This is an admittedly broad question, but here goes: what are the geopolitical interests that drive US foreign policy? Another way to put the question is, what exactly would the US lose by pursuing a more or less isolationist foreign policy as advocated by people like Ron Paul - closing military bases, largely butting out of world affairs, and basically becoming a wealthy, armed-to-the-teeth nation that largely keeps to itself?
We often hear about the US having “vital interests” in this or that part of the world. What are they? What do we lose if China’s “influence” grows in the Asia Pacific region or if Russia were to gain influence in the Middle East, etc.?
We have trade interests that pretty much span the globe. I’d say our key, vital interests are Europe, Asia (South Korea, Japan, China), the South Pacific rim area, India and the IO, and, of course the Persian Gulf and Middle East. Since trade routes go by the Med and Africa we also have interests there too. Then you have our key trading partners in North and South America that are vital. I think that leave Antarctica and, perhaps, outer Mongolia as of secondary interest.
Most tongue in cheek, but there is no way the US could go back to being a simple isolationist power today. We NEED trade…it’s vital to this nation. Without it this nation dies. We need to protect our trade, and protect our access to vital resources such as oil, since, again, if we lost that access the country dies. Since no one else is stepping up to protect our interests, we have to do it ourselves in conjunction with our various allies throughout the world (who ally with us for the same reason…THEY have world wide trade and vital interests outside their own borders that need to be protected).
Peace is our vital interest. For example, Kuwait is a small rich country and other countries in the region would like to take over the country and use the money to buy their government officials palaces. Since Kuwait is a small nation it would be relatively easy to conquer. However, as shown in the early 90s if you invade Kuwait the US will destroy your military. So in order to invade a small country you have defeat that country and you have to beat the US military. As there is no point for any country in the world to try to defeat the US militarily, there is really no point in invading your neighbors.
Thus the US keeps war out of the largest oil producing region in the world making oil cheaper for the whole world and keeping the world economy running smoothly. Since the US is the worlds biggest economy it is in our interests to keep the world economy running smoogthly.
I guess the question from my perspective is, why do you need an essentially proactive, militarily interventionist foreign policy in order to maintain trading relationships? Why would an oil-rich country, for example, not be interested in selling to whoever wants to buy their oil? Does anyone really trade with us because they like America or because we have a gun to their head, or is it rather that the United States is a gigantic creditworthy customer with lots of demand for goods and services (and a vast supply of attractive dollar-denominated capital assets for them to buy with proceeds from their exports to us)?
Re: the point made earlier about war in the Middle East, obviously when Iraq invades Kuwait oil prices spike for a period of time, which is bad for the US economy. But how do such events have any bearing on the long-term supply of oil? And why do we assume that the costs associated with maintaining an outwardly active foreign policy outweigh the costs of periodic spikes in oil prices anytime people in the Middle East decide to resume killing each other?
Your basic assessment is correct. For the most part, it’s financially beneficial for other countries to export to us. Thus it would be in their interests to make sure that trade flows steadily, and thus there’s no need for us to be the world’s policeman just to keep the trade routes open. For the most part, the entire world is protected by the American military and American taxpayers foot the bill. Other countries such as Japan, South Korea, and most of Europe get by with a very small military while we cover the cost of keeping them safe.
As to why we keep doing that, President Eisenhower would be happy to explain: it’s the military-industrial complex. Certain corporations make vast amounts of money by building stuff and supplying the American military. Those corporations would lose a lot of money if the military shrank. And those corporations spend vast sums of money lobbying Congress, and virtually no one in Congress ever suggests even a modest decrease in military spending.
Lots of countries rely on trade, and “need” it more than do the USA. They aren’t trying to build an military larger than the rest of the world’s armies put together. So it seems that the USA approach in practice doesn’t follow from trade needs.
Name some. I can’t think of any country that is so reliant on external trade and resources than the US (Japan maybe?), but this board is all about fighting ignorance so feel free. Can you name any who also aren’t in an alliance with the US (or some other power) and rely on our (or their) military to also protect their interests? Again, I’m drawing blanks here but fight my ignorance.
The US currently spends 683 billion dollars on defense per year. The US spends 753 billion dollars a year on oil. The Iran - Iraq war caused the price of oil to double. If it doubled again due to a middle east conflict that would cost the US economy another 753 billion. However that is short term, long term the economy would adjust but there is no way to tell whether the economy would revert to trend or growth would be permanently effected.
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They aren’t trying to build an military larger than the rest of the world’s armies put together.
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Um, our military isn’t larger than the rest of the worlds armies put together. In fact, size wise our army is pretty modest. Several countries, including China have larger standing armies than the US. Now, capability wise, that’s another matter. I wouldn’t say our military is more powerful than the rest of the world combined, but it’s certainly more powerful than any other single nations. Here’s the thing though…the US is one of the few countries who has literally global responsibilities and interests, including the need to project military power globally. Most other countries (China for instance) merely need to project military power in their own regional sphere of influence.
Even so, the US has been in a long process of building down our capability…ironically while other nations are building theirs up (China, for instance).
Trade is ONE of the factors. Strategic resources are another. Protecting the interests of our allied nations is another. Another is maintaining the Pax Americana for as long as we can before we simply can’t anymore. You (and others on this board) might not be thrilled with the idea or think that the US has done a particularly good job, but if you go back over history and look at wars before WWII and after WWII (when the US became first one of two superpowers, and then the ONLY hyperpower) you will see a marked decline in the severity and savagery of war since WWII than before WWII. And this includes Vietnam, Afghanistan I and Afghanistan II (electric boogaloo), Iraq, the Korean War, Kosovo, the various Israeli wars and Indian/Pakistani conflicts and every other post WWII conflict that happened. The reason for this is that the US has such a powerful military and it’s prevented more general large scale regional conflicts or even another world war from breaking out.
