Is the United States' Credibility in Tatters?

[Ian]

I'm not just talking about other people around the world. I'm also talking about people within the US.

As a general point, the reason why many of us non-USians take a position on the US is that the US has incredible influence over our own lives. Interestingly, Australia is pretty much more American than British, and that's saying something given our UK heritage here.

Essentially, the old line about great reponsibility flows from great power applies here. The US is the sole superpower. They can act one of two general ways: 1. Don't give a fig about anyone else; or 2. Act more responsibly with that power. As a general rule, I think more and more people are feeling it is a case of 1 and not 2. That sucks for the rest of us, but if you think about it rationally, it's not the best tack for the US to take into the future. It's not unreasonable to think that at some point in the future, the US won't be the top dog any more. The US can set the standard of how an exceedingly dominant superpower should act. If they choose number 1, then it portends bad for their own future if the next US acts like that towards them (and us).

eta: the bit about "lying" wasn't just related to the freedom/democracy canard. It was also related to the increasing state authoritarianism that seems to be occurring in the US (as well as many other western countries).

I don't necessarily disagree with most of that post, but I do disagree with the line about the increasing authoritarianism that seems to be occurring in the US and all western countries. Maybe most people don't want to hear this at the moment (with stories about the NSA being big news, etc.), and I'm not going to get into detail right now, but the opposite is true. The US, at the very least, is becoming less authoritarian by a number of measures. Some of them I actually find disconcerting as they arise from a recent libertarian streak.

[Ian]

The United States' credibility? Your foreign policy is suspect at the best of times.

@Ian: And yet you set yourselves up as the force for good (it's in your Navy's recruiting material and broadcast on television networks) in the world? Whose good then? From your post, I assume yours. You're amazed that the rest of the world views the US with suspicion? Your propaganda works too well.

I hate the word propaganda. If someone disagrees with something, it's too easy to use the word propaganda.

The Navy line is a recruiting motto... but do you even want answers to your own questions, or do you just want to whine? I was onboard the USS Iwo Jima when we intervened in Liberia's civil war in 2003, at the behest of the UN (and since no ship in Europe was capable of going anywhere on short notice, which brings up the equally real subject of European apathy and military budget-cutting), which brought an end to years of killing. Liberia has been recovering very well ever since. And that's just one rather little-known example of the good that the US does around the world. Japanese opinions of the US have risen remarkably in the last few years - do you know why? Because of all the assistance provided after the Fukushima nuclear accident. Et cetera.

Maybe I'll let President Obama finish off this post:

"In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive. But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can also be insidious. Instead of recognizing the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what is bad. On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth. They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated. They fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America." - April 2009

[pErvinalia]

What we really need is a properly functioning world body. Yes I know, MARXISTS!!1!. Actually, making that joke, I wouldn't be surprised to find that fear of "one world government" to be greatest in the US out of the western countries, due to your stronger libertarian streak there. Meh. Can of worms. I don't have the energy to open that one.

[Warren Dew]

It's not a lie, it's an exaggeration. The kernel of truth is very much there. But it's a two-way street: others around the world expect the US to behave as if bound by some ideological constraints. Nobody expects Brazil to behave towards China or Saudi Arabia or India or Russia in any manner other than whatever happens to be in Brazil's best interests. For the US, people want to think that other standards should apply. Then they talk about distrust and disaffection.

If the U.S. government actually acted in the best interests of the U.S., let alone admitted it, we'd get the same reasonable treatment other countries do. Instead, for at least two decades, the U.S. government has acted only in the interests of the U.S. government, not even of the U.S. as a whole, while pretending it was acting in the best interests of the world. It's that hypocrisy that sets us up for the particular brand of criticism we get.

The only exception was a year or two after 9/11, when it was clear that the U.S. was acting in its own interests in wiping out Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, and during that period we got tremendous international support.

Unfortunately Obama prefers using U.S. power to try to boost his domestic image as "tough on terror" rather than following a more reasonable path that would better serve U.S. interests.

[Warren Dew]

Maybe most people don't want to hear this at the moment (with stories about the NSA being big news, etc.), and I'm not going to get into detail right now, but the opposite is true. The US, at the very least, is becoming less authoritarian by a number of measures.

We'd love to hear about it if it were actually true, or even supported by a modicum of evidence.

[Seth]

I can't help thinking it would make eminent sense for the US to withdraw, to a degree, from every trouble spot on the globe. They either seem to make things worse, or they suffer blowback. I don't think the US should be isolationist, but perhaps it's time to accept that a lot of the fiddling has backfired.

I think it should be isolationist and quite intolerant of incursions on or threats to our isolationism.

If other nations leave us alone, we'll leave them alone. But if they fuck with us we should bomb them back to the Stone Age and keep them there for a generation or two as a warning to anybody else who might presume to fuck with us.

If we mind our own business, others will have no reason to fuck with us, now will they?

And they can all be hoist on their own fucking economic petard while doing so, the ungrateful pricks.

