Roles and Responsibilities of the Newly Qualified Nurse

Roles and Responsibilities of the Newly Qualified Nurse The aim of this essay is to explore and discuss important aspects of the roles and responsibilities of the newly qualified nurse. It will discuss an overview of different type of roles and responsibilities including transition. The roles and responsibilities of a qualified nurse include essential professional skills such as leading in care management and care delivery situations as well as maintaining standards of care. The focus of the essay will be on two chosen roles of newly qualified nurses (delegation and patient group direction). It will discuss the meaning of these concepts and their importance for nurses, and provide some practical contextual examples. It will also discuss the rational of chosen roles A new qualified nurse expected to be competent to work in all environments and situations. This emerging health care system requires a registered Nurse workforce at all levels post initial registration capable of critical reflective thinking in order to create this system. With registration comes a shift in professional accountability together with wider clinical management and teaching responsibilities. On becoming a qualified nurse, the expectations and dynamics of relationships changes fundamentally. Suddenly the newly qualified nurse is the one who must know the answer whether it is a query from a patient, a career, a work colleague or a student. The newly qualified nurse will encounter many challenging situations where she or he must lead care delivery. This includes dealing with care management within the team, dealing with patients/service users, dealing with other professionals, and dealing with the required needs of the whole workplace environment. The NMC requires a student nurse to demonstrate professional and ethical practice, be competent in care delivery and care management and show personal and professional development in order to join the register NMC (2010). It is recognized that nurses should be provided with some form of preceptorship and supervision in their role for a period of four months time NMC (2006)) once qualified. Even in this period of preceptorship, there are new expectations and challenges faced by the newly qualified nurse. Mooney (2007) found that newly qualified nurses were faced with assumptions from others that they should know everything. This was also a high expectation they had of themselves. In meeting the NMC standards of proficiency the nurse should have demonstrated the relevant knowledge and skills in order to practise in their career. However, it is important to recognise that not every nurse knows everything about everything in their career especially if they are practising in highly specialized fields. What they need is to be able to develop and adapt to changing situations. Therefore, for the nurse it is impossible to know everything but they should have developed the skills to find out relevant information, reflect on it, and apply this to their practice. In essence they should have learned how to learn. There is a great deal to be learned once qualified, especially related to a nurses new area of work and a good deal of the development needs to take place on the job. The study by Jackson. K (2005) suggested that a successful transition requires the nurse to develop a self-image relevant to the change in status to be able to do the job and that they meet the expectations with others with appropriate support. Mooney (2007) also points out that the duties faced by most newly qualified nurses were not patient contact centred. There were a lot of duties related to contacting and dealing with other professionals and services. These brought anxieties related to the responsibilities that might be faced as the nurses would become increasingly senior in their roles with others expecting them to provide the actions and the answers in complex situations. This highlights how the experience of nursing of transition from student to newly qualified nurse can be daunting. In the current environment there is an expectation that nurses have a preceptor one qualifying for aid in these transitions but the literature still suggests there is a difficulty in the transit ion process for such professionals. Hole. J, (2009) found that individual accountability, delegating duties without appearing bossy and some challenging clinical situations such as death and dying and specialised technological roles were found to be stressful by qualifying nurses. Issues of the preceptorship of newly qualified nurses become apparent and important in dealing with the transition from supervised student to autonomous practitioner. The approach taken throughout the rest of this essay will be to provide a discussion of the main theories, concepts, and issues related to the roles and responsibilities of delegation and PGD for newly qualified nurses. It will discuss the meaning of these concepts and their importance for nurses, and provide some practical contextual examples. The rational of choosing these two roles are because: Firstly delegation is a huge newly qualified nurses concern. According Hole. J, (2005) newly qualified nurses are not capable to delegate tasks to someone else and they end up overloading themselves. This is because an accountability issue or not knowing the staffs well as they is new to the ward. Secondly, it is a legal requirement that newly qualified nurses need to have knowledge of PGDs in order to work within legal and ethical frameworks that underpin safe and effective medicines management NMC (2010). For this reason, I personally was interested and picked them to discuss in order to develop my understanding and prepare me to