The Common Defense and Great-Power Responsibilities

When the people of the United States ordained and established their Constitution, they gave prominence to the aim of providing for the common defense. In Article I, Section 8, the Constitution assigns to Congress the authority to raise money for that purpose, and in Article IV, Section 4, it lays upon the United States the obligation to protect each of the states against invasion. For the United States, as for other states in the global system, providing for the common defense is a responsibility owed to its people. Do the United States and other states also have international responsibilities? Do they have obligations not merely to their own people but to the world, or parts of it, outside their boundaries? This is, of course, a normative question, in replying to which one expresses one's convictions about how states ought to behave. It leads immediately to a set of empirical questions: Do most people think that states have external responsibilities? Do states acknowledge such obligations? Is the behavior of states significantly affected by their concern to meet what they deem to be their international responsibilities?