Is the United States the Bad Guy?
The Nature of the American Leadership in the World
Here, I try to make a case for how the United States has fared as a global leader since World War II. Is the world a better place with America? Is the US a benevolent leader? Is the US a source of stability or is it a troublemaker that seeks an opportunity to interfere with the affairs of other countries?
There are no easy answers to these questions. After all, there is no such thing as the US that is uniform across time under different leaderships during different eras. Similarly, these questions rarely have black and white answers. The US may be a positive actor in one region while undermining the stability of another at any given time. Therefore, while exploring the role the US has played, we also need to understand the nature of the international system. We need to observe how global politics was before the US, and how it has been after the rise of the US as the leader. Finally, we need to evaluate the nature of US foreign policy under systemic constraints. Let’s start.
Wars After the Industrial Revolution
The industrial revolution changed the world in so many ways in such a short time for human history. These changes had a major impact on the progression of global politics. War technologies started to advance at a much higher pace with the introduction of advanced machinery. Industrial wars were waged in new areas with new tools. New guns were firing at a faster rate and more accurately.
In simple logic, there are two sides to war: the offense and the defense. Despite the advancements in the offense following the industrial revolution, defensive warfare was at an advantage between industrialized states. Trenches successfully limited the offensive impact of new weapons. While railroads made transportation much faster and easier, the control of the infrastructure was still on the defending state and not the invader. Therefore, the defense had a substantial advantage. It was possible for the defending state to strategically damage the infrastructure in the territories being lost and prevent the enemy from benefitting from it. World War I was fought within these dynamics, but further advancements in war technologies have changed the dynamics of warfare, only within two decades.
Nazi Germany transformed the dynamics of war by using industrial tools in a way that gave a considerable advantage to the offense over the defense. Besides aerial developments, the motorized armor with weapons changed how wars were waged. Tanks could easily override machine guns and trenches. The invading state did not need to rely on the infrastructure of the defense, either. As a result, Nazi Germany was able to advance at a much faster pace with the Blitzkrieg doctrine than any other state could in history.
Though it was not impossible to defend against the Nazis, the European states were caught off-guard. They were not prepared for these new developments. It was quite possible that, by the time their enemies adapt to the new dynamics, it could be too late.
Let’s assume this possibility became reality and the Nazis won, what would happen? It is quite likely that the interstate political competition would end and an imperial world government under Nazi rule would be established. In other words, we would not have a bipolar world such as the one we had, under the US and the USSR’s influence. We would probably have a unipolar world under Nazi control. How would the world function under such a system? Colonial history provides hints as to what humans are capable of doing when there are no constraints to their power.
There was an extreme level of power disparity in that, supposedly, even a Spanish army of around a few hundred armed troops could easily defeat thousands of soldiers of the Inca Empire in their first encounter in the Battle of Cajamarca. The situation was not very different in the British colonies. The European states could do anything they want against the native populations of their colonies simply because there was a gigantic disparity between their levels of technology, therefore there was nothing to stop them. Ever since the beginning of the colonial expansion of Spain and Portugal, the colonial mentality had been prevalent in Europe. Spain viewed the natives in the Americas less than humans and treated them as they saw fit. Slavery and racial hierarchy were expected results of this mentality.
Colonial states established dominance over colonized indigenous territories. Great powers split a significant portion of the world between each other and frequently competed over each others’ colonies. However, none of them was powerful enough to conquer other great powers, even the mighty British Empire. Under the balance of power between constantly shifting alliances, none of the great powers was powerful enough to beat all the others in this competition, for centuries. So what Nazi Germany attempted to achieve is something that was never witnessed in history, and was attempted probably only once by Revolutionary France and Napoleonic France.
What makes the state the main actor in the world is its monopoly of power over its domains, and what keeps the global system in balance is the existence of at least two power groups of any combination that can counter each other. If the Nazis won and this balance disappeared, it would be up to them to decide how they would govern without any restriction. Led by the US and its industrial capacity, however, the successful campaign against the Nazis prevented this possibility. It is not meant to discredit the contributions of the other countries against the Nazis. I am no expert on military history. However, it appears that, without the overall contributions of the US, it is not as easy to say that the Nazis would fail. For the discussed reasons, one may argue that the victory against the Nazis is one of the most important, and potentially the most important victory in history. Therefore, preventing the emergence of a unipolar system under a cruel regime is the biggest American contribution to the world.
