America's Role In The World

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

What is America's role in the world? I'm the first to jump on the America bashing bandwagon, so one could expect me to come up with a suitably cynical snark response to this. But I won't.

America's role in the world is to be a leader.

In most ways, America is the most powerful nation in the world. Militarily, it's not hard to think that America could fight off every other nation in the world if we all tried to invade at once. They have used this military to become the unquestioned economic and political power in the world as well. Colonial wars have been fought in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America, not to rule directly, but to install governments that will allow for a favourable economic environment for US corporations. Why the hell would you want to run a country when you could just be extracting their natural resources and abuse their labour?

America has actively worked to become the leader in the world. It has been an act of conscious free will. It has been the stated aim of generations of political leaders and the desire of the electorate that votes them in. "We're #1" they cry after singing the national anthem at a "World Series" to find a the "World Champion" in a sport in which pretty much only they play in which only teams from America compete.

With great power, comes great responsibility.

Because the creation of US world supremacy has been a conscious act of free will, then the responsibilities that come along with that power are non-negotiable and must be entered into with a sense of duty, not obligation. The President of the United States has been called the "Leader Of The Free World" (and I've noticed, is still called, which I find a bit of an anachronism). The Constitution is, rightly, held up as one of the grand achievements of humanity. Americans like to believe that the ethics and values of their nation, that all men are created equal, that we have the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If this is so, then their act of conscious free will to become the world leaders and the responsibilities that are the duty of the power that comes with such power, then they must lead with these values in mind as well as in practice.

Acts like unilateral military action and avoiding international treaties that are in the global interest, but may be questionable for the national interest, is failing these values.

Comments

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Ah, the newest flavor of Marxist thought...

So you completely discount dialectical materialism as a valid way of viewing the world, bully for you. Let's thank zeus you aren't an Historian then. Not that I discount other, valid, lenses through which to interpret the world, but to discount an entire field of knowledge because of ideology seems a bit ignorant to me.

Unilateral action is the realm of any state. Should a state have to seek authority from other states before it acts? Uh...sovereignity.

I specifically avoided using words like obligation and law in favour of duty, responsibility and values. I wasn't trying to say that a state shouldn't have the right to act unilaterally, I was perhaps waxing too poetically...

Doing the right thing, outside of the opinion of others, should be the goal.

... is, in essence, what I was trying to say. If you have the ability to act unilaterally, and choose to act unilaterally, then you absolutely must be doing the right thing. The values that the US sells to the world as the pinnacle of human achievement and the values they practice are very wide apart. If all men are created equal, and we have the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness then when the US's actions cause untold suffering to a multitude of people, then they are in violation of their responsibilities.

Iraq- Nah, not so friendly. And absolutely no threat to anybody but themselves. Afghanistan- Totally justified by any definition of war It's good to know you think harbouring a criminal is a justifiable reason to invade a nation. We have a guy in prison here, who committed a murder here, who has served his sentence here but is now being extradited to the US to face the case again (interesting since both of our countries have double jeopardy laws), but if the US government don't agree to take the death penalty off the table, we won't send him. Should the US invade Australia? Hyperbolic, I know. But where do we draw the line? Because someone commits an attack on the US? What does this mean? If a guy in Melbourne organises for his friend in the US to blow up a building (and fails, or not, doesn't matter), and we won't extradite him because you won't guarantee not to kill him, should we expect the US fleet on our doorstep?

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

"If a guy in Melbourne organizes for his friend in the US to blow up a building (and fails, or not, doesn't matter), and we won't extradite him because you won't guarantee not to kill him, should we expect the US fleet on our doorstep?"

It would help at this juncture to be a mite bit transcendent and put yourself in the other man's shoes for a minute and ask yourself what your response would be to a 9/11 type action on your own soil?

Mind you, from my own personal perspective, the reaction would have been better handled strictly by the CIA and perhaps covert forces, but say that your condition is that extradition is indeed untenable, are you prepared to shrug the whole matter off?

[ninboydean.livejournal.com]

For the "Melbourne" example yo umight think of Cuba and the US's harboring of anti-Cuban "terrorists."

Or the military aid the US has given to anti-Iranian groups that congress considers 'terrorist.'

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Iran might disagree that the Ba'ath regime was never a threat. The Saddam Al-Majid dictatorship fought the longest war of the 20th Century and was quite keen on strategic bombing. That broke the power of the state to fight anyone bigger than Iran thereafter, but still........though to see them as a threat in 2003 requires the same jaundiced view of history where by the Soviet aspect of WWII from 1939-May 1941 is completely overlooked.

I should note also since you believe Soviet-style communism was better that when proto-Hezballah captured two Soviet attaches the Soviets sent the terrorist a package with some family jewels in it and the terrorists never fucked with the Soviet Union again even when it was falling apart at the seams.

PART 2

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

If all men are created equal, and we have the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then there is absolutely no justification for the invasion of either Iraq or Afghanistan. This comes even before the very arguable opinion that the wars have made the problem worse (on top of being humanitarian disasters).

Japan, the EU, many Eastern European nations, many African nations, Australia, New Zealand, The Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, India, Pakistan and many other nations are all on quite friendly terms with the United States, and many would be in serious trouble if their security were threatened by an outside power.

And this is exactly why I want the US to be a leader. If the way the world works is that middle powers cannot defend themselves, then out of all the viable options, I'll take the US over the rest. This is because I believe in the core values and is why I get so angry when they are violated. I'm happy with the US's role as a superpower (although I don't like the US hegemony), I was not trying to argue otherwise.

