What are the most important present and future foreign policy challenges and what are the possible foreign policy options for dealing with those challenges - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... The question then becomes how to fight for the values we believe in. America during this period and up until the present day has been trying to find foreign policy options that allow it to fight for what is believes in. The choice in a real sense has been between soft power and hard power. America has chosen the latter, while Europe has chosen the former.
The Balkan Wars were one of the first stumbling blocks to the concept of a peaceful new world order. It turned out that having the US as the lone power in the world was not a solution to problems around the world. There was simply too much to be responsible for. As was demonstrated in the Balkans in the 1990s, Europeans weren’t able to project a credible military force even within Europe. This was a painful time for Europe. Instead of solving global conflicts, they looked inward. The Europeans resorted to the only real talent they had at the time: endless diplomatic measure through international institutions such as the UN. The success of European integration and solving the "German problem" had led a lot of Europeans at the time to believe that they live in a Kantian paradise where international institutions could banish war forever. This illusion came crashing down with the Balkans, where the Europeans were powerless in the early 1990s, and Chechnya, where they chose to turn a blind eye, intimidated by an unstable and resurgent Russia, and unable to finding a compelling political reasons to engage.
The truth is that America and Europe are very different and have different foreing policy goals and different methods of achieving those goals. Indeed, they have different values. There is reason to believe that the Americans and Europeans act differently. Americans are big and strong (both economically and militarily) whereas Europeans are relatively weak (especially militarily). This influences the way they see the world in a very profound sense. This means that America has to ...Download file to see next pagesRead More