Introduction
The selected global policy challenges are terrorism and economic globalization. Terrorism and economic globalization have, and continue to raise great alarm on both national and international security. The two pose cumulative threat to both national and global security. The dangers posed by terrorism and the economic globalization deter the ability of any nation to protect its sovereignty, even among the superpower nations like the United States of America, China, and Russia. Thus, it is quite appreciable that terrorism and the economic globalization are global disasters and ought to be dealt with at the global context; no nation can handle them independently. Therefore, both national and international security are inseparably linked (Jones, Pascual & Stedman, 2009).
Can the Leading States Cooperate on Matters Vital to All Of Humanity at Acceptable Costs to Themselves and Everyone Else?
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Due to the transnational challenges caused by terrorism and economic globalization, there is the need for all nations (both developed and developing nations) to come together and address these catastrophes at the international level. The national power, interests, and sovereignty of a country are measured by the ability of a country to independently protect itself. Therefore, cooperation on the transnational challenges threatens the national power, interests, and sovereignty of the United States and the competing powers China and Russia. However, the global context of expanding transnational threats that emerged after the cold world war have greatly increased the demand for cooperation among all the nation states (Makinda, 1998). The leading states have no other option, but to cooperate on matters vital to all of humanity at acceptable costs to themselves and everyone else.
Why Terrorism and Economic Globalization Are Multifaceted
Most people view terrorism as an isolated security threat, but it is multifaceted by economic globalization. In fact the two go hand in hand in as far as both national and international insecurity is concerned. Terrorism threatens the economy of a country by increasing the poverty level and worsening the living standards of many nations. Terrorism hinders most economic activities of a country and limit foreign investments, thus discouraging the economic globalization. The insecurity issues caused by terror attacks greatly discourages the international trade systems, and hence diminishing the economic globalization. The government spends a lot of capital in fighting the terrorists. This capital could be used in the construction of roads, industries, and other economic infrastructure, which promotes economic globalization. Terrorism increases political instability and lead to poor governance. It greatly shakes the governing institutions lowering their efficiency to provide security for the citizens. Terrorist groups use explosive weapons which release contaminants to the environment; polluting the environment and hence reducing the ability of the environment to support a good nation health and hence discouraging the national economic growth, hence the affected nations rely on the other nations for their survival. Economic globalization on the other hand affects terrorism. The desire for nations to invest in international trading systems triggers many nations to deploy their security agencies in areas affected by terrorism in order to maintain peace necessary for their investments. Therefore, terrorism and economic globalization are multifaceted policy problems.
Clash between the Interests of Sovereign States and the Demands of Terrorism and Economic Globalization
There is a profound clash between the interests of sovereign states and the demands of fully addressing terrorism and economic globalization. For instance, sovereign states need to protect themselves independently. However, no nation can act alone to protect its citizens, especially with the growing terrorism activities. Due to globalization and technological advancement, terror groups can harm their target states from far distances. This renders sovereign nations acting alone unable to offer enough protection to its citizens. Even the most powerful nations like United States experience national security issues; emanating from transnational terrorism and the availability of nuclear weapons, which together pose prolonged crisis to the national security. The profound truth is that, these security threats affect every country’s security, no matter how powerful it is. Therefore, for any state to preserve its sovereignty, it must sign security agreements with all neighboring states, for the purpose of countering the prolific transnational threats caused by terrorism and economic globalization. The world is fully interconnected with transnational threats; and a nation must cooperate with the other states for it to receive similar cooperation (Jones, Pascual & Stedman, 2009).
Some Proposed United States Policies for Cooperation on Terrorism and Economic globalization
The United States government has set in place several policies for cooperation on terrorism (Tankel, 2017). First, since the United States cannot invade every country harboring terrorist groups, it requires its partners to chip in and spearhead domestic counterterrorism operations; which may include invading and destroying the terrorists’ organizations, kill or capture their members. The partners may also burn the activities related to terrorism and put in measures of curtailing them. Second, the United States employs non-coercive methods to minimize terrorists’ recruitments. Since the United States may not stop terrorists’ recruitment nationwide, it requires its partners’ cooperation in order to achieve the goal. There is also the need for the United States to cooperate with its partners in the matters accruing to military access and intelligence gathering of terrorism information. This is only achievable with permission from the host nation. Finally, regional cooperation is essential owing to the fact that terrorist groups never recognize state boundaries. Thus there is the need for international cooperation and restructuring coherence in military coalitions for the purpose of countering terrorism attacks.
