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Democracy, to Americans in the United States, is more than just a preference of procedures in how to run government. It is infused into our American culture. Some would even say it is the United States' "official" secular religion. It is the American way of life.
Some Americans would go as far as promoting the expansive exportation of democracy in hopes of creating a "better world", or a unified democratic empire of sorts. So should the U.S. use its unrivaled power to spread democracy throughout the world?
No. Perhaps there is room for debate as to whether or not the U.S. should serve as a moderator of peace between competing, rival nations, and as a guide and helping hand to poor and needy third-world countries. This would place our nation on a moral pedestal. However there are several problems with a doctrine for democratizing other nations at the point of a gun and using brute force, or using "our power" (if we prefer euphemisms). A doctrine like this would be perceived as arrogant, as self-serving, would place no limits or checks on what the U.S. could do, and the actual cost of creating this "new world" would be immense.
First let us separate intention from perception and reality, before tackling the issue of a democratizing doctrine seeming arrogant. Intentions can be noble. However, good intentions and rhetoric alone do not suffice in considering complex, real-world dilemmas and scenarios. Simply wanting to use our power to spread democracy may spawn from an intention to get as close to a global utopia as possible, but this overlooks the very nature of such a grandiose plan and upon closer analysis one will find such a plan to exude arrogance.
Arrogance? "Not true," proponents of democratization would say. Look at what democracy has done for our country. Sure we may have problems, but our democratic system and culture allows us to evolve and overcome those problems. We have individual rights and liberties, we promote equality, we cherish diversity, and above all we value freedom. Why would other countries not want this?
This brings us back to a point made earlier. When we export democracy, we are exporting "Americanism" (or at the very least it is seen this way). Inherent in this desire to spread democracy is a "holier than thou" attitude, which may remind some of the saying from the Vietnam War era: "In every Vietnamese, there's an American waiting to come out". With this type of stance in the world we are essentially saying that we are the ideal and that we will do whatever it takes to make others just like us.
But for all of our values and liberties and our democracy, what makes us an ideal? We happen to be a wealthy and militarily powerful nation, that is a given. But do we have a right to impose our myriad of ideologies on other nations just because we have the means and power to do so? Of course not! This easily turns the United States into a first class, arrogant bully. Have we forgotten our own roots? We built our democracy from the bottom-up. We were not handed our democracy from the top-down by another "liberating force". Imposing democracy may very well be an oxymoron because our own history tells us that successful democracies had a strong cause and purpose to take root and change and evolve the way they did on their own for the most part. What would our take be on a scenario where a presumably prospering communist Republic of China is positioned as a major rival to the U.S. and is a world super power, and they happen to have a similar doctrine of their own where they believe they should "liberate" nations and recreate them in the image of China? Perhaps they would want to liberate poor, failing democracies like Argentina. It is all a matter of perspective. Without such perspective we give way to arrogance.
Another concern about a democratizing doctrine is the beneficiary. Who exactly benefits when the United States wages war and overthrows other governments in the name of democracy? Many critics of the doctrine would say that the United States benefits mostly, while the conquered nation falls by the wayside, becoming a resourceful quasi-colony of the U.S. The doctrine is self-serving in only strengthening the United States.
Proponents of the doctrine would of course deny this. They would use the same rhetoric about liberating people in need of freedom. They would say that the United States would only benefit as much as the rest of the world as far as having created one more democratic, peaceful nation like Iraq for instance. Unfortunately blanket statements and vague rhetoric are not enough to equip a doctrine with the substance needed to handle the complexities of the real world.
