Nekaj poudarkov iz odlične knjige Johna Mearsheimerja “The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities” iz leta 2018. Mearsheimer je v knjigi opisal to, kar danes tako boleče spoznavajo na Zahodu – tako politiki kot intelektualci: da je pričakovanje, da liberalna hegemonija lahko pripelje do dolgotrajne globalne stabilnosti in miru, velika zabloda. Kot pravi Mearsheimer: “V nasprotju s prevladujočo modrostjo na Zahodu liberalna zunanja politika ni formula za sodelovanje in mir, temveč za nestabilnost in konflikte.” Liberalna hegemonija ne bo dosegla svojih ciljev, njen neuspeh pa bo neizogibno povzročil izjemno škodo. Liberalna država se bo znašla v neskončnih vojnah zaradi izvažanja svojih liberalnih vrednot in svojega videnja demokracije, kar bo povečalo in ne zmanjšalo raven konfliktov v mednarodni politiki ter tako poslabšalo probleme širjenja oboroženih konfliktov in terorizma.

Škoda, da ta knjiga ni bila napisana pred 30 leti in da je nismo takrat prebrali. Lahko bi se izognili mnogim zablodam in manj ljudi bi umrlo zaradi “izvoza demokracije” s strani “najbolj liberalne in demokratične države na svetu”.

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My basic argument is that the United States was so powerful in the aftermath of the Cold War that it could adopt a profoundly liberal foreign policy, commonly referred to as “liberal hegemony.” The aim of this ambitious strategy is to turn as many countries as possible into liberal democracies while also fostering an open international economy and building formidable international institutions. In essence, the United States has sought to remake the world in its own image. Proponents of this policy, which is widely embraced in the American foreign policy establishment, believe it will make the world more peaceful and ameliorate the dual problems of nuclear proliferation and terrorism. It will reduce human rights violations and make liberal democracies more secure against internal threats.

From the beginning, however, liberal hegemony was destined to fail, and it did. This strategy invariably leads to policies that put a country at odds with nationalism and realism, which ultimately have far more influence on international politics than liberalism does. This basic fact of life is difficult for most Americans to accept. The United States is a deeply liberal country whose foreign policy elite have an almost knee – jerk hostility toward both nationalism and realism. But this kind of thinking can only lead to trouble on the foreign policy front. American policymakers would be wise to abandon liberal hegemony and pursue a more restrained foreign policy based on realism and a proper understanding of how nationalism constrains great powers.

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LIBERAL HEGEMONY is an ambitious strategy in which a state aims to turn as many countries as possible into liberal democracies like itself while also promoting an open international economy and building international institutions. In essence, the liberal state seeks to spread its own values far and wide. My goal in this book is to describe what happens when a powerful state pursues this strategy at the expense of balance-of-power politics. Many in the West, especially among foreign policy elites, consider liberal hegemony a wise policy that states should axiomatically adopt. Spreading liberal democracy around the world is said to make eminently good sense from both a moral and a strategic perspective. For starters, it is thought to be an excellent way to protect human rights, which are sometimes seriously violated by authoritarian states. And because the policy holds that liberal democracies do not want to go to war with each other, it ultimately provides a formula for transcending realism and fostering international peace. Finally, proponents claim it helps protect liberalism at home by eliminating authoritarian states that otherwise might aid the illiberal forces that are constantly present inside the liberal state.

This conventional wisdom is wrong. Great powers are rarely in a position to pursue a full – scale liberal foreign policy. As long as two or more of them exist on the planet, they have little choice but to pay close attention to their position in the global balance of power and act according to the dictates of realism. Great powers of all persuasions care deeply about their survival, and there is always the danger in a bipolar or multipolar system that they will be attacked by another great power. In these circumstances, liberal great powers regularly dress up their hard – nosed behavior with liberal rhetoric. They talk like liberals and act like realists. Should they adopt liberal policies that are at odds with realist logic, they invariably come to regret it.

