Why Conservatives and Republicans Must Resist the Isolationist Temptation
Judging from the responses to my blog post yesterday on foreign policy issues, 90 percent of those who have commented are furious; these respondents favor a complete non-interventionist foreign policy, a retreat to what in the 1930s was called the “Fortress America” position. The arguments are essentially that we cannot be the world’s policeman, that our country is in a major deficit crisis and we can no longer afford an interventionist foreign policy, and that it is wrong-headed and unnecessary. I suspect that if most of these commentators were voting back in 1972, they would have pulled the lever for George McGovern, whose slogan was “Come home, America” and who used similar arguments against standing up to the Soviet Union.
There always will be those who say that “the cost of one battleship or super airplane” would finance education in fifty school districts that desperately need money. So, they continue, let’s spend our money at home and let peoples in other lands worry about terrorist threats that could destroy them. Despite disavowals, the logic of the position leads eventually to the position of the Buchananite Republicans today.
Indeed, writing a few days ago in New York Times, conservative columnist Ross Douthat let the cat out of the bag. After comparing the hawkish views of Florida’s Marco Rubio with those of Rand Paul, whom he calls an “antiwar” conservative, he says polls show that Rubio’s views are favored by the Republican Party elite, while Paul’s views are those of the “grassroots” and the Tea Party. Rubio’s views, he says, are “still tremendously appealing.” But when push comes to shove, Douthat too lines himself up with the isolationists. The idea that American can be a “great republic, armed and righteous,” he writes, is one that he wants to believe. Then the shocker of an ending: “Once, I believed it myself. But that was many years and many wars ago, and now I think Rand Paul is right.”
All of the above is bad news, both for the Republican Party and the nation. And no, I am not part of the Republican Party elite. So answers to the new non-and anti-interventionists are needed. Fortunately, two of them have appeared today.
The first is from the editorial page of the online New York Sun, and was most probably written by its editor-in-chief, Seth Lipsky. Speaking about John Boehner’s recent attacks on the president for violating the War Powers Act, the editorial asks: “For what kind of signal does it send to our adversaries to be talking publicly of cutting off funds for a war at a time when our forces are engaged?”
Invoking of that Act during Vietnam, it points out, led to collapse of our South Vietnam ally at a moment when it was on the verge of holding off the Communist onslaught. It continues:
The drama featured a Republican president, Gerald Ford, and a Republican state secretary, Henry Kissinger, pleading with a Democratic Congress to stay with the fight, even though American troops were no longer on the ground there. Messrs. Ford and Kissinger lost the battle but brought great honor to the Republican Party. The Democrats had long since followed Senator McGovern into the wilderness of appeasement and isolationism. When the Cold War was finally won, it was because of the leadership of a Republican president who, in Ronald Reagan, grasped that containment was inadequate, coexistence was unacceptable, but that communism could be rolled back and victory was possible.
Today, both sides in the Republican debate invoke the name of Ronald Reagan. But only one side is right to do that. But the editorial notes that during the Reagan administration, the Democrats “spent the Reagan years counseling co-existence, disengagement, and retreat.” They made a brief turn-back during the Clinton presidency, when Bill Clinton intervened in Kosovo.
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a critic of Ron Radosh. Full disclosure: I have a deep admiration and respect for him, for his intellect, for his temperament and his insights.
In his column prior to this one and in this one, he is precisely correct that isolationism is a dunderheaded notion. Isolationism is an island for imbeciles. The far left and the Buchanan buttheads deserve each other.
However…I have now read too many quotes from people butchering the analysis on when, how, where, why, …we engage…or don’t in military operations.
1)The War Powers Act cannot be a ping pong ball that gets swatted back and forth depending upon which Party is holding the paddles. Military intervention is serious business and should be out of bounds for pure party fragmentary parlor games.
If leftist Democrats want to insist upon it when Republicans hold sway, then skirting those very rules that they insist upon is a cheap, weasel-worded, fraud. And THAT is the point of holding them to it. Fall on either side of the debate, but stay on your side when the Party in charge uses or abuses the rule. Don’t play games with this.
2)This U.N. adventure in Libya has been poorly scored, horribly presented, lamely explained and weakly defended. It MAY indeed be worth our contribution. But that case has not been made. And nobody….nobody…should be so arrogant as to suggest that we, the people…are not worthy of being properly informed so that we may give our informed consent.
3)The isolationist crowd, imbeciles that they are…are different from the war weary and the masses who have been pummeled with nothing but bad news for 10 years. The lapdog media has strapped on the anti-war kneepads for over forty years. They are leftist first, leftist last, leftist always.
There is not enough counterbalance weight of evidence to explain what success means or looks like. Don’t blame the recipients of propaganda for believing it, when there is little to no evidence to the contrary upon which to formulate an informed opinion about the success of an operation.
4)If there is a strong defense of Israel in America today, it does NOT come from the left. Again, isolationist fools…and barely disguised anti-Semites reside in the Buchananite camp. But that is a much smaller pool…cesspool…than what resides on the left side of the spectrum.
Overwhelmingly, this center-right land of ours loves and cherishes and defends Israel and recoils in horror at her treatment by our own leftist government types. The center-right is not isolationist when it comes to Israel or our other loyal allies.
The left, on the other hand…couldn’t be trusted by any ally with a firing synapse. The left is much cozier with our enemies than they are with our friends.
The war weary are distrusting the use of military in the hands of those who have spit upon the military the whole of their lives, have abandoned our allies in times of danger, have announced withdrawal dates, have no articulated plan for success, have inconsistent application of rules of engagement, have circumvented their own rules for seeking permission to engage and who have thumbed their noses at the consent and will of the governed…in this representative self-governing land of ours.
Let’s not mistake the recoil against those very things as “isolationism”. It isn’t. It’s pushback. If it is coming out as something else, it needs to be funneled back into the proper expression of fear and frustration. And understood. We owe ourselves that much, at a minimum.
Excellent, CFB! Well stated.
I strongly agree with both Ron Radosh and cfbleachers. Antisemitism is often intertwined with the debate over foreign policy. I wrote about that here, with some juicy quotes from Charles Lindbergh. http://clarespark.com/2011/06/03/neo-isolationists-and-the-jewish-problem/.
Excellent, cfbleachers. The eloquent voice of common sense.
