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Bill Kelso
Developing an Effective American Foreign Policy
As mentioned above, in foreign affairs America has to deal with both hard power and soft power challenges to its role in the world. In this post we shall analyze how America deals primarily with military challenges or hard power threats to its position. Two key examples of this challenge are to be found in Russia’s attack on Ukraine and China’s threat to Taiwan.
Admittedly this topic can be involved, if you are not interested in foreign affairs, you may just want to skip this post . But if you are interested, you may realize that learning about foreign affairs is actually a lot of fun. At the end of this post, I will list common problems with American foreign policy and you can use that crib sheet to understand what the US is trying to accomplish in its foreign policy adventures. As mentioned earlier, at the very end of these articles, you can even pretend that you are the President of China and probably predict how the US would act if you chose to invade Taiwan.
To achieve the above goals, and to understand how America would respond to the above types of challenges, you have to look at four key issues shaping American Foreign policy. They include: 1) Our Goals, 2) Our Objectives, 3) Our Policies and 4) Factors that may Weaken or Strengthen our Policies.
A Brief Overview of US Foreign Policy
(1).Foreign Policy Goals
To get started, you first have to look at what goals the US is trying to achieve. As we shall see, in establishing our country’s foreign policy, we have intensely debated which of the three following goals we should pursue.
a.Isolation b. Self Interest c. Values
(2) Foreign Policy Objectives
Once we have decided on our goals we then have to ask what our objectives are. For instance if we want to defend our self interest how do we achieve that goal? Below are the three options. First, we can try to defeat our enemy, second, maintain the current situation with our neighbors or thirdly try to appease our enemy in the hopes that such an action will satisfy his or her aggressive objectives. For example, while we adopted the first option and tried to defeat the Nazis in World War II, in the Cold War we choose the second option and merely tried to maintain the status quo by containing Russia’s sphere of influence to eastern Europe. We never sought to overthrow Russia the way we did Germany. Obviously, we never ever considered the third option of appeasing or conceding defeat to either Germany of Russia.
a..Defeat our Enemy b. Status Quo c. Appease our Enemies
(3) Foreign Policies.
As soon as we decide what our goals and objectives should be, we subsequently need to establish what kinds of policies we will use to advance our interests The three main policies consist of: Waging War, Diplomacy and most importantly Coercive Diplomacy. As the following outline indicates, Coercive Diplomacy has two parts: Deterrence and Compellence.
Similarly, Compellence also has two parts. 1) First, it, can entail merely stopping a unwarranted military action in place such as freezing the existing battle lines in Ukraine. 2) Secondly compliance can also entail a call for a complete roll back, rather than a mere freeze, in any case of military aggression. This latter policy seeks the reestablishment of the status quo ante which in the case of Ukraine would mean that Russia had to abandon all of the land they had seized in that country since the war began. .
a.War b. Coercive Diplomacy c. Diplomacy
Deterrence Compellence
a. b.
Freeze an Action or Status Quo Ante
(4) Factors that may Weaken or Strengthen our Policies
Finally, if we opt for Coercive Diplomacy as our military policy, we have to focus on how to make the above policies as effective as they can be. Below are three factors that will determine how successful or unsuccessful our policy of coercive diplomacy will be. As we shall see many believe American has been losing ground diplomatically because our 1) military capabilities such as the size of our Navy has been shrinking, 2) our credibility in deterring foreign aggressive has come into the question and 3) the resolve of the American people to compel our adversaries to cease their aggressive actions appears to be waning.
A More Systematic Overview of US Foreign Policy
To properly appreciate the strengths and weakness of American foreign policy it is essential to focus on all of the above four points. Now that we have an outline of the major elements that constitutes our foreign policy we need to expand our understanding of these principles in more detail. Even if we know the bare bones of how foreign policy works, a broader understanding of the different facets of diplomacy is crucial if the US wants to understand how to successfully meet the threats posed by Russia and China.
Issue One
Foreign Policy Goals
As mentioned above American foreign policy has tended to favor one of three possible policy goals in shaping our interaction with the rest of the world.
1)Isolationism.
Interestingly enough, the first option isolationism is a uniquely American foreign policy. It is only when a country has a special type of geography that it can afford the luxury of isolating itself from the rest of the world. For instance, in Europe countries that are in the middle of the continent such as Germany and Russia tend to be the most militant and aggressive in their dealings with other nations. After all they are vulnerable to attacks form the north and south as well as the east and west.
But what set American apart from major countries in Europe and Asia was our isolation and geographical distance from any other major power. Since we had two wide oceans separating us from both the turmoil in Europe and Asia, our location in a separate continent protected us from possible aggressive attacks from either the west or east. The US could thus decide to ignore the world at large without risking any really military threats from potentially aggressive neighborhoods.
