From: mss2@quads.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.canada
Subject: U.S. Role in the world (was Re: Canada and the U.S.)
Date: 13 Apr 92 23:19:10 GMT
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Followup-To: soc.culture.usa
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <anne.703194796@menaik> anne@cs.UAlberta.CA (Anne J.R. Nield) writes:
>If the US consistently defended "freedom" and "democracy" one could
>be a little more sympathetic to the Not-so New-World-Order.
>Unfortunately, they have a nasty habit of supporting whoever and
>whatever appears to be of use to them at the moment -- with 
>a convenient disregard for the fact that many of these people/
>governments qualify as repressive, dictatorial, fascist, and a
>number of other not so worthy descriptions.  

Without defending every US action in the Cold War, I have to say that
I still think that US influence has, on balance, been more good than
evil.  I honestly think that had it not been for US involvement in the
European phase of WWII, plus the Marshall Plan, plus agreeing to
defend Europe afterwards, most of Europe would probably have fallen
under Soviet rule or homegrown dictatorship.  And as the US recognizes
the end of the Cold War, it has been removing its support from
the ubiquitous "friendly dictators" in Africa and Latin America.
We can argue whether supporting them was ever a good move, but the
record suggests that it was never our primary interest to install
repressive governments, but what our government considered the
necessitites of a global conflict.

Again, take a look at World War II.  (I suppose there may be
some out there who felt its prosecution was a bad idea, but
for most of us it's the canonical example of a large scale
intervention in other countries' affairs by the US which is
generally approved of.)  In it, the US (along with Canada, Britain,
and a number of other countries) committed a lot of morally
questionable acts.  Dresden, the firebombing of Tokyo,
open city bombing in general, etc.  In addition, we gave our
support to a dictator who alone killed more people than all
the dictators the US has given its support to since the war:
Stalin.  And in the end, half of Europe was freed, half remained
under totalitarian rule.  It wasn't a complete victory, it wasn't
achieved through entirely noble means, and there were actions
on the part of the Allied commanders which were inexcusable.
_But_, in the end, there were more free countries than there had
been at the beginning of the war (or even before the beginning,
truth to tell), Germany was a stable democracy for the first
time in its history.

I reject any idea that the US and the Soviet Union were moral
equivalents during the Cold War, and that the US was interested
in nothing but geopolitical advantage.  Compare Western
Europe with Eastern Europe-- or even West Germany with East
Germany.  We did support dictatorships, for reasons which
appeared necessary at the time.  But our preference has always
been for a friendly democracy over a friendly dictatorship--
though it's true the US has preferred a friendly dictatorship
to one which is an enemy.  Is that so unreasonable?

Compare South Korea to North Korea, or Taiwan to China.  The western
oriented part of each pair was a dictatorship through most of the Cold
War, it's true.  And we didn't do much to change it.  But both of them
have liberalized dramatically in the last five years-- while the PRC
sends tanks against students and North Korea competes with Cuba to be
the last old Soviet ally to have free elections.  The US has been
guilty of preferring convenience to democracy on short- term scales in
the past.  (I will not defend the CIA's actions in Chile, though it
was only the culmination of a foreign policy which when combined with
Vietnam occurring at about the same period suggests that something was
in the water in Washington.  That we survive periods like that prove
Bismarck's line that "God looks after fools, drunkards, small
children, and the United States of America.")  It took us too long to
support the elections in the Phillippines, too long to recognize the
independence of the Soviet republics, it's taking us too long to press
China on its human rights violations, and we're not doing enough to
oppose the overthrow of democracy in Haiti.  But all of those
presuppose that we _should_ be doing something to encourage democracy,
and that's something I have to agree with.

>What I find disturbing is the assumption that to be American is
>to be right (no pun intended...) and that slogans about democracy
>and freedom can be substituted for serious soul-searching and a
>good dose of humility about whether in fact they DO have all the
>answers for all the people everywhere on earth -- or even for
>themselves given the state of the United States at the moment.

No.  Not all the answers.  But the fact that our system is having
its problems doesn't mean that it doesn't work better than the way
most people on Earth are governed.  There are a lot more market-system
democracies than there were five years ago, but there are still a
billion people in China living under a bureaucratic oligarchy
and several hundred million in Africa living under one-party states
of varying repressiveness.  That the US' political and economic
systems were showing signs of strain in the 1930's did _not_ mean
that the system was not superior to Germany's or the USSR's of the
same period.

>And watching the tirades of anti-Japan bashing shown on shows
>like "60 Minutes" is NOT encouraging; not the sort of behavior one
>relishes in "friends".

Believe me, I hate that nonsense even more than you do, for just that
reason.  I don't want my fellow citizens to alienate our allies just
because we're also competitors in trade.  Fortunately, despite stunts
like the Bush trip to Japan, our leadership remains committed to free
trade (despite their mistakes vis a vis the US Canada FTA which have
been discussed here) and to remaining friends with our allies.  Again,
I never proposed that the US is perfect or that it should rule the
world-- but given the existence of its power, it cannot simply
withdraw to its border and ignore the world; there are simply other
countries which would move into the vacuum which would have no such
compunctions.  I don't think that the US should be military policeman
of the world, but I also don't think the US can simply be impartially
neutral in all world conflicts.  I don't think that the landing of
troops in the Gulf War was a good idea, but I think that economic and
some military pressure was justified to deter territorial war and
nuclear proliferation.   And yes, we set ourselves up for the whole
thing by some stupid foreign policy moves prior to it, like supplying
Iraq and not informing them in advance that we'd object to their
going on military adventures-- but again, all that supposes that
we have some role to play other than selling weapons to whoever
wants to pay our manufacturers for them and not remaining studiedly
neutral on world affairs.  The US is not run by angels or geniuses,
and I'll grant that we sometimes throw our weight around more than
we should; it's an easy excess to fall into.  But I'll still
maintain that the US comes out, in the end, as a positive factor
in world history.

(Since this article addresses the US's role in world affairs and does
not directly address Canada at all, I've directed followups to
soc.culture.usa only.)

Mike
-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Never let your sense of morality prevent
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 you from doing what's right!"
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 --Mayor Salvor Hardin of Terminus
mss2@usite-next.uchicago.edu     Isaac Asimov, _Foundation_