History and beyond
The resurgence of isolationism in the United States is significantly intensified by a small group of Trump loyalists within the GOP (Republican Party) in recent years. The reality of American isolationism is a complex paradox that never actually departs from the fringes of the foreign policy debate. However, while the debate is always in the air, isolationism is never practically realized in the history of the United States. And our national interests are always best served when we engage with the world in lieu of resting peacefully alone. Former National Security Advisor John Bolton wrote in his latest piece entitled “Containing Isolationism”:
“Our attention and energies were always substantially focused abroad, and we often butted heads with greater powers or dealt with them. Before the United States even consolidated the Paris Treaty’s boundaries, Jefferson’s 1803 Louisiana Purchase from France nearly doubled the country’s size, hardly the mark of stay-at-homers. We fought a second war against the U.K. in 1812, reaffirming the 1783 result, and so tellingly defeated the British at New Orleans that all Europe took note. On we went, purchasing Florida from Spain in 1819; promulgating the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 and thereby telling Europe “hands off” the Western Hemisphere; inventing “Baltimore clippers,” the world’s fastest oceangoing ships; and annexing the Republic of Texas in 1845. Splitting disputed lands with London in 1846, we picked up the Oregon Territory. Defeating Mexico in 1846–48 added America’s southwest, and the 1853 Gadsden Purchase consolidated the southern border. Even the Civil War barely slowed us down, as we purchased Alaska from Russia’s czar in 1867.”
“America’s massive post–Civil War industrialization then produced comparable growth in international trade, reinforcing concerns for protecting our interests worldwide. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge embodied key elements of “the shift from continental to hemispheric defense,” in Colin Dueck’s phrase. This included annexing Hawaii in 1898 and significantly growing Navy budgets. Lodge worried about British designs on Hawaii and was appalled at Grover Cleveland’s acceptance of a U.K. firm’s laying telegraph cable from Hawaii to our Pacific coast rather than assisting a U.S. company. Lodge advocated ‘protecting American interests and advancing them everywhere and at all times. . . . I would take and hold the outworks, as we now hold the citadel, of American power.’”
Following the legacy of American global engagement in the nineteenth century, the United States continued to thrive at the center of the global stage during the First World War and the Second World War in the twentieth century. President Woodrow Wilson resoundingly proclaimed that “[we must] make the world safer for democracy” while confronting the unprecedented European crisis, marking a historical turning point in United States foreign policy from the philosophy of resting peacefully alone to the idea of American exceptionalism: The United States is an exceptional country with an exceptional destiny of transforming the world from colonialism to democracy and self-governance. While the United States briefly returned to the belief of standing alone immediately after the First World War, the idea of America-led global security in lieu of hemispheric security had started to emerge. President Roosevelt unprecedentedly promoted the idea of self-determination while leading the Allies to defeat fascism. The Washington Conference in 1922 represents a hallmark of American leadership in upholding the idea of self-determination. During the Conference, for example, the United States helped the Republic of China retake Shandong Province from Nazi Germany based on the principle of self-determination, despite China’s utter absence of national strength to leverage in the international playground. After defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, the United States quickly recognized that withdrawing armed forces from abroad would only plant the seeds for the next great conflict and destined history to repeat itself. Therefore, the United States finally departed from the mentality of hemispheric defense to the philosophy of global defense where American forces must and should be staying around the globe for the sake of international peace.
The story of American engagement continued during the Cold War since President Harry Truman resoundingly announced to Congress that “it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” The twin pillar of the Truman Doctrine—the Marshall Plan and Containment—signified the official beginning of the United States’ global response to the aggression of the Communist Revolution. The establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization directly speaks to the significance of American leadership in the international alliance. The subsequent involvement of the United States Armed Forces in Korea and Vietnam is a vivid demonstration of the globalization and militarization of American exceptionalism, albeit the absence of American vital interest in the region. The underlying idea of American exceptionalism is not necessarily purely ideological. Nor does it rest solely on the idea of democratic peace theory or the promotion of an American-led international order; rather, there is a solid national interest and security concern such that the American national interests rest with the active engagement with the rest of the world, instead of the illusion of isolationism.
While the underlying objective of the United States’ foreign policy remains remarkably consistent throughout the Cold War, the pursuit of such objectives is realized in astonishingly different ways. Following Richard Nixon and his successor’s policy of accommodation that was tantamount to the imaginary peace arising from appeasement, President Ronald Reagan’s idea of “Peace Through Strength” demonstrably commenced a new era of morality-centered American foreign policy. By clearly calling out the Soviet Union as an evil empire, Reagan read through the nature of the contest between the United States and the Soviet Union as two competing worldviews that were hardly compatible with one another. The demise of the so-called “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD) that was deemed inherently unacceptable by Reagan because of its potential for massive desecration was a direct result of Reagan’s “Strategic Defense Initiative” (SDI) upon which the United States relied for its national security and that of its allies. The departure from the irresponsible idea of MAD premised on unlimited nuclear deterrence further proves the interests of the United States always rest upon global engagement, not isolationist confrontation.
The subsequent American intervention in Afghanistan concluded the final chapter of the Cold War and led to the unanticipated collapse of the Soviet Union and the massive regime change that occurred in East Europe. Reagan’s “Democratic Revolution” not only served the interests of the United States but benefited countless foreign nationals who were liberated from brutal totalitarian regimes across the world. None of these incredible achievements in the maintenance of world peace would be possible had it not been for the United States’ global engagement through a combination of diplomatic efforts, economic aid, political dialogue, cultural diffusion, technological breakthrough, market freedom, and military operations.
Pushing forward to the twenty-first century in which the United States continues to confront constant global challenges from terrorism to the rise of authoritarian regimes around the globe, the direct or indirect American military involvement in a number of countries, including Syria, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, and Ukraine (ongoing), keeps on providing a vital security guarantee to the United States and its allies. While not all war efforts made by the United States are as desirable to achieve its initial promises, it is a gross misunderstanding that the United States is better off simply by packing up and returning home. Until the present day, the United States remains the only country capable of offering global defense and maintaining the hard-earned world order after two tragic world wars and a cold war during which millions lost their lives and hundreds of millions suffered. Furthermore, the booming economic prosperity both within and outside of the United States is premised on the confidence of American leadership not only in global security but in the American-led free market. Therefore, America-in-withdrawal would not only compromise world peace but jeopardize the economic prosperity of the world in general, and the Western Hemisphere in particular.
Focusing back on today’s America where a small group of Trump loyalists attempts to drag the United States into a state of isolationism that is proven precarious and devastating, the rightful Conservatives who genuinely believe in Reagan’s idea of “Peace Through Strength” and “Democratic Revolution” ought to realize that the future of America rests with the globalization and militarization of American exceptionalism. And the Democrats should stop advancing their radical left-wing political and economic agenda at the expense of American-national interests and security, ignoring the toxic environment they have been creating under which domestic division starts to jeopardize the assessment of foreign policy. With the incremental threat posed by Communist China from economic coercion to intellectual property theft; from political propaganda to military aggression; from sabotaging the rule of law to committing human rights violations, both Democrats and Republicans must recognize that the Cold War is never about pure politics or economics—rather, it is about the adversary between two competing and irreconcilable worldviews that are unaltered simply because Communist China opened its door for Western companies. The Cold War does not end until all are liberated. Therefore, while I do not question the promising future and the unlimited potential of the United States for a second, the idea of promoting isolationism is dangerously close to the beginning of the end. If history has taught us anything, it has taught us the fact that victory always rests behind the globalization of American exceptionalism.