Only several days following the passing of former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, many on both the Left and the Right have completed their rounds of “Rest in Peace” social media posts followed by thoughtful opinion pieces, singing praises of her legacy as a public servant. However, Madeleine Albright’s legacy should be thoroughly criticized as her influence in US foreign policy laid the foundation for the latest failures under the Biden Administration’s leadership.
Albright’s main claim to fame has been for becoming the first woman Secretary of State, but now that many are unable to explain what the term “woman” is, her legacy is based on the Clinton-era’s lock-step foreign policy of intervention in the Balkan states and NATO expansion into Central and Eastern Europe. This should be especially frightening to Americans, as her approach as a “foreign policy expert” is being handed down to future State Department bureaucrats.
As Albright’s story originates from a Czechoslovakian Ambassador’s family who escaped both fascism and communism, her family fled to America. The Daily Beast even notes “[Albright’s] appreciation for America—our country’s unique virtues and the need to be willing to fight for the freedoms we so value—flowed directly from her personal experience,”. However, this edifice that many left-leaning journalists attempt to construct won’t tell you the full story of Albright’s past.
Albright, despite being heralded as a sweet and compassionate lady, has held a distasteful reputation from her push to bomb and intervene in the Balkans during the 1998-1999 conflicts. Serbian people would note the intervention from U.S. forces as “Madeleine’s War”, the people noted that her ruthlessness in the Balkans was almost unnecessary by both foreign and domestic adversaries. Former Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell even expressed concerns, only to be met with Albright’s response: “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”.
Let us not forget that Albright’s foreign policy has been stained by the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children that died from Clinton-era sanctions against Saddam Hussein. Ruthlessly, Albright openly chastised anyone who would argue against said sanctions regardless that Iraq’s regime had relinquished ambitions of pursuing nuclear weapons.
Many left-wing journalists praise this as a strong woman performing her role well, but is mute as the same journalists have remained in Albright’s corner while chastising “war-hawk” behavior of Republican politicians and public servants. All while Albright received zero attention for settling personal scores in the Balkans, using NATO forces as the means to achieve it.
The blood of more than 500,000 Iraqi children has stained the Clinton Administration, and when asked in a 60 Minutes interview about the outcome in 1996: Madeleine Albright unapologetically stated “we think the price is worth it”. Expressing no remorse for committing such gruesome acts, the Late Madame Secretary established America’s decades of intervention – even the moral standing of the country.
The cornerstone of Albright’s foreign policy has been advocating for the expansion of NATO into Central and Eastern European countries. Regardless of a personal belief in Albright’s ambition to add Visegrad, Baltic and Balkan states, NATO expansion into those countries was forewarned as antagonizing a post-Soviet Russia.
In fact, many experts in Russian relations expressed concerns for the United States’s push to include both former satellite states and newly formed post-Soviet states. George F. Kannan, one of the architects of Cold War Soviet-containment strategy, saw the expansion of NATO as “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era,”. Many explained that the push for NATO’s inclusion of new states would damage any hopes to form a cooperative partnership with Russia.
Testifying on the Senate floor, Albright made her position perfectly in advocating in-favor of a growing NATO and disregarded any concerns. In Albright’s words: “Let me also stress that the point of the NATO-Russia agreement is not to convince Russia to agree to NATO enlargement. We do not need Russia to agree to enlargement.” Such a statement is antagonism to any country it regards, regardless of America’s position as a world-superpower.
Albright’s entire persona in politics, from Ambassador’s daughter to life-long public servant, has reinforced what has solidified mainstream American foreign policy: negligent antagonism. While she viewed her insistence to expand into Central and Eastern Europe as protecting democracy, she disregarded her own colleagues’ concerns of dangerous potential relations with Russia. Her own demands of “securing” democracy, as she explained to the Senate, came at the expense of a Russian ally.
Most recently was Albright’s insistence on highlighting Donald Trump as the “most undemocratic president” of modern American history, for his behavior in doubting legitimacy in mainstream media. Whenever an issue on immigration, criticism of the press or major foreign affairs occurred, like clockwork she appeared on MSNBC or CNN as an authoritative source to criticize the Trump Administration’s actions. Shockingly, she was hardly an appropriate source for such topics as she remained complicit in the Obama Administration’s abuse of the Espionage Act – where the DOJ and FBI targeted journalists who reported negatively of President Obama.
By understanding Albright’s upbringing as an elite, Americans should begin to ask: to what degree has Albright played in the current foreign policy disaster of the war between Ukraine and Russia? Knowing Albright was appointed to President Carter’s National Security Council, how much did her “leadership” influence parallels in the “Fall of Saigon” as the disastrous exit from Afghanistan? Faults in Albright’s horrible leadership were very rarely recognized for what they were: negligent mistakes. With the current leadership propping up her proteges as “experts”, negligence will be the expectation of American foreign policy.
Had Albright not pushed such an aggressive campaign to wave NATO banners within any country that simply disliked Russia, today’s Ukrainian crisis very likely could have been avoided. Taking great measures to blatantly antagonize Russia, as many foreign policy experts warned NATO integration could do, is what has produced such vicious backlash of war within Ukraine.
Madeleine Albright was a political pawn for the Democrat Party, nothing more. People herald her as a woman who “shattered glass ceilings”, but if one were to look at her legacy too closely the details would unravel the narrative that left-wing journalists want to construct. We as critical thinkers should take a closer look at major political figures, elected and unelected, especially when they have left such an unforgettable mess in their wake.
If any were to have paid attention to Albright’s legacy and time of death, they may likely breathe a sigh of relief to know she has passed and no longer holds influence in interventionist foreign policy. Unfortunately, that is far from the truth: The Russian bombings in Ukraine continue; foreign policy “experts”, mentored by Albright herself, currently hold positions in the State Department; future plans to destabilize nations are likely in the works as this article is being read. No tears will be shed for a woman who worked so selfishly to further globalist policies in the name of “progress”. Such a resume of neo-liberal antagonism deserves one sole response with her passing: Rest in Hell, Madeleine Albright.
That bitch can eat a demon dick.