The American Foreign Policy Tradition

Tunku Varadarajan, a Wall Street Journal contributor, is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and at NYU Law School’s Classical Liberal Institute. He asks: “What did the U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities achieve? Nothing of significance, sneers Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth describes them as “ historically successful.”

Here is his WEEKEND INTERVIEW with Wall Street Journal acclaimed columnist Walter Russell Mead.

Walter Russell Mead would like us to step back and look at the question in its broadest perspective. “Just when the conventional wisdom that America was in terminal decline had congealed into place,” he says, “the airstrikes suggest that American power remains unique in world affairs.”

Mr. Mead, among the most original thinkers on foreign policy in this country, needs no introduction to readers of the Journal. His column, Global View, is published on this page every Tuesday. In it, he says, he “comes at things a little differently from a lot of analysts who are wrapped up in American decline as a core concept.” He thinks what we face is something different: “a crisis of the West. This has implications for American power, but is not the same thing as a crisis of American power.”

The U.S., he says, faces a real threat from what he calls “the axis of revisionists”—China, Russia, North Korea and, at least “until quite recently,” Iran. In a recent column, he wrote that this axis aims at “challenging the existing world system on every continent, at sea, in space and in the cyberworld.”

Complacency in the face of this threat would be fatal. While the potential of the U.S. to play “a unique role in the world system” is still unquestionable, Mr. Mead believes its ability to deal with the axis of revisionists is under threat for two reasons.

The first is “the failure of the Western allies either to grow economically or to develop an effective strategic culture that would keep defense spending and policy aligned with growing and changing threats.” Because of this, the U.S. alliance system—critical to American policy since the early Cold War—“ has lost much of its ability to set the global agenda.”

The European Union’s military weakness and political incoherence mean that “instead of being a net exporter of security, with peace and stability radiating out from the EU into Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Europe has become more dependent on the U.S. to provide whatever security there is.”

The second reason rests squarely with the U.S.: “While American technology and economic prowess continue their extraordinary, world-transforming course,” Mr. Mead says, “the American foreign-policy establishment has lost so much credibility at home due to the failures of all of the 21st-century presidents, and the strategic failure to match China’s military buildup, that the U.S. is punching below its weight.”

As a result, the country that has unrivaled potential to shape world events “finds itself frequently unsure and even unable to deal with provocations and challenges from the revisionist powers, and its traditional allies don’t provide the extra boost we might need under the circumstances.”

There are signs that the West is waking up, Mr. Mead says. He cites “Donald Trump’s success” at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit at The Hague this week, where almost all members of the alliance committed to spending 5% of gross domestic product on defense. “Joe Biden and Barack Obama could have been presidents for 1,000 years and none of that would have happened,” Mr. Mead says. Mr. Trump’s “tough talk” has jolted allies into action—or at least the promise of action. “Clearly, Europe is more worried than it was about Russia. But if they weren’t also worried that Trump, or America, might not be there for them, they would have just clung tighter to daddy’s coattails and tried to continue free-riding. They certainly hadn’t moved for 30 years, despite all kinds of American entreaties.”

As events in Iran have shown, Israel—a small non-NATO ally—is in many ways the most reliable partner the U.S. has in matters of global security. “It’s interesting to me,” Mr. Mead says, “that there are no two leaders in the Western world who are more universally loathed and despised by the great and the good than Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu.” The Israeli prime minister is “the only leader, really, to have been able to throw back the revisionist axis in a very serious way. And Trump has given him some critical support.”

Where does Mr. Trump fit into the American foreign policy tradition? Mr. Mead is better placed to answer that question than most.

He first made his name in a 2001 book, “Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World.” (The title comes from a witticism attributed to Otto Von Bismarck: “God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.”) Mr. Mead identified four distinct American approaches to foreign policy, which he called Hamiltonian, Wilsonian, Jeffersonian and Jacksonian.

Hamiltonians regard a strong alliance between government and big business as “the key to effective action abroad.” Wilsonians believe that the U.S. has both “a moral obligation and an important national interest” in spreading democratic values throughout the world. Mr. Mead says Ronald Reagan was an effective blend of these two strains: “Reagan understood that power does grow from the barrel of a gun, and a gun grows from a good economy. If you don’t have a good economy, you can’t afford guns.” Barack Obama, by contrast, was “a decadent Wilsonian, to whom being on the good side of something was more important than achieving some power goal. Obama had a sense that if you’ve made a speech, you’ve done a deed.”

Jacksonians believe the most important priority of the U.S. government in both foreign and domestic policy is the security and well-being of the American people.

A Jacksonian holds that the U.S. “should not seek out foreign quarrels, but when the U.S. or its allies are attacked or threatened or even insulted, they can become very energized, like a hive of bees. If the hive is attacked, they will sting with everything they’ve got.” That describes Mr. Trump, whose airstrikes on Iran Mr. Mead calls “a very Jacksonian action.” Iran is a threat to the U.S., and that spurred Jacksonians in a way that the attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, didn’t.

