Summer 2017—Fukuyama’s Vision: A Worthy Dream With A Complicated Fulfillment

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Cold War ended amidst the acclamations of analysts who predicted that the global order of the 21st century would be dominated by Western brands of economic and political liberalism. Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist from Stanford University who contributed to this commentary, predicted the end of history as a record of ideological conflict. He described the American defeat of the Soviet Union as “the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution” that had led to “the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”  By the 21st century, Fukuyama perceived that in the realm of political ideology, the West—led and championed by the United States of America—held an uncontested position of supremacy. For the foreseeable future, Fukuyama thought that American economic, military, and ideological strength would be more than sufficient to usher in a universal global order that would protect individual human rights and freedoms and enshrine democracy as the overriding form of government in countries all across the world.

In September of 2001, radical Islamic terrorists carried out a series of devastating attacks against America’s foremost economic institutions in New York City as well as its primary military installation in Washington, D.C. The 9-11 attacks led many to question the applicability and value of Francis Fukuyama’s argument. Some began to doubt that the United States could or should impose its ideology of freedom and democracy upon the rest of the world. Others wondered if American foreign policy had, for too long, been founded upon an idealism that was dangerously flawed or naïve.

Did the 9-11 attacks undermine the value of Francis Fukuyama’s model of America’s ideological universalism? Does the War on Terror signal the futility of American idealism in seeking to promote its values of freedom and democracy on the world stage? According to officials who directed the war against the terrorists as well as neoconservative intellectuals who specialize in foreign policy, the answers to those questions are clear but complicated in their real-world fulfillment. Francis Fukuyama’s model of idealism provides essential guidance for any successful U.S. foreign policy in the age of global terrorism; however, Fukuyama’s ideological adherents have unfortunately encountered more difficulty in maintaining domestic morale and commitment to America’s idealistic goals in the 21st century than they ever expected or hoped for.

In the aftermath of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, the American president, George W. Bush, announced that “the freedom agenda”—a foreign policy iteration of Fukuyama’s idealism—would be one of the central tenets of the U.S.-led War on Terror. Reflecting Fukuyama’s own opinions, Bush strongly believed that freedom is not an exclusively American value, but a universal one that all peoples of the earth would willingly embrace if only given the chance. The terror attacks against America had been initiated, in part, because of a lack of freedom in the Islamic world. “The great tide of freedom,” Bush explained, “that swept much of the world during the second half of the twentieth century had largely bypassed one region: the Middle East.”  Thus, sending American military forces and devoting the United States’ economic energies to fight wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were not simply strategic attempts to hunt down and destroy America’s enemies; they were also part of President Bush’s goal of granting freedom and democracy to millions of Muslims who would, according to the theory, subsequently become far more likely to eschew the ideological radicalism of America’s enemies. Throughout his presidency, Bush attempted to spread his idealistic notions of freedom, democracy, and human rights to countries he considered to be in desperate need of those ideals. Whether it involved supporting fledgling democratic movements in Lebanon and the Palestinian Territories, encouraging dissidents and reformers in Iran and Syria, or maintaining strategic relationships with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the eight years of the Bush administration saw the American government actively using Fukuyama’s brand of idealism as the guiding influence for its foreign policy.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney was no less an important official who helped to implement Fukuyama’s idealism at the national level of government, and he explicitly described the United States’ role in world affairs in that terminology. “During World War II,” he explained, “we became freedom’s defender; at the end of the Cold War, the world’s sole superpower. We did not seek the position. It is ours because of our ideals and our power, and the power of our ideals.”  Cheney felt that America’s idealism was so precious to the world community that the U.S. could not afford to remain passive in the face of the ideological threat presented by radical Islam. He explained, “At the dawn of the age of terror, the United States was once again faced with an enemy committed to the destruction of freedom and the worldwide spread of a deadly ideology…this was not a fight that could be won on defense.”  Although the former vice president admitted that a new and threatening alternative to Western liberalism had arisen in the “age of terror,” it is important to note that he did not admit that alternative’s right to spread across the globe at the expense of America’s world order of freedom and democracy.

Declarations from leading officials in the American government who helped direct the early stages of the War on Terror clearly indicate that Fukuyama’s vision of the post-Cold War global order has longevity in matters of official foreign policy. For both Bush and Cheney, radical Islam’s resistance to this vision had to be proactively and preemptively crushed for the good of the United States and, even more importantly, for the good of the world community at large. Despite accusations of being idealistically naïve, officials like Bush and Cheney pressed forward with military operations, economic sanctions, and diplomatic initiatives in Afghanistan, Iraq, and all over the world in pursuit of their version of Fukuyama’s model of American idealism. This idealism provided the Bush administration with the overarching ideological goal for almost every move it made in pursuance of America’s foreign policy.

