642 Chapter 17 | Foreign Policyof action or signal its intentions to other nations.^52 By helping form NATO and stationing
troops in Europe, the United States guaranteed that if Warsaw Pact troops invaded the
West, U.S. forces would be directly involved in the defense of Western Europe. More
recently, after Russia’s invasion of Crimea (a region of Ukraine) in 2014, America and its
NATO partners sent aircraft, troops, and ships to countries adjacent to Ukraine to signal
their opposition to Russia’s plans and their support for the Ukrainian government.Military force
Military force is a fundamental tool of foreign policy. America’s military forces serve
throughout the world as a deterrent to conflict. For example, the United States stations
more than 20,000 troops in South Korea. Many are deployed at the demilitarized zone that
separates North Korea from South Korea. Similarly, until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991
hundreds of thousands of American troops were stationed in Western Europe (today only
a fraction remain). Military exercises by U.S. troops, aircraft, and ships serve to remind
potential adversaries of America’s military power. For example, in response to Chinese
claims of sovereignty over the South China Sea, U.S. military aircraft and ships regularly
transit the region to underscore the U.S. position that the sea is international waters and
demonstrate that America is ready to keep the sea open by using force if necessary.
The United States has also fought wars and lesser conflicts to further its foreign policy
goals. Some were all-out military operations, such as the invasion of Iraq. More commonly,
these deployments were short-lived operations, such as the evacuation of American civilians
from areas of unrest, the delivery of humanitarian assistance, or the use of ship-launched
cruise missiles to attack terrorist camps and similar targets.^53 In the case of fighting ISIL,
America has sent military advisers and training personnel to several nations, carried out
numerous attacks by Special Forces and drones, and, in the case of Syria and Iraq, conducted
many air strikes against ISIL forces and infrastructure as well as Syrian ground forces.
The size and power of America’s military provide numerous options for policy makers.
For example, after the September 11 attacks, in an attempt to prevent future terror attacks
by Al Qaeda, U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan, which had been used as a base of operations
for the organization.^54 It is highly unlikely that any other country would have been able to
carry out such a large-scale operation so far from home. America’s military also provided
the majority of international forces in the attacks in Libya and Syria and against ISIL.
Nonetheless, military force is not all-powerful. For example, despite nearly two
decades of combat operations in Afghanistan and large amounts of economic and
military aid to the Afghan government, the Taliban (a religious–political organization)
still controls a significant percentage of the Afghan countryside and the Afghan
government’s ability to defeat the Taliban without American help is highly questionable.
Similarly, while air strikes in Iraq and Syria have significantly reduced ISIL’s military
might, the organization remains able to plan future terror attacks throughout the world.
Moreover, it is not clear whether any level of military force can remove this threat.“Why
Should
I Care?”
It’s easy to think that America can get what it wants from other nations by making
threats involving military force—after all, America’s military is the largest in the world
by far. However, foreign policy isn’t that simple. There are many other ways for America
to achieve its foreign policy goals, from diplomacy to economic sanctions or even aid
programs. The reason why these strategies are used is that they work—and often work
better than force would.Full_18_APT_64431_ch17_614-654.indd 642 16/11/18 11:22 AM