successfully make the transition from student nurse to a registered professional. Delegation is the process by which responsibility and authority for performing a task is transferred to another individual who accepts that authority and responsibility. Although the delegator remains accountable for the task, the delegate is also accountable to the delegator for the responsibilities assumed. Delegation can help others to develop or enhance their skills, promotes teamwork and improves productivity Sollivan.E.J et al (2009). Therefore, delegation is the area where newly qualified staff experience huge difficulties. Often they do not feel confident enough to ask someone else to do something for them. Consequently, they try to do all of the work themselves and end up leaving late or providing less than adequate standards of care. Other members of staff will not mind if they delegate tasks to them, as long as they apply the basic rules such as ensuring that it is something they are competent to do. When delegating, the delegator remain responsible for that care if he/she do not delegate appropriately as stated by NMC (2008). It is also important that the delegator explained clearly what it is he/she want them to do and why because he/she might genuinely busy or is it just something that he/she does not want to do. Hole.J, (2005) explained that As long as he/she asks the other member of staff in a courteous manner and stick to the rules, there will be few problems. However, there may always be someone who has the potential to react in a negative way to his/her request. These people are often known for this type of behaviour and it should be dealt with swiftly by their manager. This type of reaction experience should be discussed with the member of staff or if he/she not feels confident enough to do this, he/she should talk to the manager. As mention above this will be a difficult skill for a newly qualified nurse especially at first. They will need to get to know the other staff before they will feel truly comfortable delegating to others in the team. They may feel guilty about asking others to do tasks which they feel that they should be doing themselves. What they need to realise is that they cannot possibly do everything themselves and that they will need to work as a team in order to deliver good patient care. The new qualified nurses may well feel that they cannot ask others especially HCAs who have worked on the ward for years to do things for them. The nurse will probably feel self-conscious and embarrassed. The answer is that it is not what the nurse asks them to do that are important. It is how he/she asks them. Good communication is the key to successful delegation. The nurse should take a few minutes to discuss with the HCA/student with whom he/she is working who will be doing what during that shift. Share the workload and be realistic. Therefore the newly qualified nurses must not overload themselves with care they do not really think they can give. The member of staff would rather know what their workload is at the beginning of the shift so that they can organise their time effectively. If the delegator has to ask them to take on extra work during the shift, they will find this difficult. So the delegator should keep communicating with them during the shift, and if he/she is held up with relatives or an acutely ill patient, he/she should tell them and explain that he/she will try to help them as soon as possible. When the new qualified nurses are delegating, it is important to ensure that this is appropriate as it is their responsibility to ensure that the member of staff to whom they delegate is competent to perform the task. This means that if they delegate a task to a member of staff who is not competent and they perform the task wrongly, they are accountable for the harm caused to the patient. Although the member of staff responsible, they remain accountable. For example, they cannot assume that the HCA/student with whom they are working is competent in the skill of measuring and recording a patients blood pressure. Just because the member of staff has worked on that ward for a period of time, this does not mean that they have been taught correctly. They must assess their competence to perform the task before they allow them to do this independently. They can then justify their delegation of that skill if necessary. Patient Group Direction (PGD) is a written instruction for the supply and/or administration of a licensed medicine (medicines) in an identified clinical situation signed by a doctor or a dentist and pharmacist. It applies to a group of patients who may not be individually identified before presenting for treatment NPC (2009), page 11. In simple terms, a PGD is the supply and/or administration of a specified medicine or medicines by named authorised health professionals for a group of patients requiring treatment for the condition described in the PGD. The health professional must be registered. Implementing PGDs may be appropriate both in circumstances where groups of patients may not have been previously identified for example, minor injuries and first contact services and in services where assessment and treatment follows a clearly predictable pattern such as immunisation, family planning and so on. Professionals using a PGD must be registered or equivalent members of their profession and act within their appropriate code of professional conduct. This differs from supplementary prescribers and independent prescribers who must also successfully complete specific prescribing training and be appropriately registered before they may prescribe. However, organisations using PGDs must designate an appropriate person within the organisation. For example, a clinical