American leadership 1945-2008: a survey

[Adrian II]

This thread is meant as a survey.

What I would love to hear from non-American Orgahs is:

How did your nation regard the leadership role of the United States throughout the post-WWII era? Did it change much? And how is American leadership regarded in your country now?

Don’t offer the views of a vocal minority, but the general feeling if you can.
Hard to pinpoint, I know, but please give it a try.

I will of course kick off. Since this is a holdover from the Election 2008 thread I will use some texts I posted earlier. You can be shorter if you want, or refer to my text for brevity’s sake.

Oh, and of course all American Orgahs are welcome to post and discuss as well.


The Netherlands


The pre-war Dutch-American relationship was friendly but unspectacular, based on a trickle of Dutch migrants to the U.S. and a trickle of American products and production methods (Taylorism) into The Netherlands. Germany, France and Britain were our main trading partners and ‘societies of reference’ so to speak. After 1945 little of the old respect was left, except for the British. The Netherlands was destitute, its population near starvation, its GDP minimal due to its heavy industry having been transported to Germany and its crops and foodstocks plundered to feed the crumbling German army.

As principal liberator, the standing of the United States was unsurpassed. As a powerful, prosperous, energetic and comparatively harmonious society it became the society of reference for the Dutch for decades to come.

Marshall Aid provided concrete instances of American inspiration: new technologies, econometric instruments and programs for neighborhood and community organisation, new staple foods, educational and agricultural reform, supermarkets, mass transport development, movies, music and scientific and student exchange.

American leadership of the free world was considered natural, just and welcome because of the above reasons, and this was underpinned by spontaneous loyalty. Immediately after German capitulation, Dutch boys began to enlist to help fight the Japanese in the Pacific and return the favor of their liberation by Americans. The use of the atomic bombs on Japan was welcomed. The episode of the Berlin Airlift and the Korean war only reinforced these sentiments.

It was only after about 1965 that they began to wane, under the influence of a new generation willing to acknowledge the nasty flipsides of American leadership and society: the Kennedys' and King's murders, the Vietnam war, the dirty coups and putsches under U.S. auspices in Latin America, the Church hearings, and the improbable attitudes of the U.S. with regard to the Middle East.

The depth of anti-American feeling was reached around 1980 when Washington asked to base cruise missile on Dutch soil. A large and vocal part of public opinion protested that the presence of theatre nuclear weapons reduced Europe to a potential nuclear battlefield between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, after which both sides would reach a ceasefire and leave a smoking rubble behind. Most Dutchmen however considered their emplacement inevitable.

Since then, American strategic leadership has been more or less grudgingly accepted, like the behavior of the proverbial 800 lbs gorilla on the block. During the 1991 Gulf War a sizeable number of Dutch had the impression that American intervention was motivated by greed (control over oil) only, not by any concern over international law and regional security. Acknowledging American leadership is still considered a matter of national interest. As a small ally, you don't say no twice to Bubba, you get to say it only once, and you have to have a darn good reason for it. It's realism, and we like to think we're realists.

Washington is not longer considered to lead the world by example or inspiration, but by sheer economic and military weight alone. The Dutch tend to think that it leads by intimidation (Iraq) or obstruction (Kyoto) more then anything else. At the same time they have come to understand that Washington does not equal America, and that many Americans feel that way, too. Hollywood, American music, literature, food are appreciated and admired as before.

[Divinus Arma]

Interesting.

The Cold War and Nuclear weapons, I believe, is what has ultimately changed the character of global leadership, regardless of where that leadership stems. Nuclear weapons have replaced alliances as the requirement for a nation's survival. Where previously, without allies, a nation would truly stand alone in fright in the face of superior enemy, now that same nation can stand defiantly while relying on their arsenal of nukes. This is true not only for oligarchies and tyrants, but for democracies as well.

An interesting observation is the behavior of nuclear armed nations compared against non-nuclear partners. Non-nuclear nations have no choice but to side with a nuclear armed nation to truly ensure survival. The alternative is to become a nuclear nation itself and risk the ire of nuclear powers.

