The Myth of American Isolationism

I like the Economist’s Democracy in America blog very much and I like my friend Erica Grieder too. But her recent post on the debt-ceiling deal, the Pentagon’s budget and the resurrected “threat” of American isolationism won’t wash. Contemplating some conservatives’ willingness to imagine cuts to the security budget she writes:

There has always been an isolationist streak in the Republican Party. It’s been suppressed in recent decades, particularly during the administration of George W. Bush. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were priorities for Mr Bush, and his presidency was polarising. This gave rise to a situation where support for those military interventions was conflated with support for Mr Bush, and the odd Republican (or Democrat, such as the hawkish Joe Lieberman) who broke rank would end up marginalised. Now the lines are a little blurred. It is unsurprising that Republicans would be less likely to rally round military interventions initiated by a Democratic president, which partly explains their tepid support for Barack Obama’s intervention in Libya. But it does seem that there has been a general uptick in isolationist sentiment throughout the Republican Party. In 2004, for example, a Pew poll found 58% of “conservative Republicans” saying that for the future of the United States, it is best for the country to be active in world affairs, with slightly more than a third taking the opposite view, that Americans “should pay less attention to problems overseas and concentrate on problems here at home.” By June 2011, the ratio had flipped: 55% in favour of concentrating on our domestic problems, 33% advocating for engagement with world affairs. This might be cyclical—a Democratic president, an economic downturn, a result of tea-party Republicans having stormed the dais.

As far as this goes it is fair enough. When John Kerry complained about opeing firehouses in Baghdad but closing them at home it was easy for Republicans to mock this “isolationist” call for “nation-building at home”. Put a Democrat in the White House, however, and add a hefty economic crisis and it’s not difficult to see why some conservatives have changed their tune.

Nevertheless, even by the debased standards of the “isolationist” label the only two candidates for the GOP nomination who could even semi-plausibly be considered such are Ron Paul and Gary Johnson and each of them would rather, I think, be termed “non-interventionists”. Neither of them, you will have noticed, are among the favourites to actually win the nomination. Both Mitt Romney and Rick Perry are rather more orthodox Republicans, albeit they hail from different parts of the conservative spectrum.

Moreover, it has become traditional for the opposition to complain that the incumbent President (and his party) is too preocuppied with foreign affairs. There are, all things being equal, relatively few foreign policy voters. That’s why Clinton, Bush, Kerry and Obama each accused their opponent of neglecting the “homeland”.

Nor does criticism of the Libyan semi-intervention equal a lack of support for future interventions. It merely demonstrates that few people believe the Libyan mission is a matter of vital national interest. (Among those so unpersuaded: Barack Obama. If it mattered more, the Uited States might be doing more. It doesn’t so it isn’t.)

Nevertheless, to the extent that interventionism is discredited it’s been discredited by the interventionists not by the rump Republicans sceptical of launching fresh adventures in foreign fields. It’s an incurious politician indeed who looks at the last decade and sees it as a model template for the next ten years. This explains why the dominant conservative critique of Obama’s foreign policy is that he’s been too weak to stand up for American interests (and her friends) overseas. This, mind you, is the generous interpretation. There is the distinct possibility, remember, that Obama wants America to lose everywhere, every time. That’s why he’s on the side of the Mullahs and the Syrian regime and Vladimir Putin and lord knows who else.

The criticism is that Obama has not done enough, not that he’s plunged recklessly into fresh misadventures.

And this too is typical. Few American myths are as cherished as the notion that the Uited States has only rarely been interested in imperial adventures. Even the 1920s and 1930s, rare decades in which interventionism was on the back foot, saw troops dispatched to foreign parts (albeit in limited numbers for limited missions). But those decades are very much the exception. Since its founding the United States has been an expansionist country. This is neither praise nor criticism, simply a matter of obvious if oft-denied fact. 

The conquest of the lands west of the Mississippi and wars with Mexico prefaced adventuring in the Phillipinnes and Cuba.The Monroe Doctrine was an imperialist message itself, warning off foreign powers from the hemisphere the United States considered its own prerogative. All this before the 20th century which, for reasons good and bad, saw no shortage of American intervention overseas. Again, many of these missions have had worthy qualities or at least justified or justifiable aims but to pretend they’ve all been selfless mercy missions with no consequences for American power, prestige and influence is to kid yourself and deny an easily observable reality.

Such is the American way and thus it is that the dread ghost of “isolationism” is raised so very frequently. But “isolationism” is, to the extent is has ever existed, usually been a minority preference. The people may say they want politicians to concentrate on domestic matters but they also tend to be in favour of American hegemony and, when push comes to shove, plenty of Americans, of most political persuasions, are happy to place great emphasis on the latter. Which may be one reason why no (real or imagined) “isolationist” candidate has done very well at the Presidential ballot box in many a long year.

Erica suspects that “Many Americans would be fine with a more modest role in world affairs” and, sure, there are polls to support this. But I think what she means or should write is that Many Americans would be fine with the idea of a more modest role in world affairs. Which is not the same thing and, anyway, a theory that rarely survives long in Washington or thrives in practice.