Since prehistoric times hunter-gatherers might have influenced forests, for instance in Europe by Mesolithic people bringing favored plants like hazel with them. Forest gardens are probably the world's oldest form of land use and most resilient agroecosystem. They originated in prehistoric times along jungle-clad river banks and in the wet foothills of monsoon regions. In the gradual process of families improving their immediate environment, useful tree and vine
species were identified, protected and improved whilst undesirable
species were eliminated. Eventually superior foreign species were
selected and incorporated into the gardens. First Nation villages in Alaska with forest gardens, that were filled with nuts, stone fruit, berries, and herbs, were noted by an archeologist from the Smithsonian in the 1930s.
Forest gardens are still common in the tropics and known by various names such as: home gardens in Kerala in South India, Nepal, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania; Kandyan forest gardens in Sri Lanka; huertos familiares, the "family orchards" of Mexico. These are also called agroforests and, where the wood components are short-statured, the term shrub
garden is employed. Forest gardens have been shown to be a significant
source of income and food security for local populations.
Hart began farming at Wenlock Edge in Shropshire with the intention of providing a healthy and therapeutic environment for himself and his brother Lacon. Starting as relatively conventional smallholders, Hart soon discovered that maintaining large annual vegetable beds, rearing livestock and taking care of an orchard
were tasks beyond their strength. However, a small bed of perennial
vegetables and herbs he planted was looking after itself with little
intervention.
Following Hart's adoption of a raw vegan diet
for health and personal reasons, he replaced his farm animals with
plants. The three main products from a forest garden are fruit, nuts and
green leafy vegetables. He created a model forest garden from a 0.12 acre (500 m2) orchard on his farm and intended naming his gardening method ecological horticulture or ecocultivation. Hart later dropped these terms once he became aware that agroforestry and forest gardens were already being used to describe similar systems in other parts of the world. He was inspired by the forest farming methods of Toyohiko Kagawa
and James Sholto Douglas, and the productivity of the Keralan home
gardens as Hart explains: "From the agroforestry point of view, perhaps
the world's most advanced country is the Indian state of Kerala, which
boasts no fewer than three and a half million forest gardens ... As an
example of the extraordinary intensity of cultivation of some forest
gardens, one plot of only 0.12 hectares (0.30 acres) was found by a
study group to have twenty-three young coconut palms, twelve cloves,
fifty-six bananas, and forty-nine pineapples, with thirty pepper vines
trained up its trees. In addition, the smallholder grew fodder for his house-cow."
Seven-layer system
The seven layers of the forest garden
Robert Hart pioneered a system based on the observation that the natural forest can be divided into distinct levels.
He used intercropping to develop an existing small orchard of apples and pears into an edible polyculture landscape consisting of the following layers:
‘Canopy layer’ consisting of the original mature fruit trees.
‘Low-tree layer’ of smaller nut and fruit trees on dwarfing rootstocks.
‘Shrub layer’ of fruit bushes such as currants and berries.
A key component of the seven-layer system was the plants he selected.
Most of the traditional vegetable crops grown today, such as carrots,
are sun-loving plants not well selected for the more shady forest
garden system. Hart favored shade-tolerant perennial vegetables.
Ken Fern had the idea that for a successful temperate forest
garden a wider range of edible shade tolerant plants would need to be
used. To this end, Fern created the organisation Plants for a Future which compiled a plant database suitable for such a system. Fern used the term woodland gardening, rather than forest gardening, in his book Plants for a Future.
Kathleen Jannaway, the cofounder of Movement for Compassionate Living (MCL) with her husband Jack, wrote a book outlining a sustainable vegan future called Abundant Living in the Coming Age of the Tree in 1991. The MCL promotes forest gardening and other types of vegan organic gardening. In 2009 it provided a grant of £1,000 to the Bangor Forest Garden project in Gwynedd, North West Wales.
Kevin Bradley in the US called his property and nursery "Edible
Forest" in 1985, which combined trees and field crops. Today, his
business and the 2005 book Edible Forest Gardens have spawned little "edible forests" all over the world.
Permaculture
Bill Mollison, who coined the term permaculture, visited Robert Hart at his forest garden in Wenlock Edge in October 1990. Hart's seven-layer system has since been adopted as a common permaculture design element.
Numerous permaculturalists are proponents of forest gardens, or food forests, such as Graham Bell, Patrick Whitefield, Dave Jacke, Eric Toensmeier and Geoff Lawton. Bell started building his forest garden in 1991 and wrote the book The Permaculture Garden in 1995, Whitefield wrote the book How to Make a Forest Garden in 2002, Jacke and Toensmeier co-authored the two volume book set Edible Forest Gardens in 2005, and Lawton presented the film Establishing a Food Forest in 2008.
The BBC's Unnatural Histories claimed that the Amazon rainforest, rather than being a pristine wilderness, has been shaped by humans for at least 11,000 years through practices such as forest gardening and terra preta. Since the 1970s, numerous geoglyphs have been discovered on deforested land in the Amazon rainforest, furthering the evidence of Pre-Columbian civilizations.
On the Yucatán Peninsula, much of the Maya food supply was grown in "orchard gardens", known as pet kot. The system takes its name from the low wall of stones (pet meaning 'circular' and kot, 'wall of loose stones') that characteristically surrounds the gardens.
Africa
In many African countries, for example Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Tanzania, gardens are widespread in rural, periurban, and urban areas and they play an essential role in establishing food security. Most well known are the Chaga or Chagga gardens on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. These are an example of an agroforestry system. In many countries, women are the main actors in home gardening and food is mainly produced for subsistence. In North Africa, oasis-layered gardening with palm trees, fruit trees, and vegetables is a traditional type of forest garden.
