National interest - Citizendia

This article is about the generic foreign affairs term. See The National Interest for the political journal. The National Interest ( NI) is a prominent conservative American bi-monthly International affairs journal published by the Nixon

The national interest, often referred to by the French term raison d'État, is a country's goals and ambitions whether economic, military, or cultural. French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people In Political geography and International politics, a country is a Political division of a geographical entity An economy is the realized social system of production exchange distribution and consumption of goods and services of a country or other area A military is an Organization authorized by its Nation to use force usually including use of Weapons in defending its Country (or by attacking The notion is an important one in international relations where pursuit of the national interest is the foundation of the realist school. Realism, also known as political realism, in the context of International relations, encompasses a variety of theories and approaches all of which share a belief

The national interest of a state is multi faceted.

Types of National Interests

The primary and inalienable national interest is the state's survival and security.

Secondary goals include economic growth and improvement of quality of life for domestic citizens. Another motivating factor in some states is honour, as W. D. Clinton claimed was a central motivation for Truman in entering the Korean War. ^[1]

Many states, especially in modern times, regard the preservation of the nation's culture as of great importance.

Many states prioritize ethical standards in their national interests. See, for example, the mission statement of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, introduced in 1997. ^[2]

In the US, there is a hierarchy of national interests: "Vital interests"; "extremely important national interests"; "important national interests"; and "less important" or secondary national interests. ^[3]

In early human history the national interest was usually viewed as secondary to that of religion or morality. A religion is a set of Tenets and practices often centered upon specific Supernatural and moral claims about Reality, the Cosmos To engage in a war rulers needed to justify the action in these contexts. Many authors believe that the first thinker to advocate for the primacy of the national interest is Niccolò Machiavelli, though this question has been largely debated. The practice is first seen as being employed by France in the Thirty Years' War when it intervened on the Protestant side, despite its own Catholicism, to block the increasing power of the Holy Roman Empire. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. For the Mauritanian Thirty Years' War see Char Bouba war. For the band see The 30 Years War. Protestantism refers to the forms of Christian faith and practice that originated in the 16th century Protestant Reformation. As a Christian Ecclesiastical term Catholic —from the Greek adjective, meaning "general" or "universal"—is described The Holy Roman Empire ( HRE; German Heiliges Römisches Reich (HRR, Latin Sacrum Romanum Imperium (SRI was a union of territories in The notion of the national interest soon came to dominate European politics that became fiercely competitive over the next centuries. States could now openly embark on wars purely out of self-interest. Mercantilism can be seen as the economic justification of the aggressive pursuit of the national interest. Mercantilism is the idea that a colony should export more goods than it imports and that a colony should sell at higher prices and buy at lower prices

There are many who would disagree with this, however, finding the argument anachronistic. Historian Benedict Anderson demonstrates in "Imagined Communities", his seminal treatise on the origins and history of the phenomenon of nationalism, that prior to the late 18th century, the concept of nationhood was unconceivable and that the political sentiments held by Machiavelli and Cardinal Richelieu, to take from the examples of the preceding paragraph, were substantively different from nationalist sentiments. Machiavelli's Florence was an independent polity with an identity and ambitions independent of any concept of Italian-ness; the invention of Italy, as anything other than a vague geo-political and historical concept, was yet to come. The geography now known as Italy was, at Machiavelli's time, a politically and culturally diverse collection of polities and dependencies with no shared sense of common history, destiny or culture. The Italian peninsula was just as culturally and historically Greek, Germanic and Frankish as it was Florentine and Machiavelli's strategic thought was not rooted in nationalist ambitions for glory or protection. What Machiavelli advanced was a ruthless political paternalism, something world leaders in Machiavelli's future, a nationalized future he could not have conceived of, borrowed liberally from and put to the service of nationalist ambitions. Cardinal Richelieu, likewise, did not have a nationalistic sense of Frenchness at heart when he strategized to increase the power of the King for whom he worked. In both of these cases, the conflation of the term "nation" with the concept of the "nation-state", and then the conflation of the "nation-state" with the concept of the polity (that is to say, the use of the term "nation" to mean any sovereign political organization at all) is the stumbling block here.

