The Myth of American Idealism, How U.S. Foreign Policy Endangers the World
Noam Chomsky, Nathan Robinson, Penguin Press, 2024
Motives and Results of U.S. Foreign Policy
“the real source of foreign policy is “the strategic and economic interests of dominant sectors of the domestic population. In practice, this means that the United States has typically acted with almost complete disregard for moral principle”
Noam Chomsky has been instrumental in the radicalization of thousands of activists. His skewering of U.S. hypocrisy is unsurpassed. This book brings his analysis up to 2024 and is a welcome addition to his collection of writings. Chomsky’s writings are instrumental in breaking people away from dominant U.S. ideology which he often ironically calls political correctness. His writings also give detailed facts and arguments that are very useful for even the most experienced opponent of U.S. imperialism. This book continues that tradition with his usual flair.
The author takes a wide view, looking at ruling classes across history. He notes that “the worst of history’s criminals have often proclaimed themselves to be among humankind’s greatest heroes.” (1) “No ruling powers have ever thought of themselves as evil.” (291)”
U.S. policy makers and economic and intellectual leaders have applied this to the U.S. The author quotes U.S. ambassador Charles Bohlen :
“Our policy is not rooted in any national material interest… as most foreign policies of other countries in the past have been… For 200 years the United States has preserved almost unsullied original ideas of the Enlightenment..”(3)
Chomsky goes on to note that “The fact that the United States is an exceptional nation is regularly intoned, not just by virtually every political figure but by prominent academics and public intellectuals as well. The fundamental principle is that we are good — ‘We’ being the government ( on the totalitarian principle that the state and the people are one). ‘We’ are benevolent, seeking peace and justice, though there may be errors in practice. ‘We are foiled by villains who can’t rise to our exalted level.” (5)
“Our belief in our own exceptionalism is the most unexceptional thing about us.” (290)
Chomsky calls on us to reject these transparent justifications:
“Sensible people pay scant attention to declarations of noble intent by leaders, because they are so universal. What matters is the historical record.”(4)
The author explains that the real source of foreign policy is “the strategic and economic interests of dominant sectors of the domestic population. In practice, this means that the United States has typically acted with almost complete disregard for moral principle and the rule of law, except insofar as complying with principle and law serves the interests of the American elites. There is little evidence of authentic humanitarian concern. American foreign policy is. consistent with what Adam Smith called “the vile maxim of the masters of mankind, ‘All for ourselves and nothing for other people.’” (5)
“We might also call this the Mafia Doctrine…The Godfather’s word is law. Those who defy the Godfather will be punished… But Godfathers, too, are known to convince themselves that they are kindly and benevolent.”
“The task of the U.S. is to ensure that the countries ‘base their economies on a system of private enterprise’ and ‘create a political and economic climate conducive to private investment with militaries that have an ‘understanding of, and orientation toward U.S. objectives.’”
This pro-U.S. ideology leaves no room for fundamental critique. (273) Even when establishment critics see a particular intervention as disastrous, they see it as a mistake. They never question the motives or purpose for the action, only the application. Ken Burns documentary on the U.S. war against Vietnam is a prime example of this. (63)
The U.S. calls on other countries to follow international law but feels no obligation to do so itself. It uses international law principles against its rivals with no sense of shame.
The predictable result of U.S. foreign policy is death and destruction of peoples around the world.
“what the United States wants is ‘stability’, meaning security for the ‘upper classes and large foreign enterprises’”(32)
“ between 1946 and 2000, the United States undertook over eighty election-interference operations around the world.” Because “the right to override the population is assumed”(27)
“The United States opposes the criminality and violence of those powers we wish to contain and supports the criminality and violence of our valued partners and allies. There is a single standard, then: whatever serves our perceived interests is good, whatever undermines it is not.”(62)
“ there is no situation so bad that U.S. intervention cannot make it worse.”(125)
This book outlines the horrific results in chapters on Disciplining the Global South; the war in Southeast Asia; 9/11 and the wrecking of Afganistan; Iraq: The Crime of the Century; The United States, Israel and Palestine; The Great China Threat; NATO and Russia after the Cold War; and Nuclear Threats and Climate Catastrophe.
Part 2 of the book focuses on Understanding Power Systems which includes a discussion of Domestic Roots of Foreign Policy; International Law and the “Rules-Based Order”; How Mythologies are Manufactured and the conclusion, Hegemony or Survival.
By far, the strongest section of the book is part one, giving detailed case studies on the horrific effects of U.S. imperialism. This section gives ample material for debunking U.S. interventions and can help anti-war activists in organizing.
Radical but Not Revolutionary Analysis
“He attributes the horrors of U.S. imperialism to the immorality of the rulers”
Despite its great strengths, the understanding of U.S. imperialism expressed in this book is limited. Chomsky’s analysis is radical but it is not revolutionary.
He attributes the horrors of U.S. imperialism to the immorality of the rulers. This immorality can be corrected by pressure from mass movements he believes. This pressure can force rulers to adhere to international law. There is an alternative foreign policy that they could pursue.
