The Necessary Nation

Until very recently, the United States considered itself to be the indispensable country. It could do what it wanted, and nothing could happen if it didn’t want it to. Its power was necessary and sufficient. Yes, and yes only if the United States wanted it so.

Many believed that this attitude belonged to the times of George W. Bush, times very different than those of his father, the elder Bush, who was capable of the utmost caution before the fall of Communism, showing no sign of arrogance or of a victory celebration. He was also able to weave the ultimate agreement in the first Iraq War, tracing a dotted line of a future international order.

That belief is not true. The idea that the United States is the indispensable nation belongs to Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton’s secretary of state. It is not very original; Lincoln already had claimed, 150 years ago when the U.S. was not a world power, that the nation was “the last best hope of earth.” All nations have narcissistic moments like this, which are not always justified, as is the case of the United States.

In the new multi-polar map that has developed in the 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the United States is not the indispensable nation. Vali Nasr, a senior aide to Hillary Clinton, just published a book entitled “The Dispensable Nation.”

Now, the United States has to find international consensus when it wants to do something in the world or has to face negative consensus, like the coalition between Russia, China, Cuba and Ecuador, supporting the escape of technical contractor, Edward Snowden, who reported the secret espionage led by National Security Agency.

With the loss of power caused by its disastrous politics in the Middle East — two wrong wars incapable of resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict — and the damage to its reputation caused by the methods it used against terrorism — drones — the universal espionage reported by Snowden adds up.

In Moscow or Havana, those who convert hostility against the United States into ideology rub their hands together. They can pretend that they are protagonists of a theatre production that is only made up of extras. Snowden and Bradley Manning are American, as are the digital companies involved in the espionage, and the journalists of The Guardian that revealed the bulk of the scandal belongs to a nation with a special and unbreakable relationship with Washington.

The United States may be a dispensable nation, but nothing in the world moves without the United States being in the middle, be it universal espionage or the recognition of the rights of gays and lesbians. During the same days in which its espionage scandalized the world, two U.S. Supreme Court rulings gave an irreversible, global push to support gay marriage. The United States is not the indispensable nation, but it is necessary. If it did not exist, it would have to be invented.