Speak softly and carry a big stick. Politica estera e uso della forza negli Stati Uniti fra storia e attualità

Traditionally, force plays a central role in US foreign policy, with the willingness to wage war being seen as key factor to define and compare the different administrations. The issue is deeply rooted in the American consciousness and dates back to the very origins of the United States as an international subject. It also reflects fundamental traits of the US political culture, like the concept of exceptionalism and the consequent vision of the United States as endowed with the “manifest destiny” to expand their territorial and political influence in both the American continent and worldwide. Since the end of World War II, the US new international status has made the use of force even more important, with the end of the Cold War pushing the issue to the forefront. Since the Nineties, republican and democratic Presidents alike have been eager to wage war to both pursue US interests and promote US values, resorting to force in an unprecedented number of occasions and with greater frequency than any other country. In this perspective, the negative experience of the Iraqi campaign (2003-11) has not been the “real” watershed that some observers believed. President Obama’s Wilsonian rhetoric has never affected his willingness to fight the Global War On Terror started by the “arch-hawk” George W. Bush, while Donald Trump’s Jacksonian promise to “make America great again” has often moved in Obama’s military footsteps. However, no real consensus has emerged on both the way in which force can act as a political and diplomatic instrument and the conditions that make this instrument useful in the American political toolbox: two sensitive and thorny issues that are deemed to trouble policymakers and the public debate for long years to come.