Global Perspectives of the International Team at AAI: Part 3

Director’s Introduction - Albert Santoli

Asia America Initiative is devoted to global peacebuilding, especially in the Asia Pacific region. In our field programs, such as the Philippines, we emphasize interfaith efforts between Muslims, Christians, and tribal peoples. In our Washington office, our intern research teams are comprised of students from many countries and cultures. At the conclusion of our summer session, AAI’s Washington interns that hail from Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, the Philippines, and the United States share their perspectives on the current global milieu and their hopes for the future. This is the 3rd installment of the series.

Commentary Part 3 by Vanessa Foo

The United States is the greatest symbol for democracy and liberty in the world. Even today, the attraction of “The America Dream” brings many foreign students and workers to its harbors. However, the past decade has shown entropy within the population and in the international reputation of the United States. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have exposed the flaws in U.S. foreign policy. In my opinion, U.S. policymakers are sometimes hindered by the lack of depth of information and future-mindedness. The 90s was consumed by a wave of short term, commercial dealings with the international community, and even today, many times, the U.S. lacks the foresight to implement long-term planning into its foreign policy and programs. As we have seen, spending gargantuan amounts of money on foreign aid is mostly ineffective and breeds further problems.

The U.S. places too much emphasis on the notion of democracy and institutions, often forgetting to realize the cultural aspects and historical traditions of the people they work with, and the depth of instability in those regions. A hundred years is just a page in the book of the thousand years of history many countries in Asia have had. There is a dichotomy here: While the U.S. preaches democracy and human rights, it often attempts to impose its own Western-brand of government on places like Afghanistan and Iraq, using indicators like Western-style elections to determine ‘success’ in a region. However, in doing so, it inhibits the people from taking actions from the grassroots level to rebuild their own society, based on their own beliefs and culture. Imposed democracy through unstable institutions is not real democracy.

The U.S. has needs to defend the core values from which the nation arose and that Americans (want to) believe in. The blunders of recent administrations have caused a loss of credibility within the American population and international community. Not only does the government have to reevaluate how it represents the values for which it is supposed to stand for, but apply these values of freedom, liberty and democracy to its foreign policies. In the South China Sea, the U.S. needs to stand up for freedom of the seas and disallow China from throwing its weight around in the region. China’s economic activities, such as basket deals with Southeast Asian nations, may peg the future of these states to China’s own success. Allowing China to control the strategic trade routes through the South China Sea will hurt U.S. influence and presence in the region and the stabilizing force that many countries rely upon. The diminishment of U.S. influence will have ripple effects through the global economy.

In the name of democracy, the U.S. needs to stand up for the rights of the people. This value needs to be promoted through foreign aid programs. Institutions and physical infrastructure are important, but the U.S. cannot let the voices of the people to get lost in the abstract notion that top-down democracy (such as Iraq and Afghanistan), democratic institutions and development must go hand-in-hand. Power plays and military force only generate fear and paranoia, and engaging in this dysfunctional downward spiral only breeds negative consequences.

By allowing communities a stake in their own futures and taking a flexible and open-minded approach, the U.S. can facilitate the building of international commonwealth where different cultures have their say with the goal of prosperity and peace for all. This will require dialogue and careful strategic long-term planning that incorporates the voices of tbe people at a grassroots level. While this is an idealistic view, I believe that it is the kind of world that we all need to aspire to.


Vanessa Foo
AAI Intern, Summer 2010
Saint Joseph's University'11
Singapore

Global Perspectives of the International Team at AAI: Part 2

Director’s Introduction - Albert Santoli

Asia America Initiative is devoted to global peacebuilding, especially in the Asia Pacific region. In our field programs, such as the Philippines, we emphasize interfaith efforts between Muslims, Christians, and tribal peoples. In our Washington office, our intern research teams are comprised of students from many countries and cultures. At the conclusion of our summer session, AAI’s Washington interns that hail from Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, the Philippines, and the United States share their perspectives on the current global milieu and their hopes for the future. This is the 2nd installment of the series.

Commentary Part 2 by Amanda Leong

At the end of the 20th Century, the U.S. stood as the world’s sole superpower after having brought the former Soviet Union to its knees with its military and economic prowess. Europe was forming its unified financial markets and China had only just begun its economic and military transformation. Other big powers today like India and Brazil were also still developing then. At that time, the essential elements of the Reagan Administration’s success in ending the Cold War centered on: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and a national leadership that accepts the United States’ global responsibilities.

Unfortunately, today’s world demands that these elements be reconsidered to ensure democracy and equity within the world’s nations, as well as U.S. influence on global peace and security. Until post 9/11, America has played a vital role as the world’s policeman in maintaining peace and security outside its territories, mainly Europe, Asia and the Middle East. However, in view of burgeoning new threats such as terrorism, nuclear warfare and climate change in an increasingly porous world, it is imperative that the U.S. exercises its power prudently.

Joseph Nye and Richard Armitage’s “smart power” concept proves useful here as it involves picking the right tool or combination of tools –military, economic, political, social and/or cultural diplomacy – at the right time. With that, the onus of bringing about global peace and security lies no longer lies on state governments, but also on non-conventional actors such as international bodies, NGOs, business councils, schools and religious organizations etc. This helps to ensure that power and influence are projected in ways that are cost-effective as well as politically and socially legitimate.

With an increment of more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan by the end of this summer, Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently announced that only a “small portion of the U.S. force…will begin to return home next year when an Obama administration deadline for the start of a troop pullout goes into effect.” While set at July 2011, Gates added that the rate of withdrawal is contingent on the security conditions in the country. Yet, as anti-American protests continue to surge in Kabul over the rising civilian death toll oftentimes caused by American or NATO military exercises, the administration ought to quickly relook and modify its strategy before the backlash spins out of control.

