U.S. Strategy toward the UN: NUSA’s place in foreign relations
Why the United States can’t seem to reclaim its’ place in the UN
Written By: CSIS President largeTitanic2 & Board of Directors member Roy Petraeus, former Secretary of State
Ever since NUSA was removed from the U.N., several politicians have made promises to re-introduce us to it and repair global relations. Presidents TheySinned and Rapidaax have made attempts, but the regular citizen sees the work of previous administrations tattered and destroyed by unintended side-effects of plans, general misconduct of militaries and foreign delegations, and, in their eyes, failed attempts to organize foreign relations by ‘inexperienced’ and ‘incapable’ politicians.
But why is foreign relations such a difficult thing to master? Why haven’t two presidents been able, at least so far, to organize and repair the U.S.’s relations with other nations, and why is it taking so long to bring us back into the UN?
CSIS’s Roy Petraeus, a former Secretary of State, offers his insight to this issue.
“Firstly, you need to focus on winning individual nations over, not just making stump speeches or writing about how much you like everyone as a whole. Current Secretary of State Brandon Renzi had been focusing on that, and reportedly lost the UNGA by only a few votes. NUSA, if we ever want to gain international recognition and rebuild our reputation again, need to prove to individual nations we’re worth more than EUSA. Secondly, you need a capable head of state who ss mature, well kept, and has the ability to seem like he cares when he needs to. I know for a fact that a Secretary of State/Foreign Minister can only do so much to represent a nation abroad. A president must care as well.”
— Roy Petraeus, Former Secretary of State
Let’s go over these points.
- “Firstly, you need to focus on winning individual nations over.”
What this means is that rather than the current strategy employed by the State Department as Secretary Petraeus says, the next Secretary should employ a tactic of determining the needs of nations within the UN and genuinely discussing with everyone there why NUSA should be reintroduced and EUSA should be removed. - “Secondly, you need a capable head of state who is mature, well kept, and has the ability to seem like he cares when he needs to.”
What this means is that not only must a Secretary of State or foreign minister ensure that he/she functions with decorum and basic maturity, shows basic dedication to foreign relations and actively cares about what is going on, but a president must as well. A State Department cannot function properly without assistance from a president, history shows us that.
As we have seen in recent efforts, it can appear that sometimes the members conducting the negotiations on behalf of the United States conduct themselves poorly in front of large audiences of foreign leaders. When this happens, it fundamentally erodes their already largely eroded opinion of us. CSIS’s advice to President Rapidaax and Secretary Renzi is that delegations need to be further controlled at official events. No one can be there that should not be there, and their behavior must be mature and focused in order to project to other countries that NUSA cares about foreign relations. Allegations of voter fraud on the part of U.S. delegations only make things worse.
These things are necessary; CSIS belives that without them we may not be getting into the UN anytime soon.