supervisor, line manager or General Practitioner to ensure that only fully competent, qualified and trained healthcare professionals use PGDs. Individual practitioners using a PGD must be named A Patient Group Direction allows specified registered healthcare professionals to supply or administer a medicine directly to a patient with an identified clinical condition without him/her necessarily seeing a prescriber. So, patients may present directly to health care professionals using PGDs in their services without seeing a doctor. Alternatively, the patient may have been referred by a doctor to another service. Whichever way the patient presents, the healthcare professional working within the PGD is responsible for assessing that the patient fits the criteria set out in the PGD. In general, a PGD is not meant to be a long-term means of managing a patients clinical condition. This is best achieved by a health care professional prescribing for an individual patient on a one-to-one basis. Before a healthcare professional can use a PGD, he/she must be named and have signed the PGD documentation. This generally takes the form of signatures and names on a list or individual forms that are attached to the PGD itself or held by the service or organisation. Employees of NHS organisations authorising a PGD generally have indemnity attached to their status as an employee. This may also apply to non-NHS organisations. However, the organisations and employees involved should always check that this is the case. If the professional is not directly employed by the organisation, he/she still needs to be assessed as competent to use the PGD and must have his/her own relevant professional indemnity or insurance. These issues have implications for service delivery when new staff begins, or agency staff are covering services. They may not be able to work under a PGD immediately or may be excluded because of their employment status. Service managers need to be aware of these issues and plan service delivery to accommodate them. The use of PGDs is widespread throughout the NHS and since April 2003, some non-NHS organisations have been able to use them suggested by NPC (2009). Organisations must ensure that staff responsible for the development / implementation of PGDs and those authorised to work under PGDs have the experience, knowledge and skills necessary to do so. Unlike supplementary prescribers, nurse independent prescribers and healthcare professionals using PGDs do not have to become specifically qualified to do so. But they must be assessed by their organisations as fully competent, qualified and trained to operate within a PGD. A suitably competent and experienced healthcare professional who will be working under the PGD should be involved in the writing of the PGD, to ensure that the PGD meets the needs of the service. The role by RCN (2004) proposes that the registered nurse must be assessed as competent in medicines administration, Must be trained to operate within a PGDMust follow the 6 Rs of medicines administration Usually need to be qualified for at least 6 months Must assess the patient to ensure they fit the criteria as detailed in the PGD Must ensure the PGD meets the necessary legal requirements Cannot delegate the supplying/dispensing or administration stage to another registered nurse or student nurse. There is no specific national training for healthcare professionals producing PGDs The newly qualified nurses are not expected to be able to operate under a PGD until competent in medicines administration. However, they need to have knowledge of PGDs for their patient safety. For example, if patient under PGD admitted to the ward, the nurse must ensure that the medicines not stopped. The NMC (2010) code of conduct outline that newly qualified nurses to be fully understood all methods of supplying medicines. This includes Medicines Act exemptions, patient group directions (PGDs), clinical management plans and other forms of prescribing. They are expected to demonstrate knowledge and application of the principles required for safe and effective supply and administration via a patient group direction including an understanding of role and accountability. And also demonstrate how to supply and administer via a patient group direction. The newly qualified nurses may be involved with PGDs such as assisting and identifying areas where a PGD would offer more benefits than a PSD, understand the principles and processes of PGDs and be fully conversant with all the principles associated with dispensing and administering medicines they may also be working in a variety of settings where PGDs are used for example prison health care setting, nurse led service, walk in centres In my conclusion, I have learnt the roles and responsibilities of newly qualified nurses and I have developed skills and professional knowledge to work effectively with others. The NMC (2010) code of conduct helped me how the laws and policies are set up to ensure safe and effective delivery of care given to service users under a patient group direction. I am now prepared for the challenges I will face on being a newly qualified nurse by providing the knowledge and skills required to become effective and accountable practitioners. Clinical decisions will still have to be made in relation to meeting the needs of the people within my care. However, becoming a qualified nurse brings with its wider responsibilities in making and taking decisions related to the nursing team, other staff, and the work environment as a whole. These changes require a large shift from the experience of being a student and a mentored supervised learner, so it is essential that I am equipped with all the skills required to successfully make the transition.

