Foreign Policy and the Citizens-sovereign

The United States in 1992 is in danger of losing its place in the world. The danger stems from economic and political weakness at home and abroad despite the nation's enormous power.

I would like to examine the role of American foreign policy as a contributor to those weaknesses and a future instrument for overcoming them. This discussion will address:

• What U.S. foreign policy has been, is now, and why;

• What basic principles should underlie American foreign policy and why;

• The role the American people must play to assist formulation of a foreign policy (a) consistent with U.S. interests, obligations, and resources, and (b) as an instrument enabling the United States to maintain a strong place in the world.

The advent of independence for the United States obliged its political leaders to devise a foreign policy. What they agreed upon was, in reality, a domestic policy; preservation of newly won independence by avoiding participation in the affairs of other nations. No international goals or objectives were stated. Dubbed isolationism, it governed U.S. foreign policy up to the Second World War.

An isolationist mentality existed prior to independence. It was, perhaps, a natural outgrowth of the flight of Europeans from the Old to the New World to escape a host of inimical political, social, cultural, religious, and legal pressures considered too odious to bear. Once in the New World, these Europeans wanted to protect their new-found freedoms, widely regarded even then as the only valid ones in the world.

Among the reasons that isolationism became ingrained in the American character was its perceived endorsement by the first President of the United States, George Washington, in his farewell address to the nation in 1796.

Devoted primarily to domestic affairs, the address, nonetheless, contained advice offered in response to clamor for intervention in the affairs of Europe. Washington sought to provide perspective for the American people and their leaders. His words were interpreted as support for isolationism. They had, however, a different meaning, as a close reading of the following excerpts will show.

"...permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded and...in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated. ...The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is...to have with them as little political connection as possible...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces...the illusion of an imaginary common interest..(and) betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter with out inducement of justification...And it gives to ambitious; corrupted, or deluded citizens...facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country...Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorites are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests. ...'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world."

Washington's words did not counsel against alliances. They counseled against permanent, or "entangling," alliances—those that can result in manipulation of the United States for the benefit of the other nation. For example, if modern U.S. political leaders had followed Washington's advice, the nation could have avoided entanglement in alliances with Israel, Korea, Vietnam, and Panama. Up to now, only the alliance with Israel has not led to U.S. involvement in a war. But the United States, in its "passionate attachment" to Israel, is being "betrayed" into Israel's quarrels and wars "without inducement or justification."

During the 165 years between independence and World War II, the phenomenal development of the United States and its concomitant rise to a position of wealth in the international community of nations generated American beliefs, illusions, and myths that, along with isolationism, have shaped U.S. foreign policy. For example, consider the myth of "national destiny," a belief that God supports the United States in all its endeavors; a misconception about the innate superiority of Americans themselves and any idea or thing American; the illusion that democracy is the only viable political ideology; the misconception that all problems have solutions and all must be solved; and the myth of the irrelevance of other nations to U.S. freedom and security.

Most U.S. political leaders were impervious to the lesson of World War I that the United States would have to participate in the international community of nations if its place in the world were to be protected. Congress rejected approval of the League of Nations, the international mechanism devised to assist alleviation of strains among nations, and America slipped back into isolationism.

Prior to the end of World War II Walter Lippman, a long-time observer of U.S. foreign policy, wrote in 1943, "...for nearly 50 years the nation has not had a settled and generally accepted foreign policy. This is a danger to the Republic, for when a people is divided within itself about the conduct of its foreign relations, it is unable to agree on the determination of its true interest..."

At the end of World War II, the United States was the only great power. The U.S.S.R. lacked nuclear capability, and was recovering from the devastation of war. America possessed a vast military machine and a formidable industrial base. It was untouched by the physical ravages of war. In these circumstances, the role of world leader, although an unwanted by-product of war, accrued automatically to the United States. However, America's political leaders were ill-equipped to manage the nation's new role, not having had experience with a foreign policy clearly based in international goals and objectives.

Initially they responded with foreign policy initiatives of great merit. For example: the peace treaty with Japan, establishment of the United Nations, the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe—including former enemy Germany, and the Baruch Proposal for international control of nuclear energy.

During this period, the U.S.S.R. co-operated grudgingly, began openly to espouse world-wide expansion of communist ideology; developed its own atomic bomb, and began to play the role of international political spoiler. The United States responded with a policy of containment, and NATO was born.

