Foreign policy -- the hammer and the screw

[Joanne98]

by Frank Palmer

Foreign policy -- the hammer and the screw. Mon Jul 20, 2009 at 08:05:15 AM PDT

When all you have is a hammer. every problem looks like a nail.

Well, American presidents control lots of tools, but sometimes all they can see is the military.
Assume for moment, that we aren't going to use military incursions to deal with our problems. (And, therefore, I'm not going to address the problems -- like invasion of the USA -- to which military responses are appropriate.) What else is in the administration toolchest?
Answers after the jump.

Frank Palmer's diary :: :: Obama, much more than his predecessors after Kennedy, has simple presence. He visits a country, makes a major speech to chearing crowds, and US prestige soars. That has to be rationed, but he's used it beautifully. But let's stick to what is generally available.

The first is diplomatic talk. That isn't too useful for discussion by outsiders, since we usually don't know what is being done in that regard.

The second is foreign aid. The response to the situation in Honduras is the extreme, a quite fitting extreme. If your government doesn't care whether it represents your people, we won't invade you; OTOH, we won't aupport you, either.
Beyond the yes/no question, beyond even the question of level, is the question of what is supported. A huge percentage of the aid the USA gives third-world countries goes to their armed services. Within any country -- including our own -- the military is one of the major players in determining what is done. US support for the military:

1.Increases their independence from civilian control.
2.Builds up the military in contrast with other sectors. "Do you want to go into the army and ride in a tank, or be schoolteacher and pedal your own bicycle?"
3.Keeps embarrasing us when those people in government with whom the USA has closest ties drive out the elected government in a coup.
And, after all, the weapons are more often used against the countries own citizens than againist foreign countries. (Even more often, never used at all.) And those foreign countries against whom they are used have often been armed by our aid, themselves.
What would happen if instead of saying:
"The USA will pay for any military weapons you buy from American defense contractors,"
we said, instead:
"The USA will pay for any textbooks you buy from American publishers,"
or
"The USA will pay for any medicine you buy from American drug companies"?

Third, is trade.
US policy looks -- to our pro-third-world-development people, to say nothing of the third world itself -- as much more interested in developing American traders than in encouraging sustainable local agriculture in other countries.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/20/752970/-Foreign-policythe-hammer-and-the-screw.