Schiaparelli vs Chanel

In Judith Thurman’s article for The New Yorker, â€Å"Mother of Invention in Fashion† she tells of the life and fashion influence of designer Elsa Schiaparelli. The name may not be familiar to fashion outsiders but the Italian designer emerged around the same time period as the better-known Coco Chanel. While Chanel is most known for her simple cut clothing and classic designs, Schiaparelli is known for her courageous use of eclectic patterns and colorful zippers.In a world of fashion where firsts are a rarity, Schiaparelli is recognized for innovations such as the overall, the power suit, colored hosiery and the wedge, a shoe that has yet to go out of style just to name a few. She had the boldness to design scarf dresses in bright fuchsia and mix and match sportswear in an array of knits. She was there for society during a time of adventure and outspokenness and through her daring designs she gave women an outlet to express themselves.During World War II Schiaparelli p ut designing on the backburner due to the political situation and instead used her popular influence to help raise funds for various French relief charities. She refused to design clothes at such a time of suffering and terror and through this act she showed her solidarity and strong ethics. Her rival, Gabrielle â€Å"Coco† Chanel was shacked up with a Nazi officer at the fancy Ritz while women were wearing her black designs to funerals for the many that were dying throughout the country.As the war came to an end Chanel came back strong with her original designs as simple and as black as ever just what society needed-mindless outfits. This society who was once willing to work and try to stand out, now just wanted to blend into the sorrowful world that the war had turned life into, they didn’t want to think at all. In the time of pre World War II, society was willing to go out of their way for fashion, to strive to stand out and be bold, to try and to work for it. Schap arelli was a â€Å"poet of couture† as Thurman calls her, â€Å"she designed clothes for an emboldened and unbeholden New Woman†.(Thurman, 1) Postwar the world was in a conservative state, the demand for fuchsia and graphic knitwear was not high, and â€Å"her work was out of tune with the tastes of a conservative postwar public†. (Thurman, 3) The innovative work of Schaparelli was recognized and at a time useful to the general public but its uniqueness was not good enough to stay in society’s minds and unlike Chanel, it did not become a household name. Women no longer wanted to be outspoken, they instead wanted their clothing to speak for them.The little black dress practically invented by Chanel did just that-it spoke for itself. Throughout decades Chanel has created a following strong enough that in a sense it is its own category of style and has kept its affluent name throughout depressions and economic plights. The highest forms of royalty, the great est icons and even the First Ladies of America clad themselves in the classic tweed of Chanel. The mindlessness of being able to rely on the classic cut, the clean lines and the dependent mix of grays and blacks are what makes Chanel a â€Å"go-to† for recognized and upper class women.Chanel represents the adaptation of fashion, postwar women did not want to try, they did not want to â€Å"think too hard† or work for fashion. Chanel doesn’t want you to work at all, her clothing is meant to be worn and say enough for you, one of her classics, the little black dress symbolizes a woman putting on a dress that speaks for itself, it screams classy and timeless. Thurman writes, in reference to monumental breakthroughs such as â€Å"monotheism, penicillin, the little black dress, â€Å"history tends to remember those who have one big idea.† (1) Chanel had big ideas, even if they were adapted from what was already invented, and those ideas were timeless. When on e is wearing Chanel that is what is seen, it is not the women in Chanel that stands out but the Chanel on the woman. The little black dress which is casually referred to by today’s designers as the â€Å"LBD† has become such a staple that rarely will a woman’s closet be lacking at least one. A little black dress is hardly as exciting and conversational as a hot pink pantsuit or as daring as sportswear with animal shaped buttons, but its black simplicity is mindless.It was exactly how society wanted its women to behave at the end of the 1940’s; the little black dress spoke for them because nobody wanted them to speak for themselves. A woman standing in the corner at a dinner party wearing Chanel does not need to be attended to, the fact that she is donning Chanel says just enough. She is wealthy, she is taken care of and anything she feels the need to say is being said by her Chanel outfit. One of the best known images of the little black dress is in Blake Edward’s film adaptation of Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s.Audrey Hepburn plays the naive yet eccentric character of Holly Golightly and her look has become legendary. Her hair pulled tightly into a bun and a never ending strand of pearls wrapped around her neck all of which accessorize her classic little black dress and a long stemmed cigarette that she has, without fail, permanently in hand. Hepburn, frequently clad in Chanel, prances around the city as if it is her playground, nonchalantly yet tragically running with a different gentleman every evening.It would seem that she enjoys their company but she refers to them as â€Å"rats† during her daily rants to her new companion and neighbor. This character remains unnamed in the book but through the film we learn that his name is Paul, although Holly finds him uncannily familiar to his brother and insists on calling him Fred. Holly Golightly’s behavior is eccentric and sometimes unprompte d and in both the film and the novel the audience and readers are able to grasp this unpredictable aspect of her personality.Edwards and Capote’s depiction of Holly is incredibly different in their respective portrayals of this wild character. Although the storylines differ each of their portrayals successfully convey