Meaning Of Machiavellianism And Contemporary US Foreign Politics

Practical Meaning of Machiavellianism and
Contemporary US Foreign Politics
Zhiyuan Lu
Penn State University

Author Note
Zhiyuan Lu: Penn State University student. Major: Economics Minor: Business
Practical Meaning of Machiavellianism and Contemporary US Foreign Politics

Politics can involve a wide variety of ethical issues, ranging from making certain policies to accepting campaign financing. Today’s political environments are quite different from that of six century ago. However, Machiavelli’s ideas may still be useful in today’s political issues. In Machiavelli’s era, people can hardly imagine a country be founded like this. Obviously it is impossible to compare political ethics
of modern governing methods with that of an ancient principality’s method. But I think Machiavelli’s theory still have significant practical meaning in current societies. I believe some of his approaches should be avoided and some should be strengthen in today’s US politics.
United States of America is one of the most democratic and the most influential country in the world. The US has already established an integrated governing system to limit unethical behaviors in the government. Thus it had been long since the US basically solved the problems that are existing across developing countries, such as bribery, vanity projects, tax evasion, police brutality and so on. What I would like to discuss is the US foreign politics.
Machiavelli’s The Prince was written based on his abundant political experience.
He was the second chancery and the member of diplomatic council, which is responsible for negotiation and military affairs. The Prince is his conclusion of fourteen years of political career and diplomatic experience. Although people are criticizing him for being too brutal for centuries and even invented the word “Machiavellian” to describe expediency, deceit and cunning, however, his ideas are actually rational and practical in most cases. After reading the whole book, I think there are lots of experience we can learn from and put into practical use. I think the most successful application of his theory is applying it to the extreme while not showing Machiavellian to the public during the
process. The US foreign policies have always been the target criticized by other countries.
Due to good decision-making and daily management mechanism, US government totally avoided the probability of making highly flawed decisions like autocratic rulers. I believe all of the policies that the government made are meant to maintain the interest of US people, keep the stable of the US society or at least safeguard the interests of one’s own party. In a country like the US that put nation’s interest and human rights first, is not easy to embody ethics in foreign politics. In The Prince, Machiavelli (1988) discussed the importance of having a strong army in many chapters. Based on his time, he suggests that a prince should not depend on mercenary or auxiliary armies. The US not only needs mercenary and auxiliary armies but also has the strongest army in the world. According to the report made by SIPRI(Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) in 2011 the USA is responsible for 41 percent of the world total military expenditure. 712.7 billion dollars have been spent on US military in 2011, the figure is more than twice of the second country on the list (Shah,
2012). The US achieves its dominating position on military since the Second World War. After that the US join the overseas conflicts more frequently than before. Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War are the three largest wars after WWII. These conflicts are all far from the homeland of the US and have little effects on the US domestic livelihood. However, in these three wars the US army is the major force in the auxiliary army. Although the intervene of the conflict is organized by UN Security Council, the real essence of the UN army is the auxiliary army for one side of the conflicts. They are not fair games at the start point. I think nobody would agree that South Korean, Republic of Vietnam and Saudi Arabia were close allies of the US before the war. Just like Machiavelli’s (1988) wrote in chapter thirteen of The Prince, auxiliary arms are those of a power that is called to come with its arms to help and defend you. Machiavelli thinks that auxiliary armies are almost always harmful. But in today’s world environment the situation has been changed. Since the modern warfare focus on acquire intangible interests rather than plunder tangible resources like land or people. The interests may include having a new ally in certain area, restraining competitor’s control of that country, increase domestic demand, attract domestic media from other problems or even rising the oil price to consolidate US dollar position in global market. As the result of these wars, the US achieved the benefits mentioned above as expected.
I believe Machiavelli would agree with the necessity of a powerful army and these three oversea wars. “Before all else, be armed” he wrote in his book. This quote was so true at his time while seems too extreme in current international environment. In a more peaceful world like today, we no longer suffer from cold war or nuclear threat. Economy and people’s livelihood would be the first of a government’s responses. Military-first countries like North Korea would only bring adversities to itself and surrounding countries. We should not understand the quote above separately from his macro-ideology. Just like his main idea in his book The Art of War (2009), the war is an extension of politics. I also agree that he said that all society, religion, science, and art rested on the security provided by the military. These three wars are the extension of failed diplomatic attempts. The main purpose of these wars can be generalized to grab resources on an international level. Korea and Vietnam War are meant to gain anti-Soviet resources while Gulf war is directly aimed for oil and money market resources. The positive effects like enhanced military cooperation in certain area and stimulation of domestic scientific research on new weapons are only side benefits. The comments about these wars are highly controversial during different