US foreign policy overview and development

U.S. Foreign Policy

American foreign policy occupies a unique place in the world. American foreign policy regarding interacting with other nations is a non-homogeneous mixture of politics, economics, and the unique American culture which believes that both the success of political and economic agenda's cannot be separated from the ways which a country treats it's people. To be specific, American has a difficult time forming positive relationships with nations that oppress, imprison, or otherwise trample their people's basic human rights to life, liberty and the individual pursuit of happiness. As he stated during his administration, President Jimmy Carter described the connection between human rights and American foreign policy this way.

Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood."

American foreign policy is also seen as a function of the president, and the president must take the lead in representing to the world a cohesive message which represents America's past actions, as well as any new initiatives unique to his administration. As a result, when a person of group of peoples travel to another nation, and make statement which can be perceived as representatively of the U.S. government's foreign policy without first receiving clearance, approval and support of the current administration, the political machines rush into action, and each side works to protect itself while at the same time mounting damage control efforts.

Such was the state of international politics when Jimmy Carter traveled to Havana, Cuba in May 2002. He stood shoulder to shoulder in Havana with one of the U.S. government's oldest enemies, Cuban president Fidel Castro, insisting that the U.S. change it's foreign policy, and begin to recognize the needs of the Cuban people. Carter, although on a mission to convey a message of friendship to the Cuban people and to seek some common ground between Cuba and the United States, created a storm of controversy. As a former president, he represented the American government to the Cuban leader. As a world wide humanitarian, his presence carried weight, and created a newsworthy event. However, his message was contradictory to current American foreign policy. His efforts in Cuba, while built from the heart of the vision and values behind American foreign policy, presented the world with a divided America, and an opportunity to call into question the current foreign policy regarding Cuba.

According to Kane, (2003) Carter made a point of meeting and encouraging local democratic, religious, and human rights activists. In a televised address, he endorsed the rights of dissidents and urged democracy on the island nation (Sullivan 2002). He also advocated an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba. In response, President George W. Bush's administration angrily charged Carter's latest adventure as international arbiter as an inappropriate use of American clout. Bush himself was quick to reaffirm the existing sanctions on trade and travel, and restate the U.S.'s demands for free elections and a liberalization of Cuba's economy as preconditions of U.S. relaxation of foreign policy sanctions. He was also reportedly angry, in a week when he was finalizing an arms reduction deal with the Russians, at being upstaged in the media by the retired elder president. Nevertheless, there was a certain irony in his implied charge that Carter, who had once put human rights centrally on the foreign policy agenda of the United States, was giving aid and comfort to a notorious violator.

In Kane's article, he questions the validity of Bush's criticisms of Carter by suggesting that Bush performed an identical foreign policy mea culpa by visiting China, and issuing a democratic challenge to the Chinese Communist leadership (Allen and Pan 2002). Bush had not conditioned U.S. Chinese trade on democratic progress in China. He had, however, echoed similar themes to the Chinese which Carter had suggested in Cuba. Bush invited the Chinese to consider the course of their historical economic transformation and to draw on specifically "American ideals of liberty, faith and family" (Allan and Pan 2002).

At this point, Kane reached back, and draws the outline of the foundation of U.S. foreign policy, and how the idea has become centrally co-mingled with ideas of human rights, and the collective treatment of citizens by their government. He believes that because the Western Enlightenment is the historical genesis of both human rights and American cultural values, it is not surprising that there is a huge overlap in their substantive content. Both traditions regarding the rights of the individual, and the way which a government treats its people insist on "religious, political, and civic rights and freedoms, both advocate the rule of law and democracy" (Kane, 2003). In fact, the U.S. stand on foreign policy has significantly influences other bodies of governing influence to follow the U.S.'s lead. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by all nations at the UN General Assembly in 1948 was, in fact, heavily reliant upon the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights.

The risk of a national policy which is a somewhat discontinuous mixture of faith, values, and the use of American influence to facilitate the furtherance of our faith and values is that American foreign policy can be subtly replaced, in our own minds, as the 'right way' to deal with other nations, and other peoples. The corollary to this subconscious belief is that nations who do not agree with the American approach are 'wrong,' and therefore American action can be justified in order to motivate other nations to correct their wrong behaviors. Kane describes this as the myth of virtuous American power. However, the nation cannot afford to approach the world as the moral peacekeeper. Misuse of American foreign influence can result in disastrous results, such as the world response to American values which were used to justify intervention in Vietnam. America, both at home and abroad, were being excoriated by disillusioned Americans as the culturally biased instruments of an imperialist power.