President Franklin Roosevelt once commented about Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza that “He may be a son of a bitch, but he is OUR son of a bitch”.
In 2007, former Reuters correspondent Bernd Debussman observed that this could well be taken as the leitmotif of the U.S. government throughout the decades.
Indeed, it could describe the foreign policies of most countries as governments continue to put their national interests above those of others and contradict almost daily the pronouncements of many governments about a “principled foreign policy”.
Throughout the 20th Century, successive American governments have applied this thinking to Latin America.
This is exemplified by the United Fruit Company and other similar economic interests that governed U.S. involvement in that part of the world.
The fight against Soviet communist dictatorships and expansionism justified, to most Americans, U.S. support for a good number of dictatorships in the region as a bulwark against this threat to American interests.
Great powers have always supported dictatorships when it suits their interests regardless of how egregiously they behave.
The British and French were not much better than the U.S. in what they considered to be their sphere of influence.
In Africa and Asia, colonial interests led to support for maintaining a hold on their colonies and wars against liberation movements.
The United States supported their fight in order to prevent liberation movements, largely supported by the Soviets, from taking power over lands containing oil and strategic minerals.
In Europe and Asia, the Soviet Union and China operated with the same disregard for the inviolability of borders and human rights.
Eastern Europe was an armed Soviet camp, and Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 underscored the brutal extremes to which the USSR would go to keep its dictatorships in power.
China proceeded in equal measure to persecute its minorities and conquer Tibet, practicing cultural genocide and the murder of millions to consolidate and hold on to power.
And both the USSR and China supported the dictatorial communist regime in North Korea and met the American invasion of Vietnam with their own logistical, military, and political support for the communist North.
Iran has also undergone foreign involvement in its governance with the United Kingdom and the United States orchestrating the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953 and imposing the Shah once again in power.
This action eventually led to the revolution of 1979 in which the Islamists took power, with the tragic consequences we see today.
In 1954, U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother, CIA Director Allan Dulles, engineered the coup in Guatemala that overthrew the democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz and replaced him with military dictator Carlos Castillo Armas.
The end result was years of civil war that cost thousands of lives.
Both brothers had major investments in the United Fruit Company that ran the banana industry.
The Eisenhower administration preferred the pragmatic approach of protecting their investment than the principle of supporting a democratically elected government.
In 1979, the USSR invaded Afghanistan and imposed its communist allies on the country – a move that led to the creation of the Taliban and its tragic role today.
The point that I am making with this synopsis of history is that all of these countries – dictatorships, democracies and autocracies – have preferred to employ pragmatism rather than principle in determining their relative respect for the United Nations Charter and the various human rights agreements to which they have ostensibly adhered.
And this continues today.
In February, 32 members of the U.N. abstained from voting on a resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Even though this invasion was contrary to the U.N. Charter, many of these countries preferred to have access to cheap Russian energy or weapons.
Others have leaders who are antidemocratic and seek to remain in power until their death.
Both Russia and China offer models of governance that refrain from insisting on respect for human rights or democratic practices.
Yet others are keen to vote against anything that the West supports, whether right or wrong.
In Latin America, many democracies continue to support the Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, and Cuban dictatorships despite the fact that these governments oppress their people and limit their political, economic, and social freedoms
.
Despite many governments calling for respect for the principles of international law, few if any practice it in reality.
National interests continue to supersede principle, and this is a major reason why, for example, climate change is not being addressed forcefully by many countries.
The jobs created by, and profits made from fossil fuels outweigh environmental concerns and may well lead us to an eventual crisis.
What can be done?
Absent principled voters and leaders, not much.
Nations always put their own self-interest first and global needs second.
As long as this is so, principles will always be trumped by pragmatism, despite the potential cost to our own long-term well-being.
Eduardo is a former deputy spokesperson for Ban Ki-Moon.
He is an expert in public diplomacy.
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