Connor and I sort of made a deal that when one of us makes a blog post, the other one writes a response. This is a response to his recent post on the necessary evil of American expansionism.
An (American) World Restored: Exceptionalism, Realism, and the Narrative of American History
Can a government act purely on the basis of morality? The dominance of the theory of political realism–birthed in the realpolitik of Bismarck and Metternich and espoused by names like Kissinger and Morgenthau–tells us that the answer is usually a resounding “no.” As Kissinger once put it,
“It would be comforting if we could confine our actions to situations in which our moral, legal and military positions are completely in harmony and where legitimacy is most in accord with the requirements of survival. But as the strongest power in the world, we will probably never again be afforded the simple moral choices on which we could insist in our more secure past.”1
Political action, especially that of foreign policy, tends to be about the choice between the lesser of two evils. Th immorality of choice in politics is something we are forced to accept, but that does not mean we can justify any action by its consequences.
This brings us back to the actions of Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk. Would letting the Native Americans continue their peaceful existence and leaving the Texas issue alone have changed where the United States stands today? Undoubtedly the answer is yes, and most likely for the worse. But it is all too easy to consign these actions, and the immorality of them, to the revisionist side of history. The logic of this kind of realism goes hand in hand with the increasingly untenable idea of American exceptionalism: that the United States is the single greatest nation that has existed, currently exists, or will exist on the face of this Earth.
From John Winthrop’s “city on a hill,” to 19th century “manifest destiny,” to Ronald Reagan’s “last best hope of man on earth,” the idea that the United States is special has persisted since the inception of the country.2 It is difficult to deny that the United States has done many good things for the world, and that our existences are better off for this country’s existence. Where exceptionalism becomes damaging is when we lose sight of our place in history and our place in the world, and start to believe that international law and common sense stops applying within our borders.
History is written by the winners, and the United States happens to win a lot. Andrew Jackson sanctioned genocide in the name of his country with the Indian Removal Act. That is a fact ingrained in history by the thousands of lives lost (estimates remain unclear)3 as a direct result of his policies, and no amount of modern American success can justify the morality of his actions. Had the US been on the losing side of some great war, we would not extoll the mass murderer on the twenty dollar bill. Similarly, we cannot excuse Polk’s Mexican adventure as a necessary evil to expand the width of American soil and fulfill our God-given destiny. James Polk provoked a war with Mexico for the sole reason of American expansion, needlessly sacrificing lives for some allegedly greater cause. Arguably, their ends are good, but their means certainly were not. However, the assumption that their ends were good comes only with the assumption that the American cause is also intrinsically good, feeding the damaging narrative of exceptionalism.
Excusing Jackson and Polk for their actions on the American continent means excusing other American atrocities that occurred after American expansion was completed. As Kenneth Waltz writes:
“The United States has fought numerous wars since then — starting several of them — and its wartime conduct has hardly been a model of restraint. The 1899-1902 conquest of the Philippines killed some 200,000 to 400,000 Filipinos, most of them civilians, and the United States and its allies did not hesitate to dispatch some 305,000 German and 330,000 Japanese civilians through aerial bombing during World War II, mostly through deliberate campaigns against enemy cities. No wonder Gen. Curtis LeMay, who directed the bombing campaign against Japan, told an aide, ‘If the U.S. lost the war, we would be prosecuted as war criminals.’ The United States dropped more than 6 million tons of bombs during the Indochina war, including tons of napalm and lethal defoliants like Agent Orange, and it is directly responsible for the deaths of many of the roughly 1 million civilians who died in that war.”4
Even though nobody on this side of the Prime Meridian wishes for a world where the Soviets won the Cold War, or a world where the Nazis conquered Europe, nobody can argue that the indiscriminate murder of civilians in times of war is morally justified. The morality of an action is determined by the action in of itself, regardless of consequences. The United States is not a nation led by war criminals only because of the power and hubris our country has obtained.
One might think that we have moved past our history of violence, and into a world where American hegemony is both peaceful and benevolent. This might hold true in a world where the United States is the world’s only power, and even then such a naïvely optimistic worldview might not be viable.
