There is a furor being caused by the fringe candidates in the 2008 presidential primaries on the issue of trade and the presence of America around the world. Several candidates, including Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, would like nothing more than to see the United States withdraw from the World Trade Organization, NAFTA, and CAFTA. Both of their campaigns are facing problems of their own, but one can not deny that there is a substantial portion of the American population that identifies with their message. While I can sympathize with their complaints about Americanism abroad and free trade I believe that globalization and liberalization of trade has enhanced the US’s cultural and economic influence around the world, something that needs to be preserved if the US is to bring the world together and build a lasting and strong international system of governance.
There is a furor being caused by the fringe candidates in the 2008 presidential primaries on the issue of trade and the presence of America around the world. Several candidates, including Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, would like nothing more than to see the United States withdraw from the World Trade Organization, NAFTA, and CAFTA. Both of their campaigns are facing problems of their own, but one can not deny that there is a substantial portion of the American population that identifies with their message. While I can sympathize with their complaints about Americanism abroad and free trade I believe that globalization and liberalization of trade has enhanced the US’s cultural and economic influence around the world, something that needs to be preserved if the US is to bring the world together and build a lasting and strong international system of governance.
Globalization’s ramifications are both complex and controversial, but it is a phenomenon that has almost certainly granted some indirect and direct benefits to the United States. The spread of American technology, goods, and culture has expanded our influence far beyond that allowed us by our military. The threat of the stick is not nearly so powerful as manipulation of preferences. If other nations desire the same things as we do, we have no need to invade them, manipulate them, or control them. The change of preferences can be as simple as a new desire for a can of Coke, or as broad as the desire for freedom. Dictatorial regimes are rightly afraid of American soft-power and go to extraordinary lengths to suppress the spread of American ideas through suppression of their media.
Globalization and the exercise of soft power have been slowly but surely tying the world together in a thickening web of interdependence. As the world’s major economic and social power, the United States holds a central position in the web. Though this is the case for now, we can not know how long our economic, military, and social dominance will last and we should begin to think of the legacy that our great nation shall be remembered for. Shall we go down as just another militaristic empire, fighting for control until the very end? Or shall we go down as the nation that changed the system of international anarchy and gave its blessing to a new world order based on law, prosperity, and peace? Such a dream has been a part of the American tradition since Woodrow Wilson and was revived by Roosevelt and Truman. They recognized that unless we want to end up in history’s dustbin of has-beens we need to change the rules to secure a lesser but more stable position in world affairs.
To do this we need to reestablish ourselves as the moral leader of the world and reaffirm our commitment to doing not only what is best for our nation, but what is best for the global community in general. This means no more unnecessary wars, no more torture and rendition, and no more talk of retreating from our trade and cooperative agreements. Once we have ended these practices, we can resume tackling the issues that concern everyone in the global community including human rights abuses, global warming and the environment, poverty, and creation of freer but fairer trade. If we tackle these issues in an increasingly multilateral basis we will not have to look over our shoulders for Russia or China; they have thus far failed to take any sort of leadership role on these issues and have thus will be forced to join us in leading the world or be increasingly marginalized from the rest of the world.
The mistake of Paul and Kucinich is that if we withdraw from our trade agreements and multilateral organizations, we will undermine our ability to cure the cancers that plague the world, whether it be poverty, global warming, or war. Soft power is the only real alternative to the use or threat of military force, an option that the Iraq War has shown to have some serious limitations. If we are to create a lasting change in the world system and do it with the support and blessing of the global community it will be because we have sold the world the greater good.