We are not a “center right” nation. We have a far left government; communist, in fact, with the takeover of vast portions of private enterprise by the obamanites. We need to change that state of affairs.
Most of we imbecilic isolationists favor interventions only when we fight on the right side; ie, contra Hitler, Hiro Hito, et sim. But under Clinton we butchered the Christian Serbs, who had been enslaved, tortured, murdered by the moslems for hundreds of years. And now Obama has us killing the impotent Ghadaffi bunch in order to empower the Islamic Jihad orchestrating the “rebellion”. And all of this entail subordinating our military, our money and our wellbeing to the omniscience of the UN, NATO, IMF, etc. in a continuing, treasonous surrender of our national sovereignty to various
globalist enterprises. There are no enemies in either Iraq or Afghanistan capable of attacking us except terrorist groups. But we are not applying “Seek and Destroy” to such. So we have no viable mission in those countries.
We should intervene in selfdefense. Or in defense of a staunch ally. The world should know that an attack on Israel is an attack on us. And that the consequences will be far beyond drastic. Otherwise, we must not intervene.
We never had any business on the ground in either Iraq or Afghanistan
One more item. I believe that if and when we intervene, we must do so with maximum force. Sacrificing our sons and our funds in protracted wars, without realistic goals, is criminal and evil. When will a boxer knock out his opponent? As quickly as possible.
I have read every comment on that article, Mr. Radosh. You apparently are so blinded by your own views, that you have a reading comprehension problem. I will give you a summation of what was written.
We have an existential financial crisis. We cannot keep going around fighting other people’s wars for them anymore. We have to limit ourselves to things that are in our vital, strategic national interests. We cannot afford any more nation-building. We have to pull back some, because we simply cannot afford to continue. The interventions also never seem to end. Our allies are truly feckless. There is no redeeming Islamic countries. You cannot civilize them. They are tar-babies. They are the reason God created strategic bombers.
There were calls for “more isolationism”. That does not mean they were calling for isolationism, just less intervention. This same thing went on during the ’96 and ’00 elections. Clinton had committed us to numerous stupid little wars which were not really in our interests. Haiti, Kosovo, Somalia, et al. They either ended badly, or never ended.
We still have 10k troops in Kosovo 15+ years later. We still have about 10k troops in Qatar and the same or more in Kuwait. Desert Storm was in ’91! We have ground troops in Germany, but the Warsaw Pact died in ’91! South Korea can readily whup the North, but we still have a brigade of the 2nd ID there, plus airpower. We have 200k troops deployed around the world, and 190(?) foreign bases. Having some of those 200k troops back in the USA spending their wages here would boost the economy and cost us far less at the same time.
No one is advocating a smaller military, as one of the quoted articles contends, just a less far-flung one. When we base troops abroad, we spend an awful lot of money on infrastructure in that area, not to mention the sheer logistics. We pay for the privilege of defending other countries.
The War Powers Act (WPA) is not unconstitutional. According to the Constitution, the President is CinC only in time of war. The WPA allows him to react without consulting Congress. Without it, he literally cannot act until Congress declares war. He can move his 100k troops around the globe, but he may not order them to engage in any action which might be construed as an act of war. He cannot go around starting wars. Only Congress has that power. The WPA gives the President some needed. PROVISIONAL, limited flexibility to respond to threats and attacks. It defined the line, because too many Presidents have started wars without Congress. Republican Presidents have respected it. Democratic Presidents have ignored it.
I could go on tearing apart every single thing you quoted and wrote. You are simply completely wrong on this. So is Dr. Paul, for the record. As usual, the moderate Republicans and Dems (but I repeat myself) are too aggressive, and the Libertarians are too feckless.
I am a Conservative with Libertarian leanings. I will offer my foreign policy positions.
NATO – It is a defensive alliance. It specifically says so in its charter. Just because they vote to go after Qaddafi does not mean we are obligated to do so. They, however, WERE required to help us in Afghanistan after we were hit on 9/11. This begs the question of its very existence. It was created to counter the Warsaw Pact. It is time to end it. Europe is struggling to fight Libya, for God’s sake! They have grown too weak, because we have been a crutch for them. Only 5 of the 28 NATO nations spend the REQUIRED 2% of GDP on their military. No more NATO. It doesn’t work.
Korea – We have an alliance there with SoKor and Japan. We should remain in such an alliance, but we do not need a physical presence in SoKor. Keep Guam and Okinawa as bases in support of this alliance, but the other nations need to be more involved. We do not have to lead this alliance, because those other nations are strong and have a real self-interest there. Let’s not be a crutch for them.
Afghanistan – Our position there is untenable. We rely on the route through back-stabbing Pakistan for 90% of our supplies. We need to just have a small force which we can supply through our airbase in Kyrgyzstan. Use it for strikes into Pakistan, after we cancel our treaty with Pakistan.
Pakistan – Treat it as the semi-hostile regime it is. They are working with China to allow China to get a naval base to the West of India and a connection with Iran.
India – India should be our strategic partner. They share some of our values. They are not hegemonic. They are no long-term threat to us. They should be our counter-balance to Pakistan and China. They should be made our friend.
Iran – 12ers with nuclear weapons? What could possibly go wrong? They are financing trouble all over the world. Time to kill the bastards. Destroy the Revolutionary Guards, and the people will be able to overthrow that rotten regime.
Iraq – The prize in Iraq was that we lighted the torch of liberty in the heart of the ME. This led to the desire for freedom in Iran. There was our chance, our payoff, and Obama just threw it away! Iraq has refused to recompense us at all, and we are not taking advantage to overthrow Iran, so it is time to get out. Stop building that palace of an embassy, too. A small embassy would be fine.
Kuwait/Qatar – Saddam Hussein and his loathsome progeny are gone. No need to remain.
Syria/Lebanon – Assad is a monster, and his replacement could be no worse. There is only upside to killing him. Supporting the uprising is a good idea, but intervention is not. Lebanon is a hopeless case until Iran and Syria are nullified.
Israel/Palestine – Israel is or friend. We need to stop allowing the Arab trash to use us as leverage against our friend. We back Israel, period. Tell the Arabs to deal with Israel, but let them know we support Israel’s decisions, whatever they may be.
Egypt – We should have supported Mubarak, because he has been reliable. his son would have been an adequate replacement. “But, what about democracy?” Who cares? These Islamic savages would only replace him with Islamists, making Egypt another Syria.
