Why Do They Hate Us?
A foreign policy expert argues that anti-Americanism involves much more than just Iraq.

Reviewed by Joseph S. Nye Jr.
Sunday, June 25, 2006

FRIENDLY FIRE

Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century

By Julia E. Sweig

PublicAffairs. 251 pp. $25

If Henry Luce was correct that the last century was the American century, will the 21st be the anti-American one? According to Julia E. Sweig, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, we are off to a bad start: "Since 2000, polls by over a half dozen organizations -- from Pew to Zogby, German Marshall Fund to the Guardian , Eurobarometer to Latinobar?metro -- have tracked the declining views about America, Americans, and U.S. foreign policy in every region of the world." Even a pro-American writer like Mario Vargas Llosa argued in June 2004 that images from Abu Ghraib prison and the Gaza Strip "have done more damage to the United States and Israel than all the bombs and the suicide attacks of the Islamic extremists in the last few months."

In her well researched and well written new book, Sweig acknowledges that anti-Americanism existed long before the administration of George W. Bush or the 2003 invasion of Iraq: As the big kid on the block, the United States is bound to engender feelings of envy and resentment. Moreover, demagogues in failing, corrupt and stagnant societies often use the United States as a scapegoat, blaming us for their own failure to cope with modernization and globalization.

Even so, it matters whether the big kid on the block acts as a bully or a friend. In Sweig's view, the Bush administration's controversial policies "stripped bare the latent structural anti-American animus that had accumulated over time." And the consequences, she warns, "are far more momentous than losing likeability. The new anti-American default has accelerated the process of the diminution of U.S. power." America's hard military power has grown, but our "soft power" -- the ability to get what we want by attraction rather than coercion -- has certainly declined in recent years.

As Sweig points out, the label "anti-American" covers a diverse set of attitudes that varies from country to country. "Just as the Inuits of Alaska have twenty-three words for ice, a part of nature that surrounds them and indeed defines their worldview," so South Koreans have eight separate words to describe their outlook on the ubiquitous United States -- loathe America, worship America, criticize America, resist America and so forth. In a series of interesting case studies, Sweig traces the historical roots of anti-Americanism in Korea, Turkey, Germany, Britain and Latin America (her academic specialty). In all these instances, the trend is unfavorable for the United States. (While Sweig mentions that Eastern Europe, India and Japan seem to have bucked this tendency, she devotes scant attention to them. A more thorough examination of these anomalies might have strengthened her book.)

Anti-Americanism obviously feels unpleasant, but does it really hamper American power? Sweig argues that it does. She points out that after favorable attitudes toward the United States dropped from 52 percent in 2000 to 12 percent in 2003, Turkey -- a NATO ally -- refused to let U.S. troops cross its territory to fight in Iraq. Similarly, anti-Americanism inhibited pro-American leaders such as Vicente Fox of Mexico and Ricardo Lagos of Chile from supporting U.S. policies on Iraq at the U.N. Security Council. Moreover, foreign perceptions of U.S. hypocrisy continue to undercut the Bush administration's efforts to promote democracy. Being admired, Sweig writes, makes it easier to be effective.

Can these trends be reversed? To some degree. "The structural foundations feeding Anti-America will remain deep-rooted," Sweig notes, "but American citizens still have a choice about whether they and their children will have to lie and say they are Canadians in order to travel the world unharassed." Sweig worries about what she sees as "the answer du jour ," the Bush administration's efforts to spend more money on broadcasting and public diplomacy. But the best advertising in the world will not sell a poor product: "How can public diplomacy overcome images of torture? It can't." Sweig wisely advises that "the answer is not to assert that the United States is committed to human rights but to implement policies that ban the practice of torture and hold accountable those responsible, especially at the highest levels."

Fortunately, even when the U.S. government's foreign policies are unattractive to others, our culture and our open political processes can produce a "meta" form of soft power -- winning grudging admiration for our freedoms at the same time that our policies are unpopular. After all, anti-American protests were rampant around the world during the Vietnam War, but the protesters did not sing "The Internationale"; they sang the American civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome." Today, the fact that America remains democratic and self-critical, that its free press exposes governmental flaws and that the legislative and judicial branches can act against the executive, means that anti-American critics of U.S. foreign policies can still feel a residual attraction to our society. As Sweig puts it, "The best antidote to Anti-America may well come not from how we fight (or prevent) the next war but from the degree to which we keep intact the social contract and international appeal of American society." She also urges Washington to adopt a changed foreign policy style that develops empathy for foreign cultures, practices better manners and pays more attention to rules and fairness. Anti-Americanism will not go away, but it need not dominate the 21st century if Americans follow the advice of this well-reasoned book. ?

Joseph S. Nye Jr. is a professor of international relations at Harvard University and the author, most recently, of "Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics" and "The Power Game: A Washington Novel."