In the last two centuries that US deliberately choose the isolation option and focused exclusively on domestic issues. However, after World War II we decided to abandon this policy. The aggression of a country like Nazi Germany or Communist Russia finally forced America to realize that it would be in our self-interest to engage with the rest of the world.
But once we decided to actively participate in foreign affairs, we had to ask what our goals were. That question soon sparked a heated debate between those who insisted that our main goals should be self interests as opposed to those who insisted that we should pursue idealist goals in the hopes of making the world a better place. The advocates of self interest are called Realist and those who stress ideals are naturally called Idealists.
2) Minimalist Realism I
In contrast to Isolationism, many Realists believe the US should adopt a active foreign policy only if our national interests are threatened. For instance, a realist might argue that what happens in Eastern Europe or Ukraine has no bearing on our security and we thus should not get involve in their dispute with Russia. In contrast, if Russia set up a base in Cuba with cruise missiles pointed at Washington DC, we should aggressively act to neutralize that threat. While this policy has had many followers in the past as well as today, they have generally played second fiddle to the advocates of the next two policies.
3) Balance of Power Realism II
While all Realists insist that American foreign policy should focus on our national interests, they often disagree among themselves as to whether they should focus on short term or long term interests. For instance, Realists who take the long view might argue that America needs to realize that the balance of power in ares like Europe will affect our own national security. While a war in Ukraine may not seem to affect us immediately, a Russian victory would greatly enhance their population as well as their industrial might. Once Russia has an enlarged population and an enhanced manufacturing capability to develop military weapons, Russia might pose a significant threat to Europe and America in the future. To minimize possible challenges to our national security, we need to focus on how local wars might one day upset the balance of power and eventually thrreaten the self interestts of the U.S. As you can see depending on which form of Rrealism you adopt, opions about supporting Ukraine;s war against Russia may vary.
4) Minimalist Idealism I
An alternative approach to foreign policy is Idealism which insist that promoting certain key ideas rather than narrowly defending national interests should be the goal of our foreign policy. Idealism is a foreign policy that was primarily developed by Woodrow Wilson during the first world war. The very best statement of Idealism was provided by Winston Churchill who asked in an important speech during World War II “Why does evil exists?” His answer was that “evil exists not because there are evil people but evil exists because good people often choose to do nothing.”
While Churchill’s speech is the best statement of idealism, it leaves open the question of what evil entails. For most of the post WWII period the west answered this question with a minimalist rather than an expansive version of this concept. They generally argued the biggest cause of chaotic and unethical behavior occurred because various nations thought they had a license to attack and conquer their neighbors. In international affairs anarchy often prevailed as there was no central body to regulate the external affairs of countries. The early idealists thus argued that they wanted to dampen down external conflict by creating what today is called collective security. That principle suggests that there should be a third party like the United Nations which would arbitrate disputes between nations. In the process idealists hoped to create a rules based form on international relations that would clearly spell out what kinds of foreign actions were acceptable.
Idealists would thus argue that if there is a case of an outright invasion such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that action should justify a response by the west. If we wish people to abide by a rules based form of international relations, the UN as well as the west should apply appropriate punishment to those countries that violate those rules. In pursuing this goal, the US, in place of pursuing narrow self interests, would seek to build an ideal international realm that upheld clearly define rules of acceptable engagement. The objective of American foreign policy was to build a more peaceful and just world rather than merely advance our parochial self interest.
5) Maximum Idealism II
In recent years Idealism has come under heavy criticism because some proponents of the doctrine have embraced a maximalist version which justifies an overly ambitious foreign policy. In contrast to the former version of idealism which sought to regulate the external relations of nation, this expanded version wants the US to dictate the internal policies various countries should follow. The best example of this version of Idealism was George W Bush’s argument that the US should pursue a foreign policy of advancing democracy in the Middle East. While the early Idealists are willing to strop genocide or an unnecessary invasion, they think efforts by the US to use force to remake the world in our democratic image is a flawed and exceedingly costly foreign policy.
A Who’s Who of Foreign Policy Actors
As you can imagine the stark difference in the above positions has generated much conflict in American politics. Below are some of the most well-known advocates of our different versions of realism and idealism.
1.First, the most outspoke advocates of our first type of minimal realism are MAGA Republicans and former President Trump on the conservative side of the aisle and the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party on the liberal side of the political aisle.
2.Richard Nixon as well as Henry Kissinger are the most famous advocates of the second and more robust forms of Realism whch stresses the conceptof the balance of power.
