06-22-2008, 12:19 AM
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Senior Member
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Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 200
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Thanked 34 Times in 28 Posts
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Hating America
Quote:
There is always a market for an ideology of discontent�it allows those outside the mainstream to relate to the world. These beliefs usually form in reaction to the world�s dominant reality. So the rise of capitalism and democracy over the last 200 years produced ideologies of opposition from the left (communism, socialism) and from the right (hypernationalism, fascism). Today, the dominant reality in the world is the power of the United States, currently being wielded in a particularly aggressive manner. Anti-Americanism is becoming the way people think about the world and position themselves within it. It is a mindset that extends beyond politics to economic and cultural realms. So, in recent elections in Brazil, Germany, Pakistan, Kuwait, and Spain, the United States became a campaign issue. In all these places, resisting U.S. power won votes. Nationalism in many countries is being defined in part as anti-Americanism: Can you stand up to the superpower?
Much has been written about what the United States can do to help arrest and reverse these trends. But it is worth putting the shoe on the other foot for a moment. Imagine a world without the United States as the global leader. Even short of the imaginative and intelligent scenario of chaos that British historian Niall Ferguson outlined in this magazine (see �A World Without Power,� July/August 2004), it would certainly look grim. There are many issues on which the United States is the crucial organizer of collective goods. Someone has to be concerned about terrorism and nuclear and biological proliferation. Other countries might bristle at certain U.S. policies, but would someone else really be willing to bully, threaten, cajole, and bribe countries such as Libya to renounce terror and dismantle their WMD programs? On terror, trade, AIDs, nuclear proliferation, U.N. reform, and foreign aid, U.S. leadership is indispensable.
The temptation to go its own way will be greatest for Europe, the only other player with the resources and tradition to play a global role. But if Europe defines its role as being different from the United States�kinder, gentler, whatever�will that really produce a more stable world? U.S. and European goals on most issues are quite similar. Both want a peaceful world free from terror, with open trade, growing freedom, and civilized codes of conduct. A Europe that charts its own course just to mark its differences from the United States threatens to fracture global efforts�whether on trade, proliferation, or the Middle East. Europe is too disunited to achieve its goals without the United States; it can only ensure that America�s plans don�t succeed. The result will be a world that muddles along, with the constant danger that unattended problems will flare up disastrously. Instead of win-win, it will be lose-lose�for Europe, for the United States, and for the world.
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Foreign Policy: Hating America
Raises some interesting points. Personally I think the myth that the U.S. can remain a 'neutral' is just silly; it never has been able to stay free from foreign entanglements. Jefferson even resigned from the Vice Presidency when the attempt to make neutrality Federal policy was decided on, and of course the results of what happened to John Jay's attempts at 'neutrality' treaties with England and France quickly disabused our leadership of that notion ever being practicable. We've done an admirable job of foreign policy as a country, even as it can be compared to the old saying about 'wrestling in the mud with pigs', and there is really no chance we can ever remain 'neutral' for long, just as there is certainly no chance the world would be 'better off' if we stayed out of the fray.
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