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As the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union both began to crumble, the United States stood as the unipolar power in the international system. Since then, American policymakers have based their foreign policies on the expansion of democracy. In some cases, this idea worked beautifully, as in Cambodia and (to some extent) Liberia. But in other cases, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia, American foreign policy, which was centered on the fundamental principle of the expansion of democracy, failed miserably. Since those failures, Americans on both the left and right of the political spectrum have questioned this policy’s validity and effectiveness. So what should American interventions really be based on? Should the United States focus its foreign policy on the expansion of democracy - or on something else entirely?
Sprouting from the rubble of Cambodia at the end of the Vietnam War, a Communist movement (the Khmer Rouge) swept through the country and established itself as the governing body. For years, the Khmer Rouge executed one of the deadliest mass-killings in the 20th century. It slaughtered around 2 million Cambodians, mostly Khmer Buddhists, because of their class, education, and perceived disloyalty to the state. Buddhist Monks and other religious leaders were also killed because the concept of religion was banned - the Khmer Rouge believed that loyalty should be to the state above all else. In the late 1970s, Vietnamese forces toppled the Khmer Rouge as the governing entity in Cambodia, but what was, at first, a controlled genocide turned into armed chaos. This instability continued until the early 1990s, when the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) sought to bring democratic reforms to the state. By the end of 1993, UNTAC established a relatively functioning democratic system and popular elections were legitimized. Though not a Western liberal democracy, Cambodia functioned as a constitutional monarchy with democratic reforms. The UN’s success in establishing a constitutional electoral system in such an unstable region brought hope across the West of a multilateral system in which freedom could sing the same song abroad that it did in Washington. In the case of Cambodia, the use of democracy as a foreign policy of Western states was an incredibly effective and moral approach to international relations. It was thought that a new era was being ushered in, in which great powers would have the ability to bring a liberal enlightenment to non-Western societies. After Cambodia, the Western multilateral force focused its foreign policy on other unstable regions, with the intention of bringing about liberal democracy; the first of these was Somalia.
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In the 1990s, Somalia was undergoing a violent civil war in which food was used as a weapon. Starvation and famine ensued after supplies were cut off to certain civilian populations. President George H.W. Bush saw this instability as an opportunity to showcase American power as a force for good throughout the world. The U.S. led the U.N. in Operation Restore Hope, in which the U.N. would provide food relief through airdrops and take control of certain shipping lanes. This started as a very successful intervention - the famine, which was at one point fatal, became much more manageable. But quickly American and international intervention shifted from simply food relief, to impeding the ongoing civil war, in which Mohammad Farah Aidid sought to overthrow the dictator in control of the country. Aidid’s militia was furious at the Americans for preventing his regime from taking power. So, on October 3rd, 1993, Aidid’s militia shot down four Black Hawk helicopters – and killed 18 Americans. In the first year of the Clinton presidency, the United States evacuated its forces out of Somalia. This concluded the first failure of the so-called “New World Order”. What started with good intentions resulted in further chaos in Somalia and 18 dead Americans. Democracy was, by no definition, achieved from US intervention. This started the period of American history when intervention was seen as an obstacle, not an opportunity. American foreign policy, which was initially focused on spreading freedom and food, became focused on limiting intervention to avoid another failure like Somalia.
In the beginning of this essay, I posed a question: Should America focus its foreign policy on the expansion of democracy? Over the last 30 years, there have been two main narratives seeking to answer this question. The first is that America should solely value its strategic national interests, even if that means overlooking humanitarian crises. From this perspective, democracy in Somalia or Cambodia has no importance for an American mother who struggles to pay for her healthcare, or a father who can’t pay his mortgage. According to this narrative, America should intervene only when there is a clear strategic justification. Intervention for the sake of democracy or morals is a misinterpretation of how a state should be governed.
From the alternative perspective, democracy and human rights should be at the forefront of all foreign policy. If any injustices are happening abroad, it is the United States’ duty, as a global superpower, to bring freedom and justice to those who are oppressed. This perspective also advocates for democracy-based intervention on the basis that it is in the U.S.’s best interests for as many states to function as democracies as possible - trade is increased, intelligence is sometimes shared, and new alliances can be created. Morality and U.S. interests are held at a similar level of importance, from this perspective, but human rights should generally guide foreign policy.
Both of these perspectives misinterpret a key idea that leads to many foreign policy failures: there is no one answer to foreign affairs. The expansion of democracy is a worthy goal, but that doesn’t mean that Somalia in 1993 could suddenly democratize simply because there were American boots on the ground. Strategic interests are fundamentally important to foreign policy, but non-intervention in a genocidal crisis like Rwanda in 1994 was a moral failure, and a burden to America. There is validity to the idea that the United States benefits when more states are democratic, but that didn’t amount to a strategic justification for the U.S. interventions in Afghanistan.
If American policymakers can find the balance between these two schools of thought, the United States will be able to prioritize the needs of Americans - while also expanding influence and moral ideals, when necessary and possible.
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