Discussion: Do you think Obama's foreign policy strategy regarding either Iran or Syria has been effective? Custom Essay
1. Do you think Obama’s foreign policy strategy regarding either Iran or Syria has been effective? Be sure to consider questions such as the following after you read the lecture on internationalism and isolationism. Make sure to consult the NYT as well so you are familiar with the most recent news. Then give us an overview of the current situation
2. And answer "Has the US and/or UN work on chemical weapons in Syria been effective?"
Lecture notes on and internationalism and isolationism.
Even today, politicians can be divided into two different groups concerning foreign policy. Each group answers three sets of questions: 1) what are the criteria for intervention, 2) how should we intervene, and 3) should we intervene alone.
There are those who advocate isolation. In their view, the US should only get involved overseas if it is in our direct national interest, if we are threatened or could gain economically or militarily. We should, whenever possible, intervene unilaterally. I think it would be fair to say that this was President Bush’s position prior to 9/11.
Then there are those who advocate internationalism. In their view, it is the moral duty of a strong nation to get involved in the world when basic moral threats occur. Isolationists generally believe that when the United States does get involved in foreign affairs, it should first do so militarily. Internationalists generally prefer a diplomatic approach and only support military intervention as a final effort. Moreover, internationalists prefer to act multilaterally through international organizations (United Nations) or regional organizations (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
After WWI, the Republicans adopted an isolationist approach. They advocated, for example, that the US stay out of the League of Nations, the predecessor to the United Nations. The Democrats, beginning with WWII, became advocates of internationalism, and one step in this regard was to push for a United Nations under the strong leadership of the US. There have been, however, many exceptions to this dichotomy. For example, President Reagan was very Wilsonian–in his drive to end the Cold War and to conduct a moral fight against Communism, he was more than willing to be interventionist in both military and diplomatic channels.
In general, internationalism was President Clinton’s position as we see in the case of intervention in the former state of Yugoslavia. Ironically, President Bush entered office with more of an isolationist view, but after 9/11, he introduced multilateralism and moralism into his world view as well.
While the dichotomy between Republicans and Democrats has broken down even more recently, the basic dichotomy in the arguments of internationalists and isolationists remains. One can see this in many foreign policy examples. For example, with regard to China, it is the internationalists who argue that we should make improvement in human rights a requirement for China obtaining most favored nation status and other trade privileges. It is the isolationists who argue that we have no business interfering with China’s internal affairs and we should keep business and morality separate.
Sometimes these groups advocate the same policies but for different reasons. For example, isolationists were willing to get involved in the Persian Gulf war because oil was endangered while internationalists wanted to get involved because Kuwait was being invaded and that violated Kuwait’s rights under international law. The isolationists preferred a military invasion led by the US whereas the internationalists wanted to try economic sanctions for as long as possible and only then to have a UN-led military invasion. As for Iraq in 2003, some internationalists wanted to get involved because of the horrible nature of Hussein’s dictatorship and some isolationists wanted to be involved to eliminate a potential threat to the US.
In the case of Kosovo in 1999, we saw these two groups often advocating the same policies but for different reasons. The internationalists wanted us to intervene diplomatically for moral reasons (the ethnic cleansing of Kosovars). If we had to bomb, they wanted it to be as short as possible. Isolationists were only willing to intervene militarily because they saw the area as being in our direct national interest, and so it was an area where we could not tolerate instability. Europe is our major trading partner and NATO is our major defense partner so the instability in Kosovo was dangerous to both of these relationships.
Some of the difficult questions for internationalists are as follows. Should the US intervene everywhere and anywhere; what about Africa/Chechnya? Should the UN have to approve of such intervention first? How do we pay for the cost of such intervention?
Some of the difficult questions for isolationists are as follows. Don’t we just suffer more in the long-term if we don’t deal with situations like Yugoslavia or Libya or Iran immediately before they truly threaten our national interests? Who will be the world leader if not the US?
Right now the distinction between isolationists and internationalists has been blurred somewhat as 9/11 made it very difficult to be an isolationist. Still, when one considers Bush’s original position on having US peace-keeping troops in Afghanistan (he was against it), one sees remnants of an isolationist stance. Once the military portion of an operation is completed, an isolationist does not see any need for ongoing involvement in that region–a practice which has been called "nation building." One can see this again in the case of Iraq and now Afghanistan, where the US is hesitant to keep too many troops.
In contrast, we now see that the reason for being involved in Iraq became moral (democracy/better leadership), which might suggest that President Bush became an internationalist.
It is interesting that the European allies of the United States often hold the opposite view–they are very reticent to get involved militarily, but generally ready to carry out peace-keeping once the military conflict has ended. One saw signs of this in Afghanistan as well as at the Prague Summit Nov. 2002 (where the decision was reached on NATO’s expansion). Their defense budgets are all much smaller than the US, but their peace-keeping budgets are 2-3 times higher (foreign aid, famine assistance, medical assistance, etc.). Now that Obama plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan he may look more like as isolationist. However, his intervention in Libya in the summer of 2011 could suggest the opposite. Yet, he chose to intervene not unilaterally, but with NATO.
Do you think Pres. Obama is more of an isolationist or internationalist or a combination of both? He is often categorized as a pragmatist but that is really a way to avoid analyzing his specific actions. You might want to consider his most recent approach to Iran or Syria in 2013 as you think about this question.
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