Dictators or Democracy

After World War II, the U.S. oversaw the establishment of democracies in the defeated Germany and Japan. However, it had no policy of promoting democracy in most other foreign countries. Indeed, for a long time after World War II, the U.S. government under both major parties supported non-democratic (often called illiberal) foreign governments that were run by authoritarians or dictators. In its anti-Communist fervor, the U.S. aligned with right-wing and stood against left-wing movements.

Beginning with the Carter administration and continuing thereafter, the U.S. shifted toward democracy promotion in foreign lands. Democracy promotion is now a firmly-established cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. This goal is the moral foundation of U.S. foreign policy planet-wide. Other goals, often also associated with democracy, such as security and prosperity, are myths, and they lack the moral gloss and appeal of democracy as now promulgated by American leaders to its captive domestic body politic.wrong. In practice, every intervention is beset with immense confusion. One need only read the history of U.S. interventions in Haiti, Nicaragua, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Ukraine and many other countries to see that confusion is the rule, not the exception.

The U.S. keeps failing over and over and over again with every intervention it attempts, in the sense that Americans are harmed and foreign nations are harmed. Only those who benefit from wars, fighting and confusion gain, and this includes some foreign interests, defense contractors, military personnel and many in government.

Democracy promotion remains the dominant moral rationale for U.S. interventions but it’s profoundly flawed. It would be far, far better if Americans openly recognized the inherent evil and flaws of all governments of any kind, including democracy, and then took this as a cue to limit this domestic government wherever possible. That would mean avoiding foreign interventions. That attitude is more in line with at least some strains of thought that were voiced closer to the creation of the U.S. government, even if history shows that the nation went in precisely the opposite direction.