Finally, A Rational US Foreign Policy, Again

Caroline B. Glick’s important and insightful article, “The Jacksonian foreign policy option,” posits that both Isolationism and Neo-conservatism have failed America. Instead, a Rational, i.e., Jacksonian foreign policy is exactly what the United States and the world needs.

Ms. Glick argues, “The dominant foreign policy model in the Republican Party, and to a degree, in American society as a whole, is neither Neo-conservatism nor Isolationism.” Ms. Glick has adopted historian Walter Russell Mead’s definition of a Jacksonian foreign policy. The basic tenets are the following:

The US is different from the rest of the world, and therefore the US should not try to remake the world in its own image;

The US must ensure its honor abroad by abiding by its commitments and maintaining its standing with its allies;

The US must take action to defend its interests;

The US must fight to win or not fight at all;

And, the US should only respect those foes that fight by the same rules as the US does.
A Jacksonian model is an astute one. The basic rule of Common Sense foreign policy making is to be good to your friends and bad to your enemies; then people will want to be your friends and not your enemies. It basically accuses the Isolationists as contemporary Know Nothings, and Neo-conservatives as unbridled Interventionists.

In my view, America has had enough. We have had it with Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton's pathetic, not to mention apologetic, naïve, and schizophrenic, foreign policy. And, we had it with Mr. Bush and Condi's foolish and naive foreign policy, and mismanaged military campaigns restricted by absurd rules of engagement. Moreover, trying to build a nation while conducting a war is a fool's errand, and we should have no truck with it.