well to british soil it's sometimes right in front of. the. markets why no. one knows what's really happening to the global economy because the record. now ahead in moscow and washington agrees on measures to avoid a default and the debt crisis is way to helping them out of the pot of criticism and from fading to solve the nation's long term financial but it's. the west threatens to punish the syrian regime for the latest round of crunch downs on protest as well sco is calling for an end to the politics of the government forces killed more than one hundred people in syria on saturday.

tendencies the state is knowledge c.s.s. that for instance and forces stage a rally is all far seems to not like they should the world model on some fascist needs a right answer to a call for change something else he said will give rise to nationalism in xenophobia and spirit. again coming up next off i read about your crosstalk who said on people of al in this edition the guests debate whether american exceptionalism is a self-serving. it used to be an ideal place for a holiday but it won't change in a moment. the wounds of war are still visible. the republic is not only relieved but also

shaping the future. the kick. started. to. flow in welcoming across an arc i'm purely about just how exceptional american exceptionalism goes to the very foundation of how most americans see their country's history and place in the world is there any truth to this worldview or is it just a myth. can. you discuss the meaning of american exceptionalism i'm joined by david merkel in copenhagen he's a former deputy assistant secretary of state in the administration of george w. bush in oxford we go to guy be hard thing from oxford university and author of the

myth of american exceptionalism and in new york macross peter shock he is a professor at yale law school and coeditor of understanding america the anatomy of an exceptional nation and another member of our cross talk team on the hunger all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want since you wrote a book on it i go to godfrey first in oxford you are quite open out there i think it's a myth why is that a myth well first a. does not mean that everything about it is untrue it is an idea or a story which is partially true and most of the things i say in terms in the book is that it's not a good thing to believe things which are not wholly true now that basically two parts to my thesis one is that historically. people in the united states exaggerated how different they are an outside how exceptional to world history and

that the history of the united states and many many important ways has been part of larger movements larger ideas the protestant reformation the enlightenment there are all kinds of political and legal ideas which came from europe but also such great historical movements as the competition between the british and french and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries industrialisation the industrial revolution all of these things so to present the united states is somehow created by only american events and ideas such as you know massachusetts puritanism or french or jackson turns i just the frontier seems to me to be distorting history that's the one second that it was probably more controversial is the idea that somehow since the end of the cold war american exceptionalism become more nationalistic more aggressive and more of

a problem for the rest of the world if i go to you peter i mean a lot of people see american exceptionalism as a problem from americans also i mean how do you reflect about what godfrey just said because he basically did deflates it or diminishes they did is that america is just an extension of the european experience in many different ways though you could say they go republican ideas came to the fore there and in any other ways are americans exaggerating who they are what they are. well i don't know you know it's very much a matter of degree no sensible person would imagine that the american culture began in seven hundred seventy six and didn't have important roots and in europe of course it did. the question really is whether the united states has developed a culture and a political system an economic system that is sufficiently different from european countries in particular and from other countries as well. that we can think of it.

as very distinctive characteristics of a society and i think that's undoubtedly true there are a number of respects in which we differ very decidedly from from europe to use the most obvious comparison first is that we are a very. as societies go we are very. attractive to immigrants and we generally receive immigrants in a very in a very dynamic way and in very large numbers and that has shaped almost everything else about our society ok well savingly demographically we're very different than europe we have a growing population part of that is because of immigration but a part of it's also because americans tend to be much more optimistic than europeans are and believe in the future in ways that europeans don't thirdly there's a very strong as a religious kind of character and says we just to kind of exaggerate sure is that

under that how do you know how optimistic europeans are taken as they say. well we have servant we have survey evidence we have survey evidence that suggests that people's attitudes toward the future towards their ability to control their destinies are very different in europe and the united states and it's a true sions tend to reflect that now again these are matters of degree i'm not suggesting that everybody gets the. characteristic. gen tends to be much more future oriented and what's more confident about what will happen in the future here than you did you do your research before the great recession because i see a lot of depression among europeans and americans if i go to you david you know i'm going to pick on you here i mean a lot of people say american foreign policy and it doesn't matter if it's a democrat or republican if it's bush or it's obama it's exceptionalism and it's a very negative mean exceptionalism that it even goes as far as what people say is

