Since the end of the Cold War, it has been hard to find a clear definition of U.S. foreign policy and interests.
The Cold War gave the nation a single rival to build its institutions and policies around. Since the Soviet Union is no longer a threat, multiple threats are in the periphery of American allies and spheres of interest; but what is the course of U.S. foreign policy for the 21st century?
After the Allied victory in World War II, the Soviet Union seemed poised for global power. Given that in the pre-war years, European fascism was a series of policies emanating from Rome or Berlin, the United States felt that any self-proclaimed local communist movement in Third World nations was part of a more sinister plan driven by Moscow.
Therefore, it executed a policy called containment, which aided anti-communist forces and governments in Third World nations. That meant supporting corrupt or militaristic dictatorships, such as the Shah of Iran; the regime of General Augusto Pinochet, who instigated a bloody coup against Salvador Allende in Chile; and U.S. military involvement in Vietnam.
In the 1980s, the United States continued its support for local forces fighting communist regimes or insurgencies. It poured money into the government of El Salvador against leftist rebels and supplied the Afghan Mujahiddin rebels fighting Soviet forces in their country and the Contra rebels of Nicaragua, who were engaged in a struggle against the Marxist Sandinista government.
After these local conflicts died out and the Soviet Union ceased to be a threat, the United States forgot about many of these nations. Many countries that were allies in the Cold War are now enemies or just non-entities, such as Iraq, which the United States supported during its war with Iran in the 1980s, only to go to war against Saddam Hussein in 1991 following his occupation of Kuwait.
Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was a point man to check communism in Central America but became a target in the late 1980s because of drug trafficking. He, too, was another victim of the U.S. post-Cold War policy.
In the 1990s, American foreign policy seemed to be confused, especially during the Clinton era. The United States intervened in Bosnia after three years of war between the Serb, Croatian and Bosnian Muslim factions, but we failed to intervene in Rwanda. In 1998, U.S. planes bombed Afghanistan because of suspected terrorist activity, but Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden, the target of the strikes, is still at large.
The threat to U.S. security is no longer monolithic. In the Middle East, Saddam Hussein still presents a visible threat, and the Israeli-Palestinian quarrel is a constant hint of potential destabilization.
In the Pacific Rim, concern is rising about the Chinese hegemony and its aggression against Taiwan, and North Korea poses a threat in our security pacts with Japan.
In Central Asia, Afghanistan is a thorny point, as the U.S. attempts to isolate the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime, which the government claims is harboring bin Laden and funding terrorist activity in neighboring Uzbekistan.
The continuing ethnic strife in the Balkans threatens to spill over into U.S. allies such as Greece and/or Turkey, threatening both security and economic concerns there.
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Foreign policy for the 21st century can no longer afford to be singular or simplistic, driven by fear of a monolithic superpower. It must be creative, pragmatic, determined on a case-by-case basis and multifaceted. The policy-making institutions need to be multitalented in order to face the concerns of the future.
If policy is still driven by singular, simplistic concerns that are dogmatic rather than pragmatic, then there will be harsh lessons to learn.