As for exporting countries - the US exports 1.6 trillion (~11% of GDP), Germany exports 1.5 trillion (~39%), Canada exports 0.5 trillion (30%). Now both Germany and Canada export to primary markets (EU and US) but the question was around dependency not destination.
I was thinking of the whole picture, i.e. imports and exports as well as strategic resources such as oil and rare earth elements, steel, copper and the like. These days even agricultural products such as fruits, veggies and even beef are becoming common though we still produce a lot of the basic foods we consume.
Did I? I thought I asked about trade, which encompasses all aspects, but if I gave the impression I only meant exports then that’s not what I meant and I apologize. It’s tough to make meaningful posts on the run from my phone and sometimes it doesn’t come out as I meant it. However, I am grateful for the answer.
What are ‘non-Norther stuffs’? I haven’t heard that term before.
Measured by imports as a percentage of GDP, the US doesn’t rely that much on trade. In 2010, US imports were 16.3% of GDP vs around 47% for the world in general and 25% for high income OECD countries. Similar story if you look at exports. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS
Moreover, I’m not sure I understand how world hegemony by the United States (either for its own benefit alone, or on behalf of itself + other nations) is a necessary condition for trade. Again, why wouldn’t the Saudis want to sell us their oil either way? I realize that this is a somewhat naive question, but I’m just not sure what it really means when we talk about “vital national interests.”
[QUOTE=Donald Rump]
Measured by imports as a percentage of GDP, the US doesn’t rely that much on trade. In 2010, US imports were 16.3% of GDP vs around 47% for the world in general and 25% for high income OECD countries. Similar story if you look at exports.
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Imports are only part of the equation though. And looking at the raw numbers as a percentage of GDP is not the whole picture either, since just about our entire economy is connected to trade in one way or another. Or, to put it another way, if suddenly all external trade ceased what would it do to the US economy? Answer: total meltdown and gods know how many deaths.
The naive part is to assume that without any sort of protection that trade would just continue as always. It wouldn’t. You can pretty much bet that if no one was protecting trade that someone would attempt to interdict it, or perhaps distort it and ask for bribes to ensure it continued in their regional sphere of influence. Also, without the threat of someone like the US you’d have regional powers looking to assert their own agendas through force of arms. Regional wars can disrupt trade as effectively as interdiction, especially in key areas…like, oh, say the Persian Gulf, or South East Asia.
Take Syria for instance. They just used chemical weapons on their own people. Under a threat of US military strikes, however, they are now talking about the possibility of turning over their chemical weapons stores to, at a minimum, international inspection and review. If there wasn’t a US threatening them (credibly) however, they would certainly not do that. In addition it’s pretty clear that the Russians are desperate to protect their interests in Syria. They are doing so by running interference for them at the UNSC level. However, without a US in the picture then what other steps might they be willing to do? Advisers? Troops? And how might other powers in the region react if they knew that the US wasn’t there to prevent anyone from going hog wild? And that’s just one of many dustups or potential dust ups in the world. There are lots of things like that…and lots of regional animosities that could easily boil over into war. Except that the US is there and isn’t going to allow regional disputes to spin out of control without doing something about it. And we have a credible military threat if it comes to that…a GLOBAL credible military threat that we can, currently, wield anywhere in the world.
Someday that won’t be the case, and barring someone else stepping up to be able to assert a global military threat and keep things from spinning out of control we might all get to live to the joyful paradise that the world will be when we are back to regional military powers striving for dominance. I’m sure it will be a barrel of monkey.
Both of these are very true. Trade is wonderful, and peace makes for better trading circumstances. Peaceful countries make much better trading partners.
This is why I wish the western industrialized democracies didn’t do so god damned much arms trading! It doesn’t really strengthen either trade or peace to sell thousands of tanks to small countries in troubled regions!
We need to fall back on our great strengths: selling food and movies!
Also IT engineering and heavy trucks, in the USA’s case.
The claim that a large country with extensive Oceanic possessions like the USA “needs trade” more than, say, Cameroon or Mali, is bizarre to me. We have a lot of trade, because we’re so freaking big. But large multi-climate countries can do pretty well on internal trade.
Our forces create a symbiotic relationship, i’d call it hegemony lite. Historically friendly nations are happy to trade the cost of upkeep to project military force to secure trade interests to give the US preferential trade status in exchange for us to do it. The concept is similar to insurance or outsourcing.
I don’t know why it would seem bizarre to you. Look around your house…how many items in it came exclusively from the US and how many were either assembled or manufactured outside of the US? Then take it a step further…how many of the things that were manufactured in the US came from resources exclusive to the US? Where did the materials come from? Where did the fuel that logistically transported it to you come from? In almost every case and in almost every item you use or consume came at least in part or peripherally from external trade. Without it this country dies.
Cameroon or Mali? Not so much. Sure, they also depend on trade, but from my own experience in 3rd world countries they are a lot less dependent on trade for survival than the US because they are less dependent on it to maintain the high standard of living we do and get by with locally produced stuff because they have no other choice. Granted, I’ve never been to either Mali or Cameroon, but I’d be shocked if ANY nation on the earth is as dependent as we are on trade, since just about every aspect of American life is connected and dependent on it for our standard of living. Maybe Japan is as dependent or perhaps even more dependent, but I can’t think of anyone else that comes even close.