Other nations cannot understand this doctrine. If we are truly concerned about liberating nations from tyranny and oppression, why only go into Iraq (assuming that some of the more outlandish allegations at the time about Iraq were true), when North Korea has been known to be oppressive for ages, and all the while has blatantly been developing nuclear weapons. "We don't negotiate with terrorists," in Iraq's situation, yet now we are negotiating and having talks with North Korea, which is a part of the infamous "Axis of Evil"? We allow the Saudi regime to continue oppressing its women with a puritanical and fundamentalist version of Islam, and continue to support Israel, a nuclear power, while it illegally occupies Palestinian territory, thereby subjugating innocent Palestinians in the West Bank. These are the inconsistencies in our policies that lead other nations to believe our efforts at democratization really are self-serving. Sure we got rid of Saddam, but the world sees that we also have unprecedented access to Iraq with major American corporations and contractors profiting. This is the same Iraq we backed more than two decades ago, in the name of democracy, to attack Iran during the Iranian Revolution, when the Shah, who we were very comfortable and "cozy" with having in power, was overthrown. In the meanwhile we do not attack North Korea because they are a real danger and could possibly strike back. We have major economic ties with Saudi Arabia and Israel, so as tyrannical as some of their actions may seem, we leave them alone too. So as one can see, the current brand of democratization has more than its fair share of flaws, and can easily be regarded as extremely selfish.
So perhaps this is a bad example of what spreading democracy is about. Maybe the way the United States is executing its plan of democratization is just not complete. Let us not stop at easy targets like Iraq. Let us take on the entire world and use our might to impose democracy on every nation, one at a time. Proponents for such a plan might add that such a world would be in harmony and would coexist peacefully.
However even this "adjustment" to democratization will not work because it conflicts with what we preach at home. How can we support a system of checks and balances at home, and then turn around and play monarch abroad? Who can stop us? What are the limits? This idea of spreading democracy abroad is not equipped with such limits and checks. Without boundaries what is to stop us from becoming the tyrants we despise so much and stop us from oppressing others? What is to stop us from going to war when everything can be justified in the name of democracy? In concept this is not unlike the totalitarian Nazi regime of Hitler, in that they justified everything in the name of the German, "Aryan" race and the German nation, and wanted this nation to be devoid of any other impure races. With no checks we no longer feel obligated to withstand international opinion and input, and can wage war with no other justification than the spread of democracy. With no limits and an obstinate ideology we run a serious risk of spreading ourselves too thin and then collapsing from not being able to sustain the grandeur, as was the case with other fallen empires of the past.
And with the United States having a history of resorting to military force over diplomacy in terms of choice of "power", we can be sure that using such power to spread democracy throughout the world will be costly. War hawks may deem the cost a necessary price to pay to reform the world to the way it "should" be.
However, the cost spoken of is more than the financial expenditure and a few hundred military casualties. During the Cold War the United States, the Soviet Union, and China were involved in proxy wars all over the world in a race to achieve superiority. The overwhelming majority of people who lost their lives in this race for greatness were non-combatant civilians. Entire villages of innocent people in parts of the world we consider remote and pay little attention to were eradicated. In our more recent bombing campaign in Iraq we killed countless civilians having missed many of our primary targets. Moreover, this kind of activity is now inspiring insurgents and terrorists to seek retribution since they see it as an attack on their culture and people...a culture and people we take very little time to understand before subjecting them to American justice at its finest. Now imagine this kind of strife continuing on for decades and maybe centuries or more because of a policy we have on spreading democracy essentially at the point of a gun. It seems pretty ridiculous that a nation as great as ours would want to engage in something like that, right?
The United States of America should be a beacon of hope and peace in the world, not a perpetual manufacturer of war and turmoil. Let us lead by example, not by imposition. We accommodate such a diverse population at home, so let us not be arrogant and learn to accommodate a diverse world of nations abroad. Let us share and invest our wealth by helping impoverished nations with food, clothes, shelter, medicine, and education instead of using the same wealth to selfishly expand our spheres of influence and domination. Let us respect long lasting international coalitions and leagues and abide by their standards and limits, thereby leading an example for other nations seeking stability in such a coalition. And lastly ,if we are always mindful about the tremendous cost of wars before recklessly undertaking military action, perhaps diplomacy will become the arena we shine in. The world would definitely be a better, more peaceful place. |
