The Achilles' heel of American foreign policy

THE horrific massacre in Paris reminds us of the Achilles' heel of American foreign policy. Ever since World War II, our foreign policy has rested on an oft-silent presumption that shared prosperity is a powerful and benevolent force for social stability, peace and (often) democracy. All the emphasis on free trade and globalisation is ultimately not a celebration of economic growth for its own sake. It's a means to larger ends of social cohesion and political pluralism.

In this, we have mostly projected our own domestic experience onto the world at large. Americans' obsession with material progress - which seems excessive and even vulgar to many - is largely what has enabled us to be a multiethnic, multicultural, multiracial and multireligious society. Everyone can strive to get ahead. There's a large common denominator. The competition is not always fair or equal, but the pervasiveness of these beliefs has generally allowed (there are, of course, conspicuous exceptions) Americans to tolerate their other differences, which are enjoyed or endured mainly in private.

Let it be said that this framework of values, when applied to foreign affairs as it has been since World War II, has paid large dividends. Germany and Japan rejoined the ranks of major nations. Germany and France are reconciled. The Cold War was won, and Eastern Europe was liberated from Soviet tyranny. Large parts of Asia have become hugely prosperous. That there has been no World War III reflects, in part, a world in which most nations have a stake in a global economic system that has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, spawned vast middle classes and created widespread interdependence.