3.The earliest proponents of minimalist Idealism are Woodrow Wilson during WWI and later FDR during WWII and JFK during the Cold War. Today probably most mainstream Republicans and Democrats also endorse this view of foreign affairs.
4. Finally important American presidents who have embraced an expanded form of Idealism which favors Americans shaping the domestic policies of foreign nations includes George W Bush and Joe Biden.
Issue Two
What are our Objectives?
As mentioned earlier, once you have decided on your goals, we then have to ask how we can achieve those goals. If we wish to advance our national self interest, how aggressive do we want to be in pursuing those goals. Should we seek to augment our power by defeating our enemy by launching a preemptive strike, hoping to catch him unaware or should we be more cautious and merely try to contain his power. In our earlier discussion we saw there are generally three options open to the US. ranging from 1) Defeating our Enemy to 2) Maintaining the Status Quo to 3) Acquiescing to the wishes of our adversaries.
1)Defeating the Enemy
In World War II, our objective in pursuing our Idealistic goals was to defeat the enemy and totally eliminate Fascism and Nazism as a threat to the world. In the above cases our goals was unconditional surrender. In other cases the administration might try to merely disarm a potential enemy or perhaps dismantle part of his empire. After WWII, Russia and the west decide to reduce the size of Germany so that in the future she would have a smaller population and manufacturing base with which to potentially attack her neighbors.
2)Maintaining the Status Quo
A more restrained and modest approach to developing our objectives is to try to contain rather than defeat our opponent. In the Cold War against Russia, as opposed to the Hot War against Germany our foreign policy objective was primarily more about maintaining the status quo between Russia and America rather than achieving victory over the USSR. Instead of totally defeating Communism, and conquering Russia, we merely tried to limit their further advances around the world through a series of military alliances. We in effect pursued a policy that tried to maintain the status quo. To advance that objective we adopted a strategy of containment, trying to limit in the process Russia from making any other advances in Europe. If you look at America’s present objectives in the Ukraine War, it is clearly that we are pursuing a similar and limited objective of merely trying to contain Russia’s aggressive. There is no effort to roll back their power or to defeat Russia and totally eliminate their ability to threaten Europe ever again.
3)Accepting Defeat
Finally, sometimes both Realists and Idealists will accept the third objective and approve of military defeat when they are confronted by their enemies. If they think the costs of fighting our adversaries like Russia or China are too high, or the outlook is too unclear, we may accept their aggressive behavior. The most common cases of American foreign policy accepting defeat are cases involving a situation that is called a fait accompli. A fait accompli is an action that occurred before the US could get ready to check our opponents or had a chance to become better prepared. In this situation the US may feel there is too little they can do to alter the situation and thus they will acquiesce to the demands of our opponents. As example would be if China made a lightening and successful strike against Taiwan and conquered the country before our Navy could get into position to check their attacks. In this situation, because it would be so difficult to turn the clock back, the US might concede defeat.
A final form of defeat occurs when a country tries to appease its opponents by acceding to their demands in the hopes that such concession will placate their opponents and limit future acts of aggression. The British tried this tactic before WWII as England sold out Czechoslovakia in the hopes that their action would satisfy Hitler’s desire for more power.
Issue Three
Designing Public Policies to Realize our Objectives.
Once America has settled on its goals and objectives, it must then confront the third issue and devise a set of policies to realize its objectives. Of all the four issues shaping foreign affairs, devising an effective policy to implement our goals is the most crucial factor in determining the success of American foreign policy. Over the last thirty years, the main complaints about America’s involvement overseas have focused on America’s poorly designed foreign policies. Even when our goals have been restrained and our objective eminently attainable, the President and the state department have appeared inept in crafting an effective set of policies.
In designing our foreign policies, the three main options we have used to advance our interests have been either 1) War and Military Action 2) Diplomacy or 3) most importantly Coercive Diplomacy
1)Military Force
As is obviously the case, the use of military force is the most expensive and dangerous policy a nation can use to achieve its goals. Besides the financial costs of waging war, the loss of human lives can be a heavy toll for any nation to bear. Most analysts insist it should be the last and not the first type of policy adopted. The one exception occurs when a nation is invaded and its only option is to fight unless it is willing to acquiesce to the demands of its enemy.
2)Diplomacy
An alternative policy is for a nation to engage in diplomacy to resolve disagreements with other countries. While negotiations with friendly countries may be useful in forging future alliances, diplomatic dealing with adversaries are often of limited use. If your opponents are more powerful than you, they will have all the leverage to dictate an outcome favorable to themselves. And in fact, in most cases when a country negotiates with a more powerful opponents, diplomacy is designed to save face for the losing country. Often opponents will not want to humiliate the country with which they are in disagreement, out of fear that their opponents will resume fighting.
