Foreign Policy Challenges

The next president, whoever it will be, will face a myriad of foreign policy challenges that must be addressed, probably by this time next year. It’s worth exploring all of these issues, but that would make for a very long post. So what I’m going to do is list the major challenges followed by a brief explanation, and then in the weeks leading up to the election, analyze each individual issue in detail.

Of course, this is by no means a list of the only foreign policy challenges the next president will face. Certainly, there are more challenges than could be easily listed. And there’s always a good possibility that a new challenge will emerge in the next four years. However, I’m not in the business of speculating (or wars of prevention), so I’m not going to look for problems where right now there are none. I also realize that there may be some who don’t believe that something I’ve listed is a challenge. That’s fine, too. I’m just calling what I see. So, in no particular order:

1. Iraq − While there has been a lot of progress in the last two years, the next president will have to see continued progress and decide the fate of the troops and decide what exactly our strategy is.
2. China − The world’s fastest growing economy and largest population. This has given them added confidence in world affairs. An upshot is, aside from selling arms to nations that are hostile to the US, they usually keep to themselves on many matters before the international community. The downside of this, however, is that they generally keep out of matters before the international community, such as the recent problems in Burma.
3. Iran − As the country tries to go nuclear, its President, who yields very little actual power, cranks up the anti−American and Israeli rhetoric. They also have, at the very least, projected some of their influence into Iraq. However, the government rules over a relatively modern society that does not necessarily follow lockstep with the government.
4. Russia − After eight years as president and unable to run for election again, Vladimir Putin finds himself the…Prime Minister of Russia. Russia under Putin has become an aggressive state fueled on Petrol dollars. Questions remain whether he prefers the period of history when the Russians were at the helm of the Soviet empire, or of Imperial Russia. Recent hostilities with former Soviet republic Georgia underscore the need to have a coherent policy towards Russia.
5. Sino−Ruso−Iranian Alliance − Currently, the administration pits these countries together, in effect a sort of Axis of Evil. Except the rhetoric is not nearly as strong and the threat is much larger than the original Axis of Evil. But is this a natural alliance of an alliance of convenience? Is it a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”? Moreover, is this a sustainable alliance that will pose a growing and continued threat to the United States?
6. Afghanistan and Pakistan − The job was never finished in Afghanistan; the Taliban and al Qaeda were removed from power and decimated, but not destroyed. They’ve regrouped in Pakistan. Osama bin Laden is still considered to be alive. There is a weak central government in Afghanistan that is increasingly corrupt. Additionally, the Pakistani government has not been helpful in finding the terrorists in their mountainous regions, and American incursion into Pakistani territory has sparked several firefights in the last few weeks.
7. Decreasing Hegemonic Status − The US has stretched its military might been economically irresponsible over the last eight years. As a result, we are no longer in position to be the sole major power in the world. The EU, while politically unstable, has seen its economy grow in the same time period. Both China and India have extremely large and fast growing economies. The course of the last eight years, unilateralism, is no longer tenable. The United States will need to figure out how to live in a post−American world where there are rising regional powers. The US will need to learn how to adapt to this new world.
8. The War on Terror −If this war still exists (it’s hard to tell in these ever changing times) needs a new strategy. Because of our presence in Iraq, a new generation of radical Muslims have been trained in using guerilla tactics in fighting a major military power, much like al Qaeda in Afghanistan in the 1980s. A new strategy, including but not limited to military means, is needed to combat what has been done in the last eight years.
9. The Middle East − Israel is the target of increasingly hostile rhetoric from Iran, which is attempting to assert itself in the region by becoming a nuclear power and influencing the Shi’a in Iraq. At the same time, Israel was less than easily victorious in its last incursion into Lebanon to fight Hezbollah, also backed by Iran. Finally, the US had called for democratic elections in Palestine, which catapulted anti−Israel Hamas to power. How does the United States act towards a democratically elected government that has interests contra American interests?
10. Latin America −The triumvirate of Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro, and Evo Morales have produced a lot of anti−American rhetoric, but don’t pose too much of a threat. However, improving relations in Latin America is extremely important, as there are large amounts of Americans of Latin descent and three important economies − Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina − are situated there.
11. Dependence on Oil − This issue is not just a foreign policy issue. Our dependence on foreign soil leaves us open to wild market fluctuations based on global demand, leaves at the mercy of OPEC, which includes many countries who aren’t exactly thrilled at us, as well as helps fill the coffers of many countries that are currently anti−American. However, it is not possible to wean ourselves off foreign oil and replace it with domestic produced oil, and this means the US needs to wean itself off of oil entirely.
12. The War on Drugs − This may seem like an odd inclusion to my list, but it’s an important one. The prohibition of drugs does nothing to fight the demand of drugs, only the supply. And a demand for something with a prohibited supply creates a black market, which are, of course, illegal. Because of black market demand, terrorist organizations are able to fund their efforts by dealing in drugs. Examples are the Taliban in Afghanistan with opium and heroin production and FARQ in Columbia with cocaine. See also the PIRA in the 1980s who distributed drugs in order to fund their campaign against Britain. If we’re going to seriously attempt to squash terrorism, it’s necessary to seriously attack how they fund their actions. Having a realistic policy about drugs that treats people like adults rather than as children who cannot make decisions is one effective way to hurt terrorists, fight crime, and increase government income all at the same time.
13. A Grand Strategy − A Grand Strategy for American foreign policy has been missing since the end of the Cold War. Prior, it was George Keenan and Harry Truman’s policy of Containment. Sure, Bush tried to have the policy of Prevention be the Grand Strategy, but this didn’t work in the first instance of use and is not a tenable long-term strategy. America needs to decide what its values are and how to best promote these values.