Upholding democracy: US should be a model, not a crusader

FROM time to time, US presidents declare that their country’s mission is to change the world and mould it towards being like America’s liberal democracy, and that it would not hesitate to employ its power to achieve that goal.

President Woodrow Wilson stated his commitment to “make the world safe for democracy” after World War I, while in the midst of World War II, President Franklin D Roosevelt outlined a vision of a future in which people the world over could enjoy certain essential freedoms. American presidents from Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan depicted the Cold War as a struggle between a communist dictatorship, the Evil Empire, and an alliance of freedom-loving democracies.

President George W Bush launched his costly wars in the Middle East in the name of “democracy promotion”. Or, as he put it during his second inaugural address, “it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world”. And more recently, as he mobilised international support for Ukraine to fight Russian aggression and pledged a swift response if China were to invade Taiwan, President Joe Biden has made the notion of “democracies versus autocracies” the organising principle of his foreign policy.