A foreign policy geared towards pursuing the national interest is the foundation of the realist school of international relations. Realism, also known as political realism, in the context of International relations, encompasses a variety of theories and approaches all of which share a belief The realist school reached its greatest heights at the Congress of Vienna with the practice of the balance of powers, which amounted to balancing the national interest of several great and lesser powers. The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of the major powers of Europe, chaired by the Austrian statesman Clemens Wenzel von Metternich Metternich was celebrated as the principal artist and theoretician of this balancing but he was simply doing a more or less clean copy of what his predecessor Kaunitz had already done by reversing so many of the traditional Habsburg alliances and building international relations anew on the basis of national interest instead of religion or tradition. Wenzel Anton Graf Kaunitz (Václav Antonín hrabě Kounic-Rietberg ( February 2, 1711 &ndash June 27, 1794) was an Austrian Statesman

These notions became much criticized after the bloody debacle of the First World War, and the concept of the balance of power was replaced with the idea of collective security, whereby all members of the League of Nations would "consider an attack upon one as an attack upon all," thus deterring the use of violence forevermore. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Collective Security, according to Inis Claude's article "Collective Security as an Approach to Peace" is seen as a compromise between the concept of world government and a nation-state The League of Nations was an International organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920 The League of Nations did not work, partially because the United States refused to join and partially because, in practice, nations did not always find it "in the national interest" to deter each other from the use of force. The League of Nations was an International organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920

The events of World War II led to a rebirth of Realist and then Neo-realist thought, as international relations theorists re-emphasized the role of power in global governance. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Realism, also known as political realism, in the context of International relations, encompasses a variety of theories and approaches all of which share a belief Many IR theorists blamed the weakness of the League of Nations for its idealism (contrasted with Realism) and ineffectiveness at preventing war, even as they blamed mercantilist beggar-thy-neighbor policies for the creation of fascist states in Germany and Italy. The League of Nations was an International organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920 In Western civilization, Idealism is the philosophy which maintains that the Ultimate nature of reality is ideal or based upon ideas values essences The so-called Realism, also known as political realism, in the context of International relations, encompasses a variety of theories and approaches all of which share a belief Mercantilism is the idea that a colony should export more goods than it imports and that a colony should sell at higher prices and buy at lower prices Beggar thy neighbour, or beggar-my-neighbour policies are those that seek benefits for one country at the expense of others Fascism is a totalitarian nationalist and corporatist ideology Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest With hegemonic stability theory, the concept of the U. Hegemonic Stability Theory postulates a number of rules for the maintenance and decline of international monetary and Political systems Its leading exponents are the S. national interest was expanded to include the maintenance of open sea lanes and the maintenance and expansion of free trade.

Today, the concept of "the national interest" is often associated with political Realists who wish to differentiate their policies from "idealistic" policies that seek either to inject morality into foreign policy or promote solutions that rely on multilateral institutions which might weaken the independence of the state. Multilateralism is a term in International relations that refers to multiple countries working in concert on a given issue As considerable disagreement exists in every country over what is or is not in "the national interest," the term is as often invoked to justify isolationist and pacifistic policies as to justify interventionist or warlike policies.

One of the most notable recent realists is the former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who has avidly studied and written about the Congress of Vienna, and especially Metternich in particular. The United States Secretary of State (commonly abbreviated as SecState) is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with Foreign affairs Henry Alfred Kissinger (born Heinz Alfred Kissinger on May 27, 1923) is a German -born American bureaucrat diplomat and 1973

References

^ W. D. Clinton, The Two Faces of National Interest (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press: 1994) p. 255
^ Robin Cook's speech on the government's ethical foreign policy | World news | guardian.co.uk
^ http://www.nixoncenter.org/publications/monographs/nationalinterests.pdf

References

See also