I suspect Ken might have been at that particular cabinet meeting, so I defer to his assessment...Originally Posted by Ken White
But the true sea change was as we came to realize post-WWII that it was not going to be all sunshine and roses with our good allies, the Soviets and the Chinese, and found ourselves in a bi-lateral contest for influence that came to be divided along ideological lines.
You can't argue "self-determination" when the insurgency you are trying to stop from throwing the puppet government of your Colonial French pals out of power are employing a Communist ideology that will likely expand the influence of our own opponent and reduce our influence at the same time. So we switched to selling "Democracy" as a counter. Sorry to all you nations in the buffer between East and West, self-determination is now off the table.
Earlier, when we were competing with the Brits for influence over the Saudi Oil market, and the Brits were making a stink over the Saudi prractice of slavery and offering a very low ball price based on what they were "stealing" oil from the Iranians for; we offered a much more attractive price and assured the Saudis that we had no right to comment on slavery or offer any other moral judgement.
A slippery slope....time to put our climbing spikes on and get back up to the high ground that we imagine ourselves to still be standing on.
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