Consider:

Iran cozies to Russia while also pursuing its own nuclear weapons program. Once Iran has its own nuclear arsenal, it will find natural alliances in Arab partners within the region. It will become the regional leader, capable of ensuring its survival and the survival of its allies once it deploys ICBM capability.

Israel acts independantly within its region because of its nuclear arsenal. It can act as it pleases because of its ability to eradicate neighbors.

The UK and France act independantly because of their nuclear arsenal, while smaller european nations, especially those closer to the east, are forced to pursue entrance to NATO to ward off the Russian threat.

The United States government can act with impunity because of its unequalled military spending and technological superiority. It is held at bay by equal powers with a different vision of global leadership, namely Russia. Russia's nuclear arsenal has prevented an aggressive U.S. leader from taking even more unilateral military action than Bush has already done. However, because it is accountable to its people, the government does not typically wage wars of aggression. The absurd campaign in Iraq has toppled the Republican Party. The Democrats now control both houses of the legislature and are poised to make greater gains there while potentially gaining the White House. This is a saving grace of true democracies. They may occasionally get an idiot in a position of leadership, but that leader will not remain forever so the potential damage they can do is somewhat limited. A President that acts with true illegality will end up impeached.

Russia can also act with impunity militarily, but for the threat posed by the U.S. However, unlike a true democracy, the leadership of Russia is not hamstrung by the will of the people. The choices of Putin are far longer lasting because he can retain power through puppets indefinitely.


Anyhow, those are my thoughts. We are in an era of leadership based on military might, not moral superiority.


Hopefully this can change once we are rid of dubya. McCain or Obama offer greater integrity and ability.

[Adrian II]

Interesting.

The Cold War and Nuclear weapons, I believe, is what has ultimately changed the character of global leadership, regardless of where that leadership stems.

Cor blimey, good post Sir. I will get back to it, let others go first.

[KukriKhan]

Cor blimey, good post Sir. I will get back to it, let others go first.

Ditto. And ditto. I'll wait 'til you get more non-yanks first.

[CountArach]

From an Aussie perspective...

Our foreign policy has been closely tied in with America's since 1942, when we made the decision to fight in the Pacific instead of in Europe. This lasted throughout WWII and since then we have still relied on the United States as our closest and strongest regional ally. In fact the ANZUS treaty guarantees we will support each other in the case of war.

We have supported America in most of its wars throughout the years, most noticably Vietnam until 1972, Afghanistan and Iraq (Though we will be pulling out soon). This is for a number of reasons:
1. National Interest - It was deemed to be in the "national interest" at the time to fight "communism" in the east. If the Domino Theory had indeed been true, then it was likely that we would have had many, many states to our north that would be unfriendly to us. So it was deemed to be in our ebst interests to support the UNited States, which we did almost to the end of the war.

2. Conservative Governments - Most of the 50s, 60s and 70s were dominated by conservative governments and in Australia this means that you are far more likely to be pro-American. I will return to this in a moment.

3. Political Necessity - Here in Australia if you are anti-US alliance and in politics you are instantly labelled as "weak on national security". The cynic in me will point out that wars are convenient from a political standpoint, as they assist in getting people re-elected - especially here.

So as I was saying in Australia the conservative governments are going to be more likely to hand a lot of our foreign policy over to the Americans, except for our rather unique role as peace keepers across the pacific islands. The further to the right wing a person gets, the more likely they are to support American foreign policy. I am on the fringe left and so are many people I know. We are all American-sceptic, however we are not anti-US because we realise that they are a necessity in terms of our very surivival against attack.

In politics there is bi-partisan support for continuing support for the United States, though there is disagreement on Iraq (Afghanistan remains bi-partisan... in fact I can only think of two parties who support us pulling out, of which 1 has some power). For this reason it rarely is sparked in national debate.

Pinpointing the general feeling for me will be hard, but I believe that we are anti-Iraq by a fair majority (at least 60-40. This poll may give you an idea. Its from 2 years ago, but it still gets the general idea. Also we recently elected a new anti-Iraq government), however we are broadly pro-United States. It is sort of hard to explain, but I would best summarise it as:

Our country supports stronger ties with the United States, but not all of its foreign policy objectives.