in korea with them americans think they're better than everyone else and they know their future better than everyone else and they know what's better for everyone else i mean that's in a and it was mentioned by godfrey earlier that a lot of people say that this exceptionalism really got magnified out even out of control but after the end of the cold war because of the only being the only superpower in the world. well i think that i think the united states has been a positive force for mankind and i think that the world with the united states in a leadership role is a world it's moving in the direction of greater prosperity and greater freedom for for people now that does not mean that the united states hasn't made mistakes mistakes and it does not mean that the united states should should go it alone but clearly there are countries that that exhibit leadership are countries that exhibit a desire to join consensus in their countries and leaders who seem to want to frustrate consensus so i think that the u.s.

foreign policy while not perfect has really been a very positive force and has been quite distinct from other you know leadership leading leading countries in the twentieth century ok for centuries you know but i mean peter a lot of people would say is that you know the united states will join in organisations that it suits its purpose is. protocol is one of them not joining the international criminal court i mean this is a exceptionalism in a negative way in the eyes of many people in the world where the united states if it can't control the game it won't play. i say that's true the united states does calculate its national self interest in deciding what to do and what not to do i think every state does that and it's probably it's probably a universal characteristic of political systems and in terms of kioto in the international criminal court you have to assess each of those positions on their

merits there are very strong reasons why the united states resisted the kyoto protocol and there are strong reasons why the u.s. has declined to join the criminal court one could disagree with those who you know that's a legitimate argument but there were guided by in white and self-interest i think is. is individual ok but i mean this is what's here this is what's so interesting is all right david go ahead go ahead jump in i started to fight you can continue would go ahead are you going to godfrey going to leave it this is what so this is i i agree with what peter said this is what's so interesting is that when the united states gets behind something or or builds consensus for a common good that common good is also in our national interests so when we oppose something out of national interest reasons it kind of makes people think that all were about is our national interest i think that what's different is that is that there is a a mix of idealism in reality all take on our foreign policy that in many ways but

not exclusively in many ways is uniquely american and has as set us up in a perfect situation since since world war one to really build consensus around greater freedom and greater prosperity ok and that means invading countries without a u.n. resolution also i godfrey go ahead ahead go. well i'm i'm not in the business of saying that the united states has not done many positive things i think the united states for example a role in the defeat of nazi germany and we can all be very clear that said that i'll give you a very good example i was on a radio discussion as it happened a while ago when i made the point that while the united states played a very important part in defeating nazi germany to keep the british empire which most americans value valiantly just approved of and so to the soviet union of which

even more americans disagreed with the american academic told him just simply thought i was talking nonsense it was a completely new idea that the the great britain or the the soviet union played any role in fighting the teacher that's what i mean by speakeasy attacks the united states for every stupid thing that an academic says he said was stupid thing well i mean i think it's ok but when i faced a very good point in exactly has there ever being a very good point between how long and how policy is formed i mean godfrey brings a excellent point here i mean the number how many people actually know the role in the united states the role of the soviet union in the second world war and if they did though they would understand how russia is feels about its neighborhood in nato expansion it would explain a lot of things russia's act behavior would seem so much more irrational if americans actually knew history that's very important here i'm sorry david you were going to jump in there she's done a. nice. american know as much about history as possible all right.

things and i knew a controversial and but let me just say one thing about american foreign policy which is that it is it is infused with as david said with a kind of idealism and more our the which certainly is now. alone it's that is to say that it's self-interest is it's dominant but it does define self-interest in moralistic ways and that can lead to great tragedies and mistakes as well was great and triumphs ok david you were before we go to the break ok another example all right i think go ahead and we're going to david go ahead real quick to show you the bread yeah until you got woodrow wilson in one thousand nine hundred nineteen nineteen woodrow wilson could not open his mouth without saying that the united states alone had no selfish interests in the war it infuriated europeans because

the united states had the greatest interest of all which was that of an emerging from the war as the richest and most powerful nation in the world are you gentlemen i'm going to jump in here after a short break we'll continue our discussion on american exceptionalism stay with r.t. . to kick. start . the. please. her. subsists