3)Coercive Diplomacy
In light of the drawbacks of both military action or diplomacy, the main foreign policy the US uses to protects its interests is called Coercive Diplomacy. Coercive Diplomacy occupies a middle ground between military action and diplomacy in that instead of actually using force issue, it threatens the use of force to resolve an issue. To achieve that objective, Coercive Diplomacy has two elements. Deterrence and Compellence. The two forces complement one another and compellence can be seen as a back up plan in case the policy of deterrence fails.
Coercive Diplomacy
a. b.
Deterrence Compellence
(1) (1) (2)
Clear Signaling Freeze an action or Status Quo Ante
a.Deterrence
Deterrence as the name implies tries to deter an opponent from undertaking a hostile action by threatening severe consequences. If it works, it is the ideal foreign policy as it will cost the US neither money nor lost lives to achieve its objectives.
But for deterrence to work, it is imperative that the US or any country employing this tactic engage in clear signaling of its intentions. But signaling has two components one of which is verbal and the other which is behavioral.
We can illustrate the difference by once again examining Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. When it appeared that Russia planned to attack Ukraine, the US verbally warned them not to. In this case the Americans seemed clear about their possible actions. But while we were verbally warning the Russian, the US began to pull all of its diplomats out of the country. Secondly, when Zelensky asked the US for weapons, we declined to help Ukraine defend itself. In Boris Putin’s mind, these actions may have suggested that US would actually do little or nothing to halt their invasion. And then at the last moment President Biden implied that he might accept a limited incursion by Russia of Ukraine. At that point, America use of the first part of Coercive Diplomacy appears to have failed.
b.Compellence.
As soon as Russia had invaded her neighbor to the south, deterrence was no longer a relevant option. Then the only choice left to America was the doctrine of compellence. But what does the word compellence actually mean? Compellence is derived from the word compel which means to force someone to stop their behavior. People in foreign affairs merely took the verb compel and turned it into the noun compellence. When a nation uses compellence it is trying to force its opponent to stop or reverse its unwarranted invasion of another country. And compellence usually involve the use of military action.
The obvious question then is what is the difference between engaging in war and compellence. The answer is that comellence is a combination of both war and diplomacy in that you are telling your opponents that your military actions are strictly limited and poses no real security threat to their national security.
Freezing Action
However, as mentioned earlier, there are two forms of compellence. First, the US can arm Ukraine and support military action in order to stop further aggression by Russia. In calling for a freezing of action, the US would allow Russia to retain all of the land they had conquered in their initial invasion. In this sense we were partially conceding defeat as we would let Russia be victorious in keeping all of the land they initially seized. And it was very clear that this has been the policy adopted by the Biden Administration.
If you look at the weapons we have supplied Ukraine, the Biden Administration initially refused to give them any offensive weapons which would enable Ukraine to kick Russia out of its territory. The US government appeared determined to give Ukraine enough defensive weapon to stop further Russian aggressive. But initially America refused to give them tanks, infantry fighting vehicles or airplanes that would enable them to go on the offense and kick Russia totally out of Ukraine.
Reviving the Status Quo Ante
In contrast to President Biden, the Ukrainians and especially their president Zelensky wanted to restore the Status Quo Ante. Over the past 14 months Zelensky and Biden have been in a tug of war to see which form of compellence Ukraine and the west would support. Zelensky has used three methods to influence American foreign policy. First he has constantly asked for offensive weapons to reclaim all of his country. He has pointed out that the Ukrainians will do all of the dying but that they need US weapons to achieve their goals. Secondly, Poland and Easton who boarder Russia have taken the lead in promising Ukraine tanks as well as airplanes. In the process they make America appear to be dragging its feet and perhaps indecisive and weak in combatting Soviet aggression. Slowly but surely Zelensky has grudgingly forced America as well as Germany to give her the offensive weapons necessary to militarily restore the Status Quo Ante. And thirdly Zelensky has been suggesting that if American looks weak in defending Ukraine, China will see America as a paper tiger and become more aggressive in Asia.
Issue Four
How Can we Make American Policies More Effective
However, even if Americans are successful in designing a comprehensive policy of deterrence and compellence, there are always ways to make the policy even more effective. Or to turn the quesiton on its head, we can often ak why a thoughtful policy of Coercive Diplomacy sometimes fails to achieves its goals in practice.
Gemerally analysts think America's foreigh policy has suffered from three overarching problems which have often undermined the effectivenss of our foreign policy. It also helps explin why why America has losts its undisputed status as a superpower and today is at best one of six powers operating in a multi polar world.