Plants
Some plants, such as wild yam, work as both a root plant and a vine. Ground covers: Low-growing edible 'forest garden plants help keep weeds in control and provide a great way to utilize areas that would otherwise be unused.
In the United States, the largest known food forest on public land is believed to be the seven acre Beacon Food Forest in Seattle, Washington. Other forest garden projects include those at the central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute in Basalt, Colorado and Montview Neighborhood farm in Northampton, Massachusetts. The Boston Food Forest Coalition promotes local forest gardens.
In Canada Richard Walker has been developing and maintaining food forests in British Columbia
for over 30 years. He developed a three acre food forest that at
maturity provided raw materials for a plant nursery and herbal business
as well as food for his family. The Living Centre has developed various forest garden projects in Ontario.
In the United Kingdom, other than those run by the Agroforestry
Research Trust (ART), there are numerous forest garden projects such as
the Bangor Forest Garden in Gwynedd, northwest Wales.
Martin Crawford from ART administers the Forest Garden Network, an
informal network of people and organisations who are cultivating forest
gardens.
Since 2014, Gisela Mir and Mark Biffen have been developing a small-scale Edible Forest Garden ("Verger" in Catalan) in Cardedeu, a village near Barcelona, Catalunya. During their previous years of Permaculture training they were introduced to various Edible Forest Garden projects in Wales
and other parts of the UK. It is intended as a space for
experimentation and demonstration: "...we want to learn and test what it
means to have an orchard in an area with a Mediterranean climate: which
species grow well here; how to manage limiting aspects, such as water;
and, above all, what design implications there are due to the
characteristics of our climate and our latitude."
In April 2021, they published in Spanish the book "Food forests and
edible gardens" (Bosques y jardines de alimentos) where they draw on
their first experimental progresses and experiences, delving into the
particularities of the Mediterranean climate
through a book adapted to that climate and to those species. It is one
of the first works on this subject not written in English.
Forest gardening in popular culture
A
forest garden plays a significant role in the Video Read-Opera
"Marisette's Voice," where it is the object of political machinations
between two candidates for city council in the fictional city of
Augusta, CY. It is also used as a metaphor for one type of society.
United States 1960 postal stamp advocating water conservation
Water conservation includes all the policies, strategies and activities to sustainably manage the natural resource of fresh water, to protect the hydrosphere, and to meet the current and future human demand (thus avoiding water scarcity). Population, household size and growth and affluence all affect how much water is used. Factors such as climate change have increased pressures on natural water resources especially in manufacturing and agricultural irrigation. Many countries have already implemented policies aimed at water conservation, with much success. The key activities to conserve water are as follows: any beneficial reduction in water loss, use and waste of resources, avoiding any damage to water quality; and improving water management practices that reduce the use or enhance the beneficial use of water.
Technology solutions exist for households, commercial and agricultural
applications. Water conservation programs involved in social solutions
are typically initiated at the local level, by either municipal water utilities or regional governments. Common strategies include public outreach campaigns, tiered water rates (charging progressively higher prices as water use increases), or restrictions on outdoor water use such as lawn watering and car washing.
Goals
The goals of water conservation efforts include:
Ensuring the availability of water for future generations where the withdrawal of freshwater from an ecosystem does not exceed its natural replacement rate.
Improving water management practices that reduce the use or enhance the beneficial use of water.
One of the strategies in water conservation is rain water harvesting.
Digging ponds, lakes, canals, expanding the water reservoir, and
installing rain water catching ducts and filtration systems on homes are
different methods of harvesting rain water. Many people in many
countries keep clean containers so they can boil it and drink it, which
is useful to supply water to the needy. Harvested and filtered rain water can be used for toilets, home gardening, lawn irrigation, and small scale agriculture.
Another strategy in water conservation is protecting groundwater resources. When precipitation occurs, some infiltrates the soil and goes underground. Water in this saturation zone is called groundwater. Contamination of groundwater
causes the groundwater water supply to not be able to be used as a
resource of fresh drinking water and the natural regeneration of
contaminated groundwater can take years to replenish. Some examples of potential sources of groundwater contamination include storage tanks, septic systems, uncontrolled hazardous waste, landfills, atmospheric contaminants, chemicals, and road salts.
Contamination of groundwater decreases the replenishment of available
freshwater so taking preventative measures by protecting groundwater
resources from contamination is an important aspect of water
conservation.
An additional strategy to water conservation is practicing sustainable methods of utilizing groundwater resources. Groundwater flows due to gravity and eventually discharges into streams. Excess pumping of groundwater leads to a decrease in groundwater levels and if continued it can exhaust the resource.
Ground and surface waters are connected and overuse of groundwater can
reduce and, in extreme examples, diminish the water supply of lakes,
rivers, and streams. In coastal regions, over pumping groundwater can increase saltwater intrusion which results in the contamination of groundwater water supply. Sustainable use of groundwater is essential in water conservation.
A fundamental component to water conservation strategy is communication and education outreach of different water programs.
Developing communication that educates science to land managers, policy
makers, farmers, and the general public is another important strategy
utilized in water conservation.
Communication of the science of how water systems work is an important
aspect when creating a management plan to conserve that system and is
often used for ensuring the right management plan to be put into action.
"Water Conservation Day" is celebrated on 22 March.
Water conservation programs involved in social solutions are typically initiated at the local level, by either municipal water utilities or regional governments. Common strategies include public outreach campaigns,
tiered water rates (charging progressively higher prices as water use
increases), or restrictions on outdoor water use such as lawn watering
and car washing. Cities in dry climates often require or encourage the installation of xeriscaping or natural landscaping in new homes to reduce outdoor water usage. Most urban outdoor water use in California is residential, illustrating a reason for outreach to households as well as businesses.
One fundamental conservation goal is universal water metering.
The prevalence of residential water metering varies significantly
worldwide. Recent studies have estimated that water supplies are metered
in less than 30% of UK households.
