By John Pietro
Sunday, March 19, 2023
The prevailing media consensus is that the GOP is fast becoming the party of neo-isolationism and retrenchment. There is some truth in this, but while the hawks may no longer be able to count on the party base’s steadfast loyalty, they are not going the way of the dodo anytime soon.
It is difficult to separate a prudent hawkish outlook from American conservatism. Unlike progressivism, conservatism is not an ideology, but a product of tradition, reason, and the particularities of place. The conservative does not pursue a utopian world; he works in and with his reality. “Most conservatives are fundamentally hawks — the question is merely to what extent,” says Carrie Filipetti, who served at the State Department as deputy assistant secretary for Cuba and Venezuela during the Trump administration and is now the executive director of the Vandenberg Coalition. “We have to make choices that reflect the reality we have, not the reality we want. And the reality we have is that doves on the left and right play directly into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. . . Russia . . . and Iran.”
It is true that the hawks are facing challenges at the moment. The foreign-policy mistakes of the 21st century have pushed some on the right to question what they see as conservative foreign-policy orthodoxy. Many “are concerned about overextension. They don’t support toppling adversary governments in the Middle East or in other parts of the world, and trying to replace them with democracies,” says Nathan Sales, who served ambassador at large and coordinator for counterterrorism in the Trump State Department.
Blunders during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the intervention in Libya seriously undermined those championing an assertive foreign policy. The hawks’ image took a particular hit with young conservatives, many of whom grew up knowing nothing but conflict in the Middle East. “The War on Terror and Donald Trump’s presidency are defining political moments for Gen Z, and I think this has caused many young conservatives to be more isolationist than past generations,” says Joseph Nepomuceno, a sophomore at the College of the Holy Cross who is on the board of the school’s Alexander Hamilton Society (AHS) and is an active member of its College Republicans chapter.
Nonetheless, the young are not a lost cause. “Gen Z is split on this issue,” says Gabby Dankanich, a senior at Catholic University of America who is the chair of the school’s Young America’s Foundation chapter and the co-president of its AHS chapter. “Those who largely focus on foreign policy, to an extent, are aware of the fragility of peace,” she says. But “many in Gen Z that focus only on domestic policy understand the challenges within our borders, yet fail to realize that we have to protect our freedom from both domestic and foreign threats.” Nepomuceno agrees. “I still see hope in Gen Z, as many young Republicans are supportive of an active United States on the global stage, especially with the broad conservative consensus aimed at challenging China,” he says.
For the prudent hawks on the right, no matter the difficulties, persuading skeptical conservatives is a worthy task. The world is an increasingly dangerous place, with the U.S.-led global system threatened by hostile and expansionist foreign powers. America is far from perfect, but what makes it unique is that despite its status as the world’s preeminent power, it generally abides by the rules of the international order it oversees.
The system as presided over by the United States is one that any responsible actor can more or less buy into. Small countries are not disadvantaged or taken advantage of by America — indeed, the system allows them to punch well above their weight and make unprecedented gains in prosperity and security. Why? Because raw power does not dictate world affairs, commerce flows freely, and sovereign borders are broadly considered inviolable.
This world cannot exist without the United States at the helm; there is no other country that has both the capacity and the desire to maintain it. “Americans benefit enormously from the world the way it is right now,” says Sales. “It’s not going to stay that way without continued American leadership.” If the U.S.-led order were to fall, it would be replaced with a system led by China and its coterie of autocratic friends — governments that are only interested in the power they can wield. “The question is not, ‘Should America lead or not?’ The question is, ‘Should America lead or should China lead?’” Sales says. “Because if we don’t, then the Chinese Communist Party is going to eagerly step into the vacuum created by an American withdrawal from global leadership.”
Consider the most salient non-China example: Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. February 24, 2022, came after a long period during which the U.S. had repeatedly demonstrated weakness. Obama prematurely withdrew from Iraq in 2011, failed to enforce his “red line” against Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons in Syria, and showed he would do anything to achieve a deal with Iran. The Kremlin got away with a slap on the wrist in the form of weak and ineffective sanctions for annexing Crimea in 2014, and the U.S. refused to give Ukraine what it needed to deter Russia after that. Trump proceeded to abandon America’s Kurdish allies in Syria, responded to China’s crushing of 7 million freedom-loving people in Hong Kong with nothing but strong words, and rhetorically undermined NATO. And then there was the coup de grâce: Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. America’s forces in the country had been small and effective at keeping the Taliban at bay, and the financial costs of doing so had been minimal compared to the benefits of ensuring Afghanistan could not once again become a terrorist haven. The evacuation was chaotic, with hundreds of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghan allies left behind. To add insult to injury, it was done over the objections of NATO allies who had fought alongside the U.S. throughout the Afghan conflict.
