Tuesday, April 20, 2010

First Things First

A recurring criticism of U.S. Foreign policy I often hear from rhe political left is that we often engage in lop-sided transactions, using our political, military, and economic clout to coerce developing and/or weaker nations into accepting unfavorable terms.

There are several problems with this critique, but one suprcedes the others. Why would one criticize a country's leaders for advancing their nation's interest at the expense of others? That is their job.

The world has limited natural resources. Once a border is drawn on a map and two groups made distinct, those groups are in direct competition with each other for those resources. With limited resources, for one group to gain, the other must lose.

Few leaders actively pursue transactions with other countries that hurt their citizens, why should we expect them to?

2 comments:

Justin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Justin said...

Excellent point. Someone that criticizes their own political leaders for making rational decisions relating to foreign affairs, is simply being cynical and is likely doing so just to fulfill his or her own political agenda. We should expect the men and women that we have elected to lead our country to make decisions in our best interest and not another nation's best interest.