Dangerous Nation

Robert Kagan opens his Dangerous Nation: America’s Foreign Policy from Its Earliest Days to the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (Vintage) by observing the contrast between the worries of the world and the self-perception of Americans: “Americans have cherished an image of themselves as by nature inward-looking and aloof, only sporadically and spasmodically venturing forth into the world, usually in response to external attack or perceived threats. This self-image survives, despite four hundred years of steady expansion and an ever-deepening involvement in world affairs, and despite innumerable wars, interventions, and prolonged occupations in foreign lands. It is as if it were all an accident or odd twist of fate. Even as the United States has risen to a position of global hegemony, expanding its reach and purview and involvement across the continent and then across the oceans, Americans still believe their nation’s natural tendencies are toward passivity, indifference, and insularity.”

As a result, “Americans have often not realized how their expansive tendencies – political, ideological, economic, strategic, and cultural – bump up against and intrude upon other peoples and cultures. They are surprised to learn that others hate them” and do not anticipate “the way their natural expansiveness could provoke reactions, and sometimes violent reactions, against them.” This self-perception also leaves Americans dismayed at themselves and the US response to the world outside: “The history of America has been one of repeated surprises, not only at the behavior of others but at the behavior of the United States in response to the actions of others.”