I came across an article in The National Interest that caught my eye. The article is called “Once upon a time in Westphalia” and discusses how two British MPs, Richard Cobden and John Bright, made a convincing case for England not to interfere in the affairs of other nations. It highlights England’ undue concern about the internal workings of other countries (sound familiar), and why England would be better off eschewing all foreign entanglements. (Remember England shared the same messianic commitment to liberalism that many in America do today). Cobden’s dinner toast would be “No Foreign Policy”. Technology and globalization renders the idea of no foreign policy moot, but the main thrust of their argument still applies. I am not saying that I agree with this, but it is worth a read. Seems like some arguments withstand the test of time.
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In all my travels . . . three reflections constantly occur to me: how much unnecessary solicitude and alarm England devotes to the affairs of foreign countries; with how little knowledge we enter upon the task of regulating the concerns of other people; and how much better we might employ our energies in improving matters at home.
Robert Cobden
How are the interests of England involved in this question? This is, after all, the great matter which we, the representatives of the people of England, have to consider. It is not a question of sympathy with any other State. I have sympathy with Turkey; I have sympathy with the serfs of Russia; I have sympathy with the people of Hungary, whose envoy the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton [Lord Palmerston, recently Foreign Secretary and soon to be prime minister] refused to see . . . I have sympathy with the Italians, subjects of Austria, Naples, and the Pope; I have sympathy with the three millions of slaves in the United States; but it is not on a question of sympathy that I dare involve this country, or any country, in a war which must cost an incalculable amount of treasure and of blood. It is not my duty to make this country the knight-errant of the human race, and to take upon herself the protection of the thousand millions of human beings who have been permitted by the Creator of all things to people this planet.
John Bright
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For good measure, I am adding some words from our own Founding Father, George Washington, who speaks very much along the same lines.
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Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations, cultivate peace and harmony with all; religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? . . .
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humour or caprice?
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…nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others should be excluded; and that in place of them just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. . . .
A passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld.
George Washington
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