Comment by Iv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Iv | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The turning point regarding the US' stance on democracy and human rights has been, IMO, GW Bush's withdrawal from the International Criminal Court.

There we were, in a world where USSR had collapsed, China not risen yet, with a USA as the uncontested dominant power. It has the unique chance in history to steer the world in one direction or the other.

Building international legal standards, multi-lateral cooperation, ensuring that whoever had the most power at one point would be limited by the world community, was something within US reach, and was a realistic hope. As a bonus, the first thing the community would work on would be tackling the climate change, as it was an obvious field where every country of planet earth had a common interest.

Instead, because of a few hundred "miscounted" votes in Florida, the US president was a zealous anti-intellectual evangelist, who decided that US interests trumps human rights, that denying climate change was a respectable political stance, and instead of spending a mountain of dollars on research, energy transition, diseases eradication, social net improvements, he spent it on invading 2 countries despite experts warning that it would not solve any problem.

There is no such thing as countries spreading democracy and I am not aware of any country that has ever went to war to spread democracy. The only time the US attempted to "spread democracy" is when their influence over a foreign country was being challenged by anti-imperialist entities. At this point they invade to make sure the country transitions to a democracy, which when it comes to a poor country with little international clout, democracy amounts to it being very susceptible to foreign interference. And of course the US also invades actual democracies when they elect anti-imperialists that challenge US interests in the region.

You spread democracy by showing it is better system.

A lot of countries that converted to democracy did this because their populations looked up to US and wanted to have better lief.

You also put pressure on other countries when they claim are democratic but fail to do this in practice (which is the case of Belarus or Poland where I live).

US does this actively and frequently in many forms, by voicing "concerns" or putting embargoes on countries that break their own rules.

Obviously, that pressure is much less effective when you do same things you try to pressure other countries to not do.

I am not sure it is always a better system in all situations. Democracies are very easily corrupted by foreign influence. This is one of the reasons rich western countries love to "export democracy". One of the reasons strongmen rise to power in third world countries is as a reaction to imperialism. In that situation it is not even clear you can have a functioning democracy, and then the choice is between a puppet of foreign interests or a strongman.

There exists no system that is best in all situations.

Case in point, a system that does not care about rights of their inhabitants is usually much more effective at running large scale projects. For example, China just deciding to shut down everybody in their houses in Wuhan and shoot if you don't comply. And just like that they got their pandemic under control.

> One of the reasons strongmen rise to power in third world countries is as a reaction to imperialism

No, they rise because they can.

And not just in third world countries. Germany was definitely not a third world country when it allowed Hitler to rise and start a global war. What about Putin?

We see these guys mostly in third world countries now mainly because without democracy it is difficult to keep up with democracies without some special situation (like Saudi Arabia being gifted with huge oil reserves).

In non-democracies normal people have trouble preserving their wealth over long periods of time. You need to be "in favours" of the ruling entity to be wealthy and the wealth vanishes if you fall out of it.

Democracies are on the other hand, by definition, people ruling themselves, and this should in theory mean a lot of focus is on personal security and freedom. This should mean it is safer to conduct business over long periods of time, accumulate wealth and generally contribute to GDP.

Go visit Japan, South Korea, Germany.

I am the first one to be vocal of US imperialism, but you can't deny that it is US influence that caused several modern countries to be democratic.

But my point is their intention is to exploit the weakness of the democracy they enforce on the target country. And that is assuming this is a situation where they are exporting democracy. There are also the opposite situations where they declare democratic outcomes invalid because they don't bow down to US interests. They happily support dictators in that case.

People really over sell the spread of democracy in these places. By US design, Japan was a one party state until after the Cold War, with ~six years of opposition party rule total. Similar happened in South Korea, who considers it's first free election in ~2000, and even then one of their few elections saw intelligence agencies ensure the win of their former dictator's daughter. And Germany had a history of democracy without US influence.

Coming out of the 1st and then 2nd World wars the US seemed to be the voice of reason and alongside Britain (and possibly France) had a strong desire to make the world a better place and not repeat the mistakes of the past - which were all around to see.

But I feel after the 1960's the US has slowly lost that ideal, and the visionary leaders (Woodrow Wilson, Roosevelt or Eisenhower) are no longer anywhere to be found (whether the electorate don't tolerate or desire them I'm not sure).

I think you've got an overly rosy view of pre-1960's history. Post WWI saw all three of those powers continue their colonialist land grabs, and post WWII saw all three commit many atrocities in the effort to check Russian advances.

Both the Japanese and Korean antidemocratic moves took place in that pre 1960 era for example.

> International Criminal Court

Really?

Do you really think any international body would hold Saudi Arabia, China to account?

He who holds the purse, makes the rules. And they hold a pretty big purse.

Eventually, yes, of course. The America will just benefit again being a leader.

The EU + USA together hold a much bigger purse so...

No. The point was to draw a line between the countries who respect humans rights and are willing to be judged and punished when they don't and the countries that did not.

Of course China and KSA would never join. And that would give other countries a clear and objective criterion to apply sanctions and international pressure.

Instead, judging what sanction a country deserves is an arbitrary exercise of executive power.

North Korea, China, KSA, are easy cases, but what do you know of Moldova? Of Hungary? Of Malaysia? Knowing that a country is held to some international standards judged independently would be a huge progress for human rights globally.

I see how you can think GW's withdrawal was a turning point, but honestly it was a drop in the bucket. I've spent a long time trying to trace the origins of the current policy, and I mostly lay it at Woodrow Wilsons feet (and his handlers). Handlers being a key word. Do you not think Bush had them? The real power players in DC exist through multiple presidencies. This idea of POTUS being king-like (and therefor X is POTUS fault) is so unrealistic and a very sophmoric analysis of the real power dynamics at that level.

ps. What most people mean when they say "democracy" is "IMF conditionalities", et similar.

There's no way a Democrat president would make US personnel subject to an international court either. If there ever were any prosecutions it would cause a political meltdown. Unilateralism and exceptionalism run deep in the US.

Bill Clinton signed the treaty that made the US join the ICC. GWB withdrew that signature.

People have been used to so many cynicism that they have forgotten that countries doing the good thing is a possibility.

> and was a realistic hope

It never was. If we want to talk about the powerful being held to account by the international community, realise that at some point that means canvassing the idea of invading China/India/the United States/Europe when they get out of line. That isn't an option. That would potentially reduce big chunks of the world to sand and anything less can't constrain the powerful. WWII alone levelled an entire continent, and that was with primitive weaponry compared to what is available now.

Trade sanctions aren't effective at changing behaviour and it isn't obvious if they would do more good or more harm if deployed against a superpower. Note that most superpowers' economic problems were due to internal not external policy.

Trade sanction ARE effective and are arguably much more effective than military operations at changing a country's behavior. The main negotiation leverage in talks with Donbass forces or Iran government is the suspension or extension of sanctions. It made Iraq and Libya abandon their WMD programs. Iraq's invasion, on the other hand justified North Korea in not abandoning theirs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com