The United States is a messianic state: rhetorical roots in US foreign policy since 1991

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ABSTRACT How do we explain the United States’ interventionist mindset in the international system since 1991? Since the end of the Cold War and the subsequent unipolar moment, America has actively promoted democracy and human rights globally. However, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban’s subsequent takeover prompts us to re-think the ideological roots of interventionism between 1991 and 2021. Scholars have taken two broad positions on how they view America: an empire or a hegemon. In this article, I suggest that two conceptions help explain the US actions and behaviour in the international system but do not explicitly outline the rhetorical roots of the US intentions. Drawing on historical instances of messianic tendencies in the global political structure, this paper argues that a messianic state is a nation-state that assumes the global responsibility of saving societies from an impending threat. As a messianic state, the US has used the discursive logic of saving others by drawing on American exceptionalism and the global vision of democratic peace. The messianic content in American foreign policy matured between 1991 and 2010, but it has been in steep decline since 2015 with the rise of China and American inwardness.