Holly as the entertaining woman that she is. Capote’s version makes readers push themselves and question Holly as a character is she a phony? Is her behavior really past her? Does Holly not see what is going on? Readers are delving deep and thinking hard to understand the Holly Golightly in the text. We are looking deep into her character and trying to see her for who she is, to understand this seemingly complex woman.But then there is something about the Holly Golightly that Blake Edwards has created, a facade that appears in part due to her memorable ensemble. The movie’s Holly Golightly is easier for the audience to understand and empathize with . There is no thinking involved, just a beautiful face and a simple little black dress. The Chanel-clad Holly allows us to look at her without really looking into her, we are satisfied with what we see and our judgment is left at that. The Chanel little black dress is speaking for Holly and it is giving off an impression that leaves the audience excusing her for her petty actions.One of the most notable differences between the movie and the book is the ending that Paramount pictures completely changed from how Truman Capote first wrote it. Holly’s main eccentricity is that she is constantly traveling, never being able to settle in one place that she finds herself comfortable in. â€Å"I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together. I'm not sure where that is†¦Ã¢â‚¬ (Capote,) At the end of the novel Holly remains her true nomadic and the last readers hear of her is through a postcard sent from Brazil to the narrator, like expected she has not settled down.Then there is the film version of Holly, a character who we choose to take for what she is, whatever that may be. In the film the narrator Paul/Fred, is able to convince Holly to stay in New York, as he departs from a taxicab ride with her the audience thinks this is the last time they will ever see each other and the narrator, a man who is clearly head over heels for Holly, gives her a peace of his mind, and a glimpse into his broken heart: â€Å"You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-You-Are?You're chicken; you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, â€Å"Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness. You call yourself a free spirit, a wild thing, and you're terrified somebody's going to stick you in a cage. Well, baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself†¦it's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you ju st end up running into yourself.†(Breakfast at Tiffany’s) Then to reader’s surprise but to audiences content Holly returns the narrator’s gestures! The Holly in the book would have never settled for love and given in to one man Holly was a traveler never settling for one man or one address. The Holly in the movie has just been put in her place and audiences expect this of her and they accept it. Of course the lady in Chanel will fall in love in this fairytale-like rainy scene.For a Schiaparelli wearing character we expect more, we don’t expect her to take such confrontation and to be told where she stands in the world, but the Chanel wearing woman will be swept off her feet and won over by her neighborly suitor. How is it that courtesy is given to the Holly Golightly in the film but yet the novel’s version of Holly would never be excused like this? Society, being the funny unpredictable way it is has the ability to turn its head at certain ev ents or times.In Thurman’s article we see that Schiaparelli and Chanel started off on equal ground but it is only one designer that is still around today: â€Å"Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli launched their fashion houses in the first decades of the last century like two rockets with equal payloads of ambition. Chanel settled into the lower and brighter-more visible-orbit, which the gravity of convention begins to erode. Schiaparelli exerts her influence like a distant celestial body on women and designers who may see hot pink when they free-associate her name, but who otherwise have no precise image of her work.†(Thurman, 1) For such originality, Schiaparelli was merely lost in the times and is only a memory with no precise image attached to her name. Was she who we should have remembered? While Schiaparelli was working for a good cause during the war and using her resources to raise money for French charities, Chanel was holed up decadently with a Nazi officer liv ing a lifestyle totally oblivious to the world’s events. Yet society turns its head and excuses Chanel’s actions just as quickly as they forget Schiaparelli’s heroic ones.Schiaparelli might not have been lost in the times had she made it simpler on us, had she tended to society’s needs. We give Chanel the courtesy that we give Edward’s version of Holly Golightly and we give Schiaparelli no courtesy at all. Edward’s Holly Golightly makes it easy to fall for her quirky little expressions and disregard towards the real world, the fairytale ending we are left with is simple and does not leave the audience wondering and digging deeper and for that we love the simplicity and mindlessness of the film’s Holly Golightly.It is the Holly Golightly in the film adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany’s that has become illustrious throughout the years; her timelessness has stuck around like Chanel’s while the original novella’s fame has fizzled out like Schiaparelli’s. Like Chanel, the film version of Holly Golightly is one that the audience does not have to work to understand. Readers are sick of working to understand Truman Capote’s original Breakfast at Tiffany’s like women were sick of working to understand Schiaparelli.Sometimes it is the easy and the mindless that society not only wants but needs, and they are willing to throw all originality out the window for it. Works Cited Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Dir. Blake Edwards. Paramount Pictures, 1961. DVD. Capote, Truman. Breakfast At Tiffany’s. New York: Vintage Books, 1993. Thurman, Judith. â€Å"Mother of Invention in Fashion. † The New Yorker 27 Oct. 2003: 1-3. Print.

