Where is America? Like an old friend who hasn’t been in touch for years, you wonder if its silence is lost interest or if it just got too busy. America used to be everywhere, the dominant voice in world affairs, a desirable friend and a much-feared enemy. It intervened (and, yes, interfered) whenever it felt its interests or values were threatened. Often its involvement was unwanted and sometimes it didn’t improve matters, but there was a reliable solidity to it, a sturdiness born of military might, prosperity and national self-belief. It could be admired or reviled, but it had to be reckoned with.
America shies away from it all now. Observe how Joe Biden alternates between stark warnings and unintelligible ramblings on the prospect of a ground war in Europe. Meanwhile, China capitalises on this weakness by once again sending fighter jets through Taiwan’s air defence ID zone.
A lot of Americans would rather not get involved in what they perceive as far-off troubles. Iraq is, again, the reason and even some conservatives who supported that conflict have become latter-day peaceniks. US interventions overseas, as they see it, are doomed moonshots that sacrifice American boys. There are enough crises at home to attend to.
These conservatives and their liberal and leftist opponents are now as one in rejecting the Bush doctrine, as outlined in George W Bush’s second inaugural address:
[I]t is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.
But the Bush doctrine — brash in its idealistic fervour and scope — was fundamentally unconservative.
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