The strength of American deterrence was at a multi-decade low. It should be no surprise, then, that Putin felt it was an opportune time to invade Ukraine: A void was left, and Russia filled it.
The crisis in Ukraine also highlights the position of some on the right who argue that America must focus on China to the exclusion of other foreign-policy priorities. There is no question that China is the United States’ main global adversary; the one power that poses a truly existential threat to America. But that threat cannot be viewed in a vacuum. “The world is not either/or, and the growing alliance between Russia and China proves that,” says Filipetti. “Just as Putin was the main audience for American retreat from Afghanistan, so too is Xi the main audience for our actions in Ukraine.” For the U.S., then, supporting the defense of Ukraine against Russian imperialism is integral to tackling the China challenge. Should America’s resolve crack in this conflict, there is every reason for Xi to assume it will crack again if China invades Taiwan. “I think we need to do a better job of teasing out the connection between Russia and China and really make the case compellingly that these two countries are in a de facto alliance against us, that they’ve been waging a cold war with hot components against us for quite some time,” Representative Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.) said recently. “Chaos in Eastern Europe, particularly if that chaotic effort is successful, serves his [Xi Jinping’s] interest and makes it more likely . . . he will make a move on Taiwan.”
The need to focus on second-tier threats goes beyond the China–U.S. rivalry, though. “The world is not a series of separate problems that can be isolated and addressed or not addressed,” says Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “Ignoring the Middle East emboldens Iran. When we are weak, even minor powers will challenge us.” And a world where challenging the U.S. pays dividends is a world where Americans are unsafe. “These nations [Iran and Russia] are hostile to U.S. interests and values in the same way as China and are capable of posing a serious threat to the United States, especially when in coordination with one another,” says Nepomuceno.
There is no hiding from global chaos for America, either — in fact, our troubles will only worsen and the risk of conflict will only increase the more we turn away from our commitments. If the U.S. can’t protect the inviolability of sovereign borders in Ukraine, Taiwan, and other allied countries, then our most powerful foes will pursue the imperialist and expansionist crusades of old until they’ve caused more death and destruction than they can handle. More conflict means more opportunities for things to get out of hand, and just because wars do not initially involve the U.S. does not mean it will escape unscathed: Conflict is unpredictable, and successful aggressors gain momentum.
Even if America manages to escape getting drawn into conflicts, it cannot escape the economic impacts of global instability. Take for example the effect of Russia’s Ukraine invasion on energy prices, or the aftermath of Iran’s 2019 attack on a major Saudi oil facility, when crude prices shot up 19.5 percent. It is not hard to foresee a situation in which Iran steps up its malign activities in the Middle East if it feels that the U.S. will not or cannot respond. And if that happens, you should expect energy prices to hit new highs.
This, of course, only scratches the surface of the potential consequences of American withdrawal from the world. But for some on the dovish side of the right, those consequences are of secondary importance. “What is most concerning to me is not that the right is turning toward a version of its 20th century isolationism. It is that the right is turning toward a version of the left’s isolationism,” says Filipetti. Before World War II, “conservatives who were isolationist were such because they fundamentally believed America was an exceptional nation and should focus on building itself up domestically. It was never rooted in a belief that America is a net negative to the world,” she adds. Today, though, to a minority of the right, America is not considered so exceptional. “The isolationism being spread by the right now is a weak and apologetic approach to America, essentially, a belief that America should not be involved abroad because America is fundamentally a bad influence on the world.” She does not think, however, that this form of isolationism is very widespread. “The voices of real isolationism are much more in the fringes — there’s only a few members of Congress who advocate for this approach, and very few in the Republican base,” she says. Fundamentally, “What conservatives want is an America that wins, not an America that surrenders.”
In any case, much of the Right’s broader skepticism of America’s involvement in the world derives from a domestic development: the culture wars. The rise of “wokeness” has been a particularly powerful poison in American politics, finding its way into every nook and cranny, including foreign policy. To the nation’s detriment, the Left conflated freedom and democracy with its progressive priorities an infused those priorities into said policy. Take, for example, the State Department’s provision of $20,600 to pay for drag shows in Ecuador. That may not be much money in budgetary terms, but the U.S. government has no business paying for drag shows. “Russia has invaded Ukraine; the Chinese Communist Party has increased its belligerence towards Taiwan and continues to assert its malign influence across the globe,” Representative Mike McCaul (R., Texas) said recently. “Yet this administration is focused [on] funding drag shows in Ecuador?”