“There is an alternative path to the one we have pursued, namely to take stated ideals seriously and act on them. The United States could commit itself to following international law, respecting the U.N. Charter…” (294)
He looks to international law as a solution to conflict. In fact, international law was created as an expression of the interests of the dominant powers. It has never been designed to achieve the interests and needs of ordinary people. Different powers will always use it or ignore it as necessary to pursue their goals. International law is not an alternative to great power conflict, but an expression of it. Even if it were benign, there is no world government to enforce it. It is only enforced on weaker nations by stronger ones when it is in the interest of the stronger countries.
“The 9/11 attacks could have been dealt with as a crime.”(89) expresses his attachment to utopian international law.
Chomsky believes that the rulers can be changed by mass pacifist movements.
“We now need what the great antiwar activist A.J. Muste called ‘revolutionary pacifism’”(209)
Also, the author continues his overly stark differentiation between “democratic” countries like the U.S. and authoritarian states. He underestimates how repressive the U.S. system is. This is why Chomsky stresses the need for rulers to “manufacture consent.”
On the Middle East, Chomsky is very critical of Israel and Zionism. He is not however fully anti-Zionist. He believes that the colonial settler state that expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and relies on continual land theft, apartheid and oppression can co-exist with Palestinians:
“Israel’s refusal to accept a peace settlement is hardly in the interests of Israel itself.” (151)
He is also naïve about the possibility of the U.S. ruling class changing its support of Zionism:
“The United States has long had a choice: will it insist that Israel operate in accordance with basic democratic values and international norms, or will it fund the immoral, illegal ..project of building a permanent apartheid state?” (159)
Biden and Harris have answered that question by the funding of the 2023–4 genocide in Gaza. Further Israel cannot operate on democratic values by its very nature as a colonial settler state based on one religion and expulsion of the natives.
A Marxist Alternative to Chomsky’s Analysis
“Capitalists are as Marx put it a “band of hostile brothers”. They are united in opposition to workers and the poor but hostile to each other. They must compete or die.”
What is an alternative view to Chomsky’s analysis? — -
Ruling classes are not just immoral. They are forced to be immoral. The world capitalist system is competitive. Each capitalist and each national ruling class must compete with the others. They do not have the luxury of being nice and abiding by international law. Capitalists are as Marx put it a “band of hostile brothers”. They are united in opposition to workers and the poor but hostile to each other. They must compete or die.
This means that they will not fundamentally change due to the pressure of mass movements. Mass movements can have an impact in particular cases. The movement against the U.S. war against Vietnam forced the U.S. out. However, U.S. imperialism continued to wreak havoc around the world and continues to. Of course, people with any humanitarian sense must oppose each U.S. intervention, but the goal should not just be aimed at one change in foreign policy but at the system which causes wars. For example, pro-Palestine activists should support BDS, and oppose any U.S. support for Israel. However, U.S. imperialism will continue to support Zionism until there is a successful regional and international revolution.
https://firebrand.red/2024/02/what-will-it-take-to-liberate-palestine/
Since it is the international capitalist system that creates imperialism, wars, sanctions, climate destruction etc., it is that system that needs to be dismantled. The primary aim of those who want peace and justice must be elimination of capitalism. The aim of our efforts must be abolishing the ruling classes of the world and their system — -not adjusting the psychology of the rulers.
If the goal is revolutionary, the means must not be limited by pacifism. The rulers will not give up their wealth, power and system because of an election. They must have it taken from them. Ultimately, to take away their economic power the movement will need to take away their political and military power as well. Their state including their armies, police forces etc. will need to be dismantled. Chomsky’s stress on the U.S. as a democracy based on consent, downplays the importance of the need for physical confrontation and therefore disorients the movement.
Chomsky downplays the history of repression in U.S. history saying:
“The United States is a remarkably free country when it comes to what is legally permissible to say.”(272) “ Propaganda is to a democracy as the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.”(285)
This belies the recent experience of Palestine supporters who have been arrested, fired, jailed, beaten and doxed for their speech. It also ignores the victims of the Red Scares of 1919 and McCarthyism in the 40s and 50s , the IWW members arrested and beaten during the free speech campaigns of the early 1900s, anti-war activists during WWI and WWII, those repressed by Cointelpro in the 60’s , and the physical attacks aimed at destroying the Black Panthers and others.
Another weakness of Chomsky’s analysis is the lack of stress on the working class. The working class has potential economic power as the producer of the profits of the ruling class. It can use that economic centrality to seize control of the economy and remake it for human needs. Workers also have the economic interest in overthrowing the system since they are exploited and oppressed by it.
The lever for transforming the system is the economic, social and political interests of the working class, not moral suasion of the ruling class.
Overall, this book is very useful for anti-war activists. It gives facts and figures that can be used in winning people to oppose U.S. imperialism. It exposes U.S. hypocrisy and bourgeois ideology.
However, Chomsky’s strategy for change is vague and naïve since it is based on unrealistic assumptions about the system it opposes.
Although they are over 100 years old, Lenin’s “Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism” and “Socialism and War” lay the basis for a clearer strategy in opposing war , conquest and great power domination. A recent book in the Leninist tradition which carries forward this analysis is
China in Global Capitalism, Building International Solidarity Against Imperial Rivalry, Eli Friedman, Kevin Lin, Rosa Liu, Ashley Smith, Haymarket 2024
https://medium.com/@sleigh1917/two-books-on-china-25fbcd3a510a
