History of Foreign and Security Policy

History of hostile and Security policyDefining Foreign and Security Policy from the inhuman War to PresentTodays increasingly globalised community has seen more diplomatic and social evolution in the past half-century than the civilized world has seen in recent memory. The advent of multinational trade and military alinements such as the North Atlantic Trade Organization has increasingly intertwined protective covering policies with hostile policies, which in turn entail more than just military alliances. Foreign subsidies by way of fiscal aid grants and weapons contracts contendrant the need for nations to adopt solid, transparent exotic and security policies as the traditional global threat of warfarefare changes. The most notable examples for security and orthogonal policies as well as the need for a national and supranational g overnmental monitor are the United States and the European Union. The aforementi superstard deuce bodies share between them diplomatic ties to mo st e real division of the supranational community. The onus of foreign and security policies becomes more apparent through examination of diplomatically fragile and militarily-temperamental regions such as the affectionateness eastbound, whose multinational agreements and regional alliances are the basis for subsequent American and EU insurance form _or_ system of government, without which allies and trade partners would find elflike benefit from trade and security agreements. Foreign form _or_ system of government amounts to diminished more than a series of political guidelines and rules of engagement by which whatsoever country implementing it best gains at a certain point in time. Foreign policies are known to change radically from one year to the next the Cold War is perhaps the greatest testament to the temporal nature of international relations and foreign policy. Robert John Myers notes in his US Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century how quickly Western countr ies changed their appeal to the Soviet Union. preliminary to 1945 during the savage struggle of World War II, the primacy of the wisdom of political realism seemed to have been learned by the Allies, who interlocked interest, place, and morality in the councils of the principal Allied power1 the USSR at the time was an indispensable ally against Germany and Japan. Much to the chagrin of their current political detractors, the Soviets were perhaps the most powerful ally America had in the war against the Axis powers, with borders spanning the heart of the Nazi regime and maritime waters bordering the Imperial Japanese. Foreign policy then had nothing to do with the civil liberties, democracy, and freedom of the adjure so touted today in the same countries that huddled together in opposition to Moscow during the Cold War. Prior to the partition of Germany at the close of the war, it was easily recognizable that wartime cooperation to defeat the Axis was clearly important and Alli ed foreign policy toward its Soviet point was one of camaraderie and mutual interdependence2. Once the war ended, however, the close ties between the powers dissipated and politically malignant antipathy filled the void. With a barely nascent United Nations absent as policy moderator, the US and the USSR led a series of proxy wars starting with the attack by North Korea on South Korea on 25 June 1950, marking the limited cooperation and mediation that came to be expected from the UN in the security field3. International mediation, which should have taken place given the alliance that transpired between the US, USSR, and Europe during WWII was all but departed in the years of reconstruction and the escalation of the Cold War. There are two points of speculation given the rise of the Cold War the first is that the United Nations failed as an international mediator, and the second is that the United Nations was obsolete, serving only to keep other countries out of the periphery of t he Soviet-American struggle for dominance. The difference between foreign and security policy during the Cold War was elementary. The American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union was one of mutual trade and sales, the development of which was speculated by many to be a financial insurance policy if the two superpowers intertwined economically, the idea of armed struggle would be so financially devastating that neither side would be unforced to continue along the path to war. American security policy was markedly different given the proxy wars fought in Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East. Foreign policy basically existed in the crusade of the Cold War to ensure that security policy would never be employed.The Cold War was a fascinating case of how foreign policy and security policy could run completely contrarian to each other. any two given nations can foster amicable foreign policies in their approach to each other independent of a covertly hostile security policy as eviden ced by the oft-shifting approach of successive American administrations to the Soviet behemoth. Jimmy Carter, for example, forbade grain sales to the Soviet Union following the nations invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, while Ronald Reagan made the unpopular embargo an air in the 1980 elections, reversing the policy after his election4. The Reagan policy shift did not predicate a change in security policy, as the administration act its support of Afghan mujahideen forces through arms sales and finance while continuing its agricultural trade with Moscow.It