Andrew Friedman
At the height of the Cold War, U.S. partners could reliably count on U.S. military or intelligence support for any number of actions if they were sold as vital to counter communism. This included coup d’états and extreme human rights violations up to and including death squads. While U.S. military and intelligence support for unsavory regimes and actors is somewhat well known, historical examples of human rights concerns taking a back seat to geopolitics are not limited to the Pentagon or Langley.
Take, for example, the annual Human Rights Reports (HRRs). These reports are a legally required Department of State exercise that reports on human rights violations in every country around the globe. They are generally regarded as factual, objective, and a vital source for journalists, analysts, government adjudicators, and policymakers. However, analysis from the Cold War period shows consistent gaps between the analysis of human rights organizations and the Department of State’s HRRs in their reporting on U.S. allies versus countries seen as competitors or Soviet allies. According to the authors, this indicates “that the [United States] shows significant favoritism towards countries that it values strategically.”
This approach is unsurprising, as it is not uncommon for the United States or other sovereign states to stand by allies in international arenas, even in the midst of unpopular, problematic, or morally abhorrent decisions. It does, however, demonstrate the breadth of support for problematic regimes in efforts to counter geopolitical foes and the insistence on such support from all elements of the U.S. foreign policymaking process. Put differently, at times, all U.S. foreign policy decisionmakers, including the Department of Defense, the Department of State, and the Intelligence Community, have seen value in glossing over human rights concerns.
The Soviet Union, since its collapse in 1991, has no longer been the pacing threat for the United States. This role has been assumed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over the past several years, leading to concerns that human rights and democracy, which were once dismissed in international efforts to counter Moscow, may now be dismissed in efforts to counter Beijing.
No comments:
Post a Comment