Honesty is the Best Policy

In his book Rise to Globalism-American Foreign Policy 1938-1976 (Penguin Books, 1971, 1976), Stephen E. Ambrose writes;
"Before the war (World War II) most Americans had a rather curious view of the world scene. They believed in a natural harmony of interests between nations, assumed there was a common commitment to peace, and argued that no nation or people could profit from a war. These beliefs implied that peace was the normal condition between states, and that war, if it came, was an aberration resulting for the irrational acts of evil or psychotic men." Mr. Ambrose further states; "It was equally strange that a nation that had had one major war per generation of its existance, plus almost continuous warfare on its frontier, could assume that peace was the natural condition of states."

This is an excellent summary of American foreign policy; one that can be described as the belief that all the people of the world want to be like us but evil dictators/leaders/governments are stopping them. That the United States is justified in "exporting democracy", even at gunpoint, because all the various races, cultures, and huddled masses really want McDonalds, Coca-Cola, baseball and apple pie-and they're just waiting for us to liberate them so they can rise up against their oppressors. And buy stuff from us.

There's a term for this type of thinking: ethnocentricity. We are so damn sure that our way is the right way, that we make no allowance for cultures and traditions; many of whom have existed far longer than ours. Our political and military leaders have for decades labored under the assumption that we can, in fact, police the world and deliver stability and democracy to every single corner of the planet. At least, democracy and stability as we define it- and if it protects and expands our interests.

Building upon the hegemony rationale of the Monroe Doctrine, the subsequent Truman Doctrine further stated that Truman (and by supporting it, the American people) believed 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". The Eisenhower and Kennedy Doctrines went even further in incorporating the self-evidency of America's claim to interfere in other nation's policies and deciding who shall be in power in those nations. That the United States military and/or government might be construed as "armed minorities or outside pressures" seems to have not been a consideration. Or, put another way, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

Another hallmark of American foreign policy for the last 50 or so years has been America's adversion to sacrifice, preferring to give money and arms without committing actual troops-we have had a tendency to want to pay others to do our fighting. Starting with the land-lease programs of the second World War through the Iran-Contra scandals right up to Blackwater, we'd rather expend money and material which we have quite a bit of, and avoid loss of manpower. Even on the occasions that we send troops to battle, we generally try to rationalize expenditure with bottom-line assessments and cost containment- more money is expended on technology than on troops.

Racism has also played a part in policies; extractive treaties and corporate land ownership lay beneath the official cover story of humanitarian aid for Third World countries. Outright ignorance or dismissive attitudes toward native cultures and needs were necessary in order to obtain raw materials and resources that were needed for our consumer driven lifestyle. In virtually all the emerging or Third World countries we have "helped", we have established military bases thereby expanding our borders and increasing our economic and military interests that, in turn, need our economic and military protection.

One of the necessary cogs in the wheels of foreign policy is a complacent and uninformed public; one that is easily manipulated to the will of our leaders. From revisionist history taught in government schools to wholesale control of the mass media, policy makers have been able to sell the American public on what the military industrial complex needed to gain support for foreign adventures.

By far the most distastful aspect of American foreign policy is the "Kill em all, let God sort em out" attitude, both in actual warfare and cultural understanding as epitomized by our strategies for winning the hearts and minds of our enemies. Quoting Mr. Ambrose in Rise to Globalism again: "The Americans talked incessantly about 'pacification' and winning the hearts and minds of the people while Nixon dropped new record tonnage of bombs on the people." Another example from the Viet Nam war that dovetails perfectly with current events in Iraq, Mr. Ambrose notes; "...doves (in the government) pointed out that the American military had already killed more Vietnamese than the Viet Cong ever could, and that listening to Richard Nixon-the Commander in Chief of the greatest offensive air attack in history, mostly directed at civilian targets - talk about the value of human life was hard to take." From Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Shock and Awe, our foreign policy has long depended on the ability to annhiliate and destroy and it's citizens have unquestioningly accepted making war to ensure peace. Along the way, precious and irreplaceable treasures and historical evidence from Mesopotamia have been destroyed in our attempt to preserve our way of life.

I believe we will not win wars, let alone the hearts and minds of other people, until we understand that it is not necessary for other nations and people to be just like us; that we need to be mindful of different cultures and cultural history. To understand that other people want for their citizens what we want- prosperity and a better future for their children; and avoid being motivated by what we can get out of their land. As long as our only advantages are money and arms we will find it impossible to go up against those whose advantages are passion and defending their homeland.