An American World
As a result of the victory against Nazi Germany, the United States emerged as a global leader. After its declaration of independence, the initial goal of the United States was to survive against the British. Only in decades, the US asserted itself as a powerful regional actor and its next main goal became keeping Europeans off the Americas with the Monroe Doctrine. The strong urge towards isolationism was temporarily abandoned during World War I, but it prevailed once again as soon as World War I ended as Americans left the scene to the British and the French.
Various conditions including the weakness of these two great powers, the UK and France, led the world to another war. During and after World War II, the United States found itself in a conundrum. Despite its traditional isolationism, staying neutral was not an option anymore with World War II. Adopting an isolationist attitude would simply mean allowing your future enemies, whether it is Nazis or the Soviets, to take over the rest of the world and later challenge your own security. So what the United States actually wanted to do is irrelevant under the circumstances where the balance of power between the great powers was in danger, as was the case during World War II. Therefore, the systemic changes and the relative material superiority of the United States forced it to be a global actor.
The process of asserting superiority was ugly. The Japanese invasion in the Pacific had to be stopped. However, how the United States stopped Japan was horrific, and from a humanitarian perspective, there is no way to justify the use of weapons like atomic bombs that target civilians and the environment on a massive scale. The memories of this catastrophe need to be kept alive to prevent something similar from happening again.
Let’s look at it from a different perspective. There is a state whose economic strength and industrial capacity are unmatched. This state has had a monopoly over the most powerful offensive weapon in history for a few years and there is simply no defense against this weapon. We also know that this state, as any state, is not driven by morals over power dynamics. In addition, this state had already used this weapon and set an example and showed that it is capable of using it. Now, from a dark and gloomy perspective of international politics that was prevalent in most of history, the logical expectation would be an exploitation of such an advantage, like Revolutionary France and Nazi Germany did. While the advantages in these examples do not present similar moral conundrums, at least in the case of the latter, we know that the Nazis, in their quest for global dominance, were definitely not concerned about moral considerations. Especially given that most great powers were war-torn after World War II and probably could not handle another war, taking advantage of nuclear powers becomes even more logical.
Whoever would acquire it first was going to have a monopoly for a period, and that could easily turn out to mark the beginning of the worst period in human history. If it was not the United States, and it was any other great power that had a similar monopoly over such a huge destructive capability, it was more likely to have ended with a much worse outcome. Because all major European powers were colonial empires who were built upon the notion that subjugation of other people was ok. Some of them may have opted for using it for their gains. However, the US acted in an unusual way. Of course, it was the right thing to do, but it was unprecedented. Furthermore, the US chose to restructure Japan and Germany to become democracies instead of colonizing them. At the same time, to Soviets did the opposite in their sphere of influence.
The United States had a monopoly over nuclear weapons for a few years until the Soviet nuclear program succeeded in 1949. If this advantage lasted for twenty years instead of four years, the US may have taken advantage of this advantage under a different president. We will never know. What we know is that America did not choose to actively exploit this power in an extreme manner within this time frame. The end of the monopoly gradually brought balance back into the system, by which point the weapons lost their practical use as we noticed more clearly during the Cuban Missle Crisis. As a result, ultimate offensive weapons turned into ultimate defensive weapons, especially due to mutually assured destruction (MAD) doctrine. By saving the world from the Nazis and by not exploiting its nuclear weapon advantage, the United States had the biggest contribution to the world turning out the way it did today.
So Is American Order Good?
Discussion so far shows that the impact of the US in the world has been foundational. However, it does not necessarily mean the US has been a benevolent leader.
What are the bad things that the United States did? First of all, the United States participated in several wars during the Cold War. As a global leader that was afraid of the expansion of communism, for a good reason, and that was determined to stop it, some of these wars are justifiable to some extent. Because the spread of the communist authoritarian model was indeed a serious danger and the idea of domino theory was not that unreasonable. Based on its missionary communist ideology, the USSR actively wanted to expand the communist model around the world against capitalism. But perhaps more importantly, this agenda was dangerous because it involved the expansion of the communist authoritarian political model under Soviet leadership against the Western democracies.
