Ivan Eland — America’s Lost Tradition on Non-Intervention

By implicitly criticizing U.S. interventionism, President Trump’s inaugural speech drew denunciations from the Washington establishment as a dangerous deviation, but his message actually fit with U.S. traditions, says Ivan Eland.

Which are the "real" American values? Had the US lost the plot under the neocons and liberal interventionists?

Consortium News
America’s Lost Tradition on Non-Intervention

Ivan Eland | Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at the Independent Institute and formerly an investigator for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Principal Defense Analyst at the Congressional Budget Office

Akhilesh Pillalamarri — Does Promoting American Values Make the World Safer?

Fool's errand.

The gist of this vision is that American values and security can be preserved only so long as the United States promotes democracy and liberalism throughout the world; otherwise, “authoritarianism and illiberalism” will spread, according to Clinton, who worried that “democracy, freedom, and the rule of law are under attack around the world.” Clinton argued that the “mission” of the United States is to “lead the world with strength, smarts, and confidence in our values.”...

The problem with this worldview is that nation-building is a difficult task, and using it as an opportunity to promote a specific set of American values and institutions often makes states (such as Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Iraq) even more unstable and open to threats from other states or from terrorists and militants. Dysfunctional states, not authoritarianism, are the biggest threat to peace.

Stability is built on historic roots specific to individual cultures and political orders, and the institutions and practices that eventually allow for freedom and liberalism take a while to grow, if they grow at all. As President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan argued in a co-authored book, Fixing Failed States, peace—the absence of endemic violence—is the first prerequisite for any state to function. This often requires the triumph of a strongman or a group that can impose peace; it does not spontaneously emerge from democratic decisions in most societies. From peace comes law and eventually institutions, and only then can democratic or liberal practices emerge.

It is folly to try to achieve this process backwards: from democracy, to institutions, to peace. That more often than not leads to conflict. The United States needs to appreciate this in order to remain secure.

"You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink." The horse has to be thirsty. Otherwise the American assumption that "the world is just dying for freedom and democracy" will likely turn out to be literally true rather than figuratively if American tries to impose liberalism. That is a paradox of liberalism — imposing it is illiberal.

The American Conservative
Does Promoting American Values Make the World Safer?

Akhilesh Pillalamarri, editorial assistant at The American Conservative and contributor to The National Interest and The Diplomat

David Swanson — The Decline and Fall of the United States

This can be read as an indictment or as a warning. It is both.

Tyranny, war, poverty, massive corruption, wholesale incarceration, crumbling infrastructure, a collapsing economy, and a pig-headed belief in its own “exceptionalism” among the leading factors contributing to the downfall of the once-great American Empire.

• FAILING DEMOCRACY [low voter participation, crony capitalism, state capture]

• WEALTH CONCENTRATION [rising inequality, growing precariat]

• DEGRADING INFRASTRUCTURE [public goods declining]

• DROP IN POPULAR OPINION ABROAD [Loss of soft power]

• MILITARISM FOR ITS OWN SAKE [Military Keynesianism]

• RESISTANCE GROWING [US perceived as most dangerous country in 2014-Gallup]

• EXCEPTIONALISM ON THE ROPES [#1 in the wrong categories]

All of these can be traced to a single underlying source, neoliberalism as a dominant ideology.

I would not say "decline of the United States," but rather "decline of the American Empire. And that's a good thing.

David Swanson
The Decline and Fall of the United States

See also

William S. Lind is a paleoconservative like Pat Buchanan, but like Buchanan he gets some of this right — as does Ron Paul — and they are saying it. Unfortunately, it is mixed with some pretty loopy stuff that I have omitted from the following excerpts.

The Washington establishment, which is bipartisan, thought that now [after the dissolution of the USSR] we could rule the world. It could dictate to everyone and it could force its ideology, which is sometimes called globalism or liberal democracy, but is in fact the soft totalitarianism of Brave New World, on everyone in the world. If necessary, with military force. This is the classic hubris that has destroyed one great power after another. There is nothing new about it.…

Russia under President Putin represents the state system and the way states normally act within the state system, based on their interests. The ideology of the Washington establishment says that is not how the world is going to work anymore. It is instead going to be essentially a one world government based in Washington. This ideology includes such concepts as the feminist definition of women’s rights, devaluation of all religions, so called gay rights, and the belief that this must be universal. Russia is saying no to this. It is saying that it still believes in the state system and is going to pursue its own interests on the world stage.…

The Washington establishment defines democracy as a system of elections that elects the people it wants to be elected. If an election in another part of the world does not put in power the government that Washington wants, then Washington refuses to recognize the election. We saw this most dramatically in the Gaza Strip, where the freest and fairest election ever held in the Arab world resulted in a Hamas government coming to power. And Washington immediately announced that it would not recognize it or deal with it.…

The neoconservatives have never gotten over the Cold War and in truth they represent the thinking that was anti-Russian long before the Soviet Union, that was anti-Russian in the 19th century. Unfortunately for America and the rest of the world, they have had an enormous impact on American foreign policy. There is no reason they should have that influence, since all of their adventures have proven disastrous. Of course, they gave us a completely unnecessary and failed war in Iraq. Nonetheless, people continue to listen to them. This may have something to do with the fact that they have a great deal of money behind them.

The neocons and the neoliberals are very similar and work together. The Washington establishment is bipartisan.…

Europe at this point is still very much in Washington’s orbit. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the EU is an American satellite.…

The United States policy in the Middle East is so stupid that there is a very real danger that we may find ourselves simultaneously fighting all three parties – the Islamist rebels in Syria, the Assad government and Iran. It takes real talent in foreign policy to fight everybody at the same time, despite the fact that they are all fighting each other.…

Russia Insider
Russia Says No to One-World Government
Victor Olevich interviews William S. Lind


More useful analysis of the policy, strategy and tactics of neoliberal globalization under the imperial US, written in the vein of Pepe Escobar.

Russia Insider
Wolf Pack vs. Bear: How the West Aims to Isolate, Shatter Russia

Anne Williamson