Say what you will about how fucking stupid American foreign policy is and has been, but it’s at least somewhat tempered its approach to socialist governments around the world.
Even in the Cold War, it was horrifically uneven. We were cozy with Yugoslavia and intermittently cooperative with the Arab socialist states (and Israel, which was dominated by the at-the-time-actually-left Labour coalitions), but couped the democratic governments of Mossadegh in Iran (who wasn’t even a socialist) and Allende in Chile for seeming a little too ‘red’.
Diving into Cold War history, you realize how much of the lines sold about realpolitik, liberal internationalism, and material conditions are all less important than their defenders present them as.
No one has a plan. There’s no rationality or structure to it. Personal quirks of low-ranking bureaucrats and cultural perceptions of political decorum are often as important as national-scale economic concerns.
It’s why democratic participation and awareness of foreign affairs is so goddamn important. Because otherwise, Mr. Empty Suit in a sinecure position during an unforeseen crisis who had a fucking cold the day a meeting was supposed to happen determines the fate of hundreds of thousands.
Totally. It’s absolutely terrifying (and occasionally, very reassuring) how much a single person can impact the entire planet.
To your point about voting and democratizing foreign policy: I tend to agree with you, but I also have some reservations. I think you can observe how easily things become overtly politicized and based, based on short-term political gains. Bureaucracy and individual expertise/institutional knowledge and inertia can safeguard against some shockwaves that occur based on shorter term democratic changes. I do think that there’s plenty of space for a technocratic approach to administration, where decisions are based on longer term thinking than a lot of representative democracies reward in the political sphere.
Just to be clear: I’m defending expertise within a democratic government’s institutions, not for opaque policies or a system without oversight. I’m just saying that just as I like to have scientists leading a county’s national science organizations, I like having foreign policy experts leading a county’s foreign policy organizations.
Oh, certainly. But an active and involved population can help steer the ship back on course by democratic means when any given foreign policy bureaucrat fucks up.
Yeah, it’s odd honestly, only after effectively defeating marxism-leninism globally has the U.S. started to accept socialism.
Though it probably could’ve been predicted, the Socialist and, to a varying degree, the Communist Parties (France and Italy), had a large amount of influence in the European democracies of the Cold War, and the U.S tolerated it, mostly because those parties upheld democracy. It makes sense that this attitude towards foreign policy would spread to how the U.S. treats any nation globally, not just Europe.
It’s really weird how narratives alone can change the direction of nations,
We used to say we are the arsenal of democracy to justify all the right wing coups we sponsored against socialist leaders, even if they were democratically elected, and now a major US party’s establishment has zero qualms helping socialists if the socialists are the ones who are going to the defense of the global democratic society, because “we’re the defenders of democracy.”
The joking innuendo became a legitimate foreign policy planck!
I think this is part of an overall tone shift in the US’ culture, a rise of Radical Sincerity. Everyone is so burnt out of wink and nod cynicism after decades of it being the norm in one iteration or another, that the punkish backlash to the status quo cynicism and fake smiles is to play what was once made fun of as childish delusion completely straight.
Sincere fantasy stories, abandonment of lampshading tropes, exhaustion with wink and nod fourth wall breaks, shift to a sincere insistence on following through on the values we were told to aspire to, through religious upbringing or through the narrative of national history we were taught.
Honestly, not really anymore.
Biden has saved socialists from Far-Right Coups
Met with Chilean socialists and had good relations, rather than overthrowing them and putting a neo-Pinochet in charge.
And supporting anarcho-communists in Syria has been the bipartisan concensus of Congress for a decade.
It really seems that the U.S. is growing more accepting of international socialism, as long as it’s democratic.
Indeed. That’s why I asked the question.
Say what you will about how fucking stupid American foreign policy is and has been, but it’s at least somewhat tempered its approach to socialist governments around the world.
Even in the Cold War, it was horrifically uneven. We were cozy with Yugoslavia and intermittently cooperative with the Arab socialist states (and Israel, which was dominated by the at-the-time-actually-left Labour coalitions), but couped the democratic governments of Mossadegh in Iran (who wasn’t even a socialist) and Allende in Chile for seeming a little too ‘red’.
Diving into Cold War history, you realize how much of the lines sold about realpolitik, liberal internationalism, and material conditions are all less important than their defenders present them as.
No one has a plan. There’s no rationality or structure to it. Personal quirks of low-ranking bureaucrats and cultural perceptions of political decorum are often as important as national-scale economic concerns.
It’s why democratic participation and awareness of foreign affairs is so goddamn important. Because otherwise, Mr. Empty Suit in a sinecure position during an unforeseen crisis who had a fucking cold the day a meeting was supposed to happen determines the fate of hundreds of thousands.
Shit’s almost never inevitable.
Totally. It’s absolutely terrifying (and occasionally, very reassuring) how much a single person can impact the entire planet.
To your point about voting and democratizing foreign policy: I tend to agree with you, but I also have some reservations. I think you can observe how easily things become overtly politicized and based, based on short-term political gains. Bureaucracy and individual expertise/institutional knowledge and inertia can safeguard against some shockwaves that occur based on shorter term democratic changes. I do think that there’s plenty of space for a technocratic approach to administration, where decisions are based on longer term thinking than a lot of representative democracies reward in the political sphere.
Just to be clear: I’m defending expertise within a democratic government’s institutions, not for opaque policies or a system without oversight. I’m just saying that just as I like to have scientists leading a county’s national science organizations, I like having foreign policy experts leading a county’s foreign policy organizations.
Oh, certainly. But an active and involved population can help steer the ship back on course by democratic means when any given foreign policy bureaucrat fucks up.
Yeah, it’s odd honestly, only after effectively defeating marxism-leninism globally has the U.S. started to accept socialism.
Though it probably could’ve been predicted, the Socialist and, to a varying degree, the Communist Parties (France and Italy), had a large amount of influence in the European democracies of the Cold War, and the U.S tolerated it, mostly because those parties upheld democracy. It makes sense that this attitude towards foreign policy would spread to how the U.S. treats any nation globally, not just Europe.
It’s really weird how narratives alone can change the direction of nations,
We used to say we are the arsenal of democracy to justify all the right wing coups we sponsored against socialist leaders, even if they were democratically elected, and now a major US party’s establishment has zero qualms helping socialists if the socialists are the ones who are going to the defense of the global democratic society, because “we’re the defenders of democracy.”
The joking innuendo became a legitimate foreign policy planck!
I think this is part of an overall tone shift in the US’ culture, a rise of Radical Sincerity. Everyone is so burnt out of wink and nod cynicism after decades of it being the norm in one iteration or another, that the punkish backlash to the status quo cynicism and fake smiles is to play what was once made fun of as childish delusion completely straight.
Sincere fantasy stories, abandonment of lampshading tropes, exhaustion with wink and nod fourth wall breaks, shift to a sincere insistence on following through on the values we were told to aspire to, through religious upbringing or through the narrative of national history we were taught.