Future Directions for U.S. Foreign Policy: Balancing Status Quo and Reform

摘要

Should the United States be a status quo power in its foreign policy, or should it instead seek fundamental change and reform. This thorny issue is being increasingly debated today with an intent focus on the Greater Middle East. For years, the United States was seen as a status quo power in this region of the world, supporting non-democratic regimes in the name of preserving stability, security, and access to oil. Beginning in late 2001, however, the United States dramatically switched gears by becoming a revolutionary power in the Middle East, seeking regime change in Afghanistan and Iraq and promoting rapid democratization throughout the region. Although those two countries now have elected governments, democratization efforts in the Middle East have been less than effective thus far. Not only have elections intensified sectarian strife between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, they also have brought Hamas to power in Palestine, strengthened Hezbollah in Lebanon, and propelled a Holocaust-denier to power in Iran. Overall, the seeming result has been to make the Middle East more dangerous, to expose the limits on U.S. influence in the region, and to raise questions about the feasibility of establishing western-style democracy there. While the future is uncertain, this checkered record has reopened the issue of status quo vs. reform in ways that mandate constructive solutions not only in the Middle East, but elsewhere. This paper compares the foreign policy choices of four U.S. Presidents (Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush); discusses the seven key strategic challenges faced by the United States and its allies in their efforts to guide the future toward a positive outcome; and presents five foreign policy approaches available to the United States for handling these challenges with a satisfactory balance between preserving the status quo and seeking reforms.