ARTICLE 1

The Origin of The Frankenstein Theory

         The United States, since it became a hegemonic power post-WWII, has continued to create a negative perception of foreign states in order to justify its own imperialist foreign policies. The Frankenstein theory is a reference to the 1818 novel “Frankenstein: or The Modern Prometheus” by Mary Shelley. In the novel, the protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, created a humanoid in his own image who is referred to as Frankenstein’s monster. The monster learns human traits, such as language, by watching Frankenstein’s family but is unable to enter society because he is seen as scary and different from humans. In the end, the monster is rejected by Frankenstein and his family, and he becomes enraged with humanity (BBC, Pg.1). The contradiction between Frankenstein creating the monster and then demonizing it once it is born is the dichotomy that the Frankenstein theory refers itself to.

Throughout this paper, the United States will be characterized using both the terms hegemonic power and a capitalist empire. The idea of hegemony has been largely built upon the theories of Antonio Gramsci, who defined it in relation to the state as a “political leadership based on the consent of the led, a consent which is secured by the diffusion and popularization of the world view of the ruling class” which is carried out through both civil and political society (Bates, Pg.353). It can be argued that the United States represented a hegemonic power after WWII, as it had unmatched political power based upon the diffusion of its cultural identity and economic capital. American hegemony is distinguishable from previous ones by its imperialist goals that were shaped by its capitalist economy. As the historian, Ellen M. Wood said, “In the twentieth- century capital was able to do away with older imperial forms and express its imperial ambition and empire primarily through economic means, so that one capitalist state can express imperialism, not through direct territorial expansion, but through the economic penetration of other formerly sovereign states'' (Parisot, Pg.33). The American empire was built largely through economic and political dominance over foreign nations, unlike previous empires which often relied upon military dominance and colonial structures of power. As a result, American hegemony was not necessarily a  hegemony of the American government, but of the American capitalist ruling class. American capitalists, through the globalization of trade, were able to expand the American empire and become a hegemonic power. 

The Foundation for the Frankenstein in Early America-

The creation of a Frankenstein was essential to the formation of a unified American identity during the Revolutionary War and the period of Westward expansion in the late 1800s. The existence of the Western frontier was a unique factor in the formation of the American national identity. Even during the period of the American Revolution in 1783, the frontier defined American individualism, as pointed by Frederick Jackson Turner, “Frontier conditions prevalent in the colonies [were] important factors in the explanation of the American Revolution, here individual liberty was sometimes confused with absence of all effective government” (Turner, Pg.30). Westward expansion led settlers to form a sense of independence that was inherently tied to the ideas of liberty and lack of government intervention. This individualistic nature was bound to threaten the ability of the federal government to assert its policies onto people who lived in states far from the Eastern locus of power. The growing individualism of the frontier also threatened the cultural cohesiveness of the United States. 

Turner rightly pointed out that as settlers continued to move further from the Atlantic coast, “The West and the East began to get out of touch with each other… the over-mountain men grew more and more independent. The East took a narrow view of American advance, and nearly lost these men” (Turner, Pg.18). The movement of settlers further to the East was a clear threat to both the federal government’s ability to assert itself and to the existence of a cohesive cultural identity. As a result of the danger posed by individualism amongst settlers, the nation required the perception of foreign enemies in order to create a sense of national unity.

         The United States has historically relied on the perception of danger caused by foreign enemies as a source of national unity. The American idea of equality was “predicated on reinforcing the dichotomy between friend and enemy, between those included as free citizens and those excluded as threats to settler freedom” (Rana, Pg.22). The foundation of the United States was revolutionary with its focus on equality, but that equality was applied solely to the groups that could potentially serve as allies to the male Anglo supremacy. This can be seen through the American reaction to the Quebec Act of 1774. As the English crown secured the rights of Canadians to practice Catholicism, the American colonists perceived it as a direct attack on their ideals of democracy and freedom. The shared consensus of colonists as being “surrounded by communities seeking to destroy their ancestral and religious liberties” led to their perception of “other Protestants as potential allies in a shared colonial enterprise” (Rana, Pg.61). 