is now well-known that the UN was inconsequential in international mediation throughout the Cold War. This is not to say that an international or supranational regulatory body is not needed in the case of the US and USSR, the absent (and perhaps powerless) UN was perceived as such because their collective power was dwarfed by the two superpowers. With no military or financial incentive, the doubtfulness of the relevance of a supra national regulatory body in foreign and security policy is moot. Even today, American foreign policies often contravene UN resolutions with little or no repercussion due to the immense economic, political, and military might of Washington. While the Cold War ended relatively peacefully without UN intervention, the concept of an international body was not scorned by the US, which partnered with various countries to create the North Atlantic Trade Organization (NATO). It should be noted, however, that the US was an open advocate of NATO for the very reason that the UN was not potent enough a body to act on American will or on behalf of American aspirations. International mediation in this sense is needed for the monitoring of foreign and security policy whether or not mediation will be effective in some(prenominal) sectors is quite another issue.Foreign policy can be monitored, policed, and even dictated by a supranational body as evidenced in the partition of Germany and the formati on of the Eastern Bloc post-WWII. Security policy, however, is a point of study contention with any nation faced with the prospect of supranational control. Any nation with major investment (diplomatic or financial) abroad would be reluctant to cede jurisdiction of its own soldiers and sovereignty to an outside body, specially one such as the UN whose member list consists of nations antagonistic to one another. The irony here is that a multi-national group could have foreign and security policy power over a nation whose security policy is antagonistic to one or more members of the same international group. Israel, for example, would embark on an unprecedented leap of religion if it allowed the UN and its Arab members to mediate its security policy, all despite the fact that from the first years of its inception (1948-1967) the Jewish state relied on the UN to justify its existence to the international community. The multi-faceted Arab-Israeli negate is just one example of how un checked world superpowers exerted their influence unchecked by the vigil of an international body.Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, foreign policy was a much simpler venture as the world found itself functioning chthonian the umbrella of just two superpowers, led by and acting under the auspices of either Washington or Moscow. The fall of Communism left a vacuum in the Middle East, as the now-extinct USSR had no allegiances to the Middle East in which it fought a series of proxy wars and conflicts with the United States. What transpired following the end of Moscows reign as a world superpower was the cosmea of several diplomatically independent states in the Middle East. Where Moscow once support Syria, Egypt, and Iraq while arming said nations leaders, they found themselves increasingly dependent on other sources for trade and international subsidy such as the EU and the United States. The foreign policy then drove the security policy, baited by American and EU sponsorship a cting individually of the UN. Today, Egypt, once the sworn enemy of Israel (whose closest international ally is Washington), receives Americas second-largest international aid package. This of course is contingent upon the maintenance of a lasting peace as well as other conditions detailed in the Camp David Accords of 1978. The UN and the EUs parts in the conflict were minimal, as security policies of the two comprised of a minimal militaristic component and a far larger foreign policy component. Pinar Bilgin observes in regional Security in the Middle East how the fragile Mediterranean as an alternative spatial representation began to take shape from the 1970s onward generally in line with the development and changing security conception and practices of the European Union, a group whose policies toward the region have been shaped around three major concerns energy security (understood as the sustained flow of oil and natural gas at reasonable prices) regional stableness (underst ood as domestic help stability especially in countries in geographically North Africa) and the cessation of the Israel/Palestine conflict5. Unlike the US and USSR, whose motives will be examined later, the EU was interested only in the protection of their economic preservation and the prevention of any armed conflict from spilling into their geographic vicinity. In addition to the Arab-Israeli crisis, EU Member States such as Italy, France, and Spain faced growing resentment in the Maghreb (Arab North Africa) as a corollary of imperial European rule. The EUs policies were hence different from non-EU actors who encouraged and supported the search for security within a Euro-Mediterranean framework the EU has almost single-handedly sought to construct a Euro-Mediterranean Region to meet its own domestic economic, societal, and, to a much lesser extent, military security interests6. The American and Soviet interest in the region was also one of economic, political, and security nature , but on a much larger scale. Buzan and Waever note in their Regions and Powers The Structure of International Security howThe United States and the Soviet Union were latecomers as major players in Middle