First published in March '24, before the second election of Mr. Trump, the present discussion of American foreign policy in its historical context has gained urgency
Ambitions to extend the American 'imperium', witnessed today, may be ill-conceived but, by asserting military power and economic dominance, Mr. Trump embarks on a familiar course of action and Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. President from 1904 to 1909, may have been its most vocal proponent, more than a century ago
Recurring time and again in U.S. foreign affairs, the will to dominate aims to reassure, with a show of international strength, a troubled America, uncertain of its mission and of its ablility to rise to the challenges
Lurching between moral confidence and staunch power decrees, the essence of U.S. foreign policy reflects the country's social fabric and its defining feature is anxiety
The narrow path protecting American interests, reassuring apprehensive U.S. citizens and mending bridges with skeptical allies is almost invisible in the bushes of political grandstanding
...which does not mean such a path does not exist and cannot bring the nation together for a common purpose
For decades, American foreign policy has been torn between two very different moral visions which were both inspired by the country’s great strengths, enduring success and openness to infinite venues of creative endeavor
The humanistic strand, one of democratic trust founded on mutal acceptance between nations, mirrors the principles guiding the great majority of Americans in their daily lives
Deeply felt sentiments of moral righteousness are reflected in the nation's ingrained optimism and by American passion, tinged by a whiff of romanticism
Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats, addressed by radio during his entire presidency (1933-1944), resonate with us today by conveying the trust, the resilience and the belief in fellow human beings, which are very much alive in America
This is not to suggest that American foreign policy has been immune of the temptation to assert overwhelming power in foreign affairs
US policy has been - and undoubtedly will again - attempt to force its international vision on reluctant partners by discounting whatever reality may exist on the ground
Theodore Roosevelt, in the early 20th Century, saw US intervention as a 'responsability', an 'obligation to international equity' and, by establishing a corollary to the Monroe doctrine in 1905, as a duty to exercise an 'internal police power' in the Americas
Predictably, when the problems are - or seem to become - intractable, such moral crusades quickly revert to bullying and intolerant brutality, firing up national insecurity and high emotion, and a leader of opinion will be at the ready to stir the people to action...
Such are the two strands defining the world view of the American people - magnanimity might be dominant but arrogance remains alive in the wings
The two Roosevelts
Deeply rooted in America’s missionary zeal are hardwired convictions – turned into slogans about ‘manifest destiny’ or about ‘making the world safe for democracy’
In international relations, such high-minded expectations could only disappoint because the higher the ambitions, the more inevitable overextension in the exercise of power
Not so long ago, the two strands in US foreign affairs would swing gently between the generous appeal of Franklin Roosevelt, an encouragement to magnanimity and human understanding, and the forceful messianism of Theodore Roosevelt, an iron conviction, bordering on intolerance, to set global affairs right
This is not to suggest that American foreign policy is rooted in unassailable self-assurance
In fact, the opposite may be true
Unstinting support by truly reliable allies counts for much to support America’s magnanimous mood, bringing reassurance against self-doubt lurking behind many decisions
Conversely, full-throated assertions of American greatness could easily veil misunderstandings about the world at large, and should best be ignored for want of credible resolutions
Lack of self-assurance could have been a factor in the maddening swings of US international policy, hard to square with America’s considerable – and undisputable – might
Still, the policies inspired by the two Roosevelts were taken on, with all their contradictions, by the American society while the stakes were immense and potentially destructive, in two World Wars and with Theodore’s aggressive stance earlier on
That was then… and social cohesion may in fact have been buttressed time and again by America's remarkable dynamism and inherent optimistic outlook on life
A critical juncture
Writing in 1966, Senator Fulbright, extensively quoted in ‘the Great Game’, could assert that the country was at a critical juncture where an all-powerful nation might have to resist the temptation of arrogance, after notching up a string of ‘successes’ – real one’s or passing for the real thing
After WWII and Korea, Mr. Fulbright was writing before the Vietnam war would prove to be a far more socially divisive acid test than imagined early on
Feeding the anxiety never far below the surface of America’s unruly democracy, Vietnam would indeed become a ‘critical juncture’, not in the sense imagined by the Senator but knee-capping the country’s self-esteem all the same
After Vietnam, America seemingly found its breath with Ronald Reagan’s Administration, and the 1980’s remain in retrospective a blessed time: foreign policy for a time at least, set out a path between magnanimity and messianism, between universal values and intolerance, by updating the Rooseveltian policies for relevance
Natan Sharansky, a human-rights activist, author and former Soviet dissident and Israeli politician, calls for precisely such a stand, forceful and assured, yet democratic and humane, in his call to action against autocracies
Archival documents recently released by the White House show how the administration of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s repeatedly insisted on raising three groups of questions with the Soviets:
the arms race and disarmament; co-operation on trade, other economic issues and science; and human rights in the Soviet Union, with an emphasis on the fate of democratic dissidents.
The Soviet reaction to the last of these was always “It is an internal affair”. America’s response was “Yes, but our public opinion is so sensitive to this issue that it doesn’t let us move on other parts of the agenda without having progress here.”
Confrontations with the apparatus of the USSR may have been multifarious but the outcome earned Ronald Reagan a reputation
That was then … and even if a whiff of nostalgia will embellish the achievements, world affairs would again turn on their axis, the end of the Cold War enacting the exhaustion of Communist dreams, the dynamics of China’s emergence redefining the terms of US power overextension, and international terrorism armed with novel weaponry escalating the challenge of military intervention
At fever pitch
The scars left from Vietnam on America’s social tissue were going to ding foreign ventures with ever greater frequency
Successive American Administrations may – or may not – have resisted the attraction in the exercise of sheer power at ever turn, but the arrogance projected by dominant autocracies – by nuclear Russia and by economic powerhouse China – and the lethal role of sprawling terrorist outfits – has drawn the US into a combative stance, unloved – and certainly poorly supported by the American people
Failures in the Middle East, from Iraq (discussed in ‘the Great Game’) to Afghanistan, and lack of clarity about the stakes in Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and in South-East Asia, rocked by China's apparent vindictiveness, has left America without the moral compass underpinning the country’s humanistic traditions
Confronted with poorly defined goals, a lack of exit strategies – of which Iraq and Afghanistan remain the more tragic examples – and never-ending foreign entanglements, the American voter will be forgiven to pull up the drawbridge, if given the chance by opportunistic politicians
A case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater
Retiring under the proverbial tent surely is a temptation for war-weary Americans, still unclear about what their military engagements were supposed to achieve, and truly aggrieved by unproductive war efforts distracting successive administrations from domestic priorities
With a keen sense of political opportunism, former President Donald Trump won the implicit support of an overwhelming majority of Americans under the simple premise that, under his guidance, military adventurism would stop and domestic policies would flourish – America first, writ large
While ‘implicit’ support may not actually carry the vote, the views expounded by Mr. Trump call for answers which will resonate in the everyday life of each American
In the bane of Mr. Trump’s invocation, the Democrats and the Republicans are grasping at straws, Republicans because they are burdened with failure in the Middle East, the Democrats because they carried on with the same tactics, a testimony to a sort of misplaced continuity between the two political parties on the world scene
Sensible foreign policies will be hard to come by, not simply because of political gamesmanship in an election year, but because of collective misapprehension in confrontation with unpredictable autocrats
The path has narrowed since Ronald Reagan's forceful stand, pushing the USSR to the negotiating table but the path has to be found nonetheless...
Neither tiptoeing around in continual terror of setting off the next outburst nor a dignified retreat in the safety of one's tent are options for US foreign policy, as will be discussed in a follow-up note