Does it still make sense to speak of “liberal internationalism”?
“Internationalism” is a word full of historical meanings and stratifications. We have heard about it since school, and in recent centuries it has been used, often inappropriately, by politicians, historians and philosophers. Marxist internationalism exists – or did exist – and, at least mentioned, the liberal one remains on the scene.
Today the term takes on somewhat different connotations. Whether we like it or not, internationalism has entered our daily life and the "global village" Marshall McLuhan was talking about is more a fact than an object of theorization. We have proof of this every day, given the possibility of coming into contact with anyone in any part of the world (Communist China excluded, of course).
In the university field, for example, the international dimension of training has assumed a decisive weight and there is a strong drive to create study paths valid in several countries. An actualization, if you like, of the original meaning of the term universitas : a community of knowledge that pays little attention to national origin and much to excellence in itself.
This urge to cross the “border” – both geographic and cultural – is very much alive in our days in young people, more aware than the older generations of the importance of seeing the world in a global way. There are of course counterexamples, but they do not seem so relevant to me as to invalidate the overall picture.
However, in a recent article, entitled "Liberal internationalism is dead, and I'm not feeling very well too" , published in Italian translation on December 20, Canadian historian Michael Ignatieff wonders if we can still talk about something similar . The title suggests no, but the analysis of Ignatieff, a progressive liberal in the Anglo-Saxon sense of the term and author, among other things, of a beautiful biography of Isaiah Berlin, is not so clear.
There are those who continue to think that "internationalism" on the one hand and "liberalism" on the other are practically inseparable. Or, to put it differently, that the former is part of the latter's DNA. What is more international than the free market? It even seems like a rhetorical question.
It is also true that borders, especially in our continent, delimit cultures, languages and traditions that have very distant origins. Even the American Samuel Huntington, author of the famous "The Clash of Civilizations" , wrote that "when faced with an identity crisis, what counts for a man more than any other is blood, faith and family". And the "community of blood and destiny" is a classic theme of so much political philosophy.
It is therefore right that history and the boundaries that are an essential part of it are respected. What prevents us, however, from thinking about the possibility that borders will lose their exclusionary barrier character in the future? Or are we really condemned to live a history that repeats itself in cycles that are always the same?
If this were the case, the founding fathers of the United Nations, the European Union and other transnational organizations would be just deluded poor, visionaries unable to understand that nothing can really change in the relationships between human beings. If blood is the decisive element, fate becomes inescapable (as Oswald Spengler theorized), and the defense of identity at any cost remains the only means of defense.
Ignatieff notes, however, that liberal internationalism has promised to promote democracy by appointing itself as a defender of human rights abroad. Also through military intervention and the so-called "nation building" , which have so blatantly failed in Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and other contexts. But it adds another decisive fact. Such actions have always and in any case been based on the war power of the United States, the only Western nation to possess the strength to fight the great authoritarian regimes, right and left.
They did so in the 1940s, saving Europe and the world from German Nazism, Italian fascism and Japanese pan-Asian imperialism. They repeated the operation later by intervening in Korea, but in this case their "saving" mission was not as appreciated, so much so that, even today, there are those who believe it was South Korea that attacked North Korea , and not vice versa. Yet the history of the Communist dynasty of the Kim should convince even the most skeptical.
Not to mention the Vietnam War, a wound that American society as a whole has never managed to heal, reserving, among other things, an often indecent welcome to young veterans who had often volunteered to fight in the Asian country. Again, the left managed to convince public opinion that the Americans and their southern allies were hardened criminals, reserving the license of pure and unblemished heroes for the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong. Actually Ho Chi Minh was a Stalinist and, after the victory, the country unified by the Communists soon became a large concentration camp. Only now, after opening to the West, is it beginning to change.
The fact is that only the US has really made a military commitment to oppose the dictatorships of the last century and ours. The tremendous European allies have always limited themselves to declarations of principle. The Americans have paid a very high price in terms of casualties, far more in number than the Europeans. The latter, however, have always preferred not to face the irritation of their public opinions for the victims of war and, now, the US is also adopting the same attitude. Why, after all, should they be the only ones to shed blood in companies that concern the West as a whole?
Also for this reason Ignatieff believes that it will be difficult, in the United States, to rebuild internal support for policies of liberal internationalism, given the failures of the recent past. On the other hand, he does not believe in what is probably the only possible alternative, the "realism in foreign policy" theorized, among others, by Henry Kissinger. In his view, such realism discredits the claims of human universalism, but it must be noted that this can be an advantage indeed. It could, for example, induce the US not to face Russia and China at the same time, also given the inconsistency of its European allies.
Yet the author's conclusions, beyond the feelings, have a realistic imprint. He acknowledges that after 1989 "we fell prey to the illusion that world politics was the history of freedom". Unfortunately, this is not the case, since history "is in reality the history of empires that rise and collapse, of the order reached with violence that slowly gives way, once again, to chaos". Spenglerian considerations, as it can be seen. The author believes that the American empire is slowly collapsing, and that the liberal internationalism that is attached to this empire can do nothing but keep chaos at bay.
The post Does it still make sense to talk about "liberal internationalism"? appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL https://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/ha-ancora-senso-parlare-di-internazionalismo-liberale/ on Tue, 28 Dec 2021 03:58:00 +0000.