1)Diminished Capabilities.
At the end of WWII the US military had few peers when it came to measuring military might. Over the next 40 years the US military excelled in creating a higher technological fighting machine that few other countries could match. But since the cold war ended in 1991 we have become complacent and the quality as well as the size of our armed forces has suffered.
To give just a few examples, if you saw the movie Top Gun with Tom Cruise, he announces that American’s technological advantage over other navies no longer exists as even our opponents now have fifth generation airplanes.
On a more mundane real world level, China has developed supersonic missiles which can travel at hypersonic speeds and are hard to shoot down. At present the US is behind China in missile technology as we are just starting to develop these weapons. Similarly, if we look at the size, as well as degree of sophistication of our naval forces, the US once had over 1000 ships when WWII ended. At that time the US Navy was the undisputed ruler of the open seas. Today our Navy has shrunk to 280 ships and is the second largest navy in the world as China is expanding their navy to 400 ships.
However, as Kenny Shoemaker perceptive pointed out, if the US joins hands with our allies, the situation does not appear to be quite so dire. As Kenny aptly phrased it, our allies can act as a force multiplier restraining China. As American has begun to falter, our allies are stepping up and expanding their militaries. For instance, at present Australia has 40 ships and Japan 140 warships. If you combine the American navy with the navies of our allies Japan and Australia, the three countries have a 60 ship advantage over the Chinese. The presence of this alliance must give China pause as to whether its attempt to capture Taiwan would be all that successful.
2) Diminished Credibility
But if having sufficient arms is a necessary condition if US wants to deter its enemies, it is equally important we have a reputation for standing by our word. If the US warns an opponent like Russia not to invade a country, our warming will only carry weight if the Russians think we are serious about enforcing our objections. If the Russia or the Chinese for that matter think America is so weak that she is merely bluffing when she warns countries to restrain themselves, our policy of Coercive Diplomacy will lose its effectiveness. Unfortunately, that is the situation we often find ourselves in today.
We are in this precarious position because back in 2013 Syria decided to use the nerve gas Sarin as a weapon of mass destruction against dissidents in its civil war. When America discovered this behavior, President Obama order Syria to stop its attacks. He insisted that using nerve gas was a red line that would warrant punitive action by the US. Unfortunately, Syria ignored Obama’s warning and continued to deploy the gas. When faced with the challenge President Obama decided to accept the situation as a fait accompli.
His decision soon precipitated an intense debate within the White House about what the US was doing. Secretary of State Clinton and Susan Wright, an advisor to Obama, warned that his actions would undermine our credibility and destroy our ability to deter future acts of mass destruction. Unfortunately, Clinton and Wright lost the debate, and the US choose to do nothing to deter further Syrian attacks. In order to not completely humiliate the US, Russia set up sham negotiations in which Syria promised not to use Sarin gas again. But after the fervor died down, Syria continued with her use of poison gas. And several months later Obama even informed Russia that he wanted to reset relationship and develop more cordial relations with the Putin administration.
Even since 2013, the US has been suffering from a credibility gap. Even if our Asian neighbors are willing to form an alliance with us against China, they may doubt as to how reliable the US will be in deterring future acts of aggression.
3)Diminished Resolve
Finally, the last problem plaguing our use of Coercive Diplomacy is the issue of our revolve or staying power in a conflict.
There is a general consensus that if a democracy is fighting an authoritarian regime the authoritarian regime will generally win. Why is that the case? In a democracy the public is often very sensitive to casualties. As we saw in the Iraqi war and even in Afghanistan people will begin to protest and demand that our troops come home if a war goes on too long. However, in an authoritarian regime which controls the media they can suppress negative information and arrest anyone protesting.
If you look at the Ukraine war, no Americans are fighting. But already many Americans are losing their resolve and complaining about the costs of aiding the Ukrainians. If Putin is playing a long game, he might figure in another year of two the pressure will build for the president and congress to limit their aid to Ukraine.
Conclusion
In our life time we have seen how the US and the Soviet Union dominated the world after WWII. Once Russia collapsed in 1991 the US was considered the only superpower ruling over a uni-polar war. Today unfortunately we appear to be living in a multi polar world in which America occupies a diminished role in world affairs. And hopefully the above post helps explain why that is the case as America has lost its once preeminent position in the world. As Kenny has shown, as our power has ebbed many of our allies have stepped forward to assist up in containing the looming threat of Russia and China. But unless the US and its allies do a better job of appling Coercive Diplomacy to the threats of both Russia and China, it is unclear how much real power we will wield in this new multi polar world.
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