Does imperialism exist in humanitarian garb? Yes, and he is the American since President Woodrow Wilson after World War I, when he was consolidated as a world leader. His was a position of a puritanical religious type, impregnated with a deep idealism that fed a campaign of a clear messianic nature that preached “the good news” of a capitalism and a universal democratic system of Anglo-Saxon invoice. The United States set itself the mission of selling it to the world as the revealed truth and the sure way of salvation. Crusade that ended up being strengthened in the heat of the Cold War, for fear of the threat of the “Soviet bear”.
Traditionally it has been a position more of the Democrats than of the Republicans, whose international policy, on the contrary, has been realistic, with the duo of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger as its greatest exponent. It has led to the wars promoted by the United States, from Korea and Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq. They were costly in resources and lives, with military and political defeats that only served to strengthen the military-industrial complex denounced almost three-quarters of a century ago, at the end of his presidency, by General Eisenhower, a hero of the Second War, the only war justified. and won in the last century.
That analysis, made by whoever had the authority to do it, remains valid and regains its importance now when the Democratic Biden administration opens with the tale of another arms race – the umpteenth in a hundred years – to confront the supposed Chinese threat. Reality shows a very different picture: the US military budget is higher than the total of the next ten countries added; To top it off, their military might overwhelm the Chinese. In other words, it is an unnecessary expense driven by the alliance of the superpowers denounced by Eisenhower. The North American experience has taught them that at the origin of periods of great prosperity lies a large military budget, which in these pandemic times is seen as restorative to a weakened economy that needs a Keynesian boost in demand through a substantial increase in spending. public … military.
But the reality is different, since the main threats, rather, challenges, for US security come from poverty on its southern border and in the Arab world. Poverty, migration and conflicts that are not solved neither with walls nor with weapons, but with a development strategy, infinitely cheaper than the unnecessary, scandalous and immoral arms escalation. It is also a radical solution that addresses structural causes of the crisis and not the application of humanitarian remedies to alleviate its consequences.
At this point Biden is perceived to be inconsistent and even weak, which would be offering Trumpism free and abundant ammunition. Like the president of Mexico, he proposes to advance an ambitious development program in the countries that expel population – El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala – so that people can find in their countries the work and basic services that they unsuccessfully seek in the United States. The policy of the hero of Biden, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was to finance after the war the reconstruction of Europe and Japan, so that their citizens could recover their living conditions and were solvent demanders of their products.
You should not let the problem overwhelm you, as it is beginning to happen, because you would be at the mercy of an unstoppable and devastating Trump. Silver exists and it is enough to extract a fraction of the total from the inflated defense budget. Those yes, are resources for national security. Furthermore, they would be concrete decisions and achievements, not mere words, that reaffirm the sense of solidarity and humanity that surrounds the new government. They should be announced immediately, sending a signal to the sending countries, their governments and the population that the problem is going to be definitively solved. In addition, it would give a firm footing to the redesign of the North American migration policy, so that it ceases to be an incentive for the adventure of “jumping the wall.”
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