Reimagining U.S. Foreign Policy as an Anti-racist Endeavor by Sneha Nair

Reimagining U.S. Foreign Policy as an Anti-racist Endeavor

By Sneha Nair

There is a healthy amount of irony to be appreciated when considering the application of antiracism in U.S. foreign policy. For all its achievements, the United States is a country wracked with racial tension, profiting from racist policies that exploit people and resources to the benefit of its own profit and power. That being said, the United States, with its increasingly diverse population and the pervasiveness of racist policies with racist outcomes, provides an excellent case study for envisioning an anti-racist policy overhaul.

Imagining anti-racist U.S. foreign policy in action starts with acknowledging the effects of systemic racism and white supremacy on policymaking and finding ways to prevent it from persisting. It also requires reconstructing national security in a way that truly encompasses all Americans. This requires dismantling an understanding of the American identity as white by default in order to rebuild it in the image of the myriad racial and ethnic identities that make up its population—and to ensure that foreign policy decisions to protect national security include protecting the diversity of the U.S. population. Antiracism also entails a foreign policy that treats racism and white supremacy as a vulnerability that can be exploited abroad and integrates antiracism into all national security structures.

Centering antiracism as a core principle of U.S. foreign policy would mean leaders, both in government and civil society, acknowledging both systemic racism and white supremacy as structural drivers of decision-making and policy outcomes. Recognizing the impacts of these policies alone, however, is not enough. An anti-racist foreign policy shifts the focus away from an idealized, white image of the United States, to a more realistic representation of the population, both in the interests it represents and the people making decisions.

Postcolonial foreign policy critics have consistently pointed out the whiteness of policymakers, and how the lack of diversity in decision-making can lead to racist policies and outcomes. Antiracism as a core principle of U.S. foreign policy only succeeds if the people creating policies and implementing them reflect the diversity of the country. Initiatives like career pipelines and efforts to reach out to racial and ethnic minorities and other underrepresented groups like the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, and those from a broad range of socioeconomic backgrounds could help build a platform through which a wide range of perspectives and experiences could inform U.S. foreign policy.

The crux of anti-racist foreign policy is redefining national security. U.S. national security can be largely characterized as having an “us” vs. “them” mentality, centered on protecting an idealized, white image of the nation. Protecting whiteness and othering those who are not “American” enough, given their racial or ethnic background, ideals they espouse that are considered incompatible with “American values” is antithetical to an anti-racist foreign policy, and requires a reconceptualization of both national security as a concept and the idea of who those policies are meant to protect. Seeing structural racism and white supremacy as threats to national security and the American people—approximately 39.9 percent of which identify as racial and ethnic minorities—would more effectively protect all Americans.

This reconstituted threat framework would allow for a broader understanding of threats, both at home and abroad. One example of this is how foreign policy and national security policy approach terrorism. Counterterrorism activities largely center around the search for “anti-American sentiments.” Systemic integration of antiracism ideals into U.S. foreign policy would more effectively separate legitimate threats to the United States from critiques of government, white supremacy, or the structures that support it. In implementing anti-racist principles, not only will white supremacy be acknowledged as a threat to national security, but as a part of the national structure that has allowed for the development of racist policies and outcomes throughout U.S. history.

Incorporating antiracism into America’s understanding of threats also allows foreign policy decisions to address a broader range of threats against the full, diverse range of national interests. This means treating systemic racism and white supremacy as a threat from abroad and a vulnerability at home, rather than racist policies that position non-white racial and ethnic ties as threats. Foreign policy issues, like state-sponsored disinformation, have succeeded by exploiting racial tensions within the United States. Failing to address the effects of systemic racism and white supremacy is a security vulnerability, as demonstrated during the January 6 insurrection in 2021. These effects would be much more difficult to exploit if antiracism was at the core of U.S. foreign policy.

Anti-racist principles informing foreign policy would not eliminate threats to the United States., but it would ensure that efforts to secure the country and its interests were being directed at legitimate vectors of concern, rather than socially constructed differences.

While imagining an anti-racist U.S. foreign policy can feel like fantasy in an era of partisan gridlock, there is potential in the steps that have been taken by the Biden-Harris administration. The 2021 Interim National Security Strategic Guidance explicitly mentioned the threat of systemic racism to American democracy. White supremacy is already a foreign policy concern, with the State Department designating a white supremacist organization as a terror threat for the first time in Country Reports on Terrorism 2020.

The few steps taken to address the historic white supremacy in U.S. foreign policy are a long way from actually implementing antiracism and the systemic changes required to sustain it. Imagining the United States, a country with significant influence in the international arena, championing antiracism from within its foreign policy framework has global implications worth exploring, even if that possibility lies far into the future. But without broad rejection of the status quo and systemic racism, it is impossible to conceptualize U.S. foreign policy as an anti-racist endeavor. Reshaping U.S. foreign policy as something that protects and serves all citizens equitably is impossible without broad support and integration of anti-racist principles both in policy, and in society – and that is where real change needs to take root.