What Uncle Sam Really Wants: on Foreign Policy

US historically opposes Third World nationalism and rights

The planners’ basic goals, repeated over and over again, were to prevent such “ultranationalist” regimes from taking power-or if they did take power, to remove them and install governments that favor private investment of domestic and foreign capital, production for export and the right to bring profits out of the country.

The US has been willing to tolerate social reform only when the rights of labor are suppressed and the climate for foreign investment is preserved. We’ve consistently opposed democracy if its results cannot be controlled. The problem with real democracies is that they’re likely to fall prey to the heresy that governments should respond to the needs of the people instead of those of US investers.

US aid to Americas correlates with torture by governments

The agro-export model produces an “economic miracle” where GNP goes up while the population starves. Popular opposition develops, which you then suppress with torture.

West plans to exploit Eastern Europe

There used to be a colonial relationship between Western and Eastern Europe. Now, there’s a serious conflict over who’s going to win the race for robbery and exploitation. Is it going to be German-led Western Europe or Japan? There are a lot of resources to be taken and lots of cheap labor. But first we have to impose the capitalist model on them. We don’t accept it for ourselves-but for the Third World, we insist on it. If we can get them to accept that, they’ll be easily exploitable and will move toward a new role as a Brazil or Mexico.

Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 71-72 Jan 13, 1991

US prefers force to diplomacy in Third World

Diplomacy is a particularly unwelcome option. The US has very little popular support for its goals in the Third World. This isn’t surprising, since it’s trying to impose structure of domination and exploitation. A diplomatic settlement is bound to respond to the interests of the other participants, and that’s a problem when your positions aren’t popular.

Negotiations are something the US commonly tries to avoid. That has been true in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Central America.