Although individual water meters have often been considered impractical
in homes with private wells or in multifamily buildings, the US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that metering alone can reduce consumption by 20 to 40 percent. In addition to raising consumer awareness of their water use, metering is also an important way to identify and localize water leakage.
Water metering would benefit society, in the long run, it is proven
that water metering increases the efficiency of the entire water system,
as well as help unnecessary expenses for individuals for years to come.
One would be unable to waste water unless they are willing to pay the
extra charges, this way the water department would be able to monitor
water usage by the public, domestic and manufacturing services.
Some researchers have suggested that water conservation efforts
should be primarily directed at farmers, in light of the fact that crop
irrigation accounts for 70% of the world's fresh water use.
The agricultural sector of most countries is important both
economically and politically, and water subsidies are common.
Conservation advocates have urged removal of all subsidies to force farmers to grow more water-efficient crops and adopt less wasteful irrigation techniques.
New technology poses a few new options for consumers, features
such as full flush and half flush when using a toilet are trying to make
a difference in water consumption and waste. It is also possible to
use/"pollute" the water in stages (keeping use in flush toilets for
last), hereby allowing more use of the water for various tasks within a
same cycle (before it needs to be purified again, which can also be done
in-situ). Earthships often use such a setup.
Also available are modern shower heads
that help reduce wasting water: Old shower heads are said to use 5-10
gallons per minute, while new fixtures available use 2.5 gallons per
minute and offer equal water coverage.
Another method is to recycle the water of the shower directly, by means a
semi-closed system which features a pump and filter. Such a setup
(called a "water recycling shower")
has also been employed at the VIRTUe LINQ house. Besides recycling
water, it also reuses the heat of the water (which would otherwise be
lost).
Contrary to the popular view that the most effective way to save
water is to curtail water-using behavior (e.g., by taking shorter
showers), experts suggest the most efficient way is replacing toilets and retrofitting washers; as demonstrated by two household end use logging studies in the US.
Water-saving technology for the home includes:
Low-flow shower heads sometimes called energy-efficient shower heads as they also use less energy
Dual flush toilets
include two buttons or handles to flush different levels of water. Dual
flush toilets use up to 67% less water than conventional toilets
Faucet aerators,
which break water flow into fine droplets to maintain "wetting
effectiveness" while using less water. An additional benefit is that
they reduce splashing while washing hands and dishes
Garden hosenozzles that shut off the water when it is not being used, instead of letting a hose run.
Low flow taps in wash basins
Swimming pool covers that reduce evaporation and can warm pool water to reduce water, energy and chemical costs.
Automatic faucet
is a water conservation faucet that eliminates water waste at the
faucet. It automates the use of faucets without the use of hands.
Smart water meters are also a promising technology for reducing
household water usage. A study conducted in Valencia, Spain shows the
potential that smart meter-based water consumption feedback has for
conserving water in households. The findings showed that households
that were equipped with smart water meters increased their water
savings. This technology works to show people how much water they were
using in their household, suggest ways they can reduce water usage, and
incentivize water savings with physical rewards.
Commercial applications
Many
water-saving devices (such as low-flush toilets) that are useful in
homes can also be useful for business water saving. Other water-saving
technology for businesses includes:
Water is a very important part in irrigation. Plants always take a
lot of ground water thus ground water should be replenished. For crop
irrigation, optimal water efficiency means minimizing losses due to evaporation, runoff or subsurface drainage while maximizing production. An evaporation pan
in combination with specific crop correction factors can be used to
determine how much water is needed to satisfy plant requirements. Flood irrigation,
the oldest and most common type, is often very uneven in distribution,
as parts of a field may receive excess water in order to deliver
sufficient quantities to other parts. Overhead irrigation, using center-pivot or lateral-moving sprinklers, has the potential for a much more equal and controlled distribution pattern. Drip irrigation
is the most expensive and least-used type, but offers the ability to
deliver water to plant roots with minimal losses. However, drip
irrigation is increasingly affordable, especially for the home gardener
and in light of rising water rates. Using drip irrigation methods can
save up to 30,000 gallons of water per year when replacing irrigation
systems that spray in all directions.
There are also cheap effective methods similar to drip irrigation such
as the use of soaking hoses that can even be submerged in the growing
medium to eliminate evaporation.
As changing irrigation systems can be a costly undertaking,
conservation efforts often concentrate on maximizing the efficiency of
the existing system. This may include chiselling compacted soils,
creating furrow dikes to prevent runoff, and using soil moisture and
rainfall sensors to optimize irrigation schedules.
Usually large gains in efficiency are possible through measurement and
more effective management of the existing irrigation system. The 2011
UNEP Green Economy Report notes that "[i]mproved soil organic matter
from the use of green manures, mulching, and recycling of crop residues
and animal manure increases the water holding capacity of soils and
their ability to absorb water during torrential rains", which is a way to optimize the use of rainfall and irrigation during dry periods in the season.
As seen in China, plastic mulch also has the potential to
conserve water in agricultural practices. The "mulch" is really a thin
sheet of plastic that is placed over the soil. There are holes in the
plastic for the plants to grow through. Some studies have shown that
plastic mulch conserves water by reducing the evaporation of soil
moisture, however, there haven't been enough applied studies to
determine the total water savings that this practice may bring about.
Water reuse
Water
shortage has become an increasingly difficult problem to manage. More
than 40% of the world's population live in a region where the demand for
water exceeds its supply. The imbalance between supply and demand,
along with persisting issues such as climate change and population growth, has made water reuse a necessary method for conserving water. There are a variety of methods used in the treatment of waste water to ensure that it is safe to use for irrigation of food crops and/or drinking water.
