The United states of America (Domestic & Foreign Policy)

Americans of all ages serve others in countless ways, by mentoring a child, caring for an elderly neighbor, teaching someone to read, or donating food and clothing to those who need them. The USA Freedom Corps is working to strengthen our culture of service and help find opportunities for every American to start volunteering. To accomplish this, they are bringing together the resources of the federal government with the non-profit, business, educational, faith-based and other sectors to begin that process and to measure our results.

Helping developing nations

President George W. Bush has said that combating poverty is a moral imperative and has made it a U.S. foreign policy priority. To meet this challenge, the President has proposed a "new compact for development" that increases accountability for rich and poor nations alike, linking greater contributions by developed nations to greater responsibility by developing nations.

Europe, Asia, Africa, Middle East Region

USA will support NATO's own transformation, aiming to eliminate Cold War infrastructures that are no longer relevant to today's security needs, and replace them with more flexible, deployable forces and headquarters. Cooperation and access provided by coalition partners during Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom provide us with a solid basis for other forms of future cooperation.

USA strives to improve ability to deter, dissuade, and defeat challenges in Asia through strengthened long-range strike capabilities, streamlined and consolidated headquarters, and a network of access arrangements. Co-operative security relationships in Latin America and Africa to help partners meet the challenges they face.

Three Pillars of Bush African Policy

1. Strategic approach

2. Clear policy priorities

3. Principles of bilateral engagement

In recent years, relations between two of the world's largest democracies, the United States and the Republic of India, have improved considerably. Shown here is Indian PM Manmohan Singh with George Bush during his state visit to USA in July 2005.

The United States is a founder of NATO, the world's largest military alliance. The 26 nation alliance consists of Canada and much of Europe. Under the NATO charter, the United States is compelled to defend any NATO state that is attacked by a foreign power. This is restricted to within the North American and European areas, for this reason the U.S. was not compelled to participate in the Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom for example.

The United States has also given major non-NATO ally-status to fourteen nations. Each such state has a unique relationship with the United States, involving various military and economic partnerships and alliances.

The countries considered the United States' closest allies are the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada, Australia, India, Kuwait, South Korea and Japan. In addition, the government of the Republic of China in Taiwan, though not officially recognized by the State Department, is considered one of the strongest American allies in Asia.

It is recognized that the strongest allegiances with any of these countries is with the United Kingdom.

Criticism and responses

Critics of U.S. foreign policy tend to respond that these goals commonly regarded as noble were often overstated and point out what they see as contradictions between foreign policy rhetoric and actions:

• The mention of peace as opposed to the long list of U.S. military involvements
• The mention of freedom and democracy as opposed to the many former and current dictatorships that receive or received U.S. financial or military support, especially in Latin America and the Middle East.
• The mention of free trade as opposed to U.S. import tariffs (to protect local industries from global competition) on foreign goods like wood and steel.
• The mention of U.S. generosity as opposed to the low spendings on foreign developmental aid (measured as percentage of GDP) when compared to other western countries.
• The mention of environment safety as opposed to the lack of support for environmental treaties (for instance the Kyoto Protocol)

There are a variety of responses to these criticisms. For instance, some argue that the increased American military involvement around the world is an outgrowth of the inherent instability of the world state system as it existed in the late 19th Century. The inherent failings of this system led to the outbreak of World War I and World War II. The United States has assumed a prominent peacekeeping role, naturally on its own terms, due to the easily demonstrable inter-state insecurity that existed before 1945.

Other realist critics, such as the late George F. Kennan, have noted that the responsibility of the United States is only to protect the rights of its own citizens, and that therefore Washington should deal with other governments as just that. Heavy emphasis on democratization or nation-building abroad, realists charge, was one of the major tenets of President Woodrow Wilson's diplomatic philosophy. According to realists, the failure of the League of Nations to enforce the will of the international community in the cases of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan in the 1930s, as well as the inherent weakness of the new states created at the Paris Peace Conference, demonstrated the folly of Wilson's idealism.

There is also criticism of alleged human rights abuse, the most important recent examples of which are the multiple reports of alleged prisoner abuse and torture at U.S.-run detention camps in Guantánamo Bay (at "Camp X-ray") (in Cuba), Abu Ghraib (Iraq), secret CIA prisons (eastern Europe), and other places voiced by, e.g. the Council of Europe and Amnesty International. Amnesty International in its Amnesty International Report 2005  says that: "the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times". This Amnesty report also claimed that there was a use of double standards in the U.S. government: the U.S. president "has repeatedly asserted that the United States was founded upon and is dedicated to the cause of human dignity". (Theme of his speech to the UN General Assembly in Sep 2004). But some memorandums emerged after the Abu Ghraib scandal "suggested that the administration was discussing ways in which its agents could avoid the international ban on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment". Government responses to these criticisms include that Abu Ghraib, Guantanimo Bay, and the network of secret CIA jails in Eastern Europe and the Middle East were largely isolated incidents and not reflective of general U.S. conduct, and at the same time maintain that coerced interrogation in Guantánamo and Europe is necessary to prevent future terrorist attacks.

International disputes

• Maritime boundary disputes with Canada (Dixon Entrance, Beaufort Sea, Strait of Juan de Fuca, Machias Seal Island, Northwest Passage). These disputes have become dormant recently, and are largely considered not to affect the strong relations between the two nations.
• U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay is leased from Cuba and only mutual agreement or U.S. abandonment of the area can terminate the lease. Cuba contends that the lease is invalid as the Platt Amendment creating the lease was included in the Cuban Constitution under threat of force and thus is voided by article 52 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
• Haiti claims Navassa Island.
• U.S. has made no territorial claim in Antarctica (but has reserved the right to do so) and does not recognize the claims of any other nation.
• Marshall Islands claims Wake Island.