9/11 was a tragedy that undoubtedly called for justice, but the justice the Bush administration tried to bring to the Middle East was undoubtedly the wrong kind. Professor Mariela Cuadro of the University of Buenos Aires explains,
“Indeed, from US rhetoric, the US Foreign Policy is always aimed at ‘doing good’, and acts are carried out in the name of Humanity. They, therefore, assume that when others damage them (in one way or another) they have become victims of evil people. This is how the US denies its power and political involvement in the world, putting their actions and those of the others outside History. In this sense, the repeated rhetorical question that George W. Bush asked himself and the Americans about why the terrorist acts of 9-11 happened had only one possible answer: evil.”5
This mentality created the illusion that the American enterprise was, and is, synonymous with good, that what’s good for America is good for humanity. Anybody who opposes us is inherently evil, whether it was the Soviet “evil empire” or the Islamic radicals of Al-Qaeda. Neither is good, and I will not try to defend either as good, but we are afforded this perception only through the victory of Americanized history. However, if the War on Terror had not met with failure, evidenced by the instability of virtually every Middle Eastern nation and the consequent rise of ISIS, the ground invasions and drone strike that displaced and killed so many Iraqi, Afghan, Iranian civilians might be seen as perfectly justified. The narrative of exceptionalism that allowed these actions to occur was broken only by their dire consequences. A successful War on Terror would have justified George Bush in the popular mind the same way Jackson and Polk would seem to be justified. Nobody told America it had to be the world’s policeman, and nobody gave America the right to intervene in conflicts worldwide. Perhaps enforcing global peace is the duty of the hegemon, but intervening in a way that destabilizes and displaces is doubly wrong. It is wrong first for its immorality, in that the United States tries to impose its own vision on a civilian population that does not readily accept it; it is wrong second for reinforcing the idea that the United States is both the only nation strong enough and qualified enough to solve the world’s problems.
America is a special country. It is ok to praise it and its accomplishments, but it is not acceptable to do so while ignoring its history of wrongs. So when you think of the displaced Native Americans, enslaved African Americans, and the countless other victims of American evil as regrettable but inevitable victims of the march of history, remember that the United States is not the world’s only good. To justify its evils, and the evils of its leaders, is tantamount to forgetting them.
References:
Ferguson, Niall. "The Meaning of Kissinger." Foreign Affairs. 1 Oct. 2015. Web. 1 Oct. 2015. <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-08-18/meaning-kissinger>.
Song, Seongjong. "American Exceptionalism at a Crossroads." The Korean Journal of International Studies 13.1 (2015): 239. Web. 1 Oct. 2015. <http://dx.doi.org/10.14731/kjis.2015.04.13.1.239>.
"Indian Removal." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2015. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_removal#Southern_removals>.
Waltz, Kenneth M. "The Myth of American Exceptionalism." Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy Group, 11 Oct. 2011. Web. 01 Oct. 2015. <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/the_myth_of_american_exceptionalism>.
Cuadro, Mariela. "Universalisation of Liberal Democracy, American Exceptionalism and Racism." Transience 2.2 (2011): 30-43. Humboldt University of Berlin, 2011. Web. 1 Oct. 2015. <http://www2.hu-berlin.de/transcience/Vol2_Issue2_2011_30_43.pdf>.
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ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting perspective against the idea of American Exceptionalism and brings more issues about hegemony into the discussion. But while this seems to be a great issue in the United States, exceptionalism seems to be an unavoidable result of being a sole superpower.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I take the British Empire at its height and there is no doubt exceptionalism was apparent. They could do anything and no one could oppose them leading to multiple massacres and murdering of civilians. The same is then to be said about rising nations which censor the acts of civilian oppression in light of a patriotic duty.
"We have the character of an island nation: independent, forthright, passionate in defence of our sovereignty. We can no more change this British sensibility than we can drain the English Channel. And because of this sensibility, we come to the European Union with a frame of mind that is more practical than emotional." -David Cameron
This is not a defense of exceptionalism, for neither was my original post which you are responding to, but rather an linking to other forms of it. There doesn't appear to be as much exceptionalism in former world powers such as France and the UK (though they do exist) and perhaps their fall of power is what forces them to revoke exceptionalism.
Once the tables turn, we can focus on the poor legacy we have left behind as everything else crumbles around us. Since the winner writes the history and the winner becomes the uncontested, back in the 1800's, no nation believed they were inferior and all used each other to expand their own power.
Additionally, given this is a response post, I must defend myself. My post didn't talk necessarily about the necessary evils of exceptionalism, rather the idea that we cannot view the past with the same lens we view present actions. It has similarities, but it is not the same as agreeing with the necessary evil of the massacre of Filipino civilians