American foreign policies

One of the major categories to judge a society by is its foreign policies. This is the same argument as that for the judging of a human: one can argue until kingdom come about internal drives and motives, what comes out is the ultimate judge. Of course, if the internal matters are OK, the external behaviour will also be OK, so there is no fundamental problem here.

In normal circumstances, that is excluding wars, the most important way for nations to communicate is through mutual agreements. These may be bilateral, between two countries, or multilateral, between many countries. Bilateral agreements are usually on things like border security, or economic aid. Multilateral agreements are usually on matters important for all, like the environment.

Here we wish to judge the United States by its behaviour in matters of foreign policy. Since the presidency of George W. Bush the United States have taken the following steps in foreign policy agreements: Broken the anti-missile treaty with Russia; not signed the CO2 reduction agreement, the Kyoto protocol; not signed and actively opposed the protocol on the Internal Court in The Hague; broken of talks on peace with North Korea.

In almost all of these cases, almost all countries of the world opposed the position of the United States, since they were seen as being based on unjustified self-interest to the detriment of other countries.

This behaviour has to balanced against the behaviour of the United States when treaties are involved that favour the policies of the United States, like the non-proliferation treaty, the treaty forbidding the development of weapons of mass destruction. This treaty is in the favour of the United States, because the United States do already have these weapons, and are thereby exonerated from the treaty. In all of these treaties, the United States demands strict adherence from all countries, without recognizing their right to send their agreement with the treaty. In case countries try doing so, the United States threaten them with diplomatic, economic, or military repercussions, i.e. ultimate with violence.

When an individual would exhibit this kind of behaviour, it would be hated and avoided if possible by all of fellow humans, except those that form an alliance with them, as some or many of the weak tend to do when confronted with the strong. In the case of the United States, there are very many other countries that are allied with it based on the submissive attitude of the weak.

So where the United States do have considerable support for its foreign policies, these policies are mainly based on unmitigated self-interest, and support for these policies depends on its military strength, as proven by its regular military involvement, an involvement that is much more frequent then of any other country in the world. Based on these facts, the United States must be judged to be one of the morally most degraded countries in the world.

Sources 1.