Portions of the Right, though, have taken to imitating the Left and conflating the promotion of freedom and democracy with wokeism. America should not be forcing democracy on other countries, but it should be defending freedom and democracy where they exist, and supporting those living under tyranny who are struggling for liberty. A free and democratic world is a safe world. Whatever derision democratic-peace theory receives, it gets that much right: Liberal democracies seldom go to war with one another. And in any case, whether the U.S. likes it or not, failure to defend democracy from the sword of autocracy emboldens the enemies of freedom. The free world looks to America as its defender, and the enemies of liberty see America as a stand-in for the free world.
While my focus on democracy and autocracy may sound vaguely Biden-esque, the president’s foreign policy bears little similarity to the conservative hawk’s. Biden may talk about an existential battle between democracy and autocracy, but he doesn’t act like he’s leading one.
Take the Ukraine war. In his February 2023 speech in Poland, Biden said, “President Putin’s craven lust for land and power will fail. . . . Democracies of the world will stand guard over freedom today, tomorrow, and forever. For that’s what — that’s what’s at stake here: freedom.” He was right about the stakes of the conflict. Yet in his management of the war he has lacked the requisite urgency. By not properly arming Ukraine before February 2022, and subsequently dribbling in lethal aid after the invasion began, Biden gave Moscow an opening and massively hindered Kyiv’s ability to fight back. “Mr. Biden has dragged his feet all along, hesitating fearfully to send the Ukrainians the weapons and intelligence they need to win,” said Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Today, Mr. Biden stubbornly refuses to provide fighter jets, cluster munitions and long-range missiles to Ukraine. As a result of Mr. Biden’s half-measures, Ukraine has only half-succeeded.” McCaul and his fellow Republican representatives, Mike Rogers and Mike Turner, agreed in a joint statement late last month: “Biden needs to stop dragging his feet on providing the lethal aid necessary to end this war. Continued half-measures by the Biden administration will only drive up the cost of this war in lives and dollars.” Biden deserves credit for rallying the West to Ukraine’s side, but when it comes to actually taking action, his administration is being pulled along kicking and screaming.
This reluctance illustrates the fundamental flaw of the Left’s foreign policy: a failure to recognize (or accept) that strength — in the form of military might — is critical to achieving desirable outcomes. The aversion to wielding American force shown by both Obama and Biden has been seen as weakness by America’s adversaries. And as any brief look at history would show, the perception of weakness invites aggression. Putin does not care about Biden’s rhetorical flourishes; he cares about whether America will give Ukraine the ability to beat back the Russian army.
Biden has done an equally poor job on the public-relations front, which is closely related to the fall in support among Republicans for providing aid to Ukraine. He has failed to make a clear argument to the American people about why supporting Ukraine is of vital strategic interest to the United States. He barely even mentioned Ukraine in his 2023 State of the Union address. “He has not articulated a compelling case to the average American [about] why we are doing what we are doing,” says one congressional aide. “When Biden talks about this [the war] in public — when he rarely does — it’s nearly exclusively about Zelensky, it’s democracy, it’s authoritarianism versus the free world, it’s the liberal rules-based international order.” That message does not necessarily resonate with portions of the American electorate skeptical of the international order, and, as president, Biden has a responsibility to make the case for that order to everyone, not just his ideological friends. Surely, his failure to do so has contributed to both the politicization of the war and the movement of some on the right in the direction of retrenchment.
The situation is not as bleak as it seems, though. The prudent hawks on the right remain optimistic that they can turn the tide. Americans have learned the lessons of their mistakes. “The proper response [to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the overextension of the American military] is to be more discerning and judicious in the use of American force,” says Sales. “Be prepared to use it if necessary, where our vital national interests are at stake, but we are not going to be the world’s policeman and commit blood and treasure to every conflict around the world.” Republicans seem to mostly accept this balance: According to a poll released earlier this month, 61 percent of them think that the U.S. should play a leading or major role in world affairs.
What will be key for hawks is to reframe and disseminate their message. They must “respect people’s doubts,” says Pletka. “Respect serious concerns about the risks and costs of foreign involvement. Not all opponents of U.S. engagement in Ukraine (for example) are Marjorie Taylor Greene.” “Regaining the hearts of conservatives,” says Dankanich, “largely requires emphasizing the dark reality that if we do not combat threats while they are weaker, we will end up sending our people to die in wars abroad to protect our country from what could have been avoided.” A world dominated by America’s adversaries is also a world not conducive to conservative interests. “I think ultimately this skepticism about America’s leadership role, I don’t know how durable that skepticism is,” says Sales. “Because the path that leads [us on] is to a China-dominated order, and that is not [an order] that American conservatives will want.”
Conservative hawks have their work cut out for them, but reports of their demise have been greatly exaggerated — and in a dangerous world, their perspective remains essential to keeping America strong and safe.
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