Responsible Retreat, Part I

A proposal for a new paradigm in American foreign policy

We’re now reprising with eerie fidelity the disastrous mistakes of the 1930s, and in doing so, all but summoning the gods of war.

But saying this does no good. I’ve been thinking for some time about why we’re behaving this way, and whether anything can be done to stop it. I’m going to write about this at some length this week. I’ve been exploring some new ideas about what’s eating America up and why we’re behaving the way we are. You may find them strange at first. They may well be wrong. But I think they’re worth considering, so I just ask that you give them a chance.

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Below, roughly, are the lessons American statesmen drew from the failure of isolationism during the interwar years and from the catastrophic dénouement of the original America First movement. I believe they drew the correct lessons, and in an ideal world, these principles would be guiding American foreign policy now. But they are not:

• The United States cannot thrive in a world at war. The oceans on either side of North America afford Americans a false sense of security. However much Americans might wish to pull up the drawbridge and ignore the rest of the world, it’s impossible. Unchecked war and chaos inevitably reach American soil.

• Aggression is a permanent aspect of inter-state relations. There is and will be no world without inter-state aggression. The United States and its allies must therefore be capable, at all times, of defeating any potential aggressor or plausible combination of aggressors. This is the only way to ensure peace.

• Peace requires collective security. The United States is not capable of defeating any potential aggressor or plausible combination of aggressors by itself, and must therefore have allies.

• America must be a valuable ally. Countries will only want to be American allies if the benefits of being a US ally exceed the costs.

• America must be a credible ally. Collective security arrangements lack credibility, inherently, because people are naturally reluctant to sacrifice for men and women who aren’t their countrymen. America and its allies must therefore constantly demonstrate their commitment to one another in ways large, small, and symbolic. A failure to do so will have outsized effects and jeopardize every member of every American alliance—and thus America.

• America must play a central role. Because of its geography, history, wealth, culture, political system, and power, the United States is the only country in the world capable of organizing, leading, and maintaining alliance systems with the strength and credibility to preserve global peace.

• Appeasement does not work. Inter-state aggression must be vigorously punished. Aggressors, unchecked, become more aggressive. A successful aggressor inspires others to copy his example.

• Wars are best stopped before they start. To prevent wars, the United States and its allies must be powerful enough to ensure that aggression is futile, and there must be no doubt that they’ll use this power.

• Aggression should be countered as quickly as possible. Delaying allows an aggressor to gather strength, exploit the benefits of his aggression, make alliances with other aggressors, and become more deeply invested in an aggressive course of action. This makes the inevitable conflict costlier and bloodier.

• Chaos spreads. Even wars between states of little obvious significance can destabilize whole regions, continents, and ultimately the globe.

Furthermore, this principle, too, soon became obvious:

• No mistakes. In the era of the ICBM, less geographic advantage accrues to the United States than ever before, and you can’t afford to get any of this wrong—not even once.

This week, I’ll be writing about the history, origins, and baleful consequences of American isolationism in the interwar years and the way the lessons of the Second World War came to seem instinctive and intuitive to Americans. As the direct experience of the Second World War faded from memory, however, these lessons—which are in reality neither instinctive nor intuitive, but learned the hard way—have been forgotten.

I’ll then make an argument that will, I think, surprise some of my readers. I’ve come to believe the United States is no longer capable of applying these principles successfully or consistently. Our instincts toward isolationism are too deep, and the memory of the catastrophe of isolationism is so distant, that these lessons simply aren’t obvious to Americans today, and there is no way to make them obvious. No history textbook can replace memory and experience. It is simply no longer possible to obtain a mandate from the American people to pursue a foreign policy that safeguards global peace and American power.

I thus believe American withdrawal from the world is almost certainly inevitable, and the Pax Americana, a historic aberration, is over. It can’t be sustained, not for any material reason, and not because of the rise of a rival, but because Americans don’t want to sustain it.

The problem is that we haven’t been able to admit this to ourselves. This, I think, is the source of our inability to elect a president who doesn’t dismay, embarrass, and diminish us. Is it possible, I wonder, that nations, like people, act out when they’re in the grip of an unconscious conflict? Is it possible that nations, not just people, have unconscious agendas? I think it might be, and I think this idea could explain quite a bit. I suspect that our ambivalence about our global role has caused us to choose politicians who act out our ambivalence on our behalf.

This idea helps to explain the sheer weirdness of American politics in the Trump era, and it explains a great deal more, besides. If I’m right, Americans have fallen in love with Trump not because they’re too stupid to grasp that he is uniquely destructive to American power, credibility, and influence, but precisely because they do appreciate this. They have asked him to do the dirty work of destroying American power because they no longer want it. But because this desire is taboo, it remains subterranean and unacknowledged; the manifest content looks simply nutty and the latent content is never openly discussed.

This, perhaps, is why America is experiencing almost unbearable levels of rage, depression, and conflict. These emotions are ostensibly focused on the person of Donald Trump, but in reality, they are about the task we’ve collectively assigned to him. That task is making America exactly the opposite of great: Trump has been chosen to make America small and powerless. But in fantasy, at least, a powerless America will be free of the burdens of power, which are too heavy, and innocent of the world abroad, which Americans long ago fled—and which they have always held in contempt.

Unfortunately, when a superpower acts out its ambivalence at the global level, it results in the most dangerous and provocative policy imaginable. If we keep this up, we’ll get ourselves and everyone else killed. So it would be best for all concerned if we could bring this conflict to a conscious level and explore it more rationally.

I’d like to persuade you to consider this interpretation of the Trump phenomenon. I don’t ask that you accept it. I’d just like you to consider it. Then I’d like to propose a policy that might—if we and the world are very lucky—allow us to revert to the isolation we crave while reducing the risk of provoking a cataclysm as harmful to the world as the Pax Americana was beneficial.

I call it “responsible retreat.” It’s not the policy I would prefer—far from it—and it would come at a high cost to Americans and no small risk to everyone else. But it would be far better than the policy we’re pursuing by default.

Perhaps, if Americans are willing to be honest with themselves and each other about our real desires, it might be possible for us to cooperate with one another enough to achieve this.

I’ll explain exactly what I mean in the days to come.