“Everyone wants to be loved”

Yes, my blog posts do have a theme of love. I just like to believe that everybody just wants to lead peaceful, happy lives in the heartless, cutthroat world that our comrade and local KGB spy Nemivorsky reminds us that we live in every Friday afternoon.

To most people, an approval rating of 35 would be viewed as still very depressing. But when you are the most powerful country with a tradition of interfering in domestic political affairs and currently fighting an unpopular war, even a small increase of 4 percentage points from 31 should be welcomed as a positive image change. This satisfaction is quite apparent in the reactions expressed in the recent BBC article “US welcomes just a little more love.”

This increase in popularity has come in the light of the U.S seeking to “work together” with foreign governments, especially the European Governments lately. The example of France, where the election of a pro-US president has signaled the reconstruction of ties between old friends, who with the recent US “unilateral” actions in Iraq had moved apart, quite clearly signals the increases, although they may be slight increases, in US approval in practice.

The question should then be asked, why the United States is so keen on working with foreign governments now. Why does an unpopular administration whose most significant decisions were based on the doctrine of "if we need to act, we will act, and we really don't need the United Nations' approval to do so,” feel the need to turn the corner and establish closer ties with the rest of the world in its last year. With the ideas of power transition theory in mind, it appears to me that such policy decisions are more likely arising from declining American strength and hegemonic power, than from political desires to be a more popular sovereign.

The failure of the American government to secure the situation in Afghanistan, and the initiation of an unpopular war in Iraq, together with a declining economy in the face of recent problems including the credit crunch and housing crises appears to have weakened the US sovereignty in the world. Some of the deals and agreements that have arisen of late suggest US attempt to secure healthy relations with the world’s powerhouse. The EU is an obvious example with successful diplomatic visits of Gordon Brown and Sarkozy helping the US secure ties with the frontrunners in the EU. Meanwhile, increasing cooperation between the world’s strongest and the world’s largest (India) democracies in the light of India’s increasing economic and political influence in world affairs, as evidenced in security deals and a nuclear deal (that has yet to be approved by the Indian government), together with positive signs of Sino-US relations, especially given the economic interdependence, appears to support this idea. The question of whether such policies will be expanded under future administrations will give the world a better sense of whether US-global cooperation is more the result of declining US hegemony and a desire to secure its future in the event of the ascension of another power, or whether this simply coming out of the opinion that “it is important to work with others.”