The Reagan Doctrine and the Third World

Abstract

International politics, like all politics, is still a struggle for power and advantage; but in an age of rival social systems and ideological warfare, the struggle is as much about the internal structure of states as it is about their international policies. "However much the leading states do act or appear to act simply like great powers in the traditional mould, there is something more at stake in their competition. There are underlying reasons, inherent in their respective social orders, which dictate that they cannot permanently resolve their disagreements." It is this deeper conflict over rival social systems that has nurtured the vicious orthodoxies and dogmas of the new Cold War. Ours is an era of ideological delusions and abstract doctrines upon which the calculations of the great powers are increasingly dependent; notably in the capitalist camp. Today the policies of the West toward the Soviet Union and post-revolutionary states in the Third World are influenced by romantic, metaphysical assumptions and war fevers, and these, rather than considerations of self-interest or raison d'etat, shape the conceptions of those in high office. Doctrine has returned to the counsels of power in Washington, and as William Graham Sumner remarked, if you want war, nourish a doctrine.