January 7, 2006
OVERLOOK THE GIANT ERROR:
David’s Friend Goliath: The rest of the world complains that American hegemony is reckless, arrogant, and insensitive. Just don’t expect them to do anything aboutit. The world’s guilty secret is that it enjoys the security and stability the United States provides. The world won’t admit it, but they will miss the American empire when it’s gone. (Michael Mandelbaum, January/February 2006, Foreign Policy)
To be sure, the United States did not deliberately set out to become the world’s government. The services it provides originated during the Cold War as part of its struggle with the Soviet Union, and America has continued, adapted, and in some cases expanded them in the post-Cold War era. Nor do Americans think of their country as the world’s government. Rather, it conducts, in their view, a series of policies designed to further American interests. In this respect they are correct, but these policies serve the interests of others as well. The alternative to the role the United States plays in the world is not better global governance, but less of it—and that would make the world a far more dangerous and less prosperous place. Never in human history has one country done so much for so many others, and received so little appreciation for its efforts.
With the glaring exception of his inept use of the David & Goliath metaphor, Mr. Mandelbaum's book is prety good. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 7, 2006 2:19 PM
That David and Goliath thing drives OJ up the freakin' wall, doesn't it?
Posted by: Pepys at January 7, 2006 2:40 PMwah ? i don't think so, we are the goliath of goliaths.
Posted by: toe at January 7, 2006 5:42 PMtoe:
No, Goliath was a bully's bully. He was born and bred to fight. Even the men in our system who are raised that way rarely get to do it, and never outside the bounds of due provocation.
Posted by: jim hamlen at January 7, 2006 9:04 PMGo·li·ath2 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (g-lth)
n.
A person or thing of colossal power or achievement.
No, toe, we're David.
Look at each country individually and how it's set up/runs. 216 years and no other country is set up like ours. No other country has the vision.
They are all under some form of what I call mutated monarchy, unelected 1 - unelected brusselsprouts/UN, still unelected.
For almost 400 years we've gone our own way, we just made it official on 7/4/1776.
Fundamentally where it counts, we are David, still taking on the tyrannic Goliaths.
Is it possible that those original tellers of the Goliath story were wrong too? I mean...it means what it's supposed to mean. Who cares if he had a handgun?
Posted by: RC at January 7, 2006 11:48 PMwhat have we achieved ? everything, with more to come.
Posted by: toe at January 8, 2006 1:02 AMWhen we're gone?
We're not going anywhere anytime soon. We really couldn't. not even if we wanted to. The claims of the resentful against us for all kinds of restitution and reparations would amount to partition, slavery and genocide.
Bayonets brought us all this way, and you can do anything with bayonets but sit on them.
It's all B.S. anyway. Our empire is so benign that opposition to it is a mere mental health issue. Various foreign politicians make noises like "sovereign" states from time but it's all just talk--no credible air or sea power, maybe a few soldiers in hairnets or an Iraq-level force which could be easily brushed aside.
Mandelbaum's point is very well taken. When we look at the world from the point of view a man from Mars, not one from France or Iran, we see a system very much like the world govenment he has posited and very unlike the myth of "sovereignty."
Posted by: Lou Gots at January 8, 2006 1:10 AMThis article ignores a lot of places and people where the influences of US foreign policies have been motivated to 1) better the American people and indirectly 2) benefit the country of interference. There are plenty of examples where we can see that this is obviously not the case; many more, in my humble opinion, than the success stories of the Cold War, which was mostly an imperialistic competition between us and the Soviets.
Posted by: Grog at January 8, 2006 3:56 AMLou:
Our empire is so benign that opposition to it is a mere mental health issue.
Wonderful.
Posted by: Peter B at January 8, 2006 5:43 AMRC:
The original is correct. Goliath had no chance against God's chosen, as David well understood. He wasn't on a suicide mission.
Posted by: oj at January 8, 2006 8:25 AMGrog: [T]he influences of US foreign policies have been motivated to 1) better the American people
I would certainly hope so.
Posted by: David Cohen at January 8, 2006 9:08 AM"Our empire is so benign that opposition to it is a mere mental health issue."
Eloquently put.
Posted by: erp at January 8, 2006 10:56 AMHas it occured to anyone that in different instances, we could be both.
Leaving aside OJ's contention that Goliath will always fail (something I agree with), the US has acted the part of Goliath in the past, and probably will again. (OJ example of imposing "realist" stability comes to mind)
When we act as David, we are on the side of right, and when we act as Goliath we aren't.
toe,
Don't look to size, look to purpose. In my own set of metaphorical thinking, collectivism, tribalism, etc. is the world's "Goliath."
It will always be there, it will always look strong in numbers, and we will always have to maintain vigilance to kill it.
Posted by: Bruno at January 8, 2006 12:26 PMi guess i am the only one to feel a quickening, a threshold being crossed, the first drops of a thousand year rain.
Posted by: cjm at January 8, 2006 1:55 PMcjm: Not the only, not the first.
Annuit coeptis, Novus Ordo Seclorum.
Posted by: Lou Gots at January 8, 2006 5:18 PMThe Swiss predated us and are doing just fine. Obstensibly, they enjoy more liberty than we do.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at January 9, 2006 11:31 AM