The need for a new US approach to foreign relations

President Joe Biden speaks during the first US-Pacific Island Country Summit at the State Department in Washington, on September 29, 2022. The two-day event was part of US efforts to counter China's military and economic influence in the region. [AP]

US foreign policy is based on an inherent contradiction and fatal flaw. The aim of US foreign policy is a US-dominated world, in which the US writes the global trade and financial rules, controls advanced technologies, maintains militarily supremacy, and dominates all potential competitors. Unless US foreign policy is changed to recognize the need for a multipolar world, it will lead to more wars, and possibly World War III.

The inherent contradiction in US foreign policy is that it conflicts with the UN Charter, which commits the US (and all other UN member states) to a global system based on UN institutions in which no single country dominates. The fatal flaw is that the US has just 4% of the world population, and lacks the economic, financial, military and technological capacities, much less the ethical and legal claims, to dominate the other 96%.

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