Almost unnoticed, paranoia over the spread of communist ideology arose and permeated American politics. Richard Nixon conducted witch hunts using the forum of the House Un-American Activities Committee; Senator Joseph McCarthy rode the wave of paranoia to stardom by labeling as communists, without evidence, individuals he wanted to damage. Nixon's and McCarthy's allegations and the fear they inspired had profound impacts on U.S. foreign policy. It became the declared U.S. intention to root out and stamp out communism anywhere and everywhere in the world at any cost.

No more fitting description can be found for Nixon and McCarthy than George Washington's words, "ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens"—applicable also to their loath some followers who saw opportunity for power and fame by climbing aboard the mythical political bandwagon of anti-communism in order to ruin the reputations of "real patriots" who resisted their "intrigues." Along with the American press, Nixon and McCarthy painted a black mark on the fabric of the nation, up to now impossible to erase. Two recent books, "Deadline" by James Reston, and "I've Seen the Best of It," by Joseph Alsop throw heretofore unseen and revolting light on these American "tools and dupes" and the sick, political process of America that produced them and gave them nourishment.

Nixon and McCarthy alone were not responsible for their destructive successes; the people of the United States must share responsibility. Paranoia, which leads to mob psychology, ruined the exercise of judgment necessary to distinguish truth from fiction, innuendo from fact, possibility from probability—judgments absolutely necessary to make a democracy work.

As a result of paranoia over communism, American foreign policy allowed China and Cuba to be ostracized, propelled the United States in 1950 into a war in Korea costing the lives of over 54,000 Americans and countless treasure, and inspired U.S. entry into the most tragic ware of all, Vietnam, at a cost of over 55,000 young lives, a lingering legacy of drug use, and the undermining of the U.S. domestic economy. Quite a cost to pay for the mythical domino theory!

Foreign policy became a morass of commitments, "entangling alliances," leading to U.S. over-extension and waste of domestic resources, gradually dissipating the U.S. standing in the world and jeopardizing national security interests. Foreign policy was a patchwork of reactive actions and attitudes, most devoid of long-term merit.

While the United States was manning these ramparts of communism, at costs as yet unpaid today, the real bastion of communism, the U.S.S.R., remained safe behind its atomic bomb. Europe and former enemy Japan rebuilt using latest technologies, and America awoke to an aging infrastructure. But paranoia over communism persisted and was capitalized upon by macho American political leaders still drunk on the military power built up during World War II.

Thus emerged another mythical monster, the U.S.S.R., a dragon about to pounce on the United States with nostrils flaming and a skin impervious to assault, Trillions of tax dollars were spent to bring this mythical monster, Ronald Reagan's "evil empire," to heel. When the U.S.S.R. collapsed from within, a collapse arranged by a communist and not a "victory" in the Cold War, America awoke to another reality, an enormous national debt that today causes weakness abroad as well as at home, perhaps rendering the United States unable to continue leadership of the world despite possessing, as one modern observer put it, more concentrated power than anyone nation since the beginning of civilization.

Unfortunately for the United States, its power is overwhelmingly military, a burden becoming less useful in today's complex international arena at the same time that the U.S. is less able to support it. Meanwhile, Europe and Japan have become economic powerhouses intent on improving their places in the world at America's expense.

A policy of isolationism governed U.S. conduct of its foreign relations from independence to World War II. The outcome of the war thrust the United States into a role of world leadership. And America's foreign policy changed radically, from isolationism to, in President George Washington's words, formation of entangling alliances.

From 1946 to 1990, the United States tried to stamp out or contain all over the globe the potential spread of communist ideology. The endeavor cost upwards of 100,000 lives lost in two unnecessary major and several minor wars, plus trillions of dollars and wasted domestic resources.

The legacy of the endeavor is an aging, infrastructure and an enormous national debt. Domestic economic weakness has translated into international weakness for the United States, despite possession of enormous military power. These weaknesses jeopardize not only the U.S. role as a world leader but also the stability of the United States' place among the nations of the international community.

