West Wing Fantasy Camp: Things I'd Like to See under a New Administration - #3

#3: Trump Le Monde

For now, the United States is the richest country in the world. For now, these United States are the most powerful nation in the world. For now, this country is the sole superpower. However, these often criticized and sometimes disputed superlatives aren’t permanent. With the decline of the dollar, the rise of China, and our overall loss of status in the global community, its not long before we are just one of many wealthy and influential nations bucking for advantage in an overcrowded field. How do we stop from being yesterday’s news, the “once was” or “used to be” of foreign affairs?

Prior to World War II, the United States wasn’t the unequaled powerhouse that we have taken for granted it should be. We had a great deal of influence in the world, but much of the world was still run by Old World powers holding sway across multiple continents. Our economy was in depression, and there were still strong political, ethnic, racial, gender, and financial divisions amongst our citizenry. Trade was imbalanced and many in the United States were happy to ignore the rest of the world’s troubles after the toll it had taken during The Great War.

Needless to say, even then the world was shrinking, and the trouble’s of foreign shores were to wash onto ours regardless of our feelings. Though it took convincing, the United States stepped out. Within only a few years, our mediocre military was built into an unrivaled force with hundreds of thousands of airplanes, armadas of warships, and well armed and armored soldiers from every walk of life. While fighting a war on two major fronts, across three continents and the air and sea around them, our country rallied its industries to supply the war effort. When the war ended, not only did our country have greater internal unity and identity, but our nation had been turned from an isolationist one in economic depression to the rich and powerful savior of world democracy.

With post-war Europe in ruins, and much of the world in post-colonial transition, the United States took the lead in International Affairs. We helped to create the United Nations, and the Marshall Plan provided funds to rebuild Europe, funding which was never expected to be repaid. In the ensuing cold war, we provided financial aid around the world to protect allies from the influence of the USSR and destabilizing effects of poverty. For a time, our help was appreciated and helped to reorder the world so much so that even our former enemies Germany and Japan could grow into competitive economic powers.

During the cold war, though, with each passing year a greater percentage of our money was spent on our arsenal of advanced weapons and less was spent in foreign aid, and even that was often given for military defense and to countries that were most important strategically against the Soviets. In the past 40 years, of even the money we’ve promised in foreign aid, we’ve delivered less than 50 percent. As of last year, 2007, the United States gave out 21 billion dollars which is twice as much as the next on the list, Germany; but in terms of a percentage of our Gross National Income, we are well at the bottom of the list of western democracies. As Germany gives 11 billion in foreign aid, that amounts to 3 times as much as us in terms of GNI. Nations such as Norway which have much less money than the United States still give a larger percentage than the United States.

Clearly, its not merely an issue of how much we give, but where our priorities lie. When only .16 percent of the money we have goes to help foreign nations, it demonstrates a disregard for the rest of the world’s problems, which in time will become our problems. Right now, both our military and financial assets are tied up in two major wars, one greatly necessary and the other of both questionable motive and execution. Had we not undertaken the war in Iraq, major combat operations may have been completed in Afghanistan, and our assets would be free to tackle other problems in the world. While our focus has been on these two nations, political unrest has continued in South America and Africa; genocide has been allowed to occur in violation of stated goals of the United Nations; North Korea has developed nuclear weapons and elsewhere nuclear weapons have been allowed to proliferate; and countless people around the world have been exploited by the very nations that wish to usurp our position atop the International hierarchy.

Change is coming, and we are not prepared for it. As we’ve seen, strife elsewhere in the world will reach our shores, and though we cannot always fight our enemies “over there,” we certainly must stem the problems where they arise because they will become our problems later when it is far more costly in resources and lives to fix it. We must increase our diplomatic presence in other nations, specifically in those we think of as hostile. We must develop a foreign policy approach that uses the might of our force to encourage discussion rather than to force our will at the barrel of a gun. Economic resources must be used to help impoverished nations enter the global marketplace without exploiting their own people, and so that all people of the world can be fed and educated to be responsible world citizens. With other powerful nations, we have to coordinate our influence and resources to bring rogue nations to the light to prevent conflict.

This requires a variety of tactics and approaches, but mostly it requires the kind of leadership and goodwill that was evident after World War II. A greater amount of aid must be given to foreign countries, and allocated not just for defense or to countries that serve our own national interest. It is to our advantage that nations not wallow in poverty, because those nations become breeding grounds for extremism. It is to our advantage that nations have the financial resources to improve their infrastructure, because then they will be able to build their own economy and provide us with new markets. It is also to our advantage that developing nations have the wealth to undertake costly improvements such as building rail lines and renewable power plants, because relying on their own coal and oil will lead to greater damage to our own environment.

We need to take charge globally again, and not in the way we have been in the recent past. The United States needs to take the lead on climate change, on human rights, on nuclear disarmament, on democratic and economic reforms, and most certainly on matters of international cooperation. In addition to greater and better-designated financial aid, we also need to work with our allies to provide people on the ground in areas to assist in peacekeeping operations, public works projects, and in election monitoring. Step one of this whole process should be a national effort to increase participation in and funding of the Peace Corps and other organizations that provide targeted assistance outside our borders. Though our image has been tarnished, it is the Americans digging wells and building literal bridges that remind the world that we are the good guys.