Government and Politics - Promoting Global and Regional Security in the Post-Cold War World :: Exploratory Essays Research Papers

Essay is 1507 Words  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The post-cold War world presents an interesting paradox. Conflicts are becoming increasingly local while the world is becoming increasingly interconnected: although conflicts are on a smaller scale, their ramifications affect all nations. In addition, better technology means that the American public is better informed and more eager to intervene, yet at the same time, foreign aid is being drastically cut. The United States does not have the resources to intervene in every conflict or to solve all the problems in the conflicts it does intervene in. Therefore, the U.S. must set priorities, finding a balance between its national security interests and other concerns. In two cases, the drug-fueled civil war of Colombia and the withdrawal of North Korea from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the U.S. correctly intervened to promote regional and global security. However, in both cases, the U.S. mistakenly limited the effects of its efforts by put ting humanitarian concerns before security.    Prioritizing foreign policy objectives can be difficult because there are many to choose from. Many believe that the U.S. should act as the world's policeman, seek to stop human rights abuses, provide humanitarian aid, or work to build democracies. While these are certainly admirable goals, the truth is that the U.S. can often do little good, and sometimes aggravates the problem with intervention.1 The U.S. should instead work to promote both global and regional security. In the long run, this is the only way to achieve the goals mentioned above. It is the best way to promote U.S. interests. Although other domestic concerns, such as building democracies or promoting human rights, should be considered in every situation (and are often integral to the problem), when these concerns conflict with the promotion of global or regional security promoting security must come first. The U.S. must be careful not to jeopardize its attempts to promote global and regional security because of differ ing domestic concerns.    There is much policy overlap between pursuing regional and global security. This makes sense; in order for there to be a stabilized world, there must be stability at all levels, and regional instability can quickly lead to global instability in the increasingly globalized world.2 The overlap can be most clearly seen in the objectives behind U.S. intervention in Colombia and North Korea, the fight against drugs and the fight to stop nuclear proliferation, respectively. No one doubts that drugs have negative effects on society, and when one country, such as Colombia, produces eighty percent of the world's cocaine, drugs are very destabilizing globally.