The Foreign Service Journal, June 2021

42 JUNE 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL The World Is More Complex So much of our State Department’s work doesn’t fit neatly into competition with the PRC (and Russia, which is often included in the GPC framework). Our engagement in the West- ern Hemisphere has the most impact on the average American’s security and prosperity, regardless of the PRC’s presence in our hemisphere. The African continent is moving fast into its future, powered by young, professional Africans. We want to partner with those dynamic Africans, regardless of how many infrastruc- ture projects the Chinese build on the African continent. Our European, Japanese, South Korean, Australian, New Zea- lander and Canadian allies are important not just to counterbal- ance the PRC but also, mostly, because those alliances form the bedrock of American security and prosperity and the engine for making this world more democratic and just. If our international relations are defined by “Are we beating the Chinese in Africa?” we will tell our partners around the world that they hardly mat- ter unless the PRC is making them an offer. We will miss a great number of opportunities to advance U.S. interests and values. Our allocation of national security resources will be weighted toward anything-PRC. Our foreign affairs work is just not reduc- ible to competing with the PRC and fending off malicious Rus- sian designs. Besides, GPC describes a dialectical process, not a strategic goal. GPC is about the United States accumulating raw eco- nomic, military and cultural power: economic output, volume of international trade and investment, size and reach of armed forces, number of patents and number of entertainment prod- ucts, media outlets and footprint of U.S. Big Tech, for example. Concerned about balancing the PRC’s economic might, the U.S. then needs to convert our raw power into global influence to— what, precisely?—perhaps to become even more powerful, to be perceived by other great powers as more powerful, to increase the prestige and standing of the United States. How do we mea- sure that power? When can we stop accumulating power? When is U.S. global influence and prestige sufficient? When have we been successful in our competition with the PRC? Focus on U.S. Strategic Goals We need a lens focused on U.S. strategic goals rather than on GPC. Toward that end, I offer a “foreign policy wheel” to help frame broad U.S. foreign policy goals. I propose that, since World War II, to a greater or lesser extent, the United States has advanced on five essential foreign policy goals: 1) understand- ing global affairs and creating a world order based on rules, 2) increasing U.S. security, 3) enabling U.S. prosperity, 4) advancing democracy, and 5) defending human rights and helping create more just, equitable human societies. For each country, for each region, let us create dynamic strat- egies with specific, more measurable foreign policy goals that address the most pressing of these five goals. For Southeast Asia, primary U.S. goals would include (among others) freedom of navigation through the South China Sea, improved democratic governance in the Philippines and economic partnership with Vietnam. In Ukraine, for example, we would focus on strength- ening the country’s democracy, economy (by fighting corrup- tion) and security against Russian intervention, in part to sustain a global order in which sovereign borders and territorial integrity are respected. Finally, the overarching strategic threats facing humanity in the 21st century—climate change, global pandemics, an internet awash in mis- and disinformation—require cooperation with the PRC, Russia and other powers big and small. GPC will distract us from pursuing tailored policy goals more likely to yield mea- surable success. An obsessive focus on GPC will detract from strengthening carefully calibrated partnerships that we need with each country and international organization. Our national security enterprise is filled with professional, dedicated, analytical public servants across many agencies. Comforting, familiar and simple as it might be for us in the interagency community to default to “great power competition” to explain our missions, let’s take the extra analytical step to explain to Congress and the American people the challenges we face on the forever front. Let’s be more precise in explaining how we’ve converted our diplomatic, informational, military and economic power in each corner of the world to buttress a rules-based world order, to secure the U.S. from global threats, to find opportunities to increase U.S. prosperity, to advance democratic governance, and to defend human rights and foster better, more just societies. n Ambassador Kelly Keiderling uses this “foreign policy wheel” to identify the five essential U.S. foreign policy goals since World War II. COURTESYOFKELLYKEIDERLING