Poverty in Liberia

What is poverty? To be poor is to be underprivileged, to live a lifestyle not deemed a proper and healthy one to most, and, as is the main connotation, to have an insufficient amount of money. Fourteen years of civil war has left the infrastructure of Liberia in ruin, affecting water, sanitation, food security and livelihood in general. This has left Liberia the third poorest country in the world, in terms of GDP per capita. In actuality, there are only two classes in Liberia: the very rich and the very poor, with the majority classified as the latter.A reporter from the African Development Bank Group estimated that only 4. 8% of Liberia’s population could be considered middle class (the lowest percent on the continent). There is no middle class, but rather, a working poor. Infrastructure The civil war decimated the infrastructure of Liberia, leaving most Liberians void of safe drinking water, access to proper sanitation facilities, electricity, and roads. More than half of al l Liberians are without access to clean water and functioning sanitation facilities. 8% of all deaths in Liberia are caused by deficiencies in water and sanitation. Hepatitis A, typhoid fever, and bacterial and protozoic diarrhea are very infectious diseases that are found in Liberia’s unsanitary water. As for electricity, most of Liberians live in the dark, with a choice few relying on loud and unreliable diesel generators. Paved roads are scarce as well, stunting transportation and, in turn, affecting the economy in Liberia. Not Enough Money 76% of Liberians are now living below the poverty line ($1/day) and 52% live in extreme poverty ($0. 50/day).Most workers in the middle class, or the working poor in other words, of Liberia earn $100 a month plus $30 of transportation stipend and a bag of rice. $300 a month is an upper-middle salary, about four times more than what policemen earns, and 10 times more than what half of all Liberians live on. These half of the Liberians li ve on the â€Å"dollar-a-day† policy. The GDP per capita in Liberia is $392, which is lower than all nations in the world except for Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This means that the average person in Liberia only makes around $400 dollars a year.Not Enough Food Not enough money means not enough food, especially since the previous civil war destroyed the agricultural sector of Liberia. Before the civil war, most Liberians lived off the land, making a living off of agriculture. Since the war effort took up so much of the time and hard work of Liberians, this changed, leaving them reliant upon expensive exported goods. Over 60% of households currently report not being able to afford three meals a day, and 40% of Liberian children experience stunted growth. 20% percent of them are underweight. 35%of Liberians are malnourished.Human Rights In Liberia most poor children work for family businesses. The families sometimes have no money to hire employees and so t hey use their own family members instead. They may work in farms, or take part in street trading, or domestic work. Some are even trafficked out of the country from rural areas to urban areas or to diamond mining areas for purposes of sexual exploitation or forced labor. These acts are with the sole purpose of making money. Liberia is the oldest free nation in Africa, is rich in resources, and was a refuge for African American slaves in the 1800s.Friction between the newcomers and natives led to turmoil, eventually landing Liberia in the place as one of the poorest counties in the world. Poverty paints all aspects of Liberian life, from water and food to human dignity. Is there a brighter future for Liberia? â€Å"I'm sure by the time this man gets your age, he will live a better life than what I have lived† said a 55 year old man living int West Point, the poorest slum in Monrovia, to a reporter, as he hugged his grandson. As long as the Liberian people have hope, there is h ope for Liberia.