Seawater desalination
requires more energy than the desalination of fresh water. Despite
this, many seawater desalination plants have been built in response to
water shortages around the world. This makes it necessary to evaluate
the impacts of seawater desalination and to find ways to improve
desalination technology. Current research involves the use of
experiments to determine the most effective and least energy intensive
methods of desalination.
Sand filtration
is another method used to treat water. Recent studies show that sand
filtration needs further improvements, but it is approaching
optimization with its effectiveness at removing pathogens from water. Sand filtration is very effective at removing protozoa and bacteria, but struggles with removing viruses. Large-scale sand filtration facilities also require large surface areas to accommodate them.
The removal of pathogens
from recycled water is of high priority because wastewater always
contains pathogens capable of infecting humans. The levels of pathogenic
viruses have to be reduced to a certain level in order for recycled
water to not pose a threat to human populations. Further research is
necessary to determine more accurate methods of assessing the level of
pathogenic viruses in treated wastewater.
Problem areas
Wasting of water
Leaking garden hose bib
Wasting of water is the flip side of water conservation and, in
household applications, it means causing or permitting discharge of
water without any practical purpose. Inefficient water use is also
considered wasteful. By EPA
estimate, household leaks in the US can waste approximately 900 billion
gallons (3.4 billion cubic meters) of water annually nationwide. Generally, water management agencies are reluctant or unwilling to give a concrete definition to the somewhat fuzzy concept of water waste.
However, definition of water waste is often given in local
drought emergency ordinances. One example refers to any acts or
omissions, whether willful or negligent, that are “causing or permitting
water to leak, discharge, flow or run to waste into any gutter,
sanitary sewer, watercourse or public or private storm drain, or to any
adjacent property, from any tap, hose, faucet, pipe, sprinkler, pond,
pool, waterway, fountain or nozzle.”.
In this example, the city code also clarifies that “in the case of
washing, “discharge,” “flow” or “run to waste” means that water in
excess of that necessary to wash, wet or clean the dirty or dusty
object, such as an automobile, sidewalk, or parking area, flows to
waste.
Water utilities (and other media sources) often provide listings
of wasteful water-use practices and prohibitions of wasteful uses.
Examples include utilities in San Antonio, Texas. Las Vegas, Nevada, California Water Service company in California, and City of San Diego, California.
The City of Palo Alto in California enforces permanent water use
restrictions on wasteful practices such as leaks, runoff, irrigating
during and immediately after rainfall, and use of potable water when
non-potable water is available. Similar restrictions are in effect in the State of Victoria, Australia. Temporary water use bans (also known as "hosepipe bans") are used in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Strictly speaking, water that is discharged into the sewer, or
directly to the environment is not wasted or lost. It remains within the
hydrologic cycle
and returns to the land surface and surface water bodies as
precipitation. However, in many cases, the source of the water is at a
significant distance from the return point and may be in a different
catchment. The separation between extraction point and return point can
represent significant environmental degradation in the watercourse and
riparian strip. What is "wasted" is the community's supply of water that
was captured, stored, transported and treated to drinking quality
standards. Efficient use of water saves the expense of water supply
provision and leaves more fresh water in lakes, rivers and aquifers for other users and also for supporting ecosystems.
A concept that is closely related to water wasting is "water-use efficiency." Water use is considered inefficient if the same purpose of its use can be accomplished with less water. Technical efficiency
derives from engineering practice where it is typically used to
describe the ratio of output to input and is useful in comparing various
products and processes.
For example, one showerhead would be considered more efficient than
another if it could accomplish the same purpose (i.e., of showering) by
using less water or other inputs (e.g., lower water pressure). Urinals
are more efficient than toilet stalls in public restrooms for men or
boys in situations where the user only needs to urinate; and although
this is a natural function, urinals offer considerably less privacy.
The technical efficiency concept is not useful in making decisions of
investing money (or resources) in water conservation measures unless the
inputs and outputs are measured in value terms. This expression of
efficiency is referred to as economic efficiency and is incorporated into the concept of water conservation.
Criticism of United States foreign policy encompasses a wide range of opinions and views on failures and shortcoming of United States foreign policy
and actions. There is a widely-held sense in the United States which
views the country as qualitatively different from other nations and
therefore cannot be judged by the same standards as other countries;
this belief is sometimes termed American exceptionalism.
American exceptionalism has widespread implications and transcribes
into disregard to the international norms, rules and laws in U.S.
foreign policy. For example, the U.S. refused to ratify a number of
important international treaties such as Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, and American Convention on Human Rights; did not join the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention; and routinely conducts drone attacks
and cruise missile strikes around the globe. American exceptionalism is
sometimes linked with hypocrisy; for example, the U.S. keeps a huge
stockpile of nuclear weapons while urging other nations not to get them, and justifies that it can make an exception to a policy of non-proliferation.
In his World Policy Journal review of Bill Kauffman's 1995 book America First! Its History, Culture, and Politics, Benjamin Schwartz described America's of isolationism as a "tragedy" and being rooted in Puritan thinking.
Historical foreign policy
18th and 19th centuries
From its founding, many of the leaders of the young American government had hoped for a non-interventionist foreign policy
that promoted "commerce with all nations, alliance with none". However,
this goal quickly became increasingly difficult to pursue, with growing
implicit threats and non-military pressure faced from several powers,
most notably Great Britain.
The United States government was drawn into several foreign affairs
from its founding and has been criticized throughout history for many of
its actions, although in many of these examples it has also been
praised.
Revolutionary France
After the American Revolution, the United States immediately began juggling its foreign policy between many different views under the George Washington cabinet. Most notably, the rivalry between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton arose due to their opposing views on how the United States should align itself with Revolutionary France in its war against Great Britain in 1793.
Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans, who viewed the French
revolution as similar to the previous American revolution, believed the
United States should declare war on Great Britain as an ally of France,
citing the 1778 Franco-American alliance which was still technically in
effect. However, Hamilton and the Federalists desired favorable terms
with the Bank of England in the hopes of establishing enough credit with
the Crown to establish an American national banking system. Hamilton's
camp would take the day and influenced Washington to remain neutral
during the conflict, destroying relations with France.
Under the presidency of John Adams an undeclared naval war broke out from 1798 until 1799 against France, often called the Quasi War,
in part because of the soured relations between the two nations. In
addition, the United States would come under the influence of British
banking power and regulations, heightening tensions between
Democratic-Republicans and Federalists.
While U.S. relations with the many Native American nations changed
routinely throughout history, the U.S. has been criticized in general
for its historical treatment of Native Americans. For example, the
treatment of the Cherokee people in the Trail of Tears
in which hundreds of Native Americans died in a forced evacuation from
their homes in the southeastern area, along with massacres, displacement
of lands, swindles, and breaking treaties.
After a long period of respect for sovereignty, United States
policy for Native American territories shifted significantly again after
the Civil War.
Previously, the pro-State Rights government believed in the legitimacy
of Native American Nations' sovereignty. After the conclusion of the
Civil War, conversely, views on the sovereignty of Native American
nations diminished, as the United States government vested greater
powers within the federal government. Over time, the U.S. government
found more and more justifications for revoking Native American lands,
greatly reducing the size of sovereign native territory.
1903 cartoon: "Go Away, Little Man, and Don't Bother Me". President Roosevelt intimidating Colombia to acquire the Panama Canal Zone.
Generally during the 19th century, and in early parts of the 20th century, the U.S. pursued a policy of isolationism and generally avoided entanglements with European powers.
Middle East
While it may be the case that the Middle East
is a difficult region with no easy solutions to avoiding conflict,
since this volatile region is at the junction of three continents;
still, many analysts think U.S. policy could have been improved
substantially. The U.S. waffled; there was no vision; presidents kept
changing policy. Public opinion in different regions of the world thinks
that, to some extent, the 9/11 attacks were an outgrowth of substandard U.S. policy towards the region.
Korea
Candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower centered his 1952 presidential campaign on foreign policy, criticizing President Harry S Truman for mishandling the Korean War.
Vietnam
Protest against the Vietnam War, Amsterdam, April 1968
The Vietnam War has been called a decade-long mistake by many, both inside and outside the U.S.
Kosovo
The U.S. supported action against the rump state known as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (also known as Serbia and Montenegro) in 1999 and the secession of Kosovo
from Serbia in 2008. The U.S. has continued to support its independence
since then. Critics claim this policy breaks international treaties but
they have been dismissed by the U.S. These critics say the Kosovo
policy has given encouragement to secessionist uprisings in Spain,
Belgium, Georgia, Ukraine, China, and others. They also claim that it
gives precedent for other lawful successions that would be otherwise
illegal because they represent a breach of UN Security Council
Resolutions and treaties guaranteeing territorial integrity.
However, the U.S. has dismissed any similarities between those
secessionist movements and Kosovo as most other secessionist movements
are not facing multiple civil wars involving ethnic cleansing and
genocide campaigns that require international intervention.
Additionally, some do not accept that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
was the only legitimate successor state to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
(SFRY) after its breakup. The SFRY was the actual party guaranteed
territorial integrity under the treaties, not just Serbia and
Montenegro.
Issues
Lack of control over foreign policy
During the early 19th century, general Andrew Jackson exceeded his authority on numerous times and attacked American Indian tribes as well as invaded the Spanish territory of Florida
without official government permission. Jackson was not reprimanded or
punished for exceeding his authority. Some accounts blame newspaper
journalism called yellow journalism for whipping up virulent pro-war sentiment to help instigate the Spanish–American War.
This was not the only undeclared war the U.S. has fought. There have
been hundreds of "imperfect wars" fought without proper declarations in a
tradition that began with President George Washington.
Some critics suggest foreign policy is manipulated by lobbies, such as the pro-Israel lobby or the Arab one, although there is disagreement about the influence of such lobbies. Nevertheless, Brzezinski argues for stricter anti-lobbying laws.
A famous cartoon by Joseph Keppler, 1889, depicting the role of corporate interests in Congress.
Some historians, including Andrew Bacevich, suggest that U.S. foreign policy is directed by "wealthy individuals and institutions". In 1893, a decision to back a plot to overthrow the Kingdom of Hawaii by President Harrison
was clearly motivated by business interests; it was an effort to
prevent a proposed tariff increase on sugar. As a result, Hawaii became a
U.S. state. There was allegation that the Spanish–American War in 1898 was motivated mainly by business interests in Cuba.
During the first half of the 20th century the United States
became engaged in a series of local conflicts in Latin America, which
went into history as banana wars.
The main purpose of these wars were to defend American commercial
interests in the region. Later, U.S. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler
famously wrote, "I spent 33 years and four months in active military
service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class
muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I
was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism."
Some critics assert the U.S. decision to support the separatists
in Colombia in 1903 was motivated largely by business interests centered
on Panama Canal despite declarations that it aimed to "spread democracy" and "end oppression".
One can say that U.S. foreign policy does reflect the will of the
people, however people might have a consumerist mentality, which
justifies wars in their minds.
There are allegations that decisions to go to war in Iraq were motivated at least partially by oil interests; for example, British newspaper The Independent
reported that the "Bush administration is heavily involved in writing
Iraq's oil law" which would "allow Western oil companies contracts to
pump oil out of Iraq up to 30 years, and the profits would be tax-free." Whether motivated by it or not, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East appears to much of the world as to be motivated by an oil rationale.
