US Foreign Policy in Asia - Case Study Example

United s Foreign Policy in South East and Central Asia The world changed dramatically since the collapse of the Soviet Union and this essay will explore American foreign policy in South East and Central Asia since the early days of the Cold War. Always important in geopolitical affairs, United States foreign policy in South East and Central Asia has gone through a myriad of fluctuations over the past six decades. Accordingly, what have been the primary determinants of American foreign policy in this region since 1945? What role has Soviet containment played in the elaboration of American foreign policy during the bulk of the past sixty four years? Drawing from a diverse region encompassing India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, we will explore the factors which influenced US foreign policy looking for commonalities and constant themes. This cross-country analysis will then explore how the necessity of Soviet containment influenced American foreign policy in the region from 1945 to 1991. We then turn to an analysis of US foreign policy in the region in a New World Order in which the United States exerted its hegemony in this region and across the world. US foreign policy How are terms like “foreign policy”, “invention” and “state interest” relevant to an analysis of US foreign policy in South East and Central Asia? In order to establish key terms and address the importance of terminology in our analysis of US security policy during the Cold War, the following section will ground this essay with a strong theoretical basis. Essential terms to the study of American security and subsequently foreign policy will be explored and further analyzed as they pertain to the elaboration of US foreign policy in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan from the outset of the Cold War until today. What is foreign policy? A country’s foreign policy could be described as a set of goals and strategies which determine how a government relates to others in the international system. Foreign policy thus shapes international behavior by one state vis-à-vis others. It is thus government’s policy as it relates to matters beyond its own borders. How do we define the term military intervention? Military intervention refers to the active interference of one country in the affairs of another and frequently involves the abrogation of state sovereignty. It is a rare case when a state requests the military forces of another to come in and quell a rebellion or establish order. Military intervention has been an option for US policy makers since Independence and many types of this form of intervention are at the disposal of the United States government. Unilateral intervention is intervention by one party against another or a league of others but importantly implies that there is only party intervening militarily. Thus, Israeli military incursions into the West Bank and Gaza Strip are unilateral military interventions by the state of Israel against the quasi or proto state encompassing the Palestinian Territories. It is important to keep in mind that the definition we supplied for unilateral intervention is the traditional definition and definitions do evolve. Today in fact, military intervention is often described as unilateral if it does not first receive United Nations (UN) approval, thus making internationalizing the intervention and making it multilateral. An excellent example of this new conception of “unilateral” intervention is the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, which occurred without UN approval but was undertaken by a coalition force led by the Americans and which included the United Kingdom, Australia, Poland and Denmark, amongst others (Weldes, 1999). Following unilateral intervention is multilateral intervention which, in the case of the United States, can involve a variety of state and supra-state actors. The options available to the United States in the multilateral realm are multifaceted and reflected in the present position of the United States as the world’s dominant power. As a member of many multilateral organizations including North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] and the United Nations (UN), the United States has bilateral ties with countries around the world and many willing multilateral partners in the exercise of foreign policy. A multilateral intervention then is one in which a group of state actors – a minimum of two – engage in direct military conflict with another. Examples of multilateral intervention by the United States include the war in Afghanistan which was supported by a multinational coalition which included Canada, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. Multilateral interventions almost universally receive the sanction and approval of the United Nations. They are also seen by people around the world as a more acceptable form of intervention because they naturally rely on coalition-building and consensus. What is state interest and how is it defined? State interest is a slippery term which is often discussed without a proper definition. Realism, as an explanatory theory of international relations, provides perhaps the most concise and strongest definition of what constitutes state interest. Accordingly, the national interest is very important to realists and state interest is an inherent component of international relations. In fact, for realists it is arguably the most crucial component required in the attempt to understand political actors on a global scale (Morgenthau, 1952). US foreign Policy during the Cold War First and foremost it is important to remember that state interest or