I have traveled around quite a bit in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and China, while living in the Caucuses region and I have met and talked with upper middle class Iranians and extremist Muslims in my work as a missionary.  It is from this travel and personal experience that I write the following on the way that world perceives the United States. 

America is Hydra:

If you are not on board with America completely, and I mean completely, it is very easy to resent America.  American culture, people, business and military are insidious and often seem omnipresent.  Even if you successfully resist America politically, you turn around for one minute and you find that American popular culture and technology is undermining you.  You cut off one head and the American Hydra produces two more heads for you to fight. 

Take for instance the Republic of Georgia in 2005 George W Bush visited the country and the main highway into the Capital is still named after him.  After his visit American cars flooded the Georgian market as it suddenly became really easy to ship used and rebuilt cars here.  It was not only the car market though, fast food chains started opening up, business investment grew dramatically and News outlets in America suddenly began to invest in and train Georgian media in news and business.

In short time America transformed the Georgian economy and built up the pro-western regime here.  By contrast Russia was trying to do the same for little South Ossetia a part of Georgia that the Russian stole in the early 90s.  This little territory under the protection of Russia shrank in population, economic output and birthrates.  The more Russia poured into the effort the worst the situation in South Ossetia became.  A year after the war in 2008 Georgia had completely recovered, entire towns rebuilt, roads improved, businesses restored.  In that same amount of time the Russians rebuilt exactly three buildings in one town in South Ossetia.  The contrast was painful for the Russians and instructive to others in the region.

America had to make no major policy efforts to build up Georgia, no major bills had to pass Congress and the US media barely noticed our efforts in that country.  Which is how America really works all around the world.  We are able to constantly help our friends, frustrate our enemies and increase our influence without even trying very hard. 

America’s many heads means that price for resisting America is very high.  If you look around at our main enemies in the world you see that their media is tightly controlled, their cultures are closed off and in many cases their government policy is based in a large part on deception.  One of the reasons for this is that the influence of America is so great that to open up to the world at all opens you up to America.  Once you do that there is not stopping American influence from “corrupting” the people and undermining the regime. 

It is also part of the story that the common people see this as an American phenomena.  Western Europe can have this effect too but many people will point out that they have this effect because they are like America and are allies with America.   So if you are a political enemy of the United States, if you are a cultural traditionalist or if you just like your culture to go its own way and without constantly defining itself against and in contrast to America you want America to fail to one degree or another.  Opposing America is exhausting and nothing that has gone before in world history really prepares you for it.

America is a Talisman of Freedom, Success and Hope:

I hope you can see why America can seem like Hydra but it also needs to mentioned that America is more than that, it is also a Talisman.  I use Talisman instead of symbol because often non-Americans give America or just the idea of America certain magical or at least near magical powers.

America represents political freedom to people but also as a benchmark of success that they measure their own societies against.  Not only that but America provides hope to millions of people in tough situations around the world.  The last part is probably one of the most extraordinary things about America that a powerful country like America might actually help people that just need help is something people find very hard to believe is real and yet they can point to America acting in this way.  Because of that America will often give hope to people in their fight and that hope can sustain movements in vital ways.

By being this Talisman America challenges the core political and often cultural arrangements in a society.  Let’s take Iran/Persia for a moment.  In this historical context I will be referring to Persia and Persians instead of Iranians.  Persians were regional leaders politically, culturally and militarily for centuries.  Persians grew accustomed to this position and even in times of weakness they assumed they would return to their dominion soon.  In the 19th century as Persia and their traditional rivals the Ottoman’s collapsed Imperial Russia moved into dominance and this was taken in stride. Imperial Russia was understandable, their system non-threatening and their dominance due to a temporary military supremacy.  Later however as America and its client state of Israel took over and here was system that threatened everything the Persians knew about State craft.  The government was run by the people, their was no state religion or ideology that drove a ruling class and they were willing to trade with anyone.  What made it all worse was the America not only threw out everything the Persians knew about state craft and policy they were successful in every way.  Wealth, military power, influence, cultural achievements, sports, Americans achieved at everything and the only things Americans weren’t good at were things that Americans did not seem to care about.  This was a challenge that any government that ruled Persia, now Iran, would have to deal with.  The culture of their people would demand that they challenge America in some way. 