Neoconservative intellectuals, commentators, and pundits have praised the Bush administration for its idealistic tenacity. Norman Podhoretz, the editor at large of Commentary magazine and adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, was one such intellectual who embraced the ideas of Fukuyama, Bush, and Cheney and celebrated that the U.S. government had pursued the “great mission” of the War on Terror. Podhoretz was happy to report that President Bush and his closest advisors had what it took—Podhoretz referred to it as “the vision thing”—to enact the idealistic “impetus behind his conception of the American role in the world.” He approved of the fact that under President Bush, the United States of America had decided to pursue its ambition of changing the world for the better: “The first pillar of the Bush Doctrine, then, was built on a repudiation of moral relativism, an entirely unapologetic assertion of the need for and the possibility of moral judgement in the realm of world affairs, and a correlative determination to foster ‘the spread of democracy in the Middle East.’” Podhoretz saw an encouraging connection between Fukuyama’s theory of American idealism and the Bush administration’s policies of fighting for American versions of global freedom and democracy. For him, the 9-11 terrorist attacks had not undermined the value of Fukuyama’s idealism, and the U.S.-led efforts to protect and promote its ideology of human rights, individual liberties, and rule by majority were not futile at all; on the contrary, they were absolutely necessary to building a better world. Podhoretz and other neoconservative intellectuals were thrilled that high-ranking government officials like Bush and Cheney shared Fukuyama’s idealistic vision.

For all their enthusiasm regarding Fukuyama’s model and its prescriptions for U.S. strategy in the War on Terror, Bush, Cheney, and Podhoretz have each admitted the complications and difficulties associated with maintaining the American public’s commitment to an idealistic foreign policy. George W. Bush has written of his concern for the fate of democracy in Middle Eastern countries like Iraq: “Iraq still faces challenges, and no one can know with certainty what the fate of that country will be. But we do know this: because the United States liberated Iraq and then refused to abandon it, the people of that country have a chance to be free…I hope America will continue to support Iraq’s young democracy…There are things we got wrong in Iraq, but that cause is eternally right.” Dick Cheney has expressed similar concerns, arguing that it is the American people’s duty “to sustain and perpetuate America as a model for all those who aspire to live in freedom.” He criticized politicians who “want us to see the United States as having had and continuing to have a malign role in the world,” who “would have us retreat and deliberately diminish our power” on the world stage.  Norman Podhoretz has shared the same fears, wondering “whether the Americans of this generation will turn out to be…willing and…able to bear” the burden of the War on Terror; indeed, Podhoretz claimed that maintaining Fukuyama’s idealistic vision of U.S. supremacy will require the American people to “summon at least as much perseverance” as their forbearers did in the tumultuous years of the Cold War.  Evidently, all three men worry that a lukewarm commitment to the War on Terror expressed by many Americans in recent years could present resistance to Fukuyama’s model of global American dominance that might prove to be both destabilizing and self-defeating.

Officials like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have clearly proven their allegiance to Francis Fukuyama’s model of America’s ideological universalism by vigorously pursuing foreign policies that promote global freedom and democracy, and neoconservative intellectuals like Norman Podhoretz have celebrated this and continue, to this day, to reject the notion that pursuing Fukuyama’s idealism is somehow a futile endeavor. All three of these men have admitted the complications of maintaining the American people’s commitment to the cause, but they have used these complications to provide further justification for Fukuyama’s vision. In essence, they maintain that the difficulty of any idealistic cause in American foreign policy does not inevitably negate its value and worthiness, nor does it undermine the world’s need for more freedom and democracy. The terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 took many of Francis Fukuyama’s ideological disciples by surprise, but it did not weaken their resolve to see Fukuyama’s predictions come to fruition. In a singularly compelling way, the War on Terror reinforced their commitment to the cause; it only remains to be seen if the American people will rise to the occasion and support the path to victory.

Francis Fukuyama wholeheartedly believed in the inevitable victory of American idealism and the universal spread of freedom and democracy to all corners of the globe, but he also admitted that the road ahead would be a difficult one: “The victory of liberalism has occurred primarily in the realm of ideas or consciousness and is as yet incomplete in the real or material world. But there are powerful reasons for believing that it is the ideal that will govern the material world in the long run.” Since he made this prediction back in the early 1990s, many government officials and neoconservative intellectuals have embraced this viewpoint and have sought to implement it through the United States’ foreign policy—even in the face of tragic assaults by America’s most relentless ideological foes. Events like 9-11 have not stopped Fukuyama’s original vision of the 21st century from determining a large measure of America’s foreign policy, and those who have helped to adapt that vision to the age of global terrorism continue to hope that the American people will understand its value despite the complications and difficulties that come along with that vision. On that subject, Norman Podhoretz assumed that “the jury is still out, and it will not return a final verdict for some time to come.”  When electing national leaders, influencing policy makers, and helping to chart a course for America’s future role in the world, it is to be hoped that the people of the United States will not choose the path of least resistance simply because the right thing to do also happens to be the more difficult thing to do.

--Christopher Peterson, July 19th, 2017