[The following excerpts from
The Arrogance of Power are even more critical today than when they were first published, I've posted a few of these on this blog in the past.]
"The question, it should be emphasized, is not whether it
is possible to engage in traditional power politics abroad and at the same time
to perfect democracy at home, but whether it is possible for us Americans,
without particular history and national character, to combine morally
incompatible roles.
"They [statistics] do not show how a Congress burdened with
war costs and war measures, with emergency briefings and an endless series of
dramatic appeals, with anxious constituents and a mounting anxiety of their
own, can tend to the workaday business of studying social problems and
legislating programs to meet them. Nor do the statistics tell how an anxious
and puzzled people, bombarded by press and television with the bad news of
American deaths…, the "good news" of enemy deaths-and with vividly
horrifying pictures to illustrate them-can be expected to support neighborhood
antipoverty projects and national programs for urban renewal, employment and
education.
"When he visited America a hundred years ago, Thomas Huxley
wrote: "I cannot say that I am in the slightest degree impressed by your
bigness, or your material resources, as such. Size is not grandeur, and
territory does not make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs the terror
of overhanging fate, is what are you going to do with all these things?"
"They understand, as our policy
makers do not, that when American soldiers are sent, in the name of freedom, to
sustain corrupt dictators in a civil war, that when the CIA subverts student
organizations to engage in propaganda activities abroad, or when the
Export-Import Bank is used by the Pentagon to finance secret arms sales abroad,
damage-perhaps irreparable damage-is being done to the very values that are
meant to be defended. The critics understand, as our policy makers do not,
that, through the undemocratic expedients we have adopted for the defense of
American democracy, we are weakening it to a degree that is beyond the
resources of our bitterest enemies.
"An unnecessary and immoral war
deserves in its own right to be liquidated; when its effect in addition is the
aggravation of grave problems and the corrosion of values in our own society,
its liquidation under terms of reasonable and honorable compromise is doubly
imperative. Our country is being weakened by a grotesque inversion of
priorities, the effects of which are becoming clear to more and more
Americans-in the Congress, in the press and in the country at large.
On Unilateralism and support from traditional allies:
The United States is willing to defy allied
opinion because of... an excess of pride born of power. Power has a way of
undermining judgment, of planting delusions of grandeur in the minds of
otherwise sensible people and otherwise sensible nations. As I have said
earlier, the idea of being responsible for the whole world seems to have
dazzled us, giving rise to what I call the arrogance of power, or what the
French, perhaps more aptly, call le vertige de puissance, by which they mean a
kind of dizziness or giddiness inspired by the possession of great power. If
then, as I suspect, there is a relationship between the self-absorption of some
of our allies and the American military involvement in Vietnam, it may have
more to do with American vanity than with our friends' complacency.
If America has a service to perform
in the world—and I believe it has—it is in large part the service of its own
example. In our excessive involvement in the affairs of other countries, we are
not only living off our assets and denying our own people the proper enjoyment
of their resources; we are also denying the world the example of a free society
enjoying its freedom to the fullest. This is regrettable indeed for a nation
that aspires to teach democracy to other nations, because, as Burke said! "Example
is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other." . . .
Most of all, we have the opportunity
to serve as an example o f democracy to the world by the way in which we run
our own society; America, in the words of John Quincy Adams, should be "the
well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all" but "the champion
and vindicator only of her own." . . .If we can bring ourselves so to act,
we will have overcome the dangers of the arrogance of power. It will involve,
no doubt, the loss of certain glories, but that seems a price worth paying for
the probable rewards, which are the happiness of America and the peace of the
world.
On U.S. Foreign Policy:
"Throughout our history two strands have coexisted uneasily - a dominant
strand of democratic humanism and a lesser but durable strand of intolerant
Puritanism. There has been a tendency through the years for reason and
moderation to prevail as long as things are going tolerably well or as long as
our problems seem clear and finite and manageable. But ...when some event or
leader of opinion has aroused the people to a state of high emotion, our
puritan spirit has tended to break through, leading us to look at the world
through the distorting prism of a harsh and angry moralism."
On War Fever:
"Past experience provides little basis for confidence that reason can
prevail in an atmosphere of mounting war fever. In a contest between a hawk and
dove the hawk has a great advantage, not because it is a better bird but
because it is a bigger bird with lethal talons and a highly developed will to
use them."
