THERE’S A FINAL dimension to U.S. foreign policy that must be discussed—the portion that has less to do with
avoiding war than promoting peace. The year I was born, President Kennedy stated in his inaugural address: “To
those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge
our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required—not because the Communists may be
doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are
poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” Forty-five years later, that mass misery still exists. If we are to
fulfill Kennedy’s promise—and serve our long-term security interests—then we will have to go beyond a more prudent
use of military force. We will have to align our policies to help reduce the spheres of insecurity, poverty, and
violence around the world, and give more people a stake in the global order that has served us so well.
Of
course, there are those who would argue with my starting premise—that any global system built in America’s image
can alleviate misery in poorer countries. For these critics, America’s notion of what the international system
should be—free trade, open markets, the unfettered flow of information, the rule of law, democratic elections, and
the like—is simply an expression of American imperialism, designed to exploit the cheap labor and natural resources
of other countries and infect non-Western cultures with decadent beliefs. Rather than conform to America’s rules,
the argument goes, other countries should resist America’s efforts to expand its hegemony; instead, they should
follow their own path to development, taking their lead from left-leaning populists like Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez,
or turning to more traditional principles of social organization, like Islamic law.
I don’t dismiss
these critics out of hand. America and its Western partners did design the current international system, after all;
it is our way of doing things—our accounting standards, our language, our dollar, our copyright laws, our
technology, and our popular culture—to which the world has had to adapt over the past fifty years. If overall the
international system has produced great prosperity in the world’s most developed countries, it has also left many
people behind—a fact that Western policy makers have often ignored and occasionally made worse.
Ultimately,
though, I believe critics are wrong to think that the world’s poor will benefit by rejecting the ideals of free
markets and liberal democracy. When human rights activists from various countries come to my office and talk about
being jailed or tortured for their beliefs, they are not acting as agents of American power. When my cousin in
Kenya complains that it’s impossible to find work unless he’s paid a bribe to some official in the ruling party, he
hasn’t been brainwashed by Western ideas. Who doubts that, if given the choice, most of the people in North Korea
would prefer living in South Korea, or that many in Cuba wouldn’t mind giving Miami a try?
No person, in
any culture, likes to be bullied. No person likes living in fear because his or her ideas are different. Nobody
likes being poor or hungry, and nobody likes to live under an economic system in which the fruits of his or her
labor go perpetually unrewarded. The system of free markets and liberal democracy that now characterizes most of
the developed world may be flawed; it may all too often reflect the interests of the powerful over the powerless.
But that system is constantly subject to change and improvement—and it is precisely in this openness to change that
market-based liberal democracies offer people around the world their best chance at a better life.
Our
challenge, then, is to make sure that U.S. policies move the international system in the direction of greater
equity, justice, and prosperity—that the rules we promote serve both our interests and the interests of a
struggling world. In doing so, we might keep a few basic principles in mind. First, we should be skeptical of those
who believe we can single-handedly liberate other people from tyranny. I agree with George W. Bush when in his
second inaugural address he proclaimed a universal desire to be free. But there are few examples in history in
which the freedom men and women crave is delivered through outside intervention. In almost every successful social
movement of the last century, from Gandhi’s campaign against British rule to the Solidarity movement in Poland to
the antiapartheid movement in South Africa, democracy was the result of a local awakening.
We can
inspire and invite other people to assert their freedoms; we can use international forums and agreements to set
standards for others to follow; we can provide funding to fledgling democracies to help institutionalize fair
election systems, train independent journalists, and seed the habits of civic participation; we can speak out on
behalf of local leaders whose rights are violated; and we can apply economic and diplomatic pressure to those who
repeatedly violate the rights of their own people.
But when we seek to impose democracy with the barrel
of a gun, funnel money to parties whose economic policies are deemed friendlier to Washington, or fall under the
sway of exiles like Chalabi whose ambitions aren’t matched by any discernible local support, we aren’t just setting
ourselves up for failure. We are helping oppressive regimes paint democratic activists as tools of foreign powers
and retarding the possibility that genuine, homegrown democracy will ever emerge.
A corollary to this is
that freedom means more than elections. In 1941, FDR said he looked forward to a world founded upon four essential
freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. Our own experience tells
us that those last two freedoms—freedom from want and freedom from fear—are prerequisites for all others. For half
of the world’s population, roughly three billion people around the world living on less than two dollars a day, an
election is at best a means, not an end; a starting point, not deliverance. These people are looking less for an
“electocracy” than for the basic elements that for most of us define a decent life—food, shelter, electricity,
basic health care, education for their children, and the ability to make their way through life without having to
endure corruption, violence, or arbitrary power. If we want to win the hearts and minds of people in Caracas,
Jakarta, Nairobi, or Tehran, dispersing ballot boxes will not be enough. We’ll have to make sure that the
international rules we’re promoting enhance, rather than impede, people’s sense of material and personal security.
