| 来源类型 | Article
|
| 规范类型 | 评论
|
| Isolationists won in Syria, but internationalists can prevail |
| Frederick W. Kagan
|
| 发表日期 | 2018-12-26
|
| 出版年 | 2018
|
| 语种 | 英语
|
| 摘要 | President Trump has presented Americans with a clarifying moment. Should the United States retreat into an “America First” isolationist shell, or should it remain engaged with the world? Trump has set the retreat in motion with his decision to declare victory in Syria and withdraw, as well as to withdraw from Afghanistan for no clear reason whatsoever. The isolationists who have condemned the United States involvement in the Middle East and rest of the world for decades are about to get their wish. We will witness what the world looks like when left to its own devices.
But liberal and conservative internationalists must now make up their minds. Shall we continue with the mutual accusations, partisan bickering, and self cancelling rhetoric? Or shall we put aside our policy differences in defense of the principle that the United States must remain actively engaged in the world, for our own interests and those of other countries? The choice is obvious if our nation has the collective will to make it.
Step one in forming a nonpartisan internationalist coalition is setting aside all “original sin” arguments. One can believe that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 set in motion all the badness that has followed but still recognize the need to work in defense of internationalism with those who advocated it. One can similarly believe that the withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 and the Iran nuclear deal did incalculable harm to our interests, yet commit to joining with the architects of those decisions in the fight to keep the United States engaged at all. The past is past. The mutual recrimination society into which American politics has descended only abandons the field to isolationism. The question is not who is to blame for where we are now but rather what should we do in the future?
Step two is recognizing that engagement in the world really does require all instruments of national power. We need a strong State Department, international aid program, and all the tools of soft power to combat the Salafi jihadi movement, Russia, China, Iran, and the chaos that threatens to engulf the world. Republicans should support the budgets for those programs and demand that they be integrated into all security strategies.
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We also need a strong military that is able to face the wars we are still in and preparing for the wars of the future. For, to paraphrase Leon Trotsky, you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. Democrats must recognize that dissatisfaction with the way in which past and current presidents have wielded the military instrument does not mean that the military is unnecessary against opponents who use it freely. |
| 主题 | Foreign and Defense Policy
|
| 标签 | Bashar al-Assad
; Counterterrorism
; foreign policy
; Iran-Syria
; Middle East
; Syria
; The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
|
| URL | https://www.aei.org/articles/isolationists-won-in-syria-but-internationalists-can-prevail/
|
| 来源智库 | American Enterprise Institute (United States)
|
| 资源类型 | 智库出版物
|
| 条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/265152
|
推荐引用方式
GB/T 7714 |
Frederick W. Kagan. Isolationists won in Syria, but internationalists can prevail. 2018.
|
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