The Ethics of Foreign Policy

David B. MacDonald, Robert G. Patman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754643777
• eBook ISBN: 9781317033813
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This ground-breaking volume considers the ethical aspects of foreign policy change through five interrelated dimensions: conceptual, security, economic, normative and diplomatic. Defining ethics and what an ethical foreign policy should be is highly contested. The book includes many very different viewpoints to reflect the strong divergence of opinion on such issues as humanitarian intervention, free trade, the doctrine of preemption, political corruption and human rights. The thematic approach provides this volume with a clear organizational structure, giving readers a balanced overview of a number of important conceptual and practical issues central to the ethical analysis of states' conduct and foreign policy making. An impressive group of international scholars and practitioners, including a New Zealand Foreign Minister, a US National Security Advisor, and an ICJ Justice, makes this volume ideally suited to courses on international relations, security studies, ethics and human rights, philosophy, media studies and international law.

Part 1
Morality and the War on Terror

Chapter 1

Exceptionalism, the Holocaust, and American Foreign Policy

David B. MacDonald1

Any book about ethics and foreign policy would be remiss without a chapter on how America’s ethical system has informed their worldview and their perceptions about the conduct of their foreign policy. I argue that American perceptions of their country’s foreign policy are often based on their appraisal of America’s character rather than the specific foreign policy actions performed by the state. Because America is a ‘good’ country with ‘exceptional’ values, it follows ipso facto that its policies must also be good. America as a good country can lapse momentarily, due to mistaken or ill-intentioned policies, but fundamentally has the capacity to redeem itself if it strays from its traditionally positive path.

This chapter explores and critiques evolving notions of US exceptionalism. Starting with a discussion of traditional exceptionalism and religious belief, I move on to critically examine the Americanization of the Holocaust. As will become clear, the Holocaust has recently contributed to a new form of exceptionalism. In the 1970s it functioned as an antipode to American goodness, after 11 September, 2001, America itself began to see itself as a (sometimes Holocaust-like) victim. Anti-Semitism and a newer form of hatred, ‘anti-Americanism’, have been juxtaposed and conflated. Traditional and new forms of exceptionalism serve to impact an illusion of exceptional goodness. A perception of America as a righteous victim detracts from meaningful analysis of the facts and consequences of US foreign policy. Exceptionalism is thus a hindrance rather than an aid to ethical foreign policy creation, at least from a liberal internationalist standpoint.

Throughout this chapter I use the term ‘performative’ to describe what US foreign policy makers have been trying to achieve. The term is often used in post-modern appraisals of foreign policy but it nevertheless has its merits. Campbell and Connolly use the term to mean that a state largely shapes its own character by ‘performing’ or generating policy in a certain way, thereby enacting ‘the performative constitution of stable identities’.2 By adopting certain symbols and invoking certain types of imagery, a state creates the illusion of what it ideally wants to be. Policy makers undertake a process of ‘narrativizing’ – where they create a ‘story’, with an ‘ordered plot’, ‘cast of characters’, ‘attributable motivations’, and ‘lessons for the future’.3

Yet they draw a distinction between the story and the actions. While American policy makers may invoke one set of symbols and images, the content of the policies they pursue may be profoundly different. As Nye wisely cautions, while ‘morality is a powerful reality’ that can shape conduct in positive ways, one needs also to be wary. Moral arguments ‘can also be used rhetorically as propaganda to disguise less elevated motives, and those with more power are often able to ignore moral considerations’.4

America’s most effective weapon in the twentieth century has been its moral authority, the widely held belief amongst its allies and those imprisoned by the Soviet Bloc that America represented positive, constructive values. The erosion of this moral authority should concern both Americans and outside observers alike.

