Capitalism, the
Indispensible System
America, the Indispensible
Nation
“Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's
Secretary of State, called America the ‘indispensable nation’ a
decade ago.”
So writes the Wall Street Journal in
its lead editorial on Oct. 10, 2009, commenting on the Nobel Peace Prize award
to President Barack Obama (attached). The Journal reveled in the delicious irony
of Madam Albright’s remark:
Mr. Obama sees the
U.S. differently, as weaker
than it was and the rest of the planet as stronger, and so he calls for a
humbler America, at best a first among
equals, working primarily through the U.N. The world's challenges, he emphasized
yesterday, "can't be met by any one leader or any one nation." What this
suggests to us—and to the Norwegians—is the end of what has been called
"American exceptionalism." This is the view that U.S. values have
universal application and should be promoted without apology, and defended with
military force when necessary.
No doubt the former Secretary of
State wishes she hadn’t uttered her memorable phrase, or at least that President
Obama’s critics hadn’t pounced on it.
But the Journal misinterprets the
Nobel Committee’s agenda. It is precisely because “American exceptionalism” has
become the world’s rule that the prize was bestowed. Far from attacking American
values, the Nobel Committee – and President Obama – reaffirmed them. In the
Journal’s own words, “Mr. Obama sees the U.S. … as weaker than it was and the rest of the
planet as stronger, and so he calls for a humbler America, at best
a first among equals, working primarily through the U.N. The world's challenges,
he emphasized yesterday, ‘can't be met by any one leader or any one
nation’.”
“American exceptionalism” never had
anything to do with America’s global power. In decrying
the hegemonic presumption associated with being the world’s only superpower,
both the Committee and the President actually repudiated the traditional
European reliance on upholding powerful states in securing a peaceful and
orderly world, through old-fashioned Realpolitik, balance-of-power calculations,
and deterrence. Exceptionalism has always stood apart from that “Old World”
realm, and counterposed to it the values associated with the American
Enlightenment, the values of national self-determination, human rights,
anti-imperialism and radical individualism. Exceptionalist doctrine crystallized
in the 19th Century era of American isolation from Europe’s “corruption” and “decadence” and its entangling
games of power politics.
Covert European anti-Americanism
undoubtedly contributed to the motives of the Nobel Committee, but the values
which the Committee publically rewarded, and which President Obama acknowledged
in his message of acceptance, were affirmations of precisely the exceptionalism
that made America a unique nation, and as such
were a fundamental rejection of what might be termed “European
exceptionalism.”
The source of the confusion between
the ideals of “American exceptionalism” and the realities of American power
lies in the old bipolar world which emerged as the de facto result of World War II. America
was obliged to become a superpower by virtue of the fact that if it didn’t, the
Soviet Union, by default, would have had the field to itself – unacceptable to
everyone (except the Soviets), even the still quite anti-American Europeans. But
now the confusion has different roots. The Soviets are defeated, but
America remains – as the world’s only
superpower!
America now finds
itself in a position not unlike that of the world’s economic system, capitalism:
hegemonic by virtue of having no substantial opposition! And the putative
opponents of both of these hegemonies end up strengthening them with their
anti-establishment effusions. The proponents of American power seek to defend
its superpower status by inventing surrogate after surrogate for the old Soviet
menace, ranging from Saddam’s Iraq, to Iran, to North Korea, to Islamic terrorism, to
rising Chinese economic power, to reborn Russian totalitarianism. You name it,
there’s an expert who will forecast it. But the world, and Americans, grow
jaded. So the enemies of American power retaliate by seeking to weaken American
might. Of course to do so they must strengthen all the global Americanizing
tendencies they so loathe.
America defeats her
antagonists with the wall of indispensability: you can’t beat somebody with
nobody. In other words, if you want to tear down America, you can
only do it by Americanizing the world. And that’s where capitalism, the
indispensible system, comes in.
Want to defeat America? You’ll
have to beat her at her own game.