I'll try to answer any more questions as best I can.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Apologies for taking so long to reply, but I wanted to give this the time it deserved.

The Republic of Ireland

I suspect most people outside the Republic would think that our relationship with the United States is a uniformly rosy one, given the ubiquity of Irish Americans and their romantic notions of the old country - as well as the aspirations of the Irish themselves. The most influential politician in 20th century Ireland, Eamon DeValera was himself American born.

However, we are talking post-war, and therein lies the rub. Ireland was neutral in the war - and Dev, as in so many ways, contrived by his behaviour to alienate natural allies such as the States. Indeed, he was the only western leader to sign the book of condolence on Adolf Hitler's death, and this act badly affected the perception of Ireland among many politicians. For many years, the Dublin embassy became a dumping ground for troublesome members of the US establishment.

Add to this the fact that post-war Ireland was almost mediaeval, controlled by the Church and economically third world. To the Irish, the US was still seen as a Promised Land, but to the Americans - aside from election time and St Paddy's Day when lip service was paid to the voting block - Ireland represented little in the way of strategic value. Our "special relationship" was even more delusional than that of the UK - we had not stood alongside the Allies, nor would we change that stance and join NATO, for example. Dev's fanatical dislike of all things British meant that naturally, the US would favour doing business with the British as a military and strategic ally - but occasionally throw a sop to the Irish American vote back home on the future of the Six.

Ireland had always seen herself as a multilateral player, and had invested some effort into the League of Nations. After the war, she aspired to repeat this in the United Nations - the USA backed this application after Potsdam but it was vetoed by the USSR until the mid-fifties. Ireland then committed herself to a vigorous and somewhat maverick participation, particularly in mediating towards reduction in Cold War tensions and arms control. In this, she quite often ticked the US off - expecting the Irish to vote alongside her policies, we quite often went a separate way. This reached a head in the approach to Chinese admission - the USA was adamantly opposed to Communist China joining the UN. Ireland took the view that both the Peking and Formosan governments had legitimacy and voted this way - deeply surprising and offending John Dulles, not to mention the Catholic hierarchy back home. They both got over it.

The Republic's stance has continued in this vein and our rather creative view of neutrality combined with a fierce devotion to the influence of smaller states in multilateral organisations continues to this day.

The elephant in the corner however, was always partition. Continual efforts by Dublin to get the USA to pressure Britain to resolve the issue would result in platitudes and blind eyes being turned to republican activity from US soil, but little of consequence. Washington was never going to alienate a long-term military ally for an inconsequential and neutral non-entity. The hope was always that America could be the honest broker - it was even considered that a US peacekeeping force could be introduced to help moderate the Troubles - as if the Unionists would have seen them as anything other than occupiers.

Finally however, when the serious groundwork had been done by Dublin and London, President Clinton's support, charm and arm-twisting lent significant weight to the achievement of the Peace process. He is fondly remembered for this, and it seemed a renaissance in Irish-American relations might follow.

By then, Ireland had grown up. In 1973 she joined the EU and started to forge a new destiny, not constrained by romance towards the New World or bitterness towards the British. Again, our commitment to multilateralism found a home, and the enormous economic help received bolstered the economy and thence a swift rush into a modern statehood. The US became almost as irrelevant to us as we had long been to them.

I suppose it goes without saying that the actions of the Bush administration in over-riding the UN created a disdain for US policies and some anger. Our future lies with the EU - though the Lisbon treaty provokes some disquiet in theta relationship because of the fear of a European defence force that may compromise our neutrality.

The Yanks do throw a damn fine St Paddy's Day parade though, and we keep getting invited, so it's not all bad.

[ICantSpellDawg]

Interesting.

The Cold War and Nuclear weapons, I believe, is what has ultimately changed the character of global leadership, regardless of where that leadership stems. Nuclear weapons have replaced alliances as the requirement for a nation's survival. Where previously, without allies, a nation would truly stand alone in fright in the face of superior enemy, now that same nation can stand defiantly while relying on their arsenal of nukes. This is true not only for oligarchies and tyrants, but for democracies as well.

