To the Editor:
In his cover article, “The Good Country” [December 2014], Tim Kane asserts that during and following the Cold War, “prosperity in the form of economic growth and human development has emerged in [nations] where American boots have trod.” He argues his case for this assertion largely on the basis of countries such as Germany, France, Japan, and South Korea, in which it was American policy to help rebuild economies and maintain stability following World War II. I doubt strongly that future statistics based on life in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria will paint such a rosy picture of America the Good. In Iraq, our misbegotten “preemptive” war has led to immense civil strife and tens of thousands of innocent deaths. If child mortality declines in Iraq, it will be despite huge numbers of children killed by bombs and terror attacks, not because of any Pax Americana in the Middle East.
Jack Prichett
New Venice, California
To the Editor:
I firmly believe that most of our interventions come out of good intentions, and Tim Kane’s article shows the many benefits of those interventions. Guatemala and Central America, however, have certainly suffered from our interventions. When a democratically elected government in Guatemala decided to nationalize some land for redistribution, we intervened in the name of the Cold War and started a 35-year-long civil war.
C.F. Varner
Memphis, Tennessee
To the Editor:
Tim Kane has written a perfect explanation of American exceptionalism. Data, not emotion; credentialed research, not demagogy. Mr. Kane might also have added the freely granted independence to occupied Germany, Japan, the Philippines, and Panama Canal Zone. Mr. Kane might consider expanding his point to include the English-speaking peoples, for the UK bestowed relative prosperity and civilization on their colonies, many made independent without a struggle. India, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Hong Kong, and of course the United States have much to be grateful for in the systems and traditions exported by English rule, and which the United States then, as Mr. Kane so ably demonstrates, exported further.
James Grubb
Muncie, Indiana
Tim Kane writes:
Empirical evidence helps us see the United States’ role since 1950 as the “Good Country”—affirming a positive link connecting long-term deployments to both economic growth and human development in allied nations. Letters from Commentary readers raise three vital and unique points that are not as contradictory as they might seem.
Jack Pritchett is skeptical that Iraq will benefit from the heavy presence of U.S. troops, and maybe it is true that modern deployments are of a new type. What a shame that President Obama withdrew so abruptly. The consequent chaos seems to affirm the theory, but time will tell. We invest ourselves emotionally in the places where we fight. Who might have imagined the prosperous investments and trade links growing today between the United States and Vietnam? More to the point, the core strategic lesson is that since 2003, the United States should have been less focused on fighting in Iraq and more focused on cultivating historical allies in the region, an approach that is still needed today.
C.F. Varner wants us to think about Guatemala, but let’s not confuse CIA meddling with military alliances. The reality is that America never had more than a few dozen soldiers in Guatemala. Aside from Panama, the United States has never been meaningfully engaged in Central and South America with strong alliances that include troop deployments. The starker example is the near total lack of American troops in Africa, the lack of development all across that continent, and its now festering jihadism. How different Boko Haram’s destiny would have been if Nigeria had enjoyed long-standing military and economic ties with the United States.
James Grubb encourages us to think about the deep roots of America’s policy, which I called “something new under the sun.” If I am right that grand strategy has evolved over time from imperial to hegemonic to this new altruism (what I refer to as Promethean), then surely Britain was the first to emerge from the ocean of pure self-interest. Mr. Grubb is right. Indeed, British policy was not as profiteering or imperialistic as it might have been—the British banned the slave trade—but neither was it as universalist in its philosophy as the United States has been. That all men are created equal is a peculiar Americanism, and a good one. What really distinguishes America, though, is the sheer scale of deployments in the past 70-plus years, and I am not sure there has been or ever will be anything like it again if we retreat.
