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What
are American's core political values? Individualism, equality of of
opportunity (egalitarianism), liberty, and moralism (especially Protestant
Anglo-Saxon moralism) |
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Where
did these core values come from? And why do Americans worry about whether
their foreign policy is consistent with their values when many countries
don't? Samuel Huntington (and many other scholars):
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Founding
ideologies: Lacking a historical claim to place, immigrants coming
to American found consensus and community around a set of values (see
above) that are often called "The American Creed." Behaviors
linked to these values are often called "American exceptionalism. |
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Geography:
Choosing when to fight and when to withdraw. Unlike many countries in
the world, the US could choose when and where to fight well into the
20th C. As such, the US has tended to oscillate between complete
involvement in foreign policy (using power to make other societies
correspond to our values) and isolationism. |
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Timing:
National identities and statehood. Many countries in Europe became
states well before they became nations. Thus, the use and projection of
power in foreign affairs has not been as closely linked to the national
identity in these societies as is the case with the United States. |
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How
do American values developed at the founding affect foreign policy choices
today? Huntington answers this question by pointing to a fundamental paradox
in American politics: The US feels morally compelled to intervene into the
affairs of other states so that they can be more democratic; however, the
effective use of American power often means trampling some freedoms within
the American political system. |
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Realism
vs. idealism (liberalism). We have oscillated back and forth throughout
the country's history between these two contrasting visions of the world and
our place in it. On the one hand, Americans are often accepting of the idea
that international politics is a nasty political environment in which no
other country can or should be trusted (while this vision of the world fits
well with American moralism and our sense of exceptionalism, realists
believe that all states accept the fact that the world is a dangerous,
violent place in the absence of any enforceable set of rules). On the other
hand, the US has from time to time seen itself obligated to make the world
safe for democracy, leading it to advocate ideal/liberal visions.
Liberals/idealists (to use the language of international relations theory)
believe that international conflict could be tamed if only other countries
can be forced to accept liberal democracy and capitalism. During the Cold
War, US foreign policy emphasized realism; more recently idealism has been
prevalent. |
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Moralism
vs. pragmatism? The US has almost always cast its foreign policy goals
in moralistic terms: we've never said that we invaded another country just
because we could and wanted what they had. Whereas American foreign policy
tends to be moralistically-orientated in its ends, we have historically
emphasized pragmatism in the means by which goals are achieved. |
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Isolationism
vs. internationalism. American exceptionalism has led the country to
assume that it should not get involved in international politics unless
doing so serves ends consistent with our core political values. Until the
Cold War, the pattern of foreign policy was largely one of full engagement
or full withdrawal: either the US stayed out of other countries' affairs or
the US tried to use its powers to make those other country's act in ways
that fit our vision of appropriate behavior (at a minimum, this was the
public goal the US used to justify its aggressive policies). Since the start
of the Cold War, however, the US has been a constant presence in global
politics, using power not only to shape the behavior of other countries but
also to mold the entire international system so that it is more consistent
with American values. |
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Unilateralism
vs. multilateralism. Seeing itself as morally superior and being able to
choose when to engage global politics, the US has almost always opted for
unilateral foreign policies rather than multilateral approaches. |
