US Foreign Policy Gone All Wrong

I’ve always been rather fond of the Foreign Service, the idea that diplomacy is an important aspect of establishment and maintenance of a global economy, the furtherance of progress and human rights. Always more effective than war, as well as less deadly.

So it was with interest that I read a report from the Denver Research Group dated 9-15. In which they report things that should definitely be of concern to Americans. The gutting of both intelligence capabilities and diplomatic standing during the Bush-II presidency have been significant, and may prove difficult to rectify when they’re gone (scheduled for January 20, 2009).

The Denver Group’s report lists eight factors that have contributed to the crisis. I’ll repeat those because they make it easy to see how bad the situation has become…

• The loss of US influence as a result of the Iraq war.
• A view across the globe resulting from Abu Ghraib and range of missteps that the US has lost the moral high ground it had enjoyed for decades.
• A feeling among global leaders that the US is without a coherent foreign policy strategy… a belief that has started feeding on itself and has emboldened US adversaries.
• China’s rise, its smooth diplomatic technique, its re-alignment with Russia and its aggressive, clever drive to form new alliances with nations extending from Asia and Africa to South America.
• Russia’s recent rise combined with Russian President Putin’s domestic popularity and his reputation for effectively standing up to the West.
• The rise of non-aligned nations emboldened by the inability of the US to effectively use the extraordinary power it possesses.
• A view among key global leaders that the US will be bogged down in Iraq for many years (a view heightened significantly by President Bush’s September 13 Iraq speech), thus distracted and unable to respond effectively to key political moves by the range of international players.
• A recognition by the international community that the Bush Administration not only hasn’t been able to deal effectively with non-state actors (e.g. terror groups like al Quaeda) but they are holding their own or starting to win.

Scary.

Links:

PostGlobal: Global Power Barometer

WaPo Confirms: Bush Losing the Soft-Power War Badly

Related Ads:

Filed under Balance of Power, Bush, China, Diplomacy, Foreign Policy, Russia | Comment (1)