Originally published: 1997
286 pages | Chapter 21
PROMISED LAND, CRUSADER
STATE
Walter A. McDougall |
America-bashing has become a sport-if not a vocation-in the media. It
seems no national imperfection, real or imagined, is too small to be a
capital offense. What helps in sorting through some of the more vocal
indictments is a referee. Walter McDougall's monograph regarding U.S.
foreign policy offers guidance in assessing how much of this
self-flagellation is justified, and how well we've done with the
responsibilities thrust upon us simply because of our success as a nation
and a culture.
Promised Land, Crusader State traces the
broad evolution of American involvement in geopolitics; its primary
objective is to dissect only a few of the particulars of any given era or
incident and use them as markers, not necessarily object lessons. As
McDougall explains his subject he certainly offers some recitations of
historical events, but mostly as a means to reacquaint the reader with
facts, dates, nations, or people. What McDougall has created constitutes an
almost universally valid lesson about the confusions inherent in an open
society buffeted by the vicissitudes of democratic action and political
power struggles.
McDougall examines three key aspects of U.S.
foreign policy over the past two hundred-plus years: the actions taken, the
moral impetus for them (including our tendencies toward both "messianism"
and isolationism), and the self-interest, or national interest, that
motivates our efforts. Working backward, he explains how we arrived at our
place in the world and suggests which policies implemented in the past and
which lessons learned could be applied in the present day.
Obviously,
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there
is also a new aspect of international relations that has not been a factor
before-stateless global terrorism.
For the last three millennia, and for myriad
reasons, insurgencies have plagued nations around the globe. But the stakes
have been raised dramatically in the modern era as technology has changed
guerrilla warfare; nuclear, biological, chemical, or high-explosive weapons
of mass murder can relatively easily now be delivered to almost anyone's
doorstep. This reality of potentially recurrent terrorist attacks is not
addressed by McDougall as he writes his survey before Islamic
fundamentalists began, in earnest, their suicidal murdering of civilian
populations across the globe. In the face of this potentially enlarging
threat civilized nations as a group need to take stock. Particularly in the
West, our history of sometimes naive idealism and an often equal aversion
(especially in Europe) to expressing power in the face of catastrophe, has
become an ostrich-like denial of real world exigencies. In dealing with the
new paradigm, however, all of us will find that it is more than simply
instructive to understand history. In order to adjust usefully in the West,
McDougall's assessment of America, its past, its place, its power, and its
limitations, is highly profitable reading as we address global terrorism.
From the beginning of the republic (and for more
than 150 years before we became independent) Americans had been accustomed
to running their own affairs without needing to seriously consider, much
less answer to others. We wanted to keep it that way but modernity made that
dream impossible. As well, our material advancements over the last two
hundred years have
made the country remarkably strong, so strong that we now have no serious
challengers in the rest of the world. Our worst enemy, as McDougall
observes, is our occasional arrogance-born of righteousness, not greed.
McDougall notes with irony that over the course of our history as a country
the U.S. was most often wrong the more strongly we felt we were right. The
impetus to this disjunction started early, in 1630, when Massachusetts
Governor John Winthrop intoned:
Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people
are uppon us.
Our preeminence on the world stage makes us different, but not always in
the good way Winthrop envisioned. Even so, we were not often as bad as we
were portrayed to be. American leaders have
occasionally
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forgotten the
purpose of our foreign policy which has always been, in McDougall's words,
"to defend, not define, what America was." When the memory of our
officials lapsed, the country veered off course-to our own and the world's
detriment.
McDougall notes that the U.S. has typically lost
its way when our foreign adventures were attempts to create a world in our
own (ideal) image. This was a consequence of our feeling of
exceptionalism-that America was not just different, but as Winthrop
observed, better. McDougall rightly points out that we are merely different,
and sometimes so different that both our friends and our adversaries turn
away in distrust or self-preservation. He recites the views of several of
the Founding Fathers who worried that if we were not moral and did not
remember how ordinary we were that we could not continue to exist, much less
lead. McDougall explores our conduct and finds the U.S. to have acted in its
national interest most of the time over the past two centuries. When we
didn't, when we acted out of righteousness or pursuant to some base motive,
he finds the indictments of our critics largely justified.