There is a growing consensus among American historians and political scientists that the United States during the American Century grew into an empire resembling in many ways Ancient Rome. Currently, there is a debate over implications of imperial tendencies of U.S. foreign policy on democracy and social order.In 2002, conservative political commentator Charles Krauthammer
declared cultural, economical, technological and military superiority
of the U.S. in the world a given fact. In his opinion, people were
"coming out of the closet on the word empire". More prominently, the New York Times Magazine cover for January 5, 2003, featured a slogan "American Empire: Get Used To It". Inside, a Canadian author Michael Ignatieff characterized the American imperial power as an empire lite.
According to Newsweek reporter Fareed Zakaria, the Washington establishment has "gotten comfortable with the exercise of American hegemony
and treats compromise as treason and negotiations as appeasement", and
added, "This is not foreign policy; it's imperial policy."
Emily Eakin reflecting the intellectual trends of the time, summarized in The New York Times
that, "America is no mere superpower or hegemon but a full-blown empire
in the Roman and British sense. That, at any rate, is the consensus of
some of the nation's most notable commentators and scholars."
Many allies of the U.S. were critical of a new, unilateral
sensibility tone in its foreign policy, and showed displeasure by
voting, for example, against the U.S. in the United Nations in 2001.
Allegations of hypocrisy
The
U.S. has been criticized for making statements supporting peace and
respecting national sovereignty while carrying out military actions such
as in Grenada, fomenting a civil war in Colombia to break off Panama, and Iraq. The U.S. has been criticized for advocating free trade while protecting local industries with import tariffs on foreign goods such as lumber and agricultural products. The U.S. has also been criticized for advocating concern for human rights while refusing to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The U.S. has publicly stated that it is opposed to torture, but has been criticized for condoning it in the School of the Americas.
The U.S. has advocated a respect for national sovereignty but has
supported internal guerrilla movements and paramilitary organizations,
such as the Contras in Nicaragua. They've also supported the unilateral independence of Kosovo (see here) while also condemning other countries for unilateral independence, citing territorial integrity (Abkhazia,Crimea). The U.S. has been criticized for voicing concern about narcotics production in countries such as Bolivia and Venezuela but does not follow through on cutting certain bilateral aid programs. The U.S. has been criticized for not maintaining a consistent policy; it has been accused of denouncing alleged rights violations in China while supporting alleged human rights abuses by Israel.
However, some defenders argue that a policy of rhetoric while
doing things counter to the rhetoric was necessary in the sense of realpolitik and helped secure victory against the dangers of tyranny and totalitarianism.
The U.S. is advocating that Iran and North Korea should not develop nuclear weapons,
while the U.S., the only country to have used nuclear weapons in
warfare, maintains a nuclear arsenal of 5,113 warheads. However, this
double standard is legitimated by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT), to which Iran is a party.
Ruth J Blakeley and Vincent Bevins posit that the United States and its allies sponsored and facilitated state terrorism and mass killings on a significant scale during the Cold War.
The justification given for this was to contain Communism, but Blakeley
says it was also a means by which to buttress the interests of US
business elites and to promote the expansion of capitalism and neoliberalism in the Global South.
J. Patrice McSherry, a professor of political science at Long Island University,
states that "hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans were tortured,
abducted or killed by right-wing military regimes as part of the US-led
anti-communist crusade", which included US support for Operation Condor and the Guatemalan military during the Guatemalan Civil War. According to Latin Americanist John Henry Coatsworth,
the number of repression victims in Latin America alone far surpassed
that of the Soviet Union and its East European satellites during the
period 1960 to 1990. Mark Aarons asserts that the atrocities carried out by Western-backed dictatorships rival those of the communist world.
Some experts assert that the US directly facilitated and encouraged the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of suspected Communists in Indonesia during the mid-1960s. Bradley Simpson, Director of the Indonesia/East Timor Documentation Project at the National Security Archive,
says "Washington did everything in its power to encourage and
facilitate the army-led massacre of alleged PKI members, and U.S.
officials worried only that the killing of the party's unarmed
supporters might not go far enough, permitting Sukarno to return to
power and frustrate the [Johnson] Administration's emerging plans for a
post-Sukarno Indonesia."
According to Simpson, the terror in Indonesia was an "essential
building block of the quasi neo-liberal policies the West would attempt
to impose on Indonesia in the years to come".
Historian John Roosa, commenting on documents released from the US
embassy in Jakarta in 2017, says they confirm that "the U.S. was part
and parcel of the operation, strategizing with the Indonesian army and
encouraging them to go after the PKI."
Geoffrey B. Robinson, historian at UCLA, argues that without the
support of the U.S. and other powerful Western states, the Indonesian
Army's program of mass killings would not have occurred. Vincent Bevins writes the mass killings in Indonesia served as the apex of a loose network of US-backed anti-communist mass killing campaigns in the Global South during the Cold War.
Protest against U.S. involvement in the military intervention in Yemen, New York City, 2017
According to journalist Glenn Greenwald,
the strategic rationale for U.S. support of brutal and even genocidal
dictatorships around the globe has been consistent since the end of
World War II: "In a world where anti-American sentiment is prevalent,
democracy often produces leaders who impede rather than serve U.S.
interests ... None of this is remotely controversial or even debatable.
U.S. support for tyrants has largely been conducted out in the open, and
has been expressly defended and affirmed for decades by the most
mainstream and influential U.S. policy experts and media outlets."
Numerous US unilateral sanctions against various countries around the
world have been criticized by different commentators. Since 1998 the
United States has imposed economic sanctions on more than 20 countries.
These sanctions, according to Daniel T. Griswold,
failed to change the behavior of sanctioned countries; but they have
barred American companies from economic opportunities, and harmed the
poorest people in those countries under sanctions. Secondary sanctions, according to Rawi Abdelal,
often separate the United States and Europe because they reflect US
interference in the affairs and interests of the European Union.
