How would you describe your foreign policy philosophy? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Ongoing wars and conflict resolution, international agreements or lack thereof. Nationhood, secessionist movements, national 'home' government versus internationalist trends and globalisation.

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#14817253
mikema63 wrote:What foreign policy philosophy do you subscribe to and how would you describe it?


First point should be peace, by what means ever.
As it's absence is growingly risky in modern times of accelerating technical potential for killing human fellow members .
(Even a complete wipe out is possible since about 50 years, … a short time after two unprecedented World Wars.)

Secondly we should enhance UN, not neglecting her authority, but developing that permanent global interchange of interests, which could be crucial in upcoming time.

A bad thing to do, would be a elusive belligerent policy of national strength by a major power.

About that.
#14820514
Hartmut. I agree with you on the important of peace in modernist disaster world and think brotherhood of man a good move. However... 'by what means ever' sound silly. Surely only by peaceful means. 'By what means ever' This include by means of war? Most modern wars are caught now in the name of peace. We bring peace to Iraq? we bring peace to Afghanistan? we bring peace to Libya and Syria? What we doing? We bringing war. Peace by what means ever equals war. You know the talk of 'world peacekeepers' these American doggies be blabbing. You know Henry's Kissinger get noble peace prize. American wars (under every president since Roosy) all done under name of peace. Maybe 'elusive belligerent policy of national strength' exactly what America need to stop bringing 'peace' to world.
#14820519
I can't fault realism. The international order that has been developing since the Napoleonic Wars seems like a reasonable edifice for managing global crisis, although clearly the UN structure is itself a compromise based in part on (realistic) recognition of the military power of the great powers. The goal of foreign policy in the post-colonial era seems to be to manage ethnic, national and environmental crisis through multilateral diplomacy. Outright warfare has clearly failed to achieve anything without raising tensions or generating self-reflecting crisis that proceed to spiral out of control. However, the international order is evolving and as power continues to shift towards multipolarity the tendency for state actors to resort to violence to "solve" local affairs seems to have risen (look at Saudi in Yemen and Qatar right now), a dangerous development.

The division of the world into "blocs" is also a startling development, the largest and most powerful of these is the European-Atlantic alliance, NATO, which has retained the superstructure of the Supreme Allied HQ since WW2, no doubt one wonders who the enemy is now that the Soviet Union has collapsed. Plus Japan and the former SEATO partners, the US retains a strong position globally, with any rising power invariably finding themselves trampling on US or US allies toes somewhere or other. The United States and Europe are in a position to manage the growing power of Russia and China, however, neither of these states expends enough on defence to make them a serious competitor to the United States, nor is that likely to change for several decades.

Caught in the middle is pretty much everyone else, who in a kind of neo-colonial fashion are invariably exploited for resources, the case of Africa, South America, and South East Asia are the most obvious. The large states of India and Brazil are wild cards here, both hugely important economic and demographic powerhouses, but neither military significant, despite the former possessing nuclear weapons.

Let's just cut it right down: clearly, if you are a nation-state that is currently allied with or is the United States, your objective should be to retain your position which is currently very favourable having been constructed so as to be beneficial over the last 100 years of conflict. On the other hand, if you are a country, say Russia or China, that aspires to challenge the existing order, you have to do it very carefully to avoid repercussions from sanctions to cyber attack or international marginalization. The current international order is very concerned about the rise of nationalism which threatens to reverse the successes of the global system, but I don't see it happening. If anything, nationalism will weaken the challengers who will be more likely to struggle for regional goals than try to overturn the entire system.

The danger to our current situation is that the system is highly complex, tightly interdependent, and moving ever faster towards tighter integration. Although the rising powers have tried to control this rate of change (say, China cutting off foreign internet access, or Russia cyberattacking the US), I don't think in the long run the technological trajectory that we are on can be aborted. So long as there is no major crisis that actaully fractures the global order, the process of globalization should continue as it in the interest of the dominate powers that it do so. Nationalist reactionaries will not stop technological innovation for the simple reason that the world is far too interconnected for a competitor nation to benefit from arresting progress. Falling behind technologically is tantamount to economic suicide, so everyone is racing to keep their economies "competitive".

Now, US policy really since 1991 has been disastrous. America has pulled out in several occasions (especially during Clinton's presidency) when it should have been committing to uphold the order, think Somalia, Yugoslavia or Rawanda. On the other hand, the US policy since George W. Bush has been a litany of disastrous interventions that has cost trillions of dollars and achieved nothing so far as benefiting the order is concerned. If anything, the challenger powers have been emboldened by US stupidity in this regard. Now that Trump is in charge I can't imagine anything useful happening for the next four years, since Trump really has no policy, nor the means to execute a policy if he had one. If anything, Trump has delegated more authority to the allies (Japan, Korea, Europe, etc) which means burdening them with national defence that they cannot really maintain without US/coalition support. This seems like god-given opportunity for the challengers and they are exploiting it. Look at Russia in Syria and China in East Asia.