As time passed and the republic became engaged with
the rest of the world we sometimes compromised our moral foundations. This
was not because we were venal but because international power politics is a
survival game which we had to play according to real-world rules, not our
own moral compass. (This factor is especially difficult now, in the age of
global terrorism.) McDougall doesn't excuse any of this, neither does he
extol or resolve it; he explains it so that we can go forward making choices
that are both rational and, one hopes, ultimately moral.
To that end, McDougall develops his thesis by
dividing his analysis into eight books of what he termed his foreign policy
"bible." Although he pulls biblical nomenclature into service, his
dissection of America's first and second centuries by this means is
convenient, and incisive; it has nothing to do with religious content. He
finds that U.S. foreign policy in the nineteenth century reflects a coherent
passion (McDougall's books for this era are: Liberty, or Exceptionalism;
Unilateralism, or Isolationism; The Monroe Doctrine; Expansionism, or
Manifest Destiny), but in the twentieth he sees less consistency because
there is less agreement on what to do with our power (the titles for the
twentieth century are: Progressive Imperialism; Wilsonianism, or Liberal
Internationalism; Containment; and Global Meliorism).
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McDougall's divisions remain exceptionally useful
for understanding the phases and conflicts of our national psyche as we
enter the twenty-first century. By examining familiar events and
personalities over the course of our history, he investigates where we went
wrong and where right,
as measured by our goals and our interests. When we evinced sanctimony (not
superiority) we suffered the worst consequences. But when we were rational
(even if based in morality, for morality is not less for being rational) we
achieved our greatest successes. As McDougall explains, the important point
was that our achievements were not grounded in what we happened to gain in
the material world, but what we didn't lose in our struggle with ourselves.
Contemporary readers may be most interested in
McDougall's investigation of how the U.S. was transformed from being a world
power to standing alone as the world power. Understanding this
transition may help us avoid misjudging our place in the international
milieu or abusing our advantages. As McDougall explains, the initial change
in America's global status took root in the industrial and intellectual
might of the country that began developing after the Civil War. Our
increased prestige was cemented in our willingness, when international
realities pressed upon us, to use our physical power in a political fashion.
Certainly we had what can be viewed as imperialist moments but those never
defined our national character. We didn't need to be imperialists; we were
capitalists who preferred to trade and invest rather than conquer. Our
capitalism was a good and extraordinarily beneficial feature of our national
existence despite the denials of liberal pontificators who affect ignorance
as to the true basis of their prosperity and our national power. When the
perceived need arose to deploy the might bestowed by U.S.
capitalism-primarily in the two world wars of the twentieth century-America
arrived at a state of global preeminence.
That we were aggressive, not just responsive, when
pushed or threatened meant that we were unlikely to be perfect in either our
reactions or our comprehensions. Acting in an aggressive manner makes anyone
prone to mistakes because one's eye is often on the goal rather than the
means. Cuba has been an example of this for almost half a century. Equally
as true, however, was that when we saw an opportunity-rather than a
threat-we were less likely to make a mistake. Europe after World War II was
a shining moment for America. In that case we seized the chance to eliminate
a repeat of the mistakes made after World War I that ultimately resulted in
World War II.
Vietnam,
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unfortunately, represented both issues; i.e., we were
threatened by the aggressive spread of Soviet Communism in southeast Asia
while we also saw an opportunity to offer freedom to an oppressed people.
The results in that instance unhappily speak for themselves. The realities
of both Islamic fundamentalism and the many competing forces in the Middle
East are and will remain for some time to come challenges equal to those we
faced during the five decades of the Cold War. Whether we respond or just
react to these threats will make a significant difference to both our
friends and our enemies.
