Civilization, Not Isolation

By John R. Bolton

Thursday, June 22, 2023

 

The following essay is adapted from Ambassador Bolton’s remarks on May 27 at an Oxford Union debate on the resolution “This House would fight for democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law abroad.”

 

The Oxford Union’s proposed resolution does not advocate war. It instead presents the hard, persistent question of how to advance Western interests and values successfully short of war and, when the use of military force looms, how our values figure in calculating national policy.

 

The Treaty of Washington, NATO’s founding document, embodies these principles. Its preamble clearly states that the parties “are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.” What a remarkable treaty it is, with a remarkable record: history’s most successful sustained politico-military alliance, with new members even now at its door.

 

Defending these values clearly implies a willingness to fight for them, not because we seek military conflict but because the resolve and capability to defend them are vital to create structures of deterrence to convince adversaries that aggression is not worth the price they would pay. The Romans summarized this strategy as Si vis pacem, para bellum: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” Ronald Reagan called it “peace through strength.”

 

Nonetheless, today in the United States — and here, in this debate — the virus of isolationism is re-emerging, among people who have lost track not only of geostrategic reality but of their own civilization.

 

In America, there is perpetual tension over whether pursuing our national interests or defending our values is at the heart of our foreign policy. We are a nation founded on protecting key values, on behalf of which our founding Fathers committed their “lives,” “fortunes,” and “sacred honor.” We are not defending an ethnicity, a religion, or an ancient culture, but a set of ideals: The most important “democracy,” “individual liberty” and “rule of law” that America must defend are its own.

 

Accordingly, much of what the U.S. seeks to avoid internationally are threats to our foundational principles. We always hope our interests and values converge. We struggle when they do not align, or when our interests are too remote from circumstances in which the ideals are in jeopardy. We must, and we do, acknowledge reality. America is not able to police its values everywhere, because we simply have no palpable interest in some places. Undoubtedly, however, we do our best work when interests and values align.

 

Threats to America do not arise only when our shores are attacked directly. Even at our beginning, in the early 1800s, for example, we fought North Africa’s Barbary pirates when Europeans were content to pay them tribute. Today, no serious person believes that geography alone determines vital interests. Even while warning us in his 1796 Farewell Address “to have with [foreigners] as little political connection as possible,” President Washington fully understood that U.S. interests would enlarge and diversify as time passed. National-security strategies necessary in the beginning were not permanent: “The period is not far off when . . . we may choose peace or war, as our interest guided by justice shall counsel. . . . With me, a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country, . . . and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is necessary to give it the command of its own fortunes.”

 

From the outset, America’s values have been anti-totalitarian. By contrast, the common attributes of this century’s rogue states, whether superpowers or not, are that they support terrorists or engage in state terrorism themselves, that they pursue weapons of mass destruction, and that they oppress their own people. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea all qualify. Clearly, the basic elements of their policies are utterly antagonistic to U.S. ideals and NATO’s charter.

 

In the 20th century’s major existential wars, which we entered to save the West three times, America’s interests and its values were closely aligned on the critical objectives.

 

Before entering World War I, the U.S. was deeply split until it decided that critical interests were at risk. Ultimately, most Americans saw German aggression as threatening the foundations of our own society. The victorious outcome was still traumatic. Erecting a memorial in the 1920s, Yale alumni inscribed words describing what they thought was at stake: “In memory of the men of Yale who, true to her traditions, gave their lives that freedom might not perish from the Earth.”

 

For Americans, World War II represents the quintessential joinder of interests and values. What many call “the Greatest Generation” conclusively defeated the Nazi tyranny and Japan’s militarism. Even in that war, however, we did, unapologetically, what we had to do to achieve victory, such as aiding the Soviet Union and using atomic bombs, which saved both American and Japanese lives from being consumed in much longer hostilities.

