According to the US Department of Veterans Affairs (https://department.va.gov/americas-wars/), the United States of America has been involved in significant wars for over 90% of its existence since 1776. The country has seen only twenty years of total peace in 250 years. While some of these wars could be classed as ‘defensive’ or broadly ‘for democratic values’—the American Revolution (1775–83), the war of 1812 (1812–15), the Civil War (1861–5), World War II (1941–45)—others clearly were not. The Mexican War (1846–8) and the Spanish–American War (1898–1902) were blatant land-grabs—respectively two-fifths of Mexican territory and the Philippines, Puerto Rico and effective control of Cuba. (This raises the question: are recent US claims on neighbouring territories like Canada and Greenland Trump-induced aberrations or the continuation of the long-standing ‘Manifest Destiny’ of US territorial expansion?) The Indian Wars (c. 1817–98) were genocidal in character (although with the caveat that the term ‘genocide’ wasn’t coined until 1946 by Raphael Lemkin).
And yet, in spite of its bellicose nature, amongst its own citizens and in Europe, including Ireland, the profile of the US has been largely positive, representing freedom, opportunity and a refuge for the oppressed—‘your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’. This is hardly surprising, since Americans’ perceptions of their own society have been determined, until recently at least, by their experience of (relative) domestic tranquillity, a functioning democracy (whatever its flaws), the separation of powers and the rule of law. Similar positive perceptions prevailed within European societies such as Ireland, with a history of migration there and a consequent intimate knowledge of its internal life. But that’s not the perception of people in Latin America, in the Middle East or in south-east Asia, who have experienced the sharp end of US foreign policy over the past century.
As the peace and prosperity of the entire world are threatened by the ongoing and escalating war in Iran, instigated illegally by the US and its ally, Israel (another practitioner of ‘perpetual war’), I am reminded of the fable of the scorpion and the frog. The scorpion persuades the frog to carry it across a river, promising not to sting it. Halfway across, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, leading to the death of both. When the dying frog asks why, the scorpion replies: ‘It’s in my nature’.
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