POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY JEREMY BRADSHAW IN THE GUARDIAN
I have a difficult time thinking of a solid example of foreign policy based on ethical considerations.
I wish it were otherwise.
There are certainly examples of foreign policy that happen to be ethical, but it was not the ethical considerations that shaped the policy.
It was still self-interest - although unquestionably a more informed and enlightened version of self-interest - that shaped policies like the Marshall Plan.
The same nation that gave us the Marshall Plan has given us over the last half century dozens of dirty little colonial wars and coups, even against democratic governments.
And it has never once lifted its mighty hand against great injustice, including the genuine, horrific genocides of Indonesia after Sukarno, Cambodia, and Rwanda.
It also long supported apartheid South Africa, until near the end, as it today supports and even subsidizes Israel's apartheid.
We need a world in which it is less possible for any one nation to do as it pleases. We need a multi-polar world, and we need greater, stronger international institutions.
That will be a world in which foreign policy of individual nations becomes less important.