 

Victory in 1945 was so conclusive that, if anyone had thought of it, they would have declared “the end of history.” Unfortunately, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and their fellow communists thought otherwise. The century’s third decisive war, the Cold War, was another colossal struggle in which American values and interests were almost entirely aligned at the global level. To support the Central and Eastern European peoples, for example, President Eisenhower in 1959 declared Captive Nations Week, as proposed by Americans whose ancestors emigrated from countries under communist control in those regions. And when the Soviet Union collapsed, virtually the first thing the newly liberated captive nations did was apply for NATO membership.

 

Of course, the West’s performance has been far from perfect. While the last century’s three great wars were truly existential, not every battle in those conflicts was. In the Cold War, for example, we fought along with European and Asian allies in Korea and Vietnam. Our participation in both remains controversial, but they were fought in the context of an ongoing global struggle, and despite the cynics, they were fought based on high ideals. Those who claim that these and other cases are reflections of Western (especially American) imperialism should carefully consider what my former boss Colin Powell often said: “The only land we ever asked for was enough land to bury our dead.”

 

Relations inside the West have hardly been perfect either. The title of Henry Kissinger’s 1965 book, The Troubled Partnership, reflected disarray within NATO half a century ago. Today, even after Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine, NATO still has members who will not meet their 2014 commitments to spend, by next year, 2 percent of their respective GDPs on defense. NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg is rightly suggesting that the goal should rise to 3 percent, which the United States already exceeds. In fact, U.S. defense spending needs to return urgently to the Reagan administration’s 5–6 percent range. Isolationism’s contemporary resurgence in America rests partly on the perception that too many allies are free riders. There is also a larger point: Americans can’t want individual freedoms for others more than they want such freedoms for themselves.

 

In World War II, when Britain stood alone against the Nazi death machine, Churchill said that Britain “would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.” Whether that confidence about America will prove true today depends on how the ongoing American debate on isolationism turns out. Tell Americans often enough they are unwanted, and the day will arrive when “God’s good time” doesn’t come at all — the point where many Americans will say, “The next time you are threatened by a belligerent, authoritarian power, do let us know how it turns out.”

 

It is also important to understand what the resolution being debated, and America’s outlook, does not mean. It does not rest on Immanuel Kant’s theory of “democratic peace.” Out of hundreds of thousands of years of human existence, we have all of 300 years of democratic experience on which to draw conclusions about democracy’s international impact, which is obviously insufficient. Indeed, what recent evidence we have contradicts the theory. Just in America’s own case, our revolution was fought between two relatively democratic countries. And the United States itself split and fought a civil war in 1861–65. No sensible national-security policy is based on fantasy, including particularly the “democratic peace” theory.

 

Nor should we posit another fantasy, the “rules-based international order.” Ask today’s rulers in Moscow and Beijing, among numerous other capitals, what they think about that concept. The reality is that key questions in international affairs are questions of power, not law, and will remain so while the human species remains human.

 

Accordingly, we come to the immediate question, Where do the West’s values and interests align today? There are three broad categories of alignment.

 

The first comprises cases in which asserting our values would reduce threats from belligerent, totalitarian societies as well as liberate oppressed peoples. Three examples, “the troika of tyranny,” stand out in the Western Hemisphere, where we seek to enhance our interests and values not through conflict but through strength that succeeds without it. In Venezuela, no one asked us to fight, but America and its coalition tragically failed even to render adequate support to opponents of the Chávez-Maduro dictatorship. Today, the Maduro dictatorship is growing closer to China and Russia, even as its people remain oppressed politically and severely depressed economically. In Cuba, the United States will remain committed to ending the surviving remains of the Castro brothers’ dictatorship, a Cold War fossil if there ever was one. Hopefully, the Ortega dictatorship in Nicaragua then falls of its own weight.

 

The second category is where NATO values support efforts to foreclose global terrorist threats or the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons. Unquestionably, the most appalling abandonment of NATO values was in Afghanistan, where we fought against terrorism, not to “impose” Western values. The Trump-Biden commitment to withdrawal (not to mention its actual implementation) was one of the most catastrophic mistakes in America’s national-security history, and an obvious horror for Afghans. It reflects American isolationism’s most important recent success and provides evidence of how increased isolationism would play out around the world. For those who complain that Washington is too much with them, Afghanistan is what they can look forward to if they get their wishes.