state preference operates in an anarchic environment. The international system is inherently unstable and is aptly characterized by widespread anarchy. Due to the absence of a suprastate or overarching Leviathan authority, states are placed in inevitable and perpetual competition, described as the security dilemma. Because of the anarchic nature of international affairs, states are perpetually concerned with their survival. For Realists, the international system is a “dog-eat-dog world” and ensuring survival is paramount for any and all states. According to Hans Morgenthau, pioneering German political scientist and an early proponent of realist thought, due to the inherent instability of the international system, the fundamental national interest of all states is to “protect [its] physical, political, and cultural identity against encroachments by other nations”. Specifically, threats to states are determined by their relative power vis-à-vis one others in the international system. The structure of the system – the distribution of power and capabilities state wide - is important because threats or challenges facing a state which affront the national interest should be “calculated according to the situation in which the state finds itself” (Waltz, 1979). Thus, power and security requirements are paramount in attempting to define state interest and what motivates states to act. Structural realism is another important theory of international relations which was best articulated by Morgenthau, Waltz and Herz. Accordingly, interventions are, from a structural realist perspective, driven by pre-existing structures within the international system and exist as stabilizers. From this perspective, polarity is a key concern and interventions take place because they secure and stabilize polarity arrangements within the international system. Interventions are thus undertaken and authorized because they maintain the existing balance of power arrangements within the international geopolitical system. This theory can be applied to US foreign policy in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan during the Cold War, an era of geopolitical bipolarity and conflicting interests between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. If we apply the realist conception of states power and apply it to the United States, state interest is culmination of a variety of factors and is determined in terms of power politics and system-level concerns. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a bitter confrontation pitting two opposite poles in the international order against one another. In this period of bipolarity, state behavior was mediated by concerns regarding the stability of the international system as well as the state interest and behavior of the other major power. Today, the United States operates in a unipolar world and is the world’s hegemonic state. State behavior is less constrained as it was during the Cold War but US state interest today reflects power conditions and the maintenance of overall system stability which promotes the supreme status of the United States in the international system. Power is a “hard” issue and a primary concern for survival; so called “soft issues” like human rights and democracy are far less salient. In the anarchic world of international affairs, hard or core issues always supersede soft issues and are integral to defining state interest and behavior (Waltz, 1979). US Containment in South East and Central Asia American foreign policy during the Cold War was motivated largely by a desire to contain Soviet influence and the spread of Soviet-inspired communist movements around the world. The American support of anti-Communist insurgency fighters in Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion of that country in 1979 best exemplifies the desire on the part of the Americans. United States policy during the period was covert and not explicit. Only in later years have we found out that the support of the anti-Communist insurgent Afghan fighters (and often foreign fighters as well) was an important American policy objective in the region. Seeking to keep Afghanistan out of the Soviet sphere of influence, containing the threat in Afghanistan was an overriding foreign policy objective of the United States during the Cold War period. Containment was also present in the Indian subcontinent as the United States actively sought to limit Soviet influence in the region. Following independence and the partition India, Pakistan and India fought wars in 1948 and 1965 and Indian exploded its first nuclear device in 1974. After having signed a twenty year Treaty of Friendship with the Soviet Union in 1971, India became an important foreign policy concern for successive American administrations. Particularly after early Indian nuclear tests, the United States actively supported Pakistan in an attempt to offer a counterweight to India’s influence in the region and its troubling rapprochement with the Soviet Union. Prolonged military and financial assistance to Pakistan began in earnest in 1980 following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Due to strategic geopolitical concerns, the United States, during the Cold War as well as after, has turned a blind eye to the trampling of democracy and human rights in this country and has supported a succession of military leaders from General Zia to the recently retired General Musharraf. Thus, a desire for Soviet containment and overriding geopolitical concerns represent US foreign policy during the Cold War era (Butler 2003). after the Cold War Today, the United States operates in a unipolar world and is the world’s hegemonic state. Although