US Intervention: Success or Failure?

The US frequently intervenes in foreign countries. This can the take form of supporting one group or leader over another, providing financial aid to one faction, imposing sanctions, sponsoring or actually engaging in a coup, engaging in covert action, spreading propaganda, or actually invading and occupying a country. We should be able, therefore, to look at the history of US foreign intervention and determine whether this has been largely a success or a failure.

Note that for the purposes of this article, I will generally be defining success or failure in terms of the United States own goals and objectives. Success does not necessarily mean the outcome was good or moral, only that the outcome corresponded to US interests. It should also be made clear that just because the US publicly states that a given goal is their aim, we should not assume that is their true aim, we need to look at the broader context. The purpose here is to determine whether US foreign intervention has been productive, from their own point of view.

Gandhi and Non-Violence

Mohandas Gandhi is often hailed as a hero who achieved independence for his country through the use of purely non-violent resistance. He is also famous around the world for his philosophy of non-violence. Unfortunately there are a couple problems with this picture of Gandhi. First, India's independence was not achieved through non-violence alone, despite the common myth. Second, Gandhi's positions on non-violence require complete submission to evil. They would have led to the loss of World War II, a greater genocide of the Jewish people, and many other terrible events. Gandhi was certainly a noble man, with noble goals and many powerful ideas, but is important to understand his true role in history so that we do not learn false lessons. After all, we can only learn from history if we have accurate historical facts.