The Traditional Geopolitical Approachesįor the first hundred years or so of its existence, the United States defined itself as a continental power, focused on establishing its dominance in North America, and prevented threats from overseas from interfering with its local hegemony. Which regions of the world matter most? How this question is answered leads to very different foreign policy priorities. preferences), but it does not follow that every region of the world or every country is equally critical to securing these interests. homeland from catastrophic attack, sustaining a global system marked by open lines of communication to facilitate commerce, and preserving regional balances of power that favor U.S. national security apparatus determine the relative importance of different regions and countries of the world to American interests and to assign priorities? It comes from an interconnected geographic assessment primarily of key military and economic factors.Ĭore American interests have remained remarkably stable over the decades (protecting the U.S. Is the Czech Republic more important than the Congo when assessing the spread of China’s global influence? So, how does the U.S. homeland whether to invest in capacity for Bahrain-given the current importance of the Persian Gulf for providing energy to the world-or for Bolivia, if the green transition takes off and lithium becomes more critical than oil. national security establishment must determine whether Mexico or Moldova is more critical for the security of the U.S. commitment to Euro-Atlantic security, a re-engagement with the broader Middle East, new initiatives for sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, and the emergence of a new region-the Arctic-which is now also defined as vital for future U.S. That is why the United States will continue to play its stabilizing role in the Indo-Pacific.”īut this occurs against the backdrop of a major new U.S. What happens in this region in the 21st century will shape the trajectory of the world. security: “The Indo-Pacific is the fastest-growing region on the planet. In 2022, Secretary of State Tony Blinken identified his view of the geographic priority for U.S. ![]() It should be focused on the parts of the world that matter most for Americans’ security, prosperity, and freedom.” This is why, in May 2022, WIlliam Ruger observed that American strategists need to be able to prioritize different regions in the world “relative to our objective national interests … since it will guide how we deploy and trade-off scarce … resources.” Lissner and Rapp-Hooper thus argue that in this emerging environment, the United States will have to navigate a “more fragmented patchwork of global, regional, and domain specific orders.” Building on that theme, Elbridge Colby, who as assistant secretary of defense took the lead in drafting the 2018 National Defense Strategy, noted: “American foreign policy shouldn’t be driven by a special affinity for or “ism” about any region. Rebecca Lissner and Mara Rapp-Hooper concur: the United States “no longer has the power” to set the agenda in every part of the world. Yet the United States lacks the wherewithal to actively engage every part of the globe, running up, as Derek Reveron, Jim Cook and Ross Coffey note, against the “limits” of America’s ability to shape multiple regional security environments. With every iteration of the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy, every region of the world is acknowledged as having importance to American interests. ![]() The United States defines its national security interests in global terms.
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