Libya – When Bush was stomping Afghanistan and Iraq, Qaddafi quietly canceled his nuclear ambitions for fear of being next. When Reagan missed him and killed his whelp, he also retreated. A strong no-nonsense President makes him back down with minimal effort. Some Islamist revolutionary likely would not be so controllable. Screw the uprising. See Egypt above.
Cuba – Get out of the Treaty with the USSR. Kill the Castro’s. Destroy the Communists, then get out! No rebuilding. Let them fix it themselves, maybe with the help of charity. The sooner it is revealed how bad Communism has been there, the sooner the Marxists here in the USA are exposed.
Venezuela – Chavez is swiftly becoming intolerable. Make that very clear to him. He’ll understand when we kill Castro.
Mexico – Failed State. Do them a favor and strike across the border at the bandits raiding us. See Patton and Pancho Villa. Seal the border with barbwire and bullets. Close off all land travel with Mexico.
Africa – There are some States there worth dealing with, like the Gold Coast. Forget the rest.
Islam – International quarantine.
As you can see, this is not isolationist. I specifically advocate involvement and intervention in areas which are in our vital strategic national interest. It is a difference in priorities. It is a matter of what matters.
As a final aside, I resent former Leftists who think they have been completely cured of Leftism telling us on the Right about how we should do things.
Bravo and well said!
This sounds absolutely logical to me whereas the present U.S. government doesn’t in many points. Less intervention and nation building doesn’t mean none, but maybe more precise actions that make more sense. Imo it would have made more sense to intervene for the Iranian or Syrian opposition than in Libya. The Iranian opposition might have appreciated some help in nation building whereas Arabs mostly don’t. What I didn’t understand at all was that all this money was spent for naked scanners for everybody including children and Grannies if a few and precise questioning like in Ben Gurion would have done. Plus people who are totally unguilty and normal become afraid about all this screening, just fpr p.c. reasons and feel that their state is turning into their enemy observing them all the time.
Very well put, Marc.
“We pay for the privilege of defending other countries.”
We have bases in Asia and Europe around which whole economies are formed. If they were to be closed, thousands would be unemployed and establishments go out of business. Germany pays for the upkeep of some of their bases, but they benefit more than we do from their economic impact. Time to put a stop to such hidden foreign aid. I am anti-isolationism, but we need to retrench. And Libya, as bad as Qaddafi is, why did they wait so long to go after him? I think the Europeans roped in our “inexperienced” President to keep the oil flowing and pay for the war. Some analysts may scoff at my beliefs, but if you can’t prove me wrong, then I’m right.
Are you running for political office? You’d have my vote!
Marc Malone for President! Woot!
Second dat woot!
Love your many intelligent, well-thought and insightful posts, Marc! You are one of the people here who make me proud to be an American. ♥
Excellent observations MM! Beware of this type of Wisonian Humantarian War mongering. I quibble with you calling NeoConservatives like Radosh as a FORMER Leftist….there are no such thing as a former Leftist! These types have effectively infiltrated the R Party and have poisoned this party which does not deserve anymore support from Classical Conservatives aka Constitutional Republicans.
PJM, NR, Commentary are not Conservative blogsites they are Globalist interventionist not that different from the Soviet era Communist Internationale.
Well said. Now that you have solved this impass, could you please exert your considerable talents towards solving the immigration problem?
Also, I recommend against a presidential run. Just because Newt has made a podium available is not a good enough reason to join Huntsman in fighting over it.
Your views and efforts are much too valuable to be wasted prostituting yourself for a once prized position increasingly devoling into merely a pleasure tour as cerimonial figure-head.
solving the immigration problem?
Heavily penalize American employers. Cheaper and more effective than building a wall or deportations.
No demand, no supply.
Beautiful!
Very well said! Changing hearts is the mission of missionarys; not that of governmental CEOs. The business of improving the morals of those addicted to the islamic commitment to butchery and brutality must fall to religionists; not to sosiopathic POTUS and his amoral assistants. With that in mind, why would we assign a glutton to monitor our eating habits?
This is not 1975 where we abandoned an ally needlessly based on what was happening in 68-72. Wars must be fought wisely and with an ability to change course. One of our biggest failings has been the idea we can fight wars on our own terms. We did that in Korea and Vietnam, insisting on just going for a stalemate instead of absolute victory. Had we marched on Hanoi, for example, that war would have been over in 6 months. Moreover, if we were not willing to do that and end it quickly, we shouldn’t have been in Vietnam, and we probably shouldn’t have. However, having finally Vietnamized the war with no large US ground troops, we could have easily picked off the North’s heavy divisions in 75′ like shooting fish in a barrel, from the air, but our politics led to the fall of much of Indochina into more misery and communism.
In Libya, why should we be there? Ghadafi is bad, sure, but what if we are just helping to usher in the next Iranian-style jihadist regime?
In Afghanistan, we’ve killed tons of Taliban and Al Qaeda but the bottom line is that country and Pakistan are likely to be failed states whatever we do. We can’t change their religion, their lack of shared values with us, by drone attacks and military occupation unless we do it like we did in Japan, and that means crushing those nations.
My question is whether it’s worth it? Are we willing, for example, to wage open war on Pakistan that has protected the Taliban? Would that even be wise, and yet Ben Laden lived in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. The battlefield has moved next door in some respects and we have to ask ourselves are we willing to do what it takes and is it worth it.
Maybe we can see if India will take up the Afghan cause and help them, but we’re broke.
We’re wasting valuable resources, and we cannot afford it.
I believe, Mr. Radsh that you should rethink YOUR view, which boils down to: if the U.S. identifies a despot, determined to maintain power, killing those who oppose him, and fails to launch a military attack if he disregards our counsel and our sanctions, we are isolationist. I am quite sure hat this was not what the Foujding Fathers had in mind. Indeed, it was precisely what they were cautioning against: gratuitously embroiling ourselves in foreign conflict.
To follow your reasoning, we should take arms whenever human rights are violated by mass killings. If Libya, why not Syria? Why not Iran? Why not the Sudan (genocide)? Why not Zimbabwe? Myanmar? Haiti? We non-isolationists should really get busy! The policy you espouse is “policing”, setting up the U.S.A. as the world dominator based on superiority in ethics as well as power. Do you think your policy would win us friends or universal admiration? Or peace?
