By Michael Barone
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
America has gone back to isolationism, many commentators
are saying. Not just the dovish Democrats, but also Republicans who were so
hawkish a decade ago are turning away from the world.
There is something to this, but it's more complicated
than that. To understand where we are, it's helpful to put today's developments
in historic perspective.
One picture of American history has it that this country
left the rest of the world alone through most of its history, was pulled into
world politics by World War II and the Cold War and is now just reverting to
its norm.
The problem with this picture is that it leaves a lot of
things out. George Washington kept Americans out of a world war between Britain
and France, wisely because the early republic was split down the middle on
which side to back.
But a few years later, Thomas Jefferson was quite willing
to send the U.S. Navy and Marines to quell the Barbary pirates in the
Mediterranean. He recognized that we were a maritime and trading nation and had
an interest in keeping the sea lanes open for trade.
America has sent missionaries as well as merchants around
the world for two centuries. The nation has projected power and acquired
territory in the Pacific as well as the Caribbean.
It has participated in international organizations since
it ratified The Hague Conventions that set out principles of international law
in 1899.
So the proposition that America long isolated itself from
the world is laced with exceptions.
The term "isolationist" became common in the
years after World War I. It was applied, erroneously, to senators who opposed
the Versailles Treaty because it committed the U.S. to go to war without a vote
in Congress.
But the heyday of isolationism was not the 1920s, when
Republican presidents were heavily involved in European negotiations. It was in
the middle 1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt torpedoed the London economic
conference and signed a Neutrality Act. He changed course around 1938 when he
decided that Hitler was a menace America could not live with.
Since the Founders, Americans have had different
approaches to foreign policy -- four different approaches named after four
statesmen, as Walter Russell Mead explains in his book, "Special
Providence," and on his blog, "The American Interest." They are
isolationist to varying degrees, depending on circumstances.
One approach is Hamiltonian, making the world safe for
American commerce through global alliances and military power. Another is
Wilsonian, relying more on international law and human rights.
George W. Bush started off as a Hamiltonian and after
9/11 added Wilsonian emphases. Military power would be used to serve universal
aspirations for freedom.
Iraq and Afghanistan have made these two mostly
non-isolationist approaches unattractive to most Americans and most
Republicans.
A third approach is Jeffersonian, seeking to avoid war to
keep a virtuous America safe from the wiles of the world. Sen. Rand Paul takes
a Jeffersonian approach, combined with opposition to big government at home.
Until Paul became prominent, most Jeffersonians were
leftish Democrats, ever seeking to prevent another Vietnam. They like big
government at home, but they join Paul in suspicions about National Security
Agency surveillance and air attacks in Syria.
The fourth approach is Jacksonian, named after the victor
in the Battle of New Orleans. Jacksonians respond fiercely and with utter
determination to attacks on America. Most numerous in the South, they have
supplied a large share of America's soldiers -- including to both sides in the
Civil War.
In war, Jacksonians insist on the "absolute
victory" Roosevelt promised in his Pearl Harbor speech. They are not
interested in military involvement in areas where America doesn't seem
threatened or in "incredibly small" attacks.
All these groups have been dismayed with how American
forces have been targeted and attacked by those we have sought to help in the
Middle East, except the Jeffersonians, who expected nothing better.
On Syria, Barack Obama seems out of line with all four. Jeffersonians
oppose attacks on a country that hasn't attacked us. Wilsonians oppose attacks
without international authorization.
Hamiltonians resent Obama's willingness to accept
sequester-driven cuts in defense spending. Jacksonians see Obama as a leader
eager to talk to America's enemies and reluctant even to utter the word
"victory"-- their only goal in any conflict.
A successful foreign policy gathers the support of all
four tendencies, or at least three. Obama on Syria is something like the
opposite.
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