Since Trump became the president of the United States, Abdelal
believes, sanctions have been seen not only as an expression of
Washington's preferences and whims, but also as a tool for US economic
warfare that has angered historical allies such as the European Union.
Interference in internal affairs
The United States was criticized for manipulating the internal affairs of foreign nations, including Ukraine, Guatemala, Chile, Cuba, Colombia, various countries in Africa including Uganda.
One study indicated that the country most often intervening in foreign elections is the United States with 81 interventions from 1946 to 2000.
Some critics argue that America's policy of advocating democracy may be ineffective and even counterproductive. Zbigniew Brzezinski declared that "[t]he coming to power of Hamas is a very good example of excessive pressure for democratization" and argued that George W. Bush's attempts to use democracy as an instrument against terrorism were risky and dangerous.
According to The Huffington Post, "The 45 nations and
territories with little or no democratic rule represent more than half
of the roughly 80 countries now hosting U.S. bases. ... Research by
political scientist Kent Calder
confirms what's come to be known as the 'dictatorship hypothesis': The
United States tends to support dictators [and other undemocratic
regimes] in nations where it enjoys basing facilities."
In the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. criticized excessive U.S. spending on military projects, and suggested a linkage between its foreign policy abroad and racism at home. In 1971, a Time
essayist noted 375 major and 3,000 lesser U.S. military facilities
worldwide and concluded that "there is no question that the U.S. today
has too many troops scattered about in too many places."
Expenditures to fight the War on Terror are vast. The Iraq war, lasting from 2003 to 2011, was especially costly. In a 2010 defense report, Anthony Cordesman criticized out-of-control military spending.
The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Pakistan have, from their
beginning in 2001 through the end of the 2019 fiscal year, cost American
taxpayers $6.4 trillion.
Andrew Bacevich argues that the U.S. has a tendency to resort to military means to try to solve diplomatic problems. The U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was a $111 billion,
decade-long military engagement which ended in a military victory but
strategic defeat due to the public's loss of support for the war.
The U.S. does not always follow international law.
For example, some critics assert the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was not a
proper response to an imminent threat, but an act of aggression which
violated international law. For example, Benjamin Ferencz, a chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg said George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes along with Saddam Hussein for starting aggressive wars—Saddam for his 1990 attack on Kuwait and Bush for his 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Critics point out that the United Nations Charter,
ratified by the U.S., prohibits members from using force against fellow
members except against imminent attack or pursuant to an explicit
Security Council authorization. A professor of international law asserted there was no authorization from the UN Security Council which made the invasion "a crime against the peace". However, U.S. defenders argue there was such an authorization according to UN Security Council Resolution 1441. See also, United States War Crimes.
The U.S. has also supported Kosovo's independence even though it is
strictly written in UN Security Council Resolution 1244 that Kosovo
cannot be independent and it is stated as a Serbian province. However
the International Court of Justice ruled the declaration of independence
was legal because the Security Council Resolution did not specify the
final status of Kosovo. The U.S. has actively supported and pressured
other countries to recognize Kosovo's independence.
Manipulation of U.S. foreign policy
Some
political scientists maintained that setting economic interdependence
as a foreign policy goal may have exposed the United States to
manipulation. As a result, the U.S. trading partners gained an ability
to influence the U.S. foreign policy decision-making process by
manipulating, for example, the currency exchange rate, or restricting
the flow of goods and raw materials. In addition, more than 40% of the
U.S. foreign debt is currently owned by the big institutional investors
from overseas, who continue to accumulate the Treasury bonds. A reporter for The Washington Post
wrote that "several less-than-democratic African leaders have
skillfully played the anti-terrorism card to earn a relationship with
the United States that has helped keep them in power", and suggested, in
effect, that therefore foreign dictators could manipulate U.S. foreign
policy for their own benefit. It is also possible for foreign governments to channel money through PACs to buy influence in Congress.
Some critics charge that U.S. government aid should be higher given the high levels of gross domestic product.
They claim other countries give more money on a per capita basis,
including both government and charitable contributions. By one index
which ranked charitable giving as a percentage of GDP, the U.S. ranked
21 of 22 OECD
countries by giving 0.17% of GDP to overseas aid, and compared the U.S.
to Sweden which gave 1.03% of its GDP, according to different
estimates. The U.S. pledged 0.7% of GDP at a global conference in Mexico. According to one estimate, U.S. overseas aid fell 16% from 2005 to 2006.
However, since the U.S. grants tax breaks to nonprofits, it subsidizes relief efforts abroad, although other nations also subsidize charitable activity abroad.
Most foreign aid (79%) came not from government sources but from
private foundations, corporations, voluntary organizations,
universities, religious organizations and individuals. According to the
Index of Global Philanthropy, the United States is the top donor in
absolute amounts.
Environmental policy
The U.S. has been criticized for failure to support the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
There has been sharp criticism about the U.S. response to the Holocaust:
That it failed to admit Jews fleeing persecution from Europe at the
beginning of World War II, and that it did not act decisively enough to
prevent or stop the Holocaust. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was the President at the time, was well-informed about the Hitler regime and its anti-Jewish policies,
but the U.S. State Department policies made it very difficult for
Jewish refugees to obtain entry visas. Roosevelt similarly took no
action on the Wagner-Rogers Bill, which could have saved 20,000 Jewish refugee children, following the arrival of 936 Jewish refugees on the MS St. Louis, who were denied asylum and were not allowed into the United States because of strict laws passed by Congress.
During the era, the American press did not always publicize reports of Nazi atrocities in full or with prominent placement.
By 1942, after newspapers began to report details of the Holocaust,
articles were extremely short and were buried deep in the newspaper.
These reports were either denied or unconfirmed by the United States
government. When it did receive irrefutable evidence that the reports
were true (and photographs of mass graves and murder in Birkenau camp in 1943, with victims moving into the gas chambers), U.S. officials suppressed the information and classified it as secret. It is possible lives of European Jews could have been saved.
