Trump isn't alone in rethinking America's role in the world
Donald Trump has emerged as perhaps the most isolationist presidential candidate in a half-century, with an 鈥淎merica First鈥� platform that criticizes costly military interventions abroad and questions US commitments to treaty allies that don鈥檛 pay their way.
In a major foreign policy speech on Monday, he invoked the cold war in vowing 鈥渇oreign policy realism鈥� that prioritized the fight against Islamic terrorism. 鈥淚f I become president, the era of nation-building will be brought to a quick and very swift end,鈥� he said in Youngstown, Ohio.
The approach represents a sharp detour from the longstanding bipartisan belief in a US-led liberal international order as a source of national strength. He is by no means alone, however. Prominent intellectuals have also sought to persuade Americans to rethink their country鈥檚 role in the world.
But Trump鈥檚 foreign policy is riddled with so many contradictions that the isolationism he and they espouse has mostly been lost in the anti-Trump backlash. That has sparked great frustration on the part of proponents who see a moment ripe for change amid public weariness of foreign entanglements and nation-building, as well as the cost of deploying the world鈥檚 largest military.
鈥淏ecause it鈥檚 Trump who鈥檚 selling it, it鈥檚 a joke, so you don鈥檛 have to take his points seriously,鈥� argues Ian Bremmer, whose recent book, 鈥淪uperpower: Three Choices for America鈥檚 Role in the World,鈥� casts a skeptical eye over the benefits to the US of effectively policing the world and projecting its democratic values overseas.
Stephen Walt, a professor of international studies at Harvard University and prominent critic of US military interventions, that Trump was 鈥渏ust about the worst salesman for an alternative foreign policy that one could possible imagine.鈥�
Take Russia, where foreign policy realists like Mr. Walt see room for better relations based on mutual interests and an appreciation of Russia's own strategic weaknesses. But Trump's admiration for President Vladimir Putin and his campaign manager's ties to an ousted pro-Russian dictator in Ukraine have muddied the waters for any potential reset in relations.听
Irked by both the message and the messenger, dozens of Republican national-security heavyweights, including a former CIA director and Homeland Security secretaries, . Hillary Clinton, who has a more expansive view of military power projection and frames the US as the indispensable global force that leads by example, has garnered a number of endorsements from such Republicans in recent weeks.
So if Trump loses in November, does the genie of isolationism go back in the bottle? Not necessarily, say Mr. Bremmer and other analysts.
鈥淓ven if Trump鈥檚 challenge to the foreign policy establishment fails, those sorts of concerns are not going to go away,鈥� says Andrew Bacevich, professor of international relations and history at Boston University, who has called for fewer US troops overseas and greater restraints on their deployment.
Election impact
Since campaigns rarely turn on foreign policy, it鈥檚 hard to gauge how far insurgent candidates like Trump and Bernie Sanders benefited from speaking out against US interventions in global trouble spots 鈥撎齩r where they fit into the current political system, given the consensus among Democratic and Republican foreign-policy elites since the cold war ended.
Gordon Adams, a professor emeritus at American University鈥檚 School of International Service who was a foreign-policy advisor to the Sanders campaign, says voters are skeptical of open-ended military deployments. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 not very coherent and not the primary motivator for their unhappiness with the American political system,鈥� he says, pointing to Sanders鈥檚 laser focus on economic policy.
Trump鈥檚 foreign policy is similarly grounded in domestic priorities. His campaign website has no entries on foreign affairs, aside from a section entitled 鈥淐ompelling Mexico to pay for the wall.鈥�
Yet framing 鈥淎merica First鈥� as isolationism is difficult, as Trump鈥檚 positions are fluid, say analysts. Monday鈥檚 speech is a case in point: It argued for a mobilization of US resources to fight global Islamic terrorism and derided the Obama administration for letting the Middle East fall apart.
鈥淲hat we heard today is not isolationism. It鈥檚 global engagement, albeit with a very specific and narrowly defined purpose and that is to destroy his notion of what threatens us,鈥� says Mr. Bacevich, a retired Army colonel who previously taught at West Point.
Trump also argued that the US should have kept Iraq鈥檚 oil after its invasion which he claims he didn鈥檛 support. 鈥淚n the old days when we won a war, to the victor go the spoils,鈥� he said.
Mr. Adams says it鈥檚 impossible to fit Trump鈥檚 foreign policy into a conceptual box because of his scattershot approach. 鈥淭his is not a vision. It鈥檚 a series of contradictory bumper stickers.鈥�
The origins of 'America First'听
A century ago, President Woodrow Wilson brought the US into World War I, ending a long period of forbearance from foreign wars that was rooted in the 1823 .
During the 1930s, some Americans looked askance at political turmoil in Europe and opposed calls by Democratic politicians to combat the rise of fascism. Among the most prominent isolationists was aviator and Nazi admirer Charles Lindbergh, whose movement was also called America First. Lindbergh鈥檚 cause failed and the US military played a decisive role in World War II and in the postwar reconstruction of Europe and Asia.
Bremmer inadvertently provided the nomenclature for Trump by referring to his policy before the primary season as America First. When The New York Times asked Trump about it in April, he said he liked the expression and repeated it on the campaign trail.
Bremmer favors an approach that he calls Independent America 鈥撎齬etrenching in order to build at home and attract allies via soft power. At first glance, it resembles Trump鈥檚 America First, a vision of a unilateralist power that no longer polices the planet. But Bremmer argues that Trump鈥檚 hostility to refugees and support for torture undercuts a crucial corollary, the leading-by-example that makes the US a magnet for the world鈥檚 capital and talent.
鈥淲hile Trump absolutely gets that the average American no longer wants to spend trillions of dollars on endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he has no interest in holding America up as an example for other countries,鈥� he says.
