The New Changes of American Foreign Strategy after the Cold War

Since the end of the Cold War, with the drastic changes in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, there has been a sharp endogenous tension in American foreign policy. After summing up the legacy of the Cold War, the United States can't wait to make structural, strategic and overall adjustments to its foreign policy. After several years of adjustment, the economic and military strength of the United States continues to far exceed that of any country in history. More importantly, the United States not only maintains strong economic and military hard power, but also has absolute advantages in soft power such as lifestyle and popular culture. After losing the short-term chaos caused by global competitors, the subjective allocation of its foreign strategy has changed from the leader of the capitalist world during the Cold War to the substantive step of its subsequent evolution to a unipolar world.

It is precisely because of its historical high position in material and spirit that the strong trend of American foreign policy and ideological circles is increasingly prominent. The confusion and different gaps between brzezinski's Out of Control and Chaos and The Great Chess Game: America's First Position and Geo-strategy in the 1990s —— from the anxiety of warning the American civil war and disintegration to the explicit talk about the economic vitality, political vitality and cultural attraction of the United States —— epitomize the difficult historical process of thinking and exploration by foreign policy thinkers in the Clinton era. Moreover, the American Foreign Affairs magazine declared that "if the hegemonic position of the United States today has not formed a unipolar world, then it cannot form a unipolar world." Since taking office, George W. Bush has further explained his foreign policy with obvious militarization tendency and put it into practice. The powerful impact of the 1 1 incident further solidified the military security awareness of the US decision-making authorities with Bush as the core. The hegemonic tendency of the United States is even more rampant, believing that "politics, even politics between countries, is regional." Its unilateralism and pre-emptive hegemonic behavior have had a rather negative impact on the overall diplomatic efforts of the international community, and there is a trend of deterioration. Therefore, it is necessary to comprehensively and effectively analyze the characteristics of American foreign policy in the post-cold war era, which is of great significance to guide the construction and adjustment of China's relevant foreign policies, improve China's international living environment in the new period, and accelerate the construction of a harmonious society in China.

First, the characteristics of American foreign policy in the post-cold war era.

The formulation of American foreign policy is based on national interests, comprehensive national strength, international soft and hard environment, and the new international political and economic order led by the United States, striving to maintain the leading position of the United States in the world, in an attempt to establish a unipolar world led by the United States, realize peace under American rule, and establish Pax American Empire. Although there are differences in ways, ways and means to achieve the established strategic goals during the Clinton and Bush administrations, there is no substantial difference in the choice and realization of the goals. Expansion is the most obvious and eternal theme throughout the history of American foreign policy. Relatively speaking, the foreign policy of the Clinton administration focuses on flexible supervision of other countries, while the foreign policy of the Bush administration focuses on rigid checks and balances. But no matter who comes to power, their basic goal is the same, that is, to establish a new international political and economic order dominated by the United States and strive to achieve "peace under American rule." This is not only the result of the domestic political contingency operation of the United States, but also the result and need of the United States to continuously promote its global strategy to ensure its hegemonic position in the world. Therefore, in a sense, the Bush administration's foreign policy is a change of behavior and a continuation of the Clinton administration's foreign policy.

Specifically, American foreign policy in the post-cold war era can be expressed as:

First, the foreign economy has risen from "low politics" serving the national security strategy of the United States to the first place in American foreign relations, and its own economic interests and the gains and losses of comprehensive national strength have been emphasized in the formulation of foreign policies. Since the end of the Cold War, the overall situation of international relations has eased, peace and development have become the theme of the times, political multipolarization and economic globalization have become the consensus of all countries, and the traditional boundaries between "high politics" and "low politics" have become increasingly blurred. Although political and military security interests are still important, economic relations between countries have gradually become the main content of modern international relations, and the demand for economic interests has quickly become one of the core considerations of American foreign relations. In the post-cold war era, the reason why the United States can implement a foreign policy of strong expansion is closely related to the pivotal position of the American economy in the world. The reconciliation and disputes of economic interests have become the normal state of relations between countries. "An important manifestation of American hegemony is' coercing other countries to implement policies that are beneficial to American economic interests' (Huntington)". Paying attention to national economic interests has increasingly become a prominent feature of American foreign relations, and seeking national economic security has become the main content of its new security concept.

Second, maintaining local security, strengthening local defense, combating terrorism, integrating the allocation of state power, and improving the shaping and construction of the national security system have become the dominant strategic intentions of American foreign policy formulation. Since the Clinton administration, American embassies and consulates in various countries have been frequently attacked, which has gradually aroused the vigilance of Washington, and the power to combat the harm of terrorism is also increasing. Although it did not rise to the height of national security strategy at that time, preventing and combating terrorism has been put on the agenda in the information collection of intelligence agencies and the target selection of security departments. 9? 1 1 incident is the first large-scale terrorist attack in the United States since the British burned down the White House in18/4. It deeply shocked the international community, including the United States, and marked the substantial arrival of non-traditional security threats that modern countries must face. Facing the reality of terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has to adjust the national security strategy, reorganize the intelligence department, strengthen the powerful department, expand the security control authority, integrate the allocation of state power, set up the Department of Homeland Security, coordinate the countermeasures of various departments in the face of terrorist threats, strengthen the awareness of local defense, and comprehensively improve the country's information acquisition and crisis response mechanism in the face of various threats. Even in order to cope with all kinds of domestic criticisms and doubts about the prevention of crisis and the necessity of pre-crisis intervention, the military expenditure has been continuously increased, and foreign wars have been launched to divert the attention of domestic people, alleviate the pressure faced by the government on related sensitive issues, rebuild Americans' security confidence and enhance their ability to deal with asymmetric attacks.