Traditional Exceptionalism

A key source of concern, in the west at least (Western Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) has been the recent accentuation of exceptionalist myths of goodness and self-righteousness, especially since 9/11. Exceptionalism has always performed a role in American politics, and has allowed successive administrations to insulate themselves from external and internal criticism, especially in times of war. As McEvoy-Levy notes, exceptionalism ‘implies the United States’ moral superiority as well as the uniqueness of its origins, political system, social organization and values and cultural and religious characteristics’.5 Monten has recently argued:

Distinct from traditional great powers, U.S. political identity has been organized around a particular conception of the national purpose, expressed in foreign policy as the belief that Americans are “a chosen people,” an elect nation guided by a “special providence” to demonstrate the viability and spread of the democratic institutions and values that inform the American experiment.6

The belief that America has been a fundamentally benign actor goes back to the early Puritan traditions of England, transplanted in the American colonies. In 1630, Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony proclaimed ‘For wee must Consider that wee shall be a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are upon us’. A sense of Puritan mission accompanied the early American colonies, that colonists were chosen and special, and that the land had been given them as a reward for their faith and adherence to God’s laws.7 This belief continued well after the founding of the Republic, into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. ‘Our first six presidents’, Lefever reveals, ‘believed that God was active in history’, and active in watching over America’s leaders to ensure that they adhered to a moral code.8 A Manichean view of good and evil was also present in exceptionalist rhetoric from the onset. Evil was a reality that had to be combated daily, whether it was the ‘merciless Indian savage’ or the Puritans’ own repressed sexual energies. Views of indigenous peoples as either unbelievers of those in league with the Devil were not uncommon in the American colonies both before and after independence.9

Politically, exceptionalism has historically manifested itself in the following three ways, usefully identified by Judis. First, America has sought to portray itself as God’s ‘chosen nation’, blessed with a unique territory, culture and political system.10 These early views disdained European politics and other ‘foreign entanglements’ and promoted isolationism. The second strand however, highlighted an American ‘mission’ or a ‘calling’ to transform the world.11 This is typified by Wilson’s declaration in 1912 that ‘God planted in us the vision of liberty that we are chosen, prominently chosen, to show the nations of the world how they shall walk in the paths of liberty’. Later presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to George W Bush have articulated similar visions, evoking a ‘divine heritage’ (1942) or an ‘obligation to help the spread of freedom’ (2004).12

As Forsythe expands on this theme: ‘From the founding of the republic, the dominant self-image was of a good and great people, divinely inspired to lead the world – by example at home or activism abroad – to greater respect for personal freedom. The US constitution and its bill of rights symbolized this superior commitment. As such, US law was not to be trumped by any international law to the contrary’.13 Such rhetoric translates directly into American views about how they can and should engage with the rest of the world. American engagement, as Forsythe recalls, is premised on ‘national particularity and cultural relativism. The dominant view in Washington is that real human rights come from US experience and are then exported to the rest of the world’. Since America possesses a monopoly on wisdom and truth, other (lesser) countries have little to teach the United States and can only act to constrain its enlightened policies.14

Finally, Judis’ third strand articulates that America, in carrying out its mission, represents the forces of good over evil. The ideal of good and evil also comes from 17th century Puritanism, characterized by an apocalyptic outlook, where worldly conflicts are elevated into conflicts between heaven and hell, God and Satan, and good and evil.15 This brings us to the notion of Manichaeism, where the world is divided into good and evil actors, with America a model of a fundamentally good and benign force, seeking peace and stability.

Religion and Politics

What emerges from an overview of early exceptionalist ideals is their strongly Christian nature. Certainly the First Amendment to the US Constitution prevents Congress from passing any ‘law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’. Yet religion continues to play a crucial role in American life, underpinning notions of traditional exceptionalism. A 2003 survey by the Pew Research Institute clearly reveals that America is the most religious ‘rich country’, with 59 percent of Americans arguing that religion was a very important part of their lives. The totals are considerably lower for European countries. Equally illuminating are the linkages between morality and Christian belief. 58 percent of American respondents claimed that ‘it’s necessary to believe in God in order to be a moral, good person.’ Western Europeans overwhelmingly rejected the idea.16

Religion has its lucrative side. Currently, there are some 200 Christian television channels, and 1,500 Christian radio stations in the United States.17 The links between Christian fundamentalism and federal politics were not electorally significant until the mid 1970s, after Gerald Ford’s election loss. After 1976, conservative Republican operatives began to court Christian fundamentalists, changing the image of their part from one ‘primarily identified with militaristic foreign policies and economic proposals that favored the wealthy’.18 Adopting conservative positions on such social issues as abortion rights, sex education and sexual orientation, millions of millions of fundamentalist Christians now created a new and growing support base for the party.