times and different regions. Some decisions made by the US government during the war might be limited by the time and inappropriate. But the intention of the US government is different from the intention of Machiavelli but they all choose the way of force to accomplish their goals. We cannot generally say those wars are ethical or unethical. But from the aspect of the US, those efforts are all started from a good will in a narrow term. Even though we cannot rationalize the US government’s behavior strictly according to the universal law, we could still prove that the intention of being “unethical” is protecting and maximizing the public benefit where it governs. The US as the leader of the developed countries can hardly stay away from conflicts at any places of the world. It is not only because the global economies are already tied together but also because the world situation changes so fast that the superpower position of the US has been weakened. Just like how Machiavelli argued that it is better to be feared than loved if you cannot be both. Although the spending on military is huge every year, investing in military industry is the Nash-equilibrium in anytime of the history. So even after so many years, even many scholars are criticizing Machiavelli, the US is still keeping its way of military expansion and upgrade. After September 11th attacks, the US oversea wars transferred to War on Terrorism. The nominal reason is to fighting against terrorist and extremist forces. However, we do not know the real intention of those wars. We could not simply attribute the real reason to “keep the world peace”. People from other side of the world would not buy this story. I think the basic reason is still the same; it is related to the long-term interest of the US. But these wars are quite different from the old ones. Terrorists are only minorities in those countries. Generally speaking, spy war and Special Forces are the best ways to terminate those targets. Thus, those reasons serve merely as excuses to start a massive war. Although we still cannot deny the possibility that Iraq indeed has mass destruction weapons at that time, some of the so-called evidences had been proven unreliable later. One of the most powerful evidence is that the defector who triggered the Iraq war admitted lying about the existence of bioweapons in Iraq last year (Chulov, M. & Pidd, H., 2011). The actually flippant attitude about the intelligence highly contrasted with the statements before the war. Since the politics of US is full of Machiavellianism, it should not surprise us that President Bush—contrary to claims that he was misled by the intelligence community – was fully aware that Iraq’s WMDs were a pile of half-truths and tailor-made lies as early as July 2002 (Ludlow,L.M., 2005). The evidence here clearly showed the deceit of the US government. When we look back to the Iraq war we could find more negative judgments than positive ones no matter in the US or in Middle East. Clearly the US people do not realize the value of this war, when the government obviously know the after effects of the Iraq war and already did a total evaluation before 2002. Even with the risk of been debunk lies, opposition by most of the countries or over 845 billion dollars of cost the government still insist to invasion Iraq. In this process, not only few politicians but also the US government as a whole is practicing Machiavellianism. They appeared to be unethical in deceiving the public and sacrificing the benefits of Middle East citizens. However, they achieved the maximum welfare for its own citizens.
David Ignatius, a columnist of Washington Post, even suggests that the Obama government need a master of Machiavellian diplomacy right now (2010). In this article, he praised Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski as the masters of Machiavellian diplomacy and raised many diplomatic achievements made by them. When talking about the situation in Iraq he believed the Obama administration needs to decide what kind of outcome it wants, and then use every element of power, overt and covert, military and diplomatic, to achieve it. He also argues that secret contacts with elements of the Taliban will be especially useful if they can gradually build confidence about what each side can deliver. If we take a close look at the US history Machiavellianism kept supporting the progress of the country. We can find Machiavellianism ranging from the independence war to recent presidential campaign. I believe Machiavellian is necessary in today’s politics. I agree with Machiavelli that virtues lack utility and are merely a product of the imagination. So as the most developed politic system, the US government showed the validity and effectiveness of Machiavellian. The only “reality” guiding right-thinking politicians is the current situation and the goals of the moment, which can change as frequently as the weather (Ludlow,L.M., 2005). In conclusion, the US government is the faithful supporter and practicer of Machiavelli’s theory. I’m not trying to say that it is a bad consequence or the US government is brutal. On the contrary, I admire and appreciate the application of Machiavelli’s theory into governing. If the government acted so clean and did not “stir in the mud” it is almost impossible to maintain the present level of both economic and military benefits. Through all these years, the history proved the correctness of Machiavelli. The international community is actually a forest, which applied the law of the jungle. Maybe foreign politics would never be really based on ethics. Once again I want to quote from Machiavelli, ”Politics have no relation to morals”.

References
Chulov, M. & Pidd, H. (2011, February 15) Defector admits to WMD lies that triggered Iraq war. Karlsruhe: The Guardian
Ignatius, D (2010, July 8) Obama needs a Machiavelli. Washington DC: The Washington Post
Ludlow, L.M. (2005, August 29) Machiavelli and U.S. Politics. The Future of Freedom Foundation
Machiavelli, N. (1988) The Prince. Q. Skinner, R. Price (Ed.). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Machiavelli, N. (2009) The Art of War. H. Neville (Ed.). Boston, MA: MobileReference
Shah, A. (2012) World Military Spending. Retrieved from http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending