America in the World

By Jay Nordlinger

Monday, August 03, 2020

 

Note: Below is an expanded version of a piece published in the current issue of National Review.

 

For as long as anyone can remember, conservatives have been labeled “warmongers.” Gore Vidal called William F. Buckley Jr. “the leading warmonger in the United States.” Reagan was called a “warmonger” every day, as was Goldwater before him.

 

Bella Abzug, the radical congresswoman from New York, was a little more creative. She accused Reagan of conducting a “Rambo-Bonzo foreign policy.” (John Rambo was an action hero; Bonzo was the chimp in a Reagan movie, from 1951.)

 

John Bolton is a veteran Reaganite, and Goldwaterite, for that matter: On Election Day 1964, when he was 15, he got permission to be absent from school, in order to pass out leaflets for Goldwater. He has served in every Republican administration from Reagan on.

 

His critics on the left have always called him a “warmonger” — that’s dog-bites-man. But lately, man has been biting dog.

 

When Bolton published a memoir in June, damning of President Trump, the Republican National Committee issued a statement calling Bolton, among other things, a “warmonger.” Trump called him a “warmongering fool.” “All he wanted to do is drop bombs on everybody,” said Trump.

 

At the same time, Eliot Engel was in a fight for his political life. Engel is a veteran Democratic congressman from New York, though very different from the late Abzug: He is the last of the JFK Democrats, a man whose foreign-policy views are closer to Bolton’s than to those of the average Democratic politician today.

 

“I have always felt strongly about America’s role in the world,” said Engel in 2005 (in an interview with me). “We, as a country, aren’t perfect. We’re all human, we all make mistakes. But I think our vision — what we want to share, what can be taken from our experience — is overwhelmingly positive. I don’t agree with the Blame America crowd . . .”

 

June 23, 2020, was Primary Day. Jacobin magazine — a publication true to its name — slammed Engel as “a longtime and steadfast warmonger.”

 

Voters went to the polls to choose between Engel and a radical challenger, Jamaal Bowman. They voted for the challenger in overwhelming numbers.

 

On Twitter, I noted that Left and Right seemed united in labeling people such as Bolton and Engel “warmongers.” A writer for The American Conservative magazine replied, “It’s like the only good thing going on.”

 

Many think so.

 

***

 

Back in 1906, the Norwegian Nobel Committee gave its peace prize to President Theodore Roosevelt — chiefly for his mediation in the Russo–Japanese War. The president’s critics were aghast. The New York Times, for example, thought that “a broad smile illuminated the face of the globe” when a prize for peace was awarded to “the most warlike citizen of these United States.”

 

Seven years later, Roosevelt wrote his autobiography, which included a line that, again, left critics aghast. “In my judgment,” he said, “the most important service that I rendered to peace was the voyage of the battle fleet around the world.”

 

In 1953, the Nobel committee gave its prize to another distinguished American, George C. Marshall. His part in the defeat of the Nazis was a fine contribution to peace. But he won the prize for the Marshall Plan, or the “European Recovery Program,” as he was the only one to call it. He gave a Nobel lecture that remains one of the most unusual in history.

 

He said that the United States was weak in the late 1930s, making it vulnerable to war; and that after the war, the U.S. made itself weak again, which emboldened North Korea to invade the South. Marshall was tired of having to “rebuild our national military strength in the very face of the gravest emergencies.”

 

Since World War II, there have been 13 U.S. presidents, some more hawkish, some more dovish — but all of them, pretty much, recognizing the need for American engagement with the world, and leadership in it. (Trump is a special case, deserving of its own piece, and books.)

 

In 2009, President Obama was a peace laureate, and he said in his lecture,

 

Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans.

 

We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest — because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.

 

***

 

Within the Cold War, of course, were hot wars — including Vietnam. After the disaster there, many Americans were afflicted with “Vietnam syndrome”: an aversion — well understandable — to U.S. involvement overseas, especially military involvement. In 1991, after our swift and decisive victory in the Gulf War, President Bush (41) could not help exclaiming, “By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all.”

 

The Nineties were by and large a “holiday from history,” in which Americans sought a “peace dividend”: relief from foreign-policy burdens. In a sense, the Nineties ended on September 11, 2001.

 

“Islamic killers are over here,” wrote Patrick J. Buchanan, “because we are over there.” Others had a different view: We are going to have to confront them regardless, either here or there — and better there.

 

About the “endless wars,” there will be endless debate. The Iraq War ended much as Vietnam did, though, after he withdrew our troops, Obama found he had to go back, after ISIS engulfed the space we had vacated.

 

In 2012 — accepting, once more, the Democratic nomination for president — Obama had said this:

 

I will use the money we’re no longer spending on war to pay down our debt and put more people back to work — rebuilding roads and bridges and schools and runways. Because after two wars that have cost us thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars, it’s time to do some nation-building right here at home.

 

There were big cheers and applause. And that was a common phrase, from Democratic and Republican politicians alike: “nation-building right here at home.”

 

The 2016 Republican primaries were an interesting affair. Donald Trump, in the same language as the Left, accused George W. Bush and his team of having lied America into the Iraq War. “I want to tell you, they lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none. And they knew there were none.”

 

In 2008, Trump had faulted the Democratic House led by Nancy Pelosi for one thing: failing to impeach Bush.

 

Campaigning in the ’16 cycle, Trump entertained a crowd, saying, “Saddam Hussein throws a little gas. Everyone goes crazy. ‘Oh, he’s using gas!’” To another crowd, he said the following, about the late dictator: “Do you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good. They didn’t read ’em the rights. They didn’t talk. They were a terrorist, it was over!”

 

In truth, Saddam Hussein was a great harborer and funder of terrorists. (Under his wing were Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas, two of the worst. There was also Abdul Rahman Yasin. After he bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, he ran to Saddam and Iraq.)

 

Republicans were undergoing a significant change. Newt Gingrich had been one of the foremost advocates of NATO expansion — an eastward expansion. But now, in 2016, he was saying, “Estonia is in the suburbs of St. Petersburg,” and “I’m not sure I would risk nuclear war over some place which is the suburbs of St. Petersburg.”

 

(Estonians had fought and died alongside Americans in the Afghan War, a war that was in part a NATO war, given that the alliance had invoked Article 5 the day after 9/11. This article says, in effect, that an attack on one is an attack on all. Only in this instance has Article 5 ever been invoked, in the history of the treaty.)

 

***

 

There is an old saying about Americans and foreign policy: The Left opposes American engagement in the world on grounds that it’s bad for the world. The Right opposes it on grounds that it’s bad for America. The Left thinks that America taints the world while the Right thinks the world taints America.

 

This is all too glib, of course, but there is truth in these words.

 

Bernard Lewis, the late Middle East scholar, once said, “You know the expression ‘My country, right or wrong.’ Well, these days, Americans are apt to think, ‘My country, wrong.’” Jeane Kirkpatrick, the late political scientist and foreign-policy thinker, said, “Someday Americans are going to have to face the truth about themselves, no matter how pleasant it is.”

 

Madeleine Albright, a secretary of state under President Clinton, called the United States “the indispensable nation.” “We stand tall, and we see further than other countries into the future,” she said. She spoke unblushingly about “freedom, democracy, and the American way of life.”

 

You can perhaps forgive her her mush, because she was born in Czechoslovakia in May 1937 — about a year and a half before the Munich Agreement. Her father was a diplomat (who, at the University of Denver, would teach another secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice).

 

No one believes that the U.S., or any other nation, can watch over the fall of every sparrow — or the invasion of every country, such as Ukraine, or the gassing of every Syrian child. “We can’t be the world’s policeman,” the Left used to say, during the Cold War. President Trump says the very same today, as he did recently to graduating West Point cadets.

 

We are ending the era of endless wars. In its place is a renewed, clear-eyed focus on defending America’s vital interests. It is not the duty of U.S. troops to solve ancient conflicts in faraway lands that many people have never even heard of. We are not the policemen of the world.

 

When the president spoke these words at West Point, some of us heard an echo of Neville Chamberlain, who, a few days before signing the Munich Agreement, spoke of “a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing.”

 

As to being the world’s policemen, or policeman: true, who can? But I remember Jeane Kirkpatrick, again — who said, What if there’s a world criminal? Who will police him? Will he simply go unchecked, creating mayhem and terror?

 

Today, as always, there are fearsome threats — including nuclear ones from Iran and North Korea. Two years ago, President Trump tweeted, “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea,” adding, “. . . sleep well tonight!”

 

You will forgive some of us for thinking of Chamberlain — who said, on his return from Munich, “I believe it is peace for our time. . . . Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.”

 

In the face of Iran, North Korea, and other malevolent actors, nations will do what they can. They are not powerless or helpless. But, inevitably, they will turn their eyes to the United States, and we cannot look away, even if we wanted to kiss our allies goodbye — because these malevolent actors have it in for us, too.

 

“We’re no longer the suckers, folks,” said President Trump. This was in Iraq, on December 18, 2018, when the president was speaking to U.S. troops. The next day, he would announce a withdrawal of troops from Syria.

 

On the 19th, he tweeted, “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.” About a month later, four Americans were killed by ISIS in Syria: two servicemen and two civilians.

 

Back in December, presidential aide Stephen Miller defended the pullout from Syria. “Let’s put America first,” he said. “Let’s not spill American blood to fight the enemies of other countries.” The president himself tweeted, “Russia, Iran, Syria & others are the local enemy of ISIS. We were doing there work. Time to come home & rebuild. #MAGA.”

 

Is ISIS our enemy? Will they leave us alone if we leave them alone? These are critical questions.

 

In August 2017, Jim Mattis, who was then the secretary of defense, spoke to troops about the fight against terrorists. “We’ll fight alongside our friends and allies, and we’re gonna keep right on fightin’ until they’re sick of us and leave us alone.” Those words struck some of us as realistic — raw realism.

 

At any rate, Mattis resigned the day after Trump announced the pullout from Syria.

 

The president would like to withdraw from Afghanistan — once and for all — by Election Day. Could there be a more understandable desire? We have been there for 19 years. But the Taliban is poised to retake power, and they are still in brotherly alliance with al-Qaeda.

 

Is a U.S. withdrawal in the U.S. interest? There is a robust debate over this, featuring various worthy opinions. I do not envy the deciders.

 

***

 

In 1999, Pat Buchanan published his book A Republic, Not an Empire. A lot of us bristle at the contention that the United States is, or has been, an empire (unless you are speaking of an internal empire, of course). What did Secretary of State Colin Powell say, at Davos in 2003? Something like this: “Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those who did not come back.”

 

But forget republic versus empire: What about the burden we have obviously borne?

 

The old gospel song goes, “Gonna lay my burden down. Ain’t gonna study war no more.” Who can speak against such desires, such longings?

 

In his 1988 convention speech, Vice President Bush, the Republican presidential nominee, chided his Democratic opponent, Governor Michael Dukakis, saying, “He sees America as another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe. And I see America as the leader — a unique nation with a special role in the world.”

 

Plenty of Americans, left and right, would opt for being another pleasant country, tucked between Tanzania (“United Republic of”) and Uruguay.

 

In his own convention speech, 16 years before Bush’s, Senator George McGovern said, “Come home, America,” over and over, in his peroration. This too has tremendous and perpetual appeal. But the world tends to find you, in ugly ways, even if you want to stay snug at home.

 

On the opening night of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the journalist Howard Fineman wrote that the Brits “show us how to lose global power gracefully.” But our cousins, remember, had us Yanks to hand off to. And we have . . . the Chinese Communist Party? Putin? ISIS?

 

Recently, my colleague Kevin D. Williamson wrote,

 

We start from scratch, every generation. History does not bend inevitably toward justice, or freedom, or decency, or even stability. History doesn’t do that in Hong Kong, or in Moscow, or in Washington or New York City or Los Angeles. History goes where we push it. And if we don’t push, someone else will.

 

Two years ago, another colleague, Robert Kagan, wrote a book called “The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World.” I said to him, “The title tells the story, doesn’t it?” “Yes,” he said, with a laugh. “I debated whether it was necessary to write a book to go with the title.”

 

The jungle indeed grows back. You have to keep it at bay, constantly, no matter how wearying it is — or expensive. The consequences of the jungle tend to be more expensive yet, not just in treasure but also in blood.

 

In a tradition of many decades now, foreigners and Americans alike have complained about the U.S. role in the world (not always unjustly, far from it). I often quote something John Bolton once said, about the foreigners: “They’ll miss us when we’re gone.” I’m afraid that we might miss us, too, when we’re gone — if we’re gone.