The Westward expansion had a particular impact on the creation of American identity as the “frontier stretched along the western border like a cord of union. The Indian was a common danger, demanding united action” (Turner, Pg.15). The danger associated with the frontier provided the white man with another common enemy that could unite its members under the goal of self-preservation. As a result, Westward expansion strengthened the exclusionary characteristic of American equality, and thus freedom and subordination were bound together, generating within the newly independent colonies what might be called a “politics of duality” (Rana, Pg.96-7). The dependence of American unity on the existence of an external threat created a conflict between the ideal of freedom and the need for subordination. White male Americans had a right to freedom, but each group that could potentially threaten their freedom had to be subordinated. The American unity was founded based on the existence of a foreign enemy, namely the Native Americans on the frontier. This unique culture is what led the United States, once it became a hegemonic power post-WWII, to create the foreign Frankenstein to justify its imperialist policies towards both its own citizens and the international community.

The Creation of a Soviet Frankenstein-

         Between the 16th and 30th of July 1945, Joseph Stalin and Harry Truman met in Potsdam, Germany to plan for the postwar order. During the conference, which was attended by officials from the Soviet Union, United States, and Great Britain, Truman developed a fascination towards Stalin. In Truman’s private notebooks he wrote, “I invited him to come to the U.S. Told him I’d send the Battleship Missouri for him if he’d come. He said he wanted to cooperate with the U.S. in peace as we had cooperated in War but it would be harder. Said he was grossly misunderstood in the U.S., and I was misunderstood in Russia. I told him that we each could help to remedy that situation in our home countries and that I intended to try with all I had to do my part at home. He gave me a most cordial smile and said he would do as much in Russia” (Truman, Pg.54). The brief interaction reflected the potential for peaceful relations that Truman and Stalin seemingly thought would occur. This conversation, along with the entire Potsdam conference, must be placed within the context of an American advantage over the Soviet Union because of its nuclear weaponry, which the Soviet Union did not develop until 1949. The potential for a seemingly peaceful relationship between Stalin and Truman, and the American nuclear advantage, symbolize the fact that from 1945 to 1949 the United States had the option of leading a peaceful foreign policy towards the Soviet Union which would have minimized the ramifications of the future Cold War.

         During this four-year opening for potential peace between the two great powers, the infamous Long Telegram was released. In  February 1946 the American diplomat in Moscow, George F. Kennan, wrote telegram “511” in response to a speech that was given by Stalin. In the telegram, he gave a brief analysis of the Soviet state and the necessary actions that the American government would have to carry out in its dealings with the USSR. Kennan described communism as follows, “World communism is like a malignant parasite which feeds only on diseased tissue. This is the point at which domestic and foreign policies meet. Every courageous and incisive measure to solve internal problems of our own society, to improve self-confidence, discipline, morale, and community spirit of our own people, is a diplomatic victory over Moscow worth a thousand diplomatic notes and joint communities. If we cannot abandon fatalism and indifference in face of deficiencies of our own society, Moscow will profit. Moscow cannot help profiting by them in its foreign policies”' (Kennan, Pg. 17). 

In this recommendation, Kennan characterizes the Soviet Union as an enemy which would only profit from American fatalism and indifference. Kennan argued that the United States needs to have a coordinated foreign and domestic policy of strengthening American society in order to better compete with the Soviet Union. Kennan’s characterization of the USSR as an enemy which would benefit from America’s failures, and his recommendation that the US needs to focus its efforts on strengthening its communities so that they can compete with the Soviets, is extremely inflammatory and conflictual. This rhetoric had a direct impact on American foreign policy and the public’s perception of the Soviet Union, which only a few years prior had fought alongside the United States against the Axis powers. When the United States had the upper hand, from 1945 until 1949, which would have allowed it the option of pursuing peaceful policies with the USSR, it actively chose to vilify and create the perception of a Soviet enemy. This is not to imply that if the Americans had wanted to, they could have prevented the Cold War, the Soviet Union also chose multiple times to not pursue peaceful policies towards the US, but during the period of American nuclear advantage, the United States chose to significantly increase tension instead of attempting to decrease it.

         The importance of Kennan’s telegram is not necessarily with the text itself, but rather the public perception towards it. In the decades following the telegram, Kennan expressed his regret for having formatted the telegram in a way that could have been interpreted to mean that the US should compete militarily with the Soviet Union. Kennan said in an interview in 1972 that “the American mass media produce upon any given event an effect analogous to that produced on a man's shadow by the angle of the sun-causing it normally to be either much greater or much less than life-size. In the case of this particular article, it was much greater” (Kennan, Gati, and Ullman, Pg.1). Kennan also strongly opposed certain types of military competition, including nuclear warfare, “There is really no reason why we and the Russians should wish to do frightful things to each other and to the world” (Kennan, Gati, and Ullman, Pg.1). Kennan’s claim that it was the media that grossly exaggerated the conflictual rhetoric of the telegram and characterized the Soviets as a foreign enemy that could only be defeated through military force reflects the American public’s tendency to create a foreign enemy even without the government’s explicit attempt to do so.

