Promoting Democracy Overseas Is Hurting America

Nikolay Pakhomov

Politics, Middle East

Turkey and beyond.

The attempted coup in Turkey raised so many questions that experts and journalists seemed eager to cover other events happening around the world, rather than untangle the situation in Turkey. Still, there is one very clear result of the coup: Western countries should take caution when executing foreign policy based on liberal idealism. The dramatic events in Turkey reminded everybody that there is a limit in international relations for how far even the most powerful countries can go in promoting democracy without damaging their security stance.

The debate between two camps of academicians and policymakers on whether foreign policy should be defined by virtuous ideas or by specific national, primarily security, interests is decades, if not centuries, old. Not long ago, after the end of the Cold War, it seemed that that debate was over—at least on the doctrinal level. The collapse of the Soviet Union was associated with the American foreign policy of democracy promotion and global engagement based on the determination to protect the Western values of market economy, free elections and human rights. Therefore, Western politicians and even scholars declared that not only was this ideology triumphant, but that a foreign policy based on this Western ideology is the only right choice for statesmen to take.