In my home town, I’m acquainted with a diverse group of people. Because of our respective careers , my husband and I know folks from every race, religion, and socio-economic background. If I were to sit down with some of them and ask, “what is our foreign policy?” I don’t think anyone would give me the same answer.
Some professors, politicians, and military could probably voice a well informed opinion. But even in this college town, those people are few and far between.
When I was a child, the USA foreign policy was pretty clear. We were fighting Germany and Japan. The Germans hated the Jews, and the Japanese hated us. If we didn’t enter the war, they would take over our country , kill our priests, and make us do horrible things to our fellow human beings.
A few years after WWII ended in 1945, almost every young man I knew was drafted and sent to Korea. Again, we had a pretty clear foreign policy: Fighting communism.
Then we entered the long, agonizing war in Vietnam. Our sons, brothers, husbands and fathers were drafted to continue the fight against Marxist communism. Most of us protested. However, the politicians convinced us that if our guys didn’t fight and die in Southeast Asia, we’d soon be ruled by the communists. We lost that war, but saved our democracy.
The State department says their foreign policy goals are to preserve national security, promote world peace, promote democratic values, work with our allies to solve international problems. and further cooperative foreign trade,
But how is the average American supposed to figure out what the United States is up to all over the world? The cold war is supposedly over, but we’re impeaching a president because he held up aid to a corrupt Ukraine in their fight against Russia. Does that make sense? If that’s what we’re doing, it looks like the cold war is really a hot war.
Supposedly, we’re not at war with anyone in the Middle East. But if you were alive on 9/11, it felt pretty much like Pearl Harbor to those of us who were around both times. We actually were at war after 9/11, but it was never declared.
We’ve been sending our troops all over the Middle East for years, even though we don’t need their oil any more We’ve got all the oil we need right here in the good old USA . Also, we have wind farms and other forms of cleaner energy. But the politicians give us the same old excuse they did about communism. They tell us we’re fighting terrorism there so we don’t have to fight it here.
Why are we trying to maintain toxic relationships with countries who hate us? Any therapist would tell us that’s crazy. Our foreign policy is incoherent to the average person who goes to work every day, worries about paying their mortgage, and educating their children.
People cared more about our foreign policy when men were being drafted against their will. Now that the US military is an all volunteer service, no one feels as strongly as they once did. And more importantly, our foreign policy doesn’t influence their vote nearly as much as the cost of health care, prescription drugs, and the unemployment rate.
What is our foreign policy? Does anyone really know?