I’ve done my re-thinking. If holding back from military action until there is a threat beyond the offender’s borders is Isolationism, count me an Isolationist. And and Constitutionalist.
Professor Radosh, leaving discussion of the War Powers Act aside: it is part of the President’s job to decide when, where, and how to commit American troops in the service his/her vision of the foreign policy and foreign and domestic security needs of the country.
The question here is: Is President Obama envision the best interests of the United States in the same way most if not all other presidents (maybe with the exception of Jimmy Carter,) or does he think he has a higher and broader vision that includes:
•help restore of a bi- or multilateral balance of power in part by reducing American power
•save the planet by reducing American economic activity
•reduce the American military footprint in the service of the above two items, even if it requires that military operations fail in the short and medium term
•create a welfare state in which the majority of the population is a client or employee of the Federal government; this is clearly not compatible with a military establishment anywhere near the size needed for projecting power abroad
If the above are any part of President Obama’s agenda, I would submit that he might consider loss of American servicemembers if that promoted his agenda to be as justifiable as the casualties at D-Day: tragic but necessary.
And if any of the above is true, the critical question is not isolationism/ non-isolationism. The sole question is how to ensure that Obama is a one term president, because if he wins a second term to pursue a radical agenda isolationism will be an irrelavant issue.
I’ve long thought that obama was prolonging this conflict in order to kill off the best of our blood and treasure to make sure there would be no defense of the home front.
you’re not alone
and if not to thin the ranks- at least keep them occupied abroad whilst the collectivists arm the drug cartels to threaten our border and have the american citizen cry “mercy, i surrender obama”
Oops. Not “Is President Obama envision” but “does President Obama envision”.
And how many Muslims are part of this administration? Did the MB just announce their plans for Egypt after Mubarak was handily ‘removed’? Why does NATO exist? Why are we submitting to the U.N. internationalist sovereignty-killing bozos that actively pursue agendas influenced by the OIC?
Obama is a subversive – period. He is deliberately and methodically subverting our Constitution; ignoring it and introducing this leftist-internationalist way of going. When are we going to call him on it?
Submitting to fear of the future is a horrible and terrible thing. We need to reign-in this Obama guy quickly. Don’t worry about isolationism, it’s a distraction for the moment, while we decide what a real foreign policy is to be and what the mission of the U.S.A. is for the future. We DO have a future and it’s a good future – the basis of which begins with our founding documents. Just as Islam is a counterfeit religion; Obama is a counterfeit president – what you see is NOT what you get.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, everything Obama has done is agitation for and promotion of, Leftist/Communist agendas – Look at what this Communist kook Van Jones is up to right now, for example.
How in the hell can anyone trust what Obama does anymore?
Is there anyone out there that can debate and viscerate him with civility?
The War Powers Act is the rule of law, is it not?
Obama is flagrantly and arrogantly playing with ‘definitions’ in defiance of the rule of law so what’s not to understand?
But here we are discussing ‘isolationism’ which is simply another manufactured distraction so the Mr Untouchable can continue to promote the antithesis of the Founders vision.
I commented yesterday and it’s obvious to me you’ve misunderstood. Again, I’m very pleased with the insight and conviction of posters today, they’ve done well. I’ll keep it simple, I’ve been a committed conservative for decades, in recent years leaning libertarian. I’m not a former leftist nor current Buchananite Republican. It appears to me you’re in a state of ideological limbo with simplistic stereotyping not coming to grips with a changing dynamic of pressing realities those in disagreement are reckoning. Don’t presume and label placing an necessary and factually incorrect dividing wall.
I meant unnecessary not necessary.
Now HOLD ON here, sir. When did people become “isolationist” when they simply wanted answers to a lot of questions, like when did NATO and the United Nations get the power to involve the United States in a war in Libya WITHOUT the concent of Congress? When did these multinational organizations usurp Congress’ power to declare war? And when did these international organizations determine when and where the United States would fight a war? Sorry, but I’m not about to hand over the powers that were granted to Congress by the Constitution over to NATO or the UN!!! If that makes me an isolationist, then so be it.
Also, you made a lot of very wrong statements in your piece, sir. You said, “Invoking of that Act during Vietnam, it points out, led to collapse of our South Vietnam ally at a moment when it was on the verge of holding off the Communist onslaught.” That, sir, is pure junk. The government of South Vietnam was so corrupt and so mismanaged that no matter how much money we sunk into that country it was still going to fall. And, after pulling out in 1973, NOBODY wanted to put more troops into South Vietnam in 1975, when the country fell. You are just plain wrong on that assertion, sir.
Then you went on to say, “Speaking about John Boehner’s recent attacks on the president for violating the War Powers Act, the editorial asks: “For what kind of signal does it send to our adversaries to be talking publicly of cutting off funds for a war at a time when our forces are engaged?” Our forces are engaged in Libya? I thought we didn’t HAVE any forces on the ground in Libya. If we did, that’s news to us. As for ships or planes, they can be withdrawn at any time, right? But that aside, why shouldn’t we cut off funds for a war the president has set no goals for, keeps changing the mission requirements (are we “protecting people” or trying to kill Gaddafi), and certainly has not explained who these “rebel” allies are (most of them were killing NATO troops in Afghanistan a few months ago).
So sorry if wanting to have some answers to some very important questions sounds isolationist, but it just strikes me as using some common sense.
What is clear here is that Radosh is more concerned about the signals we’re sending to sabre-rattling primitives thousands of miles away by threatening to withdraw funds, rather than the signals we’re sending to our political elites when they break the law (War Powers Act). Clearly, he must think that they’re a greater threat than embolden politicians seeking new powers by precedent. I must have missed the announcement that all of North Africa combined can now assemble an invasion force sufficiently potent that a handful of Coast Guard cutters would be insufficient to handle it…
You are bordering on slandering Paul’s position on this. Rand Paul has stated unequivocally that he does not support an isolationist position, but rather a position of being exceedingly prudent in how we intervene. Unlike the neo-conservative wing represented by Rubio in this Rubio-Paul tug of war, Paul recognizes the fact that the US simply does not have the money to continue involving itself in conflicts of marginal value to the US.
The conflict in Libya is precisely that: marginal, at best, in value to this country. We are faced with a President who will not honor the rule of law (War Powers Act), a Congress unwilling to enforce fiscal responsibility and a military that is increasingly stretched thin. This is precisely the sort of scenario which leads to disastrous cultural and political changes which would do irreparable harm to our country.
