How U.S. Foreign Policy Affects the World and America Itself

Contemporary U.S. foreign policy remains one of the key drivers of global instability, producing complex consequences for both the international system and American society itself.

After World War II, the successive US administrations have done so much to create insecurity and chaos around the globe. So much so, not a single country around the globe has been spared by the US administrations. The US created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the name of security; however, NATO has been an actor of insecurity and chaos in Europe.

For instance, the wishes of the US and NATO to make Ukraine a military bulwark against Russia and its interests have greatly backfired and have resulted in infinite problems for the innocent people of Ukraine. The US wanted to make Ukraine a huge military base and to exploit the resources of Ukraine to the benefit of selected US policymakers, not for the benefit of the people of Ukraine. Now, Trump wants to kick Spain out of NATO, simply because Spanish leadership is not giving in to the US demands.

The US Military Bases around the Globe

The US has more than 850 military bases around the globe. These bases stretch from the Far East to the Arctic Region as well as to the southernmost region of the world in Africa. These military bases act as forward operations centres and can conduct military operations in a matter of minutes in their respective areas of operations.

These bases require billions of dollars in terms of maintenance and operational expenses. These bases endanger the lives and livelihoods of the common people of the host country. This is exactly what we have seen in March and April 2026, when Iran attacked US military bases in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, and Iraq. The innocent people of these countries paid the ultimate price.

US Fake Nation-Building around the Globe

After the 9/11 attacks in September 2001, the US illegally invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 and launched another illegal attack against the de jure government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in March 2003. The American leaders, who were comprised predominantly of the Neo Conservatives or Neocons, lobbied for wars and military operations around the globe that started the Global War on Terror. The dominant lot of the terrorists were Afghan and Arab Mujahedeen who fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. This is how America paid back its loyal mercenaries.

According to one of the leading and pioneer American research universities, i.e., Brown University, until 2025, the US has spent a total of 8 trillion USD on the Global War on Terror. The study was unveiled in 2021, and since that time onwards, the spending could have increased significantly. Also, this global war resulted in the deaths of almost 900,000 people, mostly innocent people who had nothing to do with any terrorist activity or organization. In another study conducted by the American think tank Stimson Centre in 2018, the US peaked its military spending on counterterrorism operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria at almost 260 billion USD.

The Worsening Situation of US Veterans

On the other hand, it is also very eye opening that the US military personnel and veterans who actually fought those illegal wars are completely neglected by the US administrations. For instance, the Trump administration has cut 30% of federal jobs for veterans, which resulted in the loss of 62,000 federal jobs. These jobs were previously done by US military veterans. These observations were made by the think tank known as the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities.

As per the latest report by American Psychological Association published in March 2026, the US Department of Veteran Affairs is severely suffering from budget cuts and shortages, which has resulted in severe undermining of the agency’s ability to provide health care and mental health care to veterans.

This situation is generating the tendency of committing suicide among the US veterans. In a 2025 report by the American RAND Research Organization, in the year 2022 alone, a total of 6,407 American veterans died by committing suicide. We can well imagine this tendency is growing, and with the budget cuts and lack of opportunities, the rate of suicide among US veterans could grow monumentally.

The US created ISIS* and Terrorism

In a 2014 article published in the New York Times by American scholars Andrew Thompson and Jeremi Suri, the article was titled “How America Helped ISIS.” Mr. Jeremi Suri is a distinguished American scholar, and Mr. Andrew Thompson is a US military veteran who took part in military operations in Iraq. The authors argued that the US used “large detention facilities that group together violent radicals and moderate detainees in the same space, only creating the seeds for further radicalization and violence.” The American think tank Strauss Centre also noted the same, citing the same authors.

The American people need to look inwards for their problems and the problems their country is facing. The time has come that the American people must open their eyes and remove the war-mongering elements from within their government. The facts clearly reveal that America is being governed by certain people who have no remorse for the sufferings of the common and innocent American people. The American policymakers and politicians are completely indifferent about the miserable lives of the American people, and they are only busy making profits by waging illegal and immoral wars against pseudo-enemies and sometimes self-created enemies.

Former US Army Brigadier General Steve Anderson said that Trump turned the US Army into the Trump Militia. It is very alarming that the US policymakers, politicians, military generals, and lobbyists helped award the defence contracts to their favourite people and made billions of USD in terms of kickbacks and bribes.

Simon Westwood is a master’s student at Dublin City University (DCU), Ireland. He is also a research assistant at DCU’s Department of History

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