… over the last 50 years, provided by Obama in The Audacity of Hope pp. 279-80:
Indonesia provides a handy record of U.S. foreign policy over the past fifty years. In a broad outline at least, it’s all there: our role in liberating former colonies and creating international institutions to help manage the post-World War II order; our tendency to view nations and conflicts through the prism of the Cold War; our tireless promotion of American-style capitalism and multinational corporations; the tolerance and occasional encouragement of tyranny, corruption, and environmental degradation when it served our interests; our optimism once the Cold War ended that Big Macs and the Internet would lead to the end of historical conflicts; the growing economic power of Asia and the growing resentment of the United States as the world’s sole superpower; the realization that in the short term, at least, democratization might lay bare, rather than alleviate, ethnic hatreds and religious divisions – and that the wonders of globalization might also facilitate economic volatility, the spread of pandemics, and terrorism. In other words, our record is mixed – not just in Indonesia, but across the globe.
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