Furthermore, it is disingenuous to compare our situation in these three wars with Islamic states to the wars of the Cold War era. In those wars, the lines were clearly drawn and our allies were substantially firmer than any of the powerbrokers we claim as nominal allies in these modern conflicts. There is no true national government in Afghanistan, only warlords who continuously flip-flop between us and the Taliban according to the strategic facts on the ground each day. The only truly pro-American faction in Iraq are the Kurds. In Libya, we have no allies. In fact, the closest thing to a neutral side we have in the conflict was Gaddafi who was coming around as a “reformed terrorist” before we began our half-assed, half-hearted crusade.
Mr. Radosh, you’re stuck on a word. You slap the label “Isolationism” and you think that’s done. That word is an analogy, as you explicitly compare present-day attitudes to those of the 1930s. The analogy fails. When we and the Russians took down Berlin in 1945, that was the end of Nazism as a real threat. What has our intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq (I’m leaving Serbia out as a completely bass-ackward move, while Af and Iraq are just miscalcs) to show for in the home security department? Did it stop Ft. Hood? Would Mohammed Atta have called off his plan if Saudi Arabia had been under “democratizing U.S. influence”? They planned it all from Hamburg, Germany, for heaven’s sake!
All the comments about the deficit are right, but it’s not just about the deficit. We’re not getting the actual return we’ve expected on what this investment was for in the first place. What the heck are we doing supporting regimes where ex-Muslim converts to Christianity are still in sure danger of execution?! And what are we going to do about the fact that *right* *here* in the U.S.A., in Dearborn, Michigan, the right to distribute Christian literature is up for grabs? Can we say “misplaced priorities”? Or are we going to keep making 1930s analogies to a totally changed world?
Out with this “isolationism” routine, in with “withdrawing in order to take care of our problems at home.” Including the security problems, not just the foundering economy. Even without the deficit issue, interventionism today just doesn’t make sense.
Cutting back on DoD spending does not need to have anything to do with cutting back on our military strength. Having worked as a consultant [beltway bandit] on DoD projects for over 20 years, I know that billions of dollars are wasted every year on projects that have nothing to do with defending this country, its citizens, its allies, or our foreign trade routes. I consulted for some government civilians in various senior management grades who would be more effective if they were paid full salary just to stay home, do nothing, and to avoid adding to rush hour traffic (yes, they were that incompetent and destructive).
Isolationism might save you from little brushfire wars in the short term, but in the long run you end up with a major war instead. The US was isolationist before WWI and again before WWII. Our arms limitation treaties, which really left us unprepared for war and our Pacific bases vulnerable to attack, did nothing but encourage the militarists in Japan and Germany.
The US, as well as England and France, preferred to use diplomacy ONLY in world affairs. All that accompished was to allow Hitler to launch a great war and to encourage the Japanese to drop out of arms treaties, rearm and nearly smash those nations who had still weakened themselves by following those treaties.
Now, I’m not saying the US should play global cop. The US has limited capital and should use it wisely. We should strike only when our vested interests are threatened not over some vague notion of flailing about over “human rights violations” like in Libya, Syria and Egypt. Odds are that a major was is brewing because of all that and we should be building up our forces to prepare, not aiding and abetting revlutionaries we will likely soon be fighting.
Today we have with certainty an expansionist China which threatens our Asian allies, Pakistan is unstable and could fall to the radical thus giving them a nuclear arsenal, Iran trying not only to get nukes but to provoke a global jihad to bring their so-called Messiah out of his well and lead Muslim forces to even greater global slaughter. These are what is happening in the world and will continue even if we try to make nice by curling up in a ball and hiding in the corner. Eventually, some or all of those threats will gobble up all else and decide it is time to kick that ball around too.
Mr. Radosh makes some intelligent points from a sound foundation while falling into several mistakes in reasoning and some mischaracterizations. Such is to be expected when writing a few brief articles on a complicated subject, and I expect Mr. Radosh might express himself more clearly in a longer paper.
1) Regarding the War Powers Act, there is no hypocrisy in voting to repeal an existing law, while requiring the President to obey that law as long as it has not been repealed. The issue at hand is that the President does not obey the law, not that the law is a bad one. It is not the President’s prerogative to determine which laws to obey and which to ignore.
2) Libya. Yes, the organized rebellion is Islamofascist and anti-American. It is categorically not true that mobs always want democracy so that personal freedom may be increased. In fact, mobs usually want democracy so they can impose their own brand of tyranny rather than the status quo. This is the case in Libya (and Egypt and Syria and Tunisia and Iran and Iraq.)
2A) Afghanistan. The goal of fighting in Afghanistan was to focus militant islamofascist combatants over there, distracting them from further attacks on U.S. soil. This is a reasonable tactic, but not a strategy to win the actual war. One must also ask, after 10 years, is this still even the best tactic for completing its own limited objectives?
3) Strategery. Furthermore, “removing Kadaffi from power” is not a policy, it is a strategy. President Obama laid out the longstanding interests of these U.S. in the Middle East in a speech at the State Department of May 19. He then said that a solitary strategic focus on U.S. national interests should be set aside so that these U.S. could demonstrate a dedication to pseudo-moralizing psychobabble. “We have the chance to show that America values the dignity of the street vendor in Tunisia more than the raw power of the dictator.” Of course this begs the questions (i) Why is “kinetic military action” the best way to show that you value human dignity, and (ii) Really, what’s so great about the street vendor? Has he stopped beating his wife?
4) The mistake made by uber-”libertarian” isolationists is to assume that there is no possible national interest of these U.S. which is best served by military intervention in foreign locales; that, in a world where a large number of people, and certainly the vast majority of governments, have no interest in promoting individual freedoms, non-intervention is the freedom-maximizing strategy.
5) Where the so-called “isolationists” are correct is in asserting that military action must be subservient to a grand strategy which promotes certain discrete national interests. If these U.S. are to intervene militarily to prevent “mass murder”, why Libya as opposed to the myriad other locales where governments imprison and kill those who disagree with them?