On the Arrogance of Power:
"[P]ower tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is
particularly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God's favor,
conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations - to make them
richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining
image. Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for
omnipotence. Once imbued with the idea of a mission, a great nation easily
assumes that it has the means as well as the duty to do God's work."
"The more I puzzle over the
great wars of history, the more I am inclined to the view that the causes
attributed to them - territory, markets, resources, the defense or perpetuation
of great principles - were not the root causes at all but rather explanations
or excuses for certain unfathomable drives of human nature. For lack of a clear
and precise understanding of exactly what these motives are, I refer to them as
the 'arrogance of power' - as a psychological need that nations seem to have in
order to prove that they are bigger, better, or stronger than other nations.
Implicit in this drive is the assumption, even on the part of normally peaceful
nations, that force is the ultimate proof of superiority - that when a nation
shows that it has the stronger army, it is also proving that it has better
people, better institutions, better principles, and, in general, a better
civilization."
"[The arrogance of power is
defined as] the tendency of great nations to equate power with virtue and major
responsibilities with a universal mission. The dilemmas involved are
pre-eminently American dilemmas, not because America has weaknesses that others
do not have but because America is powerful as no nation has ever been before,
and the discrepancy between her power and the power of others appears to be
increasing."
On Imperial Temptations:
"Despite its dangerous and unproductive consequences, the idea of being
responsible for the whole world seems to be flattering to Americans and I am
afraid it is turning our heads, just as the sense of universal responsibility
turned the heads of ancient Romans and nineteenth-century British."
"It is a curiosity of human
nature that lack of self-assurance seems to breed an exaggerated sense of power
and mission. When a nation is very powerful but lacking self-confidence, it is
likely to behave in a manner dangerous to itself and to others. Feeling the
need to prove what is obvious to everyone else, it begins to confuse great
power with unlimited power and great responsibility with total responsibility:
it can admit of no error; it must win every argument, no matter how trivial.
For lack of an appreciation of how truly powerful it is, the nation begins to
lose wisdom and perspective and, with them, the strength and understanding that
it takes to be magnanimous to smaller and weaker nations.
"Gradually but unmistakably
America is showing signs of that arrogance of power which has afflicted,
weakened, and in some cases destroyed great nations in the past. In so doing,
we are not living up to our capacity and promise as a civilized example for the
world. The measure of our falling short is the measure of the patriot's duty of
dissent."
"If the war goes on and expands,
if that fatal process continues to accelerate until America becomes what she is
not now and never has been, a seeker after unlimited power and empire, then
Vietnam will have had a mighty and tragic fallout indeed."
On the Dangers of Empire:
"Having done so much and succeeded so well, America is now at that
historical point at which a great nation is in danger of losing its perspective
on what exactly is within the realm of its power and what is beyond it. Other
great nations, reaching this critical juncture, have aspired to too much, and
by overextension of effort have declined and then fallen.
"Lacking an appreciation of the
dimensions of our own power, we fail to understand our enormous and disruptive
impact on the world; we fail to understand that no matter how good our
intentions - and they are, in most cases, decent enough - other nations are
alarmed by the very existence of such great power, which, whatever its
benevolence, cannot help but remind them of their own helplessness before
it."
On Transforming Other Nations: "We all like telling people what to do, which is perfectly
all right except that most people do not like being told what to do."
"Traditional rulers,
institutions, and ways of life have crumbled under the fatal impact of American
wealth and power but they have not been replaced by new institutions and new
ways of life, nor has their breakdown ushered in an era of democracy and
development."
"Bringing power without
understanding, Americans as well as Europeans have had a devastating effect in
less advanced areas of the world; without knowing they were doing it, they have
shattered traditional societies, disrupted fragile economies and undermined
peoples' self-confidence by the invidious example of their own power and
efficiency. They have done this in many instances simply by being big and
strong, by giving good advice, by intruding on people who have not wanted them
but could not resist them."
"What I do question is the ability of the
United States or any other Western nation to go into a small, alien,
undeveloped Asian nation and create stability where there is chaos, the will to
fight where there is defeatism, democracy where there is no tradition of it,
and honest government where corruption is almost a way of life."