American foreign policy has been guided by two unstated assumptions since the end of WWII. This paper examines those assumptions explicitly, and suggests the damage they have done to U.S. interests and the world.
The assumptions are:
National self-determination is a key right of all peoples everywhere.
International borders must remain inviolate and unchanged.
American foreign policy has been guided by two unstated assumptions since the end of WWII. This paper examines those assumptions explicitly, and suggests the damage they have done to U.S. interests and the world.
The assumptions are:
National self-determination is a key right of all peoples everywhere.
International borders must remain inviolate and unchanged.
On the face of it, these have seemed both obvious and innocuous. However, they bear further examination.
The first assumption is from Wilson's 14 points, and as a program to strengthen and justify America's post-war (actually, post WWII) policy of rolling back European colonial empires and helping countries in Asia and Africa gain their independence, it is both morally right and supportive of our interests.
But circumstances change, and when they do, so do the meaning and consequences of our ideas. A principle that was meant to limit the legitimacy of any form of interference by outside powers in the actions of governments has mutated into a justification for silence in the face of atrocities, no matter how horrible.
What this statement now has come to mean is that personal and political identity is determined by national or tribal identification. Individual rights are lost in the pursuit of group national self-determination. We have seen the consequences of this kind of thinking most clearly in the former territories of Yugoslavia, where ethnic hatreds led to campaigns of "cleansing" and near-genocide, and are about to see the same consequences in Iraq as it dissolves along sectarian and ethnic lines.
In Africa, where the borders drawn up in Whitehall and the Elysee Palace paid no attention to tribal realities, and where tribal territories were never clearly defined anyway, civil wars have caused the deaths of millions in practically every country, over and over again. In Afghanistan, tribal loyalties have prevented efforts to build true national identity corresponding to internationally recognized borders.
International borders in Africa and Asia often do not correspond even faintly to linguistic, ethnic, tribal, or traditional realities. Indeed, the very idea of fixed international borders controlled by central governments is a European invention imposed on these places by colonial powers - and it is now, ironically, a legacy of both empire and anti-colonialism. Again, Afghanistan is the clearest example, where a major international border is defined by the Oxus River. This is fine if you are a general looking at the territory that your army can control without having to cross this barrier to maneuvering. It does not, however, pay attention to the tribal, ethnic, and family ties that bind the people on either side of the river.
The fact must be faced that the two pillars of foreign policy contradict each other, which is made even more dangerous by the fact that our policy makers do not recognize the existence of the pillars. Blind to their own thinking and assumptions, they are blind to their consequences.
Another problem is that neither policy pillar supports either American principles or American interests. To the extent that we support the idea that someone's political identity is determined by his ethnic identity, we deny the American principles of the rights of man and the rule of law. Often, to the extent that we support the inviolability of borders, we support the lawless rule of strongmen interested only in securing their own rule over territory rather than properly governing people.
As legacies of the anti-colonial period of the forties and fifties, both principles were meant to prevent bloodshed. It was believed at that time that making adjustments to borders to make them conform better to the professions, loyalties, or identities of the people who lived there - even though it would conform to the principle of self-determination - would lead to mass massacres such as happened during the partition of British India into Pakistan and India. The failure of this policy is contained in the list of genocides that litter the history of the twentieth century: Somalia, Rwanda, Cambodia, Biafra, Indonesia's Year of Living Dangerously, Congo, Liberia, Lebanon, Bosnia, Iraqi Kurdistan, etc.
One example that counters the idea of national self-determination, in fact, is India itself. Although this was not clear to the racists who set policies in post-war Washington and Whitehall, India is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society. It has only been the dedication to the principles of democracy and the rule of law that have kept India whole and its people relatively free.
Of course, we cannot argue that territorial adjustments could or would have solved all or even any conflicts. Often, people of multiple ethnic, religious, and even linguistic identities live in the same neighborhoods, buildings, or bedrooms. The fact that Serbs and Bosnians were sometimes married to each other did not prevent ethnic cleansing. And it is equally naïve to believe that the legalistic effort to fix borders for all time can prevent the violence that our policy was meant to prevent.
Those who claim that our government should stand up for American principles of equality, justice, and rule of law in international or overseas settings are often accused of unrealistic idealism. Yet there is a certain element of racism in the idea that brown people are not "ready" for democracy, and have to live under strong men just to have some measure of safety in their daily lives. One wonders how much safety there is in a life under a criminal kleptocracy such as Saddam's Iraq, Assad's Syria, Amin's Uganda, or too many other tyrants to name.
Indeed, it can be argued that conformity to America's ideals and principles better serves our so-called national interests better than the policies of so-called realism that have time after time ended up creating enemies and threats to our security rather than fostering international cooperation that is our best hope for peace and prosperity.
Far better principles for our policy would be the following:
-- Governments are institutions created by people, not mystical projections of either ethnic groups or religious icons, and they deserve no more loyalty than that which they earn by their actions.
-- The powers of individuals and institutions both within and without government must be divided and balanced among each other, so that no one's ability to harm another can go unchecked.
-- Laws must be impartially applied to everyone.
-- Sovereignty properly understood means that violent intervention in other countries is a bad idea. It does not mean that governments are free to do anything they want, and are not subject to the standards mentioned above, without criticism.
-- There are no permanent solutions to any or all problems, either on a map or in our heads.
These principles ought to guide the government of every nation, in both its domestic and international policies. One is hard put to find any nation - including the U.S. - in which the government consistently applies them. With these principles in place, however, one can believe that it wouldn't matter what identity someone chooses to adopt. Language, religion, land, culture, family, ethnicity would be free choices, instead of excuses for criminality and cruelty.
Of course, it won't be that easy. There is a lot of history and memory running around this world. There are many who fervently believe that their religion does set the terms of government and does justify mass murder. But there are people in every part of the world, professing every faith, who know that religion and governance should not mix and understand the advantages of the principles of open government.
It is difficult even to imagine how to effectively apply these ideals to international relations. (What, pray tell, about Tibet?) We are seeing this difficulty most clearly as the Bush administration seeks to turn an undivided Iraq into a prosperous, multiethnic, functioning democracy - and turns the effort into a disaster. Simply holding elections and writing constitutions aren't enough. Education, civil society, free and regulated markets, and independent sources of funding for all institutions (both governmental and private) are part of the effort, but we have to recognize that real progress will require both creativity and humility, both of which are in short supply in Washington.
We can't expect every country to be either willing or able to simply copy the American model of politics or jurisprudence. We have enough trouble making it work ourselves.
But we must abandon the ideas that sovereignty is based on tribal identity or territory, and that borders, or anything else, must be permanent even if they make no sense. These twin pillars are assumptions which were productive and sensible at the time they were adopted, but in today's world lead to damage, destruction, and death.