6) Mr. Radosh and others advancing similar arguments put these U.S. in a similar position to Great Britain following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. They rightly don’t like the status quo. They rightly realize that intervention, in the past, has seemed to generate laudable results. (Though of course we will never know what the alternative might have been.) They imagine that certain institutions, such as representative democracy, have been of net benefit to their own societies. They then falsely conclude that these same institutions are of universal net benefit to every society. Furthermore, they falsely conclude that foreign intervention is both necessary and justified. They either fail to state clearly what the concrete purpose of that foreign intervention might be, or, they fall into the logical trap of maintaining that “We have to intervene militarily in foreign nations, so that they can become self-determining.”
our problem is we never fight to win, we fight to sustain.
isolationism on its own merits is usually not the best practice, however propping up every other countries local economies with out tax dollars is a worse practice.
if we send troops to a theatre it should be for one reason, kill people that threaten our way of life.
how long are we to babysit the Koreas?
are we to stay on Afghan for decades until they can read well enough to defend themselves against THEMSELVES?
as far as cost of a carrier, etc. thats just moving money from citizen to fed back to citizen. zero sum.
with out tax dollars SHOULD read with * our * tax dollars, sorry.
Is it too much to ask that actual victory conditions are set for wars and that they are then gone after, in-full and completely, and then, when done, we help those who have been oppressed to stand on their own two feet before we leave? Is it too much to ask that they stand up on their own and are prepared for a cruel, nasty world without the US there to be a constant umbrella? Wars cannot be fought on a dimmer switch mentality to turn it up and turn it down, that will end up with many dead and nothing achieved. No matter how nice the cause you fight, completely and in full until the enemy is defeated.
Is it too much to expect that we stand close to those who befriend us and are friendly to us in this world? That we welcome those who share our values of personal liberty and freedom with open arms? Free trade amongst free people will reinforce freedom and liberty, while embracing despots and tyrants will make the world a far worse place to be in as it will be less friendly, less outgoing and more ready to kill at a moment’s notice. To those who neither support us nor have enmity towards us we should do likewise, and perhaps charge them some overhead to trade with us… that might get you a trade war, yes, but the conditions for free trade will be known: embrace freedom and liberty for your people and step away from believing you can rule when you can’t even govern.
Are these things ‘isolationist’? To seek accountability for the actions taken in our name overseas and to seek out those who will stand with us as friends and allies when the going gets tough? We cannot be loved by all, but we can gain respect by all and stand by what makes us strong and embrace that by putting faith in human liberty and freedom as the greatest force of good known on this earth.
Wouldn’t you like a foreign policy like that?
I know I would.
So that peace can be established, defined and kept, and wars made short and hard because we are willing to fight to maintain our freedom for good reason.
Doing the opposite of these things has put us on the brink of a global war, yet again. Perhaps we can learn this time that the hard thing to do by standing up to tyrants and calling them tyrants is also the right thing to do. And that giving tyrants respect and an open platform doesn’t make them weaker, but stronger as they exploit the weak minded abroad to their own ends. When we stop putting faith in governments and institutions and start putting it in our belief that liberty and freedom is worth having, worth keeping and worth helping those who do as we do to expand human liberty… then things will change for the better.
I don’t see that as isolationist, at all, just recognizing the failures of institutions and policies that are wrong-headed should be put to an end to help preserve our own liberty and freedom. A strange form of isolationism that embraces those abroad who support us, and pledge our friendship to them as well.
We might try that some day.
What does ‘isolationist’ even mean Mr. Radosh? There isn’t any other country in the world that expends the ‘blood and treasure’ the US does nation building, providing security all over the world, etc. I guess ‘isolationist’ means ‘more like every other country in the world’ or perhaps ‘not a stupid as america.’ Time for other countries to take care of the their own security. The non-proliferation regime that largely motivated all these commitments is long dead and nation building in places like Afghanistan is a fools errand.
American troops should be brought home. From everywhere.
Then they should be deployed along our border with Mexico, the only nation that actually threatens us.
Forget Korea, forget Israel, forget Afghanistan. We need to protect ourselves.
I’m with Sam. We cannot afford our current adventures abroad. We need to fix our own problems first. We need to stop violating other countries borders. We need to stop killing civilians. Anyone that wants the status quo should start sending their money in, I cannot afford the current plan. If that makes me an isolationist then so be it.
I am all for nation building in America. We need to heal ourselves. We have bleed enough for the Middle East.
Once America is back to her old self then we once again can offer assistance however assistance must have strong conditions attached.
Last night I heard members of Congress who were talking to the next US Ambassador to Egypt. Cash to those who need work and jobs, jobs was the mantra. They want to create 768,000 plus jobs the first year. Sickening when we have such high unemployment in this country.
Oh and it is time for the elite in Washington to pull the 26,000 troops out of South Korea we can use them on our Southwest border and at the same time kick start our economy.
What I see here is a hodgepodge of ideas with no clear grounding in ideology. Many here have promoted real politic without thinking about the effect such inconsistency would have on our nation, the soldiers who fight under our flag, and the identity of the nation itself. Let me explain:
1. We do not fight for a non-democratic state.
When Karzai stole the last election, that clouded the fundamental and consistent purpose of this county–to promote democracy. While their names elude me, a truely great American resigned from his UN post in Afghanistan because he could not support the condoning of a bogus election and bogus government. He was overruled–for the sake of expediency–by his superior, a European, one of a people with little real gut instinct for freedom and democracy. For the European, that’s business as usual. For an American that SHOULD have been completely unacceptable. We now have Karzai calling us an army of occupation, and we still don’t leave because now we have to ask if his word is that of the Afghan people. Well, it may or may not be. But being a non-freely elected president, he no longer has the legitimacy of governance. What should have been a clear decision to leave them to their own devices, becomes nothing but muddle. So what do we do?
First we demand a new presidential election with an accompanying plebiscite asking if the population wants us to remain with the understanding that by remaining, we will conduct the war as we see fit. Including night raids and rules of engagement that do not bind our hands. Those are the conditions. If the election is not held and if the Afghan people do not abide by our terms for remaining, we should take that as our opportunity to leave. Therefore, the onus of responsibility for THEIR actions is no longer ours as well.
If those conditions are not met, we know its time to leave. However, if a free and fair election and plebiscite are held and the result is a legitimate government and a popular mandate for our chosen conduct of the war, then we find ourselves at the second point: whether we as a nation should remain or leave. In answering this question, we must remind ourselves that this was NOT an optional war. After 9/11 we were obligated by all that is just and right to imprison and kill as many al Qaida as we could and kick the Taliban out of Afghanistan. As far a punitive actions go, consider this a complete success. AMERICAN soldiers have killed tens of thousands of Taliban, sent them back to their mountain redoubts, killed hundreds of al Qaida–including their leader–along with most of their leadership who were responsible for 9/11 and even discredited them throughout the Arab world. All in all, I would say: not bad. I, for one, feel vindicated.
