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| American missionaries in Lagos, Nigeria |
The Word of God, the carrot and the stick symbolize the areas of concentration of America’s international relations. America has sent thousands of missionaries to every country of the world, especially in the developing nations, to preach the Bible. Very often these missionaries brought with them the Word, but early on not the type of carrot that translates into feeding the hungry. The mission was to spread the name of Jesus Christ and to convert people to the faith.
But divisions sprung up among the missionaries as to social responsibility, as one historian notes, with newer groups proclaiming the need to help the poor and the needy of the world as a primary goal of mission. The divisions of intent became an issue, but so did the religious differences as well, as some groups strove for peaceful humanitarian assistance while others were accused of marrying into government’s concerns, including helping the CIA in South America with the Sandinistas.
America expanded its influence, however, through its religious groups in many ways, at times with roles dictated by missionary boards in the ways folks oversee business. Indeed as one author points out from a quote by John K. Fairbank’s The Missionary Enterprise in China and America (1974), religious boards became the country’s "first large-scale transnational corporations."
The carrot represents those offerings of aid from time, those millions thrown at inane governments or even cruel ones. So long as the nations involved appeared to cooperate with America’s aims, the money continued to stream. Even those countries who presented disagreeable characteristics, remained the benefactor’s blessing, even when that blessing might seem unwarranted to some. The blessing came as the tool for keeping loyalty the same and for replicating America's goal of spreading democracy.
The Marshall Plan, after World War II, was put in place as a means of helping rehabilitate Europe from the consequences of war; but by 1961 the national focus on foreign aid had dwindled, so President John F. Kennedy formulated the Foreign Assistance Act in 1961 with a justification based on three notions as the President maintained: (1) then current foreign aid programs, "America's unprecedented response to world challenges", were largely unsatisfactory and ill suited for the needs of the United States and developing countries, (2) the economic collapse of developing countries "would be disastrous to our national security, harmful to our comparative prosperity, and offensive to our conscience", and (3) the 1960s presented an historic opportunity for industrialized nations to move less-developed nations into self-sustained economic growth.
At the same time Kennedy spoke of the moral and spiritual side of support underlined as well in words like these to justify America’s largesse in helping other nations and to help people who question foreign aid understand the need for assistance that went beyond the notions of American expansion. "The answer is that there is no escaping our obligations: our moral obligations as a wise leader and good neighbor in the interdependent community of free nations--our economic obligations as the wealthiest people in a world of largely poor people, as a nation no longer dependent upon the loans from abroad that once helped us develop our own economy--and our political obligations as the single largest counter to the adversaries of freedom."
"To fail to meet those obligations now would be disastrous; and, in the long run, more expensive. For widespread poverty and chaos lead to a collapse of existing political and social structures which would inevitably invite the advance of totalitarianism into every weak and unstable area. Thus our own security would be endangered and our prosperity imperiled. A program of assistance to the underdeveloped nations must continue because the Nation's interest and the cause of political freedom require it."
The stick represents the force America applies through aiding enemies of enemies and the problem of late, the provocation of war which has not historically been policy but was initiated in Iraq. Previously America looked initially to other nations to proverbially paddle those behinds of the errant nations who don’t conform to the powers the US wields. But then the stick of war became an overt way as well.
These policies bring differences and the need for policy revision, re-definitions of America’s intent, as the rest of the world has recognized what history has told. The Bible movement remains an ongoing avenue for bringing education combined with religion to the poor, uneducated folk that long to have the promise of heaven on earth as well as the heaven that is promised if people just believe. The problem has been the latter promise emphasized more than the offer of serious help. In modern ways, more and more religious groups, however, have recognized the need to separate the goods and services people need to survive from the Bible verses of spiritual value proposed to save their souls. But the practice still continues among religious groups, to bring in new followers through the mechanism of charity tethered to some holy words.
Recently candidates in the Republican Presidential primary debated America’s foreign policy, at a time when just like before the Second World War America’s concern for its own people has become especially pronounced for economic as well as philosophical and political reasons. Governor Perry reflects the view of many to take care of America first with his remarks about how his administration would give foreign aid to country’s starting at “zero dollars.”
Newt Gingrich, another person of the Republican primary Presidential races, has acquired a laundry list of foreign policy positions from his days in Congress to the present time. During a debate on foreign policy, Gingrich agreed with Perry that the dollars should begin at zero and also agreed that helping Israel should be an exception. On the other hand, Gingrich has been clear on his position regarding Iran, opening the door to the potential for war and taking an aggressive stance on the treatment of prisoners as well. He sees the role of the United States as carrying the banner of democracy to the nations of the world.
President Barack Obama is seen by writers and experts on foreign policy to be a very different leader than his campaign indicated he would be in 2008. Indeed he is seen as turning out “ in many ways, to have pursued a fairly conventional, at times, hawkish foreign policy.” The President's foreign policy credentials include the following according to a recent foreign affairs reference: “Obama has taken on a number of major foreign-policy initiatives, including a renewed troop surge in Afghanistan, the negotiation of the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, the NATO intervention in Libya, the withdrawal from Iraq, ongoing trade negotiations with China, and of course, the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. “
So as Hillary Clinton offers up America’s promise again, those who argue what these need to be should recall those history lessons, whether in relationship to Iran, the newest “enemy” or France, right now a friend. For otherwise those international agreements that are signed continue to be changeful as well, depending on who wins and who loses at the elections and from those lessons of the Bible, the carrot and the stick.