National debate over domestic policy, precipitated only by the November 1992 national election process but not by political statesmanship, has begun and will intensify as the election approaches. There are few signs, however, of a similar debate over America's foreign policy: Current comment has focused on single issues, such as military security in a world without the Cold War and the possibility of establishing a "New World Order" based on the use of force. Both issues are significant, but they must not be allowed to obscure the need to examine the nature of U.S. foreign policy and how it can be shaped into an instrument that will assure America's domestic and international strength in the remainder of the 90's and into the 21st century.

Such an examination will require soul-searching, a critical analysis of what we are as individual Americans, as a society and as a nation, and of what America's place in the world is now and should be in the future.

The ultimate outcome of the examation must be a foreign policy having clear international goals—one reflecting America's "true interests"—such as the policy pleaded for in 1943 by Walter Lippman. We must, as one post—World War II observer put it "...accept the challenge to determine what foreign policy (is) consistent with our interests, obligations, and resources" ("The People Shall Judge, "Vol. II, Ed's note, p.728, University of Chicago Press, 1949).

America's self examination will take account of strength, as a people and as a nation, that far overshadows our weaknesses. For example, the United States has a geopolitical status in the world second to none. It has an industrious and innovative population that has provided wealth to the nation. It has a society inculcated with a sound moral sense of values that preclude designs on foreign territory.

The geographical location of the continental United States contributes much to its security. It is bordered on the east and west by broad oceans, north and south by friendly nations not a military threat. The nation thrives on abundant natural resources, and the availability of resources that may come into short supply is only a psychological not a genuine threat simply because the genius exists in the people to develop substitutes.

America's democratic system of government, inspired by the Founding Fathers, is the nation's greatest strength, despite its flaws. Not an admirer of democracies, French observer Alexis de Tocqueville nevertheless said in the 1850's "...the most powerful, and perhaps the only, means which we still possess of interesting men in the welfare of their country is to make them partakers in the government....civic zeal seems to be inseparable from the exercise of political rights;..."

Viewed in the light of America's great strengths, some of its weaknesses are cause for concern while others are curiosities. For example:

• Neither the people nor the politicians have accepted that the U.S. place in the world must be earned, nurtured, and protected.

• Neither the people nor the politicians are convinced that an effort must be made to gather knowledge and understanding of other peoples and nations. Human beings, who are as different as their fingerprints, guarantee the unlikeness of nations culturally, morally, economically, socially, and politically. Just as every human being is sovereign, so is every nation. Understood and respected, this diversity of peoples and nations—which, by the way, is mirrored in American society—is a tremendous strength for building a productive, competitive, infinitely interesting, and stimulatingly peaceful world. Lack of knowledge and understanding of other nations militates strongly against enlightened foreign policy. These lead to serious errors of judgment, unjustified conclusions, and insupportable actions. They lead to naivete.

• Neither the people nor the politicians have realized that competition in the international arena is governed by every nation's rules not just by ours. U.S. mores, customs, and laws will not triumph just because they are ours. We must compete and we must be knowledgeable and understanding of those of other nations.

• Our people and politicians still, after 200 years, suffer from an insecurity/inferiority complex. For want of a better explanation, perhaps this complex derives from our youthfulness as a nation, from the 165 years of self-imposed isolation, and from our lack of knowledge and understanding of other peoples and nations. At the human level, the complex is manifested by widespread suspicion and distrust of "foreigners" inside the United States as well as beyond its borders. Suspicion and distrust led to a national shame in American political and social life—the interment, during World War II, of Japanese in our country, even when they were citizens. Currently, suspicion and distrust are provoking Japan-bashing over international trade and a rising tide of hatred directed against Japanese and Arabs.

• Our people and politicians, honed by phenomenal domestic accomplishments, suffer from the misconception that all the world's problems, have solutions and must be solved. Not only is this a misconception, but also a self inflicted weakness that other peoples and nations regard with wonderment, amusement, frustration, and anger as macho Americans throw their weight around all over the globe. Other nations especially do not understand our hypocrisies: feigned reverence for law when we are adept at breaking or flouting it, application of American human rights concepts to nations devoid of understanding them or the desire to accept them, attempts to purchase allegiance of nations whose national honor is not for sale, blind support of the democratic form of government in nations having no foundation for support, and use of force as an instrument of national power in the world when we preach against its use by other nations.