On the Korean Peninsula, there is also major instability based on potential aggression by North Korea in response to the South’s claim that the former was responsible for the March 2010 Cheonan sinking incident, The latter’s recent military exercises with the U.S, aimed at projecting a strong combined defense posture against the North has but also heightened the risk of belligerence from the nuclear state. Unfortunately, the U.S. government’s tightening of economic sanctions, alongside Secretary Clinton’s ruling out of any negotiations with the regime until it agreed to relinquish it nuclear weapons is likely to perpetuate this vicious cycle of antagonism, mistrust and non-cooperation, not forgetting how it has already pushed the regime further into alliances with other nuclear states such as China and Pakistan. With former President Kim Dae Jung’s “Sunshine Policy” to open relations with the North also having failed to bring the Communist regime to the democratic roadmap, one really wonders what possible track might be left that will bring respite to the country, economy and its people.

Theodore Roosevelt once contended that the U.S. is obliged to stop “chronic wrongdoing” for the simple reason that nobody else will do the job. At that time however, America was on the rise to becoming a world power, riding on its natural resources and industrial production might. Its system of democratic capitalism was also a shining model for the world, while Western Europe’s power was on the decline. Today, while many in the world may still regard America as “the indispensible nation” as Madeleine Albright puts it, the country seems to be in a similar situation that overstretched Europe had been in a century ago. As a world power with a historical legacy of democracy based on rule of law, I argue that the U.S. ought to diversify its foreign policy or risk losing its moral leadership stature in addition to the significant economic clout it has lost due to the recent financial crisis and its many prolonged global wars.

Here, I recommend that the U.S. consider engaging more non-state actors to help failed states progress towards the democratic roadmap, albeit one that the recipient countries must decide and come to a consensus based on their political beliefs and cultural identities. Unless the administration devotes more attention to civil society development and human empowerment, whether directly or indirectly, international peace and security will continue to remain as nebulous as it is now.

Amanda Leong
AAI Intern, Summer 2010
Singapore

Global Perspectives of the International Intern Team at AAI: Part I

Director’s Introduction - Albert Santoli

Asia America Initiative is devoted to global peacebuilding, especially in the Asia Pacific region. In our field programs, such as the Philippines, we emphasize interfaith efforts between Muslims, Christians, and tribal peoples. In our Washington office, our intern research teams are comprised of students from many countries and cultures. At the conclusion of our summer session, AAI’s Washington interns that hail from Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, the Philippines, and the United States share their perspectives on the current global milieu and their hopes for the future.

Commentary Part 1 by Hish Omar

The United States, in my opinion, is currently in a position where it can really transition from being a world power to a global leader. Everyone expected President Obama to bring about a drastic change in US foreign policy, but so far the US approach has remained mostly unchanged. Except for a renewed call for dialogue—one that is backed by words, if not actions—the United States has demonstrated that it is unwilling to pay attention to the nuances of different global issues. In order for the United States to be perceived in a more positive light, it needs to start living up to the ideals that it espouses. Its perceived unquestioning patronage of Israel undermines its moral authority—all countries including Israel that need not be held accountable for their actions will always act in self-interest, regardless of the other parties that are affected.

A main problem with regard to international relations today is the inability of countries to listen. Perhaps this is because these relations have been shaped by a zero-sum, Us-versus-Them paradigm. What is lost then is the capacity for listening, of noticing that although it is important to remain true to the needs of your own side, you must also be aware that your actions can reverberate across multiple borders. This is especially true for world powers, as their footprints leave long-lasting, sometimes irreversible effects wherever they operate. The United States, Russia, China, and other current or upcoming world powers need to start listening and adjusting their policies accordingly, even as some of the younger ones test the limits of their growing influence.

In the region that encompasses Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, the area of Baluchistan, despite its strategic importance, has not been paid enough attention. It is a large region that juts into all three of the countries that were mentioned. While it is mostly a desert region, it may turn out to be a key area for the confluence of geopolitical interests over the next few years due to its access to the ocean. The trouble here is that Baluchistan itself is unstable, with sectarian conflicts between Sunnis and Shias destabilizing the region on all three sides of the national borders. It is also an area rich with natural resources, but its instability renders these resources inaccessible to interested parties. The already-strained governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran should work to stabilize the region, but either cannot do so or are unwilling to expend the resources necessary due to conflicts on other fronts or personal motivations of political players.

All issues are complex. To suggest that any party on one side of a conflict can be blamed unequivocally is dangerous, because it renders complexity into dichotomous narratives that exclude the possibility for mutual understanding. Instead, it must be remembered that responsibility can be spread across multiple parties, because then each party will know that it has to play its part in undoing damage and rebuilding ties. In my opinion, the USA needs to let Israel be responsible for its own actions, cease military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and renew calls for dialogue while living up to its own democratic ideals. China needs to accept that in order for it to become a respected global leader, it should start assuming the responsibility and accountability that comes with a leadership role and not intimidate its neighbors.

I would recommend similar actions to other world powers, but for the less influential countries, like in the ones in the ASEAN region, my hope is that they will do the best that they can with all the resources that they have. They, too, have a stake in this global endeavor and it is easy to assign blame entirely to world powers. We are often complicit in perpetuating the very systems that we condemn. A more perfect union is often spoken of here in the United States, and I feel that it applies to international cooperation as well. It is by acknowledging that we are imperfect, that there are narratives different from ours but nonetheless real to the people they speak of, that we will be able to find the solutions that we need to move forward in this global age.

Hish Omar

AAI Intern, Summer 2010

Malaysia