Strategists were right to note the power and size of this constituency. Over 61 million people regularly tuned in to Christian radio and television stations in the late 1970s. This included 15 million viewers for Pat Robertson’s ‘700 Club’, and a similar number for Jerry Faldwell’s ‘Old-Time Gospel Hour’. The Christian Broadcasting Network also claimed some 30 million subscribers. In 1979 Faldwell and Weyrich formed the ‘Moral Majority’, a political lobby promoting a strong social position on such issues as abortion, school prayer, and women’s rights. From 1979 to the end of the Cold War they registered some 2.5 million new voters.19 The capture of this pivotal constituency has virtually made the Republicans the default governing party of the United States.

Since 1980, as Zunes notes, ‘they have won four of six presidential races, have dominated the Senate for seven out of 12 sessions, and have controlled the House of Representatives for the past decade … the Christian Right constitutes nearly one out of seven voters and determines the agenda of the Republican Party in about half of the states, particularly in the South and Midwest’.20 In 2000, Bush won 79 percent of the vote amongst whites who attended church more than once a week.21 This increasing capture of the political agenda by the American right has had repercussions on how America’s allies perceive its current foreign policies.

Exceptionalism, the ‘Good War’, and the Holocaust

While relatively uncontroversial for American Christians, traditional exceptionalist myths have reinforced a narrow interpretation of American identity and American goals. In recent times, more inclusive myths with updated ideals of good and evil have been required. The civil rights movements of the 1960s and 70s also played a role in delegitimizing narrower ‘WASP-ish’ forms of exceptionalism. The push to promote the rights of vulnerable people (African Americans, American Indians, Jews, etc) has been ongoing, especially after Vietnam.

At a general level, America’s involvement in World War II has been scripted as a shining example of American goodness and heroism, and is often presented as the ‘good war’.22 Allied to more general myths about the ‘good war’ has been the Americanization of the Holocaust, arguably the twentieth century’s most tragic genocide, or at least its best known. The Holocaust as a global morality play of good versus evil has meshed extremely well with pre-existing conceptions of exceptionalism. As the liberator of the Jews, the slayer of Nazis, the protector of Israel and the enemy of anti-Semitism and Islamic terrorism, America presents itself as a redeemer, allied with the twentieth century’s most prominent victims.23

During the 1970s, America’s national identity was increasingly tied to representations of its own past as the antithesis of Nazi Germany. Such perceptions helped reinforce American goodness, replacing narrower less inclusive ideals of Anglo-Saxon racial and cultural superiority. This was strongly voiced in an April, 1978 speech by President Carter, who presented the Holocaust as a crucial aspect of America’s national identity. America could feel good for having liberated the Death camps and for acting as a haven for the survivors. It further redefined its national mission as one of promoting human rights and refusing to act merely as a bystander when other states were committing atrocities.24

By 1993, the Holocaust was institutionalized as a key aspect of American identity. Schindler’s List was screened, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened its doors in central Washington DC, and in Los Angeles, the Simon Wiesenthal Center opened its Museum of Tolerance-Beit Hashoah.25 A central message of the USHMM was the contrasting of America as a democratic and tolerant nation with Nazi Germany, which in its very essence ‘denied the deepest tenets of the American people’.26

The Holocaust and American Foreign Policy

The Holocaust since Carter at least has helped bring moral clarity to debates ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: The Ethical Context of Foreign Policy
• PART 1 MORALITY AND THE WAR ON TERROR
• PART 2 MORALITY AND GLOBAL SECURITY
• PART 3 MORALITY, CULTURE AND ECONOMICS
• PART 4 MORALITY, LAW AND THE PRACTITIONERS
• Conclusion: Some Reflections on Ethics and Foreign Policy
• Index