The Western foreign policy: in between a moralistic narration and a pragmatic conduct.

Translated by Irene Cecchi

In the Western world we are used to giving a universalistic sensa and moral direction to foreign affairs. Often, the ones who look for consensus are obliged to follow the policy proposals of their target electorate. It’s here that concepts like human rights and people’s self determination were born and raised. Most of the leaders, especially liberal and progressive ones, invoke morale to justify their conduct. So, political decision makers and their audience often think and act with an ethical purpose in mind, having the “supreme good” as goal. This attitude must be followed by an upstanding and coherent conduct or it will end up paving the way for one of the greatest enemies of political legitimacy and of all those promoted values: hypocrisy.

The conduct in Foreign Policy: between Moralism and Realism.

Following Pedro Sanchez Socialist Spain Leader’s path, also Emmanuel Macron, Liberal Democratic France Leader, recently declared his intention to acknowledge Morocco’s control over Western Sahara. This act would be another step towards the impossibility for the Sahrawi population to autodetermination in the name of Realpolitik that obliges them to follow every desire of the Arab Country hoping in a reduction of migration flows and in a development of industrial and commercial relations. Considering the highly critical reaction of these two Countries to the current conflict in the Middle East, the dualism and dyscrasia between the moralist narration and what is actually done is evident. But this is only the last example of western leaders who preach the defense of universal rights but then show to be willing to sacrifice the cause and defense of a specific ethnic or religious group for national interest’s sake. The same European Union leaders didn’t show much determination criticizing the Azeris regime that carried out an actual ethnic cleanse in the Nagorno-Karabakh area, when the military defeat in the fight against Bakau led to the dissolution of the separatist republic. In this case, the displacement of about 120 thousand Armenian people was accepted in the name of the energetic corridor that arrives in Europe crossing Azerbaijan and of the local geopolitical balance that makes the Azeri Republic an anti-Iran stronghold in the region. Likewise, a great deal of the liberal-progressive part of the political establishment almost never took a firm and strong stand against ongoing persecution of the Muslim population in India, under the Induist suprematist Naredra Modi. This is another example of a minority sacrificed in the name of trade relations and strategic alliances that involve one of the main players in the game to stem China’s influence in Asia.

So, by one side the time that sees western countries, with the US in the frontline, assuming the role of global “moral police” trying to export their own model and impose it, often leaving ruins behind them, is finished but by the other side they are still being represent, also through the medias, as the defenders of human rights in the whole world and this is becoming unbearable. The international system is heating up in the transition from the so-called unipolar system to another structure yet to be shaped and defined but that is certainly going to be more heterogeneous and complex than the previous one. This period will be characterized by more political violence and conflict. From the other members of the system point of view, the western countries are progressively losing credibility since they are preaching moralism while acting pragmatically. Moreover, the establishment’s leaders may also risk their domestic political legitimacy if they keep virtue signaling and then contradicting themselves to align with external policies.

In conclusion, we have to admit that an external policy that is completely “progressive” is unviable unless they are willing to sanction and stop the relations with the majority of global partners, this means it may be better to cut back the universalistic goals of the ones who put moral in every foreign policy. As a consequence, it becomes necessary to quit the principles’ rhetoric and take up the interests’ one, trying to keep defending those principles through an indirect and less propagandistic moral persuasion. It may also be useful to strengthen partners' relations and find appealing strategies so that they spontaneously choose to take up and emulate the western standards and models.

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