Exceptionalism, expansionism, adventurism

As US political scientist Samuel P. Huntington observed: “The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.”

Winning the world — and let’s not beat about the bush that means thinking you are able to do with it what you like — along with having the necessary means to apply the organized violence required to do that, are obviously things that have been preoccupying policymakers in the United States in recent years.

The country has been profoundly affected by “the depletion of American wealth, power, and prestige” that have been the consequences of the global financial crisis it triggered and its ill-considered projections of its military might.

And these things have clearly been preying on the mind of the current US president and his administration as shown by the State of the Union Address the US leader delivered on Tuesday.

In seeking to mythologize his own presidency, the US president spoke of the legacy he was carrying forward, and of the “American Age” that was yet to come. To many around the world those words will be less than thrilling. For as Huntington

went on to say, while Westerners tend to brush aside the fact that their present status has been secured by violence, non-Westerners are less willing to forget this, particularly since coercion is still the name of the game the West plays today.

Washington likes to talk of upholding human rights, but as the US president hammered home by constantly harping on it in his speech, it was guns not ideals that built America — and by extension the world order it shaped.

He emphasized the importance the US places on force of arms to restore “American leadership in the world” by highlighting that his administration has invested a record-breaking $2.2 trillion in the US military, so that no other power comes close.

And there he unveiled the elephant in his speech. For the reason he and others feel the need to rebuild the country, by which they mean its pride and prestige — its gunslinger’s swagger — is because “for decades, (with its rise) China has taken advantage of the United States”.

Which ignores the fact that “the mentality of US decline” is the result of its continual military adventurism falling foul of a lack of genuine purpose along with the unbridled greed that caused the 2008 economic crash.

Worryingly, the lessons the US should have learned by now have been ignored. The world is no longer what it was when the US was able to briefly bask in the glory of its self-perceived preeminence after the fall of the Soviet Union, and the “comeback” promised by the US president does not bode well for the world.

Emphasizing that the US “has always been a frontier nation”, the US leader declared that now it must embrace the next frontier — “America’s manifest destiny in the stars”.

If that was part of collaborative efforts to explore the wider environment in which we all exist that would be welcome news. Unfortunately, by saying that he wants to ensure that “America is the first nation to plant its flag on Mars” and highlighting its creation of a new military Space Force, he made it clear that old habits die hard and that it believes that what worked once will work again.

The American adventure may have only just begun, but considering how much misfortune it has wrought around the world it will be the hope of many that its efforts to “reject the downsizing of its destiny” end soon.