Bush and the National Interest

Bush's State of the Union speech in 2005 outmatched his inaugural speech of that year. It embraced necessary domestic reforms in tort law, the tax code, health costs, etc., though it neglected the trade deficit and the implications of a lower dollar. In contrast to what the President stated, Social Security will not be bankrupt by 2040 or so, but does need reform, and the President proposed many.

Liberty and freedom assumed unusual prominence in both speeches. In fact, they assumed mystical auras in domestic events and even more mystical qualities in relation to foreign policy. While the inaugural speech made no reference to terrorism and only used the term "tyranny," terrorism and tyranny were both mentioned in the last speech. To remove them and to enact freedom, so Bush assures us, will bring peace and prosperity.

The inaugural speech placed the priority on foreign policy over domestic policy. In the State of the Union speech, this was reversed. In a strange but subtle way, both speeches, though, continued what the pundits have missed, namely: the process of eroding citizenship based on a nation. Though the President is no fan of the French, his speeches, ironically, continued what was begun by the French in 1830. To assure imperial control over Algeria, France created the French Foreign Legion. It accepted foreigners, without questions, as long as they were willing to fight for France's colonial interests. For those who joined, loyalty to one's country of origin, of which one was a citizen, was overshadowed by loyalty to a military bureaucracy. What was implied was the erosion of citizenship based on a nation.

The Nazi elite fighting force, the "Waffen SS," picked up what the French had started and expanded the dismantling of citizenship of a nation when, by the end of World War II, more than half of its 450,000 members were foreigners, including many thousands from Norway and Holland and, oddly enough, even 600 from neutral Switzerland. Racism and ideology assumed priority. Those who joined voluntarily violated their citizenships and replaced loyalty to and citizenship of their nation with loyalty to an ideology and a foreign military bureaucracy.

The process of eroding citizenship is also implied, if not increasingly expanded, not only in Bush's speeches but also in such diverse actions as coaches recruiting abroad as well as bureaucracies engaging in global hiring and marketing. In a microfashion, it even surfaced in a recent speech given by Thomas Barnett, a professor at the Naval War College, when he showed little concern for illegal immigrants breaking the law, i.e. laws designed to serve the citizens of a nation, since many of them, so he stated, would join the Navy anyway. Loyalty to a military bureaucracy takes precedence to serving the national interest. It resembles somewhat Bush's indifference to protecting the borders and actually tolerating, if not encouraging, what is happening at America's borders. Bureaucratic and political interests prevail here, and they also prevail when it comes to recruiting, marketing and shifting employees globally without any restraint of national citizenship and laws that apply to a national territory. While globalization has some advantages, it does clash notably with national interests. Loyalty to a military, corporate, religious, sports bureaucracy, etc. takes precedence over citizenship of a nation, its laws and the national interests. Cynics could advocate an American Foreign Legion to do the work that Bush has in mind. It would be far cheaper.

Besides this, Bush's speeches also grafted tremendously on Wilsonian principles. They recall Wilson's justification of entering World War I to make the world safe for democracy and to end all wars. In fact, they revitalize, update and expand Wilsonian notions in order to rid the world of terrorism and to bring liberty and democracy to every country around the globe and, in particular, the Mideast. In many ways, this is a commendable objective. Wilson stated that we did not just create the nation to serve us, but we created it to serve mankind, i.e. everyone. By its very nature, this subordinated the national interest to global idealism. In the 1960s, Kennedy added his own twist to Wilsonism when he stated that we will bear any burden, pay any price to assure liberty around the world.

Such grandiose notions beg the question of how high a cost the country is willing to bear and to what extent such policies and costs will deprive Americans of their liberty in order to assure the uncertain success of a fanciful notion around the globe. In compliance with Wilson's desire, democracy did spread and females received the vote in many nations, just as they did recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. But those post-World War I democracies too often moved democratically toward one party authoritarian governments. This fact could show up again when the democratic elections in Iraq and other nations could favor fundamentalist religious factions and/or anti-American policies. If so, Bush's foreign policy may become tarnished by a modified repeat of post-World War I historical ironies.