Jacksonians are distinct from Jeffersonians, who would “avoid all foreign entanglements.” But “when Jacksonians are not feeling threatened, they don’t care that much about foreign policy. They’re more interested in what’s going on in their town and state, and in culture wars.”

The president sits atop a coalition of Jacksonians and Jeffersonians. Tucker Carlson falls into the latter category, as do many foot soldiers of the MAGA movement. Mr. Trump can’t risk breaking the coalition, which explains his decision to impose a swift cease-fire after the B-2 bombers had done their work. Memories of George W. Bush’s Iraq war are still strong, and Mr. Trump has sought to make sure there isn’t a whiff of nation-building on his perceived agenda.

“The Jacksonians were willing to support Bush in Iraq as long as it was a war about stopping terrorists from getting weapons of mass destruction,” Mr. Mead says. “But when it turned into a war to bring democracy to Iraq, you could see Bush’s popularity fade. Jacksonians hate the idea of a war for democracy.” In many ways, “that war contributed to Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party.”

How do the voters break down on these lines? Mr. Mead reckons about a third are Jacksonians, followed by Wilsonians, who are a little less numerous but significant: “You go to the upper Midwest, New England, the Northwest, and California, and there’s actually a lot of very strong Wilsonian sentiment there.” Jeffersonians “probably come third. Hamiltonians are the smallest cohort, but often the best-paid and the most thoroughly institutionalized.”

Mr. Mead has played a role in shaping Mr. Trump’s worldview. He recalls getting a text message early in the first Trump term that said, “Hi, this is Steve Bannon. Can we talk?” His reaction was, “OK, which of my friends is pranking me with this?” But the texter was in fact Mr. Bannon—then the president’s chief strategist in the White House—and they did talk. “Bannon had read the ‘Special Providence’ stuff on the Jacksonian tradition, and it persuaded Trump to go visit Jackson’s grave in Tennessee.”

Mr. Trump did so in March 2017, laying a wreath there and calling Jackson “the people’s president.” He even put up a portrait of Jackson, the seventh president, in the Oval Office. President Biden, a Wilsonian, took it down. “I notice it’s back now,” Mr. Mead says.

“When Trump talks about not wanting war, that’s a very Jacksonian idea,” Mr. Mead explains.

“You can broadcast a certain bellicosity, but you really don’t want to start wars.” Jacksonians “don’t want to make the world more like America. They believe America is different from other countries. A Jacksonian would say, ‘America is us, and we like us. We don’t think other people can be us. And we’re willing to leave them alone and be whoever they are as long as they don’t mess with us.’” 

For Jacksonians, Mr. Mead says, “Israel is a fantastic ally. It’s an ally that spends a higher percentage of its GDP on defense than we do. And it’s an ally that America is trying to hold back, rather than whip on. It’s more eager for the fight than we are.” Israel’s strategic interest, while not identical to America’s, is “ broadly enough aligned with ours, so that we’re usually on the same side on the big issues.”

How does Mr. Mead assess America’s ability to deter its adversaries— especially China, from invading Taiwan? There are two issues in deterrence, he says: “One is, are you strong enough to actually impose real consequences?

And the other would be, do you have the will to take the necessary actions?” In the case of Taiwan, “there was no doubt in anyone’s mind 15 years ago that if China attacked, the result would be a military humiliation for China and a stinging defeat. Now, we are in a gray zone.” Future historians will “ look back on American foreign policy and see our failure to prepare for an obvious danger as one of the stupidest decisions. There’s no secret about the Chinese military buildup. There’s no secret about what it’s intended to accomplish.”

America’s Unpreparedness Could Prove Catastrophic.

“People don’t really grasp the overall importance of Taiwan to world politics.” It isn’t only about computer chips: “If China were to successfully unify with Taiwan, U.S. sea power would be pushed back hundreds, if not thousands, of miles. Japan and South Korea would have to reach an agreement with China, because China could block their trade. It would have its foot on their necks.”

And if Japan and South Korea are taken out of the equation as Western allies—and if Australia, Indonesia, and even India are compelled to redefine their relations with Beijing to the latter’s advantage— the U.S. is in trouble. “There really is a kind of hinge of fate here,” says Mr. Mead.

What about the will to defend Taiwan? “I don’t know that there was ever a real debate over that,” Mr. Mead says. “I think there was a kind of assumption that we will defend Taiwan, and in part that’s because it would be easy to do so.” And as it has become increasingly apparent that it’s now much more difficult to defend Taiwan, “we’ve tried not to think about that very much because that might require us to make a real choice.”

“You should never underestimate the power of moral vanity in politics and policy. We want to stand up for principle. But none of us is really that keen on paying the price.”

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America and the Spirit of Independence

Jeffrey A. Tucker is the founder and president of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press, as well as 10 books in five languages, most recently “ Liberty or Lockdown.” He is also the editor of “ The Best of Ludwig von Mises.” He writes a daily column on economics for The Epoch Times and speaks widely on the topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

The word “ independence” is everywhere in American life, even to the point of overuse. When a word becomes too common, it loses its meaning. That is certainly the case with this one.

