American Foreign Policy

jason_els

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Interesting, Jason, thanks.

I have a somewhat different perspective.

The British World Empire (as opposed to the earlier one that my country got beaten up by) had its roots in the Age of Discovery. England originally played a small part in this and didn't engage in the wholesale slaughter of civilisations as preferred by the Spanish.

After the English had seen to the Spanish fleet in the Armada incident, the waves opened up to the British. Two separate things happened imo, where people saw an opportunity for permanent settlement to exploit local resources, colonies were founded, like the ones in your own country. Elsewhere trading posts were established in the same way that the Greeks and Phoenicians had been doing 2500 years earlier in the Mediterranean. All gaps in the market as it were.

It's all about exploitation of opportunity and resources. In an age of revolution, your forefathers saw an opportunity to take those resources for themselves, and with the aid of the French became independent. After this you see a remarkable and ruthless imperial expansion across what has now become the United States. The genocides of the Native Americans is far beyond anything the British ever did. Other Colonies don't appear to have had the same set of radicals nor the aid of the French.

As mentioned, the other form of imperialism, is/was the establishment of trading posts. The British seem to have been particularly successful at this, as we still are in global business. The thing is, and this is the point I really want to make, that once you are successful, you become drawn into local affairs and the continued supply of the resources that you are exploiting becomes too important back home for you to relinquish. Hello Iraq, as you have said.

Gradually the British became more and more involved in the government of the non colonies, leading eventually to the height of the British Empire in the Nineteenth Century.

Yes there is a catalogue of put down rebellions and other abuses of power, but the most shameful incident in British History and the second lesson that comes from Empire, was the Irish potato famine. Why did the British with all their wealth from around the world, allow their neighbour to starve? The real answer is adherence to an ideology and that ideology was the "Free Market". Yes, we pretty much invented that as well.

I think the US is repeating both these errors.

Quite true though I will say that the largest killer of Indians was disease and, in particular, smallpox.

I think what made America different from the UK's other colonies was that we were essentially British or, at least, European. We were westerners from the get go and nothing is more representative Enlightenment ideology in action than the establishment of the US government. We also had unprecedented resources; vast areas of arable land, institutions of elementary and higher learning, Christianity, relatively close proximity to Europe, an open immigration policy vis a vis other Europeans, rich game, loads of fast running streams and rivers to power industry, and slave labor. The bounty of America and the relative homogeneity of the population made America a player. We weren't Hottentots, Wogs, Fuzzywuzzys, or any other thing that other westerners saw as subhuman or, at least, primitive. We were someone Europe could do business with. We might not be as sophisticated, but we had resources, knew how to do business, and could defend ourselves.

Other British colonies didn't quite have that. Canada didn't have any need for independence nor the population density or cohesiveness. Our attempt to, "liberate," Windsor was met with, "meh." The great majority of British colonies didn't have the homogeneity necessary to form an active resistance nor the technology to do so. Of all resistance to the British prior to India, the Zulu were by far the most formidable because they were cohesive and had a brilliant military leader in Shaka.

It's interesting that as the empire began to dissolve, the UK learned a lesson that the US took to heart. You needn't garrison a country if your businesses still had access to all the resources you came for in the first place. Imperialism changed from being a military affair to an economic one and it's one that's still going on today. Western Europe, America, and the few other westernized nations of the world (many former British colonies), learned that it's easier to strip wealth when sharing the money with a few of the right people in power in the countries whose resources you want. The British raj may have been sent packing, but British businesses in India stayed.

I will tell you that the Irish (the Republic) view of the potato famine is a bit different. The opinions I have run into all believe that it was a matter of, "Who cares? Let the Paddys starve." It surprised me that it is the one thing that most people in the Republic are most bitter about. The Troubles provoke far less reaction. Perhaps it's easier to explain political disputes than humanitarian ones.

None of this is disputed. It's a matter of historical record.

None of this is disputed, it's a matter of historical record.

None of this is disputed, It's all a matter of historical record.

I was asked for examples and gave them.

The same applies to all of what you say (with the exception of the item relating to Mau Mau which - while not disputing the facts was a rather more complex and a little less one sided situation than the citation suggests and of which recent events in Kenya are a reminder - also the side reference to the French in Algeria is somewhat disingenuous on the part of the author of the linked article).

I'm aware of the Mau Mau attacks on colonists and agree the citation is one-sided but I think the author is of the opinion that none of it would have happened if the British weren't there in the first place. I could say the same about the Indians here in North America. There were some Indian massacres of colonists/Americans which were horrible and provoked equally violent responses.

There's nothing new here, to me at least. There are dozens more similar and worse horror stories, many of which are unknown or denied by the British, then and now. I suggested in another thread that this was worthy of discussion but America bashing is (for now) back in vogue, evidently.

The US, as I've suggested elsewhere didn't and hasn't persued an imperialist agenda in the way, inter alia, Britain did. I know a lot of people will disagree, but I've yet to see a truly persuasive argument.

Ideology has been America's main export. Yes, too often delivered by an iron first in a velvet glove. But again, none of this is news. Nations will act in their own self interest, how could we expect them to do otherwise? What matters is seeking to understand why and how this happens, the processes that lead to the sort of foreign policy mistakes that are made by all nations.

I think a key difference (certainly post cold war) is that the US was the only nation capable of extending significant global influence, and as such should have acted with better judgement than (based on the evidence) it did. But of course, hindsight is 20:20. :smile:

True to that last point. Yet I haven't encountered an empire that learned from the mistakes of previous empires. It seems we're bound to repeat history.

A citizenry's biggest threat is usually it's own Government. I'm always amazed how many people don't realise that.

Keep your friends close...

Quite true!

The dollar is barely worth the paper it's written on right now. How exactly are we a threat to the rest of the world? :confused:

Because we can project military power anywhere we choose.

Those links are astonishing, Rob. The USA refused help from France?

Maybe we were afraid they'd want Louisiana back?

Well, if they had let France help, they couldn't go on and on about how France was liberated in 1944 and never said thank you. :rolleyes:

A complete failure on the part of Louisiana's useless government. The governor should have gone on TV and said, "Hell yes we'll take French help! The federal government hasn't done anything for us so they're in no position to deny us help. If our own government won't help us then we'll take what we can get!"

Of course French aid would probably consist of wine, cheese, and Camus books but hey, it's the thought that counts.
 

Drifterwood

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I think we are pretty much in agreement Jason, though I think you ascribe a little hindsight to the situation as it was at the time of the revolution.

I'm sure to those on the ground in Ireland, it seemed like that, especially with the English Estate owners, but the decisions of non interference were taken in London, BBC - History - Charles Edward Trevelyan (1807 - 1886)

The two lessons IMO, Musclekid, are the reliance on the fruits of empire whilst having to pay for the means (military) to protect their supply and adherence to an ideology, in our times, that is free market globalisation.

Personally, I am glad that the British Empire was dismantled before I was born. As is said of all political careers, that they inevitably end in failure, so do Empires.
 

headbang8

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It says alot about State education and freedom of thought.

20,000,000 Russians died defeating Hitler and defending their Country. They got to Berlin first and liberated Eastern Europe, which became known as the Eastern Block. This in part lead to the Cold War, which you did win. So far.
I don’t know how I stumbled a cross this post from a decade ago, but Drifterwood’s last prescient sentence plays very differently in 2018 than 2008.