In the Line of Fire: Exploring Global Hostility to America. America Against the World: How We Are Different and Why We Are Disliked? by. Andrew Kohut and ...
In the Line of Fire: Exploring Global Hostility to America America Against the World: How We Are Different and Why We Are Disliked? by Andrew Kohut and Bruce Stokes (New York: Times Books, Henry Holt & Company, 2006) 259 pp. $25.00 Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century, by Julia E. Sweig (New York: Public Affairs, 2006). 251 pp. $25.00 Writing about the problem of escalating global anti-Americanism has become a virtual cottage industry in large measure because the phenomenon remains something of a mystery. America Against the World - How we are different and why we are disliked? and Friendly Fire - Losing friends and making enemies in the anti-American century, are two of the latest seeking to tackle the dilemmas respectively captured by their equally depressing titles. The former, by Andrew Kohut, Director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, and Pew consultant Bruce Stokes, international economics columnist for the National Journal, summarizes and analyzes the results of surveys conducted by the Pew Center over the course of a decade. The latter, by Julia E. Sweig, the Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin American Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, uses a historical broad brush but concentrates on Latin America rather than Europe, closer to home. America Against the World has been widely quoted, as it documents “the growing depth and disenchantment and discontent with the United States and the widening rift with old allies” by using hard numbers, or at least as hard as popular surveys may be expected to yield. It is important to note, however, that here “the United States” refers not only to American policies but indeed the American people – an altogether novel phenomenon, write Kohut and Stokes. The beginning of what would soon turn into a sharply downward spiral was 2001 – the kindling incident, of course, 9/11. Considering the fact that its introduction is by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the study is surprisingly even-handed, almost non-partisan. It mainly purports to show the manner in which American values and attitudes differ from others, and how these reflect and affect U.S. foreign policy. Given the disturbing trends, this is certainly a welcome exercise. By the authors’ own account, the book’s most striking finding is “how broadly anti-Americanism ha[d] spread geographically by 2003” – no longer limited to Western Europe or to the Muslim world. For instance, the decline of pro-American opinion was no less than 25 points in Russia in less than a year; but dramatic declines were also recorded for all Western nations, having only grown worse since. Could it have been at least in part caused by the media? Kohut and Stokes record scanty references to an American “empire” before 1999. Afterward, however, their number doubled. By 2003, it had grown a whopping tenfold compared with a decade earlier. References to American “exceptionalism” also skyrocketed in U.S. news and wires: some sixteen times more in 2004 than in 1992. Yet there seemed to be little basis for it in the real world: surveys conducted by Pew probing public attitudes find the much-touted
exceptionalism “both equivocal and conditional.” Even when Americans claim to prefer going it alone, their “urge to be good world citizens and cooperate with allies is never far from the surface.” Additional surveys conducted by the University of Maryland’s Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) similarly concluded that a lack of public support for, say, eliminating trade barriers, was partly due to “not recognizing the mutual benefits of an interdependent global economy,” coupled with ignorance regarding foreign fears about American intrusions upon their cultures, rather than arrogant unconcern for the rest of the world. This juxtaposition of perception and reality is what makes this study particularly valuable. In addition to polling some 38,000 people from forty-four countries, Pew also conducted surveys in United States. The results are remarkable. Write Kohut and Stokes: “Most important, contrary to widespread misconceptions, Americans’ pride in their country is not evangelistic.” While nearly seventy percent of the American public believes in promoting U.S.-style democracy, it “evidences no missionary zeal for this task.” Quite simply, the Pew surveys indicate the public’s total “lack of imperial aspirations.” So much for the escalated media’s reports of an American empire. Facts notwithstanding, perceptions are thus created, with predictable effect. The reader who patiently finishes the entire book, rather than rest content with the first part to which the ominous title primarily applies, will discover that, lo and behold, the world is just plain wrong about us. Based on copious data, the authors find that “much of what fuels current anti-American sentiment around the world – perceptions of American nationalism and religiosity – is misinformed.” The remedy follows logically: “A better understanding of the American people could change all that.” Contrary to its own title, the book emphatically asserts that America is hardly poised “against” the world. This might explain at least in part why such a startling conclusion has escaped most reviewers. Friendly Fire suffers from a somewhat similar fate: Julia Sweig’s lament that the antiAmericanism gone global, unlike attacks in the battlefield, are hardly accidental. While sometimes admittedly accompanied by “an undertow or a more overt anti-Semitic hostility,” she claims that anti-Americanism is grossly exacerbated by bad policies and worse diplomacy. Premised on the reality of ubiquitous, alarmingly metastasizing, global antagonism to the United States, the book focuses on lost friendships, disappointed allies, whose rejection of U.S. policies is becoming increasingly “visceral.” Although acknowledging that perception rarely squares with reality, the sense that U.S., and specifically presidential, rhetoric is at odds with action contributes to the international community’s unease. Arguing that the traditional tools of public diplomacy would hardly make a dent; the problem is too deep and too pervasive, she opts for “thoughtful leadership,” characterized by greater sensitivity to our friends’ concerns. Unlike Kohut and Stokes, Sweig does not shirk from partisanship, blaming “the Republican Party’s ideological drive to overturn the twentieth-century social contract at home through privatizing public goods such as social security and health care,” and the Bush administration’s belief, which predated 9/11, “that U.S. power alone was adequate
to the task of addressing…. the critical global challenges of the twenty-first century.” Quite aside from defining those challenges unequivocally, to what extent this is a question of perception rather than reality is not addressed. Sweig accuses the United States foreign policy establishment of short-sighted elitism, of relying on information obtained from the upper 20% of a nation’s population, which she calls “the 80/20 dynamic”. In effect, this dynamic amounts to “talking to ourselves rather than listening to others about what [is] really happening in the country.” Coupled with this intellectual failing is a moral double standard: we urge developing countries to open their markets to U.S. good and capital while simultaneously retaining protectionist barriers ourselves, notably though not exclusively in agriculture. Concerned principally with U.S. policy rather than mere image, Sweig warns against over-reliance on public diplomacy, which she defines as “transparently progovernment propaganda at its worst or smart, nuanced, multifaceted outreach at its best.” No amount of soft power can replace “fairness, good policy, and substantive engagement with the international community.” This, she insists, is the reality. In other words, it’s not them, it’s us. Her approach, as well as her conclusions, are thus markedly different from Kohut and Stokes. Yet common to both studies is a concern that America is losing the proverbial battle for hearts and minds, with no sign of reversal. Sweig warns that rhetoric will hardly change anything “until the United States is viewed as signaling that its interests coincide with those of the wider world.” Fair enough. But the question is whether it is the U.S. alone that should be sending that signal by changing course or, instead, have the international community recognize that many of America’s policies are very much in the interest of the global community. Sweig admits that “the strategic challenge for countries bristling over but still aspiring to benefit from U.S. power is to decide whether allowing AntiAmericanism to fester and grow can really enhance their own prosperity, security, or power over the long term.” Absolutely. But this is a topic for another book, one that has yet to be written.
By Juliana Geran Pilon Dr. Pilon is Research Professor of Politics & Culture and Earhart Fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC. Her most recent book is entitled Why America is Such a Hard Sell: Beyond Pride and Prejudice (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007)