McDougall observes that in the course of the
twentieth century there were many American political, business, and
religious leaders, and movements that became influential and powerful and
led us down some wrong paths. As a group, the First World War, President
Woodrow Wilson, and the League of Nations, was the foremost example of what
could intend so much and go so wrong. (At the end of the First World War the
sad confluence of those realities led the world almost inevitably to the
Second World War.) But, as McDougall points out, our mistakes were not
foreordained by our form of government or our national psyche. It was our
occasionally misguided politics and a sometimes messianic, righteous
adherence to what was not possible that caused our foreign-policy debacles.
This important understanding-that our mistakes of judgment did not result
from systemic causes-allowed the U.S. to continue on a course of
self-actualization within the confines of a real world.
Historical analysts must decide where to focus
their attention to accurately discern where any history starts. Those who
find America failing in myriad ways seem always to begin their critique
where we have not been or where we are not perfect in our actions (a
subjective judgment in any event). That's a tough standard, one sure to
offer many avenues for criticism-criticism advantaged by hindsight and the
noble certainty that a better course was obvious . . . after the fact. As
McDougall points out, we often made good starts to certain foreign-policy
measures that turned out badly because we responded unwisely to changed
circumstances-again Vietnam comes to mind, as does now the war in Iraq. The
self-flagellating America-haters, who blame our government for whatever has
gone wrong, always seem to forget that like any other society, ours is an
imperfect one, populated by imperfect beings, among whom there is almost
always contentious disagreement. McDougall looks at motives, methods, and
facts before judging-and when he does offer an
appraisal, our
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foreign policy
appears, over the long term, more rational and effective than not.
There was a point early in the twentieth century
when America began to go wrong, or at least so it seemed. The word
"wrong" in this context is awkward because it is freighted, as
ever, with both baggage and nuances. Prior to and during World War I, what
McDougall terms Progressive Imperialism became our "wrong" in
foreign policy. This was the dark side of an expanded Manifest Destiny (the
nineteenth-century doctrine that it was the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon
nations, especially the United States, to dominate the entire Western
Hemisphere) that America exported overseas-outside our hemisphere. It was
dark not because national gain was sometimes an after-effect, but because it
was arrogant, presumptuous, and severely shortsighted. Problems arose for a
very simple reason: not everyone thinks like us, much less wants to be like
us-especially at a cost of altering their national identity. McDougall
writes,
For at bottom, the belief that American power, guided by a secular
and religious spirit of service, could remake foreign societies came
as easily to the Progressives as trust-busting, prohibition of child
labor and regulation of interstate commerce [did at home]. . . . The
result in foreign policy was that a newly prideful United States began
to measure its holiness by what it did, not just by what it was, and
through Progressive Imperialism committed itself, for the first time,
"to the pure abstractions such as liberty, democracy, or justice."
And we failed, sometimes miserably, as the
twentieth century progressed. Reform is a parochial matter, based as much on
history and culture as destiny. America's hubris that it could reform others
or transplant the American experience anywhere else, much less everywhere
else, was simply a dream that in some cases turned into a nightmare. As the
Progressive Imperialism of the early twentieth century devolved into what
McDougall terms Global Meliorism, the do-gooders in America the Powerful
turned sour on most of our oversees adventures by the second half of the
century. There was substantial confusion in our foreign policy establishment
and thus among the electorate as well. We began to drift, especially after
the demise of Soviet Communism in 1991. Unfortunately we drifted right into
Iraq as the twenty-first century dawned. That it may have been
the wrong
answer to the right
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question (how and where do we attack stateless global
terrorism?) will only be determined in the years to come. McDougall, writing
before 9/11/2001, voiced caution
in any attempt at nation-building, thus his analysis of events since the
Coalition Force's invasion of Iraq in 2003 might reflect his skepticism of
our Middle-East efforts. (A revised edition of Promised Land, Crusader
State that will address the post 9/11 evolution of U.S. foreign policy
is currently in preparation.)
