I don’t frequent Great Debates very often, so this may have been done before (and, I’m tired of my searches on the subject timing out).
What value is there for a country when it has cultivated good will? Phrased in the negative, and more apropos to contemporary events, do countries lose much if they’ve lost good will? For example, we keep hearing how the US has “squandered the good will” it had on September 12. Similarly, until about 1982, Israel had the admiration of many countries and people who are now neutral, at best, or even overtly hostile. If true, have these developments had any significant impact on either country?
I suppose you could argue that, in the absence of “good will”, it’s harder for the leaders of other countries to support the US (or Israel). So, things like international deployments by the US may suffer from lack of allies. Likewise, it may be harder for countries to embrace trade with Israel due to the popular sentiment of the former’s countrymen.
Regardless, this seems more theoretical than real. I presume that there’s still lots of behind-the-scenes deals going on and, despite appearances and ‘PR’ to the contrary, there’s not been much lost because of any “squandered good will”.
The bad will towards the United States has unquestionably hurt at trade negotiations. I attempted to start a debate about that here, but it didn’t take off. Twenty years ago, the USA go just about everything it wanted at world trade talks. Since the war in Iraq started, we’ve gotten almost nothing as regards progress on trade. In fact, every round of international talks since then has collapsed. Now there’s talk of trade pacts that will bypass the USA entirely. For instance, there’s been some chatter about China negotiating trade agreements directly with Latin America and leaving us out.
This stuff is vitally important; it just doesn’t make the front page because people don’t understand how the process works. When the price of a jar of peanut butter jumps from $3 to $3.50, people reading the price tags aren’t aware that tariffs on peanuts from Burkino Faso are at the heart of the problem.
Another factor is that we need international help in investigating terrorist threats to our country. If the governments of other nations feel they have no interest in America’s well-being, their police and intelligence services will turn a blind eye to groups in their country who are making plans against us.
Between 1945 and 1959, Franco’s government suffered from the ill will of much of the world. First we had a civil war ('36-'39), then our postwar, then a post-WWII that lasted, like I said, until 1959. Not only did Spain not get a Marshall Plan, we also got a lot of countries who wouldn’t trade with us. Eggs were a black market item.
In 1959 Franco signed a treaty letting NATO use Spanish military bases and harbors. That got us money, it made it a lot easier to find trade partners, companies started establishing factories here… tourism discovered us and we discovered it, at a time when “vacations abroad” became available to upper-middle class in the rest of europe and, later, middle-middle class and not just something rich people could do; the Spaniards of '58 were busy trying to find something to eat; those of '68 were having student revolts and much of the same stuff going on in the rest of Europe.
Of course, the baseline for the US is different than for Spain: you guys are De Big Guys now like we were it in the 16th century.
I think that’s a little simplistic (and the blind eye comment misleading). What is more likely is that countries will not put resources into investigating potential plots against other countries. Of course, this might happen anyway.