John Perry — The True Nature of US Interventions

‘Make America Great Again’: Trump’s slogan seems both to yearn for a time when the United States had more influence, and to call for its pre-eminence to be restored. In its own way, it asserts that the US is – or should be – different. In fact it was only Trump’s predecessor, Obama, who was the first president to talk regularly about American exceptionalism, yet to Trump it is something that is long lost and it is his job to recover it. Yet belief in the US’s exceptional nature has been a constant feature of the country’s history, whoever has been president, and continues right up to the present day.

Its starting point in the early nineteenth century was the ‘Monroe doctrine’, the assertion of the US’s pre-eminent power in the western hemisphere, replacing the old colonial powers such as Spain and Portugal. Its domestic counterpart was the US’s God-given ‘manifest destiny’, which justified settlement of the whole North American continent, regardless of the presence of the people to whom much of the land already belonged. Whereas the Monroe doctrine at first reflected a degree of respect for the then newly emerging Latin American nations, by the end of the century it only thinly disguised a new kind of imperialism which justified US intervention anywhere in the hemisphere.

Soon after the end of the second world war, the former ‘great powers’ began to give up those colonies that had not already been returned to their rightful owners. But, fuelled by the cold war, the US began a new phase of imperialism. Dan Kovalik, in his new book The Plot to Control the World, quotes a report, which he says is almost certainly an underestimate, that the US interfered in 81 foreign elections between 1946 and 2000. And even that number omits more serious interventions such as US-provoked coups, assassinations and invasions. Yet, as Kovalik says, ‘American exceptionalism’ requires a belief that the US is a unique force for democracy and freedom in the world. This enables the New York Times to justify US interference in the affairs of other countries because the US is unique in using its power to challenge dictators or otherwise promote democracy, whereas Russia (say) more often intervenes to disrupt democracy or promote authoritarian rule... 

Counterpunch
The True Nature of US Interventions
John Perry

Martin Sieff — Woodrow Wilson Goes to Europe: One Hundred Years of Delusional American Madness

We are now in the dubious position of “celebrating” – if that is the word – the 100th anniversary of US President Woodrow Wilson’s departure on December 4, 1918 on the liner SS George Washington for the Versailles Peace Conference where he was confident he would dictate his brilliant solutions that would end war in the world for all time.

Historians and psychiatrists – including Dr. Sigmund Freud himself who co-authored a book on Wilson – have endlessly debated whether Wilson was sane and just deluded or raving mad. Freud clearly inclined to the latter view. And he had ample evidence to support him. What is most alarming is that, as Henry Kissinger – significantly not born an American at all – points out, all US presidents either share Wilson’s ridiculous messianic fantasies or feel they must pretend to....

Wilson is the father of liberal internationalism in international relations, and it's progeny, liberal interventionism and US global hegemony because American exceptionalism. I am not sure that delusion madness is the only factor, although it is a chief factor. The other chief factor is tying this madness to neo-imperialism and neocolonialism as concomitants of capitalism American-style.

Liberal internationalism is also called liberal idealism in foreign policy, and both liberal internationalism and liberal idealism are called Wilsonianism.

Wilsonianism is opposed by foreign policy realism, which sometimes equated with Realpolitik, although foreign policy realism is a broader category than Realpolitik. Realism focuses on national interest as the criterion in foreign policy and international relations. It is conservative in the political tradition of Thomas Hobbes and Niccolò Machiavelli. Its chief proponent recently is Henry Kissinger. Of course, in speaking of "national interest" the question arises over exactly whose interests, since nationals are not homogenous.

Martin Sieff offers an appraisal of the insanity of some US Wilsonian presidents.

Strategic Culture Foundation
Woodrow Wilson Goes to Europe: One Hundred Years of Delusional American Madness

Martin Sieff, senior fellow of the American University in Moscow, former chief foreign correspondent of The Washington Times, and former managing editor, international affairs, for United Press International

Nathan J. Robinson — Liberalism And Empire

Krugman believes that Trump is threatening to destroy America’s great “empire” and that this is bad, because our country’s “empire” is good and noble. Trump, Krugman suggests, is an aberrant departure from the lofty values and ideals that have guided our foreign policy for most of the past century.

