Forgive me for quoting at length from George Melloan in today's paper. The Economist article he refers to sounds fascinating (I haven't yet read it), and it would be good to share our thoughts across the pond.

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"The world must be made safe for democracy," asserted [U.S. President] Woodrow Wilson to justify his declaration of war against Germany on April 2, 1917. Little has changed in American foreign policy since; last week President Bush rephrased the Wilsonian doctrine: "The advance of freedom is the calling of our time; it is the calling of our country."

A calling? The idea that America has a calling to spread freedom and democracy throughout the world seem commonplace to many Americans because it has been a part of American culture for so long. But the idea that a single country should feel a moral obligation to alter political habits all over the planet is not commonplace, and is not regarded as such by the rest of the world's people.

The Economist, a thoughtfully written magazine edited from a British perspective, this week devotes quite a lot of space to what it sees, harking back to the 1835 "Democracy in America," of Alexis de Tocqueville, as American "exceptionalism." Its calls it "a nation apart," a country unburdened by monarchical or feudal traditions and thus the ground on which true egalitarianism was able to sprout and thrive.

Some think the messianic impulses of Americans are imperialistic at worst and, at best, naïve.

A thoughtful article that raises some very good points. Thanks for drawing it to our attention, shufitz.

I suspect that most countries adopt a somewhat laissez-faire attitude to the political systems in other countries. Whilst we may deprecate their ways of governing themselves, we would not actively try to change things simply because we disagree with their philosophies. Americans seem to adopt a much more missionary approach.

Missionary zeal. That's a very good analogy. The USA has taken on the mantle that the British had around 150 years ago. Then it was us who felt it was our duty to put the world to rights.

We didn't do too bad a job of it in many ways - we gained the largest empire the world has ever seen and, within just a single generation, got rid of it almost without conflict or argument.

Richard English