Analyse the changes that occurred within US foreign policy after the 9/11 attacks. - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 8 Words: 2253 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Politics Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? On September 20th, 2001, President George W. Bush (2001, n. pag.) gave a speech addressing the events of nine days before: On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Analyse the changes that occurred within US foreign policy after the 9/11 attacks." essay for you Create order Americans have known wars, but for the past 136 years they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. The speech drew upon the notion that America had been attacked and also laid the blame firmly at the door of terrorism whilst interpreting it as an act of war. Although the emotive rhetoric was designed to stir support for a response, it also heralded a new era in US foreign policy. Defined as a foreign policy crisis by Bolton (2008, p. 6), it was inevitable that it would elicit a response by American policymakers but the extent to which it has changed US foreign policy has been hotly debated. As such, this essay will discuss the changes in post-9/11 US foreign policy, identifying areas that marked a departure from the policy in place prior to 9/11. It will analyse each to determine the extent to which it was a direct response to the terrorist attack and evaluate how the change impacted upon long-term foreign policy strategy. This will be done with a view to concl uding that many of the changes to US foreign policy in the post-9/11 era have been a response to the evolving security threat posed by terrorism and did force policy to evolve in order to accommodate strategies that address modern problems. However, those changes may have made an immediate impact but did little to alter the long-term course of US foreign policy. Foreign policy arguably changed direction within days of 9/11 with the most immediate and most obvious change being the shift in focus towards terrorism. Bentley and Holland (2013) highlight that the focus had been foreign economic policy under Clinton but 9/11 produced a dramatic movement away from diplomacy and towards military solutions via the War on Terror. There was also movement away from policy that prioritised relations with the great powers of Russia and China. Earlier unilateralism had negatively impacted upon relations with both nations, thus causing deterioration that extended beyond the Cold War era hostilit ies and prevented effective relations between East and West (Cameron, 2006; Nadkarni, 2010). However, the American desire to create a world-wide anti-terrorism alliance (Nadkarni, 2010, p. 60) brought about a relative thaw between the nations and facilitated discourse in order to cater for shared security concerns. This change provides evidence of an immediate shift in US interests and this manifested in foreign policy. As such, this is an extremely important change that occurred post-9/11, especially as it emerged out of the first response to the attack and served to dictate US actions abroad for more than a decade afterwards. The shift of focus from the great powers and towards terrorism provided policy space to address security threats via the three pillars of the Bush administrations national security policy, which had become a fundamental element of foreign policy as, for the first time since World War II, the attack on American soil brought both ostensibly dichotomous stran ds of policy together. The pillars were missile defence (a continuation of policy prior to 9/11), pre-emption and homeland security, both of which were embraced after 9/11 in response to it (Lebovic, 2007). Although elements of this were rooted in domestic policy, the pre-emption aspect of policy was also manifest in foreign policy because non-state terrorist groups and rogue states became inextricably linked to US foreign policy as targets to be dealt with under the new priorities outlined in the wake of the terror attacks, although this was somewhat more gradual than the initial shift to focus on terrorism. Indeed, the Bush Doctrine marked a fundamental shift towards utilisation of policy that incorporates both pre-emptive action and preventative action, which marked the decline of the reliance on containment and deterrence that dictated policy from the Cold War era onwards (Jentleson, 2013; Levy, 2013). The pre-emptive strikes were indicative of a strategy that sought to defend b y attacking those who posed an immediate security threat to the US and allowed policy to justify the unilateral military pursuit of specifically American interests. This suggests that 9/11 was used as an effective excuse to create foreign policy that better mirrored the ideology of the government than what was in place in the months prior to the attack. There is extensive criticism of the policy that reinforces the assumption that the government manipulate foreign policy to suit its own ends. For example, Ryan (2008, p. 49) argues that Iraq, which was labelled a rogue state, was already a focal point of foreign policy but the events of 9/11 allowed policymakers to push their specific agenda: Influential strategists within the Bush administration seized on the horror to gain assent from liberal Americans to move the country towards a war in Iraq that neoconservative strategists desired, but that many within the US shunned. Holland (2012) concurs, arguing that coercive rhetoric was used extensively in order to sell the War on Terror via culturally embedded discourse. In addition, Miles (2013, p. 110) advocates that Bushs placement of rogue states at the centre of Americas response to 9/11 was welcomed as an opportunity to overthrow a number of old threats and terror loving tyrannies who stood in the way of democracy and freedom. This perspective certainly offers a credible insight as to how 9/11 was manipulated in order to push foreign policy in a certain direction, and indeed one that was a continuation of what had gone before. However, the need to manipulate public opinion is indicative of the fact that foreign policy had deviated from that in place directly prior to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre. US foreign policy has also responded to the increased demand for humanitarian assistance to aid failed states and nation building to ensure their reconstruction following 9/11. Shannon (2009) points out that the reconstruction of