An interesting observation is the behavior of nuclear armed nations compared against non-nuclear partners. Non-nuclear nations have no choice but to side with a nuclear armed nation to truly ensure survival. The alternative is to become a nuclear nation itself and risk the ire of nuclear powers.

Consider:

Iran cozies to Russia while also pursuing its own nuclear weapons program. Once Iran has its own nuclear arsenal, it will find natural alliances in Arab partners within the region. It will become the regional leader, capable of ensuring its survival and the survival of its allies once it deploys ICBM capability.

Israel acts independantly within its region because of its nuclear arsenal. It can act as it pleases because of its ability to eradicate neighbors.

The UK and France act independantly because of their nuclear arsenal, while smaller european nations, especially those closer to the east, are forced to pursue entrance to NATO to ward off the Russian threat.

The United States government can act with impunity because of its unequalled military spending and technological superiority. It is held at bay by equal powers with a different vision of global leadership, namely Russia. Russia's nuclear arsenal has prevented an aggressive U.S. leader from taking even more unilateral military action than Bush has already done. However, because it is accountable to its people, the government does not typically wage wars of aggression. The absurd campaign in Iraq has toppled the Republican Party. The Democrats now control both houses of the legislature and are poised to make greater gains there while potentially gaining the White House. This is a saving grace of true democracies. They may occasionally get an idiot in a position of leadership, but that leader will not remain forever so the potential damage they can do is somewhat limited. A President that acts with true illegality will end up impeached.

Russia can also act with impunity militarily, but for the threat posed by the U.S. However, unlike a true democracy, the leadership of Russia is not hamstrung by the will of the people. The choices of Putin are far longer lasting because he can retain power through puppets indefinitely.


Anyhow, those are my thoughts. We are in an era of leadership based on military might, not moral superiority.


Hopefully this can change once we are rid of dubya. McCain or Obama offer greater integrity and ability.

How can we be in an age of moral superiority when morals have ceased to exist. We would be lucky to be in an age of "look, I've found a tiny moral fragment under the couch, remember how much things made sense back then"

also, you give Russia a bit too much credit. Our equals? We have no equals at the moment and only China is really on our heels (Europe too if they can ever figure out which hole to stick it in). Maybe India, but Russia?

Long story short - idle hands are the devils play things. We concot boogymen and attack the percieved threats to our livelihood. In the U.S. and abroad its the same issue, but we use different tools to do it.

[lars573]

Anyhow, those are my thoughts. We are in an era of leadership based on military might, not moral superiority.

Which is the natural state of things. That whole leadership of moral superiority was a abberation, a blip, and it's gone.

[Kralizec]

Adrian gave a good synopsis of the Dutch perspective. I'll add that we're a small country and not influential on an absolute scale, and most of us don't harbor pretentions about it. We can be fiercely critical of the USA, but at the end everybody admits that as far as military superpowers go you could do a lot worse than America.

That said, I usually get the impression that the way Dutch people feel about particular Presidents is more affected by selective news coverage and personality than anything else. If and when people still talk about Bill Clinton they'll usually say that he was a good one, considerate of international diplomacy and a harmless playboy. Most of us have no idea what operation Desert Fox was (but then again I don't think that sets us apart) while we think that Bush was wrong for targetting Iraq for it's supposed WMD program.

[Conradus]

Adrian gave a good synopsis of the Dutch perspective. I'll add that we're a small country and not influential on an absolute scale, and most of us don't harbor pretentions about it. We can be fiercely critical of the USA, but at the end everybody admits that as far as military superpowers go you could do a lot worse than America.

That said, I usually get the impression that the way Dutch people feel about particular Presidents is more affected by selective news coverage and personality than anything else. If and when people still talk about Bill Clinton they'll usually say that he was a good one, considerate of international diplomacy and a harmless playboy. Most of us have no idea what operation Desert Fox was (but then again I don't think that sets us apart) while we think that Bush was wrong for targetting Iraq for it's supposed WMD program.

Well, as far as I can say, this pretty much sums up the Belgian point of view as well.
Though I'm far too young to know anything about our historic relations with the US post WWII to which Adrian referred for the Netherlands.