That
may require that we look in the mirror. For example, the United States and other developed countries constantly
demand that developing countries eliminate trade barriers that protect them from competition, even as we
steadfastly protect our own constituencies from exports that could help lift poor countries out of poverty. In our
zeal to protect the patents of American drug companies, we’ve discouraged the ability of countries like Brazil to
produce generic AIDS drugs that could save millions of lives. Under the leadership of Washington, the International
Monetary Fund, designed after World War II to serve as a lender of last resort, has repeatedly forced countries in
the midst of financial crisis like Indonesia to go through painful readjustments (sharply raising interest rates,
cutting government social spending, eliminating subsidies to key industries) that cause enormous hardship to their
people—harsh medicine that we Americans would have difficulty administering to ourselves.
Another branch
of the international financial system, the World Bank, has a reputation for funding large, expensive projects that
benefit high-priced consultants and well connected local elites but do little for ordinary citizens—although it’s
these ordinary citizens who are left holding the bag when the loans come due. Indeed, countries that have
successfully developed under the current international system have at times ignored Washington’s rigid economic
prescriptions by protecting nascent industries and engaging in aggressive industrial policies. The IMF and World
Bank need to recognize that there is no single, cookie-cutter formula for each and every country’s development.
There
is nothing wrong, of course, with a policy of “tough love” when it comes to providing development assistance to
poor countries. Too many poor countries are hampered by archaic, even feudal, property and banking laws; in the
past, too many foreign aid programs simply engorged local elites, the money siphoned off into Swiss bank accounts.
Indeed, for far too long international aid policies have ignored the critical role that the rule of law and
principles of transparency play in any nation’s development. In an era in which international financial
transactions hinge on reliable, enforceable contracts, one might expect that the boom in global business would have
given rise to vast legal reforms. But in fact countries like India, Nigeria, and China have developed two legal
systems—one for foreigners and elites, and one for ordinary people trying to get ahead.
As for countries
like Somalia, Sierra Leone, or the Congo, well, they have barely any law whatsoever. There are times when
considering the plight of Africa—the millions racked by AIDS, the constant droughts and famines, the dictatorships,
the pervasive corruption, the brutality of twelve-year-old guerrillas who know nothing but war wielding machetes or
AK-47s—I find myself plunged into cynicism and despair. Until I’m reminded that a mosquito net that prevents
malaria cost three dollars; that a voluntary HIV testing program in Uganda has made substantial inroads in the rate
of new infections at a cost of three or four dollars per test; that only modest attention—an international show of
force or the creation of civilian protection zones—might have stopped the slaughter in Rwanda; and that onetime
hard cases like Mozambique have made significant steps toward reform.
FDR was certainly right when he
said, “As a nation we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.”
We should not expect to help Africa if Africa ultimately proves unwilling to help itself. But there are positive
trends in Africa often hidden in the news of despair. Democracy is spreading. In many places economies are growing.
We need to build on these glimmers of hope and help those committed leaders and citizens throughout Africa build
the better future they, like we, so desperately desire.
Moreover, we fool ourselves in thinking that, in
the words of one commentator, “we must learn to watch others die with equanimity,” and not expect consequences.
Disorder breeds disorder; callousness toward others tends to spread among ourselves. And if moral claims are
insufficient for us to act as a continent implodes, there are certainly instrumental reasons why the United States
and its allies should care about failed states that don’t control their territories, can’t combat epidemics, and
are numbed by civil war and atrocity. It was in such a state of lawlessness that the Taliban took hold of
Afghanistan. It was in Sudan, site of today’s slow-rolling genocide, that bin Laden set up camp for several years.
It’s in the misery of some unnamed slum that the next killer virus will emerge.
Of course, whether in
Africa or elsewhere, we can’t expect to tackle such dire problems alone. For that reason, we should be spending
more time and money trying to strengthen the capacity of international institutions so that they can do some of
this work for us. Instead, we’ve been doing the opposite. For years, conservatives in the United States have been
making political hay over problems at the UN: the hypocrisy of resolutions singling out Israel for condemnation,
the Kafkaesque election of nations like Zimbabwe and Libya to the UN Commission on Human Rights, and most recently
the kickbacks that plagued the oil-for-food program.