         The events during the postwar effectively show the American process of enemification in a period when the US could have attempted to foster peace with the Soviet Union. This process of enemification was an essential boiling point during the Cold War for the justification of the  American imperialist policy, in the next section it will be analyzed the extent to which this process occurred even after the Cold War.

ARTICLE 2

The Evolution of the Frankenstein Theory

         In the period following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States attempted to continue its foreign imperialist policy without having to rely upon enemification of the Soviet Union as a justification. Following the fall of the Soviet Union it became clear that the United States had become dependent upon its Soviet adversary as a means to justify foreign policy. In 1993, Foreign Policy writers Christopher Layne and Benjamin Schwarz pointed out that “since the late 1940s, two paradoxes have shaped American foreign policy. First, although the Soviet Union was the immediate focus of U.S. security strategy, it was really quite incidental to America's liberal internationalist policy. Second, the Soviet Union's existence, ironically, was indispensable to that policy's success” (Layne and Schwarz, Pg.1). This analysis assumes that even if the Soviet Union had not been America’s main adversary, the United States would have still carried out its imperialist policies such as the Marshall Plan, the creation of Bretton Woods, and the political tampering in foreign states. On the other hand, the role of the Soviet Union as a threat to the world became essential to the American justifications for these policies. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US continued to carry out its imperialist foreign policy, but it had to create a new international threat that  it could use to justify itself.  

         One of the main conflicts that the United States entered after the end of the Cold War was the war on terror, and specifically the Iraq war. During this period, the process of enemification is exceedingly obvious through the rhetoric of various American representatives. A clear example can be seen through a speech by George W. Bush during which he declares “states like these [Iran, Iraq, and N. Korea], and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.”  By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger.  They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States.  In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic” (George W. Bush, Pg.1). Bush describes American adversaries as “evil” and he used diction such as “terrorist”, “danger”, “destruction”, “hatred”, and “catastrophic” to emphasize the imminent threat posed to Americans. This diction is used for the purpose of inciting fear and creating a specific characterization of these foreign nations as enemies. By characterizing entire nations of peoples as enemies, it allows the United States to use them as a justification to carry out its imperialist foreign policy.

         In this case, we see a similar hidden advantage as was present during the American-Soviet relationship from 1945-1949. Just as the United States had a nuclear advantage during those four years, it also had it before the invasion of Iraq. The difference lies in the fact that during Potsdam it was initially hidden that the United States had nuclear power, but in the 2000s it was public knowledge. As a result, it would have been difficult to create an enemy out of Iraq to the same extent that the Soviet Union was in 1945, so the United States actively created a false narrative that Saddam Hussein also had weapons of mass destruction to create the perception of two equally powerful adversaries. Colin Powell in his address to the United Nations clearly stated that “Iraq declared 8,500 liters of anthrax, but UNSCOM estimates that Saddam Hussein could have produced 25,000 liters. If concentrated into this dry form, this amount would be enough to fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons. And Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoon-full of this deadly material… The trucks and train cars are easily moved and are designed to evade detection by inspectors. In a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to the Gulf War”. (Colin Powell, Pg.1) 

Powell’s speech was effective in creating sufficient fear of Iraq that it became a viable enemy which the United States could use to carry out its imperialist policy. Powell’s “facts” were almost all proven wrong after the invasion of Iraq. It must also be pointed out that Powell eventually regretted his speech to the UN, in a strange parallel to George F Kennan’s regret of the Long Telegram. Powell acknowledged that his Security Council speech would be a "blot" on his record. It was "painful" for him, he told ABC News anchor Barbara Walters; "I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world," and the presentation "will always be part of my record”. (Zarefsky, Pg. 297-8) In contrast to Kennan’s regret of the Long Telegram, Powell did not blame the media for having falsely estimated the threat posed by Iraq. Powell instead does assume partial responsibility for having advocated for the Iraq war on the basis of false claims to the United Nations and to American citizens. The recurrence of regret after having characterized foreign states as enemies which Kennan and Powell share could reflect the fact that the process of the creation of a Frankenstein is not necessarily driven by the state, but it could just be an effect of the fact that American unity is based upon the existence of a foreign enemy.