Alienation of allies
There
is evidence that many U.S. allies have been alienated by a unilateral
approach. Allies signaled dissatisfaction with U.S. policy in a vote at
the U.N.
One report suggests that news source Al-jazeera routinely paints the U.S. as evil throughout the Middle East. Other critics have faulted the U.S. public relations effort. As a result of faulty policy and lackluster public relations, the U.S.
has a severe image problem in the Middle East, according to Anthony Cordesman.
Analyst Jessica Tuchman Mathews
writes that it appears to much of the Arab world that the United States
went to war in Iraq for oil, regardless of the accuracy of that motive. In a 2007 poll by BBC News asking which countries are seen as having a "negative influence in the world", the survey found that Iran, United States and North Korea had the most negative influence, while nations such as Canada, Japan and those in the European Union had the most positive influence. The U.S. has been accused by some U.N. officials of condoning actions by Israel against Palestinians. On the other hand, others have accused the U.S. of being too supportive of the Palestinians.
Ineffective prosecution of war
One estimate is that the second Iraq War along with the so-called War on Terror cost $551 billion, or $597 billion in 2009 dollars. Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich has criticized American profligacy and squandering its wealth.
There have been criticisms of U.S. warmaking failures. In the War of 1812, the U.S. was unable to conquer British North America (modern-day Canada) despite several attempts.
Ineffective strategy to fight terrorism
Critic
Cordesman criticized U.S. strategy to combat terrorism as not having
enough emphasis on getting Islamic republics to fight terrorism
themselves. Sometimes visitors have been misidentified as "terrorists".
Mathews suggests the risk of nuclear terrorism remains unprevented. In 1999 during the Kosovo War, the U.S. supported the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), though it had been recognised as a terrorist organisation by the U.S. some years prior. Right before the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia
took place, the U.S. took down the KLA from the list of internationally
recognized terrorist organizations in order to justify their aid and
help to the KLA.
Critic Robert McMahon thinks Congress has been excluded from foreign policy decision making, and that this is detrimental. Other writers suggest a need for greater Congressional participation. Jim Webb, former Democratic senator from Virginia and former Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration,
believes that Congress has an ever-decreasing role in U.S. foreign
policy making. September 11, 2001 precipitated this change, where
"powers quickly shifted quickly to the Presidency as the call went up
for centralized decision making in a traumatized nation where, quick,
decisive action was considered necessary. It was considered politically
dangerous and even unpatriotic to question this shift, lest one be
accused of impeding national safety during a time of war."
Since that time, Webb thinks Congress has become largely irrelevant in
shaping and executing of U.S. foreign policy. He cites the Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA), the U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement, and the 2011 military intervention in Libya as examples of growing legislative irrelevance.
Regarding the SFA, "Congress was not consulted in any meaningful
way. Once the document was finalized, Congress was not given the
opportunity to debate the merits of the agreement, which was
specifically designed to shape the structure of our long-term relations
in Iraq" (11). "Congress did not debate or vote on this agreement, which
set U.S. policy toward an unstable regime in an unstable region of the
world." The Iraqi Parliament,
by contrast, voted on the measure twice. The U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic
Partnership Agreement is described by the Obama Administration has a
"legally binding executive agreement" that outlines the future of
U.S.-Afghan relations and designated Afghanistan a major non-NATO ally.
"It is difficult to understand how any international agreement
negotiated, signed, and authored only by our executive branch of
government can be construed as legally binding in our constitutional
system", Webb argues.
Finally, Webb identifies the U.S. intervention in Libya as a troubling
historical precedent. "The issue in play in Libya was not simply whether
the president should ask Congress for a declaration of war. Nor was it
wholly about whether Obama violated the edicts of the War Powers Act,
which in this writer's view he clearly did. The issue that remains to
be resolved is whether a president can unilaterally begin, and continue,
a military campaign for reasons that he alone defines as meeting the
demanding standards of a vital national interest worth of risking
American lives and expending billions of dollars of taxpayer money." When the military campaign lasted months, President Barack Obama did not seek approval of Congress to continue military activity.
Lack of vision
The
short-term election cycle coupled with the inability to stay focused on
long-term objectives motivates American presidents to lean towards
actions that would appease the citizenry, and, as a rule, avoid
complicated international issues and difficult choices. Thus, Zbigniew
Brzezinski criticized the Clinton presidency as having a foreign policy which lacked "discipline and passion" and subjected the U.S. to "eight years of drift".
In comparison, the next, Bush presidency was criticized for many
impulsive decisions that harmed the international standing of the U.S.
in the world. Former director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold
commented that, "There's a broad naïvete in the political class about
America's obligations in foreign policy issues, and scary simplicity
about the effects that employing American military power can achieve".
Some commentators have thought the United States became arrogant, particularly after its victory in World War II. Critics such as Andrew Bacevich call on America to have a foreign policy "rooted in humility and realism".
Foreign policy experts such as Zbigniew Brzezinski counsel a policy of
self-restraint and not pressing every advantage, and listening to other
nations. A government official called the U.S. policy in Iraq "arrogant and stupid", according to one report.
Problem areas festering
Critics
point to a list of countries or regions where continuing foreign policy
problems continue to present problems. These areas include South America, including Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Brazil. There are difficulties with Central American nations such as Honduras. Iraq has continuing troubles. Iran, as well, presents problems with nuclear proliferation. In Afghanistan, the US 20-year war failed and the country fell into the Taliban regime. The Middle East in general continues to fester, although relations with India are improving. Policy towards Russia remains uncertain. China also presents a challenge.
There are difficulties in other regions too. In addition, there are
problems not confined to particular regions, but regarding new
technologies. Cyberspace is a constantly changing technological area with foreign policy repercussions.
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