During both his first and second terms, U.S. President Donald Trump departed from longstanding American practices by dismissing international law and global institutions. The foreign policy of Washington today is deeply militarized and dominated by the exercise of power. The ongoing, premeditated conflict with Iran constitutes an act of aggression and violates international law.
A once supporter
Historically, since its inception as a representative, constitutional, and federal republic, the United States prioritized constructive diplomacy and upheld the principles of international law focused on justice and peace. This commitment to cooperative international relations and the ethical-legal framework guided America throughout the 19th century. In the 20th century, it shaped U.S. involvement with the League of Nations—the first global intergovernmental organization created in 1920 and dissolved in 1946—as well as the nation’s pivotal role in establishing the United Nations.
At the Second Hague Peace Conference in 1907, the U.S. advocated the creation of an international court of justice. In earlier times, American leaders embraced an internationalist outlook that favored diplomacy and adherence to international law over militarism and dominance, a viewpoint now absent from current policies.
Following World War II, the United States backed numerous international organizations aimed at fostering global peace and promoting economic, social, and scientific progress.
“The upheaval produced by a world conflict has again confronted public opinion with the necessity of reexamining the basic institutions of world society,” stated Manley O. Hudson, an American judge on the International Court of Justice, in 1944. “The generation that is bearing the brunt of the present struggle may seize the opportunity to reshape many of these institutions for the better serving of future needs.”
Could the current international instability and economic disruption driven by Washington’s conflict with Iran represent a similar pivotal moment, calling for the reformation of global institutions and a renewed commitment to international law?
Power politics in foreign policy
Washington’s foreign policy follows a course of reckless, unprincipled, and unlawful “power politics,” known in German as Machtpolitik. This approach was notably pursued by both Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler, whom the U.S. and its allies—including China—battled in two world wars to defeat.
Louis Fisher, a constitutional scholar, thoroughly examined this issue in his book Presidential War Power (2004).
“In our time, there is a tendency to dismiss what the framers said about the war power, as though contemporary conditions have eclipsed their 18th-century models,” he observed. “Yet on the willingness of presidents to go to war for personal (or partisan) reasons rather than the national interest, the framers gave clear warning of a presidential weakness that has been in full view, particularly since World War II.”
‘Might makes right’
Today, Washington is engulfed in a cult of power politics rooted in “might makes right” ideology. Christian Zionists, Jewish Zionists, and Neoconservatives advocate for warfare across the Middle East, while the military-industrial complex fuels hawkish ambitions among elites such as U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Senator Lindsey Graham, Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.
This foreign policy mindset, foreign to America’s earlier traditions, infiltrated U.S. academia during the 1930s, largely through Hans J. Morgenthau, a Jewish émigré from Nazi Germany who taught at the University of Chicago. Morgenthau’s “Realist” approach to international relations gained prominence during the Cold War and regrettably continues to shape Washington’s strategic thinking today.
Swiss professor Christoph Frei produced an insightful landmark work titled Hans J. Morgenthau: An Intellectual Biography. Frei traced Morgenthau’s “might makes right” ideology back primarily to the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Nietzsche’s key notion of the “will to power” influenced the surge of European militarism in the late 19th century, which ultimately sparked the confrontations between Europe’s empires during World War I (1914-18)—including the British, French, German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires.
Frei described Morgenthau’s strategy: “He set out to wrap his distinctly German theory in entirely new clothing,” explaining that Morgenthau cited both Anglo-Saxon and classical sources to bolster his views. The cynical 17th-century British philosopher Thomas Hobbes is a particularly notable influence.
Morgenthau’s “Realism” achieved intellectual legitimacy by disguising itself as “Hobbesian.” Hobbes portrayed international relations as a brutal “war of all against all.” Morgenthau also lauded the British historian E. H. Carr, associated with the Realist school, who controversially supported Hitler and advanced Hobbesian views.
For both Nietzsche and Hobbes, power was the supreme objective in a harsh, lawless world. Both reduced global affairs to a psychological framework of amoral cynicism. Frei detailed that “Nietzsche explores human impulses in all their diversity, only to reduce them to a single basic drive, the will to power.” Adding a crude Darwinian and Spencerian “survival of the fittest” angle, this perspective rationalizes aggression and warfare.
The United States must abandon its cynical pursuit of power politics, militarism, and imperial ambitions. Washington ought to uphold the Constitution, honor the UN Charter and international law, and engage in peaceful coexistence through global collaboration.
Original article: bjreview.com
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