IntroductionAlright, many of you may recognize this as the old China thread I made back when the debt ceiling was driving a hot poker up everyone's asses. So I've decided to make this a megathread on U.S. foreign policy.
When it comes to my beliefs on foreign policy, I pretty much follow the brown townysis of a man named George Friedman. Mr. Friedman is the CEO of an intelligence firm known as Stratfor. I've read a few of his books and his online reports and found them to be unbiased and insightful. Pretty much everything in this thread is taken from his works.
Let's begin.
The General OverviewWhen we brown townyse foreign policy for the United States, we must be aware of a few key facts. Most of those have to due with the fact that politically, America can't make any decision without effecting another nation. Economically, it's tied to every nation in the world, with a higher GDP than the next 3 combined and producing 25% of the world's wealth. Militarily, it controls the world.
Now, if you read this you will notice that I refer to America as if it were a superpower or an empire. This is because it is for the reasons I've stated above and many more. No, it isn't controlled by the illuminati, no it isn't going to invade every nation on earth, and no I'm not a Americanist. I'm stating the fact that since World War II, America has been on the path to becoming an unintended empire. After the fall of the USSR, it solidified its place in history. Mostly due to it's strategy for foreign policy, it's geography, and the events over the past century. First, let's brown townyse the overall strategy which comprises of 4 main parts.
1:
Maintain military dominance over North America - After the Mexican American war this was accomplished
2:
Maintain dominance over the western hemisphere - The geography of South America makes it nearly impossible for any nation to challenge the United States. It's separated by deserts and jungles, and that's not even mentioning the intense social instability.
3:
Control the oceans - Control of the oceans presents countless assets, including the control of international trade routes, the ability to blockade and sanction nations. It also provides the physical United States further security.
4
Prevent anti American coalitions - Very important and it is what the United States mainly thrives on. It whole foreign policy is centered around suppressing the rise of regional powers and coalitions that could one day challenge it. You will experience more of this strategy as we continue.
Keep in mind that the U.S. is a very young nation. It still prances around in a state of reckless barbarianism, stomping out anything that isn't like it. That's a fact. However, as time passes by, it will learn that sometimes, stomping everyone who isn't like you may not be the best move. It will learn to use a combination of realism and idealism, to achieve a moral goal, but be willing to violate morals to achieve it.
When you look at any great U.S. president you will see that sort of Machiavellianism present in them.
So, that's basic foreign policy. However, when it comes to the United States, it cannot focus on the Middle East alone or for that matter any other region. If it is to maintain it's dominance, it has to view the whole world as the area it has to keep in check. So, in this thread I will break down the world and how America should deal with it, one continent at a time.
The Middles EastAfter the fall of the Soviet Union, America was the essentially the last man standing in the world. In it's childlike naivety, it believed itself to be out of harms way. As the attacks of the 9/11 proved wrong this assumption, the American people reacted in an emotional, childlike manner. It responded by invading the Middle East, particularly Iraq and Afghanistan. Many people were opposed to this move but in the end it made a lot of sense and here's why.
When we look at the Middle East we have to look at it in three regions.
The three regions that I circled in that smexy red paint are the following. The Indo-Pakistani balance, the Israel-Palestinian balance, and the Iraqi-Iranian balance. I guess we'll start with the two areas that we have a major presence in.
Iraq: Iraq and Iran have represented two powers that could potentially rise up and dominate the Middle East. The United States has done it's best in keeping the two powers playing off of eachother and maintaining a balance of power between them. However, Sadam Hussein, got a little too powerful. When he invaded Kuwait he had over 5% of the world's oil supply under his control and he was mobilizing to move into Saudi Arabia. With no other powers to immediately counteract the rampant Iraq, the United States had no choice but to intervene. 9/11 and the war on terror provided a nice reason too. Whether or not you believe those things are legitimate is another matter entirely and won't be discussed here.
So, as the United States pretty much decimated the Iraqi army and government, Iraq was left in shambles. It could not defend itself from outside influence and domination from Iran. This is why we've stayed for so long in that country and probably will until we can restore the balance.
Afghanistan: It's important to realize that Afghanistan is basically one entity with Pakistan. The border between the two is virtually non-existent. The two share cultural and tribal heritage and so they are closely connected. The fact that the United States thought it could eradicate Al-Queda by simply intervening in a single nation is just ignorant. Al-Queda is a transnational organization stationed all over the world. This makes it almost impossible to destroy by military means. However, the invasion here was necessary due to the fact that the terrorists were using it as their main base of operations, as well as using the corrupt governments of Afghanistan and neighboring Iran as an umbrella.
The fact is, with U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, neighboring Pakistan has destabilized a lot. Why does this matter? Because Pakistan is the only force in the region that can keep in check another power and that is India. India and Pakistan have long been enemies, and if one were allowed to dominate the other, than they cold potentially rise to regional dominance. This is especially true with India since it has more access to the World Oceans and ultimately is more stable at the moment.
Israel: Israel and the surrounding area is all forgeted up. Mostly because it has essentially squashed all resistance from Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. None of these nations even combined have the strength to stop it. That's about it.
U.S. strategy for dealing with these areas: The United States has forgeted this stuff all up in order to involve a a forget up of stuff. So how does it fix this pile of forgetstuff? Well, it must deal with each region separately.
In Iraq, the United States cannot stay much longer as their forces will be needed elsewhere in the world in the near future. This leaves it in a dilemma. Remember what I said about violating morality in order to achieve a moral goal? That's exactly what it must do in this case. I'm proposing that the United States will be forced to form an alliance with Iran. Here's why I say this will even work. First off, Iran needs a way to exercise its power and being the new major oil provider for the U.S. would be nice. Not to mention the various perks of having the U.S. on your side.
The United States must appear to be pro Iran but keep it in check at the same time. It will give Iran the luxury of a small sphere of influence over the Middle East but won't let it run rampant. Of course, the Saudis especially won't be fond of this but they will be forced to live with it. This alliance will only last until a new power can rise to keep Iran in check and the most likely candidate for that is Turkey. Turkey has been a very stable nation with a growing economy. It's doing very well compared to the areas surrounding it. When Turkey is ready to assume this new role, the United States must distance itself from Iran.
The strategy for stabilizing Afghanistan Pakistan and India is simple. Over the next years it must help Afghanistan pull it's stuff together as much as it can but mostly focus on building back up Pakistan. India will then be kept in check by the Pakistanis and the revolutionaries in their nation.
The concern in Israel is that it could be overrun by Islamists. However, it can't. The Palestinian terrorists are fractured and fighting themselves, Syria can't handle Israeli might and limits the terrorists on what they can do, Egypt is now dependent on Israel and invading would be a logistical nightmare anyway for both sides. The fact of the matter is, is that Israel is in a position of small regional dominance. However, if can't afford to go running wild. It could lose valuable support from the United States and NATO. If this happened, it wouldn't kill it, but it'd be a precursor to it's death if they were to intervene militarily. It's in their best interest to keep the peace. It'll be balanced out by Turkey anyway when they arise.
The United States however, needs to slightly distance itself from Israel. It doesn't need to hold it's hand like a child anymore and Israel is more than capable of being on its own. There will be domestic and foreign outcry against this which is why the United States must do it quietly.
The Pacific TheaterWe can think of China as Japan in the 1980's when they were experiencing staggering economic growth. However, they created a financial bubble for themselves in the complicated business of loans and finance that I vaguely understand.
But, first off let's look at a map of China
The majority of China's population is East of that crude red line I drew. The reasons for this is that first, it gets 15+ inches of rainfall per year, which is the minimum for supporting large numbers of people. Second, foreign businesses have moved into these areas to exploit the relatively cheap labor. Third, this area is very close to the sea, which gives access to international trade lanes generating more wealth.
Also, from a geographic perspective, China is an Island. It has harsh desert to the north followed by Russian wilderness, it has dense jungle to the south, the Himalayan mountains to the southwest, and an underpopulated zone that leads into Kazakhstan. When we realize this, China couldn't physically expand at all in any direction. The only possibility of this is if they started annexing the west and it's underpopulated as it is. So this would make any kind of expansion impossible.
China has well over a billion people in population and a billion of which are unemployed and are living in sub-Saharan poverty. All people in China have a raised standard of living over the last 30 years.
If we look at China from a historical perspective, it has been very unstable in the past 100 years. China has two choices when it comes to economics:
A: Close off foreign trade, and equalize the wealth relieving the social instability.
B: Open foreign trade but experience extreme social unrest.
This social unrest I speak of is what happens when China adopts it's current economic strategy.
What has happened is that it has experienced massive growth over the past 30 years. A basic rule of economics is that nothing can grow forever and that when ever something grows, it's value must soon decline. The people who have experienced their rise in standard of living will become very unsettled when it starts to fall again.
The only way the central government knows how to deal with this is to keep it's military stationed across the nation to quell any rebellion. They can't give into their demands for this will drive the factories and jobs China so desperately needs away. This is happening now.