. led the mother. slept. more news today violence is once again flared up saying these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of chatter the past summer. slump. slump the slowest sledge the beasts

the welcome back to crossfire crime people about to remind you we're talking about american exceptionalism today the british the slowest some the lead but before it let's see what russians think about the u.s. . americanism there isn't all ideology mournin revolution there being only us exceptionalism implies that country is qualitatively different from other nations but is this concept why a goal today with us dominoes on the decline and other countries on the rise as well should americans were think exceptionalism the russian public opinion research center gave citizens attitude towards the united states fifty nine percent of the respondents said they had positive feelings and another twenty seven feel negative and that's for many the question remains whether any country should think of itself

as exceptional too ok david i'd like to go to you and i'd like to everyone keep the thought in mind as david because david said you want to go to three points here i think was mendelian albright said the united states stands taller so we can see farther that is a very arrogant statement and is not taken very well around the world so go ahead david. first of all you have someone from her menu that says. i'd like to i'd like to go to to godfrey's point about woodrow wilson. the united states it was a result of world war two one that the united states came out as a pretty crude dominant power but it was not wilson campaigned about keeping neutral there was a huge debate united states we weren't prepared and it was a tragic result of the ravages of world war one on europe that the united states did come out as a more dominant power relative to the destruction of europe after world war one but look what happened after world war one look what happened after world war two the

united states' role in rebuilding other countries other former enemies was specific and peter i think i think obviously we should all learn more about history but i would say that policymakers in the united states who thought about the importance of protecting the sovereignty of russia's neighbors who thought about the importance of nato enlargement knew well the massive contribution of the citizens of the soviet union during world war two and knew well of the ravages that stalin brought on russia's neighbors afterwards and i think that those two things made the importance of what president bush and clinton and george w. bush talked about as far as a importance of a europe whole free and it piece in the exciting thing the third point the exciting thing about about the united states not having as far of a distance between its leadership and other countries is all these other countries are rising up to have a stronger voice and to take

a greater responsibility because i do think united states is exceptional it has a big role to play in the united states and with that comes a great responsibility ok godfrey i mean i guess i'd like to jump in here we're going to go ahead and they will in addition. ok in addition to the examples of world war one and world war two in the post war. recoveries facilitated by the united states you also have nato was mentioned the e.u. is also a project that benefited by a lot i think from from american policy and then finally there's the world trading regime which is a very important institution for living together disparate. societies and economies and the u.s. played a leading role in all of those except obviously for the e.u. which. played a facilitator of like certainly certainly did world. so that's one thing the second thing is that the fact that a statement is arrogant. that it causes negative reactions around the world does

not mean that it's false. that has been said in a different way in the west and the west. you know assertive or aggressive way but it doesn't mean that it's force pile of the third thing to say let me jump in here a bit. if i can just say something about woodrow wilson i mean would your wilson said in a speech in philadelphia that there is such a thing as being too proud to fight it was not too proud to attack mexico twice and in fact he did get involved in one but what he did do was to suggest that the rest of the world must adopt an ideas in detail even when they were conscious of the interests of other people and that is a core of those ideas that they were what were those ideas they were personal freedom they were they were well you. know you really have to invade countries to make them free oh my goodness you know i mean. you know the people of iraq you know

