|
|
|
|
International Politics, GOV 207 The State System from an
American Perspective in 2007. U.S. Foreign Policy U.S. at war in Afghanistan and Iraq In 2007, the United States is at war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its President George W Bush has declared a global war on terrorism in the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Threat of Pre-Emptive War The United States has proclaimed an aggressive, unilateralist foreign policy that reserves the right of preemptive war against terrorists and governments sheltering such terrorists. It has unilaterally seized foreign nationals suspected of terrorist plotting, abducted these individuals from foreign countries--a process called rendition, and imprisoned them in secret prisons without due process. War on Terrorism Most so-called terrorists appear to be fundamentalist Muslims pursuing a religiously-based ideology which has been labeled Islamist. The war on terrorism has an ideological dimension reminiscent of our fighting communism until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The war on terrorism has also justified unprecedented domestic spying on Americans by their government. U.S. as World Hegemon Since the United States remains the single most powerful state in the world, U.S. behavior is a major determinant of the global system. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States has been in this predominant position which some have described as global hegemony. Powerful as the United States is unquestionably, it is not all powerful. Its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not going well. While the U.S. was able to overthrow the regimes that ruled these countries before the American attacks, peace has not returned to these countries. Domestic insurgencies are continuing. In Iraq these insurgencies are close to precipitating civil war. Should Iraq deteriorate into full fledged civil war, a greater regional war is likely. Fight to Prevent Nuclear Proliferation In addition to its war on terrorism, the United States is continuing to defend its foreign policy goal of limiting nuclear proliferation. While India and Pakistan have developed nuclear weapons in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it is nuclear research in North Korea and Iran which worries the United States. Early in his Presidency, George W. Bush referred to Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as an axis of evil. While the regime in Iraq has been eliminated, those of Iran and North Korea remain. While North Korea is under strong regional pressure to give up its nuclear weapons and has agreed in principle to do so, Iran is in open defiance of the United Nations. Indeed, Iran is emerging as a major center of opposition to American foreign policy objectives. Possible U.S. Rivals Historically, hegemonic powers tend to create opposition and the formation of alliances opposing the hegemon. So far no such global opposition has crystallized. Potentially, however, China may emerge as a natural rival to the United States. The European Union and Japan continue to be allies of the United States. Russia has not yet recovered fully from the break-up of the Soviet Union. While Cold War rhetoric re-emerges periodically and Russia is attempting to protect its national interests in the Near Abroad from what it views as American incursions, so far it has pursued a realistic foreign policy cognizant of its weakened power position. India and Brazil are regional powers. They have not assumed a global role to this point. Nuisance Powers. Cuba continues to be a major irritant to U.S. policy makers. Fidel Castro has successfully defied and survived American opposition since 1959. In the last couple of years, Hugo Chavez of Columbia has emerged as a significant irritant. He is actively implementing a socialist regime within Columbia and is using his oil revenues to stir up trouble within the hemisphere and elsewhere. The Global Picture. As a global power, the United States needs to be concerned about developments within each region of the world. Africa continues to be a continent in crisis. While rich in resources, it suffers from corrupt governments, foreign exploitation, and underdevelopment. Its HIV/AIDS crisis is the worst on the planet. The Middle East and the Islamic world in general continue to be a region of great instability. The Arab-Israeli conflict and America's open support for Israel sour all aspects for our foreign policy in that region. Global Prosperity. Since World War II, an unprecedented degree of global integration has taken place especially with regard to international trade and finance. A global economy has been formed largely on the initiative of the United States and its Western European partners. This global economy operates largely on the basis of capitalistic, free-market principles. The economic strength of the United States has been a primary basis for our military and political strength. World prosperity and the continuing unfolding of a global free market economy are basic pre-conditions for continuing American leadership. Managing the global economy, and not just our own, is a primary task of American foreign policy. Global Environmental, Population, Health, and Social Problems. There are now 6.2 billion humans on this planet. These numbers will go up before they stabilize between 8 and 9 billion. Throughout the world, all peoples are looking forward to a living standard that equals that of the United States and the developed world. Achieving these living standards will place tremendous ecological pressures on the natural resources of this planet. Global warming is a fact. What remains in doubt is whether global warming can be contained and what its consequences will be. Unless major new technological breakthroughs are made, especially in the energy field, this planet may not be able to sustain the current technological civilization. Extremes in wealth and poverty, both within countries and between countries, breeds political instability. At the present these extremes seem to be growing. Growing social conflict is likely unless these trends are reversed. Poverty, inadequate jobs, poor education, and bad health tend to go together. Pandemics pose a major global problem. Given global travel patterns, contagious diseases can not be contained but will spread rapidly and globally. The American public and our foreign policy must acknowledge these growing global interdependencies. Isolationism is no longer an option. But neither is unilateralism. All of these global problems require the cooperation of many states. American Support for International Organizations An effective American policy must work together with and through international organizations. It is clear that the