US Foreign Policy in a Non Polar World

The international system had experienced multi-polarity, bi-polarity, and uni-polarity. In the new world order, the emergence of different dominant players in the international system is undeniable. We may say that it’s just like the 20th century, distinctly multi polar. We have countries that dominates the world order, or what we call the major powers, China as the soft power who’s slowly gaining influence, the US who dominated everything after the Cold War and is threatened by China’s influence, the EU whose economic influence and capacity plays a big role in international political economy, India and Japan with their technological advancement and other more countries. Some are deceived that the world order, power, and influence is concentrated in these countries only. Regional powers already plays a big role, also the INGO’s and NGO’s, regional trading blocs, the media, and other factors that makes the world borderless.

The concentration of power nowadays doesn’t remain with the few, now it’s distributed, according to their level of improvement and development, influence, and necessity. In the era on non-polarity power and influence are starting to lose its value. This situation is starting to rattle the United States, because being the hegemonic country that they are, non polarity simply means that their influence to the international arena is not that strong anymore, and anyone can be a major player just like them.

The US led war on terrorism displayed their aggression; however, the “You’re either one of us or against us” foreign policy doesn’t work anymore. The US spends billions of dollars on its operations in the Middle East, earn trillions of dollars, and have the world’s largest GDP. But this doesn’t equate to power anymore. The decline in US’ influence is obvious; I think Iran made a statement when they retaliated from US with the inspection on Iran’s uranium enrichment. Devaluation of dollar is also evident, other currencies are now used in foreign trade and economic agreement, also its purchasing power is starting to minimize. I think this proves how the US influence and position in the world has declined.

However, given that the power of the US is already declining, it doesn’t necessarily mean that someone has taken over and they already have a direct competition. It’s just that it’s evident that right now, the existence of too many players in the world order guarantees check and balances and transparency, which means that the US can’t just do whatever they want and bypass the international law.

Non polar world can be positive or negative. For some, the world would suffer from anarchy knowing that no one is one step ahead, or it could be good for some knowing that the playing field has already been equalized. But even if a non polar world isn’t bound to happen, the US policy needs to be changed because right now, we can see the flawed system. Allocation of funds is wrong, poor regulation in the mortgage market and credit crisis had made it worse, health insurances gone bad etc.

US will try to combat non polarity by its strong military force, this includes pre emptive strikes because according to them, the best defense is offense, and I think that this way of thinking is completely flawed. By doing this, they think that they’re combating terrorism, assuming but not conceding that they’re able to do that, they’re also disrupting the status quo in which a strikes should be the last resort. If the US wants to maintain their status, then they should change their trade policies because trade is a powerful tool.

So, what should the United States do? Since dealing with the whole world will get difficult as time goes by, the US should try to take baby steps if they want to maintain their status. This means that negotiations should be done with few parties, they should enter bilateral agreements first. Since non polarity can be inevitable in a few years time, the only thing left to do is to maximize what they have and to change some of their flawed systems and policies which might be the cause of US’ failure.

But even if there are harms in a non polar world, that doesn’t give the US the right to take further radical actions. Also, its not that bad after all, equalizing the playing field is not a bad thing, and if there’s moderation, which I assume there will be because of other major players, over lapping is not bound to happen or if everything will be in moderation.