Obama has been critiqued by some conservatives for a lack of sufficient embrace of “American exceptionalism,” which is normally defined as the view that America is a unique nation, with a unique international role, which views that role as chiefly a positive for the advancement of human rights and justice around the world. As the Washington Times put the matter:
President Obama’s reference to British or Greek exceptionalism suggests a belief that the United States doesn’t stand alone with a particular greatness but that every nation is great in its own way and America is simply one of many nations with something cool to offer.
This kind of multicultural, politically correct, “we’re all unique in unique ways, every kid must win at dodgeball” thinking is the basis for his economic and foreign policies, from his schemes to nationalize the auto, banking, and health care industries to his lollygagging on behalf of those fighting for greater freedom in Iran.
So, we are led to believe by interventionist neoconservatives and others, the choice is between the John McCain and George W. Bush approach that would have America involved everywhere fighting for democracy and justice. And, on the other hand, we have the “internationalist” approach of Barack Obama, which also wants to be involved in the world, but shows contempt not only for America’s military and diplomatic power, but contempt for all distinctive aspects of America, such as free markets and limited government, an historical people of mostly European ancestry, a history of very charitable treatment of the defeated in foreign conflicts, and an historical desire to maintain sovereignty and independence.
Missing from this false dichotomy, and the political scene generally, is a true nationalist voice that is neither excessively indebted to nor overly influenced by or concerned with the rest of the world. A humble view that is aware of our limitations and jealous of our advantages. A view that does not seek to manage or influence the world with the exception chiefly of providing a good example to others and protecting what is ours.
America’s foreign policy and sense of self was, to some extent, permanently altered by its heading down the wrong road in World War I. That was the war “to make the world safe for democracy” where our elites’ first widely embraced the idea that we should be transforming the world to make the rest of it more like America. It’s not clear this sunk very deep in ordinary Americans’ consciousness. It took Pearl Harbor for America to get involved in World War II, in spite of FDR’s best efforts, and the Cold War was largely understood as a unique threat that called for a unique response by Americans fearful of domination by an aggressive internationalist ideology. Even then, Americans desire not to get too involved in unnecessary conflict eventually led to an early withdrawal from Vietnam and a more practical approach of containment, with a special emphasis on our backyard in the Western Hemisphere. In any case, regardless of the merits and rhetoric of that lengthy detour, the world changed dramatically with the fall of the Soviet Union, and Americans more or less remained aloof from and only mildly supportive of our activities overseas in the 1990s.
With the 9/11 attacks, like Pearl Harbor, Americans widely called for tribal revenge for our murdered countrymen. Bush and Obama both have misread the cause of this attack as the lack of American-style institutions overseas, and Bush in particular sought in its aftermath to make the spreading of democracy in the Middle East by force of American arms the central strategy, even when ordinary revenge attacks would have sufficed for his conservative supporters. Some conservatives, liberals, and moderates all eventually soured on the nation-building approach in Iraq in particular. Obama now has scaled back these ambitions, even as he desires to get foreigners and international institutions more involved in controlling America and its policies, whether on carbon output or the use of force and much else. His incoherence reflects this tradition of division between foreign involvement as “savior of the world” and its equally liberal counterpart in the form of deference to the UN and suspicion of American unilateralism of all types.
What neoconservatives and liberals both reject is the tradition of American non-intervenetionism. The distinct American tradition is one of avoidance of controlling and being controlled by foreigners. It stretches from George Washington’s Farewell Address and the Monroe Doctrine, to the so-called Know-Nothings, and more recently to Charles Lindbergh, Robert Taft, and Pat Buchanan. It has been the abiding idiom of American conservatism. It is the real exceptionalism because, in addressing the uses of American power, it does not seek domination of others whether from the will to power or the missionary impulse to transform the rest of the world. Its ideas on the use of force are largely defensive and focused on the preservation of the American way of life. It’s a view largely absent from both parties, yet it finds support in what is likely a majority of working class ethnic whites, business-oriented conservatives, many Vietnam veterans, as well as a swath of anti-war Americans who come from a variety of traditions.
The nationalist is against the proposed surge in Afghanistan (and was against saving the anarchy of Somalia or liberating the supposedly victimized Kosovars) not because such acts are an evil to these people–to them, they are probably on balance a good–but because such activity distracts us from our chief concern, which is our own flourishing as a people and the protection of a distinct way of life from foreign attack and excessive foreign influence. This older tradition has the benefit of being more just, less costly, and more consistent with free institutions and fiscal austerity than the so-called “American exceptionalism” of the bellicose neoconservatives.
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It is quite true that anti-interventionism is the classic American foreign policy. It is also quite true that the American people are easily manipulated into abandoning this wise policy. Those in power can easily arrange to involve us in wars, as did Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson and both Bushes. I don’t know the cure for this disease; my congressman is a Republican militarist as was his predecessor (his father) and the Democrats are no better (except rhetorically).
The problem is that both our leadership cadres in every walk of life and the American people in general are still to a large degree in the grip of Wilsonian interventionist (“We are going down in Mexico to teach the Mexicans how to elect good men!”) idealism. Unless and until this overriding ethos is changed, I see little that will cause this nation to deviate much from its present path–no matter which party is in power. The ability as a nation to play gimlet-eyed “Perfidious Albion” when necessary is practically non-existent, so deeply is this sociocultural idealistic trait ingrained in the fabric of our national collective psyche.
Two points re: interventionism. (And can there be an uglier word in the language?)
First, the conservatives are as much to blame as the carriers of this disease. Other than PB, when’s the last time one of them ballyhooed staying the hell home and minding one’s own beeswax? Pity about their silence. They miss a golden chance for distinction-but fail to seize it because they, like the rest of blowhards, invaribaly opt for this “let’s go get the bad guys” mantra when the lights go on.