On the other hand, the United States has various proposed policies for cooperation on the economic globalization. (Daalder & Lindsay, 2003). First, the United States’ leaders should limit any single state from dominating the European and the Asian strategic centers of power. Second, the U.S. policy aims at consolidating its success towards achieving a peaceful, united, and democratic Europe. This has lead to the formation of the European Union which will see all European countries in-cooperated into the union. Another proposed U.S. cooperation policy for economic globalization involves the formation of a new relationship with Russia. Furthermore, in an attempt for U.S. to stabilize its economic globalization, measures are in progress for the purpose of establishing its relations with major key regional partners, Japan and South Korea (Daalder & Lindsay, 2003). Finally, the U.S. is in progress in trying to slowly engage with China to economically surge Beijing into the global economy.
Obstacles to US Leadership on the Terrorism and Economic Globalization Policy Problems
In the fight against terrorism and economic globalization policy problems, the United States leadership faces significant obstacles. United States is a democratic nation, whose leaders are elected by the citizens. The ultimate measure of the U.S. leaders’ success is their ability to both protect the citizens, wherever they are, and also to maintain the United States top on the superpower. Over a long time, U.S. has been facing great threat from different terrorist groups. Thus, the United States’ fight against terrorism is becoming unending war, and therefore, the need to engage in international cooperation for a concerted fight against terrorism. Since the national power, interests, and sovereignty of a country are measured by the ability of a country to independently protect itself, the U.S. sovereignty is greatly diminished by these international cooperation, creating a sense that U.S. is no longer the super power. This comes at a time when competing nations like China and Russia engage less in the fight against terrorism. China, for example, believes that it can maintain its peace simply by keeping away from the cooperation in the fight against terrorism (Park, 2017). Instead of deploying its army in other nations to fight terrorism, China banks on protecting its nationalists at the national level, thus, faces less threat from terror groups. This makes China appear more independent than the U.S. in terms of securing her citizens.
The United States would not accept to lose her sovereignty at the expense of international cooperation. The “American First” slogan has greatly influenced the U.S. leadership to start considering withdrawal from its international cooperation (Park, 2017). The slogan suggests that the United States should major on protecting its own territory, through deploying its military force for “war on terror.” This has lead to emergence of anti-U.S. sentiments, triggered by the new administration’s immigration policy. However, the U.S. is faced with a great dilemma, especially with the growing terrorism attacks, spiced by economic globalization policy problems. It would be hard for the United States to protect its people simply by concentrating on the inside boarders. In fact, the U.S. should consider involving China in the fight against powerful terror groups such as ISIS and al Qaeda. Besides, China has close political relations with the United States’ strong opponents such as Pakistan and North Korea. This implies that, U.S. can leverage its partnership with China to help influencing the two countries cease their attacks against the U.S. Unfortunately, the U.S. government fears losing its sovereignty and national power by relying on the protection from competing powers like China, and this explains the reason behind the U.S. ineffectiveness in global policy progress, simply due to great power rivalry; posed by China and Russia.
Conclusion
Terrorism and economic globalization policy problems are more of international disaster than the national policy problems. The two are multifaceted and pose great global policy challenges. They both lack national boundary limits and once they occur, they shake the whole world. The two monsters therefore need be dealt with at the international level for effective elimination. No nation can single-handedly deal with the two policy problems successfully. Therefore, there is the need for all nations, including the super power nations such as the United States, China and Russia, to sign international cooperation in the fight against terrorism and economic globalization policy problems. However, the fight against terrorism and the global policy problem is greatly hindered by the demands and the interests of the sovereign states to remain independent. There exists the great power rivalry among the competing nations such as the United States, China, and Russia, thus reducing the willingness of these nations to come into cooperation in the fight against the two policy problems; the terrorism and the economic globalization policy problems. It is therefore recommendable that all nations, both developed and developing nations, come into a common code and launch a concerted fight against terrorism and
the economic globalization policy problems in order to eliminate them effectively.
References
Daalder, H. & Lindsay, M. (2003). The globalization of politics: American foreign policy for a new century. (Online). Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-globalization-of-politics-american-foreign-policy-for-a-new-century/
Jones, B., Pascual, C. & Stedman,S. J. (2009). Changing How We Address Global and National Security. (Online). Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/changing-how-we-address-global-and-national-security/
Makinda, M. (1998). Sovereignty and Global Security. (Online). Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0967010698029003003
Park, Y. (2017). U.S.-China Counter-Terrorism Co-Operation and Its Perspective on Human Rights. (Online). Retrieved from http://www.iris-france.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Asia-focus-56.pdf
Tankel, S. (2017). Sixteen years after 9/11, are we any better at fighting terrorism? (Online). Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/09/11/fighting-terrorism-takes-a-global-effort-how-have-3-u-s-presidents-fared-16-years-after-911/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a7ce32862ab5
