Today we have a double-feature for the Student Spotlight. We have two essays on the question ‘What does America Stand for? These essays were written for IPM113: US Foreign Policy.
What does America Stand for in the World Today?
by Isaac Knowles
America has a long history of being the nation devoted to freedom. One need only look so far as the US Constitution or the inscription on the Statue of Liberty for adequate proof of this. There can be no doubt that America is synonymous with freedom – but freedom for whom?
Although there is a long narrative supporting the claim that America is a bastion of freedom, the history of the USA is marred by events which show the exact opposite. Eugene Debs, a socialist leader, made a speech in protest of America going to war in 1918 and found himself incarcerated on several counts of sedition. New sedition legislation, which made criticisms of the government or America a crime, made this possible.
Martin Luther King Jr, a civil rights activist, made speeches in the 1960s in an attempt to gain equality for black Americans. He was assassinated in 1968. Over fifty years later, white supremacists are able to storm the capitol while black Americans continue to be persecuted across the USA.
Donald Trump, who needs little introduction thanks to the havoc that he has wreaked from the Oval Office over the past four years, spouted promises, lies and outrageous statements in order to further his interests both in office and out of it. His treatment of the Coronavirus pandemic is proof enough that anything is possible in America.
Freedom, it transpires, is not a complete explanation of what America stands for. No, America also stands for opportunity. The free man is nothing compared to the opportunist in the United States of America. Just as the responsible gun owner is small fry compared to the school shooter. It isn’t freedoms that translate emotion into action, but opportunity.
Whereas once it could be said that America was the “City on the Hill”, it is now clear that the light cast by the lamp of liberty only stretches as far as American borders. A few metres on the wrong side of that line and you could end up separated from your children and forced into a metal cage.
America, whatever it may claim to be, certainly stands for Americans. I would go further to say that it predominantly stands for white Americans and white male Americans. It is certainly true to say that America is the land of the free and the home of opportunity…but only if you’re a straight white patriotic dude who only knows the first line of the national anthem and carries a gun in church.
What does America Stand for in the World Today?
by Georgia Beith
What America stands for in the world is an ideal that has shifted over time. Once considered a great isolationist power, after the Second World War the United States stepped into a leadership role, shaping and building the liberal international order. America would like to argue that they are the ‘City upon a Hill’, a shining beacon of democracy to be revered and emulated by all. Its foreign policy largely reflected this ideal. Since the beginning of the 20th century, many of its foreign policy aims have been centred around democratisation and liberation. As the world’s first superpower, both politically and culturally, the influence of America is great. Accelerated by the advent of television and the internet, the American way of life has been championed as the gold standard. A society where anyone can amass wealth and achieve their dreams is seen as a direct product of the liberal ideals on which the nation was founded on. Claims such as these can be called into question, however. Whilst America may wish to represent all these ideals and promises, whether it does so in practice is up for debate.
Despite their justification and claims, those who have found themselves on the receiving end of America’s foreign policy may dispute the suggestion that they were being liberated or transformed into a democratic state in the American image. America’s various ‘regime-change’ and democratisation policies, particularly in the second half of the 20th century, have left unstable and pseudo-democratic nations in their wake. In the worst cases, American foreign policy action has upheld repressive regimes, such as the US backing for Augusto Pinochet’s Operation Condor in Chile. In the name of upholding American ideals and targeting their enemies, the United States has been unafraid to employ tactics that contradict the very spirit of democracy and freedom.
In the search for justification, America portrays itself as exceptional. They claim to be the only nation with the unique sets of values, responsibilities and capabilities required to spread and uphold democracy across the world. Whilst citizens and politicians alike may sincerely hold the view that the US holds a special position in the world order, that does not make it true. The United States is undoubtedly very powerful, but over the few centuries of its existence, the US has not practiced what it preaches. For the majority of its history, large swathes of its population were denied the same equalities and rights as those who wrote the nation’s founding documents. The freedom and democracy America claims to represent was not being delivered within its own borders.
What America does stand for is the great contradiction of the international system. It has laudable goals and promises but these become lost in the notion that America knows best. It claims to represent a country where every person is born free with the same scope for opportunity, yet its own history belies this dream.