I’m typically a non-interventionist when it comes to foreign policy (probably fairly extreme by EA standards; I support US withdrawal from NATO). But it seems to me that the evaluation of a given foreign policy depends largely on what baseline you use for comparison purposes. If North Korea is used as the baseline for what communism can do to a country, modern Indonesia seems preferable by comparison.
Critics of US foreign policy typically use a high implicit baseline which allows them to blame the US no matter what the US does.
Consider a country with a bad government or some other political disaster of some sort.
If the US opposes the country’s government, the US is to blame because it is “destabilizing” the country. (“The US destabilized Iraq.”)
If the US collaborates with the country’s government, the US is to blame because it is “propping up” an odious regime. (“The US propped up Suharto.”)
If the US does nothing, the US is “complicit” through its inaction. (“The US is complicit in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”)
I suspect that this little trifecta is leading to increasing nihilism in US foreign policy circles.
I think there is something to this, but the US didn’t just “prop up” Suharto in the sense of had normal relations of trade and mutual favours even though he did bad things. (That indeed may well be the right attitude to many bad governments, and ones that many lefitsts might demand the US to take to bad left-wing governments, yes.) They helped install him, a process which was incredibly bloody and violent, even apart from the long-term effects of his rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_1965%E2%80%9366
Remember also that the same people are not necessarily making all of these arguments. Relatively few radical leftists saying the first two things are also making a huge moral deal about the US failing to help Ukraine, I think. Even if they are strongly against the Russian invasion. It’s mostly liberals who are saying the 3rd one.
I’m typically a non-interventionist when it comes to foreign policy (probably fairly extreme by EA standards; I support US withdrawal from NATO). But it seems to me that the evaluation of a given foreign policy depends largely on what baseline you use for comparison purposes. If North Korea is used as the baseline for what communism can do to a country, modern Indonesia seems preferable by comparison.
Critics of US foreign policy typically use a high implicit baseline which allows them to blame the US no matter what the US does.
Consider a country with a bad government or some other political disaster of some sort.
If the US opposes the country’s government, the US is to blame because it is “destabilizing” the country. (“The US destabilized Iraq.”)
If the US collaborates with the country’s government, the US is to blame because it is “propping up” an odious regime. (“The US propped up Suharto.”)
If the US does nothing, the US is “complicit” through its inaction. (“The US is complicit in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”)
I suspect that this little trifecta is leading to increasing nihilism in US foreign policy circles.
I think there is something to this, but the US didn’t just “prop up” Suharto in the sense of had normal relations of trade and mutual favours even though he did bad things. (That indeed may well be the right attitude to many bad governments, and ones that many lefitsts might demand the US to take to bad left-wing governments, yes.) They helped install him, a process which was incredibly bloody and violent, even apart from the long-term effects of his rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_mass_killings_of_1965%E2%80%9366
Remember also that the same people are not necessarily making all of these arguments. Relatively few radical leftists saying the first two things are also making a huge moral deal about the US failing to help Ukraine, I think. Even if they are strongly against the Russian invasion. It’s mostly liberals who are saying the 3rd one.