         In the case of Iraq, the United States, whether it was actively driven by the state or a product of American culture, needed to fabricate the threat posed by Iraq in order to justify its imperialist foreign policy because it could no longer rely on the enemification of the Soviet Union. The succeeding reveals that Iraq not possessing weapons for mass destruction was the beginning of the international questioning of the right of the US to have world hegemony. In a world facing declining world hegemony, it can be argued that the US has been trying to create an enemy that could replace the USSR, namely China. By finding a replacement for the Soviet Union, the US would once more be able to claim that its imperialist foreign policy is carried out for the safety of the world because otherwise, its evil enemy would replace it. In the following section, it will examine the extent to which the US is attempting to create the perception of a Chinese enemy.

The Creation of a Modern Frankenstein-

In recent years it has become increasingly obvious that the United States is trying to create the perception of China as a national enemy. This process began when China became the world’s second-largest economy and climaxed during the Trump administration. By creating the perception of China as a national enemy the United States has a justification to expand upon its imperialist interests in Asia and particularly in the South China Sea.

         The beginning of the process of enemification began when China became the world’s second-largest economy in 2010. In as early as 2005 C. Fred Bergsten proposed the idea of a G2, the formation of a special relationship between the US and China to address the world’s biggest issues (Bergsten, 2009). Even though this proposal is seemingly diplomatic and peaceful, it is falsely based upon the idea of China and the United States having equal or comparable levels of international influence, which was not the case in 2005. At the beginning of the Obama presidency, the idea resurfaced as a result of the positive relations between China and the US. In 2009 Wu Jianmin, president emeritus of China’s Foreign affairs University and a former top Foreign Ministry official, stated in reference to the G2 that “when you mention leadership, you scare Chinese because, in the eyes of the Chinese, leadership equates (with) hegemony”. (Reuters, 2009) It would not have been beneficial for China to be placed on equal standing to the United States in front of the international community because it went against China’s foreign policy goals. 

While China’s influence has been undoubtedly growing within past years, it is pursuing a type of foreign policy which is very different from the imperialist tendencies of the United States and the Soviet Union. As a result, it has been beneficial for the United States to create an image of China as being equivalent in power because it would have allowed the United States to negate its role as a hegemonic power. In the Trump administration’s official Whitehouse plan, it was clearly stated that “China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence”. (Trump Whitehouse, 2017) The juxtaposition of China and the United States’ most widely recognized adversary, Russia, creates a very clear message as to how the Trump administration wanted the public to perceive China. The most obvious example of Trump’s attempt to create a negative perception of China was during the Covid-19 Pandemic when Trump began to characterize the virus as the “Chinese Virus” (Yam, 2020). By placing the blame on a foreign national enemy, Trump was able to shift the blame away from his administration from the economic repercussions of the pandemic. Trump’s use of China during Covid-19 is the perfect microcosm for justifying the Frankenstein theory, a state creating the perception of another state as the enemy so that it can justify its own actions to the public.

         The Biden administration has not chosen to continue the process of enemification of China to the same extent as that of Trump. Biden has referred to China as “our most serious competitor” and has stated that his administration will confront China’s economic abuses, counter its aggressive course of action to push back China’s attack on human rights, intellectual property, and global governance… but we’re ready to work with Beijing, when it’s in America’s interest to do so (Reuters, 2021). While in 2005 the placing of China in equal standing to the United States was an American tactic to falsely establish China as a competitor for world hegemony, in 2020 it has become a potential reality. As a result, Biden’s language is neither misleading nor as inflammatory as that of Trump or Bergsten. The fact that Biden is not pursuing the process of enemification to the same extent as Trump can be explained through America’s decreasing role as a hegemonic power. As American hegemony declines, it becomes less able to carry out effective imperialist foreign policy and as a result, there is less of a need for the creation of a Frankenstein to justify it. The loss of Frankenstein could also threaten American national unity which could, in turn, accelerate the hegemonic decline in a self-replicating pattern. As the United States becomes increasingly unstable in its domestic politics, it loses its ability to pursue a coherent foreign policy that lasts throughout multiple administrations. Increased American instability, both domestically and internationally, is bound to pave the way for the rise of other nations and institutions to fill the void of a declining hegemony. 

Since its rise as a hegemonic power, the United States has depended upon the perception of a foreign enemy in order to maintain solidarity amongst its citizens and justify its policies of imperialist expansion to its allies. This paper will analyze the extent to which the perception of certain nations as the main American enemies, successively the Soviet Union, Iraq, and China, was actively created by the United States. The process of a nation creating the perception of a foreign entity as a threat in order to justify the pursuit of certain domestic goals will be referred to as the Frankestein theory.