Harry Targ
image from Code Pink
Extracted and revised from:
https://mronline.org/2019/10/23/united-states-foreign-policy-yesterday-today-and-tomorrow/
The US Pursuit of Empire
Taking “the long view” of United States foreign policy, it is clear that from NSC-68; to the response to the Soviet challenges in space such as during the Sputnik era; to global wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq; to covert interventions in the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and Africa, the United States has pursued global hegemony. And foreign policy influentials, such as a recent Council on Foreign Relations position paper suggests, regard the maintenance of global power the main priority of foreign policy in the years ahead. It is also clear that the pursuit of empire has, of necessity, involved the creation of a permanent war economy, an economy that overcomes economic stagnation by the infusion of enormous military expenditures.
It is also clear that justification for empire and military spending has necessitated the construction of an enemy, first the Soviet Union and international communism; then terrorism; and now China. The obverse of a demonic enemy requires a conception of self to justify the imperial project. That self historically has been various iterations of American exceptionalism, the indispensable nation, US humanitarianism, and implicitly or explicitly the superiority of the white race and western civilization.
In this light, while specific policies vary, the trajectory of US foreign policy in the twenty-first century is a continuation of the policies and programs that were institutionalized in the twentieth century. Three seem primary. First, military spending, particularly in new technologies, continues unabated. And a significant Council on Foreign Relations report raises the danger of the United States “falling behind,” the same metaphor that was used by the writers of the NSC-68 document, or the Gaither and Rockefeller Reports composed in the late 1950s to challenge President Eisenhower’s worry about a military/industrial complex, the response to Sputnik, Secretary of Defense McNamara’s transformation of the Pentagon to scientific management in the 1960s, or President Reagan’s huge increase of armaments in the 1980s to overcome the “window of vulnerability.”
Second, the United States continues to engage in policies recently referred to as “hybrid wars.” The concept of hybrid wars suggests that while traditional warfare between nations has declined, warfare within countries has increased. Internal wars, the hybrid wars theorists suggest, are encouraged and supported by covert interventions, employing private armies, spies, and other operatives financed by outside nations like the United States. Also the hybrid wars concept also refers to the use of economic warfare, embargoes and blockades, to bring down adversarial states and movements. The blockades of Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran are examples. So, the hybrid war concept suggests that wars are carried out by other, less visible, means.
Third, much of the discourse on the US role in the world replicates the bipolar, super power narrative of the Cold War. Only now the enemy is China. As Alfred McCoy has pointed out (In the Shadows of the American Empire, 2017), the United States in the twenty first century sees its economic hegemony being undermined by Chinese economic development and global reach. To challenge this, McCoy argues, the United States has taken on a project to recreate its military hegemony: AI, a space force, biometrics, new high tech aircraft etc. If the US cannot maintain its hegemony economically, it will have to do so militarily. This position is the centerpiece of the recent CFR Task Force Report.
Imperial Policies in Trump's First Term
Recognizing these continuities in United States foreign policy, commentators appropriately recognized the idiosyncrasies of foreign policy in the first Trump administration. He reached out to North Korea and Russia (which had the potential of reducing tensions in Asia and Central Europe). He rhetorically claimed that the United States should withdraw military forces from trouble spots around the world, including the Middle East. He declared that the United States could not be “the policeman of the world,” a declaration made by former President Nixon as he escalated bombing of Vietnam and initiated plans to overthrow the Allende regime in Chile. Some of these measures which seemed to contradict the Cold War policy agenda Trump was inappropriately criticized by Democrats and others. Tension-reduction on the Korean Peninsula, for example, should have been encouraged.