Third, neo-conservatism is the leading ideology of pursuing foreign strategy, which emphasizes unilateralism and preemptive strategy in the construction, allocation and operation of actual forces and highlights it in an extremely pragmatic way. Neo-conservatism, as the most active and aggressive ideological trend in contemporary American politics, accumulated its strength and expanded its propaganda platform during the Clinton administration, and its influence reached its peak during the Bush administration. "Unlike traditional conservatives who are more concerned about domestic political and social issues, their focus is mainly on foreign policy and international relations." Neoconservatives claim that the interests between countries are inherently conflicting, and the competition between countries is mainly a zero-sum game. Relative strength belongs to the country, and strength is the only main means to safeguard national interests. Only by constantly strengthening the national strength with military strength and economic strength as the core can we effectively safeguard our own interests, and through the balance of power strategy based on strength, can we effectively curb the challenges of emerging powers to the existing international security and peace order. From the perspective of maintaining the absolute superiority and security of the United States, neoconservatives emphasize anarchy in the field of international relations, believing that there are only jungle laws in international relations, and human conscience and international law are useless. Therefore, since neoconservatism began to dominate American foreign policy, its basic demands have expanded from ensuring basic national security to increasing defense spending and strengthening its own strength. 9? After the "1 1" incident, neoconservatives demanded more strongly that the superpower status and autonomy of the United States be emphasized in the field of foreign policy, and advocated unilateralism and preemptive strategy. They believe that in the field of foreign policy and national security, we should pay attention to the practical effect of the policy, and to achieve such practical effect and realize "peace under American rule", practicality has become their only choice in foreign policy.

Fourth, take the effective combination of military threat containment and the art of diplomatic coordination and mediation as the basic tactics, highlight the role of military backing in foreign strategy, accelerate the allocation and optimal combination of global military forces, and realize the transformation of strategic focus. After the end of the Cold War, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, one of the two strongest countries in the Cold War, the United States became the only superpower in the world with unparalleled political and military strength. Therefore, the United States relies more on the role of military backing. "The United States must maintain a strong military power mechanism to threaten potential competitors, so that they can't even expect to play a greater regional or global role" became the guiding principle of military defense in the Clinton era, while "relying on the advantages of American military power to contain all competitors and reshape the pattern of international relations" became the core goal of military strategy in the Bush era. There is no doubt that there is a tacit understanding between the Clinton administration and the Bush administration to contain military threats and pursue peace through strength, although the two sides have different ways to achieve military goals. While strengthening its military strength, in the post-cold war era, the United States generally pays attention to bridging the negative effects of diplomatic coordination and mediation art in crisis intervention, emergency handling and speech decision-making, especially in strengthening economic cooperation, providing economic support and assistance, and conducting summit diplomacy in the form of summit meetings to reach an understanding on thorny issues between countries of mutual concern. Not only that, from the Clinton era, the United States began to discuss the possibility of global military reconfiguration, explore and brew the feasibility of the optimal global military combination, conduct tentative deployment of military forces, and put forward the core concept that will drive the entire diplomatic and military strategic transformation of the United States in the future: national defense transformation. Since the Bush administration took office, it has been following closely the pace of the Clinton administration. The transformation of national defense has mainly evolved from a theoretical concept to a substantive strategic transformation, integrating the allocation of national military forces and gradually realizing the transformation of Europe's strategic focus to Asia-Pacific Europe. At the same time, diplomatic bilateral or multilateral security and defense treaties or agreements are concluded with relevant countries by means of secret diplomacy and alliance diplomacy, in an attempt to firmly control the security situation in Eurasia. In order to realize brzezinski's prediction in "Big Chess": "Whoever rules the center of Eurasia will control the world island, and whoever rules the world island will control the world", and maintain the unchallenged imperial position of the United States in the world. In the post-cold war era, the powerful backing of the United States' bullying in the world, such as launching the Kosovo war, the Afghan war and the Iraq war, is the effective combination of the huge American war machine and the art of diplomatic coordination and mediation.

Fifth, take promoting democracy and improving human rights as the leading means of American foreign strategy, strengthen the infiltration of soft power based on ideology and values, and build America's superior strategic position in an all-round way. "The emergence of the concept of soft power is the result of profound changes in international relations and the continuous expansion and deepening of the scope of power with the changes in the situation." After the cloud of the Cold War gradually faded, American political elites in the post-cold war era deeply realized that relying solely on the super-strong political and military strength of the United States could not provide strong public opinion support for the new world political and economic order they tried to build, and the limitations of strong actions prompted them to look for ideological carriers from their own historical and cultural heritage. The political elites in Washington believe that actively helping other countries develop their own free markets and establish a democratic system that respects human rights is one of the key links in the US foreign policy strategy. "The most successful autocracy is not the kind of autocracy that uses force to ensure consistency, but makes people not know that there are other possibilities, can't imagine that other roads can make sense, and don't understand that there is a world beyond." The expansion of democracy and human rights will help improve the legal and moral legitimacy of its actions, enhance the moral support of people at home and abroad for the foreign policy pursued by the United States, and cooperate with its strong support in the ideological and media circles on the world stage. The soft power of the United States will fully penetrate into the ideological soil of hostile countries, thus creating a moral highland based on American-style democracy and human rights concepts. Therefore, in a sense, it can be said that "the expansion of democracy has promoted the expansion of hegemonic ideas." There are still 9? The 1 1 incident provides an excellent excuse for the United States to further expand the American-style concept of democracy and human rights. For example, the strategy of transforming the Greater Middle East itself is an important part of the global strategy of the United States, and it is also an important platform for the expansion of American-style democracy and human rights thoughts, which helps it gain exclusive geostrategic advantages over other countries, thus realizing its attempt to establish a unipolar world and realizing "peace under American rule." (Sorry, I copied it online)