they don't all agree with that statement i wouldn't trust a public opinion poll coming from their afghanistan is well ok so i mean i don't see how they still say these kind of you know a statement like that is because at the end of the cold war in the arrogance of exceptionalism they even have americans. policies blinded by this exceptionalism and in his grasp to many people around the world to this day i mean here we are you know it's still nothing's off the table it's go to war against iran i mean it's constant thunder you know go to war go to war it's all because we're such an exceptional people that we know the truth of the world it's ridiculous it's the sun i know that's not true. and i was telling his neighbors when he was it was. well. i think but i hope position is that i think it's important not to believe things and not really true it is not the case that woodrow wilson offered to bring

personal freedom to the world there were two principles two principles if you ideological principles and the fourteen points one was the one purely and ancient issue. of self interest which was so-called freedom of the seas which was a way of undermining specifically british advantages and the other was open covenants. which i think most people now are entirely in favor of that it was not about bringing personal freedom for the people so that all. men find god for if you can find a university there in oxford i would suggest that you do get the fourteen points i would suggest that you try and look at all woodrow wilson's numbers and i will. go into here what i think is important today i've got the forty votes i read about a book about them so don't try and put me down and that. really was it's not what was important for her year old. how dare you suggest i would talk about the fourteen points without having read them because he's if it's american

exceptionalism and smart peter and in new york go ahead. i think it's not very useful to get hung up on speeches that were made by a president a hundred years ago the question is the long the long arc of history and in the long arc of history america has been a very. very important force for good in the world with lots of mistakes along the way lots of tragedies that we have helped to create but on the on balance i think it's impossible to make the case that we have not been a very important force for progressive ideals all right let's change gears for you guys because i'm not saying anything of the kind if you read my book as i read the fourteen points if you read my book you'll find i go out of my way again and again and again to list the nine in many ways in which the united states had a positive effect but i'm just saying that many things are believe you could not be

true all right gentlemen let's kind of change years if you want to make one more point in foreign policy i'd like to look internally go ahead david that's the test what i what i think what i think we could we could agree upon is there has been there has been points where the united states has built great consensus and move things forward by by example and i think what is the frustration is that there is coming across the idea of too much lecturing of saying the way a country another country should behave without people saying the united states behave in such such a way i think that's what godfrey's getting to so there's definitely a examples of where the united states has made mistakes mistakes and where the national interest was probably contrary to to a particular country's interest but i think as all the new york here in new york said i think united states has been a force for a positive force in mankind and i think that we can do

a lot to enhance our own image as living by that example. and trying to build greater consensus or countries that are contrary to the consensus stand out a little bit more than when i could have any consensus on this program here gentlemen i can change gears a little bit here. exceptionalism yes united states is exceptional because of its prison inmate population is quite exceptional death penalty not too many how countries in the world have that exceptionally bad health care maybe that will change social inequality public education none of these things are particularly proud beacons in american society right now if you compared to other countries i go to peter on the out there i mean all the things that we used to be so proud of in the united states there are a lot of them are lagging and by being very badly. i would agree with that. and i would say as as we say in our book that excessive exceptionalism has

two sides of the coin there are some very bad ways in which we are exceptional as well as many good ways so i would not contest that at all what i would say is that the united states is unusually. it's an unusually strong in its self-criticism. for all the arrogance it may be perceived to broad that the united states the mescal is a very very self-critical people and so that we the process sees the political processes for remedy these ills are very very robust ok godfrey wanted to me i tell you that i just wanted to mention a very interesting book a young american historian called peter baldwin in which an enormous strength enormous theater shows that in many many parameters the united states now achieved lies not of the top or the bottom but somewhere in the middle between developing countries and that's if you like a concrete way of suggesting my thesis which is not that ever these bad about the

united states good god no but it is the united states is a country like others in many ways very stronger than many many ways a better place for people to live in than some but it is not exceptional. to give you the last word i would say in some respects it is exceptional particularly with regard to which religious characteristics its attitudes toward immigration it's suspicion of centralized power those are those are unusual it's not unique features in the western in the western political tradition as institutionalized today parading around the german here david we've run out of time thank you for a very interesting discussion many thanks to my guest today in copenhagen new york in oxford and thanks to our viewers for watching as you darkie see you next time and remember a prostitute. coming

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