[Seth]

The United States' credibility? Your foreign policy is suspect at the best of times.

@Ian: And yet you set yourselves up as the force for good (it's in your Navy's recruiting material and broadcast on television networks) in the world? Whose good then? From your post, I assume yours. You're amazed that the rest of the world views the US with suspicion? Your propaganda works too well.

I hate the word propaganda. If someone disagrees with something, it's too easy to use the word propaganda.

The Navy line is a recruiting motto... but do you even want answers to your own questions, or do you just want to whine? I was onboard the USS Iwo Jima when we intervened in Liberia's civil war in 2003, at the behest of the UN (and since no ship in Europe was capable of going anywhere on short notice, which brings up the equally real subject of European apathy and military budget-cutting), which brought an end to years of killing. Liberia has been recovering very well ever since. And that's just one rather little-known example of the good that the US does around the world. Japanese opinions of the US have risen remarkably in the last few years - do you know why? Because of all the assistance provided after the Fukishima nuclear accident. Et cetera.

Maybe I'll let President Obama finish off this post:

"In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.

Fuck Obama and his Chamberlainesque obsequiousness.

[Ian]

Thanks for proving his point.

[pErvinalia]

I can't help thinking it would make eminent sense for the US to withdraw, to a degree, from every trouble spot on the globe. They either seem to make things worse, or they suffer blowback. I don't think the US should be isolationist, but perhaps it's time to accept that a lot of the fiddling has backfired.

I think it should be isolationist and quite intolerant of incursions on or threats to our isolationism.

If other nations leave us alone, we'll leave them alone. But if they fuck with us we should bomb them back to the Stone Age and keep them there for a generation or two as a warning to anybody else who might presume to fuck with us.

If we mind our own business, others will have no reason to fuck with us, now will they?

And they can all be hoist on their own fucking economic petard while doing so, the ungrateful pricks.

A country really can't be isolationist in these modern global times. Either for other's best interests or their own. You have to engage with the world, and be a good global citizen.

[Robert_S]

America used to be very isolationist, that started to change around 1492.

[Warren Dew]

I can't help thinking it would make eminent sense for the US to withdraw, to a degree, from every trouble spot on the globe. They either seem to make things worse, or they suffer blowback. I don't think the US should be isolationist, but perhaps it's time to accept that a lot of the fiddling has backfired.

I think it should be isolationist and quite intolerant of incursions on or threats to our isolationism.

If other nations leave us alone, we'll leave them alone. But if they fuck with us we should bomb them back to the Stone Age and keep them there for a generation or two as a warning to anybody else who might presume to fuck with us.

If we mind our own business, others will have no reason to fuck with us, now will they?

And they can all be hoist on their own fucking economic petard while doing so, the ungrateful pricks.

A country really can't be isolationist in these modern global times. Either for other's best interests or their own. You have to engage with the world, and be a good global citizen.

Can't, or shouldn't?

I would agree that it's in U.S. interests to engage with the world. With long coasts on the world's two big oceans, the U.S. is a natural mercantile nation, and it behooves the U.S. to promote safe and free trade.

Given the political trends in the U.S., though, I think we're in for a decade or so of increasing isolationism, until the generational crisis hits.

[Svartalf]

Let's face it, US credibility has been shitty ever since bush inveded Iraq on a bad excuse, possibly even since he passed the (un)Patriot act....

[Seth]

I can't help thinking it would make eminent sense for the US to withdraw, to a degree, from every trouble spot on the globe. They either seem to make things worse, or they suffer blowback. I don't think the US should be isolationist, but perhaps it's time to accept that a lot of the fiddling has backfired.

I think it should be isolationist and quite intolerant of incursions on or threats to our isolationism.

If other nations leave us alone, we'll leave them alone. But if they fuck with us we should bomb them back to the Stone Age and keep them there for a generation or two as a warning to anybody else who might presume to fuck with us.

If we mind our own business, others will have no reason to fuck with us, now will they?

And they can all be hoist on their own fucking economic petard while doing so, the ungrateful pricks.

A country really can't be isolationist in these modern global times. Either for other's best interests or their own. You have to engage with the world, and be a good global citizen.

Why? And why can't you engage the world on YOUR terms rather than theirs?

[Seth]

Thanks for proving his point.

He didn't have a point, he was being obsequious because he loathes the United States and wants to destroy it and he thought that "apologizing" to Europe would get them on his side.

Fuck the ingrates in Europe, many of whom haven't' yet paid us back for pulling their fat from the fire in two different world wars.

They'd all be speaking Russian and being sent to gulags if the US had not invested trillions of dollars defending them against the Soviets. Without the United States the European Union wouldn't even exist.

Europe should be kissing our feet for making them what they are today. And any European who thinks differently can kiss my saggy, wrinkled ass.

[Clinton Huxley]

How come we never talk about the credibility or international standing of the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, or whatever other first world countries that are so great?

I understand its relatively straightforward to start a new thread.