The (Ex) Washington Realist

58 percent of Chinese believe that the United States does not take their interests into account at all or very much when formulating its foreign policy; 66 percent of Russians concur with that stance. Interestingly enough the figures in India also show that the U.S.-India rapprochement has not yet begun to pay dividends in public opinion, as 46 percent of Indians also hold this view.

The democracy thesis doesn’t quite hold up either. In the past issue of The National Interest, Paul Saunder’s provocative essay “Learning to Love France” made the point that democratic states do not automatically align themselves with U.S. interests simply because of shared forms of government. In response to the question, “Can you trust the United States to act responsibly in the world”, democratic ally Argentina’s population gave a resounding no (84 percent saying not at all or not very much); non-democratic China at 59 percent; democratic France and fellow NATO ally 72 percent; democratic India 52 percent; democratic Korea 53 percent; Thailand (perhaps a faltering democracy?) 56 percent; democratic Peru 80 percent; and Russia 73 percent. In contrast, states that have strong alignment of interests with the United States—the Philippines, Israel, and Poland, gave generally positive responses to that query.