One thing that I have learned as missionary is that people learn new things when they are modeled.  It is very hard to get a concept that is new to a culture across to them without modeling it.  People have trouble imagining things they have never seen before but once they see it they do imagine what that would look like.  In many cultures their centuries of experience have taught them that for success you need strong, dictator like rule, an aggressive military, suppression of dissent and the like.  America challenges all these assumptions in disruptive ways and provoke the imaginations of the people in ways their rulers dislike.

In many traditionally dominant cultures America is a grave challenge.  Persians and others like them know a few things.  They know they are healthier, smarter, braver, stronger, and possess a deeper and superior culture to the Americans.  I mean have you met the typical American that travels around the world?  They are over weight, know little history, loud, rude, arrogant and often have a do-gooder attitude like they can fix things that are broken just because they are Americans.  Even in the way that American walk you tell how arrogant and ignorant they are.  What have Americans suffered?  What have they had to endure?  Did they have to survive the Mongols?  Where were they when the plagues came and devastated the region?  How many times did they have to rebuild their culture after conquest?  And yet… and yet Americans are successful and we are not.  It is question that eats at the soul of many people.

This leads people in many cultures and different countries to question their rulers and their systems of government.  Americans are losers and yet they succeed.  If we (whatever race or culture they are) had the same chance as Americans would we not surpass them in everything?  What are we doing to hold ourselves back or what are the clever Americans doing to hold us back and hold us down I wonder?

I think it is not impossible to see how the very success and presence of America on the world stage is a threat to dictators and oppressive regimes around the world. 

The Practical Effects:

One major practical aspect is that it is very hard to withdraw from the world.  It would not be hard to stop being a source of hope for the oppressed.  That is fairly easy and would be a great boon to the people that hate us the most.  Dictators all over the world would rejoice to know that Americans will never interfere with them and their oppression.  We also could withdraw some of our presence from the world and cede more space to our adversaries.   So no real problem for us so far.  But if we want to left alone and we really want people to stop hating us and looking for ways to oppose we have to start failing.

We have to curtail our culture, clamp down on our entertainment industry, severely restrict our military and even better shrink it by scrapping most of the navy.  Then we need to have a stagnating economy or perhaps a shrinking one.  We do all that and people all over the world will stop looking at America as a threat and will stop looking for ways to oppose us.  People would then take us seriously if we were to say, “If you leave us alone, then we will leave you alone.”

If we attempt to withdraw from the world but remain successful and engaged in trade and in selling our products over seas we will remain a symbol of success.  If we maintain a strong military it will be seen as a Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of every dictator, ideology or power opposed to us or our allies.  It will not satisfy them that we tell them we won’t use it they will not believe us.  

To withdraw and “mind our own business” while remaining militarily strong and economically successful is impossible.  Too many State actors and others are invested in seeing us fail.  We can give them the space they need to grow and become more powerful, allowing them to choose the time and place of their challenge to us or we can deny them time and space and force the issue before they are ready but conflict  will come to us.  When you hear people talking about acting in the “American Interest” and “withdrawing from conflict” and “minding our own business” you should know that practically that is impossible.   We are engaged in the world and as long as we are successful we must stay engaged.  We can try and stop being a source of hope for the weak and oppressed and we can enable the strong and aggressive but that is not really in our interest.  It will just give our enemies a window to act in and opportunity to grow stronger since they no longer need to worry about unrest at home or opposition to expansion into minor states in their area of influence.

To really and truly withdraw we must fail.  If we want to maintain our success we will and must be engaged in the world.  That is the stark reality of the world we live in.  America will never be ignored, at it was before World War II, unless we show our selves to be weak and do not present a challenging model of success to the oppressed people of the world.