However, while Trump moved in one direction, he almost immediately undermined the policies he had ordered. His announced withdrawal from Syria, while in the abstract a sign of a more realistic assessment of US military presence in the Middle East was coupled with a direct or implied invitation to the Turkish military to invade Northeast Syria to defeat the Kurds. Also, at the same time he was withdrawing troops from Syria, the Defense Department announced the United States was sending support troops to Saudi Arabia. He withdrew from the accord with Iran on nuclear weapons and the Paris Climate Change agreement. Time after time, one foreign policy decision was contradicted by another. These contradictions occurred over and over with allies as well as traditional adversaries. Sometimes policies seemed to be made with little historical awareness and without sufficient consultation with professional diplomats.
Imperial Policies in the Second Trump Term
Candidate Trump ran for reelection in 2024 claiming that the US role in the world (at least outside the Western Hemisphere) should be reduced. His would adopt an "America First" strategy.
During his first year he engaged in tariff wars, supported dramatic increases in military expenditures, and under the guise of pursuing peace gave support to Israel in its genocidal war against the Palestinian people and continued both to support the Ukrainian military effort and negotiations with the Russians as brutal war in Ukraine continued. And after the administration issued its National Security Strategy Document in November, 2025, largely endorsed the drive for remaining the hegemonic power in the Western Hemisphere (the Monroe Doctrine 2 or the "Donroe Doctrine") while calling for arming the world to challenge growing Chinese power.
And while the world continued to process Trump's blustery statements, contradictory calls to action, seemingly words and acts to insult the traditional allies, a veritable "mad man" approach to US foreign policy, he made war on Venezuela and carried out the kidnapping of Venezuela's President and wife.
Subsequently, he has alluded to taking out regimes in Cuba, Colombia, and Mexico, running the Venezuelan government-particularly its oil sector, and seizing Greenland from NATO ally, Denmark.
Processing the Trump foreign policies one is reminded of the old Nixon idea, the so-called “madman theory.” "Trump thinks that he can frighten and thus deter opponents by appearing unhinged—an idea that political scientists call the madman theory. As Trump once boasted, Chinese President Xi Jinping would never risk a blockade of Taiwan while he is president because Xi “knows I’m fucking crazy," (Keren Yarhi-Milo, "How Trump's Foreign Policy is Ruining American Credibility," Foreign Affairs, October 2, 2025)
(Nixon allegedly wanted to appear mad so that adversaries would be deterred from acting in ways contrary to US interests out of fear of random responses. For a useful discussion of the "madman theory" see below:
Working for Peace in the 21st Century
The contradictory character of Trump foreign policy has left the peace movement befuddled. How does it respond to Trump’s occasional acts that go against the traditional imperial grain while he acts impetuously increasing the dangers of war? How does the peace movement participate in the construction of a progressive majority that justifiably seeks to overturn the Trump era and all that it stands for: climate disaster, growing economic inequality, racism, sexism, homophobia, and hybrid war? Perhaps the task for the peace movement is to include, in the project of building a progressive majority, ideas about challenging the US as an imperial power, proclaiming that a progressive agenda requires the dismantling of the permanent war economy.
Without illusions, the peace movement must participate in politics: which includes the electoral arena and lobbying for policy changes including rekindling the War Powers Act and cutting the trillion dollar military budget.. Articulating a peace agenda, demanding that politicians running for office at all levels embrace it, and convincingly demonstrating that politicians who embrace it will be held accountable. Meanwhile, by articulating a peace platform, activists will be participating in a broad educational effort to construct a majority “people for peace.”
Finally, peace and social justice movements must articulate and embrace truly global policies of solidarity in the spirit of the Non-aligned Movement, the Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, commitments to human rights, environmental protections, and support for those movements in the Global South that are pursuing the rights of sovereignty and social and economic development. While flawed the United Nations system, with its multiplicity of political, social, economic, and legal organizations provide the skeletal form of a New World Order.
These are truly troubled times, with to a substantial degree the survival of humanity and nature at stake. The war system is a significant part of what the struggle is about and every avenue must be used to challenge it. Whether it is the mad men theory or traditional imperialism that drives US pursuit of global hegemony or both, it must be stopped.
