untrue. Many criticized the Bush administration’s decision to go into war with Iraq because it distracted the government from America’s primary threat -- al Qaeda. Another aspect of foreign policy that the United States has focused on is weapons and international policy around them. Countries have had to address the threat of nuclear weapons, biological weapons and chemical weapons. There have been many treaties regarding these weapons; these treaties are known as the United States Arms Control Treaties. The goal is for these treaties to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. A third foreign policy aspect the United States has focused on is trade and its direct connection to human rights. Globalization has caused the diffusion of commodities as well as ideas on a global scale. A lot of America’s commodities are outsourced from other nations. The World Trade Organization (WTO) was created to establish an arbitration panel that is responsible for dealing with international disputes over trade issues. An issue with international trading is that human rights are not treated equally by every government. What happens when America outsources clothing made in a country where children are being forced to work in factories to produce the clothing? Even though America has ruled child labor illegal, how does America handle trade in regards to countries with different ethics or has a government that opppresses its citizens rights? These are all questions that foreign policy makers have to answer. The United Nations was established after World War II and it’s job is to promote international cooperation and world peace. The General Assembly of the United nation is composed of representatives from every nation that signed the charter and each nation is entitled to one vote regarding decisions being made by UN policy making. Though many Americans are not fans of the UN because the conflicting political cultures and diverse views on human rights issues has made it difficult for the UN to reach a consensus on international problems; the positives of the UN is that even though it needs reform, the United States has been able to help the UN achieve world successes such as help eradicate smallpox globally. The United States history of foreign policy has always centered around trying to protect America's best interest and protect national security.