state behavior is less constrained than during the Cold War, US state interest today reflects power conditions and the maintenance of overall system stability which promotes the supreme status of the United States in the international system. Power is a “hard” issue and a primary concern for survival; so called “soft issues” like human rights and democracy are far less salient. In the anarchic world of international affairs, hard or core issues always supersede soft issues and are integral to defining state interest and behavior. American national security has depended on it and continues to do so in the elaboration of its foreign policy. In seeking to define something as complex as the elaboration of US foreign policy, a variety of factors must be analyzed. Fundamentally though, this research paper has shown that strategic interests have trumped other concerns in foreign policy, particularly during the era of bipolarity, known colloquially as the Cold War. During this period, intangible factors were superseded by strategic geopolitical concerns and this remains true with respect to American foreign policy both in the Cold War as well as in the post-War period. Containment was a paramount security concern for the United States and significant energy was exerted on containing the influence of the Soviet Union, particularly when its influence was felt close to be threatening, such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 (Boettcher 2004). In the post-Cold War world, the United States is far less constrained in its elaboration of foreign policy around the world. American foreign policy in South East and Central Asia is no exception. In a unipolar world, the United States has felt free to exert its influence as it sees fit and the US-led invasion of Afghanistan to remove the despotic Taliban regime in 2001 provides an excellent example of this trend. With respect to Afghanistan, the United States has also taken the lead in tackling opium production in this impoverished country. In 2007, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that for the second year in a row, narcotic production in Afghanistan was the highest ever recorded. Report also revealed that almost 93 percent of total world opium production originated in Afghanistan. The cultivation of opium poppy grew and stretched from 165,000 hectares to over 193,000 hectares in 2007. Although the United States once turned a blind eye to the cultivation of this insidious crop – particularly when it was supporting the anti-Soviet mujahadeen during the Cold War – the United States has made the eradication of this crop an important foreign policy objective (Paris 2008). In the Indian subcontinent, American foreign policy in the post-Cold War era has been more proactive in pursuing an entente between these two nuclear-armed adversaries. Needing an ally in the War on Terror following the World Trade Center attacks in 2001, the United States made a variety of agreements with Pakistani military strongman and President Pervez Musharraf. Seeking support in the rout of the Taliban in 2001 and seeking an ally in the region against fundamentalist Islamist extremism, the United States has until recently turned a blind eye to the undemocratic nature of the regime in Pakistan (recent elections led to a victory of the Pakistan People’s Party, led by the ever-charismatic Benazir Bhutto until her assassination early last year). US policy towards India has also been targeted towards combating the budding Islamist threat in that country as well as seeking a rapprochement between Indian and her neighbor to the west. Accordingly, American policy towards the region has been driven by cold, hard realist foreign policy objectives and a desire to rid the world of Islamist extremists. Interventions during this period have been forthright and with clear foreign policy objectives (Armstrong et al., 2003). CONCLUDING REMARKS Realism has driven American foreign policy in South East and Central Asia since the early days of the Cold War. From 1945 American foreign policy was based upon cold geostrategic concerns and an effort to contain the influence of the Soviet Union in the region during the Cold War. Today, the United States is far less encumbered by the geopolitical realities and the result is more aggressive American behavior in both Central and South East Asia. The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and frequent US incursions into Pakistani territory to hunt out supposed Taliban fighters is indicative of this new foreign policy framework in the New World Order. While Soviet containment was the modus operandi during global bipolarity, today marks US global hegemony and a foreign policy which is far less constrained than during the Cold War. references Armstrong, A., & Rubin, B. (2003). Regional Issues in the Reconstruction of Afghanistan. World Policy Journal. 2:3 12-69. Butler, M.J. (2003). U.S. Military Intervention in Crisis, 1945-1994: An Empirical Inquiry of Just War. Journal of Cold War Studies, 47:2, 226-248. Boettcher III, W.A. (2004). Military Intervention Decisions regarding Humanitarian Crises: Framing Induced Risk Behavior. Political Science Quarterly. 48:3, 331-355. Morgenthau, H. (1951). In Defense of the National Interest. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Paris, R (2006). NATOs Choice in Afghanistan: go big or go home. Policy Options, 35-43. Thyne, C.L. (2005). Supporter of stability or agent of agitation? The effect of United States foreign policy on coups in Latin America, 1950—1993. Cold War History. Weldes, J. (1999). Constructing National Interests: The United States and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Read More