If America were run solely for the basis of profit, would it not pick on more profitable places than...Afghanistan? Would it even bother with places like Somalia, or any other action abroad?

Afghanistan and Somalia are two vitally strategic regions! From one you can control Central Asia, vitally important for any successful war in the region. From the other you control all traffic through the Suez. Not the best examples... Perhaps you should be asking about US involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan if you think the wars you're fighting are virtuous.

To imply all actions abroad are simply at the behest of corporations is marxist bullshit.

South America. I know you know what I mean, and I know we'll both disagree with the real truth of the matter, so we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Using terms like "Marxist" and "Leftist" really make your ideology show.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Ummm...is there are any actual real objection to the historical record of the U.S. actively and aggressively encouraged and coerced and overthrown foreign governments, in order to install governments more economically and politically favourable?

I mean, seriously, does anyone dispute that this is a fact?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

It also isn't like friendly or peace-loving are American priorities. The USA liked to have monsters of its own to counter the thugs that rallied to the Soviet cause. And WTF are you talking about with North Korea? War's still going on as there has been no armistice to end it.

Iraq committed its atrocities with at least some US weaponry sent against the Iranians. The Afghans who fought the USSR went on to become the Taliban a decade or so later.

[prader.livejournal.com]

Uhm, a duty is an obligation.

Am I to take it, then, that the premise of your post is that the U.S. is not living up to the responsibilities you perceive it to have?

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

No, a duty is a sense of moral commitment, an obligation is a requirement to take a moral or legal action. I'm trying to amplify a very subtle distinction I'm trying to make that has, in my opinion, very different outcomes.

Yes, that's the premise of my post, but the conversation I'm trying to have is about whether or not the US should consider individuals outside of their own population when they act. I think the truth is self evident (boom tish) that if the values espoused in the constitution and other places that make up the US canon are to mean anything, then they have to apply to people outside the US. I'm not saying that it is therefore right for the US to force its values on others, but that when it acts it has to consider the consequences of its actions on others and apply their morality appropriately.

My point about that the US's power is through an act of free will is important. The US doesn't have to have the power it does especially when we consider the military. It's either there to enforce US interests or to act as the world police. So either you agree that it's a tool of colonialism or you have to agree that no one voted the US that power (quite the opposite) and that through excercising it you are doing so through a free choice that you could be making otherwise. Any denial of this is an act of bad faith and goes to the very core of my argument.

I'm trying really hard to make myself clear here. From what I know of you I don't think we'd necessarily be in too much disagreement over these points...

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

who decides whats in the "global interest"?

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

The vast majority of both the population and political interests of the world have decided that climate change is a problem. If these are not appropriate ways of deciding then your belief in democracy is either jingoistic selfishness (my guess) or a sham.

We have reached a point that due to technological innovation there are some issues that effect the entire planet and have to be solved as a planet. Who would you suggest makes these decisions?

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

i do believe it's decided by the united nations council on global interest. current members tonga, outer mongolia and guinea bissau.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I think it is naive to suppose that Americas role is anything but what it, as a nation, thinks it to be.

We must not lose sight of the fact that Americans are people too, so naturally look after themselves first, sometime to the co-incidental benefit of others, often to the detriment of others, just like everyone else does.

That's precisely as it should be. Expecting the U.S. (or any other powerful nation) to take up some self-less role of lord protector to the world, or to believe their own propaganda that that is what they are, is simply asking to be rammed. Hard. When and where it best suits them.

[prader.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Also agreed.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

That's fine, pragmatically. However, it requires an admission that the US is not a moral nation and they should stop the lectures about "evil" in the world. If acting out of your own self interests is fine, then the fight against international terrorism is not a "good vs. evil" thing, it's an "us vs. them" thing, they are acting just as morally as you. And with things like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the US cedes the moral high ground and is reduced to the level of the people it is fighting.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

America's only role in the world is to secure its own interests and security. The world should be grateful that the world's unprecedented global superpower is America and not Russia or China.

[ninboydean.livejournal.com]

I'm sure Afghanistan, Serbia, Panama, Grenada, Laos and Vietnam would all agree completely.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Not unprecedented. Britain was first.

[ninboydean.livejournal.com]

How quaint to look at the US' place in the world as if it were just an international bully "because it's acting in its own interests."

The US military acts in the interests of prevalent players, specifically organizations which seek to benefit from the choices the military makes. Just like Germany's steel mfg industry pre-WWI, you don't develop this kind of capital and then sit on it.

The laws of the market incentivize a productive return on these investments. Often enough, that means war, particularly against regimes which seek to reposition industry to maintain more value in their nation, or otherwise withhold economic assets.

But you're simply a bad financier (or one of the few moral leaders) if, in a position maintaining such power, you fail to use it to extract value from those vulnerable to it.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Bullying = looking out for interests in the real world. See: Opium Wars.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

America's role in the world is to be AWESOME.

But in all seriousness, yes, looking out for our own interests is to be expected. However, we are obligated to do so in an ethical fashion. How much the US, or any country, does that is a matter of debate.

But most importantly America's role is to promote its ideas and values. While it's easy to get bogged down in the details on that, the values of freedom, justice and prosperity for all are pretty universal. The US is simply in a stronger position to promote those values than any other country.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I concur, this is why I think they deserve the harsh criticism they receive when they don't live those values, even if they are acting out of their own self interest.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The USA is the current-day Empire. The thing about empires is that they're only attractive when they've safely receded from fading memory. In the real world they're expensive buggers that require bloodshed on the wide scale to maintain.