What did the Founding Fathers actually think about foreign policy? Orrin McIntyre takes a look at George Washington's farewell address, and gets some of the original thoughts and opinions behind the words of our first president, George Washington.
00:08:24.480It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.
00:08:40.040I am predicting that this will be a great nation and we should give an example to the world of a great people who are guided by justice and benevolence.
00:08:47.880Who can doubt that in the course of time and things, the fruit of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantage that might be lost by a steady adherence to it?
00:08:58.700We shouldn't be taking the short view.
00:09:01.380We shouldn't look for short-term advantage.
00:09:03.260We should be understanding that a solid policy, that a wise policy, that a prudent policy is one that will continue into the future.
00:09:11.740Can it be that providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue?
00:09:18.580The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature.
00:09:23.880Alas, it is rendered impossible by its vices.
00:09:27.240So, once again, the founders are always pointing to virtue.
00:09:32.060Virtue is incredibly important, right?
00:09:36.100That's what allows the American form of governance to operate.
00:09:39.820To the degree that it does not operate, it is a lack of virtue that has afflicted it.
00:09:45.800And so, if you have a virtuous population, they should be able to conduct their foreign policy in this way.
00:09:52.180In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, invenerate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachment for others should be excluded, and that in place of them, just an amicable feeling towards all should be cultivated.
00:10:11.360So, here he warns against being too hostile or too favorable, right?
00:10:16.240We do not want to deeply invest our identity in hostility towards other nations or in loyalty to other nations.
00:10:24.440We should be neither excessively favorable nor excessively hateful.
00:10:28.560The nation which indulges towards another and habitual hatred or habitual fondness is, in some degree, a slave.
00:10:38.700It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and interest.
00:10:48.500So, if you are too angry or you are too loyal to another country, you become its slave.
00:10:55.140If you are focusing all of your energy and hatred towards a country, you are its slave.
00:11:00.320And if you are focusing all of your support or favor towards a country, you are its slave.
00:11:06.400That is something that I think a lot of people on both sides of the foreign policy debate, especially around places like Ukraine and Israel, should probably think about.
00:11:15.460Not overly hostile, not obsessed with being hostile to it, but also not loyal to it, not making yourself overly favorable to it.
00:11:23.400Either way, that leads you towards slavery.
00:11:30.320Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold on slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur.
00:11:49.500It makes you quick on the trigger, right?
00:11:51.080If you're too hot towards another state, if you're too angry, you're going to constantly be looking for offense.
00:11:57.900You're going to take offense at every turn, and you are going to make mistakes.
00:12:01.560Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.
00:12:06.220The nation, prompted by ill will and resentment, sometimes impels toward the government contrary to the best calculations of policy.
00:12:14.620The government sometimes participates in the national propensity and adopts through passion what reason would reject.
00:12:21.040At other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister, pernicious motives.
00:12:31.520The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty of nations, has been the victim.
00:12:37.560So, if you are too passionately against a nation, if you're too angry, if you're too hostile to a foreign nation without cause,
00:12:45.540this can create a situation where the government will follow the passions of the people and go to war in a case where it should not,
00:12:52.860or the government has the ability to whip up the people to go to war if they have that special interest in a case where they otherwise would not,
00:13:02.100where rational interests for the United States would not take this position.
00:13:06.500So, again, here, being hostile has its own problems.
00:13:10.960So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.
00:13:18.760Sympathy for a favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of imaginary common interests in cases where no real common interests exists,
00:13:28.220and infusing in one the immunities of the other betrays the former into participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.
00:13:39.840So, he's already said we have to be careful about being too angry.
00:13:45.520We have to worry about being too hostile towards another nation.
00:13:49.620However, we also need to be very careful about being too sympathetic, about being too favorable,
00:13:55.600because if you become too favorable towards another country, especially when they might not reciprocate the same way,
00:14:03.360but even if they don't, even if they do, you still need to be careful,
00:14:06.560because ultimately it will facilitate the illusion that you have common interests.
00:14:10.980If you favor another nation, no matter what, on a consistent basis,
00:14:15.820you will build up this idea that you have the same interests when you don't,
00:14:20.280and that will make you easier to manipulate.
00:14:23.140It will cause you to possibly take on their interests when you don't have them,
00:14:28.040and this will put you in quarrelsome wars you should not be involved in with no real justification for it.
00:14:34.540It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others,
00:14:42.840which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions,
00:14:47.680but unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained,
00:14:52.960and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties
00:14:58.240from whom equal privileges have been withheld.
00:15:01.360So if you make another nation your favored nation,
00:15:04.980if you make a nation one that you are supporting no matter what,
00:15:10.340then ultimately you will make these concessions,
00:15:13.680and not only will those concessions hurt your country,
00:15:16.660because you are making concessions you should not make normally,
00:15:20.360but it will also encourage you to basically anger every other nation
00:15:25.940who is not receiving that status, right?
00:15:30.260If you are not receiving the status of the favored nation,
00:15:33.520and everyone else is noticing the special treatment that the other nation gets,
00:15:38.500it will create hostility from those other nations,
00:15:42.520and your point as being an American politician is not to favor other nations