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This enthusiasm notwithstanding, liberal hegemony will not achieve its goals, and its failure will inevitably come with huge costs. The liberal state is likely to end up fighting endless wars, which will increase rather than reduce the level of conflict in international politics and thus aggravate the problems of proliferation and terrorism. Moreover, the state’s militaristic behavior is almost certain to end up threatening its own liberal values. Liberalism abroad leads to illiberalism at home. Finally, even if the liberal state were to achieve its aims — spreading democracy near and far, fostering economic intercourse, and creating international institutions — they would not produce peace.

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NATIONALISM is an enormously powerful political ideology. It revolves around the division of the world into a wide variety of nations, which are formidable social units, each with a distinct culture. Virtually every nation would prefer to have its own state, although not all can. Still, we live in a world populated almost exclusively by nation – states, which means that liberalism must coexist with nationalism. Liberal states are also nation – states. There is no question that liberalism and nationalism can coexist, but when they clash, nationalism almost always wins. The influence of nationalism often undercuts a liberal foreign policy. For example, nationalism places great emphasis on self – determination, which means that most countries will resist a liberal great power’s efforts to interfere in their domestic politics — which, of course, is what liberal hegemony is all about.

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Liberalism oversells the importance of individual rights. Liberalism is also no match for realism. At its core, liberalism assumes that the individuals who make up any society sometimes have profound differences about what constitutes the good life, and these differences might lead them to try to kill each other. Thus a state is needed to keep the peace. But there is no world state to keep countries at bay when they have profound disagreements. The structure of the international system is anarchic, not hierarchic, which means that liberalism applied to international politics cannot work. Countries thus have little choice but to act according to balance-of-power logic if they hope to survive. There are special cases, however, where a country is so secure that it can take a break from realpolitik and pursue truly liberal policies. The results are almost always bad, largely because nationalism thwarts the liberal crusader.

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The zeitgeist was captured in Francis Fukuyama’s famous article, “ The End of History ?, ” published just as the Cold War was coming to a close. Liberalism, he argued, defeated fascism in the first half of the twentieth century and communism in the second half, and now there was no viable alternative left standing. The world would eventually be entirely populated by liberal democracies. According to Fukuyama, these nations would have virtually no meaningful disputes, and wars between great powers would cease. The biggest problem confronting people in this new world, he suggested, might be boredom. It was also widely believed at the time that the spread of liberalism would ultimately bring an end to balance-of-power politics. The harsh security competition that has long characterized great – power relations would disappear, and realism, long the dominant intellectual paradigm in international relations, would land on the scrap heap of history.

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“In a world where freedom, not tyranny, is on the march,” Bill Clinton proclaimed while campaigning for the White House in 1992, “ the cynical calculus of pure power politics simply does not compute. It is ill-suited to a new era in which ideas and information are broadcast around the globe before ambassadors can read their cables. ”

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Probably no recent president embraced the mission of spreading liberalism more enthusiastically than George W. Bush, who said in a speech in March 2003, two weeks before the invasion of Iraq: “The current Iraqi regime has shown the power of tyranny to spread discord and violence in the Middle East. A liberated Iraq can show the power of freedom to transform that vital region, by bringing hope and progress into the lives of millions. America’s interests in security, and America’s belief in liberty, both lead in the same direction: to a free and peaceful Iraq.”

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Something went badly wrong. Most people’s view of U.S. foreign policy today, in 2018, is starkly different from what it was in 2003, much less the early 1990s. Pessimism, not optimism, dominates most assessments of America’s accomplishments during its holiday from realism. Under Presidents Bush and Barack Obama, Washington has played a key role in sowing death and destruction across the greater Middle East, and there is little evidence the mayhem will end anytime soon. American policy toward Ukraine, motivated by liberal logic, is principally responsible for the ongoing crisis between Russia and the West. The United States has been at war for two out of every three years since 1989, fighting seven different wars. We should not be surprised by this. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in the West, a liberal foreign policy is not a formula for cooperation and peace but for instability and conflict.

Vir: John Mearsheimer, The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities