The Dangerous Myth of the “Indispensable Nation” – By Melvin Goodman (Counterpunch) / Jan 19, 2024
“But if we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us. Our nation’s memory is long and our reach is far.”
– Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, 1998.
“We are the indispensable nation. American leadership is what holds the world together.” – President Joe Biden, 2023.
“The United States is still…the ‘indispensable nation’ in the Middle East.” –David Ignatius, Washington Post columnist, 2024.
There is no better declarative indicator of American arrogance and hubris than the self-appointed title of “indispensable nation.” Liberal pundits and critics believe that the notion of the indispensable nation had its origins in the post-Cold War era following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In actual fact, the ideological origins of the indispensable nation were “present at the creation,” if I can borrow the title of Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s trenchant memoir.
The idea of the unique international standing of the United States was part of the Founding Fathers’ debate over our global role in 1789. Liberal pundits and critics argue that U.S. “internationalism” was unique to twentieth-century diplomacy, but our notions of free commerce and liberal democracy were there at the outset. They cite former presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman in their discussion of “internationalism.” But John Quincy Adams, arguing that America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy,” envisioned the United States as a threat to Europe’s autocratic regimes. Adams added that the “influence of our example” would “overthrow them all without a single exception.”
CONTINUE > https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/01/19/the-dangerous-myth-of-the-indispensable-nation/