Two, follow the money. Forget ideology or some esoteric angle as the cause for interventionism’s global march. The military has pulled its own bait and switch; note: not the soldiers-the complex. Yea, that one. You think half the reason we’re still in Afghanistan and 55 +/- other nations with tanks and planes and bombs and BACKORDERS galore for more is pure chance? Please. Do the math. Interventionism prints money, bro.
So follow the money, to quote whoever. Oh, and who exactly on the right is going to stand athwart from that little secret wisdom, brother Roach?
One can certainly argue the merits of any particular military intervention. But what you are calling “non-interventionism” is simply a cover for isolationism. Gone our the days when America could sit back comfortably and allow the world to go to hell, secure in the knowledge that the oceans were too big for anyone to come and bother us. 9/11 certianly proved that.
The neoconservative argument is that once you have identified your enemy, it is better to fight him in his land than in yours. But even if you do not accept that, or if you buy into the liberal tripe that the fasadi terrorists would be our friends if we simply pulled out and let them take over the world, the simple fact is that nature abhors a vacuum. Were the US to voluntarily relinquish its position of power in the world – power that is maintained by having a worldwide military presence – someone else will step in to fill that vacancy. I think you would agree that whoever that someone might be (Russia? China? Iran/Cuba/Venezuela?) they are unlikely to share our values or have our best interests at heart.
I agree that it should not be the job of the US to get involved in the domestic disputes of other countries – until and unless those disputes start to spill over their borders or create safe harbors for those who want us all dead. Keep in mind, had the Taliban been willing to kick Al Qaeda out of their country the way Sudan did, we would never have gone to war there. They made their choice and I for one do not weep for them.
I don’t think others would have our best interests at heart, but I’d rather preserve our power and manage a handful of other nations bleeding themselves white to preserve order than doing so ourselves with such lackluster results.
Mr. Roach – So then you are only against intervention when it’s unsuccessful? How convenient
No, I’m against the current policy, which is destined to fail, because it’s overly ambitious. I think most of our interventions have been “unsuccessful.” I did support most of our cold war policies, and this has led me to disagree with others on the paleocon right. But I think post-cold-war we had and still mostly have the opportunity to adopt a less interventionist policy focused on defense.
OK, that’s a nuanced position, let me probe it a bit. If I understand correctly, your support for Cold War policies involving certain foreign interventions is based on your view that international Communism represents a fundamental threat to our security and way of life. But isn’t that essentially conceding the question of the ethic of interventionism? It simply becomes a matter of a difference of opinion over what does and does not constitute a threat significant enough to justify our involvement. You and I might agree that some events did and some events did not, but there would probably be a whole swathe of them in between where we simply disagree. But in what way is your position then a generally “anti-interventionist” one, rather than simply a milder form of my “interventionist” one?
Because I generally lean against interventionism and think any interventionism has a high burden of proof. I think the Cold War met that burden, but that few threats since then do. I do think we’re morally entitled to intervene against radical Islam and blow up terror camps and governments that support them, but I disagree that we should be trying to create democracies in this backwards region or generally should be trying to “preserve stability.” The latter is the watchword of the international and itnerventionist consensus, and I think it’s a blank check principle that degrades American power.
I think we agree more than we disagree. I don’t think the Bush Administration invaded Iraq with the idea of creating a democracy there – I think that came afterwards when we had to occupy and administer it. I do agree that “preserving stability” alone is no basis for a military intervention. I think that the difference between you and those you are calling interventionists is not nearly so great as you think – or as I thought when I accused you above of being an isolationist, which I withdraw.
I invite you to search my other posts about foreign policy in general and see where we agree and disagree. Thanks for visiting.
Check this out:
http://www.miamiherald.com/915/story/1395028.html
The Brazilian grandmother exposes the backasswardness of South American views on gender. What she says is actually an insult to women (and an accurate statement of Brazilian and South American attitudes)–not that she’s educated enough to even begin to realize it. She is saying that women are baby factories and mothers, nothing more. She is saying her culture would not expect a father to want or have any role in raising his child. (He’s out drinking and sleeping with and eventually beating the next woman, right? That’s to be expected of a South American man.) (S. American abuela cannot imagine a father actually raising a child, because she’s never seen a S. American man in her country do it.) (She’s never even seen a man change a single diaper and she can’t contemplate that such a thing could happen.) (She has no books in the house, not even the Bible she purports to follow, and she has no education and does not see the value of an education, so she can’t contemplate that it might be better for the child to be raised in the United States by an educated father (not that I even need these arguments–he’s the father, period) who will encourage him to value reading and learning so he can make something of himself.)
Any gringo father who made the mistake of marrying a South American woman knows the idea of “abuela” (by definition, crazy–believes in voodoo and all sorts of witch medicinal crap, such as “eat mud to cure a backache” and stupid things like that) raising his children if the mother dies, as opposed to the father, is maddening enough to cause paralysis from the anger.
I wish your Catholic hell actually existed, so I could sleep knowing that this mother (now dead, luckily for the world) would go there upon Jesus’ return. (According to the Bible, which few practicing Christians have read, she’s not there yet, just as Granny is not yet up in Heaven with God–we all have to wait for Jesus’ return and God establishing the new Jewish Kingdom on Earth for dead folks to go to either heaven or hell.)
I wish I could go to sleep tonight knowing that this ignorant witch who used her Brazilian boobs to seduce this gringo and then stole his child, and then died in childbirth, was in hell.
When you have a child, you’ll understand my feelings on this matter.
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