RETIRED MARINE GENERAL JAMES MATTIS: US Influence ‘At Lowest In 40 Years’

Mattis offered the example of World War II to back his point. He noted that Americans watched Germany overrun France and bomb Britain, while Japan invaded China, yet they felt it was not a U.S. problem.

“The result was we were attacked [at Pearl Harbor],” said Mattis. “Then, like it or not, they had to get engaged.”

The general said winning the war was not the end of America’s role, pointing to the Marshall Plan and creation of the United Nations, which helped repair the diplomatic relations and broken economies of both allies and former enemies.

“That had never been done before,” Mattis said. “We created the Marshall Plan, three years after Nazis were burning Jews. We offered them locomotives, rail lines, anything to help get their economies going again. That’s the greatest generation. The point is, it’s more than just fighting battles.”

Like Europe in World War II, Mattis explained that issues in the Middle East cannot simply be “contained in the Middle East.”

“We know that intellectually, but there’s a tendency to want to put a pillow over our heads.”

America’s activist postwar foreign policy has hardly been perfect, but up until recent years it was a much smarter strategy than our near-isolationism during the interwar period.