As part of my promise to share more interesting information from my foreign policy/international studies course, here is an in-class response I had written last week– summarizing the ideals that have dominated U.S. and Western foreign policy. All of the writing is my own work, but the information is from a variety of sources (all of which I do not claim to own.. etc [insert disclaimer here]). I wrote this in 1-hr, so if it’s imperfect…well, you’ll know why.
Oh, and thanks to my professor for being an incredible teacher. 
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In analyzing the significant political and economic changes in the past 150 years, it is very important to examine the most prevalent shifts in our global system: the rise from agrarian societies to vastly and rapidly industrialized nations, and the deeply and profound impacts of the fall of global capitalism — particularly relating to social stability.
The biggest contribution to the rise of capitalism and free markets was the industrial revolution. The revolution included the developments of faster transportation (i.e. railroads), which extended communication. The growth of industries expanded and created a new system where humans became a commodity–machines that were considered assets to the industry. This rapid growth and automation of humanity led to one of the most destructive wars and the first modern war: World War I.
Fought to the death, WWI was so absurdly devastating that leaders–particularly President Woodrow Wilson–sought to prevent such modern catastrophes to ever occur again. This led to the “Liberal Theory of History” and the subsequent Bretton Woods Order: theories that both advocated democracy, free markets–which would provide economic and political stability– in order to achieve universal peace (the Wilsonian Triad).
What followed the devastation of WWI and later reaffirmed these ideas was one of the largest financial failures of laissez faire capitalism: The Great Depression. During the Great Depression, unemployment skyrocketed and severe economic instability fed public unrest. The insecurity within markets led to people thirsty for change and revolution, and even led to the growth of the German Nazi Party–whose country experienced extreme hyperinflation and economic instability. As part of his fourteen points of peace, Wilson sought to create the League of Nations and build relationships among the WWI-ravaged European countries, but when WWII broke out, this institution collapsed and Wilson’s dream for the “war to end all wars” collapsed with it.
Nevertheless, as another war waged in Europe and the U.S. “saved the day” by bombing Nagasaki and Hiroshima and by helping rebuild Europe via the Marshall Plan, the ideas of maintaining free markets and democracy in the world continued to dominate American policy. With institutions like the IMF and the World Bank to regulate exchange rates and fund reconstruction efforts, the “New World Order” was pushed upon the 21st century as the best political and economic alternative to achieving prosperity and peace. The idea was that free markets –with a decent amount of Keynesian reform and some government control–could move forward to yield wealth in places where it can be most beneficial. When countries traded, had comparative advantage, and reached a theoretical level of “no waste,” everyone would be employed, satisfied, and less likely to cause uproarious events such as revolutions. Furthermore, a democracy where the political system is created “for the people, by the people” also adds to the idea of socioeconomic stability and that democratic liberal-market nations would not wage wars.
Interestingly enough, as these three main ideas of peace, democracy, and free markets took hold of the modern world, many “new” democracies emerged to challenge these theories. In the case of Martin Jacques’s book When China Rules the World, Jacques describes an asianized form of democracy yielding prosperity in the Asian Tigers — especially Japan. The Anglo-American form of democracy, which is supposed to be the only and best form in achieving peace, is not the system that has taken shape in modern Asia.
So, if democracy and free markets lead to both peace and modernity, what makes of the East and Southeast Asian cases? Singapore has survived and prospered under autocratic and free-market ideals, while Japan has prospered under a bureaucratic, “top-to-bottom” system.
Today, as globalization in economics and politics intertwine the East and the West, the ideas of free markets, democracy, and peace are ever more contested. With a market-socialist periphery country such as China rising to meet the hegemonic standards of Europe and the U.S., the world will need to pay close attention to the developments of the 21st century. It took the Great Depression, two extremely disconnecting world wars, and rampant political turmoil in the world to yield the modern liberal market, Bretton Woods, and U.N. system that we have today…What will it take for another revolutionary change or reform to occur in the global socioeconomic system? It appears only time will tell–or the advocates of the Wilsonian Triad will not let that happen.
