National Interest

How the Concept is Deployed

As a concept, the national interest is both ubiquitous and divisive. It is ubiquitous because it is deployed in at least three important and overlapping ways, which serve distinct purposes. First, for scholars of international relations and foreign policy, the concept is understood to be explanatory. Scholars thus invoke the national interest to explain, for instance, why the United States entered World War II (e.g., it was in the U.S. national interest to prevent German expansion in Europe), why the United States fought the Vietnam war (e.g., it was contrary to U.S. national interests to allow South Vietnam to fall to communism), and why the Taliban had to be removed from power in Afghanistan in 2001 (e.g., it is in the U.S. national interest both to promote democracy and to fight terrorism). In this usage, the national interest is invoked causally, to explain policy decisions and the attendant state actions.

Second, the national interest can also be thought of as the language of foreign policy decision making or, more generally, of state action. It is through the notion of the national interest that foreign policy decision makers seek to determine what the aims of their foreign policies should be. The national interest thus forms the practical basis for state action in international politics. This adds a normative dimension to the concept, in that decision makers generally assume that they ought to [Page 1651]act in the national interest. In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, for example, Tony Blair's government in the United Kingdom (UK) determined that it was in the British national interest—that is, that Britain ought—to support the Bush administration's global war on terror, support the U.S. war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and participate in producing regime change in Iraq in 2003. In this second conception of the national interest, as defined by decision makers, it provides the practical aims or goals of state action.

Third, the national interest serves a prominent legitimating function. It is routinely deployed by both politicians and commentators to justify foreign policy decisions and state actions. The national interest is a powerful rhetorical tool, which, in addressing its audience as members of a nation, asks them to agree to policies in their own—that is, national—interest. Most starkly, when states require soldiers to put their lives in jeopardy in the service of foreign policy, this is done in the name of the national interest. The national interest, on this third, rhetorical usage, thus contributes to the creation of public consent to and support for foreign policy and state action.

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