However, under these conditions we now have a true fellow democracy asking for our help to maintain itself as a democracy. The correct thing to do, which will serve us well in the future and in posterity, is to bite the bullet and stay until the Afghans are able to stand on their own. A country gains credibility through consistency of action and at a very high cost. Consider this as payment for the future. For the righteousness and self-assuredness of a nation that consistently relies on its principles to define itself and a determination to see things through to the end. This is why our soldiers fight so hard and win wars. And certainly not for this mealy-mouthed real politic I hear.
Now, this is NOT to justify other wars. This was a special case that in no way was optional. When we do leave, we do so knowing that we will not get into any new wars soon, at least not by choice. Our military exits the world scene with two big victories in Iraq and Afghanistan; its esprit de corp in tact; the stigma of a cut-and-run spoiled nation behind it; and a respectful fear in the hearts of its enemies. The Spartans would be proud.
And since today we seem to be writing treatise, allow me to offer my own:
Pakistan:
This is only half a democracy. The true power resides in the hands of a military hostile to the West and a clear harborer and nurturer of terrorism. All financial support should be removed, sanctions imposed and Pakistan should be put on the list of terrorist nations. Anything short of them handing over key Taliban leaders and ALL al Qaida will not be acceptable. Put the ball in their court. And stop pretending they are anything other than a terrorist nation. The Pakistani public outright hates us, was outraged at the killing of bin Laden, their military first went after CIA spies, not al Qaida, where is there any sympathy for them? How are they helping us and how could a country that is sympathetic to the most blood-thirsty group in the world ever be considered or treated as an ally? There economy is a shambles, even the threat of playing hard-ball would sober and focus a lot of Pakistani minds.
Egypt and Libya:
We take the rebels at their word. They claim to want democracy, we support them regardless of any suspicions. The primary international cause for America is the promotion of democracy, not the expeditious backing of an illegitimate dictator. To say they are really just al Qaida in disguise is to make the same mistake as liberals who accuse conservatives of all being racist. We do so by supplying them with weapons and possibly air support, not massive inflows of troop and long-term commitments. We simply can’t afford it. If the result is a new caliphate in the Middle East hostile to the West, THEN we can say with reason that these freedom movements are quite possibly stealth Islamic revolutions. They broke their word, we didn’t break our word to promote the freedom of man. And the obligation is no longer with us to intervene in similar cases.
Small-scale wars without a movement for democracy:
For America, Somalia was not a waste of men and money. After calling us into the country, the international community did an about-face and accused us of playing cowboy and only intervening to advance our position in such a “strategic” spot in the world. (Strategic? Give me a break.) They opposed our methods, Clinton pulled us out and the country collapsed into chaos, and after decades with no end in sight. Any new calls for us to intervene in such ridiculous wars should be countered by a clear reminder of what happened to us the last time we tried to intervene for humanitarian purposes. We will not be drawn in to a war for the sake of world peace only to be later criticized by the world for doing so. Through the blood of our own and the pettiness of the international community, the responsibility is no longer ours–consider us absolved.
Nato is dead:
After supporting Europe against the Soviets for so many decades when we asked the Europeans for help in Afghanistan, they only reluctantly sent in insignificant, underarmed troops with de-facto orders not to fight. If ever there was a clear message sent, this is it. We would be fools to continue to pretend that they were or will ever be anything other than fare-weather friends. There may be a few exceptions, but not many and certainly not enough to justify defending these weasels. Our responsibility to them is none.
Asia:
Anytime anything goes wrong in North Korea, we are blamed by the South for our “belligerence.” This remains a high risk situation with an ally who–again–is only one when it sees fit. Depending on how the wind blows, South Korea may have over half the population on any given day on the streets rioting for us to leave. Do we need them for our defense? The clear answer is “no.” We should abide by the will of the people and leave. A formidable alliance can quickly arise between Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines that has the capacity to nullify any treats imposed by China or N. Korea. If they choose not to increase their defense spending to create this formidable force, why should we? Absolution is ours for the taking.
NEVER make the mistake of assuming that we have allies who will back us up. Outside the Anglo nations, this has never happened before and we have less reason to believe it will ever happen. All this blood, all this treasure is spent on people who give us no thanks or credit–in fact, they do not much other than turn on us first chance they get. We took them at their word that they would be there when we needed them, what we got in return was their lawyers. That is their responsibility. They have to sleep at night knowing how small they are. We are absolved from ANY responsibility we have for their world.
I hate to come to this conclusion, but clearly the Republicans cannot be honest with themselves when they think that we do this just for altruistic reasons. How could anyone be sympathetic to a world that has proven itself over and over to be made up of nothing but unreliable opportunists? How many times do we have to be whacked over the head by those we support–by their politicians, people and downright vicious media? Republicans, ask yourselves honestly. Do you do this for the greater good of the world, or because deep down inside, you can’t give up the aggrandizement of being the world’s great superpower? And when considering your answer, know one thing: when the history books are written, you will be absolved.
Briefly, no one has mentioned substituting remote controlled…..offshore controlled, aggressive counter-operations as our hydra-headed Islamic enemy demands multiple lethal responses.
Thus saving the horrendous logistics and massed manpower in need of constant replenishment and maintenance literally half a world away; where the indigenous ethnic, religious, clannishly divided native populations cannot be relied upon as “allied” with America, who consider us “occupiers”, but at the same time want to remain tethered greedily to our bundled cash.
Sixty billions of dollars we’ve dropped in Central/West Asia? Amidst those artificially bordered colonially created “countries”? No wonder the French, Italians and British expect our dominant presence over there….it’s simply beyond their fiscal and manpower resources.
Their colonial chickens have come from everywhere to roost, indeed. And, the resultant circumstances require us Americans to continue paying for this?
This is not American “Isolationism”. It’s the pragmatic approach to our widely dispersed Islamic enemy.
