International Affairs Journal at UC Davis

The International Affairs Journal is an academic journal based at the University of California in Davis that strives to connect the academic world through scholarly papers in order to spread awareness, start conversations and spark curiosity about the international issues that are facing our world today. We promote the publication of both undergraduate and graduate papers, giving all students the opportunity to have their work published and recognized in the academic community.

The International Affairs Journal releases two publications: the International Affairs Journal and the International Update, found on our website.

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International Affairs Journal presents the Davis Edition
Paper Submissions Due: May 10, 2010
Release Date: May 24, 2010
Spotlight: Education
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The State of the American Union

By Samantha R. McRoskey

February 2010

President Obama’s State of the Union Address made it clear how the public, and the administration, view the state of our union: our most pressing problems are at home. For most of his speech, the president addressed the vulnerabilities of the economy and how to overcome them. He transitioned to issues of foreign policy only during the last quarter of his speech, acknowledging that our standing as a nation is fundamentally tied to our position in the world. “Our destiny,” he asserted, “is connected to those beyond our shores.”

With that, he opened the discussion to national security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He pointed to concerns about nuclear aspirations in North Korea and Iran, and insisted on eliminating stockpiles in Russia. He spoke of our cooperation with Muslim countries on science and education. He affirmed the humanitarian efforts in Haiti.  He even brought up combating corruption in Guinea. Yet prominently absent—aside from the Haiti reference—was any serious discussion of countries in our own hemisphere.

Letting our relationships with other American countries fall by the wayside could have enormous consequences in terms of our national security and our economic prosperity. As long as our national agenda does not promote stronger relationships with regional powers, a blanket of false security will continue to settle over us. What is worse, other countries—including those hostile to our economic and security goals—will take advantage of our complacency.

The president’s only other nod to hemispheric relations was in connection to strengthening trade relations with “key partners,” Panama and Colombia. His failure to discuss more pressing economic and security issues related to Canada, Mexico, and Brazil should incite serious doubts about the administration’s “substantial investments” in homeland security and intelligence gathering.

After all, it was only in June 2006 that 17 Canadians were arrested for receiving three tons of ammonium nitrate to blow up targets in Ottawa and Toronto. And it was just last year that intelligence officials authenticated a video made by an al-Qaeda recruiter advertising the U.S.-Mexico border as an ideal corridor to initiate a bio-terrorist attack. These are only the most recent examples. What is most disquieting is that government knowledge of regional vulnerabilities is nothing new.

The Library of Congress published a report in early 2003 detailing the extent of transnational drug and terrorist organizations operating in Mexico since the late 1990s. A former Mexican national security advisor commented that a strong Russian and Asian mafia presence had trickled over into drug- and human-trafficking. He also identified an increased presence of Islamic militant organizations, including Hezbollah and al-Qaeda, in northern Mexico. Sure enough, an al-Qaeda operative on the FBI’s terrorist watch list was arrested in 2005, about 60 miles east of El Paso. The suspect had been gathering information on the movement of people and goods across the border for the better part of a year. In 2007, the U.S. Attorney General met with the Brazilian Justice Minister to address growing concern over the tri-border area between Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina—a known breeding ground for Islamic extremism and arms smuggling. Last May, the alleged chief of international communications for al-Qaeda was arrested in São Paulo, Brazil—a capture that U.S. authorities were alerted to.

Despite the mounting evidence of terrorist presence in Latin America, there is no comprehensive policy response to it. Why do the Americas not figure more significantly in our national security agenda? Perhaps it is the illusion that the greatest harm emanates from the unknown, the far-off, the exotic—and not our own backyard. This rang true in President Obama’s commendation of “strengthened partnerships from the Pacific to South Asia to the Arabian Peninsula.”

Failure to seriously pursue multilateralism with all North American nations could weaken our relations beyond immediate repair, especially in Latin America. And not just on the security front, but in economic terms, too. Witness Brazil’s recent pursuit of WTO-approved trade retaliations against the United States, which will likely include rebuffing intellectual property laws protecting patents on U.S. drugs. The illegal manufacturing of generic drugs will result in lost profits to U.S. drug companies.

A recent article by scholars from the Inter-American Dialogue stressed the importance of avoiding past binary policies of “paternalism” or “indifference” toward our southern neighbors. More than eschewing domineering or apathetic policies, though, our focus should be creating more consistent relations. Unfortunately, it is not difficult to assess the damage these past errors had on regional relations.

Twentieth century policies toward Latin America were fraught with contradictions. With the Good Neighbor Policy of 1933, the United States renounced the use of military force after two occupations (in Haiti and Nicaragua) and espoused Pan-Americanism and non-intervention. Yet we later reverted to armed intervention in covert coups in Guatemala, Ecuador, and Nicaragua.

The result of over a century of disjointed policies, many scholars argue, has left us where we are today: American countries both north and south of our borders seeking greater autonomy from the United States and extra-regional strategic alliances.

This reinforces the point that if we do not actively engage our hemispheric neighbors, others will. Our “destiny” should not be in the hands of those who seek these alliances: we should seize it.

March 1st, 2010 | Category: Latin America, North America

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