This post was inspired by a remark in comments to the effect that Americans, conservatives in particular but I think it applies to Americans in general, are not patriotic because they are not “willing to fight/risk one’s life to defend the country”. Let me state my thesis first and then I’ll return to it to build my case.
My thesis is that
- U. S. foreign policy should be focused on defending the United States and keeping it secure
- We don’t really face any foreign threats. Actually, we’re our own worst enemy
I think that we haven’t actually had a need to defend the U. S. in 150 years, since the American Civil War. Let’s work backwards. Pretty obviously, we are not defending the United States by our activities in Syria which are ongoing at present. How do I know that? Let’s define “victory”. You have achieved victory in war when you accomplish the political goals of the war.
What were the objectives of the war in Afghanistan? I would say its objectives were to
- Eject Al Qaeda from the country
- Install a government there that would be an ally of the U. S. and would not support Al Qaeda
We failed at both of those objectives. Consequently, we lost the war in Afghanistan. If the intention of those objectives in Afghanistan was to defend the United States, does it not follow that, since we are not experiencing attacks from Al Qaeda on the U. S. homeland, that either we failed in defending the United States in the war in Afghanistan or that defending the U. S. was irrelevant to our objectives in Afghanistan, i.e. they were based on false assumptions about the threats we faced. I think it’s the latter. If fighting Al Qaeda does not defend the United States or make it more secure, our activities in Syria cannot against DAESH cannot achieve those objectives.
We can now be confident that our invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with defending the U. S. or making us more secure—it was based on bad assumptions. I’ve already dealt with Afghanistan.
We lost the war in Vietnam. Losing in no way weakened us or threatened us except, possibly, politically. Consequently, the assumptions made in that war were wrong, too.
Although we didn’t lose the Korean War, we didn’t win, either. The same argument applies. Since the stalemate there did not weaken or threaten us, our entire involvement there was clearly predicated on bad assumptions.
If you are very, very expansive we were actually defending the U. S. during World War II. But let’s be very clear: you need to be very expansive. Neither Germany nor Japan ever succeeded in attacking the U. S. homeland. Japan attacked U. S. overseas possessions. Its balloon attacks against the U. S. failed. We weren’t defending ourselves against the Japanese but our role as a colonizing power, defending the American Empire. The most Germany accomplished was landing eight saboteurs by U-boat. They failed in their plans. Germany did threaten the British but they didn’t threaten us.
The threat posed by the Central Powers during World War I was even more distant than that. We weren’t threatened and there’s a pretty good argument that our entry into the war ultimately led to World War II.
When was the last time there was actually a need to defend the United States? I would argue that the last time was 150 years ago during the American Civil War. Again, what about 9/11? I would argue that we were actually threatened by our own extremely lax approach to immigration and travel. The nineteen militants who boarded and seized flights in the United States were here on travel and student visas and, basically, completely unmonitored. That problem remains. We’ve done little about it in the 20 years that have intervened.
What about Russia? Doesn’t Russia threaten us? I don’t think so. Obviously, not only does it threaten Ukraine but also Poland, the Baltic countries, and other countries that border it. It will continue to do so as long as there is a Russia. There’s nothing we can do about that and, since there is no achievable goal there, we cannot be the guarantor of their security. They live in a tough neighborhood. It will always be a tough neighborhood.
We squandered the opportunity to reduce the threat posed by Russia to its neighbors by rebuffing Russia’s offers to join NATO and the European Union and by expanding NATO right to Russia’s border.
But what about China? I don’t think that China threatens us, either. What actually threatens us is our eagerness to export our industry and manufacturing offshore. We aren’t being forced to do that. We’re doing it to ourselves. Furthermore, no one forced us to make China a Most Favored Nation trading partner. That was a self-inflicted wound.
That’s what I mean by our being our own worst enemy. We have foreign policy, trade, environmental, and immigration policies that don’t make us stronger, wealthier, or more secure and arguably do the opposite. We have met the enemy and he is us.
My intent, probably poorly worded, was rushing to leave the house, is that I think we need something more than words to tell if someone is truly patriotic. Waving a flag and saying you love America while saying that you hate half of the country seems pretty meaningless to me. If you are willing to risk your life for your country, even if you dont think it is perfect, I think you should still be considered patriotic, at least moreso than the people who just talk.
Also, we seem to be pretty selective about what what can be criticized about America and still be considered a patriot. Criticize how America has handled racial issues and you arent patriotic. Criticize Biden’s foreign policy? You are a true patriot. Remember how people who criticized Bush’s invasion of Iraq were ostracized? Those people were unpatriotic! Of course now we know they were kind of right so who was really patriotic. Perhaps believing in your country strongly enough to accept criticism should also be part of the definition of patriotism.