It was already true in 1973 when Eric Sloane wrote “ The Spirits of ’ 76” to prepare for the bicentennial celebrations. So he begins his Chapter 9 with a reflection on the barns in the United States in the 18th century. They were huge, and so were the houses, much larger than anything in the old world. The people strove to make them vast, much larger than was ever necessary.

He traces this to a fundamental American vision. We would replace the aristocracy of old, with barons and lords on landed estates, with a citizen-based meritocracy. We would all work our way toward becoming masters of our own domain. We would not need to be compliant and obedient subjects. We would all become kings of our own realm.

I think about this while walking through nearly any American neighborhood in the suburbs. Europeans find the scene pretty funny. Everyone has a lawn. Each resident is charged with keeping it up and is judged by others if he fails. All of these are truly just European- style estates, but in a miniature form. That is the cultural ideal in the United States.

Every man a king, goes the old phrase, and there is a lot of truth in it. At our founding, we left the idea of earthly kingship behind. If you read Thomas Paine, you will be startled by how much he rages against the monarchy, jeering at its privileges and clothing and power. It’s pretty obvious that he despises monarchical government, and his contemporaries felt the same.

They felt like they had stumbled on an insight—that the people could rule themselves— and they were sticking with it, betting everything on it, and maniacally focusing on proving the point. They did, and the new system worked for a very long time, as long as the idea of independence loomed large in the American frame of mind.

At some uncertain point, mostly in the 20th century, the idea of independence gave way to other ambitions: the plan, the empire, the systems, and the grand collective goal. This always comes down to one thing: More power to the state and less power to the individual. Independence as individuals and as a nation took a backseat to the collective dream. This has come at the expense of our liberty.

If we are to recapture the American Dream, and greatness along with it, we must revive the real meaning of independence. It means much more than having a home with a lawn, although that might be part of it. It means the ability to make decisions for yourself and your family without your peaceful wishes being overridden by bureaus and the designs of experts.

To value independence means trusting people to manage their own lives. That’s not as easy as it may sound.

The other day I wrote an article calling for an end to the Department of Education. I said that states, communities, and families could manage education on their own. I gave evidence from history and from existing data on expenditures versus outcomes.

A nice person wrote me an objection. How can we be sure that stupid people will do what is right? Don’t we need force and government power to get families and communities to teach the kids who otherwise would languish in ignorance and illiteracy?

I sent my correspondent some literature on the subject from U. S. history along with some chatty discussion of homeschooling, hybrid schools, and community capacity for generating educational options.

It didn’t matter. She kept coming back to the same theme: She just doesn’t trust people and instead wants to force them. All the evidence of educational failure in the current system could not convince her. We had reached an impasse. She fundamentally distrusted the capacity of society to generate outcomes better than those she had dreamed up in her head that she would bring about by force.

At that point, I was at a loss as to how to convince her. She doubted the workability of independence. She didn’t believe in freedom. There is simply no way to overcome such a view. I do think she could come around, but it is going to take much more than a text-based email conversation to do it. She needs to read, reflect, and rethink.

We all need to do this. As we look back on the Founding Fathers, we find a generation that feared and hated tyranny much more than it worried about the social consequences of freedom. None of them believed that freedom and independence would create utopia. But they did believe that freedom is the best system to guard against despotism and that it likely produces the best possible outcomes we can expect in a deeply flawed world.

Rallying around that insight, they set up a new system of government, and mapped out their philosophy for the ages. They explained it in such detail because they knew that they had a unique insight, and that it would require explanation to make it stick. We need to revisit this explanation today in order to rediscover the meaning and intent.

At some point after the Cold War and perhaps much earlier, the idea of a global U. S. empire took hold among the elites. It spilled over into every area: trade, culture, technology, and everything.

These global institutions that emerged are not subject to any kind of plebiscite. The American people cannot control them. The billionaires and multinational foundations do.

Now comes the corrective. People want to put America first. That is because the people want to be in charge once again, in a way that is consistent with the promise of our heritage. We have to be able to vote for representatives, and they have to have power over the bureaucracy. If we do not have that, we do not have democracy.

And we certainly don’t have independence as long as the World Health Organization rules our bodies and the World Trade Organization runs our businesses. Reclaiming independence means letting go of these global institutions and returning government to the people. That’s a big ambition, much easier to say than to achieve. But at least we are getting back on the right track. We’ve tried empire. We don’t like it because it compromises our freedom and independence.

Again, the foundation of the United States is the Declaration of Independence. Its signing day is our birthday. It’s more important than any other document in our history. It is known the world over. Its themes changed history. The world loves it. We should love it, too. It should be the foundation of American life. All reforms for the future should look to it for guidance.

Next time: The 3 Pillars of the American Idea