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Executive Summary
Purpose and Scope
This paper seeks to uncover the hidden drivers behind the United States’ recurring patterns of global intervention and militarized dominance. Rather than focusing solely on geopolitical interests or rational cost-benefit analyses, Galtung examines the psychocultural archetypes embedded within the U.S. collective subconscious that predispose policymakers and society toward certain behaviors on the world stage.
Core Framework
Galtung identifies a three-part complex that organizes the U.S. worldview and global actions:
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CMT (Chosenness-Myths-Traumas)
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Chosenness: The belief in divine or historical exceptionalism—America as God’s “New Canaan.”
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Myths: Narratives of manifest destiny, invincibility, and global leadership.
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Traumas: Unresolved collective wounds, from slavery and Native genocide to Vietnam, that shape defensive aggression.
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DMA (Dichotomy-Manicheism-Armageddon)
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The binary worldview: Self = Good, Other = Evil.
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A conviction that ultimate confrontation between these forces is inevitable, legitimizing preemptive violence.
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RP (Repression-Projection)
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Violence within the U.S. psyche is denied, while “evil” and aggression are projected onto others.
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Produces cycles of escalation, where conflict narratives perpetuate themselves.
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Key Insights from Case Studies
Across ten historical episodes, Galtung demonstrates the recurring projection of these subconscious structures:
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Hiroshima & Nagasaki → Punitive “divine” retribution framed as justice, reinforcing U.S. chosenness.
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Cold War & Vietnam → Binary struggles where alternatives to militarization were repressed.
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Israel-Palestine & South Africa → Identification with settler-colonial actors perpetuated systemic exclusions.
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Cuba & Latin America → Economic and ideological control rationalized through “manifest destiny.”
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Gulf War & Beyond → New enemies (“rogue states,” “terrorists”) filled the vacuum left by the Cold War, sustaining the “Armageddon” narrative.
Findings and Implications
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Systemic Projection: U.S. actions mirror unconscious fears and desires rather than strategic rationality.
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Cultural Violence: Exceptionalism legitimizes the use of force while obscuring nonviolent alternatives.
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Global Feedback Loops: Each intervention plants seeds of resentment and retaliation, sustaining cycles of conflict.
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Denial and Consensus: Elite and public narratives coalesce quickly around the necessity of violence, marginalizing dissent.
Toward Therapeutic Alternatives
Galtung argues that the U.S. must undertake a “collective therapy” at the cultural and institutional levels, which involves:
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Conscious integration of traumas rather than projecting them outward.
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Dialogue across archetypes to disrupt binary Good/Evil framings.
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Institutional multilateralism to replace unilateral dominance with cooperative global governance.
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Nonviolent conflict transformation as the organizing principle for foreign policy.
Conclusion
By tracing the psychocultural roots of U.S. global violence, this paper reframes foreign policy pathologies as deep-seated projections of unresolved collective identity. Without confronting these underlying archetypes, militarized dominance and systemic conflict will persist. Conversely, acknowledging and integrating these subconscious forces opens the door to a new paradigm of mutual recognition, empathy, and peace-building.
Clipped from: https://activity.scar.gmu.edu/sites/default/files/ICAR%20occasional%20paper%2011.pdf
School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution
Published on Mar 31, 2016
