AMU Homeland Security Legislation

Tectonic Shift in US Foreign Policy

US Foreign Policy

By John Ubaldi
Contributor, In Homeland Security

As the nation prepares for the upcoming presidential election, most Americans are more concerned with the U.S. economy, but the nation has to face the prospect of a tectonic shift in U.S. foreign policy.

To many this means very little, as we should be addressing more pressing needs at home, but failure to address this shift will have a disastrous consequence for the United States.

It doesn’t matter who becomes president, whether it be a Republican or Democratic president, he/she will face a tectonic shift in foreign policy.

Too many nations across the globe are witnessing this shift, and many will ask, what is this tectonic shift in foreign policy? and the answer will be a surprise to many, and that answer is, the retrenchment of the United States.

Let me explain…since the end of the Second World War, the United States has been the indispensable nation, and with the ending of the Cold War, a unrivaled hegemonic power. But now, to the rest of the world, they sense the decline of the United States.

Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford stated during his confirmation hearing July 9, to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs, that “Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security.”

Dunford continued in his remarks, “If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I would have to point to Russia,” Dunford said. “And if you look at their behavior, it’s nothing short of alarming.”

The other security threats Dunford listed was China, North Korea, and finally, the Islamic State terror group, as significant threats to the United States.

In each case the world has witnessed the weak and tepid response by the U.S. to Russia’s annexation of the Crimea then followed by Moscow’s incursion inside Ukraine. Further embarrassing the United States was the allowing of whistleblower Edward Snowden to take sanctuary from prosecution.

The world continues to witness a resurgent Russia exert its power led by President Vladimir Putin defy and move into regions of the world where they haven’t been in decades, all the while the U.S. seems powerless.

Far too often the United States issues “red lines” and in every case the world witnesses America’s bluff being called with little action coming from the United States.

The crisis in the Middle East is a prime example of the United States reluctant to lead, especially when dealing with Syria and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons. The U.S. issued a threat and then failed to follow up when the bluff was called. It was embarrassing to watch the administration look feckless in how it handled the situation.

The BBC reported that President Obama, while continuing to trumpet “American exceptionalism,” regularly prefaces remarks on foreign affairs by acknowledging the limits of US power, again with little public outcry.

The debate seems to center always on the use of American power by its use of the military, but far too often the United States is reluctant to use or exert its leadership across the globe.

Further fueling this decline, it was announced last week the U.S. is reducing the U.S. Army troop strength by 40,000. Now this may mean very little to some, but to the world it further underscores the further retrenchment of the United States, all the while China and Russia expand their military capabilities.

Many argue that the reason the world is spiraling out control is because of the lack of American leadership in providing order. With the vacuum of U.S. leadership, other nations are filling the void.

China watched as Russia annexed the Crimea, and witnessed a Russian incursion into the Ukraine, all with minimal repercussions from the West, especially the United States. This lack of U.S. resolve has emboldened the Chinese to begin construction on a series of islands in the South China Sea, all with little impunity from the U.S.

President Obama, who touted in his first term that he was pivoting U.S. foreign policy toward Asia, has now been seen as more rhetoric as China is seen as a nation on the rise, and the U.S. is seen by the region as in decline.

In April Foreign Policy Magazine, David Rothkopf wrote that while we went from pivot to pirouette in the Middle East — trying to spin away but being drawn right back around to where we started — the countries in the region, allies and adversaries alike, nonetheless saw an America that was trying to get out, lean back, or lead from behind. When Washington acted, it was in response to a crisis, and even then, mostly what it did was appear to try as hard as possible to do as little as possible. The administration’s one big Middle East initiative, the push for a nuclear deal with Iran, was seen by virtually all of our traditional allies in that neck of the woods as something even worse than the Asia rebalancing that they worried was a sign of American disengagement. To them, from Israel to the Gulf, it was seen as a pivot not out of the region but to an enemy within it.

Rothkopf continued to write that as one regional leader told me recently, “We need a dependable relationship with a major power. If the United States can’t be counted on, then we will have to turn elsewhere.”

This statement reiterates a conversation I had with a senior retired military general who is in continual communications with our allies abroad and are always asking what is going on with U.S foreign policy? He wished he knew.

Far too often our enemies don’t fear us and our allies don’t trust we will be there.

The U.S. needs to understand the indiscernible role that the United States plays in world affairs, with our retrenchment, other nations such as Russia and China will fill the void, and we will not like the outcome!

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