Morgenthau in "Another 'Great Debate'" has been able to deconstruct the underlying political forces that drive American foreign policy and determine American National Interest. He takes a realist approach to explain the dynamics of national interest by suggesting that man is inherently precarious as a result of which he is a political animal, therefore putting forth the idea that the fault lines revealed through the debates regarding the U.S. foreign policy are constantly at war with morality.
The ideas permeating from this essay seem to suggest that if the Balance of Power is not maintained, freedom will be lost and so there needs to be some form of alternative to maintain this balance. However, the trajectory of hegemony and the balance of power amongst nations provides sufficient evidence as to how the political organization of the world into "coordinate states" is just a euphemism for covert organized American Imperialism.
To draw a parallel to Morgenthau's realist dissertation, it would be interesting to incorporate "The confessions of an Economic Hit man" by John Perkins. This book aptly depicts the presence of the invisible hand in American foreign politics and the influence of "corporatocracy" in determining the nature of American Aid and intervention. In light of the events that unfolded in Panama, Iran (1955) and Korea(1950) as a result of American foreign interests and intervention, it is safe to say that as a result of possessing the scarce resource and its product, power and security respectively, the U.S. foreign policy has proved to be a public good only for the Americans but inevitably a global 'bad' for the rest of the world.
I agree with your conclusion that the US forms foreign policy in a way to promote the and protect the interests of its own citizens, irrespective of what effects its foreign policy will have over the global interests. We have seen time and time again how the US intervenes in the interests of other states simply to maintain its balance of power and nothing else. It doesn't care how its actions will a negative impact on the citizens of those particular states. The examples of Iraq, Afghanistan and even Pakistan are at front of us.
ReplyDeleteWhat is interesting is that U.S. foreign policy isn't always for the public good for America. But I do concur that it is often "bad" for global politics.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that U.S. foreign policy is often for the public good of corporations and big business in the U.S., hence why some argue the U.S. is a neopluralist state.