JTW's Politics & History - Author: Chomsky, Noam

Understanding Foreign Policy Motives

If we hope to understand anything about the foreign policy of any state, it is a good idea to begin by investigating the domestic social structure:

• Who sets foriegn policy?
• What interests do these people represent?
• What is the domestic source of their power?

It is a reasonable surmise that the policy that evolves will reflect the special interests of those who design it. An honest study of history will reveal that this natural expectation is quite generally fulfilled. The evidence is overwhelming, in my opinion, that the United States is no exception to the general rule - a thesis which is often characterized as a 'radical critique,' in a curious intellectual move...

Some attention to the historical record, as well as common sense, leads to a second reasonable expectation:

• In every society, there will emerge a caste of propagandists who labor to disguise the obvious, to conceal the actual workings of power, and to spin a web of mythical goals and purposes, utterly benign, that allegedly guide national policy.

A typical thesis of the propaganda system is that 'the nation' is an agent of international affairs, not special groups within it, and that 'the nation' is guided by certain ideas and principles, all of them noble... A subsidiary thesis is that the nation is not an active agent, but rather responds to threats posed to its security, or to order and stability, by awesome evil forces."

• Chomsky, Noam
  • Radical Priorities - 3^rd Edition
    • Edited by C.P. Otero
  • AK Press
  • E 840.C484 1981, 2003

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