 

Iraq embodies perhaps the most controversial recent use of force. I remain entirely comfortable saying that the U.S. and coalition forces were right in 1991 to expel Iraq from Kuwait, and in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s dictatorial, WMD-seeking terrorist regime. We obviously learned many painful lessons after deposing Saddam, but that is a debate for another time.

 

In Iran, the insurgency against the ayatollahs following the murder of Mahsa Amini and many others thereafter makes one thing clear: The regime is weaker now than at any point since it seized power in 1979. Those who defend its continued existence (and, therefore, its terrorism and pursuit of nuclear weapons) will ultimately feel only shame for so doing.

 

The third category is where NATO values are shared geographically, economically, and militarily by critically important states. This is where the global West’s prospects are most endangered, and where urgent efforts are needed to deter rising, palpably existential threats.

 

First and foremost is Ukraine, where we are being asked not to fight but only to supply intelligence, weapons, and economic support. Many in both America and Europe have responded weakly in this crisis, although the Eastern and Central European countries most threatened by failure in Ukraine have never faltered.

 

Ukraine is a time of truth for NATO. Germany, France, and other key members must now shoulder their responsibilities. The recent decisions of Finland and Sweden to join the Alliance obviously reject the idea that it has become “brain-dead” (as French president Emmanuel Macron said in 2019). And we should be aghast that some NATO members, incredibly, tilt toward Russia. Americans remember the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against the Kremlin even if Hungary’s present government does not.

 

This is a strategic war for NATO, and it matters for its impact in Beijing as well as in Moscow. The wrong outcome in Ukraine would spell trouble all along China’s Indo-Pacific periphery.

 

China and Russia have decided on a “partnership without limits” and now constitute a new, threatening axis, capable of operating not merely regionally but also around the globe. Taiwan is most immediately threatened. If it fell to China, we would lose not only sophisticated semiconductor technology and major trade relationships but a vibrant, competitive democratic government. Its fall would cause a fatal breach in the “first island chain” separating China from the wider Pacific Ocean.

 

South Korea and Japan increasingly see the dangers of an ever more belligerent China and North Korea, which is why Prime Minister Kishida recently announced that Japan would double its military expenditures from 1 percent to 2 percent of GDP over the next five years, making Japan the world’s third-largest military.

 

And we cannot forget Israel, facing the threat of a “nuclear Holocaust” from Iran and of continuing Tehran-supported terrorism. The only functioning democracy in the Middle East, Israel now has closer relations with its Arab neighbors than even before, and the prospects of even more as Iran’s threat persists.

 

So how, internationally, do we reconcile values and interests? Every indication is that the world is becoming more dangerous and will continue to do so perhaps for the rest of this century. Faced with these grave and growing threats, we can either get our act together or become ever more imperiled. Churchill provided the critical insight in describing what we must avoid:

 

There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the Sibylline books. It falls into that long, dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong — these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history. 

 

One intriguing proposal is to take the implications of the resolution global. Former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar suggested over 15 years ago that NATO be made a worldwide alliance. We could admit, among others, Japan, Australia, Singapore, and Israel for starters. Many more would be interested.

 

This is not the time to resile from values that have sustained us successfully for so long, because international challenges are rising. To the contrary, these are precisely the circumstances in which we should reaffirm and extend their reach.

 

I cannot conclude without reminding you of the implications of losing this debate, not just in a vote at the Oxford Union but in the ongoing debate over isolationism in the United States. You’ve heard numerous complaints about and criticisms of America this evening, and undoubtedly from your professors at Oxford. Just remember this. If today’s American isolationists come to dominate our foreign policy, in effect erasing America’s support for the principles that we are debating tonight and that have guided us for so long: You will miss us when we’re gone.