Steve
I certainly don’t think that. However, I think that proclaiming the U. S. is irremediably evil because of racism in the past is in fact unpatriotic. I’m puzzled by declarations of patriotism on the part of people who think that our entire economic, political, and social systems need to be radically changed. I don’t necessarily question their sincerity but I do wonder what they mean by patriotism.
As to hate, I don’t hate anybody.
A side observation – by the standards of this article; US foreign policy hasn’t followed the thesis for the past 100 years, since at least Wilson’s Presidency and the birth of the Wilsonian vision of foreign policy.
Not saying it is wrong; but it maybe (probably) outside of the Overton window today.
Who is presently behind most foreign and domestic decisions/policies being made in this country? It’s certainly not the people, no matter what their political leanings are. Constitutionally, our republic form of government should be run by the people for the people. However, most polls show that the topics most citizens are concerned about —- the economy, inflation, our own border safety, crime, over reach of government, a disdain for war — are not really addressed by the political class in charge. Instead, we are forced to accept public school curriculums that indoctrinates more than it educates, and a military pushing social justice and climate change schemes rather than professional military and strategic skill sets —- one more interested in giving money to and guarding a country who is not even an ally.
As for the conservatives someone here likes to label “hateful,†they are actually the recipients of hate by many opposed to their opinions and principles. It has not been conservatives who threatened and harassed members of the Supreme Court, rioted and burned down businesses at an estimated cost of 2 billion dollars. It was not conservative judgment calls that botched the Afghan pull-out, resulting in needless loss of life and unvetted evacuees being rescued rather than Americans being left behind. It has not been conservatives who lied about and then turned their backs on toxic spills, or denied the possibility of vaccines being more deadly than the COVID virus itself. It was definitely not conservatives who had their views, information constantly suppressed and censored, or were fired for uttering the wrong pronoun or saying something considered politically incorrect.
Yes, conservatives do like to prance around with flags and patriotic colonial costuming – a practice that sometimes is overdone, and yet symbolic of their overt attachment to this country – and perfectly harmless to others, except for the discomfort it might engender in those less endeared to the U.S. Finally, those who defend and/or lay down their lives for this country, at least in the past, have become aligned with each other despite differences in color or politics, watching each others backs. In the current more conservatively-hostile environment, augmented by an immersion in CRT classes, it’s become more difficult to cultivate a politically neutral environment while in the military service — something that is only adding to the dilemma of poor recruitment numbers.
“However, I think that proclaiming the U. S. is irremediably evil because of racism in the past is in fact unpatriotic.”
The 20m or 30 people in the country who make that claim are not patriotic.
Sigh, the military is not immersed in CRT classes. Your average soldier has no idea what CRT is. Anyway, I have no problem with flag waving. We fly our flag every day. I just object to that as some kind of proof of patriotism. Also, only the right makes claims about people on the left not being Real Americans. You need to own that.
As to the left, I would agree that many of them hate people on the right, though I dont think it is as much of a driver. If it was they would elect a leftie version of Trump full of hate instead of a Joe Biden. But as I noted in the very beginning, I dot think there is that much real patriotism around anymore of the kind where you claim to love the country, all of the people, and dont criticize it.
Steve
â€As to the left, I would agree that many of them hate people on the right, though I dont think it is as much of a driver. If it was they would elect a leftie version of Trump full of hate instead of a Joe Bidenâ€
What is a “driver†of left hatred is not necessarily the people numbers, it’s the left leaning media, tech billionaires and their social media platforms, the leftist academia. They have the microphones, the money to flood public opinion, amplifying their voices while suppressing and mocking those who dissent from the vast consensus on the left. That’s why so many on the right are considered “the forgotten men and women,†because they are not the holders of power, and can be pushed aside by the rich oligarchies on the left, like Zucherburg, Bezos, Soros.
What makes Trump and his followers attract so much acrimony from the left is they’re not rolling over, blindly accepting policies which merely gives the government more power over them. Grass roots organizing used to be the territory proudly held by the liberal wing of politics. Now that wing has literally been gentrified, become players in multi national corporations serving Wall Street interests, supporting economy-crushing climate change policies, with the middle and working classes shifting over to the party defending free speech, parent rights, and family values. As for Joe Biden’s “Uncle Joe†benign image, it was all a theatrical fraud to get him into the WH. For instance, my best friend voted for him because Biden’s demeanor seemed less ominous and one-sided than Trump’s. She now views him as an undercover Lucifer, who only panders to and serves the left.
Nobody is in charge here.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/07/whos-in-charge/
I don’t need to read what’s at the link to answer the question. The civil bureaucracy is in charge. In some cases they don’t even think that the president is relevant. He’s just “the temporary help”. Administrations come and administrations go but the civil bureaucracy remains.
That’s why I keep saying that the single reform we need most is to reform the Civil Service Act.