So, in short, China probably isn't any form of a threat.
Now, as far as things like, "China is going to overtake us economically!"
In addition to that above, China has also undertaken massive construction. I've seen videos of entire cities built overnight meant to support 1 million people and only 30,000 people occupy them.
Furthermore, China's GDP is only a third of the United States's. It would have to undergo even faster growth for an even greater period of time. This is impossible for it to accomplish.
Sometimes, I even here statements such as, "China will invade and force us off our lands!"
First, China can't buy us up, nobody would allow it. The only other alternative is war which is impossible. So kids! It's time for a history lesson.
After World War II, the United States had only lost roughly 1% of the total casualties. In addition to this, it gained naval bases all over the world and it was pulled out of a depression.
So, with the former superpowers that once dominated the globe in Atlantic Europe in shambles, and the Japanese empire destroyed, only two powers were left standing. The Soviet Union collapsed leaving the United States the dominant power and with no counterbalance. stuff went down in Yugoslavia and the Middle East but that's another story.
The point is, the backbone for American power is it's navy. The United States navy dominates all of the oceans,d something that no other nation has accomplished. It has the gained the ability to sanction nations, enact trade embargoes, deny nations troops and supplies to wars, and it has control of international trade.
It's strategy for maintaining this dominance is to keep balance across the world. It needs to keep countries constantly competing so it will divert resources to anything but a navy that could challenge the U.S. navy.
If you look all across the world you will see this. India versus Pakistan, Israel versus several muslim states, Iran VS Iraq, Brazil VS Argentina etc. (many of these balances have been forgeted beyond belief but that's another discussion for another time.
The point of all this is, the combined navies of the world wouldn't even compare to the United States's navy. This includes China.
So China has absolutely NO chance of invading or sustaining a supply line for that matter.
Now let's focus on the real regional power of Japan.
Japan is a string of islands off the coast of Korea. Now, Japan underwent a similar thing that China is going through now in the 1980's. During a complicated series of loan exchanges between the government and some major Japanese corporation, they created a bubble and the bubble bursts causing an economic disaster.
What's funny is that Western markets didn't notice the massive failure until years after it actually happened.
So, ever since World War II Japan has been pretty passive in it's foreign policy. However, in the future, if Japan is going to regain it's regional dominance it must become more aggressive. Why? Because Japan is a nation with very little resources.
It's economy thrives off of the import of raw materials and the export of manufactured goods.
So let's put two and two together. Japan needs the raw materials that come through international trade lanes. The United States controls those sea lanes. If for whatever reason we put a trade embargo on Japan, their economy would fail within a few months.
With this major vulnerability Japan must begin expanding it's navy. It already has the most dominant navy in the region compared to other Asian powers but it doesn't stand a chance in the United States.
It's also had time to recover from it's economic catastrophe and is far more economically capable than China in the long run.
But this is where Japanese economics hits a snag. The Japanese people have a tradition of staying with one company all their lives. Seeing this, the companies don't have a very big potential for expansion in Japan. The only thing to do is to move to China or other areas with exploitable labor. The only bad part, is that China and Japan are bitter rivals and the Chinese government runs anti-Japanese campaigns all the time.
So seeing these problems with Japan it's only option is to become more aggressive.
Here is a map of the Pacific theater.
(I'll find a better map later.)
Now, as for U.S. strategy for dealing with the pacific theater, the United States must do these things to maintain the balance of nations in the area and it's own dominance.
First, it must strengthen China. China will always suffer economic difficulties but it is in U.S. interest to keep a balances power to keep Japan occupied. China is the only nation in the region really capable of doing that. Maybe South Korea but mostly China.
Second, the United States will need to increase it's presence and make good relations with Australia. Australia is a very strategic area as it can be a good launch point for a navy and it is protected by dozens of islands from any power that may seek to wreak havoc.
Third, the city of Singapore should be kept in good relations. The city is essentially a city-state and is located on the tip of Malaysia. What makes this city so important is that it is located next to a straight in between Malaysia and Indonesia where the majority of oil comes to the pacific theater from the Middle East. Securing this sea lane will be key and that will mean help the people of Singapore and developing good relations with their government.
So, to recap. The Japanese are the main power in the Pacific. It must become more aggressive in it's foreign policy by building a navy and overcoming pressure from the Chinese government so it may exploit it's labor.
The United States must encourage the Chinese to expel Japanese companies from China, build installations in Australia and develop good ties with it's government, and develop good relations with Singapore in order to secure the massive amounts of oil going through the nearby sea lanes.