Unfortunately, Robinson doesn't cite the warning of the founding fathers about avoiding entangling alliances, and that failure to do so would insert the fledging US into the same politics as Europe, with the ensuing wars. Not only was there a long history of the dynamic in Europe at the time, but WWI would demonstrate this again, resulting in the remaking of the map of Europe and initiating a new historical period that would see WWII and many related conflict thereafter.

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world — George Washington, Farewell Address (1796)

Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations-entangling alliances with none. — Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address (1801)

The US did not sign any permanent treaties of alliance prior to WWII, after which the United Nations, the UNSC, the IMF, the World Bank, etc. were established as permanent international organizations, and NATO was established as a permanent military alliance that is still expanding. The US now has a global military presence with attendant commitments.

Where is Paul Krugman coming from? He is talking out of his field. And he is not alone. 

These people seem unaware of American history and what the long-standing policy of the US was prior to WWII, not to mention the values and thinking on which this policy stance was based. These values and thinking were instrumental in the undertaking of rebellion against British rule, the ensuing American Revolution, and the founding of the American Republic. 

But the US could not avoid the imperialistic urge at the close of the rush for colonies by the competing European powers. But about all that was left then was the Philippine Islands.

Woodrow Wilson also broke with the tradition of staying out of European affairs by involving the US in the (failed) League of Nations. This attempt at internationalism lead to the establishment of international institutions that would later undermine national sovereignty and present the opportunity for neo-imperialism through their control. NATO was a military entangling alliance that commits the members to go to war on behalf of any member that is attacked by a non-member.

The Federal Reserve System was also established under Wilson (Dec. 1913). This would lead the US into entanglement with the other central banks and financial interests through the establishment of the Bank of International Settlements.*

Just what is "American" about this? What is treasonous about attempting to follow the warnings of the founding fathers and early presidents about entangling alliances and avoiding foreign wars unless in defense of vital national interests. I haven't seen anything remotely like the mission of American to spread freedom and democracy or American values in the founding documents or the debates about their formulation. Who is being out of line here? America Firsters like Trump, or neocons that gave the us Iraq or the liberal internationalists that gave us Vietnam, both wars of choice.

Oh, and there there is this.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. But Lenin couldn't possibly have known anything about what he was addressing, right?

Current Affairs
Liberalism And Empire
Nathan J. Robinson | Editor of Current Affairs

* The powers of financial capitalism had (a) far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank... sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."   

Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966, VII, page 324.

Carroll Quigley (1910-1977) | Professor of History at Georgetown University, member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), mentor to Bill Clinton.

This quote begins a section of the chapter on the BIS.

Tragedy and Hope and other Quigley works are available at archive.org and his site.

Valery Fadeev — An exception to American exceptionalism — Parts I, II, III

A Russian viewpoint.

The foreign policy of the US has a clear and simple moral basis – the exceptionalism of the American nation.…

This is precisely why Vladimir Putin’s article in the New York Times last year generated such a hysterical reaction in the US. To quote Putin, “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.” Putin “dared” to criticize the most sacred of American values – that nation’s exceptionalism. He made it clear that he did not share such a “messianic” view of how a global system of states should be organized, and that there may be other axiological bases, which he can describe, on which to ground such a system.

Oriental Review.org

An exception to American exceptionalism (I)

An exception to American exceptionalism (II)

An exception to American exceptionalism (III)

Valery Fadeev | Editor-in-Chief of the Russian EXPERT magazine

The text was adapted and translated by ORIENTAL REVIEW.

This series is important in that it shows how the current situation is based on the creation of global architecture. Will it be unipolar under US hegemony and exporting American culture and values, or will it be multipolar and multicultural.