Foreign policy must be based on fundamentally sound concepts and principles that stem primarily from domestic strengths. These include:

• A concept of the "national security interest" that excludes the nation's more general interests. Security interests and U.S. territory would be defended by force, if necessary, whereas general interests would not. The honing down of security interests would severely reduce the number of "entangling" alliances capable of drawing the United States into wars. For example, by this definition, support of Israel would be a general national interest not a security interest. And most certainly, security interests would not include, as is currently under consideration, any of the littoral areas of the former Soviet Union.

• Acceptance of the principle that the United States cannot be strong internationally unless it ls strong domestically. And acceptance of the concomitant principle that international policy can weaken the nation, perhaps irreparably. We must not undertake more than we can afford. We must accept the reality of our geopolitical position in the world, from which we derive, strength that we do not have to, create. In that context, let it be said emphatically that isolationism is not the same as geopolitical position; nor is it an option for maintaining internal or external strength. As Gorbachev pointed out in "Perestroika", we live in a world in which all of us are coming to depend more and more on one another and are linked by the same destiny.

• An increased knowledge and understanding of the principles underlying the conduct of international relations. We must accept that other peoples and nations are different and that nation-to-nation relations must be based on the principle of reciprocity. When the sovereignties of individuals are fused, mores, customs, and laws result. These are different within all nations, and the differences are reflected externally. When the sovereignties of nations are lent to cooperation, they produce treaties, conventions, other kinds of international agreements, and occasionally international law. These are brought into being by negotiation. In some instances, force may be used, but the resulting agreements breed resentment, frustration, lack of cooperation, and sometimes a desire for revenge. Plus, they don't last.

• Recognition of the reality that sovereignty gives each nation, just as it gives each individual, the right to act as it pleases—but in the knowledge that all other nations have the same right. If the United States uses force, other nations have the right to use force. Except in defense of a nation's territorial integrity, including its national security interests, use of force—as in Grenada, Panama, Iraq—is a sign of lack of political maturity, ignorance, and lack of the will to resolve problems by peaceful means; it is the easy way out.

• Our foreign policy must be based upon an increased understanding and knowledge of other peoples and nations—their geopolitical position, location on the globe, military strength, political orientation, culture, social values, economic strength, etc. One of our requirements is to educate America's children by inspiring an interest in foreign cultures and languages, and broadening their knowledge of the world outside U.S. borders. While waiting for the educational process to produce better informed and able leaders, we should educate the current crop of politicians to the realities of international intercourse, discource, and recourse. They certainly need it!

• Recognition and acceptance (not yet apparent) that an end of the Cold War subordinated military competition to economic competition. We must meet the transparent need of refurbishing, with thoughtful haste, the tattered U.S. economy. How well we do domestically will govern how well we do internationally. Other nations will not wait for us. They will take advantage of every weakness and hesitation. They are already busy carving out their places in a post-Cold War world. But, as observed Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1850's, despite the fact that democracy "...does not give the people the most skillful government; ...it produces...an all pervading and restless activity; a super-abundant force, and an energy which is inseparable from it and which, however, unfavorable circumstances may be, produces wonders." In this year of 1992, the United States needs to produce wonders.

• Signal to the international community of nations U.S. willingness to negotiate solutions to international problems and to use, when appropriate, agreed intermechanisms. At the same time, signal that any "New World Order" must be predicated on reciprocity, and negotiation, with the use of force confined to particular problems agreed by the international community to have no negotiable solution.

Such a foreign policy would meet the challenge of determining consistency with U.S. interests, obligations, and resources. It would be an example for and be persuasive to other nations. It would keep America strong abroad as well as at home. It would enable the United States to protect its place in the world. U.S. foreign policy during 200 years of nationhood has changed remarkably—from quiet isolationism during the period between Independence and World War II to noisy formation of "entangling, alliances" aimed at stamping out or containing the potential spread of communist ideology, after WW II and up to the present time—1992.

The costs to the American people during the post-World War II period have been formidable and unnecessary: over 100,000 young lives lost in unenlightened military enterprises and trillions of dollars spent fending off mythical dangers to ill-defined U.S. national interests.

Responsibility for the foreign policy that produced these results, and which now jeopardizes U.S domestic as well as international interests, lies primarily with the nation's ill-informed and opportunistic politicians. But the American people bear some of the blame. They failed to cause their leaders to hew to America's true principles, and they failed to acquire the knowledge and understanding of the world needed to bring reason and judgment to bear when the politicians traveled down a dubious foreign policy path. "The people are the only censors of their governors; and even in their errors will tend, to keep them to the true principles of their institutions," said Thomas Jefferson.

