Last updated: December 1, 2022
The end of the Cold War became widely known as the American unipolar moment. While the U.S. now possessed the most powerful military and economy, the question remains as to how did the U.S. approach this new and undisputed world of possibilities? The following essay argues that the U.S. approached its unipolar moment by retooling its fundamental identity through Oriental Hybridity and then pursued a foreign policy agenda that articulated the values of this retooled identity.
The first step in understanding how the U.S. approached its unipolar moment involves establishing the foundational identity that grounds the nation. In 1630, John Winthrop envisioned America as a “beacon of liberty, chosen by God to spread the benefits of self-government, toleration, and free enterprise to the entire watching world”. Hilde Restad adds that the U.S. sees itself as an exceptional entity with a “special and unique role to play in world history”. This exceptional identity does not exist as an “objective truth, but as subjective self understanding”. Thus, the fundamental U.S. identity stems from a pre-revolutionary era where its God-given qualities of freedom, liberty, and toleration combine to create an ‘exceptional’ America whose responsibility involves disseminating these values abroad. Adaptation is possible because this exceptional entity is neither objective nor static; instead, as its core tenets remain the same, the U.S.’ subjective self-understanding causes it to constantly reassess where this identity must promulgate next.
After outlining its fundamental identity, this essay proceeds to demonstrate how the U.S. identity conformed to a new unipolar context. The first step in identity retooling was the creation of the ‘other’ through Orientalism. According to Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism, power derives from knowledge. Orientalism involves the “process by which the West ‘knows’ the Orient [and has] been a way of exerting power over it” (Ashcroft and Ahluwalia 2008, 8). The West ascribes a set of generalized characteristics that essentializes the ‘other.’ By ‘knowing’ the essence of the ‘other,’ the West inadvertently identifies the flaws that prevent these peoples from being the same as ‘us.’ The West, now harnessing the power it obtained from reducing the ‘other’ to a mere generalization, may begin to intervene and subjugate ‘them’ under the pretense of morality, social improvement, and civilization.
The U.S. engaged in Orientalism by othering the Arab peoples. Immediately after 9/11, the fear of future terrorist attacks multiplied exponentially. Americans sought increased surveillance of Arab-Americans to limit this heightened fear of terrorism. More than 700 targeted acts of violence occurred against those perceived as Arab within the first nine months following 9/11. Within 13 months, various U.S. airlines combined to remove 80 Arab-American passengers who possessed Arabic-sounding names. Steven Salaita shows that post-9/11 anti-Arab sentiment also extended to politicians and media outlets. Salaita writes that neoconservatives like President Bush “invoked 9/11 as evidence of Arab perfidy and later as evidence of the need […] to protect ‘us’ from ‘them’”. Moreover, conservative media outlets encouraged anti-Arab discourses soon after 9/11, while liberal publications totalized “all Arabs and Muslims as potential terrorists”. Contrary to the U.S.’ inherent moral goodness, the Arab became intertwined with fear and terror.
In addition to the U.S.’ foundational identity and its creation of the ‘other,’ hybridity is the final component of Oriental Hybridity. Homi K. Bhabha’s theory of hybridity asserts that no culture “is really pure,” and that cultural identities “are not discrete phenomena; instead, they are always in contact with one another, and this contact leads to cultural mixed-ness” (Huddart 2005, 4). In the context of the U.S, while its fundamental identity lies beneath the surface, Oriental Hybridity asserts that Orientalism drives the process of hybridization, ultimately retooling the nation’s identity upon cultural interaction. After making known an ‘inferior’ group of peoples who possessed qualities contrary to the core U.S. identity, Oriental Hybridity fostered a retooled identity that demanded a foreign policy shift towards ‘saving’ these ‘villainous’ peoples through America’s core moral tenets.
Before invading Afghanistan, the Bush administration underwent Oriental Hybridity. As Anthony Teitler writes, the U.S. under Bush conceptualized itself “as the harbinger of ‘freedom’ and ‘civilised’ values and a promoter of democracy” . These values fell directly in line with the U.S.’ fundamental morality. Then immediately after 9/11, Bush noted that “in Afghanistan we see Al Qaeda’s vision for the world” . Bush implies a geographic region inextricably linked to terror and effectively begins the ‘othering’ process. Nevertheless, the U.S. looks past this fundamental ‘flaw’ as it asserts itself as morally just. Bush added that “the advance of human freedom, the great achievement of our time and the great hope of every time, now depends on us” . Two weeks after this speech, the U.S. would invoke American responsibility and invade Afghanistan in the name of democracy and freedom. Thus, before invading, the U.S. would ‘other’ the people of Afghanistan as a threat but then promise to improve them according to the U.S.’ moral agenda.
While less overt than Bush, Obama and his administration also engaged in Oriental Hybridity. According to Shadi Hamid, Obama believed that the pro-U.S. Syrian rebels were a “hopeless collection of former butchers, bakers and candlestick makers”. To the administration, these Syrian rebels could not work alongside the U.S. military, let alone operate autonomously. Like Bush, Obama essentialized the ‘other’ and implied their inferiority. As then-Press Secretary Josh Earnest addressed the American public regarding the deployment of 50 Special Operations Forces, he noted that these troops possessed a responsibility to offer the Syrian rebels “advice and assistance […] about the best way they can organize their efforts”. Obama’s message implied a sense of responsibility to serve a people incapable of leading themselves, and it also asserted that American knowledge was innately more valuable. The U.S., due to its exceptional military and inherent moral superiority, possessed the capacity to organize these Syrian rebels in the “best” way possible. Regardless of this conflict existing far from U.S. territory, America was still morally responsible for protecting people deemed too incapable of defending themselves.
The legacy of Oriental Hybridity within the post-Cold War U.S. can be encapsulated by the number of innocent people killed at the hands of U.S. hegemony. A study from Brown University in April 2021 estimates that more than 71,000 Afghan and Pakistani civilians have died since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Ironically, the reformed identity merely accentuated the very ills it sought to eradicate.
Despite its unchecked political, military, and economic power, the U.S. struggled to orient its foreign policy within the post-Cold War international order. However, September 11, 2001, catalyzed a retooled U.S. foreign policy. This essay sought to uncover how the U.S. approached its unipolar moment following 9/11. As shown above, it retooled its fundamental identity after undergoing the process of Oriental Hybridity, then demonstrated this identity through episodes of foreign intervention during the Bush and Obama administrations.
Paul Huang is a senior at the University of Toronto.
