There are four parts in Jeffrey Sachs' book, A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism . the
first part is titled, "U.S.
Exceptionalism In A Changing World , the second part is, "America’s Wars" ; third
part refers to "Foreign Economic Statecraft" and part four is titled, "Renewing
American Diplomacy."
In the first part , Sachs points
out that the basic challenge before the county is to prevent it from
unnecessary wars, raising military budget , affecting the world trading system and environment through
squandering our resources and focus. He identifies three camps having different
views about America’s place in the world. The first group called
‘exceptionalists’ gun for global
dominance through military superiority in the name of stability. Trump’s
America first ideology is another form of exceptionalism with a mixture of
racism, xenophobia and protectionism.
The second camp ‘realists’ argue
for realistic balance of power through peace based on strength and advocate
arms race for the purpose.
The third group
‘Internationalists’ which includes the writer want global cooperation to avoid
war and arms race and to take advantage of technological revolution to boost
economic growth and overcome ills such as global warming, mass migration and
emerging diseases. This group believes that American exceptionalism is a
dangerous illusion and balance of power relish is pessimistic.
In relations with China, both
exceptionalists and realists want more investment on military build-up for the
sake of dominance or balance of power but the internationalists argue
diplomatic cooperation can release resource for education. Technology,
renewable sources of energy and infrastructure.
While Kennedy’s emphasis on peace
has led to the partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (1963) and
later to the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty ( 1968) while aiding Ukraine through
deployment of the missile systems by the NATO followed America’ unilateral with
drawl from the U.S. – Soviet Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002.
Jeffrey thinks that American
exceptionalism is a throw Back to the days the second world war when the us
dominated the global economy , military and civilian technology. Though the
U.S. has many bases around the world, it
is not able to usher in peace or gain the expected political outcomes. Another
basic challenge is the less possibility of solving the problems such as global
warming , new diseases, growth of innovative technology in case of arms race
between China and America. The internationalists’ camp sees exceptionalism as
outdated and counterproductive and wants reconsideration of exceptionalism
which has been the main principle of American Identity for centuries.
The second chapter
“Exceptionalism as The Civic Religion’
tells about how America has been addicted to exaggerated self-image and the Protestant settlers from Europe fought
against unimaginable difficulties to fight against nature, indigenous people
and the imperial governments back in
Europe. Jeffrey Sachs writes as follows :
At every turn , they called on Providence for
their salvation, and at each victory , they gave credit to the Lord for
supporting his new chosen people. America’s success became divine success.
America’s strength became the proof of its divine mission in this world. (22)
It has gone on the
expansionist project in the footsteps
of Britain . in 1898, it fought against
Spain to ‘liberate’ its colonies. But after more than a century , Cuba, Puerto
Rico, and the Philippines still show the scars of U.S. intervention .Jeffrey
Sachs refers to John Coatsworth ‘s documentation on American intervention in
the rest of the world and writes ;
These are
violent , extra-constitutional overthrows of foreign governments by the United
States through a variety of means including wars, coups, assassinations,
electoral manipulations, acts of provocation , and manufactured protests and
mass unrest. (24)
America entered two World Wars at
the end and emerged as unrivalled power
by 1950 through science and technological
innovations during the war period
not withstanding the rising prominence of the Soviet Union. Theologian
Niebuhr warned of the dangers of American pride. America
has many global institutions such as the UNO,
IMF, World Bank and strengthened its security and intelligence agencies.
The U.S. has maintained three
faces-public face through UN agencies and alliances like the NATO, the second
face through overt warfare and covert means to swing the newly independent
countries in its favour and the third face is over throw in unfavourable
regimes to its interests in cases such as Guatemala. The exceptionalists had
hold over American foreign policy and Internationalists lost. American interventions in Asian countries such as
Vietnam , Laos and Cambodia in 1950’s, Central America in 1980’s and
Africa in 1980’s and 90’s , the Balkans in the 1990’s or the Middle East since 1970 are known. But Americans themselves are not
much aware of Saudi- America role in Syrian war which killed many lakhs and displaced millions as the Press didn’t
cover the covert operations. After the
collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US began intervention in many
countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia etc. Jeffrey
Sachs states that American exceptionalism has led the country into endless wars
when it needed to adopt Rooseveltian Internationalist position.
He sees Trump’s ‘’America First’ policy as a
new and vulgar strain of exceptionalism. This has different strains of naked
nationalism, racism against ‘Mexican
rapists”, “Muslim Terrorists” and countries like Haiti and African described by
him as ‘’shithole ‘’ countries and
economic populism( A policy of corporatism) which has benefited the rich more than the
poor increasing the budget deficit and inflation.
Jeffrey Sachs thinks that the
remedies for America’s security and economic needs lie not in hating foreigners,
increasing arms race , cutting corporate
taxes or increasing budget deficit but in global cooperation, increasing
investment sin education and health care, environmental protection , more help
for the poor by raising corporate taxes and decreasing bloated military budget.
In the third chapter titled, The
era of global convergence, Jeffrey Sachs points out that in the last 125 years
, the North Atlantic region comprising of Western Europe and the U.S. has led
the world economy and now the end of its
domination is showing the symptoms of the passing world order. The recovery of
Japan after the WAR, the rise of Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and
South Korea ), the market reform sin China and Eastern Europe breaking away
from The Soviet camp , the collapse of the Soviet union in1992, the U.S. exceptionalists thought that history
ended in their favour forever. But the rise of Asia, particularly China has been going on education, technology and
health care and investments. Based on
historian Angus Maddison’s estimations, Sachs argues that the world is going to
see domination of no single country or region in economy, technology or
population. This necessitates rethinking on the part of the exceptionalism in
its foreign policy by America. He writes that “ we should move past the age of
empires, decolonization, and cold wars. The world is arriving at the “equality
of courage and force” long ago foreseen by Adam Smith – but unless we adopt a
new foreign policy , we will find that
the world has left us behind as we stubbornly insist on going alone.” (54)
In the beginning, the trade and
technological relations were more close in wheat belt in Eurasia which existed
for around 70 million years and home to
two thirds of humanity for two thousand years. The technological
dynamism which flowed between500AD to
1500 AD reversed after 1800. Europe dominated Asia after
industrialization and post 1947, India and China developed rapidly. China and
India registered growth rates of 9.6 percent
and 6.3 percent respectively in their
GDP during 1980-2016. In the same
period China has seen an increase of 28 times in its cumulative growth and
India achieved 9 times. Between 1950- 2000, the US led the world economy .
Gradually the relations between Europe
and Asia grew more close. China’s ‘One Belt, One Road ‘, AIIB( Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank ), GEIDCO ( Global Energy Interconnection
Corporation and Development) have brought Europe and China closer while Trump banked on ‘’America First’’ and opposed global
trade.
Jeffrey Sachs also writes that
America helped Poland and other East European countries but turned down Russian
request for help from Gorbachev and later Yeltsin in integrating with Europe and saw it as a continuing enemy from cold
war mindset. Moreover, President George
bush’s offer to include Georgia and Ukraine proved the last straw. In the Middle
East , American attempts to regime change in Iraq, Libya, Syria became a red
herring to Russia. While America thought that Putin was trying got recreate Russian
Empire, Putin thought that America was intent on military dominance over Russia. To Jeffrey, economic
cooperation and demilitarization could benefit Europe,
Russia, China and India and American exceptionalism needs to give way to a new foreign
policy with sustainable development at heart and deaddiction from unnecessary
wars.
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