Perpetual War

The way that you personally interact with those around you, whether they be friends, acquaintances, strangers, less-than favorable people, and everyone in-between, says a lot about you and your values and thought process. Some people you admire and co-align with, others you may use as leverage to help you in some way, and some make you want to turn the other way when you see them coming towards you (with good reason of course). One thing is undeniable, and that is the fact that these dynamic inter-relations to those around us are salient and help mold the world with which we live in. Mirroring the day-to-day relationships and connections we maintain in our own minuscule lives, these relationships exist on the ever-changing global scale as well. While America's involvement on the global stage may seem incomprehensible and out of the realm of the immediate importance and relevance we feel from our own personal connections to people, foreign relations play a prominent role in our every day lives even when it may feel like it doesn't.

The global stage in which international relations takes place on is characterized by fast-paced exchanges, cultural clashes, long-standing allies and enemies, and a constant and steady need to stay above the power curve. The relations among countries and America's involvement and standing with other nations is fragile and intricate, and much of the exchanges between countries happens swiftly and quietly, but still is of great importance to us as citizens who have, in my opinion, a civic obligation to understand on some level.

I intend to simplify and dissect a series of important and pressing happenings around the world that somehow involve or affect America. All countries are interrelated in multiple facets, whether that be economically, trade-wise, or legislatively.

You hear it all the time. In fact, you may have even said it yourself at some point. Why does America keep getting involved in everything? It may feel like we are constantly involved in a million things at once, every news channel you turn on flashing some piece of new involvement or tragedy taking place in a country far enough away that many citizens lightly disregard it. However, did you know this constant need to intervene and be involved in everything, even when it appears irrelevant to us as a nation, is actually intrinsic in our foreign policy practice?

With America regarded as a super power on the global scale, this power somehow transposed into an unwritten duty and license to get involved in every conflict that arises with a shred of potential of affecting America in any regard. While it may be true to say a nation with our power should have, on some levels, a responsibility to help abroad when needed and uphold democratic principles, should there be a limit to this? An extent in which we diplomatically will not go?

It is no secret that our political landscape today is vastly different than that a the start of the 21st century. The blueprints for much of our foreign policy procedures today roots from the national security doctrine of President Roosevelt and President Truman. To sum it up, historian Charles Beard described this diplomacy as "perpetual war for perpetual peace." It's an Orwellian nightmare that only  only gets darker and more involved in the after-math of 9/11.

War is peace, right?

George Orwell's 1984

Post 9/11 rhetoric and the legislature that came out of it, known as the Patriot Act, enabled greater executive powers which made military action abroad and domestic data collection (spying) on citizens somehow justifiable. According to Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani,  the mindset of a post 9/11 world and the declaration of War on Terror solidified many policies that had been in the works long before Bush took office.

Basically, the act allowed for the executive branch to take whatever action they felt was necessary to protect the United States from terrorism, and all of the sudden any infringement on privacy domestically and involvement internationally was magically justified.

                   

American Military Presence Abroad

So if it feels like we are always at war, that's because we are. And we are because that is the ground work of our foreign policy procedure.

At his last count, Kevin Gosztola put the U.S. war count at 74. So while Iraq and Afghanistan come to mind, we must not fail to acknowledge the other countless wars we are simultaneously involved in that are often undeclared and unannounced.

This understanding of American tendencies abroad and where it comes from is paramount when attempting to dissect world issues today. International relations parallels the importance of personal relations in your own life, except on a much larger and deadlier scale.