Horizons of American foreign policy

Horizons of American foreign policy

Saturday, October 22, 2022

To where should we point the ship of American foreign policy? There are many problematics, here, such that any proposed solution will cause waves: but it can't be steered blindly into the night. In point of fact, there are many ways in which we still live in Ronald Reagan's America, and any discourse on American foreign policy has to be cognizant of that fact, as much as we resist it, up until the point when resistance to that jingoism of Mr. Reagan's overcomes that paradigm. The central problematic that became Reagan's scourge to beat reasoned discourse into submission is the Vietnam War that was, which was America's Peloponnesian War. We know that it was our attempts to do good in the world led to that debacle of fools, but, we still want to do good in the world. That problematic is summed up by this quote, which says: "these problems are reinforced by our propensity to confuse policy with implementation. But often the policy isn't the problem: it's how we're trying to implement it. (Foreign Service Journal, September 2022, page 40.)

In more recent problematics, the global Covid pandemic and its aftermath has revealed other issues which are shifts in global priorities, most especially towards Asia. "The once-great Asia hub of Hong Kong['s]… international capacity recovery was still at just 12% of pre-pandemic levels," says Air Travel World Magazine, "For as long as China's borders are essentially closed, the air travel center of gravity will shift toward southeast Asia and India." (Air Travel World, September 2022; 29, 30.) These problems can only be solved by government-to-government diplomacy, Air Travel World says.

But the real needs of American foreign policy will always move faster than our historical reckoning with the recent modern history of China and Taiwan. Despite misgivings about the orientation and geopolitical goals of the new U.S. Space Force, the fact remains that space should be a frontier of diplomacy. Space should be a frontier of peaceful cooperation between nations, and if that is true, it should therefore be a place of diplomatic engagement. As in many cases, there is no alternative to diplomacy. Every respected voice in science agrees that space exploration can only be accomplished by peaceful inter-government cooperation between nations.

"In time, various positions at our missions around the world should expand their portfolios to include space depending on the contours and needs of the relationships. Environment, science, technology and health (ESTH) and political-military (PolMil) officers seem a natural fit, but so too are public affairs officers. So many of us work in countries where space is or is becoming a part of the relationship with the United States that the variety of participants in such programs appears limitless. In the future, certain posts may require a dedicated space portfolio officer or even a unit or section within the mission. (Foreign Service Journal, May 2022, by D. Epstein.)

The other imperative issue to grapple with as a global community is climate change. There's only one alternative to extinction, and that is global inter-government cooperation to change the fossil fuel extractivist economic paradigm in order to fix the ways we live into a sustainable harmony with nature. "Climate change is personal, but it is also communal." (Foreign Service Journal, October 2021, 50.)

The importance of climate change to the procedure of diplomacy is as a platform to bring diverse and previously unheard voices into the hearing of the foreign policy apparatus too. But the obligation that we must always keep foremost in our hearts is the necessity to solve the core problems and not to get carried away into scientific speculation. This means the focus not only on people, but on future generations and their relationship with nature and the agrarian reality of human civilization too. This quote indicates it:

"More and more people around the globe are experiencing "Solastalgia", defined as the distress caused by environmental change. I would include myself. The distress can come in many ways: depression and anxiety over personally experiencing or lamenting certain changes, strong emotions over observing and working with and for populations directly affected by climate change, or disappointment over policy or programs that seem to take too long to make a real difference." (Foreign Service Journal, October 2021.)

It is embarrassing to hear and read the recent prognostications about the revival of tradition as the only profitable way to see the world. Resentment about taxation and government overreach will not solve our problems on this horizon of American foreign policy but, as in politics, so here, that representation of more capable and diverse viewpoints is the only personnel arrangement that will solve those problems, and it may truly be said that the progenitors of tradition are more apt to prefer this arrangement over its defenders. Diversity without resentment is the ultimate frontier of our current reality.

"We are beginning to see an increase in senior appointments of career officers who reflect the diversity of America, mostly accomplished through the political appointment process. This is a start, but we cannot declare victory yet." (Foreign Service Journal, November 2021, 21.)

What will that victory look like? This is not why we do the right thing. We tend to get better so that we can always get better. The point of making the right progress is like driving a car: the point is not to stall out at any point. We'll never stall out, but at any point, we can look back and see how far we've come.