I think that in his latest Washington Post column Fareed Zakaria drastically overstates U. S. credibility:
America has built up its credibility and political capital over the past century. The Trump administration is raiding that trust fund for short-term political advantage, in ways that will permanently deplete it.
Let me provide just a few examples so you get the idea of what I mean.
- 70 year stalemate on the Korean peninsula. Increase or decrease U. S. credibility?
- Losing the Vietnam war. Increase or decrease U. S. credibility?
- Iran’s holding Americans hostage after the Iranian revolution. Increase or decrease U. S. credibility?
- Expanding NATO after pledging not to. Increase or decrease U. S. credibility?
- Overthrowing Qaddaffi after he gave up his nuclear weapons development program. Increase or decrease U. S. credibility?
and that’s just off the top of my head. We have very little credibility on the international stage. We have the power of the American economy and U. S. military might and the Powers-That-Be are working fulltime to undermine those.
It seems to me that American “credibility” on the international stage is something that varies from time to time, and that this has become most apparent since the end of the Cold War, which largely united the West in opposition to a known and omnipresent aggressor.
Some of the examples you know, such as Vietnam, the Hostage Crisis, etc. did have a temporary impact but that impact was largely muted due to the reality of the Cold War. Since then, though, there’s been a variation that clearly seems to be heavily influence by who is President and what policies they follow.
For example….
Initially at least, America assumed and was largely given a leadership role in the world in the early years of the Bush 43 Administration due to the War On Terror. As the years wore on, though, opposition to American policies in Iraq, and the reality of what was happening in that war, began to undercut a lot of that credibility not only with the general public in the West but also among many of our closest allies.
Obama was able to win much of that back over the course of his eight years, but now it seems to be slipping away again. In this case, I’d say it’s due to the fact that Trump seems far more inclined to a “go it alone” approach to foreign policy and that he has often seemed to hold longtime allies at a distance while deferring to authoritarian rulers around the world. If that continues, then the next several years could see a significant deterioration in our ability to influence other nations to support us when we need them and who ever follows Trump, whether its in 2020 or 2024 will have their work cut out for them when it comes to restablishing that influence.
I think you’re equating rhetoric with actuality. How, in real concrete terms, did Obama’s winning back of U. S. credibility further American interests? How was our influence over other nations manifest? Quite to the contrary I think that world elites were laughing at him behind their sleeves.
“America has built up its credibility and political capital over the past century. The Trump administration is raiding that trust fund for short-term political advantage, in ways that will permanently deplete it.”
Wow, the most clueless thing I’ve read all week. We started depleting our credibility around 1994.
More like 1965. I think it was almost completely depleted by 1980.
IMO our soft power is all but completely dependent on the private sector and that’s still doing pretty well.
I think your definition of credibility is off just a bit. I don’t think it means that we will always win. Losing in Vietnam wasn’t a big credibility hit I think. Finding out that we went there under false pretenses and lied about what we were doing there probably hurt us. Having people taken hostage in Iran? Probably not. Korea? Don’t see it. Expanding NATO? Definitely.
Or, maybe what you mean by credibility is that we can’t generate or guarantee the outcomes we want. In which case, that has always been evident. We couldn’t win in Korea. WWII hardly ended up the way we wanted, with the Soviets controlling so much of Germany.
I really think that we had a few short years after the Cold War where n one was challenging us, so we looked pretty good. We won the first Gulf War easily. Since then, we went to war with Iraq and dragged in a bunch of our allies for no good reason. Blew some credibility. Libya? Not sure. We actually helped our allies when requested. Dont really think our going there had much to do with the nuclear program. We made promises to rebuild Afghanistan, and that isn’t going to happen.
So, I think we have lost some credibility that we will keep our word, or that we will act reasonable ways, but I don’t think we have always been as strong or as credible as you think. (Remember Chesty Puller and those raids into Latin America to keep the sugar companies strong? How credible or trustworthy were we then?)
Steve
Prior to Vietnam we still retained a bit of the reputation for indomitability we’d acquired during World War II. Cuba and the disastrous Bay of Pigs incident wounded it and Vietnam destroyed it completely.
It also began the dilution of respect for the federal government domestically that had been acquired during the war. The Watergate incident put the last nail in the coffin.
I don’t disagree with that. But it was hardly a century ago which was Doug’s claim.
For the rest of your comment, you are simply too young to remember what things were like during the 1950s and 60s.
Let’s trace this back.
Zakaria wrote that we’re damaging our credibility.
I wrote a post challenging that, largely because I don’t think we have any credibility to lose and never have except, possibly, for a brief period after WWII and another brief period after the Gulf War. Walter Russell Mead does a good job of documenting the distrust that our allies have for us and have had since the 19th century in one of his books. Mortal Splendor?
Doug then responded in support of Zakaria that we were damaging our credibility. I asked for specifics.
So, in summary I think that the very notion that we have had any real credibility is shaky, especially now.
We are probably more in agreement on this, and I do remember the 60s pretty well. I already said that I think our credibility has long been over rated, by us. However, that does bring up how we compare with other countries. I am really not sure many other countries are any better.
Steve
Everybody loves the Canadians. The last country they invaded was 200 years ago (us).
Wow. Well it seems credibility has at least a couple aspects: honestly stating your goals and means, and then credibly prosecuting them.
As for losing it, I can’t imagine a clearer event than the Vietnam Nam War. Kennedy, Johnson and then Nixon all mislead. They failed to prosecute to win, whether it was possible or justified. This lead to mistrust in government. Deservedly. Meanwhile we had CBS News taking a political, not a journalistic posture. Bye, bye media.
Subsequent events have not been inspiring. As for Obama righting the ship. That’s low comedy.
And since our foreign policy is an emergent phenomenon, viewed by the people of many other countries as mercurial, the very notion that we can have credibility is a fiction. France can be credible. We can’t.