United Nations can not be truly effective without American support. But it is also becoming clear that American foreign policy can not be effective without United Nations support. Perspective for the Future Anyone examining American foreign policy over the past 100 years would have to conclude that it has generally been a force for the good. By and large, while pursuing our own national interest, the United States has also fought for liberal values, democracy, free trade, human rights, freedom of religion, and social justice. Woodrow Wilson helped to create the League of Nations. Franklin Delano Roosevelt worked to establish the United Nations. In two world wars, the United States fought against authoritarian and totalitarian states. We have been "the last best hope" for many of the oppressed peoples of the world. While our opponents have often criticized us as being materialistic, opportunistic, capitalistic, and imperialistic, the United States has not, in my opinion, wanted to create or tried to create an American Empire. American world domination has not been our objective. It may be, however, that the United States is at a crossroads. We will either conduct our foreign policy through the United Nations in cooperation with other states or we may try to act preemptively and unilaterally. If we follow the path begun by George W. Bush and his Republican administration, we will continue to alienate much of the world and we will be perceived as the world's new bully. Our success over the past hundred years has been in alliance with other progressive countries, supporting the progressive growth of international law, and through global organizations. The current hegemonic position of the United States has been the reward of these cooperative policies. Whether we will continue to be the leading power of the world will depend on our success in having most of the world see us as a defender of progress, democracy, and social justice. If more peoples come to view us as a force for reaction, violence, war, oppression, and global domination, then our leadership position will gradually erode. Retrospective on the Past. American foreign policy has evolved over time. The United States became an independent country with the Treaty of Paris in 1783 after we had won the American Revolutionary War against the United Kingdom. We were a country of four million people in 1790; we are now more than 300 million. Please click on this link for more background on United States foreign policy. The State System from a Global Perspective The State system as it exists in 2009 is the product of historical evolution. This evolution has not been smooth, gradual, and peaceful. It has been marked by periodic global warfare after which a period of relative peace and stability ensured. The most recent cataclysmic upheaval was the period of World War I and II between 1914 and 1945. Since 1945, the world has been relatively peaceful and stable. Eight major powers entered World War II and only two left the war stronger than when it began. The five Allied Powers--United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France, and China-- and three Axis Powers--National Socialist Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan--were the dominant world powers in 1939. Only the United States and the Soviet Union left World War II strengthened. Shortly after World War II, the wartime alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union broke down. The period of the Cold War had begun. The balance of power system
of eight or
so Major Powers had been replaced by bipolarity between the United States and
the Soviet Union. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the state system has been dominated by the United States. This predominance has been described as American Hegemony. A hegemonic state system does not imply, as already mentioned, that the US is the only state of the world or all powerful. Hegemony differs from a Federal World State or a World Empire. We might want to visualize the current world as a pyramid. The US is the most powerful state and sits at the top of the pyramid. But below the US is a group of major states including the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy grouped into the European Union, Russia, China, and India. Below this second tier of major states, there is an array of middling states, minor states, and micro-states. Altogether the state system is now composed of more than 192 member states of the United Nations. Each of these states is controlled, more or less, by its central government. The leaders of these central governments are the actual human beings who make most of the decisions that control the future of this planet. The Global System The State System is one way to look at our planet from a global perspective. States are the single most important building blocks from which our world is constructed. But the social world inhabited by human beings is more complicated than implied by the term "state system." Another way of looking at the Global System is in terms of international actors. In this model, central governments of sovereign states continue to be the most important actors within the system. But other actors, besides governments, are admitted into this model. The Global System is dominated by large, powerful organizations. Most of these organizations meet the criteria for being called bureaucracies. These large, formal organizations include not only governments but also large business corporations, banks, and some religious organizations. I have previously defined some of these international actors. Chapter Six of Kegley looks at the non-state actors in greater detail. The remainder of this WEB page, looks at the evolution of the state system and what is meant by state-actors. The Cold War Period 1946 - 1991 Dominance by the Great Powers of Europe from 1871 - 1945 History of the Modern State System 1648 - 1871 The origins of the modern state system are generally dated from 1648 after the end of the last great European wars of religion, the Thirty Years War. During the Middle Ages, there were no states in the modern sense. The Medieval Ideal was of a single world empire and a single world church. The Holy Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Catholic Church symbolized this ideal. The reality of the Middle Ages was that power was exercised on the local level by feudal lords. Feudalism and manorialism characterized the Middle Ages. It is only when feudal monarchs were gradually able to transform themselves into absolute monarchs that the modern state was born. A system of such absolute monarchies evolved after the Thirty Years War. A.
European Origins My Web pages concerning Western
Civilization II, HIS 102 Updated August 28, 2007
|