Flirting With Commitment: America's Relationship With International Democracy
Alex Djerassi '06
Sitting down to lunch with my French grandmother over Fall Break, I came to realize an Old European conception of America. That conception, a complicated mix of fear and admiration, currently causes European nations to chafe at US decision-making. Discord among NATO nations has perhaps never been more dangerous – and introspection on the part of the US never been more necessary – than today.
“After September 11th 2001 many of my friends were saying that America was getting its just desserts,” my Grandma Betty related to me in her well-worn Anglo-French dialect. I was hearing, for the first time, inside dirt on what the French thought about America, and my initial reaction was that I would learn, from the source, about Old Europe’s terrific distaste for the U.S. But Betty quickly disabused me of that simplistic “with us or against us” view of American-European relations.
Her voice rising, her eyes burning into mine, she continued: “I told them that I would not hear them speaking like that. I feel quite fondly for America. Twice they came to the rescue – before I was born, in 1918 – and what did they ever get out of it? A lot of dead young soldiers; death is what they got. And again in my lifetime America saved us from Hitler.” Amazingly to me, it was not America’s victimization at the hands of terrorists that sparked my grandmother’s defense of the U.S.A., but rather our history of defense of global democracy.
A child of Post-Vietnam Syndrome America and its morbidly cynical view of U.S. international affairs, I have always tended to perceive American foreign policy as one of failure and unabashed national-interest. Listening to my grandmother, for the first time I realized the intricacy and nuance of American support for democratic values and governments. Clearly, President Bush’s ‘America, Love It Or Leave It’ belief in American infallibility is simply wrong; but so is the perception of the US as an evil empire. Betty’s defense of America displayed the impact that American support for democratic governance can have on world opinion. In the current age of globalization and its discontents, international opinion and the forces that shape it may determine the battles to be fought in the elusive War on Terror. Ideas and perceptions are integral to U.S. and international security. Only by undertaking to comprehend why and what the world thinks about America, can American government act wisely to better provide future protection for its citizens.
The United States of America suddenly became the home of the brave and the land of the free in 1776. The nation’s unique founding on the basis of belief in inalienable rights, rather than exclusive cultural or national identity, has perhaps more than any other factor shaped the way the United States is viewed – and judged – from abroad. One popular notion abroad is that the purpose of the United States is to act as a homeland not only for American free and American brave, but also for the “free and the brave” of the world, regardless of nationality. Attached to this notion is the view that the people of the world deserve American aid, support, and leadership by example.
Despite the failure of the United States to consistently promote and support democracy over the last century, much of the American potential has been realized. Arguably the nation’s three seminal contributions to the history of international affairs – its role in the first and second World Wars and its lead in establishing the United Nations – are three of the brightest moments of recent world history, each making the world safer, freer and more democratic.
America’s 1917 entry into a bloody and deadlocked war in Europe, despite the nation’s protectionist, isolationist leanings, speaks to its truest convictions. President Woodrow Wilson ‘79 proclaimed that the United States “shall fight for the things we have always carried nearest our hearts – for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government… as shall make the world itself at last free.” The defeat of Prussian autocracy in World War I marks a crucial turning point in world history, away from a tide of autocratic rule and toward the spread and general acceptance of political and economic liberalism. In evaluating World War II and the incipient United Nations, President Harry Truman declared before a joint session of Congress that “it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”
In World War I, World War II, and the establishment of the United Nations, these statements of U.S. intent were fully borne out in their actions. When President Bush claimed in an address to the nation that, “After defeating enemies, we did not leave behind occupying armies” but “constitutions and parliaments,” silent applause rang out from the walls of the German Reichstag and the Japanese Diet.
However, our belief in our manifest and moral destiny, if indeed we ever shared it, has curdled over the last 100 years. As Americans, we are exhilarated by our own independence. We grow giddy thinking about our freedom. Our idealism has been replaced by complacency, concealing any flaws in our government’s actions from our eyes. Under the cover of this complacency, U.S. participation in world affairs has regressed to such a degree that American foreign policy today resembles that of the European nations that we once defied and overthrew.
As with the foreign policies of the British or Spanish empires centuries ago, modern U.S. foreign policy is aimed at the preservation and promotion of American hegemony. U.S. policy is often warped, not by a desire to benefit the dreamers and discontented of the world, but rather the entrepreneurs, bankers, and military strategists of America. American actions on the world stage since the turn of the 19th century have lacked the tenacity of purpose and the moral discipline fundamental to our commitment to the world.
This commitment is undeniable. The Declaration of Independence, which appeals to the rights and justice due all men and our nation’s fulfillment of those words for itself, imbued Americans with the responsibility to maintain that opportunity for others. A commitment to democracy, humanity, and freedom is deeply embedded in our country’s history and our national self-identity. In a March 2003 address, President George W. Bush spoke of this historic “commitment” to establishing democracy. In a speech televised around the world, the President related his military operation in Iraq to the historic promise of the American nation. “America has made and kept this kind of commitment before,” the President said. An examination of the conduct of U.S. foreign relations, especially Operation Iraqi Freedom, reveals that President Bush’s statements reflect the history of American rhetoric about U.S. international policy at the same time that they misrepresent the actual history of American actions abroad.
