From its involvement in World War I and on, the United States has been considered the world’s hegemon. While many contribute this to its domination of the world market, the size of the U.S.’s military is equally, if not more, important. With its foreign policy strategy based on liberal internationalism, supporting a forward deployed military to maintain America’s scope of influence abroad, many attribute its size and power to the nation’s military budget. This is an understandable assumption, as the U.S.’s military budget for 2020 was approximately $721 billion. Yet, where credit is due, credit needs to be given. The largest contributor to the success and size of the U.S. military - the bones and blood of our military body - is not money alone, but patriotism.
The contribution of patriotism to U.S. military success has come in two forms. First, in a broad sense, defined as love and devotion to one’s country. The U.S. has consistently defined patriotism as the willingness to make sacrifices for your country, as illustrated through military participation or compliance with drafts. The second is more specific: economic patriotism. From an American perspective and as defined by Thomas Fetzer in “Patriotism and the Economy”, economic patriotism is defined as the causal relationship between strong patriotic sentiment and the support of economic policies that help uphold American interests abroad. Examples of this are the strong relationship between patriotic sentiment and tax compliance, as well as support for a military budget that claims to help uphold American interests and values abroad. The modern definition of American patriotism is what truly allows the U.S. to maintain such a strong militaristic stance all around the world, instead of the military budget alone.
As previously mentioned, the American military budget of $721 billion would be impossible to uphold if it were not for economic patriotism. Yet, in order to understand economic patriotism, we must first understand how it came about. Economic patriotism did not come from the people – it was taught to them by our governing body. While elaborating upon Karl Marx’s idea that the dominant ideology of society reflects the beliefs and values of the ruling class, Antonio Gramsci claimed that people give consent to being ruled by the dominant group because of the spread of ideologies through social institutions. This idea of cultural hegemony, where the interests of the ruling class take priority and those who are governed learn to accept them as truth, is the foundation for both broad patriotism and economic patriotism. Under cultural hegemony, the ideals of the ruling class are painted as being for the benefit of all, allowing them to exercise authority peacefully within America. This socialization of the American public to believe that all the decisions the U.S. makes abroad are positive and beneficial, seemingly the modern definition of American patriotism, is a direct result of cultural hegemony. This socialization occurs primarily through the media, as was seen during the Vietnam War. In order to garner support for the war effort, President Lyndon B. Johnson made sure to withhold American public the realities of the war from the American public, claiming that we were helping the French win and that our intervention would soon be over. While the American public was skeptical, they were mostly in support of the war under the assumption that we were succeeding at ensuring the spread of democracy. The defeat of the French in Vietnam is what destroyed this image. Because the government, the ruling body, was capable of convincing the American public that U.S. interests were the priority in Vietnam, they believed U.S. intervention in Vietnam was true and just until proven otherwise, making it the perfect example of how cultural hegemony contributes to military intervention abroad. Vietnam made it clear that while cultural hegemony can garner support for a militaristic cause, the reality of the situation is what sets the American public free. This is where civil unrest began, as people found it more and more difficult to understand why the U.S. was pushing for the expansion of its military and the sacrifice of American lives to fulfill an unclear goal.
This same impact of socialization was seen when the U.S. broke completely free of its isolationist policies and became involved in World War II. While America did come out of its isolationist shell during WWI, its contribution to the war was minimal and mostly disregarded by the rest of the Big Four. By the time WWII came around, the American public was wary of engaging in another war because of the impacts of WWI. Because the American public carried the trauma of the Great Depression, an outcome of WWI, FDR, along with Congress, needed to socialize the American public into believing that it was the U.S.’s responsibility to engage in the war effort. FDR managed to do this through the development of the “Four Freedoms” – the freedom of speech, worship, from want and fear. Roosevelt argued that these were not just freedoms granted to the American public, but to all peoples fighting in the name of democracy and against fascism. Through his Four Freedoms, Roosevelt made the war effort a relatable idea for the American public. If these were liberties that they enjoyed, why should supporters of democracy abroad not be granted the same liberties? Through FDR’s socialization of the American public, he bolstered the most important contributor to U.S. military expansion and intervention abroad: patriotism.
After developing an understanding of how the U.S. took on the military strategy of liberal internationalism, it is easy to see how socialization and patriotism contributed to the government’s ability to promote this shift. It was clear cultural hegemony at work. Yet, as cultural hegemony matures, Gramsci states that
“[it] is most strongly manifested when those ruled by the dominant group come to believe that the economic and social conditions of their society are natural and inevitable, rather than created by people with a vested interest in particular social, economic or political order.”
As time went on, the American public became more accustomed to liberal internationalism, with a forward deployed military funded by billions of taxpayer dollars becoming the norm. As the two World Wars became history, the American public seemed to forget their isolationist roots, believing that this is how the U.S. had acted since its foundation. This failure to acknowledge that it was socialization that had convinced the American public that such a strong military stance was acceptable demonstrates how they came to believe that this was “natural and inevitable.” President Ronald Reagan leeched off of this maturation of cultural hegemony, granting him the ability to convince the American public that engaging in Nicaragua was an American responsibility in 1982. After the socialist Sandinistas overthrew the non-communist dictator of Nicaragua, President Reagan advocated for the support of the Contras, an undemocratic and anti-communist group fighting against the Sandinistas, through military and financial aid. Building upon FDR’s Four Freedoms and reviving the Truman Doctrine, which advocated for U.S. support of any country fighting communism, President Reagan managed to convince the U.S. to fund the Contras with ease. Even though support for the Contras waned in the U.S., President Reagan still managed to get away with covertly supporting the Contras through Iran long after Congress prohibited him from doing so. To elaborate, the President would end up exchanging U.S. hostages in Iran for $30 million in weapons - $18 million of which would be funneled to the Contras. While it is clear that the President’s decision to fund the Contras was questionable, he still managed to convince the public that it was a good decision at first and with minimal effort, all because of the previously established idea that it was the U.S.’s responsibility to defend democracy abroad. President Reagan simply built upon his campaign message that the U.S. was already big and strong; it just needed to make the right decisions to prove this. He also benefited from the idea that the U.S.’s foreign policy strategy of liberal internationalism was natural and inevitable, rather than promoted by previous administrations in the decades prior.
Ultimately, a variety of examples throughout American history prove how patriotism and cultural hegemony helped motivate the shift from isolationism to liberal internationalism. A clear cause and effect relationship can be seen between the three: cultural hegemony (the socialization of citizens) is what forms an understanding of patriotism that is uniquely American. This sense of American patriotism is what allows the U.S. government to uphold such a strong military stance internationally with minimal public dissent, even after all this time and with many examples of how U.S. military intervention in the name of democracy has had unclear outcomes. Because of this, it can be concluded that patriotism and socialization are the most important contributors to U.S. military power abroad – much more valuable than any military budget could ever be.
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