Anti-Americanism – Reply

It goes without saying that I had no idea what I was getting into posing a preposterous series of questions, each of which could merit a treatise in response. As for those who suggest that I get a life, well, ahem . . . shall we just say that when I copied the replies into a word document, it was more than 50 pages long (after I shrunk the font down to 9 points). But I don't want to worm out of this, so here goes. I'll go as far as I can tonight before I collapse. As those who have been reading DA know, my day job makes me one of those bats of the blogosphere. The gist of the replies on anti-Americanism seemed to be that most if not all of it is endemic to being a superpower, and that it should not stand in the way of the U.S. doing what it wants or believes to be in its interest. A number of commentators dismiss anti-Americanism as a kind of petty jealousness. I actually agree with most of this. There are many different forms of anti-Americanism, ranging from the haughty reproaches of France to the terrorist violence of al Qaeda. These are very separate problems that wouldn't be lumpted together except for the fact that I have 9 more questions to somehow get through. That said, I think the U.S.'s lone superpower status does make it somewhat of a lightening rod irrespective of what our policies are, and that much of the ill-feeling is driven by envy, by individual resentments that have little to do with the U.S. or with U.S. policies, and by internal political dynamics in particular countries. But none of that lessens my concern about the impact of anti-Americanism on U.S. policies. One of the commentators put it like this: "Is anti-Americanism a problem? Yes, and the majority of the responses here misunderestimate how much a bad feeling from abroad can actually diminish our ability to get results from our policies abroad. Nearly every government has to respond to its own version of the street, whether elected or not. And when the street is increasingly anti-American, doing the right thing can mean losing power, something few folks are willing to do. So resistance to U.S. policies, or even just subtle slowness and delay and passive non-cooperativeness, can make for some pretty damn frustrating efforts to get our interests met. It is not a popularity contest, where the U.S. is too cool to get caught up in who is the most-loved. Its about realizing U.S. interests abroad and whether we have to spend greater or lesser efforts to get what we want. From the anti-Americans out there, we need to push harder, pressure more, cajole and browbeat andd "express concern." That makes it tougher -- and you can sit back and say thats what our diplomats are paid to do, but would you want your baseball team forced to play double-headers every day, against different teams? Being right and being right over the long term makes being hated in the short-term acceptable, but not easier. And if we approach anti-Americanism with a "we're right, too bad" attitude and without some strategery for reducing that drain on our efforts, we are only hurting ourselves in the long run. My worry is not that we should do what the Euros and others say, its that we should listen with an effort towards changing minds, not just countering rhetoric." This is precisely what troubles me about anti-Americanism. Having served as a U.S. diplomat at the UN, I have witnessed first-hand how much time gets wasted trying to overcome the threshold of skepticism, mistrust and sometimes bitterness toward the U.S. Yes, a certain degree of this is unavoidable. But beyond that base level, there's plenty we can do to avoid compounding the inherent difficulties we face. This does not mean bending our policies or subordinating our interests to please the rest of the world.Better diplomacy, a greater willingness to listen, putting resources behind the foreign policy commitments that are most visible and important to the rest of the world, more energetic efforts to persuade others rather than trying to impose our policies by fiat would all help chip away at the negative attitudes. On the flip side, pro-US attitudes are multipliers of our own force. We see this in the form of the help Eastern European countries have given us in Iraq and at the UN. They like us, they support us, they make it look as though our policies have some resonance, and they make it less politically costly for other countries to come over to our side as well. As long as we convince ourselves that anti-Americanism doesn't matter, we overlook the low-hanging fruit of countries that can and should be solid supporters of the U.S. - traditional allies that share our values and have everything to gain from a close relationship with us. By allowing friction to rise and not taking relatively simple steps to try to avoid and smooth it, we make our own lives more difficult.