My Take | Why the US thinks it can intervene everywhere
- While it is often hypocrisy and naked power play, people should not underestimate the American self-belief to reshape other people’s governments and societies for their own good
There are plenty of liberal democracies around the world but only one that keeps banging on about exporting democracy abroad and supporting those who want to fight their own governments for it.
Democratic governments may criticise, or even impose sanctions on other governments they deem to be behaving in ways that are beyond the pale. But virtually all of them, even post-imperial Britain, would admit that most of the time, it’s neither their business nor within their power and resources to reshape the political systems of other peoples.
Only the United States considers it a mission to spread democracy even if it means toppling governments and throwing whole societies and regions into chaos and violence. This missionary zest is unique; since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US is the only country that has both the will and means to try to realise it. Perhaps militant Islam tries to spread theocracy but it has driven mostly non-state actors.
For non-Americans, this is the key to understanding the US, whether or not you support democracy, well, especially if you support democracy – because the end result of US intervention is often the opposite of democracy or worse, the absence of a functioning government.
It’s within this context that you need to understand such US-run or funded groups as the US Agency for Global Media, the Open Technology Fund and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). For powerful and established non-democratic states that are not allied to the US or under its thumb, the hard option of sending in the military or conducting CIA subversion is not available to Washington.