On American Exceptionalism

Following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement to the American people in the New York Times, a tirade of responses washed upon the media from all sides of the political spectrum.  CNN’s Crossfire provided a perfect example of left and right America’s united condemnation of Putin’s curt denial that America is an exceptional nation when Van Jones joined Newt Gingrich in trumpeting America’s exceptional status.

Jones and Gingrich went on to say that America is indeed an exceptional nation due to its founding ideals and the historical progress to materialize the promise of those ideals from George Washington to Martin Luther King Jr. The pair referenced how America redeemed itself from slavery, its original sin, through the struggle of the Civil War. They also discussed how present day American society provides equal opportunity to all people through the virtue of personal liberty. While there is plenty of truth to this illustration of American exceptionalism, none of what Jones and Gingrich actually said responds to the points Putin was making in his Op Ed.

Vladimir Putin’s article directly referred to American foreign policy, by asserting that it is dangerous to rationalize military action on another country based on some self righteous assumption that the ideals guiding your government’s decision making are somehow exceptional. Historically speaking, Putin is right. From the Spanish American War onwards, American foreign policy has been far from exceptional. For 130 years, America has been on a slow path towards empire that has ended in reluctant hegemony.

America is no more exceptional than the British, Spanish, or Roman empires of the past. Far from being a beacon of hope, America has merely continued to carry the torch of the Western imperial tradition. America has often sold its ideals for pragmatism by supporting oppressive regimes around the world including the Iranian Shah, General Diem in South Vietnam, Augusto Pinochet in Chile, and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

In 1898, following the overthrow their Spanish imperial overlords, the so-called beacon of hope crushed the Philippines’ right to democracy and self-determination by refusing to grant the island nation independence. Since the 1950s our government has consistently sided with the Pakistani side of the partition instead of India the largest democracy on earth, despite the fact that Pakistan is ruled by a corrupt dictatorship frequently plagued with military coups and has proven to be an untrustworthy ally by providing a haven to America’s greatest enemies.

Time and time again throughout the 20^th century, America seemed to be on the wrong side of freedom and revolution. Many of the past century’s George Washington’s including Nelson Mandala, Salvador Allende, Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara, and even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were enemies of the American government.

Instead of inciting a progressive path towards the global implementation of America’s ideals in the freedom from want and freedom from fear, our government has done the opposite. After bailing out Europe and Japan with the Marshall Plan following World War Two, the American government refused to pass the successful program onto the third world. Instead, in the 1980s, The Reagan Administration established a system of structural adjustments that the developing world must abide by to receive economic aid from the IMF. As a result, the developing world has been forced into accepting a perpetual state of dependency on the developed world thereby ensuring that there will always be a world defined by a separation of excess and hunger.

In the 21^st century, America’s imperial identity has only gotten worse. Following the September 11^th attacks, the American government responded with a series of security reforms that led to the atrophy of liberty. The feelings of fear and anger following the 2001 terrorist attacks eventually led to an unwarranted attack on Iraq despite unanimous worldwide opposition.  The War on Terrorism has led to a new evolution of warfare conducted by unmanned aircraft ignorant of national borders and secret courts and prisons blind to ethics and justice.

Has there been any good that has come from the American empire? Sure we had a few successes in post war Germany, Japan, and South Korea. American global leadership has also seen the rise of the UN, the worldwide economy, and the Internet. But every empire leaves something good behind. For instance, the British Empire left the world Singapore, Hong Kong, and they left India a system of government, a unified language, and a national train system.

The American empire is very real and it is potent if you are willing to accept it. By doing so you accept the fact that America is not an exceptional nation in terms of the issues that Putin is discussing. Instead of Roman phalanxes or white helmets with monocles, our empire comes in the form of formally dressed businessmen clad in custom made suits armed with brief cases full of figures, derivatives, algorithms, and contracts.

This is simply a reality that we must accept as the global hegemon. By recognizing this perhaps we as Americans can learn to think introspectively about the consequences of our actions be they military or diplomatic instead of simply accepting the intellectually lazy argument that we our special and we can do no wrong. That is what Putin is trying to remind us, so perhaps we should heed his word of caution.