What the US should be doing is building new alliances while offering the competitors a way to improve their position without undermining the international order. Starting trade wars and shredding international agreements is not how you achieve this, and I think the Republicans are being very foolish right now.
#14820529
First Identify who the main enemy is.

From the 1915 to 1918 It was the Ottoman Empire.
From 1918 to 1938 It was the Communists
From 1939 to 1942 It was Hitler and the Nazis.
From 1943 to 1991 it was the Communists again.
From 1992 to now its the Muslims.
#14820578
I agree with a lot of what @MB. said, but that is the surface reality. The underlying reality is the emergence of mega cities. They actually have all the power. There are 1009 metro areas with over 500,000 population. I would like to see them limited to one degree each and jointly govern the rest of the world resources for their mutual benefit.
I believe this is where we are headed.
#14820752
Imperialism and Colonization.

Saeko wrote:Conquer the world.
Pretty much this. As it is written in the bible, go and multiply and if you are righteous god shall grant you the land of others. He will take away their land and grant it to you. Basically a nation should expand when needed or necessary, doing this through conquest and colonization. That is how old European empires went about it, and pretty much the rest of the world ever.

Modern US foreign policy philosophy and the way US attempts to exert its imperium over the world is really anomaly of how powerful nations before had exerted power.
Last edited by Albert on 04 Jul 2017 01:16, edited 1 time in total.
#14820804
@neopagan

I think that's what you call a tyranny. And tyrannies are notoriously unstable and easily broken.

@Rich

Ah yes good 'ol THE MUSLIMS. All of THE MUSLIMS are obviously the world's enemy it's not as if the Middle East and Muslims are a complex entity that contain many individuals with competing interests, nah nah nah, every single one of DA MUSLIMS are united and are one singular entity. No complexity here.

Also WTF is with 1912 to 1918's enemy being the Ottoman Empire? The Ottoman Empire was already stagnating at the time and posed no large scale threat to Europe. Europe was the world's biggest enemy in 1912 to 1918. Europe was even a threat to itself.

@MememyselfandIJK

The second one

@Albert

What's so righteous about death and destruction for no reason? Yes, that is exactly what a country with a foreign policy for imperialism will do, expand unnecessarily betraying the biblical principle. Speaking of the bible, I would like the verse in which the bible did say this. When I read the bible, this wasn't mentioned at all.

I also think you shouldn't be agreeing with an atheist who will suffer eternal damnation.
#14820824
Realism. I grew up hating war and still do, but I recognize the best way to avoid war is a really powerful US military that helps pay for its allies' defense and comes to its allies' defense whenever necessary. Like MB said, we need to build up those alliances through mutually beneficial trade so that everyone can stay fat and happy.

There are challenges that emerge here though, like keeping the influence of business out of the DoD, Pentagon, and armed forces. Unfortunately that's extremely difficult to do since companies are the ones that supply the US military with supplies. There's also the consideration that we need to stop waging war for oil since there will be no world left if we lose it to global warming. However if we have to adjust to a post-climate change world we will still need a strong military to protect our interests.
#14821209
Oxymandias wrote:@Albert

What's so righteous about death and destruction for no reason? Yes, that is exactly what a country with a foreign policy for imperialism will do, expand unnecessarily betraying the biblical principle. Speaking of the bible, I would like the verse in which the bible did say this. When I read the bible, this wasn't mentioned at all.

I also think you shouldn't be agreeing with an atheist who will suffer eternal damnation.
Read the Old Testament a little more.


Deuteronomy 7 wrote:Driving Out the Nations

1When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— 2and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.a Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. 3Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah polesb and burn their idols in the fire. 6For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

7The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. 10But

those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction;
he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him.

11Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today.

12If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors. 13He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and olive oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you. 14You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor will any of your livestock be without young. 15The Lord will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you. 16You must destroy all the peoples the Lord your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

17You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?” 18But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. 19You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the Lord your God brought you out. The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. 20Moreover, the Lord your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished. 21Do not be terrified by them, for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God. 22The Lord your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you. 23But the Lord your God will deliver them over to you, throwing them into great confusion until they are destroyed. 24He will give their kings into your hand, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand up against you; you will destroy them. 25The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the Lord your God. 26Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Regard it as vile and utterly detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.


Deuteronomy 6 wrote:13Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. 14Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; 15for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. 16Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah (PROGRESSIVISM). 17Be sure to keep the commands of the Lord your God and the stipulations and decrees he has given you. 18Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors, 19thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the Lord said.


Numbers 33 wrote:50On the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho the Lord said to Moses, 51“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you cross the Jordan into Canaan, 52drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you. Destroy all their carved images and their cast idols, and demolish all their high places. 53Take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have given you the land to possess. 54Distribute the land by lot, according to your clans. To a larger group give a larger inheritance, and to a smaller group a smaller one. Whatever falls to them by lot will be theirs. Distribute it according to your ancestral tribes.

55“ ‘But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, those you allow to remain will become barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will give you trouble in the land where you will live. 56And then I will do to you what I plan to do to them. 
Last edited by Albert on 06 Jul 2017 01:45, edited 4 times in total.
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