My Take | America is ‘the danger’ and will end up getting us all killed
- Hubris is what makes the United States think it’s ‘the indispensable nation’
People keep asking President Joe Biden, not unreasonably, whether the United States can afford to run two proxy wars – in Ukraine and Palestine – at the same time.
His answer is that it can, because it is the most powerful country in history, and also that it should, because that’s the raison d’être of the US – to be out there taking care of the world. OK, I paraphrased the last bit, but not by much.
What he actually said in the Oval Office was: “America is a beacon to the world, still, still. We are, as my friend Madeleine Albright said, the indispensable nation … American leadership is what holds the world together.”
He said something even more boastful in an earlier interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes. “We’re the United States of America for God’s sake, the most powerful nation in the history – not in the world, in the history of the world,” he said. “The history of the world. We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defence.”
However, that’s not a reasoned articulation of a well thought-out policy on running two proxy wars, but a profession of faith. As with most matters of faith, it’s hard to argue with true believers, especially when these people can easily take you out with a drone strike.
While it may be easy to dismiss Biden’s remarks as the bombast of an ageing leader no longer in full command of his mental faculties, such a belief is actually common “inside the Beltway”, among the US governing elites.