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{"id":16696,"date":"2014-10-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1547"},"modified":"2014-10-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-13T00:00:00","slug":"global-republic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/10\/global-republic\/","title":{"rendered":"Global Republic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

Frank Ninkovich\u2019s\u00a0The Global Republic<\/a> minimizes the role of \u201cManifest Destiny\u201d and the belief in American exceptionalism in the global rise of the United States. Instead, \u201cthe stimulus for the nation\u2019s ascent to dizzying heights of power, far from emanating from within, was . . . of external origin, an inadvertent consequence of the need to keep up with a fast-changing globalizing world that was filled with promise and peril\u201d (1-2). To understand America\u2019s rise, we have to set aside \u201cthe idea that a deeply rooted universalizing impulse in the national character has been at work since 1776\u201d (2).<\/p>\n

Manifest Destiny in particular was ideological in the strict Marxist sense \u2013 a mask for interests and power: \u201cManifest Destiny could be taken to mean that Americans were God\u2019s chosen people fulfilling a divine plan to take over and govern what came to be forty-eight contiguous states of the union. As a matter of faith, the term implied that expansion was so obviously written into the stars that it was not worth taking the trouble to justify. Thus viewed, Manifest Destiny was a slogan whose justification was to serve as a justification \u2013 in this case, to rationalize the dispossession of Native Americans, Mexicans, and anyone else who got in the way of this irrepressible movement of population. In its role as a justification, it is an excellent illustration of the concept of ideology as a belief system whose chief function was to rationalize the material interests of collective behavior. Apart from camouflaging the base desires of people who were interested in acquiring land or wealth in other forms, its causal value was negligible\u201d (31).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Besides, it was \u201ctoo superficial to be a real ideology, for ideologies are complicated systems of thought with the power to generate enthusiasm in their own right.\u201d Ninkovich finds it hard to believe anyone would be \u201cmoved to action at this time solely by a belief in Manifest Destiny\u201d (31).<\/p>\n

Ninkovich is no doubt right that the US was able to ride waves of globalization to what he describes as its \u201cinadvertent rise to world power.\u201d But there are several problems with his analysis.<\/p>\n

First, he provides evidence that there was <\/em>a universalizing impulse in American life, not just from 1776 but from the 1630s. Of course, that wasn\u2019t manifest in an aggressive foreign policy; the Founders, like Winthrop himself, were more inclined to view America\u2019s role as exemplary: Their success as a Republic would inspire Republican forces elsewhere. Whatever the method, though, early Americans hoped that the world would become somewhat more like America.<\/p>\n

Which leads to a second problem: Ninkovich focuses too narrowly on \u201cforeign policy\u201d to measure America\u2019s intentions on the world stage. The United States, he rightly says, \u201cwas lacking in the conceptual and practical tools for a revolutionary foreign policy\u201d (26). And, again rightly, \u201cAmerica\u2019s uniqueness as a geopolitically isolated republic was not matched by a corresponding exceptionalism in its approach to foreign relations. . . . foreign relations were reduced to the same kind of down-to-earth concerns that drive the policies of other states\u201d (38). Given America\u2019s geographic isolation, the US could be comparatively unconcerned about the kinds of balances of power and defensive concerns that preoccupied European states. True as this is, it doesn\u2019t disprove a larger aim: A limited foreign policy<\/em>, as an expression of a belief in limited government<\/em>,\u00a0can coexist with broader aspirations. We might ask, Would the Founders be heartened to find that the institutions they established in the US have spread throughout the world? Yes. And then, Would they see this as a fulfillment of their dreams? Again, yes.<\/p>\n

Finally, with regard to Manifest Destiny in particular: Ninkovich minimizes the power of the concept because he minimizes how it linked with the energies of American Christianity. He <\/em>might find concepts like Manifest Destiny un-motivating; John Quincy Adams did not, since Adams linked the spread of the US across North America with a civilizing mission infused with the leftovers of a Puritan-biblical vision of dominion over the wilderness.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"