What the twenty-first century holds for America is
difficult to assess. The main arena is seen as China, but the global
opposite of Chinese authoritarianism and emerging capitalism, democratic
India, is easily as important, and seems equally ignored by American media
and political figures. Add in faltering Europe (see Fewer,
Chapter 43), the Middle East and Islamic fundamentalism, and a newly corrupt
Russia and the mix is volatile at least. The sub-contexts of religion,
politics, natural resources, combined with pure, simple mistakes and luck
will determine whether we will repeat our twentieth-century errors or learn
from them.
As an example of how uncertain the results of our
most intentional acts can be, during McDougall's investigations he finds the
success of some of our best efforts was perhaps due as much to happenstance
as to design; the extreme examples being the Marshall Plan (the American
effort after World War II to rebuild the economies of our former European
enemies to thwart Soviet Communist expansion into the center of the
continent) and the democratization of Germany and Japan after the war.
Although McDougall may not give enough credit in these cases to either
American initiatives as an intended catalyst for change, or the
psychological impact on foreigners of Americans acting deliberately, the
facts may nevertheless justify his inferences. In other words, it's always
better to be lucky than smart. It is also often advisable to act forcefully
(which does not always mean using the machinery of war). After surveying
America's foreign policy since the Second World War, McDougall succinctly
concludes, "force must sometimes precede reason." Of course, the
extreme opposite can also be true-that force sometimes precludes reason.
When and then how force must be employed are always
the sticking points, especially if one's country is the most powerful nation
in the world-at least for now (think again of China's growing military as
well as commercial sophistication). As a realist, McDougall recommends that
we always act in our national interest (although he does not voice that
either often or directly) which
customarily, but not universally,
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coincides
with the interests of others of like mind. World War II was an example of
this, as was our constancy in the Cold War. Our intentions in the Middle
East are yet to prove one way or another but their impetus seems to fit more
of the good side of McDougall's paradigm than not. At the end, the character
of the people involved will determine their own destiny-mostly in spite of
rather than because of our actions, thus we must tread softly.
The ultimate caveat to all of McDougall's
assessments, of course, is that some theories of our leadership are sound
only in a rational world. As we have experienced, the world is very often not
rational; that is when judgment becomes most important and history most
valuable. In this vein, McDougall's investigation of our involvement in
Vietnam, an ill-conceived, ill-advised, and ill-executed policy of the
Johnson Administration that was carried on and on by its own institutional
momentum, is exquisite. (His dissection of Robert McNamara, Secretary of
Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, is quite useful today.
McNamara helped craft U.S. policy throughout much of the Vietnam War and
showed himself to be perhaps the most naive American official of the
twentieth century [after Woodrow Wilson], and most assuredly the most
damaging to American integrity. He appears almost as a caricature of hubris,
folly, and ignorance.)
The books of McDougall's bible-from his
investigation into our original concept of liberty to his skepticism about
the effects of our global meliorism-form a cogent and compelling assessment
of American foreign policy. As we confront the international terrorism of
Islamic fundamentalists and the power of China and India and the rest of
Asia we'll have to make new decisions, but it is unlikely that the
foundations of those judgments will change much from what McDougall
presented as the American paradigm. His assertions about using our past as
much as possible to influence conclusions about our future are important in
their own right; his efforts at understanding and explaining the first
principles of foreign policy offer a useful guide to governance as a
practice, not just a theory, in a world that has become less certain, and
certainly more dangerous.
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About the Author
Walter A. McDougall is professor of history at the University of
Pennsylvania. A graduate of Amherst College and a Vietnam veteran, he
received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1974 and taught at the
University of California-Berkeley for thirteen years before moving to the
University of Pennsylvania to direct its International Relations Program.
McDougall teaches U.S., European, and Asia/Pacific diplomatic history and is
the author of many books, most recently Freedom Just Around the Corner: A
New American History 1585-1828. In 1986, he won the Pulitzer Prize for The
Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age. He is also
a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and
former editor of Orbis, its journal of world affairs. McDougall lives
in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
Available through:
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