These critics are right. For every UN agency like
UNICEF that functions well, there are other agencies that seem to do nothing more than hold conferences, produce
reports, and provide sinecures for third-rate international civil servants. But these failures aren’t an argument
for reducing our involvement in international organizations, nor are they an excuse for U.S. unilateralism. The
more effective UN peacekeeping forces are in handling civil wars and sectarian conflicts, the less global policing
we have to do in areas that we’d like to see stabilized. The more credible the information that the International
Atomic Energy Agency provides, the more likely we are to mobilize allies against the efforts of rogue states to
obtain nuclear weapons. The greater the capacity of the World Health Organization, the less likely we are to have
to deal with a flu pandemic in our own country. No country has a bigger stake than we do in strengthening
international institutions—which is why we pushed for their creation in the first place, and why we need to take
the lead in improving them.
Finally, for those who chafe at the prospect of working with our allies to
solve the pressing global challenges we face, let me suggest at least one area where we can act unilaterally and
improve our standing in the world—by perfecting our own democracy and leading by example. When we continue to spend
tens of billions of dollars on weapons systems of dubious value but are unwilling to spend the money to protect
highly vulnerable chemical plants in major urban centers, it becomes more difficult to get other countries to
safeguard their nuclear power plants. When we detain suspects indefinitely without trial or ship them off in the
dead of night to countries where we know they’ll be tortured, we weaken our ability to press for human rights and
the rule of law in despotic regimes. When we, the richest country on earth and the consumer of 25 percent of the
world’s fossil fuels, can’t bring ourselves to raise fuel-efficiency standards by even a small fraction so as to
weaken our dependence on Saudi oil fields and slow global warming, we should expect to have a hard time convincing
China not to deal with oil suppliers like Iran or Sudan—and shouldn’t count on much cooperation in getting them to
address environmental problems that visit our shores.
This unwillingness to make hard choices and live
up to our own ideals doesn’t just undermine U.S. credibility in the eyes of the world. It undermines the U.S.
government’s credibility with the American people. Ultimately, it is how we manage that most precious resource—the
American people, and the system of self-government we inherited from our Founders—that will determine the success
of any foreign policy. The world out there is dangerous and complex; the work of remaking it will be long and hard,
and will require some sacrifice. Such sacrifice comes about because the American people understand fully the
choices before them; it is born of the confidence we have in our democracy. FDR understood this when he said, after
the attack on Pearl Harbor, that “[t]his Government will put its trust in the stamina of the American people.”
Truman understood this, which is why he worked with Dean Acheson to establish the Committee for the Marshall Plan,
made up of CEOs, academics, labor leaders, clergymen, and others who could stump for the plan across the country.
It seems as if this is a lesson that America’s leadership needs to relearn.
I wonder, sometimes, whether
men and women in fact are capable of learning from history—whether we progress from one stage to the next in an
upward course or whether we just ride the cycles of boom and bust, war and peace, ascent and decline. On the same
trip that took me to Baghdad, I spent a week traveling through Israel and the West Bank, meeting with officials
from both sides, mapping in my own mind the site of so much strife. I talked to Jews who’d lost parents in the
Holocaust and brothers in suicide bombings; I heard Palestinians talk of the indignities of checkpoints and
reminisce about the land they had lost. I flew by helicopter across the line separating the two peoples and found
myself unable to distinguish Jewish towns from Arab towns, all of them like fragile outposts against the green and
stony hills. From the promenade above Jerusalem, I looked down at the Old City, the Dome of the Rock, the Western
Wall, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, considered the two thousand years of war and rumors of war that this
small plot of land had come to represent, and pondered the possible futility of believing that this conflict might
somehow end in our time, or that America, for all its power, might have any lasting say over the course of the
world.
I don’t linger on such thoughts, though—they are the thoughts of an old man. As difficult as the
work may seem, I believe we have an obligation to engage in efforts to bring about peace in the Middle East, not
only for the benefit of the people of the region, but for the safety and security of our own children as well.
And
perhaps the world’s fate depends not just on the events of its battlefields; perhaps it depends just as much on the
work we do in those quiet places that require a helping hand. I remember seeing the news reports of the tsunami
that hit East Asia in 2004—the towns of Indonesia’s western coast flattened, the thousands of people washed out to
sea. And then, in the weeks that followed, I watched with pride as Americans sent more than a billion dollars in
private relief aid and as U.S. warships delivered thousands of troops to assist in relief and reconstruction.
According to newspaper reports, 65 percent of Indonesians surveyed said that this assistance had given them a more
favorable view of the United States. I am not naive enough to believe that one episode in the wake of catastrophe
can erase decades of mistrust.
But it’s a start.
Excerpt taken from book: Audacity of hope (by Barack Obama)
