'Americans Have Managed To Annoy Pretty Much the Entire World, Including Their NATO Allies'

A dispute has arisen in correspondence between Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama regarding the U.S. president’s announcement regarding the exceptionalism of the American nation. Well-known analyst Anatoly Wasserman spoke to KM.ru on Obama’s hypothesis and relations between the U.S. and Russia.

It seems that Americans were pretty offended by President Putin’s skepticism toward their claims to exceptionalism. They started to give examples of their own uniqueness, but the problem is that they have mixed up two different meanings of the word “uniqueness.” The first is that of exceptional achievements. Yes, the Americans have many exceptional achievements, just like we and many other nations do. Furthermore, almost every person can count themselves exceptional or unique in some small way.

But, so far as I understand, Vladimir Putin meant something entirely different. Americans consider themselves exceptions to every rule of behavior. They allow themselves many liberties that they strongly condemn in others. This kind of uniqueness is, of course, unacceptable. Yes, we are all different, and in this sense of the word, we are unique, but we are all equal in that we are bound to follow the same rules. Our rights come precisely from our responsibilities. To put it simply, a person’s right is the duty not to carry out actions that affect other people’s rights. So, if Americans feel they have the right to do something, it means that they should grant others the right to carry out the same action and not think that they have been granted a special exception of some kind.

It is completely expected that America has been so offended by this remark; President Obama has even felt the need to reinforce that Americans are unique. It is very difficult for someone used to overstepping boundaries to return to where he should be. Otherwise, it would be like the case of the Moscow River, which was threatened a long time ago by floods almost as serious as those in Amur — of course, not quite so serious, but given the number of people living on its banks, the effect would have been similar to the recent floods. The case was closed when tall, granite walls were built around the Moscow River and its course regulated through a system of reservoirs. Today, it is an excellent tourist sight — and the water does not reach the banks, even in our current September downpours.

And so, if Americans insist too much on their own exceptionalism, they will see that the rest of humanity will join together to bring them down from flood level toward the river bank. In order for us not to waste strength and resources on this, it is better for them to realize it for themselves. Together, the whole world has enough strength to create such a river bank. It is clear that Americans have managed to annoy pretty much the entire world, including their NATO allies — that is without even mentioning the current crisis of capitalism which is global, of course, but came about as a result of American action specifically.

As regards the United Nations, it takes only one veto from one of the permanent members of the Security Council to prove that the U.N. cannot be used seriously against any of its permanent members. By the way, the right of veto was included in the U.N. Charter at the suggestion of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.