Enlightened Self-Interest
I came across this expression—enlightened self-interest—while listening to an interview with Antony Blinken, former US secretary of state [1].
This approach is built around the belief that, if the (non-American) world is stable and prospers, the United States will also be able to prosper.
Such an approach, in the form of both foreign aid and overseas military action, has set the stage for the world order over the last 80 years since World War II.
Looking back a few decades, it's easy to see how globalization has afforded wealth and a higher standard of living for much of the world.
While social inequality is still very much a deep and grave issue, other indicators have shown how globalization has unequivocally improved the world's lived experience, even for the less privileged.
Life expectancy has risen from 32 years in the 1900s—not because every adult would suddenly pass away at 32 years old, but because a large fraction of infants would not reach adulthood—to 71 years in 2021 across the world [2].
This can only mean that worldwide access to health care, nutrition, hygiene and sanitation has reached a critical mass thanks to shared breakthroughs in scientific knowledge, applied manufacturing at greater scale and lower cost, and, not least, global supply chains which distribute these material goods.
Such feats ride on the back of global stability and international cooperation, whether one agrees with US policy or not.
For the last eight decades, Pax Americana has allowed much of the world—including the United States—to benefit—admittedly to varying degrees—from the most peaceful and stable period in history and, so far, the best time in recorded history to be born and alive in.
Resources
[1] Freakonomics Podcast episode 642, published July 25, 2025. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-to-wage-peace-according-to-tony-blinken/