The speeches, press briefings, and statements of American officials are always consistent with the implied responsibility of our revolutionary nation. Examples of fiery, moralistic statements by government officers have been made as far back as the Spanish-American War. In 1898, Senator Redfield Proctor spoke of the “population of Cuba, struggling for freedom and deliverance from the worst misgovernment of which I ever had knowledge.” The speech ignited moral outrage and brought Americans to believe, in the words of one newspaper, that intervention in Cuba was “the plain duty of the United States on the simple ground of humanity.” This has historically been the rhetoric for all American foreign intervention. The true motivations, however, are often quite different.
Scrutinizing official government statements about foreign policy often reveals certain policies to be morally dubious, if not abject failures. The Cold War gave rise to Cold War ideology in America. This new view professed that, because of communism’s global intentions, any action undertaken to thwart Soviet communism was in fact a step toward the larger and historic goal of freedom and justice for all. This line of thinking was partly responsible for, or at least helped conceal the true motivations for, the Vietnam War, the Reagan administration’s embroilment in the Iran-Contra scandal, and the violent suppression of popular movements around the world.
The suppression of popular governments and the support of violent, often anti-democratic regimes was touted as abetting our commitment to democratic values under the banner of anti-communism. U.S. aid and training were used to strengthen the oppressive authoritarian regime of Duarte in El Salvador. Similarly, the Reagan administration employed U.S. aid and funding to weaken the popular Nicaraguan government despite the administration's recognition of that government's popular legitimacy. The Cold War marks an obvious divergence of official fiction from fact. The specter of the War on Terrorism raises a similar opportunity for government officials to rationalize actions that contradict our historic commitment to democratic values.
For one glaring example of economic and political interests compromising the veracity of our public commitments, one needs to look no further than President Jimmy Carter’s demands for the universal protection of human rights. Historian Howard Jones writes: “Carter attacked the repressive tactics of Fidel Castro in Cuba and Idi Amin in Uganda… But the president ignored similarly harsh practices in countries important to U.S. interests, such as Iran, Nicaragua, the Philippines, South Korea, and Zaire (formerly the Congo).” Again, the statement of U.S. policy was made in the air surrounding the presidential podium and then neglected on the ground in Africa and Asia. Hypocrisy in Carter’s enforcement of human rights is evidence of the rarity of policy made solely out of concern for the U.S. commitment to democracy and justice.
The alignment of U.S. political and economic interests with humanist motivations has often been relegated to the level of convenience rather than necessity. Even in cases in which those interests do coincide, America’s pursuit of human interests is spotty at best. President Carter’s efforts in Zimbabwe (then called Rhodesia) to bring about transition from white, minority rule to a freely- and democratically-elected government, manifests such a failure. Zimbabwe and other African states under the rule of oppressive, minority regimes appeared to pose both an opportunity and a threat to the U.S. in the Cold War. If the U.S. continued to support the repressive regimes, the Soviet Union could encourage a popular uprising by the majority black population. However, if the U.S. could bring about political change in these nations, it might foil Soviet expansion and enjoy favorable economic ties with the region. In a part of the world long traumatized and oppressed, these Cold War aims conveniently coincided with the historic American commitment to democracy and freedom. Zimbabwe appeared to present the ideal opportunity for the United States to prove its commitment to establishing democracy. Carter officially condemned apartheid and pressured the British to reform their old colony.
In 1980, U.S. promotion of democracy appeared successful, as Robert Mugabe was elected president by way of ostensibly free and fair elections. However, the United States failed to support and protect democracy in Zimbabwe in the long run America turned a blind eye to Mugabe’s campaign of ethnic cleansing, which killed thousands of Zimbabweans. He has consolidated his power in the country, fixed elections, dismissed supreme justices, currently controls a puppet parliament, and continues to silence the free press. The United States has expended countless reams of paper and hours of airtime condemning Mugabe, but still it has not taken material action.
The track record of the United States in promoting and supporting democratic governments is characterized by its monumental successes and the mortal flaw of its inconsistency. Absolute perfection in word and deed cannot be expected. However, we can expect more from our nation than chasing about at the imperialistic whim of American capital. The American people must demand that a higher moral standard be applied to our conduct abroad. The greater victory of the powers of freedom and democracy that was won in World War II is right now being corroded by continued disparities between our professed commitment to democracy and our not-so-secret disdain for that commitment. Great threats to international peace are based on global perceptions of the U.S. and our actions today effect how our previous and future efforts are to be judged; we hold in our hands the fate of America’s past and the World’s future.