I’m glad Mr. Radosh has addressed this issue. It is the faultline of American politics at the moment. There are those of us who commonsensically intuit an organic relationship between our position abroad and our position at home. Sarcasm compels the critic to say:
“Yeah, moron, we wouldn’t be so in debt if we left these idiot civilizations to their own stupidities, and used the money to replenish the public fisc. Hell, we are Subsidizing their stupidiites at this point; I don’t want to be a party to that. Why are we bothering with these suicides anyway?”
The strange facts of the matter are that precisely our imposition of a strategic order abroad is the predicate for our success. If nothing else, the global economy is global primarily because there are a lot of raw materials exist in specific random places; the political and military concentrations of the world did not organize around the geography of materials necessary to maintain and develop the technologies of the economies of the 20th century, 21st century and beyond.
But yet there are necessary to that civilization, so we must accomodate ourselves to that reality.
On the political level, we have Communism and Post-Communism, which have clearly not developed beyond, which means we have The Secret War. Soviet Communism is itself the product of the first secret war, the one conducted during World War 1 along with all other means of warfare in the first existential struggle using modern weapons. The disposition of instrumentalities – the mean – is basically the same today. And the West never understood, because it was blinded by political correctness (this is the real purpose of political correctness, by the way), that all these liberation wars were created by the Kremlin and its disciples and slaves.
This political idea is the original totalitarianism, pre-dating “fascism” by 5 years and “Nazism” by 17 (let’s say the Reichstag fire).
So now we find ourselves in an apparently global battle with “Islamism,” a faith dominated and populated by probably the most ignorant major human culture. Ask yourself whether illiterates supposedly depending on the gun markets of the Northwest Frontier Provinces would be capable of posing a strategic threat throughout the Middle East, supposedly under the protection of some number of unnamed Gulf Princes and also funded by Talibani heroin.
Really. Well, there’s no NATO anyway and if they can’t crush little Qaddafi in a month what chance is there of being any use against the purported Soviet threat? And since there is no Soviet Union anymore, let’s keep the money and give them back their animosities.
But the fact is, we – and any other modern economy, such as China – will always have to be in areas that are not native to us, and which can always decide to shriek about foreign interferences in their sovereign territory, no matter how much money we pay them. While there is a genuine republic running things, it will always be impolite to refer to their weaknesses, so we will go on politely contributing to their corruption (which they would do to each other in any case). But the alternative is for it to be controlled by a real economic octopus, China, who decides to utterly ignore their culture, which naturally tends to periodic civil wars; is that preferrable?
Because, whatever sympathy you have for the native people there, remember: they would not even be noticed were it not for the participation of a major power, meaning their position in this picture is first of all out of all proportion. The indigenous population is almost certainly Tiny – like 400 people. Let’s say the increasing economic development of 750 million people depend upon a project that might dilocate these 400 indigenous peoples, living on plaintains, just hanging out by the ocean, in bliss?
This is the sort of decision implicit in the US order abroad, and the alternative is frequent warfare, with the resources upon which Billions of people depend held hostage for some stupid squabble over – what – a woman, or something. That is what we are doing – because we exert imperial power as perceived in the manner of countless Asian civilizations, simply by maintaining this presence. That is, it costs us very little to convince the whole world that we are Able to police it. Therefore, for ourselves above all, we must spend, and find other ways to reduce the budget.
Unless you want to be Britain.
I am ashamed of you accusing others of being isolationists, with isolationism used as a pejorative. I am indebted to you for your book “Red Star Over Hollywood” but I find it hard to square your arguments of today with the honest look you took at Hollywood in that book.
It is not debatable that our National debt is such that we are broke. Any continued borrowing is a crime against our children, those living now and their unborn children, who we are transferring the debt payments to. When we stop borrowing and begin to live within our means, we must all take hits in anything that depended on Government funding, entitlements, pensions, welfare and our vast overseas military costs and all the unconstitutional inventions of Dept This and Department That.
All those being labeled isolationist really believe in National Defense with a strong military but not foreign adventures in democratization, or in being referees with targets on our backs and dollars in our hands. We should fund what is necessary to make a strong defensive force of such quality that it will deter any adversaries. But if attacked we will respond with such ferocity we will prevail which will increase our deterrent reputation.
Yes we should subscribe to an un-indebted “America First”. And resurrecting the Lindbergh American ideal couldn’t hurt.
Ron Radosh either ignores or does not understand financial reality. Let me spell it out. If you want to live free you live within your means. If you spend more than you have you lose your freedom. I want the USA to survive as a nation. Therefore I urge the USA to live within its means. So for the next decade or more the US Federal Government is going to have to refuse any new spending initiatives. The only exeptions are new spending which saves American lives or new spending which allows the nation to survive – eg securing the southern border. All existing spending by the US Federal Government should be tested to see if it passes three tests:
a) Would cutting this spending imperil American lives?
b) Would cutting this spending endanger the US nation?
c) Would cutting this spending result in more economic cost than gain to the nation?
Get real everyone – the US Government has been in deficit since 2001 and will be forever unless something dramatic changes. There is a price for everything. The price for freedom is constant vigilance of the public purse. Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen etc are not worth the cost because American lives are not in danger if the money is not spent.
Would cutting this spending imperil American lives?
If we cut Social Security, autistic seniors will be starving in the streets.
The most comprehensive and strategic rebuttal of the troop withdrawal plan is found in the piece “There Is No War In Afghanistan.”
It also disagrees with some Republican wets and it expresses very similar worries as this excellent piece.
It is a geo-political lesson well worth considering.
http://robbingamerica.blogspot.com/2011/06/there-is-no-war-in-afghanistan.html
Mr. Radosh: Read the following at NRO: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/270293/al-qaeda-and-libyan-rebellion-john-rosenthal . After reading it, you might change your mind.
For the Republicans this Libyan mis-adventure is not a return isolationism. It is simply a recognition that the mis-adventure is a folly that will only bring our enemies into power, should the anti-Quaddafi forces win. That is exactly what’s happening in Egypt, and it is probably what will happen in Yemen. It would be more rational and sane for us to quit Libya and concentrate on Afghanistan, rather than run from the latter as the president is doing.
We have lost touch with the concept of treason and “isolationism” in an attempt to remedy the problem.
I agree. People define isolationism how they want and don’t have a standard defintion. This leads to misinterpretation by people in thinking certain policies or people are isolationist. I recently wrote an opinion piece talking about America’s interventionism throughout its history: http://bit.ly/kIUQQq.