Afghanistan fo llowing the US invasion there has essentially helped to prevent the failure of the state, improve the quality of life for its people, introduce freedoms and democratic processes that were absent before and aided the avoidance of the state being controlled by terrorists. This was certainly a change from previous foreign policy: Before 9/11, nation building was often caricatured as a form of idealistic altruism divorced from hard-headed foreign policy realism In the post-9/11 era, nation-building has a hard-headed strategic rationale: to prevent weak or failing states from falling prey to terrorist groups (Litwak, 2007, p. 313). This summary of the extent to which attitudes changed highlights the fact that a greater role in states that required humanitarian assistance was incorporated into foreign policy out of necessity rather than ideological choice. There was a distinct need to limit terrorist activity as far as possible and this actively manifested in this element of foreign polic y. As Litwak (2007) points out, humanitarian action was not a staple element of American foreign policy by any means and so this, more than any other element of foreign policy, does signal that a change occurred within the strategic objectives inherent in the War on Terror. However, there are criticisms of this particular change because the US is charged with failing to follow through with humanitarian aid to the extent that it should have done. For example, Johnstone and Laville (2010) suggest that the reconstruction of Afghanistan was effectively abandoned with a failure to create institutions that would withstand future threats to freedom and democracy. This suggests that this particular area of strategy was not well thought out and did not achieve its ultimate aims. However, the fact that it was included in US foreign policy post-9/11 suggests that there was a concerted effort to implement a multifaceted policy to tackle terrorism as a new and dangerous global strategic threat. However, despite the fact that the analysis here points to a change of direction for US foreign policy in the wake of 9/11 that was specifically designed to tackle the causes of and security threat posed by terrorism, some critical areas of policy did not change. For example, the long term objectives of the US were still manifest within new policy but they appeared in a different form that essentially provided a response to a different threat. Leffler (2011, n. pag.) argues that 9/11: did not change the world or transform the long-term trajectory of US grand strategy. The United States quest for primacy, its desire to lead the world, its preference for an open door and free markets, its concern with military supremacy, its readiness to act unilaterally when deemed necessary, its eclectic merger of interests and values, its sense of indispensability à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" all these remained, and remain, unchanged. This summary of the ultimate goals of US foreign policy draws att ention to the fact that very little has changed. Although the British government supported the invasion of Iraq in the wake of 9/11, the fact that the United Nations Security Council refused to pass a resolution condoning the use of force did not prevent the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Hybel, 2014). This is evidence of the readiness to act unilaterally if it serves their interests. Gaddis concurs, noting that US self-interest remained the same with very little consideration of long term strategy that intervention elsewhere would require. Bolton (2008, p. 6), on the other hand, agrees that many of the changes to US foreign policy were made immediately but he disagrees with the assertions of Leffler and Gaddis concerning their long term impact. Bolton (2008, pp. 6-7) asserts that the changes have caused a longer-term impact, albeit one that has diminished over time as a result of the enduring nature of the national security policy and its evolution to accommodate the threat of terrorism in the wake of 9/11. Although this provides a dissenting voice in one respect, it demonstrates consensus on the fact that the changes in US foreign policy post-9/11 were a direct response to a new global threat but they were implemented alongside existing strategic goals. In effect, the approach may have changed but the ultimate objective had not. In conclusion, the analysis here has identified and discussed several changes that occurred within US foreign policy post-9/11. There can be little doubt that there was a distinct shift in focus to the need to deal with terrorism after the first attack on American soil for seventy years. Similarly, the policy content evolved to adopt a more humanitarian approach to global crises and a proactive and pre-emptive approach to potential threats. All of these changes did mark a departure from what had gone before in some way. However, although the majority of changes were incorporated into foreign policy within two years and were al l undoubtedly a response to the attack and its causes, there is significant evidence to suggest that such actions provided an extension of foreign policy doctrine that had gone before. For example, although the focus of foreign policy shifted from the old Cold War objectives of containment and deterrence to terrorism, the interest policymakers took in some rogue states like Iraq was simply a continuation of established ideologies of ensuring freedom and democracy. Similarly, the US administration of foreign policy changed very little in terms of its determination to act unilaterally where necessary and lead the world in a battle against the latest threat to global security. As such, it is possible to conclude that many of the changes to US foreign policy in the post-9/11 era have been a response to the evolving security threat posed by terrorism. Furthermore, it was necessary for policy to evolve in order to accommodate strategies that address modern problems that were not as much o f a priority in the late 20th century. However, whilst those changes made an immediate impact on foreign policy, it did not alter the long-term course of US foreign policy because that remained firmly focused on the outcomes of action elsewhere in the world in relation to American interests. Bibliography Bentley, M. Holland, J., (2013). Obamas Foreign Policy: Ending the War on Terror. Abingdon: Routledge. Bolton, M., (2008). 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