Even though the USSR was a global threat, however, the US itself was not that innocent. American actions against the Soviets involve a series of wars, proxy wars, coups, and a massive number of casualties. While some may argue that the US did what was necessary, there are numerous cases in which this kind of justification does not hold. Furthermore, the shortsighted nature of the US foreign policy resulted in several bad decisions whose effects are still felt today in some places, and it was the people in the targeted countries who paid the price for arbitrary decisions by American leaders. An example of this is the coup d’état orchestrated by the United States in Iran against democratically elected Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953. The monarchical rule after the coup did not only fail but also became one of the causes of the Islamic Revolution. A big source of the instability in the Middle East today has been caused by the Cold War between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the US involvement played a major role in this rivalry, including its creation by contributing to the revolution in Iran.
In another example, American involvement in Iraq has been detrimental to the Middle East. It is not that Saddam did not deserve to be overthrown, but it may not have been the way to do it. To begin with, the justification for the war turned out to be fabricated. The US army failed to provide evidence on the weapons of mass destruction after the invasion. The war left a massive number of civilian deaths. Furthermore, there was no plan to design the political process after Saddam in a way that would create a smooth transition and long-term stability. This lack of foresight is one of the reasons for the quick rise of ISIS in the power vacuum. In addition, this power vacuum also allowed Iran to expand its influence over Iraq. What we do not know at this point is that democracy in Iraq may turn out to be a success in the long run. But that still would not justify the humanitarian cost and the risks taken. The way it was handled could have easily led to another catastrophe like in Afghanistan. Therefore, the war in Iraq and its consequences resulted from a clear exploit of power after the fall of the Soviets under the illusion of unipolarity.
The United States is probably the single biggest external contributor to the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism. America supported Islamist groups to fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s and allowed them to flourish. In addition to that, America is still unaware of the biggest reason for the resentment in the Islamic World against the West: Israel and its treatment of Palestinians. The United States enabling Israel to act like a spoiled child in the Middle East further destabilizes the region and fuels anti-Western, and specifically, anti-American sentiments. Furthermore, unconditional support for the monarchy ruling over Saudi Arabia and the complete disregard for the material and ideological contributions to Islamic Fundamentalists that have come from Saudi Arabia is mind-boggling. Because the US leaders have taken a tough stance against such dangerous extremist groups and the White House often criticizes many governments around the world for doing much less. This also shows the selective use of the criticisms for human rights violations as a foreign policy tool. There are many more examples we can give to illustrate that the US often follows misguided foreign policy and makes major mistakes that lead to drastic consequences.
The US exploited its power numerous times and American interventions in several countries had terrible humanitarian consequences. And for many of them, there was no justification. However, imagine that the United States remained a regional power and had no major influence in global politics. Would things be any better? Although it is impossible to tell, I do not think so. We can say that the American system is definitely an improvement to earlier great powers in the world. Yes, there are much more peaceful states than the US since World War II, such as European states. But remember, Europeans became peaceful only after losing their prospects for being a global power and being forced to operate within a constrained area in the bipolar world of the US and the USSR during the Cold War. Indeed, the United States was far from the best leader it could be. However, without the United States, the world probably would have been worse off.
Conclusion
The main American contribution in global politics is preventing the monopolization of power by any single country, including itself. Furthermore, America also contributed to the expansion of diplomacy in foreign policy by promoting international institutions. As liberal institutionalists argue, for international institutions to work, there should be a powerful country to back the institutions and the United States did just that. Maybe the US is not the most cooperating country within the global institutions today, but these institutions probably would not have succeeded without the US in the first place. The League of Nations is a good example of a failed attempt. Another contribution that we are taking for granted today is that democracy is the norm today in the world against different forms of authoritarian models and the US has played a major role in this. Democracy could not have flourished without certain structural transformations and without the support of a powerful entity like the United States. Yes, its history of democracy has many questionable aspects and inhumane practices and the United States supported several coups against democratically elected leaders just because they are perceived to be against American interests. Despite all these, it would not be fair to ignore the role the United States played in spreading democracy. This may not have been an entirely benevolent contribution, but it created substantial positive outcomes in the rest of the world.
Is the United States a bad guy like other great powers? Yes, great powers are inherently not the good guys. In the case of the US, I haven’t even mentioned the role it has played in neocolonialism and environmental destruction. Given its contributions, however, the United States has been a positive actor in many respects. We are on the brink of several global crises. Some of them are about traditional state rivalries and some of them require global collaboration. There are reasons to be both optimistic and pessimistic. Our hope is that collaboration prevails and we end up with a more democratic global governance as the American leadership is fading in the world. The United States still has a role to play. In a world plagued by populism which has been undermining democracy, however, I hope the American people elect leaders that make America a moral leader once again. Because the people of China or Russia do not have this ability.