The current national review of domestic policy, brought on by a U.S. economy weakened at the end of the Cold War and hastened by the approaching election in November, must be accompanied by a review of America's foreign policy. Above I have discussed some of the fundamental concepts and principles that must underlie a viable foreign policy. The point here is that the task cannot be trusted to the politicians alone. The politicians continue to be ill-informed, they carry too much political baggage, and they lack the clearer instincts of the people.

Although the U.S. Constitution designates the President as foreign policy maker, his power is not exclusive. He is required to work in consonance with the people, who elect him to office and elect their representatives to Congress.

Each individual American is sovereign. Each delegates sovereignty to political leaders. But we retain a hold on our sovereignty by means of the ballot and public opinion. Attentiveness of the people to actions of government since the end of World War II has declined, causing a decline of influence over foreign policy. Alexis de Tocqueville, the astute and prescient French observer of the American experiment with democracy may have been correct when he said in 1850 that democracies tend to allow concentration of political power in the hands of the state; the people don't make "an effort" to participate in the public's business, being too pre-occupied with private affairs. Abysmally low citizen participation in national elections bears him out.

Are we American citizens able today to agree with Alexander Hamilton's observation in 1787, "... it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example to decide the important, question whether societies of men are, capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice;..."

We agreed with Hamilton when we the people approved the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. These underpinnings of American democracy have been venerated by the people for 200 years. They define and protect our sovereignty as individuals. But either we did not understand or we have forgotten that these documents bestow upon us the responsibility not only to protect our individual freedoms but also the freedom of the nation. "...Those persons only who live in obedience to reason are worthy to be accounted free,..." said wise John Wise, a pastor in Massachusetts in 1772.

Across the American political, economic, social, and cultural spectrum, too many individual Americans and groups have for too long pursued their own goals and objectives only their own selfish interests. Now they must decide whether and how they can still pursue them but with profit for the nation as well.

In this year of 1992, there is little reason to question America's institutions of democracy. There is reason to question whether our government representatives have adhered to true principles and whether we the people have made "an effort" to cause them to do so.

Current U.S. economic weakness is traceable, in very substantial measure, to foreign policy conducted by U.S. politicians since the end of World War II. Economic weakness at home imperils the United States abroad. It dissipates our capability to protect our place in the world and to continue to play the role of world leader Foreign policy can be no stronger than domestic policy.

It is hoped that the current review of U.S. domestic policy will consider the need for restructuring across the economic and social spectrum in order to strengthen the fundamental elements of a viable national economy: savings and investment, taxes, management objectives, education and training, health care availability and cost, crime and drugs; welfare philosophy, and all forms of discrimination.

Foreign policy, derived from domestic policy, will benefit from domestic policy review. But foreign policy must itself be reviewed separately in relation to domestic policy. We the people have reached a point in the progress of the nation at which we must accept a greater share of responsibility for assisting formulation of, U.S. foreign policy. We can no longer run the risk of leaving the task to the politicians. What we decide will bring success or failure to protection of America's place in the world. The objective is to lay out long-term international policy goals that will sustain the United States through the remainder of the decade of the 90's and on into the 21st century.

How do We the People do this?

Here's what we can do.

• The most immediate first step any of us can take is to write our Representatives and Senators and tell them what we think of the government's foreign policy.

• Write to the President. The President gets a lot of mail which he does not read. However, his staff counts the opinions for the issues you write about, so be counted on the side that counts to you.

• Write to the Embassy of the country about which you have something to say. You'll never know what happened to your letter and you may not get a reply, but at least you will have been heard.

• Write to the Editor of your local newspaper, or to the Editor of "The New York Times" or whatever news or other magazines you read.

• Urge whatever voluntary associations or organizations to which you belong to take a stand on foreign affairs. The Institute for domestic Tranquility is growing and one day will be able to be active in this area and it deserves your support more to the point, you belong to the Audubon Society, or the Sierra Club, or the American Association of Retired People, or the American Legion, or American Institute of Biological Sciences, or National Education Association, or any of a myriad of other organizations, all of which can and often do influence the Congress. Let your voice be heard. The country's future well-being is in the balance.

...Robert Sturgill...

© Copyright 1992
Institute for domestic Tranquility