Eastern regional security, though the former had long-standing oil interests there. The two superpowers were drawn into a pattern of regional turbulence that was already strongly active. Their interest in the region was heightened by the fact that, like Europe, the Middle East sat on the boundary between the spheres of communism and free worlds. Stalins aggressive policy after 1945 had pushed Turkey and Iran into the arms of the West. Turkey became a member of NATO, and was so fixed into the main European front of the Cold War. Until the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran fell increasingly under American sway, not only through corporate oil interests, but also as part of the loose alliance arrangements that connected American containment clients in Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan. To cou nter this US success right on its borders, the Soviet Union tried to play in the Arab world derriere this front line, by establishing political and military links to the radical regimes and movements that sprang up in the Middle East during the 1950s and 1960s (Syria, PLO, Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Yemen)7The entire Middle East, ranging from Egypt to Iran, became what Buzan and Waever give away as a third front in the Cold War, after Europe and Asia, and its oil resources tied it powerfully into the global prudence8. The Camp David Accords were especially important while Israeli security policies remained virtually unchanged (the Israeli-Egyptian peace is frequently described as cool in comparison to Israeli-Turkish relations), their foreign policies shifted. The two acted under the auspices of the United States, signalling a significant achievement in the Cold War. Though the crosscutting complexities of internal alignments in the Middle East make it challenging to trace a c lear Cold War pattern of great power intervention, the small gains and losses in war and political action were of big consequence. With the 1978 signing of the Camp David Accords, the United States shifted its foreign policy in the Arab world successfully, splitting allegiances in the Middle East to one drawn along Arab lines to one drawn along foreign policy lines. With Turkey and Iran (at least until capital of Irans 1979 Islamic Revolution) securely in the American camp, the Middle East was thus left only with Syria and Iraq in alliance with the USSR. Conflict in the Middle East was hence capitalized upon by the United States by way of foreign policy, which existed independently of the nations security policies.Foreign policies always shift more easily than security policies, as the former serve the interest of a nations economy and the latter are charged with the military protection of a nations sovereignty, diplomatic or otherwise. As evidenced by the Cold War, American polici es in Iraq alone have shifted dramatically. Prior to 1979, for example, American foreign and security policies were in place to secure its interests (Saudi Arabia and Israel) from Baghdad. From 1979 to 1991, American foreign policies toward Iraq remained the same, but its security policies shifted to prevail Iraqi military suppression of post-revolutionary Iran. From 1991 to 2003, both foreign and security policies shifted to those of aggression and financial seclusion. It should be noted that until 1991, these foreign policy shifts were executed at the idea of three American presidents. Iran followed the same path, with pre-1979 Tehran under Reza Shah Pahlavi serving as a vital blockage to Soviet expansionism. Following the Islamic Revolution of 1979, security policy was hostile toward and sought to exclude Tehran by funding Saddam Hussein. Foreign policy changed during the Contra Scandal, wherein American military leaders sold Tehran various munitions and weapons in direct subte rfuge of Washingtons official military support of Baghdad weapons were sold to a lesser evil (Iran) in order to fund covert operations in support of Nicaraguan right-wing guerrillas. Managuas leftist-government was thought to be the latest expansion of Soviet influence and was hence a closer threat in physical proximity than the rise of the radical Islamic government of Tehran which was equally remote to the Soviets at the time. All this transpired, again, without minimal monitoring by an international body. The greatest irony of the aforementioned events, however, is the perception of their respective successes and failures. America succeeded without international intervention in the pacification and dismantlement of the Soviet Union however, todays chaotic Middle East was a corollary, including the 9/11 attacks that changed forever the security and foreign policies of the United States. The current wars waged by America and what allies remain are again largely conducted without t he support or monitoring by the UN or any other international body, and it remains to be seen how the future will unfold.BIBLIOGRAPHYBilgin, Pinar. (2005) Regional Security in the Middle East A Critical Perspective.London Taylor Francis Routledge.Buzan, Barry and Ole Waever. (2003) Regions and Powers The Structure ofInternational Security. Cambridge Cambridge U P.Myers, Robert John. (1999) US Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century TheRelevance of Realism. Baton Rouge Louisiana State U P.Wilson, Ernest J. (2004) Diversity and US Foreign Policy A Reader. New YorkTaylor Francis Routledge.1Footnotes1 Myers 1999, p. 982 Ibid3 Myers 1999, p. 984 Wilson 2004, p. 1275 Bilgin 2005, p. 1406 Bilgin 2005, p. 1407 Buzan and Waever 2003, p. 1988 Buzan and Waever 2003, p. 197